The Time Roads

“You have made more progress than I expected,” I said softly.

The room measured the width of my outstretched arms, and was twice as tall. Thin glass tubes, encased in metal webbing, crisscrossed the walls to either side and the ceiling overhead, and thick wires nested in between, leading down to a row of electrical plugs, obviously of a custom design. The wall opposite the door was covered in a strange black metal, which glea

med softly in the shadows, and off to the left, I noticed how the tubes angled around a small square of panels and dials.

“We began work on a similar device several years ago,” Gwen said. “When you asked for our assistance, we transported the existing machine here, and used the latest measurements to refine our model. Excuse me, please.”

She brushed her hand over the dials. I heard a faint hiss, as if a monster had drawn a breath. Light poured out of a flat disc overhead. The door slid shut and I heard the click of bolts. A silvery gleam traveled along the length of the glass tubes around us, like liquid starlight, and the cables and outlets gave off a strong odor of chemicals.

“You have used this machine yourself?”

Gwen must have caught the hint of panic in my voice, because a fleeting smile crossed her face. “I have,” she said. “But until recently, only to visit the past. It’s been just a week since we made any successful journeys into the future.”

She twisted a knob. A rectangular panel clicked open from the wall. Gwen tilted the panel downward to reveal a tray that resembled a typewriter, with several extra rows of keys marked with mathematical symbols. She tapped the keys. Several other panels slid open. One narrow slot disgorged a slip of paper, which fell into a bucket at Gwen’s side. She glanced down, tapped a few more keys, and consulted the next slip.

“We shall not have long,” she said. “The time fractures have different properties for those traveling ahead. The disturbances are less extreme, but they are nevertheless present. My brother and I have not yet worked out all the permutations.”

She tapped a long and complicated sequence, using more of the symbol keys than before. Then, unexpectedly, she slid the tray back into its slot.

“Now,” she said. “Quickly.”

She took me by the hand and led me through an opening that had abruptly appeared opposite the door. I was too surprised to resist. It was impossible, this corridor stretching onward and into shadows and then into an infinity beyond. There was no space for it to exist behind the machine, or anywhere in Cill Cannig. But I had asked for the impossible.

A dozen steps and darkness closed around us. I glanced back and saw only a blurred square of light. Gwen whispered urgently that we could not hesitate. Her words were hard to make out but her intent was clear enough. We hurried on into a thick mist. Within moments I no longer sensed the walls of a corridor around us. My boots trod soundlessly on a smooth road that arrowed straight ahead. My breath came short, but I heard nothing beyond the thrumming of my pulse, and even that had an odd unnatural quality to it. When Gwen spoke again, her lips moved soundlessly. She shook her head and frowned. For the first time, she seemed anxious.

The darkness eased.

Pinpricks of light appeared overhead. If I stared directly at them, they shifted. Jumped. Their halos blurred. I dropped my gaze back to the road. It tilted oddly beneath me and my stomach lurched. I blinked. Saw the road divide into a dozen, a hundred, a myriad of separate paths spinning off in all directions, to other pasts and other futures. I must have made a sound, because Gwen gripped my hand tightly. She spoke, but the words ran together and swirled around like the waters of two rivers when they meet.

Sound stopped. Started.

We were running. No, walking but the mists streamed past us, making our passage seem much swifter. The stars overhead had become streaks that spiraled down to the horizon, to the point where the road vanished from sight. Gwen was murmuring to herself. I heard her clearly now. She recited a stream of numbers.

“353665707. Times two. 25814. Minus 1. 353665707*225814+1. 1958349*231415–1. 1958349*231415+1. Yes. There. There it is. The future, Your Majesty.”

My attention snapped back to the road. The stars had stilled. An indigo band marked the division between ground and sky. And there, where Gwen pointed, a bright liquid flare of true sunlight. We ran. We ran without hesitation toward the sun-bright disc. I believe I was laughing, though partly in terror. And when Gwen herself loosed my hand and leapt into its heart, I followed.

* * *

For many long moments, I was aware of nothing more than an overpowering giddiness. I crouched with hands splayed against icy cobblestones, spewing water and tisane. My stomach knotted into a fist-sized lump and heaved itself against my ribs, though I had nothing left to give. Snow was falling in steady streamers, and a bone-deep cold penetrated my clothes.

Gwen Madóc pressed a hand against my shoulder. “Your Majesty. My friend. We must hurry. We have an hour, if that, before the time fractures undo our passage back.”

She helped me to my feet. I staggered, then clutched at her arms. My head was swimming and I wanted nothing more than a shot glass of whiskey. “Where are we?” I croaked.

“Cill Canning,” she replied softly. “But the when is more important. I told the truth that we could not send ourselves to one particular moment, past or future. The most I know is that this is the winter of 1943. January or possibly February.”

I wiped the snow from my eyes and stared at our surroundings.

We had not traveled more than a dozen yards, if that, from where Gwen and Síomón Madóc’s machine had stood. Everything else, however, had been transformed beyond knowing. Cill Cannig had vanished. In its place was a ruin of walls. A few hundred yards away stood a large stone building with electric lamps burning in two or three of the ground-floor windows. By their faint light, I could see the ground between was taken up with rubble and trash, now vanishing under the snow, and a strange sour scent filled the air—not poison, not exactly, but the smell made me think of slaughterhouses and those laboratories dedicated to breaking down flesh and analyzing its properties.

“We must hurry,” Gwen said. “We cannot have anyone find us here.”

She dragged me down a lane filled with more rubble, more trash. We exited the palace grounds, leaving behind even the electric lights, and plunging into a maze of lanes bounded by tall wooden buildings. The fields and farmland I remembered were gone, replaced by ugly warehouses.

The snow was falling faster now. I had to tuck my hands under my arms and bend my head to watch my footing. Moonlight broke through the clouds from time to time, but our progress was slow. More than once, we dodged into alleyways or courtyards to avoid the patrols that kept watch. I heard muttered conversations in German and Éireann. The patrols had no dogs, and I had the impression the cold discouraged them from making a thorough search. Even so, my pulse thrummed hard and fast, and I had to bite down to keep my teeth from clattering together.

We had just reached the old outer walls of Osraighe when a mechanical grinding broke the silence. Then came the booming noise of a bell directly overhead. A naoi, a deich, a haon deág … The midnight hour was striking.