The Coldest War

by Ian Tregillis

  Will didn’t move. “Circle,” he mumbled.

  Marsh sighed. “Doesn’t matter what it said. Nothing we can do about it now.”

  And he believed that, but for the niggling voice in the back of his head.

  Gretel. Why did she do this? Why the long game? What vision of the future could have prompted her to facilitate the end of the world? To guarantee there was no future? What was worse than this?

  It was all so out of character for her. She always had a solution. Always had an escape … Or was this just as it appeared? The woman was insane. Evil. And von Westarp had given her a god’s power.

  No. He shook his head, tried to clear it. I’m just an old man. A tired old man, dying alone because my wife can’t abide my company even at the end of the world.

  He snapped his fingers. “Let’s go.”

  “Broken spiral,” Will murmured. He looked up at Marsh. “Do you know what I’m remembering?”

  Marsh sighed again, rubbed his beard. Sickness rumbled in his gut. “I don’t have the energy for this. I just want a pint before the demons take me.”

  Will continued as if Marsh hadn’t spoken. “Our little jaunt to Germany. You made a very compelling case for it, didn’t you? It was the easiest thing in the world for the Eidolons to fling us several hundred miles in an instant.” He stretched, unlimbered his long arms from around his knees. “That trip was also a circle, you know.” He traced a wobbly semicircle in the air, with his finger: “From here to there in the blink of an eye.” He completed the circle, saying, “And back again. A circle through space. And yet the Eidolons never bothered to name me.” He paused. “At the time I thought the entire idea was the height of madness. But perhaps our failure was a lack of ambition.”

  Will offered an invisible spider-thread of hope, but all Marsh felt was the sting of dread and the comfort of surrender. He’d been coming to terms with death and he didn’t have the energy for anything more. He didn’t have the energy to unravel another layer of Gretel’s machinations. He was ill. He was ready to die.

  Please, no more. There can’t be more to do. I’m weary, and I don’t care any longer.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I finally understand your name, Pip. I know what it means and why they gave it to you.” Will shook his head. Marsh couldn’t tell if it was a gesture of awe or pity.

  “Fine. Just tell me.”

  “What if Gretel had foreseen a way to stop this?”

  “Stop this? She caused this. She’s been aiming for this since the beginning.”

  “Yes. The beginning. But when was that, exactly? How long ago?” Now it was Will’s turn to stand. “I think we ought to return to the Admiralty. She said she’d be waiting for us. But we haven’t much time.”

  Time.

  No. Marsh fell back on the sofa, stomach churning with mothball sickliness. He hated Will’s line of reasoning and refused to follow along. It frightened him too much. More than he feared dying alone, he feared the thought that Gretel’s plans for him extended beyond the end of the world.

  Marsh shook his head. “I can’t do this.”

  “I know you better than that, Pip. I know you can’t bear the thought of dying with an unsolved puzzle on your hands. Even if you won’t admit it to yourself.”

  When had Will become the strong one? Damn him.

  “But Gwendolyn,” Marsh tried.

  “We have an understanding. Don’t you want a straight answer out of Gretel? After everything that has happened? I do.”

  “I want this to be finished.”

  “It may be. But let’s hear what she has to say. One last time.” Will extended a hand, offered to help Marsh up.

  “One last time.” Marsh took Will’s hand and struggled to his feet. “To know why.”

  The din of sirens, panic, and chaos still clamored across the city. Less than three hours had passed since he’d issued the order to kill the Soviet saboteurs. Not enough time to put out every fire, assess the damage, spin a cover story. No sweeping this under the rug as a gas main explosion. Too many witnesses. Marsh knew there were people gathered amidst the wreckage of Whitehall, probably at that very moment, striving to concoct a plausible cover story. Because it was their job, and the poor sods didn’t know the world was dying. Didn’t know the Eidolons were poised to snuff them all.

  In spite of the noise, the atmosphere on the streets was hushed. Expectant. As though the entire neighborhood had drawn a ragged breath and, like a tuberculosis patient, struggled to hold it through the tightness in its chest. As did the rest of the city, Marsh reckoned. As he did, too.

  They listened to reports coming over the wireless as they made their way back through the snarl of London traffic. Reliable information was spotty; SIS was patching reports together from the BBC and other news outlets.

  “Disturbances” was the word of the hour. A “disturbance” had cleared away the surprise attacks. (So much for a cover story.) But now disturbances were reported elsewhere. Patches of rapidly spreading darkness over the Midlands, in the American Southwest, Tanganyika, India, the former Germany.

  Ripples, coalescing at random. Forward and backward from the moment when Marsh heaved a boulder into the duck pond.

  Germany. Not far from Weimar was Marsh’s guess. There was probably another “disturbance” centered on Arzamas-16, too, but of course no such news was forthcoming from the Soviet Union. He imagined men and women like Will’s assassin trying in vain to fight the Eidolons, unaware that their efforts only attracted and enraged the demons.

  Unlike Gretel, who had gone to tremendous lengths to hide herself from the Eidolons. All for naught. Why?

  The Eidolons lived outside of space and time. They perceived Marsh as a circle. A spiral. An Ouroboros.

  This hadn’t begun when Gretel returned from the Soviet Union. She’d put this in motion long, long before. The catastrophic open conflict between Arzamas-16 and Milkweed had been inevitable at least since the end of the war. Perhaps earlier.

  But how do you stop something inevitable?

  You can’t. You must head it off before it starts. By going back to the beginning, to nip it in the bud.

  That’s what she wanted. But Marsh wouldn’t give it to her. That bint could die with all the rest.

  But not before she told him why.

  A cold wind swept the city. They crossed the Thames again, headed back toward the heart of the chaos. Bobbies stood at major intersections, ostensibly to direct traffic and keep the crowds of panicked Londoners at bay. But the officers’ silver whistles hung unused about their necks while they gaped at the sky like everybody else.

  “Look,” said Will. He pointed north.

  Toward where an ink black sky boiled above the Midlands. It held a darkness more complete than any storm clouds, darker than any moonless midnight, more thorough than the wartime blackouts. This wasn’t darkness caused by the absence of light. It was the absence of existence. Primal chaos. The darkness of oblivion.

  Roiling. Churning. Spreading.

  Growing exponentially, as the Eidolons perceived more and more of the human world.

  “Dear God,” Will whispered. “Aubrey.”

  The marines had abandoned their posts by the time Marsh and Will returned to the Admiralty. The remaining pixies stood unmanned, some upright, but most lying skew-whiff across the parade ground by virtue of a growing gale.

  The howling wind blew north. Toward the vacuum of nonexistence created by the Eidolons.

  They found Pethick alone in Pembroke’s office. He’d helped himself to the bottle in the sideboard. His tie lay coiled on the floor.

  “If you’ve come to plead with the children to save us, it’s too late,” he said. “Eidolons gobbled ’em up.”

  “Where’s Gretel?” said Marsh.

  Pethick sneered at him. “She killed Leslie because he wouldn’t have pulled the trigger. He was a good man.” He tossed back a finger’s-worth of scotch. A glistening trail of spittle dangled from his
lips to the mouth of the bottle. “You’ve killed us all. Bloody gorilla.”

  A shudder of distaste flashed across Will’s face. He saw an echo of himself in Pethick’s collapse.

  Will said, “We need to find her.”

  Pethick sloshed scotch across the desk when he gestured to the corridor with the bottle. “Waiting. Happy as Larry.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

  And she was. They found her in one of the old Milkweed rooms that had been reduced to dusty storage after the war. She sat in a broken office chair, bare feet propped on the edge of a metal desk, wiggling her toes. The hem of her dress hung from pale and bony ankles.

  Without preamble, Marsh said, “I won’t do it. I won’t go back. I’d rather stay here and watch you die.”

  “Ah.” She clapped and spun her chair in a circle, braids windmilling about her head. “So you finally understand why they named you. I knew you would. Eventually.”

  “I don’t understand a damn thing,” Marsh rasped. “I know you’re terrified of the Eidolons. And yet you forced my hand, forced me to unleash them to combat a menace you engineered. You let the Reichsbehörde fall to the Red Army so that this would happen. You destroyed the world with your long game.”

  She pouted, looking hurt. “I didn’t make this happen.”

  Will said, “You’ve manipulated us since day one.”

  “Of course I did,” said Gretel. “I had to. There has never been a future where the Eidolons didn’t roam free. Not a single one. Our doom was sealed the day Herr Doktor von Westarp created his orphanage. It led inexorably to the technology that made us,” she said, one hand laid demurely at the base of her throat. “And once Britain learned of his work, Milkweed also became unavoidable. For how else could you withstand the likes of us without the warlocks to defend you? You couldn’t.”

  “My God,” said Will.

  Marsh shook his head. “Lies. Why go to such effort if the end result was inevitable?”

  “There were countless ways this end might have come about. In many time lines, it happens much earlier, during the war: 1941, ’42, ’43. Those were the most difficult to avoid.” She looked at Will. “Almost as difficult as keeping you alive long enough to do your part. Fortunately for me, Gwendolyn carried that burden until I returned.” She shrugged, unmoved by Will’s indignation. “But sooner or later, all time lines pointed to the same conclusion: that no matter what I did, no matter how I strived, I would die when the Eidolons destroyed the world.

  “So I chose to forge a new time line. One where that will not happen.”

  The corner of her mouth quirked up. She fixed a lopsided half grin at Marsh. “And I made certain that when the end came to pass, you would be poised to save me.”

  Marsh laughed. To Will, he said, “She believes I’m going to save her.” He shook his head. “No. You’ll die with the rest of us.”

  “Of course you won’t do it for me.” She spoke slowly, as though wanting to be certain her point came across. Her dark eyes turned cold. “You’ll do it for Agnes.”

  Beside him, Will fell deathly still. Silence filled the room, broken only by the howling wind.

  “What?” Marsh rasped.

  “If you go back,” Gretel said, “you can save Agnes.”

  Marsh staggered against a dusty filing cabinet, feeling as if he’d been poleaxed.

  His infant daughter. Long dead and sorely lamented. The unhealed wound he’d carried for so many years was nothing more than an incentive to do Gretel’s bidding. Bait.

  Because Gretel knew there was one thing Marsh still cared about. One thing he’d fight for. The thing he mourned every day: his family.

  Dear God. Even at the end of the world, there was no pulling free of the hooks she’d buried in his heart.

  He’d always burned with the need to know why Gretel had murdered his daughter. He’d believed that understanding the tragedy would somehow make it bearable. But knowing the answer hurt more than all the wondering, all the blame and sleepless nights.

  Will said, “You monster.”

  She crossed the room to lay a hand on Marsh’s arm. “Do you see, darling? It was regrettable, but necessary. I did say you’d understand.”

  Marsh’s fist caught her full on the mouth with a wet crack. The punch snapped her head around, sent her sprawling on the floor. A cloud of dust swirled around her.

  She climbed to her feet. Blood trickled down her chin from her nose and the corner of her mouth. She pressed a hand to the wound, inspected her blood, held her glistening red fingertips out for Will and Marsh to see.

  “Yes,” she said. “This will be sufficient.”

  And in that moment, Marsh hated himself more than he ever had during all the cold, lonely nights in the garden shed. Not for belting a woman. She deserved it more than any man he’d ever decked. He’d done far worse to men who’d earned far less.

  He hated himself because he knew he’d buckle. Knew he’d give in. Because as much as he despised Gretel, he missed Agnes more. Missed the Liv that had loved him. Missed his wife, his lover. Missed the family life he’d touched so briefly.

  I want my family back.

  Will must have seen the decision in his eyes.

  “Pip,” he said, “there’s a problem. Two problems. I can’t send you back. The Eidolons have everything they want now. They don’t need us to feed them blood prices. What could we possibly offer in a negotiation that would secure their cooperation to send you back?”

  Gretel smoothed her braids. She twirled one end, dangling the unused battery connector like a pendulum.

  Marsh said, “We give them Gretel.”

  Will blinked. “Ah. Right. How selfless of her.” He frowned. “You’ll die along with the rest of us. This is no victory.”

  Gretel shrugged. “A tiny sacrifice for my greater good. This body will die,” she said, “but my consciousness will continue in the new time line. Everything I know, she will know. Everything I am, she will be. And she will be free of the Eidolons.”

  “But that’s still a different person! Your death—”

  Marsh interrupted. “We don’t have time for a bloody philosophy seminar!”

  Will said, “There’s still a problem, Pip. We’re missing the most important bit. We need a blood bridge. An anchor. Something to link the here and now with the here and then.” He waved his hands wildly, trying to make his point. “Like the stone during our raid on the farm. One object in two places simultaneously, linking our location in Britain with our location in Germany.” Marsh stared at the stump of Will’s missing finger. “But we don’t have anything analogous for sending you through time.…”

  Will trailed off, frowning at his wounded hand as if noticing it for the first time. He and Marsh stared at each other, then around the room. The room Gretel had chosen.

  They turned their eyes to the floor. Beneath a thick layer of dust, the floorboards were scuffed from years of furniture hauled carelessly in and out. Marsh tried to remember how things had been arranged twenty years earlier. Outside, the wind shrieked more fiercely.

  There.

  Marsh grabbed the metal desk where Gretel had propped her feet, lifted one end, and heaved it aside. It crashed into a gunmetal gray filing cabinet. The empty cabinet toppled sideways, sliding against a roll of carpet and gouging the plaster wall. Marsh dropped to all fours, gritting his teeth as the pain flared in his knee again. A splinter lodged in his palm as he swept the dust away with his hands. He pursed his lips and blew to clear off the fine layer of grit trapped in the wood grain. He swept and puffed, swept and puffed, until he found what he sought.

  A bloodstain. Brown with age.

  His knee twinged again as he stood. The stab of pain stole Marsh’s breath away. He pointed at the stain, panting, “Here’s your blood bridge.”

  Will stooped to get a better look at the floor. He squinted. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Your fingertip fell right there when I cut it off.” Will winced at the m
emory. “Your blood stained the floor.”

  Will surveyed their surroundings again. “This room—”

  “—is where we showed Gretel to the Eidolons.” The building groaned under the assault of the wailing wind. Somewhere, a door slammed. Marsh raised his ruined voice. “Will this work?”

  “Yes,” said Gretel.

  “I, I think so,” Will stammered. “Perhaps. Probably.”

  Marsh said, “Then get prepared.”

  He dashed outside, into the corridor that led to the Milkweed vault. As he passed the exterior offices, those with windows overlooking the parade ground and St. James’ Park, he saw the spreading darkness had reached London. Streetlamps cast a feeble yellow glow into the Eidolonic night. Wind whipped the lake in the park to a froth; leaves fluttered from the mulberry trees like confetti in a cyclone. But worst of all was how the noise had changed.

  Faintly audible over the wind: the sirens had been replaced with screaming. The end of the world didn’t come with the crackling of fire or the quiet hiss of ice. It came with thousands of voices raised in fear.

  Marsh spun the vault dial through the combination as quickly as he could. He heaved the massive door aside. It smashed against the wall and shook the floor. Light spilled into the vault from the corridor. It illuminated the cabinets that held pixie blueprints; a cloven stone; Enochian lexicons; a photograph of a farmhouse; the Tarragona filmstrip; Schutzstaffel operational records …

  A handful of batteries stood together on one shelf. Two of them were newer than the others—Soviet redesigns of the original Reichsbehörde model, taken from the Twins. The other batteries also formed a matching pair. These were older, their gauges showing total charge depletion: the batteries taken from Klaus and Gretel when they’d arrived weeks earlier. Klaus had used one during the battle at Will’s house, and the other to rescue the Twin.

  But there, alone in the corner, long forgotten under dusty cobwebs, stood the final Reichsbehörde battery. The battery Gretel had been wearing in France the day Marsh captured her. The battery she’d purposely left behind during her brief incarceration, knowing she’d need it again on the day the world ended in 1963.