Timeline (43 page)

“Take the boat,” Chris said.

They climbed in. There were oars. She held the torch and he rowed, and they moved surprisingly fast, because there was a current. They were on the underground river.

:

Kate was worried about the time. She guessed they might have only two hours left. That meant they had to get to the castle, reunite with the Professor and Marek, and get themselves into an open space so they could call the machine — all within two hours.

She was glad for the current, for the speed with which they glided deeper into the cavern. The torch in her hand hissed and crackled. Then they heard a rustling sound, like papers ruffled in the wind. The sound grew louder. They heard a squeaking, like mice.

It was coming from somewhere deeper in the cave.

She looked at Chris questioningly.

“It’s evening,” Chris said, and then she began to see them — just a few at first, and then a hazy cloud, then a torrent of bats flying out of the cave, a brown river in the air above their boat. She felt a breeze from hundreds of flapping wings.

The bats continued for several minutes, and then it was silent again, except for the crackle of the torch.

They glided onward, down the dark river.

:

Her torch sputtered, and began to go out. She quickly lit one of the others that Chris had carried from the chapel. He had brought four torches, and now they had three left. Would three more torches see them to the surface again? What would they do if the final torch went out and they still had farther — perhaps miles — to go? Would they crawl forward in darkness, feeling their way along, perhaps for days? Would they ever make it, or would they die here, in darkness?

“Stop it,” Chris said.

“Stop what?”

“Thinking about it.”

“Thinking about what?”

Chris smiled at her. “We’re doing okay. We’ll make it.”

She didn’t ask him how he knew. But she was comforted by what he said, even though it was just bluster.

They had been passing through a twisting passageway, very low, but now the cave opened out into a huge chamber, a full-blown cave, with stalactites hanging down from the roof, in some places reaching to the ground, and even into the water. Everywhere the flickering light of the torch faded into blackness. She did, however, see a footpath along one dark shore. Apparently there was a path running the entire length of the cave.

The river was narrower, and moved faster, threading its way among the stalactites. It reminded her of a Louisiana swamp, except it was all underground. Anyway, they were making good time; she began to feel more confident. At this rate, they would cover even ten miles in a few minutes. They might make the two-hour deadline after all. In fact, they might make it easily.

The accident happened so fast, she hardly realized what had occurred. Chris said, “Kate!” and she turned in time to see a stalactite just by her ear, and her head struck the stone hard, and her torch hit it as well — and the burning cloth tip shook free from the stick it was tied to, and in a kind of ghastly slow motion, she watched it fall from her torch onto the surface of the water, joining its reflection. It sputtered, hissed and went out.

They were in total blackness.

She gasped.

She had never been in such darkness before. There was absolutely no light at all. She heard the dripping of the water, felt the slight cold breeze, the hugeness of the space around her. The boat was still moving; they were banging against stalactites, seemingly at random. She heard a grunt, the boat rocked wildly, and she heard a loud splash from the stern.

“Chris?”

She fought panic.

“Chris?” she said. “Chris, what do we do now?”

Her voice echoed.

01:33:00

It was now early night, the sky deepening from blue to black, the stars appearing in greater numbers. Lord Oliver, his threats and boasts finished for the moment, had gone with de Kere into the great hall to dine. From the hall, they heard shouts and carousing; Oliver’s knights were drinking before the battle.

Marek walked with Johnston back to the arsenal. He glanced at his counter. It said 01:32:14. The Professor didn’t ask him how much time was left, and Marek didn’t volunteer. That was when he heard a whooshing sound. Men on the ramparts yelled as a huge fiery mass arced over the walls, tumbling in the air, and descended toward them in the inner courtyard.

“It’s starting,” the Professor said calmly.

Twenty yards away from them, the fire smashed onto the ground. Marek saw that it was a dead horse, the legs protruding stiffly from the flames. He smelled burning hair and flesh. The fat popped and sputtered.

“Jesus,” Marek said.

“Dead for a long time,” Johnston said, pointing to the stiff legs. “They like to fling old carcasses over the walls. We’ll see worse than that before the night is over.”

Soldiers ran with water to put the fire out. Johnston went back into the powder room. The fifty men were still there, grinding the powder. One of them was mixing a large, wide basin of resin and quicklime, producing a quantity of the brown goo.

Marek watched them work, and he heard another whoosh from outside. Something heavy thunked on the roof; all the candles in the windows shook. He heard men shouting, running onto the roof.

The Professor sighed. “They hit it on the second try,” he said. “This is just what I was afraid of.”

“What?”

“Arnaut knows there is an armory, and he knows roughly where it is — you can see it if you climb the hill. Arnaut knows this room will be full of powder. If he can hit it with an incendiary, he knows he’ll cause great damage.”

“It’ll explode,” Marek said, looking around at the stacked bags of powder. Although most medieval powder wouldn’t explode, they had already demonstrated that Oliver’s would detonate a cannon.

“Yes, it will explode,” Johnston said. “And many people inside the castle will die; there will be confusion, and a huge fire left burning in the center courtyard. That means men will have to come off the walls to fight the fire. And if you take men off the walls during a siege . . .”

“Arnaut will scale.”

“Immediately, yes.”

Marek said, “But can Arnaut really get an incendiary into this room? These stone walls must be two feet thick.”

“He won’t go through the walls. The roof.”

“But how . . .”

“He has cannon,” the Professor said. “And iron balls. He will heat his cannonballs red-hot, then fire them over the walls, hoping to hit this arsenal. A fifty-pound ball will tear right through the roof and come down inside. When that happens, we don’t want to be here.” He gave a wry smile. “Where the hell is Kate?”

01:22:12

She was lost in infinite darkness. It was a nightmare, she thought, as she crouched in the boat, feeling it drift in the current and bump from stalactite to stalactite. Despite the cool air, she had begun to sweat. Her heart was pounding. Her breathing was shallow; she felt like she couldn’t get a full breath.

She was terrified. She shifted her weight, and the boat rocked alarmingly. She put both hands out to steady it. She said, “Chris?”

She heard a splashing from far off in the darkness. Like someone swimming.

“Chris?”

From a great distance: “Yeah.”

“Where are you?”

“I fell off.”

He sounded so far away. Wherever Chris was, she was drifting farther and farther from him every minute. She was alone. She had to get light. Somehow, she had to get light. She began to crawl back toward the stern of the boat, groping with her hands, hoping her fingers would close on a wooden pole that meant one of the remaining torches. The boat rocked again.

Shit.

She paused, waiting for it to steady beneath her.

Where were the damn torches? She thought they were in the center of the boat. But she didn’t feel them anywhere. She felt the oars. She felt the planking. But she didn’t feel torches.

Had they fallen off the boat with Chris?

Get light. She had to get light.

She fumbled at her waist for her pouch, managed to get it open by feel, but then could not tell what was in there. There were pills . . . the canister . . . her fingers closed over a cube, like a sugar cube. It was one of the red cubes! She took it out and put it between her teeth.

Then she took her dagger and cut the sleeve of her tunic, tearing off a section about a foot long. She wrapped this cloth around the red cube and pulled the string.

She waited.

Nothing happened.

Maybe the cube had gotten soaked when she went in the river at the mill. The cubes were supposed to be waterproof, but she’d been in the river a long time. Or maybe this one was just defective. She ought to try another one. She had one more. She had started to reach into her pouch again, when the cloth in her hand burst into flame.

“Yow!” she cried. Her hand was burning. She hadn’t thought this through very well. But she refused to drop it; gritting her teeth, she held it high above her head, and immediately she saw the torches to her right, pushed up against the side of the boat. She grabbed one torch, held it against the burning rag, and the torch caught fire. She dropped the rag in the river and plunged her hand under the water.

Her hand really hurt. She looked at it closely; the skin was red, but otherwise did not appear too bad. She ignored the pain. She’d deal with it later.

She swung the torch. She was surrounded by pale white stalactites hanging down into the river. It was like being in the half-open mouth of some gigantic fish, moving between its teeth. The boat banged from one to another.

“Chris?”

Far away: “Yeah.”

“Can you see my light?”

“Yeah.”

She grabbed a stalactite with her hand, feeling the slippery, chalky texture. She managed to stop the boat. But she couldn’t row back to Chris, because she had to hold the torch.

“Can you get to where I am?”

“Yeah.”

She heard him splashing somewhere in the darkness behind.

:

Once he was back in the boat, soaked but smiling, she let go of the stalactite and they began moving again with the current. They spent several more minutes in the stalactite forest, and then they came out into an open chamber again. The current moved faster. From somewhere ahead, they heard a roaring sound. It sounded like a waterfall.

But then she saw something that made her heart leap. It was a large stone block by the side of the river. The block was worn around the sides from rope chafing. It had clearly been used to tie up boats.

“Chris. . . .”

“I see it.”

She saw what looked like a worn path beyond the block, but she couldn’t be sure. Chris rowed to the side, and they tied up the boat and got out. There was a definite path, leading to a tunnel with smooth, artificially cut walls. They started down the tunnel. She held the torch in front of her.

She caught her breath.

“Chris? There’s a step.”

“What?”

“A step. Cut in the rock. About fifty feet ahead.” She moved faster. They both moved faster. “In fact,” she said, raising the torch higher, “there’s more than a step. There’s a whole staircase.”

By the flickering torchlight, they saw more than a dozen steps, rising at a steep angle upward, without a railing, until they ended in a stone ceiling — a trapdoor fitted with an iron handle.

She handed Chris the torch, then scrambled up the stairs. She pulled at the ring, but nothing happened. She pushed at it, putting her shoulder into it.

She managed to raise the stone an inch.

She saw yellow light, so bright that it made her squint. She heard the roar of a nearby fire, and the laughter of men’s voices. Then she couldn’t hold the weight any longer, and the stone came back down again.

Chris was already coming up the stairs toward her. “Earpieces on,” he said, tapping his ear.

“You think?”

“We have to risk it.”

She tapped her ear, heard the crackle. She heard Chris’s breathing, amplified as he stood beside her on the narrow ledge.

She said, “I’ll go first.” She reached into her pocket, took out the marker, and gave it to him. He frowned. She said, “Just in case. We don’t know what’s on the other side.”

“Okay.” Chris set the torch down, then leaned his shoulder against the trapdoor. The stone crunched, moved upward. She scrambled through the opening, then helped him quietly swing the door all the way open and lay it on the floor.

They had made it.

They were inside La Roque.

01:13:52

Robert Doniger spun, holding the microphone in his hand. “Ask yourself,” he said to the empty, darkened auditorium. “What is the dominant mode of experience at the end of the twentieth century? How do people see things, and how do they expect to see things? The answer is simple. In every field, from business to politics to marketing to education, the dominant mode has become entertainment.”

Across from the narrow stage, three padded booths had been set up, all in a row. Each booth contained a desk and chair, a notepad, and a glass of water. Each booth was open at the front, so that a person in the booth could see only Doniger, and not the people in the other booths.

This was the way Doniger gave his presentations. It was a trick he had learned from old psychological studies of peer pressure. Each person knew there were people in the other booths, but he couldn’t see or hear them. And it put tremendous pressure on the listeners. Because they had to worry what the other people were going to do. They had to worry if the other people were going to invest.

He walked back and forth across the stage. “Today, everybody expects to be entertained, and they expect to be entertained all the time. Business meetings must be snappy, with bullet lists and animated graphics, so executives aren’t bored. Malls and stores must be engaging, so they amuse as well as sell us. Politicians must have pleasing video personalities and tell us only what we want to hear. Schools must be careful not to bore young minds that expect the speed and complexity of television. Students must be amused — everyone must be amused, or they will switch: switch brands, switch channels, switch parties, switch loyalties. This is the intellectual reality of Western society at the end of the century.

“In other centuries, human beings wanted to be saved, or improved, or freed, or educated. But in our century, they want to be entertained. The great fear is not of disease or death, but of boredom. A sense of time on our hands, a sense of nothing to do. A sense that we are not amused.

“But where will this mania for entertainment end? What will people do when they get tired of television? When they get tired of movies? We already know the answer — they go into participatory activities: sports, theme parks, amusement rides, roller coasters. Structured fun, planned thrills. And what will they do when they tire of theme parks and planned thrills? Sooner or later, the artifice becomes too noticeable. They begin to realize that an amusement park is really a kind of jail, in which you pay to be an inmate.

“This artifice will drive them to seek authenticity. Authenticity will be the buzzword of the twenty-first century. And what is authentic? Anything that is not devised and structured to make a profit. Anything that is not controlled by corporations. Anything that exists for its own sake, that assumes its own shape. But of course, nothing in the modern world is allowed to assume its own shape. The modern world is the corporate equivalent of a formal garden, where everything is planted and arranged for effect. Where nothing is untouched, where nothing is authentic.

“Where, then, will people turn for the rare and desirable experience of authenticity? They will turn to the past.

“The past is unarguably authentic. The past is a world that already existed before Disney and Murdoch and Nissan and Sony and IBM and all the other shapers of the present day. The past was here before they were. The past rose and fell without their intrusion and molding and selling. The past is real. It’s authentic. And this will make the past unbelievably attractive. That’s why I say that the future is the past. The past is the only real alternative to — Yes? Diane, what is it?” He turned as she walked into the room.

“There’s a problem in the transit room. It seems the explosion damaged the remaining water shields. Gordon’s run a computer simulation that shows three shields breaking when they’re filled with water.”

“Diane, this is a goddamn no-brainer,” Doniger said, tugging at his tie. “Are you telling me they may come back unshielded?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we can’t risk that.”

“It’s not that simple. . . .”

“Yes, it is,” Doniger said. “We can’t take the risk. I’d rather they didn’t come back at all than to have them come back seriously damaged.”

“But—”

“But what? If Gordon has this computer projection, why is he going forward?”

“He doesn’t believe the projection. He says it’s quick and dirty, and he thinks the transit will go fine.”

“We can’t risk it,” Doniger said, shaking his head. “They can’t come back without shields. Period.”

She paused, bit her lip. “Bob, I think the—”

“Hey,” he said. “We got short-term-memory loss here? You were the one who wouldn’t let Stern go back, because of the risk of transcription errors. Now you want to let the whole goddamn bunch come back unshielded? No, Diane.”

“Okay,” she said, obviously reluctant. “I’ll go and talk to—”

“No. No talk. Kill it. Pull the power plug if you have to. But don’t let those people come back. I’m right about this, and you know it.”

:

In the control room, Gordon said, “He said what?”

“They can’t come back. Absolutely not. Bob was firm.”

“But they have to come back,” David Stern said. “You have to let them.”

“No, I don’t,” Kramer said.

“But—”

“John,” Kramer said, turning to Gordon. “Has he seen Wellsey? Have you shown him Wellsey?”

“Who’s Wellsey?”

“Wellsey’s a cat,” Gordon said.

“Wellsey’s split,” Kramer said to Stern. “He was one of the first test animals that we sent back. Before we knew that you had to use water shields in a transit. And he’s very badly split.”

“Split?”

Kramer turned to Gordon. “Haven’t you told him anything?”

“Of course I told him,” Gordon said. He said to Stern, “Split means he had very severe transcription errors.” He turned back to Kramer. “But that happened years ago, Diane, back when we also had problems with the computers as well—”

“Show him,” Kramer said. “And then see if he’s still so eager to bring his friends back. But the point of the conversation is, Bob’s made his decision on this, and the answer is no. If we don’t have secure shields, nobody can come back. Under any circumstances.”

At the consoles, one of the technicians said, “We’ve got a field buck.”

:

They crowded around the monitor, looking at the undulating wave and the tiny ripples in the surface.

“How long before they come back?” Stern said.

“Judging from this signal, about an hour.”

“Can you tell how many?” Gordon said.

“Not yet, but . . . it’s more than one. Maybe four, or five.”

“That’s all of them,” Gordon said. “They must have gotten the Professor, and they’re all coming home. They’ve done what we asked them to do, and they’re coming back.”

He turned to Kramer.

“Sorry,” she said. “If there’re no shields, nobody comes back. That’s final.”

01:01:52

Crouched beside the trapdoor, Kate got slowly to her feet. She was standing in a narrow space, no more than four feet wide, with high stone walls on either side. Firelight was coming in from an opening to her left. By its yellow light, she saw a door directly ahead of her. Behind her was a set of stairs, going steeply upward to the top of the chamber, some thirty feet above.

But where was she?

Chris peered over the edge of the trapdoor, and pointed to the firelight. He whispered, “I think we know why they never found the door to this passage.”

“Why?”

“It’s behind the fireplace.”

“Behind the fireplace?” she whispered. And then she realized he was right. This narrow space was one of the secret passages of La Roque: behind the fireplace of the great hall.

Kate moved forward cautiously, past the wall to her left — and found herself staring out from the back wall of the fireplace in the great hall. The fireplace was nine feet high. Through the leaping flames, she saw Oliver’s high table, where his knights were sitting and eating, their backs to her. She could not be more than fifteen feet from them.

She whispered, “You’re right. It’s behind the fireplace.”

She looked back to Chris, then beckoned him to come forward. She was about to continue to the door directly ahead when Sir Guy glanced back at the fire as he tossed a chicken wing into the flames. He turned back to the table, resumed eating.

She thought, Get out of here.

But it was too late. Guy’s shoulders twitched; he was already turning back again. He saw her clearly, his eyes met hers, and he shouted, “My Lord!” He pushed back from the table and drew his sword.

Kate ran to the door, tugged at it, but it was locked, or stuck shut. She couldn’t open it. She turned back to the narrow stairs behind her. She saw Sir Guy standing on the other side of the flames, hesitating. He looked at her again, and plunged through the fire toward her. She saw Chris coming through the trapdoor and said, “Down!” He ducked down as she scrambled up the stairs.

Sir Guy swung at her feet, narrowly missing her, his sword clanging off the stone. He cursed her, then looked down at the opening to the passage below. Apparently he didn’t see Chris, because immediately afterward she heard him coming up the stairs behind her.

She had no weapon; she had nothing.

She ran.

:

At the top of the stairs, thirty feet above the ground, was a narrow platform, and when she reached it, she felt a thicket of cobwebs clinging to her face. She brushed them away impatiently. The platform could not have been more than two feet square. It was precarious, but she was a climber and it didn’t bother her.

But it bothered Sir Guy. He was moving very slowly up the stairs toward her, pressing his shoulder against the wall, keeping as far from the edge of the stairs as he could, clutching at tiny handholds in the mortar of the wall. He had a desperate look and he was breathing hard. So, the valiant knight was afraid of heights. But not afraid enough to stop, she saw. If anything, his discomfort seemed to make him angrier. He glared at her with murderous intent.

The platform faced a rectangular wooden door, fitted with a round view hole the size of a quarter. The stairs had clearly been built to lead to this hole, allowing an observer to look down on the great hall and see everything that occurred there. Kate pushed at the door, leaning her weight against it, but instead of opening, the entire rectangle fell through, dropping onto the floor of the great hall below, and she half-fell through after it.

She was inside the great hall.

She was up high, among the heavy wooden beams of the open ceiling. She looked down at the tables thirty feet below her. Directly ahead was the enormous central rafter, running the length of the hall. This beam was crisscrossed with horizontal rafters every five feet, which ran out to the walls on both sides. All the rafters were elaborately carved, and cross-braced at intervals.

Without hesitation, Kate stepped out onto the central beam. Everyone below was looking up; they gasped when they saw her, pointed upward. She heard Oliver cry loudly, “Saint George and damnation! The assistant! We are betrayed! The Magister!”

He pounded the table, and stood, glaring up at her.

She said, “Chris. Find the Professor.”

She heard a crackle. “—kay.”

“Did you hear me? Chris.”

Just a static crackle.

Kate moved quickly down the center rafter. Despite the height above the floor, she felt perfectly comfortable. The beam was a foot wide. Nothing to it. Hearing another gasp from the people below, she glanced back and saw Sir Guy step out on the center beam. He seemed frightened, but the presence of an audience emboldened him. Either that or he was unwilling to show fear at so public a moment. Guy took a hesitant step, found his balance, and came directly for her, moving rapidly. He swung the sword loosely in his hand. He reached the first vertical brace, took a breath, and, holding on to the upright post, maneuvered his body around it. He continued on down the center beam.