The Time Roads (34 page)

With the door to my bedroom locked, and the key in my pocket, we exited my apartments. I gave orders to the guards to admit no one, not my ministers, not even the chief of the Queen’s Constabulary. With one guard to follow, we hurried through the corridors of Cill Cannig, across the great public halls, and into the wing I had once assigned to Breandan Ó Cuilinn. My guard took his post outside, while I continued alone with Gwen.

Most of the laboratory was dark. One lamp illuminated the far end, and I recognized Síomón Madóc bent over his desk, with several open books scattered about and a calculator machine to his right. His head jerked up at our approach, and he gave an exclamation of surprise and displeasure. “Gwen…”

“She comes with my permission, Síomón. I will tell you about it later.”

He shrugged and returned to his work, already dismissing us from his attention as we passed by his desk, to the end of the laboratory itself, where more crates partially obscured a plain wooden door. A storage closet or something like, I thought.

Gwen slid between the crates and unlocked the door. I followed, only to stop in surprise on the threshold.

“You have made more progress than I expected,” I said softly.

The room measured the width of my outstretched arms, and was twice as tall. Thin glass tubes, encased in metal webbing, crisscrossed the walls to either side and the ceiling overhead, and thick wires nested in between, leading down to a row of electrical plugs, obviously of a custom design. The wall opposite the door was covered in a strange black metal, which gleamed softly in the shadows, and off to the left, I noticed how the tubes angled around a small square of panels and dials.

“We began work on a similar device several years ago,” Gwen said. “When you asked for our assistance, we transported the existing machine here, and used the latest measurements to refine our model. Excuse me, please.”

She brushed her hand over the dials. I heard a faint hiss, as if a monster had drawn a breath. Light poured out of a flat disc overhead. The door slid shut and I heard the click of bolts. A silvery gleam traveled along the length of the glass tubes around us, like liquid starlight, and the cables and outlets gave off a strong odor of chemicals.

“You have used this machine yourself?”

Gwen must have caught the hint of panic in my voice, because a fleeting smile crossed her face. “I have,” she said. “But until recently, only to visit the past. It’s been just a week since we made any successful journeys into the future.”

She twisted a knob. A rectangular panel clicked open from the wall. Gwen tilted the panel downward to reveal a tray that resembled a typewriter, with several extra rows of keys marked with mathematical symbols. She tapped the keys. Several other panels slid open. One narrow slot disgorged a slip of paper, which fell into a bucket at Gwen’s side. She glanced down, tapped a few more keys, and consulted the next slip.

“We shall not have long,” she said. “The time fractures have different properties for those traveling ahead. The disturbances are less extreme, but they are nevertheless present. My brother and I have not yet worked out all the permutations.”

She tapped a long and complicated sequence, using more of the symbol keys than before. Then, unexpectedly, she slid the tray back into its slot.

“Now,” she said. “Quickly.”

She took me by the hand and led me through an opening that had abruptly appeared opposite the door. I was too surprised to resist. It was impossible, this corridor stretching onward and into shadows and then into an infinity beyond. There was no space for it to exist behind the machine, or anywhere in Cill Cannig. But I had asked for the impossible.

A dozen steps and darkness closed around us. I glanced back and saw only a blurred square of light. Gwen whispered urgently that we could not hesitate. Her words were hard to make out but her intent was clear enough. We hurried on into a thick mist. Within moments I no longer sensed the walls of a corridor around us. My boots trod soundlessly on a smooth road that arrowed straight ahead. My breath came short, but I heard nothing beyond the thrumming of my pulse, and even that had an odd unnatural quality to it. When Gwen spoke again, her lips moved soundlessly. She shook her head and frowned. For the first time, she seemed anxious.

The darkness eased.

Pinpricks of light appeared overhead. If I stared directly at them, they shifted. Jumped. Their halos blurred. I dropped my gaze back to the road. It tilted oddly beneath me and my stomach lurched. I blinked. Saw the road divide into a dozen, a hundred, a myriad of separate paths spinning off in all directions, to other pasts and other futures. I must have made a sound, because Gwen gripped my hand tightly. She spoke, but the words ran together and swirled around like the waters of two rivers when they meet.

Sound stopped. Started.

We were running. No, walking but the mists streamed past us, making our passage seem much swifter. The stars overhead had become streaks that spiraled down to the horizon, to the point where the road vanished from sight. Gwen was murmuring to herself. I heard her clearly now. She recited a stream of numbers.

“353665707. Times two. 25814. Minus 1. 353665707*225814
+
1. 1958349*231415–1. 1958349*231415
+
1. Yes. There. There it is. The future, Your Majesty.”

My attention snapped back to the road. The stars had stilled. An indigo band marked the division between ground and sky. And there, where Gwen pointed, a bright liquid flare of true sunlight. We ran. We ran without hesitation toward the sun-bright disc. I believe I was laughing, though partly in terror. And when Gwen herself loosed my hand and leapt into its heart, I followed.

*   *   *

For many long moments, I was aware of nothing more than an overpowering giddiness. I crouched with hands splayed against icy cobblestones, spewing water and tisane. My stomach knotted into a fist-sized lump and heaved itself against my ribs, though I had nothing left to give. Snow was falling in steady streamers, and a bone-deep cold penetrated my clothes.

Gwen Madóc pressed a hand against my shoulder. “Your Majesty. My friend. We must hurry. We have an hour, if that, before the time fractures undo our passage back.”

She helped me to my feet. I staggered, then clutched at her arms. My head was swimming and I wanted nothing more than a shot glass of whiskey. “Where are we?” I croaked.

“Cill Canning,” she replied softly. “But the when is more important. I told the truth that we could not send ourselves to one particular moment, past or future. The most I know is that this is the winter of 1943. January or possibly February.”

I wiped the snow from my eyes and stared at our surroundings.

We had not traveled more than a dozen yards, if that, from where Gwen and Síomón Madóc’s machine had stood. Everything else, however, had been transformed beyond knowing. Cill Cannig had vanished. In its place was a ruin of walls. A few hundred yards away stood a large stone building with electric lamps burning in two or three of the ground-floor windows. By their faint light, I could see the ground between was taken up with rubble and trash, now vanishing under the snow, and a strange sour scent filled the air—not poison, not exactly, but the smell made me think of slaughterhouses and those laboratories dedicated to breaking down flesh and analyzing its properties.

“We must hurry,” Gwen said. “We cannot have anyone find us here.”

She dragged me down a lane filled with more rubble, more trash. We exited the palace grounds, leaving behind even the electric lights, and plunging into a maze of lanes bounded by tall wooden buildings. The fields and farmland I remembered were gone, replaced by ugly warehouses.

The snow was falling faster now. I had to tuck my hands under my arms and bend my head to watch my footing. Moonlight broke through the clouds from time to time, but our progress was slow. More than once, we dodged into alleyways or courtyards to avoid the patrols that kept watch. I heard muttered conversations in German and Éireann. The patrols had no dogs, and I had the impression the cold discouraged them from making a thorough search. Even so, my pulse thrummed hard and fast, and I had to bite down to keep my teeth from clattering together.

We had just reached the old outer walls of Osraighe when a mechanical grinding broke the silence. Then came the booming noise of a bell directly overhead.
A naoi, a deich, a haon deág …
The midnight hour was striking.

“The doorway will close before the bells mark the next hour,” Gwen told me. “We must not be late. Are you afraid?”

Do you wish to go back now?
was her second, implied question.

“I am terrified,” I told her. “Let us go.”

We hurried as quickly as the deepening snow allowed, but nearly half an hour longer passed before we found the address in Breandan’s papers. The building was an older brick and timber structure, tall and narrow, that dated from the mid sixteenth century, with a chimney that spiraled up from the slate rooftop. This had once been a prosperous neighborhood three hundred years ago. Since then the nobles had sold their homes to wealthier merchants, whose descendants had rented to the rising working class. Now? Between the late hour and the darkness, I could not tell.

A narrow porch gave us some protection from the snow and wind. The door itself was a massive thing, fashioned from heavy iron that was giving way to the inevitable rust. Gwen pointed to a metal grate set into the left-hand side of the door. She wiped away the snow and uncovered a series of plaques with names, and a button next to each.

Ó Corráin, Breandan,
read one.

Gwen stopped me before I could press the button.

“Remember what I told you,” she said. “There are no guarantees in what we do. I know. I tried more than once to alter the past. You might find that you cannot undo the future.”

“I know I might fail,” I said quietly. “But I must try. I
must
.”

She nodded and stood aside. I stabbed the button—a harsh buzzer reverberated, making us both jump with sudden panic. I glanced over my shoulder, certain we would be discovered. Gwen counting under her breath to a hundred, then rang the bell six times quickly.

“Who is there?”

A tinny voice emanated from the metal grill.

I recognized him at once. “Breandan. Breandan Ó Cuilinn.”

There was a pause. “You’ve misread the sign. My name is Breandan Ó Corráin.”

Even with the distortion I could hear the alarm in his voice. Hurriedly, I said, “I have not misread the sign, Doctor Ó Cuilinn. I came to say I received your message. I have some questions…”

“I sent no message.” But now the voice was uncertain.

“You did,” I said. “Or you will try to. Please, listen. Just a moment.” And then, because memory itself flooded me, I could not keep the anguish from my voice. “You told me you would prove your device. Your golden octopus. Do you remember that day, Breandan? You set your own journal into the octopus and launched it into the future. And then, and then … you followed.”

By now I was weeping, my tears frozen into specks of ice. I rubbed my knuckles over my eyes and glared at the silent metal grating, as if by glaring alone, I could force it to produce Breandan Ó Cuilinn. Next to me, Gwen shifted from foot to foot. In a moment she would flee, I could tell it. My own flesh felt unnaturally heavy from the cold.

“Áine. Wait.”

A dozen, two dozen heartbeats, echoed in my ears. Then the door opened.

It was him—the face I had seen in my bedchambers not three hours before, but alive, his cheeks flushed with emotion and his gazed fixed on me, as if he thought I might vanish from before his eyes.

Then he saw Gwen and flinched back. “Who are you?”

“A friend,” she said quickly. “A fellow traveler of the time roads. You exchanged letters with me one summer, Doctor Ó Cuilinn. My name is Gwen Madóc.”

Another jolt of amazement and recognition. Then he glanced up and down the street. “We cannot talk here,” he said. “Come inside.”

He led us up a flight of stairs to a landing with three doors. The air here was chill, and the plaster walls chipped and discolored. Wood smoke and urine and the scent of stale cabbage made for a noxious combination of scents. Breandan unlocked the door to the left and ushered us inside.

We came into an entryway, which was little more than a cupboard, hung with several coats that smelled of mud and smoke. There were no lamps here, and the only light spilled through a half-open door ahead. A man’s boots had been flung into one corner. A faint electric scent, which called up memories from years ago, drifted from the rooms beyond.

Gwen passed me and went into the main apartment. I followed with Breandan.

More memories, but transplanted into this cramped and shabby setting. What had once been the parlor or sitting room was given over entirely to an enormous worktable covered with trays of wire, screws, batteries, and strange glass tubes. Various tools were scattered about, and in one corner stood a metal cage that reminded me of Gwen Madóc’s own metal monster, but on a much smaller scale. An electric lamp hung over the table. The windows themselves were papered over thickly.

Breandan came into the room, still with that frightened wondering expression. “Áine. You … how did you find me?”

I touched his cheek. “Because you found me first. Let me explain.” I needed a few moments to do so, however. I rubbed my cold-numbed hands together and paced around the room, finding it easier to speak when I did not look at Breandan directly. “For me, the year is 1914. You came to me at midnight, on March twenty-ninth.”

“Yes, to warn you. There is a plot against Éire. Lord Ó Tíghearnaigh—”

“Ó Tíghearnaigh?”

“It started with another man. I can’t remember his name. There were bribes, monies offered in exchange for more favorable trade agreements with the Prussian Alliance. Lord Ó Tíghearnaigh entered the scheme later, on the promise that he—”

“Enough,” Gwen said sharply. “We must return to Cill Cannig, Your Majesty.”

From outside, I heard the quarter bells ringing. Once, twice. We had half an hour, or less, before the time roads closed to us. “One moment,” I said to Gwen. “Breandan. You must not return to the past. If you do, you will die. You already have.”