The Time Roads

And from my closest friend, “Remember what you wish others to remember of you.”

“Is that how you make decisions?” I asked Aidrean Ó Deághaidh.

He never answered me; I never pressed him.

By summer of the following year, I had several answers, none of which satisfied me.

“Tell me again,” I said to Breandan Ó Cuilinn, “what you have accomplished.”

We stared at one another a few moments. He disliked being questioned—I could see that at once—but then, I disliked excuses and obfuscations.

At last he bowed his head.

“We have made progress, Your Majesty.”

“How much?”

“A great deal.”

“Show me.”

Now his anger was unmistakable. “Why? Because you want a good return on your investment?”

I met his glare with one of my own. “Why not? Or are you so gifted by God and Mhuire and Gaia that I dare not to question you?”

At that he gave a snorting laugh. “I should have known.” Then, before my anger could flare hotter, he added, “Your Majesty, I have been a thankless, arrogant creature. My apologies. Let me show you what you have bought with your generosity.”

He led me from the interview chamber through a series of ever-narrower corridors into an unused wing of the palace. Nearly unused, I thought, taking in the many recent renovations. Surely my secretary had cleared all these beforehand. Or no. I remembered saying once, Do whatever it takes.

We came into a vast, brightly lit laboratory, lined with shelves and cabinets. Several assistants sat at workbenches. At our entrance, they glanced up and made as if to stand, but I signaled them to remain at their work. Ó Cuilinn trailed me as I advanced into the room. Bins of supplies, all of them neatly labeled, took up most of the shelves, but others held books and folders, half-finished replicas of that original machine, and several strange devices I could not identify. More shelves and more cabinets crowded the far end; in front of them stood a long, broad worktable, with neatly arranged stacks of journal books and tools set out in ordered rows.

All of these paled before the machine that Ó Cuilinn wheeled out before me.

The octopus, I thought.

But this octopus overshadowed everything else.

It was three times the size of a man, golden and polished and wrapped all around with gleaming glass tubes. A vast crate of batteries, or who knew what, crouched under the workbench, and there were other, larger cubes sheathed in lead off to one side, connected with an umbilical cord of wires. The air in the room felt close and stale and charged with electricity.

Ó Cuilinn crouched down, tugged open a drawer.

“I meant to show you this earlier, but…”

Without finishing his explanation, he extracted a small object from the drawer. It was a balloon and its basket, worked in the finest gold and silver. An artist’s rendering, a craftsman’s masterpiece. As if inspired, Ó Cuilinn picked up one of the journal books from his worktable. He pressed a button, and the octopus’s mouth stretched wide. He placed both objects inside, pressed the same button again, and took a hasty step backward.

The octopus closed its mouth.

“Wait,” he said, before I could speak.

The air went taut. A note rang through the laboratory, as though someone had plucked a gigantic string. My pulse thrummed inside me, and I felt an answering vibration from Breandan’s hand pressed against mine.

“What is that?” I whispered.

“I sent them forward in time,” he answered, just as softly.

“To when? To where?”

“Here. And twelve months from now.”