The Time Roads

“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 f

all. 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.”