Time Shards--Tempus Fury

by Dana Fredsti

  “What, these here? This bunch is Irish?”

  “Maybe so.” Rockwell shrugged. “They talk awfully British-like, anyway.”

  Alphonse snorted. “Apples and oranges, friend, apples and oranges. Never seen a Harp decked out like your boys here. Besides, all those Mick palookas of Egan’s are ancient history. We rubbed them out years ago.”

  “Hold on.” Rockwell’s voice was strained. “You’re telling me there’s nothing on these fellows’ heads? Mind looking over the latest wanted posters to make sure?”

  “Look here, cornpone,” Alphonse growled, “quit wasting my time. I know the score on every bounty Boss Vito Giannola puts out, and these guys ain’t worth bupkis. So beat it.”

  “Capital,” Harcourt murmured audibly. Cam looked to Blake, who remained poker-faced. The clerk pushed his glasses up and waved a finger at Rockwell.

  “Besides, I thought you three were out hunting that two-bit weasel Quigley? What, did he give you the slip already?” Rockwell said nothing, turning with a sour frown and grabbing the leather lead out of Shanks’s hands.

  “Come on!” he snapped, dragging his prisoners across the lobby.

  “See here now!” Harcourt said. “Where do you think you’re taking us? It’s just as we said, there’s no bounty on us. Free us this instant as you assured us you would!”

  Rockwell stopped in his tracks, and turned slowly to face them, his gaze cold and hard as flint. “Free? Well now, I don’t recall ever sayin’ the word free. Shanks, you recollect what I promised the gents?”

  “I do indeed,” Shanks replied with a grin. “‘Dinner on us, and then they can be on their way,’ which in my estimation is very fair.”

  “By George, that was just right!” Rockwell said. “So now let’s make haste to the slave auction and sell these boys in time to get them a ration of cold corndodger and scrap meat before they head off on their way—downriver to the plantations, that is. Hurry now, I’d sure hate to be made a liar.”

  Harcourt stared in horror.

  “But-but—” he sputtered.

  “But what?” Rockwell snarled. “You got any money?”

  “No, but—”

  “Anybody here who vouches for you?”

  “Well, now, you see—”

  “Is anybody coming to rescue you?”

  That shut Harcourt up before he could even work up a convincing lie. Blake smiled grimly.

  “So, in these parts, that means you’re slaves, you git me?” Rockwell spoke gently, as if explaining to a school child. “Another thing.” Rockwell plucked the professor’s top hat right off his head. “Slaves don’t need hats. Timepieces neither,” he added, fishing Harcourt’s gold watch out by its chain. He turned to Cam and pointed to the silver torc around his neck. “Slaves don’t need jewelry neither.”

  Even in chains and lashed to a tether, Cam bristled.

  “Touch it and see who dies a slave.”

  Rockwell chuckled—but lowered his hand. He turned to his sidekicks.

  “Boys, as much as I hate to damage the merchandise, we may need to haul these boys outside and tenderize them a bit afore the sale.” Shanks leered, and Feeds-the-Crows fingered his tomahawk.

  “I wouldn’t,” Blake said quietly. Rockwell turned on him slowly.

  “Well, you sure fixed on a piss-poor time to start makin’ threats.”

  “No threat,” Blake said. “I just mean it doesn’t make sense to sell us as slaves when you could do better.” Rockwell raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, I want to hear this nugget of good counsel,” he said with a mocking grin.

  “I mean it,” Blake responded. “You could sell us as slaves—but you’d make out better if you ran us as gladiators in the arena.”

  Neither Cam nor Harcourt objected, mostly because his proposition left the Victorian dumbstruck. Rockwell rubbed his chin, thinking it over. He looked over to his men, then back at Blake.

  “Boys, I think he means it,” he said. “And I don’t mind tellin’ you, it ain’t the worst notion I’ve heard today.”

  Cam continued to glower his defiance, but Harcourt paled, looking as though he was about to keel over. Rockwell noticed.

  “May as well just sell the scarecrow for meat.”

  “He’s pretty useless, I’ll grant you that,” Blake agreed. Harcourt looked on in mute terror, shaking like a leaf. “At least, in a fight,” Blake continued. “Still, he has some useful skills that would make him valuable to the right people. Don’t you, Professor?”

  “What?” It took a moment for Harcourt to recognize the lifeline Blake was throwing him. “Oh, yes—yes. Indubitably!”

  Their captors looked unconvinced.

  “If this poncy blighter has any uses ’cept as target practice or fish-bait, I’ll eat me hat,” Shanks muttered.

  “N-no… it’s true!” the professor said. “I’m a most… a most learned professor, with degrees in a multitude of scientific fields.” His stammer eased up as he slid into his familiar spiel. “My skills are invaluable for a wide variety of projects and consultations, as I often provided for the crown heads of Europe. To give merely one example, I know the formula to create a Special Galvanic Nerve Elixir—”

  “Galvanic?” Rockwell asked. “What’s galvanic?”

  “Why, it refers to power of electricity in liquid form. Lightning in a bottle!”

  “You know a thing or two about electrickery, do you?” Rockwell’s tone changed.

  “Certainly. I harness it to remedy all manner of physical and cerebral ailments, complaints, and maladies, both common and exotic. There is no end to the number of practical applications…”

  “Alright, alright, keep your voice down,” Rockwell hushed him. “Get over here.” Now they had the big man’s attention. He pulled them aside, to a quiet corner of the cocktail lounge.

  “Don’t suppose you can show any proof, can you?” he asked in a low voice.

  “But of course!” Harcourt beamed, fully in his stride. “As all we electrophysickers—that is, practitioners of the galvanic arts—well know, voltaic energy is found in two primary varieties, vitreous electricity and resinous electricity, which together compose the electric fluid. Now, by simply constructing a small tower of copper, silver, and tutanego calamine disks, separated by ordinary brine-soaked cloth, connected at both top and bottom terminals by silver wire, an accomplished electriconeer such as myself can easily create a single current, and thereby produce the electromotive force, to be employed however one desires. Quod erat demonstrandum.

  “Nevertheless,” he continued, “if you would prefer a more practical proof of concept, I can easily provide a rheoscopic demonstration by constructing a working galvanoscope using only a small length of metal wire or foil, a scalpel, and three pairs of frog’s legs.”

  Rockwell was silent for a moment, then dusted off Harcourt’s hat and politely returned it to his captive’s head, as if bestowing a crown. He kept the gold watch.

  “Never you mind about the frog legs. You’ve sold me, sir. I believe this is the beginning of a profitable partnership.” Then he gave a dark look. “… as long as you deliver the goods.” The threat delivered, he brightened again. “Alright then, let’s put this pair in the arena to see if we can rustle up a little folding money—”

  “Oh, but I’ll need my assistants,” Harcourt said. “They may not be the smartest, but they are nevertheless completely indispensable.”

  Blake shot him a look, but kept a straight face. “The professor’s right. He needs Cam and me to… radiowave the atomic… jazz gizmos.”

  Cam nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

  Rockwell stared at them, and appeared to be torn. Then he nodded decisively, and slapped Shanks on the shoulder.

  “Come on,” he said in a low voice. “Let’s get these three out of here before someone figures out what we got.”

  Puzzled, Shanks peered over his shoulder to see if the guards were eavesdropping. “What about taking them to Vito Giannola?” he whispered.


  Rockwell only shook his head. Shrugging, Shanks and Feeds-the-Crows retrieved their firearms from the doormen, and they all went outside and down the steps. When they were mounted up and out of earshot, Shanks spoke up again.

  “God blind me, Old Port! What’s your game? After all that fuss and bother, we’re not selling them to Vito?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, why the bloody hell not?”

  “We’re taking them somewhere very special. Goin’ cross the river.”

  “Across the river to where?”

  “Way I reckon, Sun-Raven will pay even better for a crew that knows electrickery and such.”

  “Sun-Raven?” Shanks stared at him in disbelief. “The bloody Indian god-king? Are you barking mad? Crows, tell the man this is a spectacularly bad idea.”

  “Bad idea,” Feeds-the-Crows agreed flatly. The Englishman arched his eyebrows and held up his palm to show his point was made.

  “Listen to you old hens cackle.” Rockwell laughed. “You don’t see our guests wettin’ themselves at the prospect. Now come on, we have a ferry ride to book.”

  “Sun-Raven.” Shanks shot the prisoners a sour look. “Our guts for garters, that’s what we’ll get from that moony bastard.”

  37

  As they trudged through the snow with the strange shaggy men, Hypatia wrestled with troubled thoughts. In her rational mind, she knew concentrating on survival was paramount. So, with a supreme effort of will, she banished her tangled emotions and fears to be dealt with later.

  Her ankle still troubled her, but with Nellie’s arm around her waist she was able to keep a steady pace. The six men surrounded them but kept their distance, remaining silent and avoiding eye contact. They carried game in woven knapsacks. Birds, small mammals, and trilobites. Hunters, then.

  She wondered how the rough men saw them—as captives?

  Guests?

  Prey?

  They came to an intimidating display—a wall of skulls with a towering arch. The gateway was formed by a pair of curving elephant tusks, but of a titanic size. Hypatia had never seen the like. Stretching away from the gate, the wall was a rough palisade of sharpened tree trunks mounted with a menagerie of huge, toothsome skulls—what appeared to be bears, wolves, carnivore lizards, the crested skulls of winged reptiles, and other imposing monsters completely unknown to her.

  Rows of their pale willow-wood staves ringed the wall, each one spear-sized and sporting tuffs of the curling ringlets. The various skulls were decorated with the curls of willow shavings as well.

  Hypatia feared the hunters were taking them to a slaughterhouse.

  “Akon kotan,” the leader announced to the women. The group paused before the gateway, murmuring what seemed to be quiet prayers. They reverently touched the great tusks as they entered.

  Inside stood a small cluster of thatched-roofed wooden houses, along with a pair of smaller structures raised on poles—one a thatched storehouse, the other a raised wooden cage containing a young brown bear cub. She was surprised to see the hunters greet the little captive warmly, feeding it morsels of dried jerky by hand.

  Women and children came out of the houses, collecting the men’s game and staring at the new arrivals. The women saluted the hunters in what seemed to Hypatia a most slavish fashion, covering their mouths with one hand and fixing their eyes upon the ground. Some made a whining, crying noise, as if keening for them. She found it most troubling.

  The boys wore the same embroidered robes and trousers as the men, while the women and girls wore long dresses. She noticed the women bore tattoos, no two alike, black geometric shapes and lines wrapping their fingers, hands, and forearms. Except for the young girls, the women all had wide blue smiles tattooed on their mouths—a curious adornment.

  Their arm tattoos reminded her of designs she had seen at the library in Alexandria, in drawings made of Scythian women who lived beyond the Black Sea. Perhaps that was where they were now, in Scythian territory or some mountainous region of the Sarmatians.

  The gods help us.

  The hunting party took them to the largest house in the village, where their leader stepped up and gave a low cough. After a few moments an elderly woman emerged, her eyes downcast. Covering her mouth, she spoke quietly to the man, then retreated out of the way as he and the rest of the party solemnly entered. Hypatia and Nellie followed, still clasping hands.

  Woven tapestries in geometric diamond shapes hung on the walls inside, along with rows of the ubiquitous shaved willow sticks. A large rectangular firepit lit and warmed the room. On the wooden shelf above it, sheaves of millet lay alongside racks of drying salmon, filling the room with their pungent aroma. The old woman joined three young ones sitting quietly against the wall, trying to remain invisible.

  A stout old man, face wizened and impressively bearded, sat cross-legged at the head of the hearth. Pulling back his cowl, the lead hunter respectfully approached with quiet, careful steps to sit down at his right. He cleared his throat once again and extended his hands, palms together, fingers splayed. The old man, who seemed to be the chief, did the same. They moved their hands in synchronicity, back and forth, each movement made with great formality.

  The other hunters stood waiting, unmoving and silent. Hypatia and Nellie kept silence with them. While Hypatia carefully observed all the subtle nuances, Nellie tapped an anxious foot, still clutching her arrow tightly.

  The ritual continued for some time, after which the two men sat in silence, each stroking his own beard while making a soft rumbling sound in the throat. Then they began to speak, and the lead hunter turned to indicate the two women. The chief turned to them, as if only now noticing their presence, and waved the rest of the group over to join them by the fire.

  Nellie and Hypatia sat, pulling back the fur-lined hoods of their parkas and removing their mittens. The chief peered at them silently. Hypatia cleared her throat politely, averting her gaze while covering her mouth. Then she put her palms together as the men had done. Nellie hastened to follow Hypatia’s lead.

  “We are Hypatia of Alexandria and Nellie Bly of New York,” Hypatia said. “We greet you, and thank you for your gallant rescue.”

  “Yes, thank you very much,” Nellie chimed in.

  The headman blinked in surprise at this development. Then he spoke.

  “Irankarapte.” Returning their salute, he began the hand-rubbing gestures all over again. The women followed suit, until he stopped and patted his chest.

  “Isonash tapne, an pe ku’ne wa.” He paused, then repeated the gesture. “Isonash. Káni Isonash.”

  “Chief Isonash,” Hypatia acknowledged. “Káni… Hypatia.”

  “Hi-pay—”

  “Hypatia.”

  “Hi’e-Pay-Shah.”

  Hypatia smiled with a gracious bow of her head. Nellie spoke up.

  “Káni… Nellie.”

  “Ne’ee?” the chieftain struggled with the odd sounds.

  “Nell-ee.”

  “Ne-hee.”

  Nellie smiled and nodded. “That’s me.” Acting on a sudden inspiration, she ceremoniously lay down her arrow before the chief as a gesture of good faith.

  The mood of the room warmed at once, and the other men introduced themselves, as well. Their lead hunter was Harukor, his cautious second Turushno. With introductions out of the way, Isonash had another question for them.

  “Eani Shamo kur yan?”

  Hypatia and Nellie looked at one another blankly.

  “That word Shamo again,” Hypatia said softly, frowning in concern. “I think they want to know if we are Shamo— whatever that is.”

  “Well, whatever it is, they don’t seem to like it much,” Nellie replied. She turned back to Isonash.

  “No! No Shamo!” she said, waving her arm for emphasis. She spit on the floor. “Shamo, ptooey!”

  Everyone in the hut glared at her in shocked silence. Hypatia’s expression was horrified.

  “Yaysama…” the old man exclaimed quie
tly. Alarmed, Hypatia cleared her throat to try and offer an apology, but before she could, Harukor grinned and shouted, “Sonno! Shamo ptooey!” He spit, and all the other hunters laughed and joined in as well, shouting, “Sonno!” and spitting against the cursed Shamo.

  “Sonno!” Nellie yelled happily. The room erupted with wild cheers, and Hypatia exhaled in relief. Pleased, the headman clapped his hands and whistled what sounded like a merry little birdcall. The women of the house stood up and began to prepare for dinner.

  * * *

  Hypatia is a far better diplomat than I am, Nellie thought, stewing in self-recrimination. They had been lucky. That Shamo business could just as easily gone the wrong way, and then where would they be? She resolved to restrain herself and follow the older woman’s lead, and tried to wait patiently for the meal to begin. Their dinner simmered in thick trough-like hammocks of folded tree bark, suspended above the low fire with sticks and knotted fibers. Hungry as she was, its aroma was both exotic and intoxicating.

  While Hypatia sat as serene as porcelain, it took all Nellie’s willpower to hide the jumbling pain in her heart. She desperately wondered what her companion was thinking— the older woman felt so closed off to her. To make matters worse, her empty stomach was rumbling so loudly she was sure everyone in the room could hear.

  Perhaps they did. Isonash called for the other men to gather around the fire pit alongside them, and the young women came forward and sat in a row behind the men. The woman they took to be his wife went and fetched a little wooden slat and an ammonite shell the size of a wheelbarrow wheel. Taking them, he seemed first to speak to both implements, then dipped the slat into the shell, and methodically sprinkled a few drops onto the fire, offering more words in a reverent tone.

  Then he used the slat to pull his beard aside as he drank heartily from the shell, and passed them to Harukor, who did the same, before passing them on to Nellie.

  Nellie hefted the stick and shell awkwardly, braced herself, and risked an experimental swig as the men cheered. It was a thick white beer that smelled of millet, and wasn’t half bad. She took a second, bigger quaff and wiped her mouth, flashing a cheeky grin which made the men hoot and cheer all over again.