The Time Roads (35 page)

“But Áine, I must tell you more.”

I shook my head. “I have Ó Tíghearnaigh’s name. I will find out his accomplice. But you—you must not attempt to come back in time. Promise me, Breandan.”

He seized me in an embrace. “I love you,” he whispered in my ear. “I will always love you. Go, my love. Go, before you too are caught in the web of time.”

He pressed his lips against mine in one last, long passionate kiss. Then, with a laugh, he caught up a book from the worktable and pressed it into my hands. “My last message, my love. Farewell.”

*   *   *

I remembered only fragments of our journey back to the Éire of 1914. We hurried through the lanes to Cill Cannig’s ruins. There, in that same courtyard where we had emerged, the air had already taken on an iridescent quality. Then a man’s voice called out from the shadows. Gwen tightened her grip on my wrist and hurled us into the maelstrom.

Again the blackness. Again the stars blurred and jumped. Again the thousand and more paths radiating outward from each step. A numbness overtook me, until I knew nothing except Gwen’s cold hand clasping mine, and the book Breandan had thrust at me in those last moments, which I held against my chest.

The stars spun around, and down toward the horizon, to a speck of gold, which seemed much smaller than the golden disc of the future. Gwen was reciting her numbers again, but with longer pauses in between. The numbers were growing smaller—from six digits, to five. I recognized a prime number from the mathematical studies of my childhood. The light marking our destination wavered, but Gwen did not deviate from the road, nor did she stop her recitation of ever smaller and smaller numbers.

… Forty-one. Thirty-seven. Thirty-one. Twenty-nine. Nineteen. Seventeen. Thirteen. Seven. Three …

Zero.

*   *   *

We tumbled into the time machine, skidding over the smooth floor until we crashed against the far wall. Bruised and dizzied, I lay gasping for breath. My skin prickled in the unexpected warmth. My heart thudded against my ribs. My thoughts tumbled even faster than my body had.

Gwen had loosed her grip on my hand. Dimly I heard her stumble to her feet. I rolled over onto my hands and knees. A stitch caught beneath my ribs and I bit back a groan. Already the images from Éire’s future had blurred in my memory. It would be all too simple to believe them a fantasy. And what, after all, had we accomplished?

My companion was now hunched over her keyboard, tapping out a new command sequence. Her gaze skipped from me to a point beyond. I followed the direction of her glance and saw a book lying a few feet away, surrounded by a spattering of melting snow.
Breandan’s gift.
I snatched it up.

The cover was plain black cardboard, worn around the edges with handling, and with a crack running diagonally across the title—
A History of the Modern World, Volume III
—printed in thick square letters.

The author’s name was printed along the bottom edge of the cover. I could just make out the title of professor and a few letters of the surname. My hands still shaking, I opened the book and leafed through several blank pages until I came to one with the title repeated, then in smaller print,
Herr Professor Edward James White, Professor of Anglian Histories, Second Edition, Copyright 1939.

My breath deserted me in that moment. This, this was more than a last message. This was a roadmap to the future.

I closed my eyes. No. This was a record of one future. Remember all those other roads, leading to other futures, I told myself. They might all be true, a set of parallels, or they might each represent potential futures, with only one remaining in the end. It didn’t matter which. It only meant that changing one moment now did not necessarily create the future I desired.

Gwen had finished with her manipulation of the equipment. Now she eyed me with a strange intent expression. “Think carefully what you do.”

I nodded. “I will. I promise.”

Her brother had vanished from the outer laboratory. Gwen sat down at the nearest worktable and switched on one of the electric lamps. She had already dismissed my presence from her thoughts and was writing in a journal. I tucked Breandan’s book underneath my arm and continued on to the outer doors, where my guard waited. We stared at each other, and I was conscious of my wind-blown hair and the mud stains on my coat. Then his gaze went blank and proper. Oh, there would be rumors, I knew. But not yet. Not until I had a chance to act.

Once I gained my apartments, I dismissed my escort and passed alone through the darkened rooms to my bedchamber door. I slipped the key from my pocket and let myself inside.

A turn of the switch flooded the room with cold light. I saw my rumpled bedclothes. Saw a shadow on the carpet, like that of a blanket hurriedly cast over a figure. Even as I fixed my gaze upon it, the image faded.

My breath trickled out. I drew another, and another.

He lives. Yes, he lives. Now I must see to the rest.

*   *   *

I spent the rest of the night reading and taking notes. By sunrise, I had the shape of a plan. Oh, but I would need all the caution and cleverness I possessed. Each decision I made would undo snippets of the future, but once undone, they might cause other and greater difficulties. More than once, I wished for my own machine to calculate the probabilities for each decision and its outcome. More than once, I wished for Aidrean Ó Deághaidh’s counsel.

My first interview took place at seven o’clock, with Commander Ábraham of the Queen’s Constabulary.

“I have received vital information,” I told him, “concerning certain radical factions in Éire and across the Continent. Here are the names of their leaders, and where you might find them.”

I handed him a sheet of paper with the names of Daniel Strong and his associates, the specifics gleaned from White’s chapters on Éire’s civil war. I included the method they had used to communicate their plans—a code based on the metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century—as well as the observation that Michael Okoye himself was not a part of their conspiracy.

Ábraham stared at the sheet. His lips moved, and I thought I saw recognition on his face, as though these names were not unknown to him. “What do you wish me to do, Your Majesty?”

“Detain our own citizens on suspicion of treason,” I said. “While you have them in custody, take measures to contain the devices they have planted in Osraighe and other cities throughout Éire. Here is the list of suspected sites. The devices are not visible yet, but you understand the means they’ve used. Secure them as you would any ordinary bomb. Lord Ó Cadhla will have responsibility for the ones outside our borders. You understand?”

“Oh, yes, Your Majesty,” he breathed. “I understand. Where—”

“From a number of sources,” I replied. “They wish to remain anonymous.”

Not that I thought he would believe me if I told him the truth—that my source was a book written in the future, which foretold my assassination this summer, and which told how, if we did not act, our cities would be turned to dust and Europe would be overrun by hordes of soldiers from the Prussian Alliance. Perhaps something of my own horror showed on my face, because Commander Ábraham did not question me further. “I will do as you command, Your Majesty.”

Lord Ó Cadhla arrived when the clocks were striking half past nine. “I’ve heard a number of interesting rumors, Your Majesty.”

“No doubt you have, my lord. The truth is even more unsettling.”

He glanced around the audience chamber. I had locked away Breandan’s history book in my private safe box long before I emerged from my bedchamber, but I knew at least one guard had noted its presence the night before.

“We have traitors in our Congress,” I said. “Traitors across Europe. If we do nothing, Prussia will lay claim to the Continent, and from there, all of Africa and western Asia. Here is the report I have received from my spies.”

I gave him a duplicate of the sheet I had given Commander Ábraham. To that, I added a second sheet with details about further attacks planned in Frankonia, Austria, Catalonia, and Serbia. To these, I had added their probable dates, all of them within the next five days.

His reaction was less pronounced, but nevertheless I could tell the surprise and shock went deep.

“There is more,” I told him. “We must prevent an outbreak of war with the Nri Republic. They have a great deal of influence in Africa and Western Europe. I have word that radicals would like to assassinate Michael Okoye and lay the blame on us. They would do the same with the other members of the delegation. My proposal is this: we set a guard on the delegation, an obtrusive one. We also keep Mister Okoye in our prison another day or two. By then, we shall have taken the assassins into custody. I have further plans at work to make even this temporary delay more palatable.”

Lord Ó Cadhla offered me a grim smile. “You do? And would you share these plans with me?”

“No. I am sorry, my friend, but I cannot. But I should be happy to explain my reasons afterward.”

A lie, and he knew it. I could not tell him everything that had taken place this past night without betraying Gwen Madóc and her time machine. Nor the book that laid out all the dangers, including Lord Ó Cadhla’s execution by radicals when he protested the military law advanced by Lord Ó Tíghearnaigh and his generals.

Two obstacles dealt with. The most difficult yet to come.

I had arranged for this meeting to take place at two o’clock, in an audience chamber situated in a remote wing of Cill Cannig. A little-used corridor led from here to the prison, but few knew about the connection. If this interview went badly—and I had no way to predict its outcome—I should want it.

Lord Ó Tíghearnaigh was the first to arrive. My steward was in attendance and offered us both a selection of wines and stronger spirits. Ó Tíghearnaigh accepted a glass of wine and had just taken his seat when my steward announced Lord Ó Rothláin’s arrival.

“My lords,” I said to them. “Please sit. I have a few questions for you.”

My questions were more like statements. I wanted to know when they had first conspired to secret meetings with the Prussian agents, and when those meetings had turned from simple bribery to treason itself.

“Impossible,” Lord Ó Tíghearnaigh breathed.

Lord Ó Rothláin regarded me with a cold stare. “You have no right to accuse us without evidence.”

“But I have evidence, which Commander Ábraham’s people have extracted from your private quarters. He acted with Lord Ó Duinn’s permission, and mine. If you wish the Congress to hear your complaints, I am happy to agree.”

I met their gazes with a smile. Lord Ó Rothláin shrugged, but Lord Ó Tíghearnaigh twitched nervously. If I were to believe the account from Breandan’s history book, Ó Tíghearnaigh had resisted Ó Rothláin’s bribes at first. It was only the last few months that he had succumbed to his own desires for a greater and grander army.

“Here is my proposal,” I told them. “I wish to include Anglia, Manx, Wight, and Cymru in my Union of Nations. Further, I wish to make provisions for their representation in our Congress.”

“You wish to grant the radicals their demands,” Ó Rothláin said.

“Perhaps. Perhaps they have the right of it. What about you, my lord? Did you make these ghastly devices available to the Anglian radicals because you believe in their cause? Or because you think to win favors with the Prussians?”

“It’s a lie,” Ó Tíghearnaigh burst out. “I never meant—”

“Shut up, you fool.”

If I had not already known which one had suborned the other, I would have now.

“I have the evidence to execute you both,” I said. “Or I could call a trial for you and all your family and associates. Or … I might offer you clemency. Support my proposal for the Dependencies, and I promise not to prosecute you.”

*   *   *

We argued for the remainder of that day and into the night. In the end, in the face of evidence, Lord Ó Rothláin agreed to persuade his faction to vote in favor of my plans. Lord Ó Tíghearnaigh proved less tractable, but in the end, he consented not to oppose me. On Tuesday morning, at ten o’clock, the Congress of Éire met to consider the matter of our Dependencies. Once, only once, that morning I dared to open my history book. The ink had blurred and the text shifted from one prophecy to another.

*   *   *

As the members of my Council and my Congress filed out of the chamber, I leaned back and closed my eyes. Victory. I hardly dared to admit the word, even in the silence of my thoughts. A temporary victory, I amended. Once the terror of these past few attacks had faded, these same congressmen would attempt to nibble away at my provisions for Anglia and its sister districts.

Gradually their footsteps receded and I was left in the silence of an empty room. I opened my eyes to the uncertain sunlight of a late March afternoon. Shadows flickered over the windows, as clouds drifted past the face of the sun, and there was a hint of rain in the air. I smiled. When was there ever not?

I stood—with amazing ease. I had expected to be utterly drained. So much accomplished in this morning, and yet so much more remained to be done. I was not fool enough to think we were finished with the future. It came to us step by step, fed by our desires and our ignorance. Even with Breándan’s gift, I could not control all the possible paths.

Coilín waited for me outside the chamber. “Your Majesty. Commander Ábraham reports the Garda has arrested Strong and his associates, and they shall have all the devices from Osraighe secured before nightfall. He has notified the other nations as well, so that they can take measures.”

“And our friends in Anglia and Wight and the rest of the Districts?”

“Watched and guarded, Your Majesty. There shall be no more accidents. Lord Ó Duinn himself has promised it.”

I resisted the urge to retreat to my private apartments to consult my history book. I had two more necessary tasks to accomplish, before I could grant myself the solitude and sleep I craved.

To Coilín, I said, “I shall require an official copy of the proclamation, concerning my Union, as well as unofficial copies of the proposed amendments with regard to the Dependencies. Send for a motorcar, and have the copies ready when I return.”