The Lord of the Sands of Time (20 page)

For Miyo there was no time for grief. She jumped from her perch and ran to join the fighting inside the stockade. Suddenly she heard droning wing beats overhead and looked up in terror, expecting to see Snipes, but instead she saw a formation of twelve Wasps. Orville had saved the last of them to watch over her. They flew on ahead and tenaciously attacked the closest Reapers, sinking their teeth into their necks and crushing their fragile eyes. The men in the stockade cheered, but their cheers soon faded. The fallen RET were replaced by another wave, and then another, and the Wasps were soon destroyed.

Soldiers began streaming back through the gate. The front line crumbled. Miyo stood in the center of a semicircle of soldiers with their backs to the sea, all fighting desperately as the enemy poured in from every direction. “Miyo!” she heard above the din. She looked up to see the Messenger running toward her, pursued by a pack of Leapers.

Just then Cutty’s voice came from the
magatama
. “I send final greetings to all Messengers, and to all mankind. Our last line of defense has been breached. Victoria Base will soon be overrun and I will be destroyed. But the enemy has miscalculated; they are too intent on victory. Eighty percent of the ET on this continent are within fifty kilometers of my position. I will therefore use my remaining antimatter to self-destruct. The total energy released will be 37.709 gigatons of TNT equivalent. All friendly forces must immediately move away from Victoria Base with all possible speed. All nearby stations should immediately activate protection measures for seismic and electromagnetic flux damage. Naval elements in the Indian Ocean must immediately move away from coastal zones and into deep water.”

“Lady Miyo!” It was Kan. He stood with sword drawn, his back to hers. The number of soldiers was rapidly dwindling. The circle shrank. They began to crowd in around her. Death shadowed every face.

Miyo called out above the noise of battle. “Don’t despair! Break out and withdraw to the beach!” The soldiers fought their way through and ran wildly for the beach a few hundred paces to their rear. Orville retreated with his back to the sea, holding off the foe as best he could. The tattered army reached the sand. “Don’t stop! Into the water!” Miyo shouted. She began wading into the icy surf.

Again the voice of Cutty. “Orville and Miyo. I have your situation as of four minutes ago. I am very concerned. Your front is the weakest of all. If you fail, victory in other sectors will be in jeopardy. I regret I cannot offer you any support. With greater resources I might have been able to help you.”

“What nonsense!” Miyo laughed derisively. The soldiers sacrificing their lives before her eyes seemed far more noble than this distant schemer. “All you offer are words. Is that how you fight? Don’t flatter yourself. This is our battle. We will live and die without leave from you. To hell with you, you bitch of a sorceress!”

For a few moments Cutty seemed to ponder. Buffeted by the savage winter swells, Miyo ran into the freezing surf, shielded by her archers’ volleys. Then Cutty spoke.

“So you think you don’t need me?”

“Never!” snapped Miyo.

“I see…well, your determination is quite moving. In fact, this may even be the answer I was seeking. I failed to consider the possibility that a secure timestream might not include me.”

Cutty fell silent again. Miyo could not imagine what she might be thinking. When Cutty finally spoke, her voice was filled with a sense of ease. “Thank you, Miyo. That’s a fitting epitaph for me. You’ve given my extinction an unexpected meaning. May you be victorious.” The
magatama
fell silent.

Miyo was dumbfounded. Had that stiff-necked sorceress just thanked her? She felt a sense of happiness that quickly turned to rage. How dare Cutty choose death alone!

Miyo had never seen her true form. Now she was gone, and for the first time, Miyo understood how much she had meant. This was not the end Miyo would have wanted for her. If she could only talk to Cutty once more…yes, she’d give her such a tongue lashing, the witch would be struck speechless!

The roar of continuous detonations quickly woke Miyo from her reverie. A shell whistled past her head and exploded in the water behind her. A few Reapers were firing into the soldiers milling in the surf. They had some ammunition left after all. Geysers of water mixed with smoke shot into the air. Miyo crouched lower and shouted to her men: “How do you stand?” A shout went up from the soldiers. “We stand fast!” It looked as if most of them had made it into the water and were safe. Miyo felt a small measure of relief. But by now there were no more arrows left to cover their retreat.

Miyo looked toward shore and gasped. Orville alone had not entered the water. Only twenty paces from the ocean’s edge, he was surrounded by seven or eight Leapers. Their long blades struck him again and again, bringing the Messenger to his knees.

“Orville!” she screamed. The soldiers rushed onto the beach and drove off the Leapers. They carried Orville into the surf and brought him to Miyo. His body half-floated in the dark, cold water. The wavelets around him were stained crimson as they lapped at his limbs. Miyo threw herself on him, sobbing. His chest and abdomen were crossed with deep gashes. How deep, she dared not guess. He turned toward her and opened his eyes.

“Miyo…” A dry whisper. His mouth was stained with blood. “I heard you talking to Cutty. I couldn’t have said it better.”

“You must rest. Your wounds will heal, yes?”

“They’re healing now. Just listen to me and stop crying. Look out for your people. Forget your homeland. Home is something you carry with you, in your mind. As long as you survive.” He gripped her hand so hard Miyo almost cried out, but his strength reassured her.

“I understand. No more talk. You’re one of the wounded now.”

“Sayaka…”

“What?” Miyo started. Orville seemed to be staring into some empty place. Then his eyes fell on her again. “Ah, it’s you.”

Suddenly his face relaxed, as if he were about to break into a smile. His hands went slack. Miyo gripped them tightly, stroking them again and again, as if trying to stroke life into his body. Her knees began to shake.

“Orville?” She called to him, touched his face. His pale eyes no longer followed her motions. She stroked his face and wept. No matter how tightly she closed her eyes, the tears would not stop. The cheeks of the Messenger were streaked with her tears and those of the men holding him.

The wind whipped the waves to foam. Some of the soldiers dropped to their knees in the surf, exhausted. The waves of sobbing moved out from Miyo and spread to the rest of the army. The men sobbed as if the world were ending.

Then something at the core of her being rebelled. She would
not
die. She inhaled deeply, stifled the heaving in her breast, and shouted across the surf. “Raise the battle flag!” She wiped her eyes fiercely with the sleeve of her tunic and glared at the men. Their faces were shadowed with grief. She took another deep breath and shouted with all her strength:

“Raise the banner! Himiko’s great war banner! I am not beaten yet!”

The men looked at her in confusion, as if they had misheard her. She raised her fists and glowered at them with red-rimmed eyes. “Rise up! We go west. The enemy cannot follow us in the surf. We will go to the lands beyond. We will swim the straits to China if we must. But we will survive! Rise up and dry your tears. Forget your homeland. As long as we live, so Yamatai will also live! The races of men will never bow to the mononoké!”

Gradually the sobbing ebbed. The men slowly moved toward her. They ignored the enemy on the beach behind them eyeing the water’s edge and awaiting their chance. They gathered around her. There was no war banner. The emperor’s gift had been lost in the retreat from Musashino. But one of the soldiers raised a pike with a small flag nailed to it. The flag was torn and dirty. Miyo stepped beneath it and called to her army.

“Do you swear to follow me and survive, no matter what?” The men sounded their resolve. Miyo shook her head and shouted, “Even if we must swim to China?” The men cheered again with new strength in their voices. Miyo began to walk north through the surf. “Then come with me, if you want to live!” Kan proclaimed his determination and a thousand throats echoed him. Their voices seemed spirited enough to chase the west wind out to sea.

The sky flashed white. For an instant, the landscape seemed to levitate.

Miyo looked up, momentarily blind. When her vision returned she doubted her eyes. A giant object, sheathed in armor, floated in the sky. It must have been a full
ri
or more in length, end to end. A sky ship?

Before Miyo and the soldiers were able to shake off their amazement, their upturned faces were lit again. From both ends of the ship, needles of blue-white light darted over their heads, sweeping the beach, the ruins of their camp, and the paddy fields. Wherever the needles touched the earth a wall of fire erupted, as if a fissure had opened in a volcano. The line of fire slashed across the hordes of advancing enemy. The enemy were flung end over end or torn apart where they stood. Across the battlefield, a distorted, high-pitched wailing rose to pulsing shrieks, that were suddenly cut off. The enemy was burning.

A wave of scorching heat struck Miyo. She held the soaked hem of her tunic over her nose and mouth as she silently watched. The needles of light darted out again and again. Each time, a fresh wave of heat and the groaning of the earth reached the Yamatai forces standing in the water. Finally their eyes registered only the dancing of the blue-white light, even against the sea of fire.

The raking of the needles ceased. As their vision returned, they saw a scene from hell.

A smoldering wasteland stretched before them. The fields were now smoking pans of melted salt and iron. The bodies of the enemy lay scattered in piles into the far distance, their ruined corpses belching greasy black smoke. The smell was nauseating.

“It’s coming!” yelled several soldiers at once. They watched in fear as the giant ship descended silently onto the water. Soon a small, leaf-shaped boat emerged from its side and headed toward them. A single figure stood in the prow; Miyo squinted to make him out. The man’s height, build, and relaxed posture were familiar. The little boat pulled up and the man stepped down into the thigh-deep water. Miyo’s voice trembled. “Orville…?”

“No. My name is Omega. I am a Temporal Army Pathfinder from the twenty-first century.”

At first she did not believe him. The voice, the face—he was too similar to Orville. But when she looked closer she saw he was different. The jaw was heavier, the hair somewhat lighter than Orville’s. This man was clearly younger.

Omega surveyed the results of his handiwork, then approached Orville’s body, which the soldiers had laid on the beach. Omega knelt and peered intently into Orville’s blind eyes. A tiny thread of light briefly linked their pupils.

“Don’t touch him!” Miyo ran up, shaking with anger, and Omega quickly stepped away from the body. He spoke quietly to himself, but those nearby could just hear him:

“Messenger Original. The legends were true. How did you bear this burden so long?” He looked down at the body and raised his flat left hand to his eyebrow. Something in that strange gesture bespoke a deep respect, and Miyo stepped back.

Omega turned to her. “Did he leave instructions for handling the body?”

“For his burial? No,” she answered. “But I won’t let you have him.”

“Then I leave him with you. Bury him with honor.”

Miyo hesitated. “Are you the mighty host, the one spoken of in the Laws?”

“Yes. We came to destroy your tormenters and save this timestream for all eternity.”

Miyo felt a sudden fury so terrible that everything in her sight went red. “Why now? Why not months ago, or even hours? Then the Messenger would not be dead on this beach. And Takahaya, and so many others!” She stepped toward him, fists clenched. But Omega raised a hand and calmly shook his head.

“You don’t understand. We could not have come an instant before we did. The moment we arrived marked the moment our timestream came into being. This battle gave birth to it.
You
gave birth to it. He raised his hand to his brow once more and said in a voice full of reverence, “You must be Queen Himiko.”

“I am.”

“The Battle of Suminoé, A.D. 248. Trapped by twenty thousand mononoké, teetering on the edge of defeat, the queen of Yamatai rallies her forces and escapes to the west, where she rebuilds her army. A year later she lures a vast force of mononoké into a narrow valley, where her armies unleash a dammed river—a saltwater estuary—that drowns them all. Later, the Land of Wa flourishes under her rule, and she lays the foundations for the nation of Japan. And this becomes the prior history of a new timestream.” Omega gazed at her with the affection of a child reunited with its mother.

Miyo returned his gaze and considered his words. Finally she said, “You are my distant descendant.”

“I am an AI, created by your descendants. No, you are right. I am your descendant. Had you not refused to accept defeat, resistance against the ET would have collapsed on one front after another. On behalf of all humanity and human history, I thank you.” Omega bowed deeply. Then he turned and sprang into the boat.

“Where are you going?” said Miyo anxiously.

“West, of course. There is work to do in China. The enemy is on the brink of victory, but that will change.”