The Time Roads (25 page)

They exited the boarding house and once more plunged into the streets. The clocks were striking three, and the streetlamps were all extinguished. “We must go to the south end of the city,” Valerija said. “Where the highway from Budva enters Cetinje. The prince intended to ride a fleet of balloons to the coast, then take motorcars north.”

She took Ó Deághaidh’s arm and led him, supported him, as they headed directly south along the city’s main boulevard. There was no hesitation in her step, no fear at all at the danger they chased. She was like the heroines of legend, Ó Deághaidh thought, who faced the Roman invaders. But now he was hallucinating. Or simply wishing for a different past and future. Perhaps later … He hoped there would be a later. But first they had to find and stop Radakovic.

The city’s edge came upon them before he realized it. A breeze grazed his cheek, carrying the scent of mud and ripe hay and wildflowers. He stumbled to a halt. They stood at an intersection of the highway with several smaller lanes leading to either side. His ears attuned themselves to subtleties—Valerija’s quiet breathing, the silvery rill of the nearby river, his own pulse thrumming in his ears.

“We’ve lost him,” Valerija said bitterly. “Come over here, Aidrean. Rest a moment. We must think what to do next.”

She led him into a side lane, to a bench underneath sweet-scented linden trees. There was something strange about her manner, but he was too tired to decipher it. No sooner did she sit beside him, than she was on her feet again. “You must be thirsty. I’ll fetch you water from the fountain.” Then to his astonishment, she bent and pressed a warm kiss on his lips.

The imaginary ice beneath his feet broke and divided.

“Valerija.”

So much he wanted to say. Dared not say.

She kissed him a second time, her expression strangely pensive. “Wait here,” she whispered. “I’ll come right back.”

Before he could protest, she ran toward the main road and rounded the corner. Ó Deághaidh waited, but she did not return, and it came back to him that he had seen no fountain close by. He checked his coat pocket and cursed. She must have taken the pistol when she kissed him. She meant to track down Radakovic herself. Still cursing, he staggered to his feet. “Valerija.”

No answer.

Ó Deághaidh lumbered forward, swearing under his breath. As he rounded the corner, he sighted Valerija running down the road. Farther ahead, a second figure limped along the road to Budva—a tall lanky man, hatless and dressed in a flapping coat. He carried a large unwieldy box under one arm. Radakovic. It had to be.

The man’s head jerked up and he spun around to face Valerija. The box tumbled to one side as he groped for something inside his coat.

A gun,
Ó Deághaidh thought.
Of course he has a gun.

Valerija paused and stared at the weapon aimed at her. “Ilja,” she called out. “We know what you mean to do. We’ve told the police. You must not do it, Ilja. You will make a war, not end it. Don’t you understand? If you—”

A sharp crack reverberated through the air. Valerija dropped to the ground and rolled to one side. With a swift sure motion, she brought her own gun to bear and fired. The distant figure staggered but did not fall. He swung his gun up just as Valerija regained her feet. Another sharp report rang out, and Valerija bent over double.

No—

The world spun and the ground tilted beneath his feet. Ó Deághaidh fought away the dizziness and stumbled to Valerija’s side. His heart was leaping as he gathered her hands into his. Blood soaked the right side her skirt. Her face seemed entirely too pale. “Valerija—”

He touched her throat. Her eyes blinked open and she gasped. “Aidrean. Ah, how it burns. One stupid bullet. Not even that. Grazed me is all. But I hit him, too. Take the gun. Go—”

She fumbled her pistol into his hands and murmured something incomprehensible. Ó Deághaidh forced himself to standing, in spite of the yammering inside his skull that said she had lied, that she was dying.
Go,
he thought he heard her say again. Then he was running down the highway.

Radakovic had vanished, but Ó Deághaidh found his trail fast enough. Less than a quarter mile down the road, bloody footprints led off to the right, into a field pocketed with holes and rocky ridges. He dodged a shot, rolled behind a boulder. Now he could hear Radakovic’s uneven breathing. Definitely hurt, but still dangerous.

A flicker of motion warned him. He spun around and fired. Radakovic staggered backward and collapsed. Ó Deághaidh crept forward cautiously. Radakovic was clutching his shoulder and babbling curses. Next to him, covered with mud and grass, was the box. It was large, iron or steel, bound with copper straps. Ó Deághaidh recognized it at once as the one from Stefan Kos’s drawings. Radakovic was laughing and crying and choking. “Done it. Done and done and done—”

Ó Deághaidh cuffed him with the butt of his gun and turned to the box. Its lid was open, showing circuit boards and metallic containers with fluid contents that were far heavier than he thought possible.

He swore as he snatched up the device. He could sense the electricity coursing through the wires, ungrounded, burning his palms. He had to break the circuit, but how? Off to his right he glimpsed the Cetinje River through the tall grass. He had no idea if it would stop the device from working.…

He hurled the box as hard as he could. It hit the water with a noisy splash and sank at once. Ó Deághaidh fell to his knees and stared at the river, his gaze fixed on the ripples marking where the box had struck. Had he destroyed the machine?
Please, oh please,
he prayed, as he had not since he was a child.
Please dear God and Mhuire and Gaia, let me be in time.

A dull roar erupted from beneath the surface of the river. Ó Deághaidh lurched to his feet. The waters of the Cetinje were churning about, sending up gouts of spray. Then, rising up from the depths, a bubble of air broke free. With dismay, he saw it was expanding as fast as it rose. All the fields and trees beyond took on a strange distorted appearance, as though he were viewing them through a magnifying glass. He spun around and …

… the ground vanished beneath his feet. He was plummeting through a choking darkness, arms flailing but there was nothing to catch hold of, though he could still feel the cold texture of the stable’s latch pressed into his skin. He screamed, screamed until his throat closed in pain …

“Aidrean.”

Warm hands enclosed his. He turned his head and caught the scent of sandalwood. The ordinary world dropped away and he had the sensation of drowning in a dark, still pool of water. He tried to speak, but found his mouth would not obey his commands.

“Aidrean, can you hear me?”

… the images faded and so with it the panic. He stood in a pitch-black void, made darker still by the sparks cascading all around. Soft scraps pattered over his face. It was a rainfall of paper, yellowed fragments burnt around the edges, fine parchment and cheap newssheets with writing in the margin. As he walked through it, he recognized the handwriting as his, and realized these were from all the diaries he had written and destroyed. He was walking through the memories of all his different pasts. Even as he realized this, he felt a pang deep within, as his selves joined into one. Ah, but which one? Which future lay ahead?

*   *   *

“Commander Ó Deághaidh…”

He awoke in a room draped in white and green linens. The air smelled sharply of antiseptic, recalling another awakening, in a different hospital. A lassitude enveloped his body. His brain felt thick and unresponsive. With an effort, he turned his head and saw two figures hovering over him. One was like a shadow, thin and sharp and dressed in black. The other stood farther off—he could make out nothing but an impression of dark brown eyes and hair. The two conferred in low voices, then a door opened and shut. The scent of sandalwood lingered.

He struggled to sit up. A hand settled on his shoulder and pressed him back. “Lie still, Commander.”

Ó Deághaidh’s vision cleared and he recognized Lord Ó Cadhla. But a cold dread washed over him as he took in Lord Ó Cadhla’s pale face, the marks of tension and great weariness—so exactly like that other interview, in that other time, when Ó Cadhla’s daughter had died. Ó Deághaidh felt a tremor of the old vertigo, wondering which present and past he had tumbled into.

“What happened?” he whispered. “Where am I?”

“In a hospital. In Cetinje.”

“In Cetinje. Then that means…”

His voice trailed away, and he tried to decide what that meant.

“They found you outside the city,” Lord Ó Cadhla said. “You’ve been unconscious for three weeks.” To Ó Deághaidh’s questioning frown, he added, “The official report is that the country hereabouts suffered an earthquake. Their river has vanished underground, and a dozen or so buildings collapsed. Sixty people died, several hundred injured. But far, far fewer than if that madman had succeeded. The queen congratulates you on your success.”

Ó Deághaidh closed his eyes and let his breath trickle out. Death and disaster were hardly a success. But he understood. There would have been a war otherwise, with millions dead and a continent left in ashes. “What about Lord De Paor?” he whispered.

“Arrested and awaiting trial. Madame Delchev gave me the evidence you uncovered.”

“She was here, then.”

“Every day, watching over you, or so they tell me. The doctors said you were babbling numbers and names constantly. They thought the explosion had deranged your mind, but Madame Delchev knew better. It was she who deciphered your gibberish and sent a telegram to the queen.”

Ó Cadhla went on to tell Ó Deághaidh about a monstrous scandal exposed, involving Montenegrin collaborators and Austrian agents. The prince retained his throne, apparently, but there would be an interim council to oversee the drafting of a new constitution.

“Our queen has issued a statement of support,” Ó Cadhla said. “As did Frankonia and Alba. We have all sent representatives to oversee the new elections and the transition of government.” He smiled. “Though I must add I and the others are here only temporarily. Your Madame Delchev was quite firm in expressing her convictions. She and her colleagues are grateful for Éire’s assistance, but they insisted on formal treaties that our presence will not be permanent. The queen agreed. I’m not certain she had much choice. It was an interesting experience, negotiating between two very strong women.”

It was all too much to absorb in a few moments. Valerija. Alive and well. And overseeing the founding of a new government, just as she wished.

“As for you,” Ó Cadhla said. “Madame Delchev proved both intelligent and discreet, and in the subsequent chaos, no one has thought to question your identity. For all they know, you are a migrant laborer, who had the misfortune to be on the highway when the explosion, or rather, the earthquake, took place. The queen suggests, and I agree, that you should return to Éire as soon as you are fully recovered.”

“Of course.”

A great weariness came over him. He would return home, his honor and reputation recovered. But he found himself strangely indifferent to his success. He probed the reasons behind that indifference, but flinched away, unwilling to explore it farther. Perhaps later, when his strength had returned. He was tired. That was all.

A warm hand pressed upon his. Lord Ó Cadhla’s. “Commander Ó Deághaidh … We shall talk later, when you are well. But please accept my thanks for preserving this future out of so many others.”

Ó Deághaidh glanced up. Ó Cadhla gave a tiny nod.

*   *   *

Within the week, Ó Cadhla arranged for his transfer to the local embassy, accomplished late at night under the cover of a moonless sky. The embassy chief explained that he would return to Éire as soon as his health allowed so that he might give his evidence to the queen and her ministers.

Ó Deághaidh nodded, but something in his newly subdued manner must have worried the embassy officer who reported to Ó Cadhla, because they did not hurry him on his way. He rested another week in seclusion before he set off for Éire in easy stages—by motorcar to Budva, by ship to the little-used port of Youghal, then by train to Osraighe, where a private coach carried him to Cill Cannig. There were watchers and guards for every stage, some invisible but many more making their presence known, which told Ó Deághaidh that matters were not yet settled to the queen’s satisfaction.

The queen. He had no grasp of his emotions when he thought of her. He dreamed of her from time to time, but no longer as a man dreams of a woman. Instead the images were ones of state and rank, the symbolism thick enough, if he cared to examine them.

Coming home to Éire helped somewhat. He met for hours with the queen and her ministers, delivering his formal report of what transpired in Montenegro, and answering their many questions. At night, he slept with the aid of wine and a great weariness he could not shed.

A lull followed, which he did not mistake for tranquility. Then came the trials.

His own part ended the first day with his testimony, but Ó Deághaidh watched throughout the following weeks as the court conducted its meticulous examination of witnesses and evidence. This would be no private interrogation, followed by an execution or assassination in secret. Áine had apparently decided to give a clear signal to her enemies that she would punish any rebellion swiftly and without mercy.

Oh my Queen. I see the why behind what you do. But do you see the cost to yourself? To Éire in the future?

His memories of the trials themselves were fragmentary. Lord De Paor rambling on in the witness box, offering excuses and justifications. The queen’s face as still as sculpted ice. The lord advocate passing sentence. Further sessions with the queen and her ministers to discuss the public’s mood after De Paor’s execution, and the sentencing of certain members of his staff, as more details of his activities came to light.

There would be no war, not for this generation. Or so the ministers proclaimed.

I should rejoice,
Ó Deághaidh thought.
I will, later, when I recover my sense of what I have achieved, and what I have lost.