The Corridors of Time

13

Word rang through the forest, the refugees returned home, and joy dwelt in Avildaro.

The feast was not less wild and merry for being a funeral of the slain as well as a triumph. The strangers whose metal weapons had driven out the Yuthoaz were welcomed into the frolic. They had no comprehensible language, but what did that matter? A roasting pig spoke to them with its savour, a man with his grin, a woman with herself.

Only the Long House was avoided. For there stayed the green gods who had delivered their people. Meat and drink were brought to the door, and every adult male vied for the honour of standing by as servant or messenger. On the second noon of celebration, one sought out Lockridge, where he watched the dancers in a meadow, and said he was summoned.

He left with thumping eagerness. Worry about Storm had prevented him from taking much part in the sport. Now he was told that She of the Moon commanded his presence.

Sunlight, smells of woodland and smoke and salt water, distant shouts and songs, vanished from his consciousness when he entered the house. Not yet had the holy fire been rekindled; a promise was given that She would perform that rite in Her good time. Luminous globes made the interior radiant, rafters and columns stood forth rugged against sooty walls, the strewn furs glowed as if alive. Seven Wardens on the daises waited for their queen. They didn’t condescend to greet Lockridge.

But all rose when Storm appeared. The rear end of the house was now blocked off, not by a material screen but by a force curtain which drank down light. She came through it. Next to such blackness she seemed to burn.

Or no . . . she shone, Lockridge thought dizzily, like that sea which was also the Goddess’. The three days and nights of her ordeal in the mind machine still marked her, high cheekbones stood sharply forth and the eyes smouldered feverish green. But she carried herself spear straight, and blue-black hair swept sheening past the tawniness of face and throat. From the gate of King Frodhi there had been brought her garb befitting her time and station. In blue translucence the robe descended to the copper belt of power; thence it broadened and rippled to the ankles, darkening toward purple, with argent emblems inwoven that were at once foam and serpents. A brooch shaped like the Labrys upheld a cloak whose lining was white as a summer cloud but which outside was grey for thunderheads and mare’s-tails. Her shoes were gold sparked with diamond dust. A crescent of hammered silver crowned her brow.

Mareth accompanied her. He was saying something in the Warden language. Storm’s gesture chopped off his words. “Speak so Malcolm can understand you,” she ordered in the Orugaray.

He looked shocked. “This hog-tongue, brilliance?”

“Cretan, then. It’s subtle enough.”

“But brilliance, I was about to report on—”

“He needs to know.” Storm let him swallow his humiliation while she advanced to Lockridge. She smiled. He bent unskilfully to kiss the hand she offered.

“I’ve not yet thanked you for what you did,” Storm said. “But no words would serve. It was more than saving me. You struck a mighty blow for our whole cause.”

“I—I’m glad,” he gulped.

“Be seated, if you wish.” Cat lithe, she turned from him and began to pace. He did not hear her footfalls on the dirt. Weak in the knees, he sank down beside a Warden, who nodded to him with instant deference.

Vibrancy played over Storm’s features. “We have Brann alive,” she said. The soft Cretan speech clanged in her throat. “With what we are learning from him, we have a chance to win the upper hand in Europe for the next thousand years. Mareth, proceed.”

He who was priest and warlock had stayed on his feet. “I cannot understand how you endured, brilliance,” he said. “Already Brann cracks. The trickle of his secrets will soon be a flood.”

“He got the same from me,” Storm said grimly. “Had he been able to use the information—no, I don’t want to be reminded.”

Lockridge glanced at the dark veil, and away in haste. His stomach writhed. Behind lay Brann.

He didn’t know just what was being done. Not torture, surely. Storm wouldn’t stoop to that, and anyhow it was crude, probably even useless against the nerves bred and trained, the unshakable will, of the future’s lords. Storm had been drugged; currents of force had roiled her brain to its inmost depths. They would not let her die, but overrode the ego and compelled a ghastly automatism of thought, so that inch by inch everything she had ever known and done, everything she dreamed and was, came to the surface and was coldly marked into the molecules of a wire.

No living creature should have to go through that.

The hell not! Lockridge boiled. Brann’s eatin’ his own medicine, after he got my friends killed who’d never hurt him any. This is a war.

Mareth collected his dignity. “So,” he began. “We have learned the immediate situation, that being in the focus of his attention. When Lockridge escaped up the corridor, Brann had naturally no idea of the help available in England. But the possibility that Lockridge might somehow get news to the Wardens was worrisome. Thus Brann informed his agents throughout Danish history. They are, ah, still searching for our man, no doubt, and for any indications of a Warden rescue party being organised.

“Meanwhile, he had to balance the risks of transporting your brilliance elsewhere and elsewhen, or keeping you here. Since he had some reason to believe Lockridge would not, after all, betray him to us, he decided to stay, at least temporarily. This is a distant and seldom visited milieu. If he brought in only a few Rangers, and kept the Battle Axe people on hand as his principal auxiliaries, he should be fairly safe from detection.

“But as a result, we now have him, and unbeknownst to his organisation. When we have completed his processing, we will have the information needful to mount surprise assaults on Ranger positions throughout time, ambush individual agents, break up enclaves—deal them the worst setback of the whole war.”

Storm nodded. “Yes. I have been thinking about that,” she said. “We can decoy the enemy into believing we have promptly moved away ourselves, while actually remaining. Brann was quite right about this being a good place to operate from. Attention is all on Crete, Anatolia, India. The Rangers think the destruction of those civilisations will hurt us severely. Well, let them continue to think so. Let them spend themselves in helping along an Indo-European conquest that is foredoomed to happen. Both sides have tended to forget the North.”

Her cloak swirled as she strode. She smote fist into palm and cried: “Yes! Piece by piece, we’ll withdraw forces hither. We can quietly organise this part of the world just as we please. There is no proof that we never did; the possibility stands gate-open. How much word will ever reach the South about the doings of barbarians in these far hinterlands? When the Bronze Age comes, it will bear our shape, furnish us men and goods, guard Warden bases. The final great futureward thrust may well be pivoted here!”

In a blaze of energy, she turned to them and snapped forth orders. “As soon as may be, we shall have to develop native armed forces, strong enough to inhibit cultural meddling. Jusquo, consider ways and means and give me some suggestions tomorrow. Sparian, pull those Britishers out of their swinishness and organise them as a guard. But they’re too conspicuous; we must not keep them any longer than need be. The gate in their country is unmanned, isn’t it? Urio, pick a few of them and flit across; train them to stand sentry for the weeks it will yet remain open. We might need such a bolthole. We certainly have to let Crete know we are here and arrange a consultation. Radio and mindwave are too risky. Zarech and Nygis, prepare to flit there in person after dark. Chilon, start a program of acquiring detailed information about this entire region. Mareth, you may continue to oversee the work on Brann.”

Something in their expressions spoke to her. She said impatiently, “Yes, yes, I know you have your places in the sixteenth century and don’t feel competent here. Well, you must learn to feel otherwise. The Cretan base has all it can do. They can’t spare us anyone until reorganisation is well under way. If we stop to squeal for help, we give the enemy too much chance to discover what is happening.”

The eighth Warden lifted his hand. “Yes, Hu?” Storm said.

“Are we not to inform our own era, brilliance?” the man asked deferentially.

“Of course. That news can go from Crete.” The jade eyes narrowed. She laid fingers to chin and spoke softly. “You yourself will go home by a different route—with Malcolm.”

“Huh?” Lockridge exclaimed.

“Don’t you remember?” Mareth said. His lips writhed. “We have it recorded that he told you. You came and betrayed her to him.”

“I—I—” Lockridge’s mind whirred.

Storm moved near. He rose. She laid a hand on his shoulder and said: “Perhaps I’ve no right to demand this. But the fact cannot be evaded. One way or another, you will seek Brann in his own land and tell him whither I fled. And thus you will begin the chain of events that leads to his defeat. Be proud. It is not granted many to be destiny.”

“But I don’t know—I’m only a savage, next to him—or you—”

“One link in the chain is myself, bound in blindness,” Storm whispered. “The scars will never leave my soul. Do you think I would not wish otherwise? But we have only the one road and walk it we must. This is the last tiling I ask of you, Malcolm, and the greatest. Afterward you may go to your own country. And I shall always remember you.”

He clenched his fists. “Okay, Storm,” he got out in English. “On your account.”

Her smile, gentle and the least bit sad, was more thanks than he felt he deserved.

“Go out to the revels,” she said. “Be happy while you can.”

He bowed and stumbled away.

The sun dazzled him. He didn’t want to join the fun, there was too much that had to be faced down. Instead he wandered off along the shore. Presently a hill was between him and the village. He stood alone and stared across the bay. Wavelets lapped the turf, gulls skimmed white across blueness, a thrush whistled from the oak tree at his back.

“Lynx.”

He turned. Auri walked toward him. Again she wore the garb of her people, bast skirt, foxskin purse, necklace of amber. Thereto had been added in honour the copper bracelet which was Echegon the headman’s, wound tight to fit her wrist; and a dandelion garland made gold across the blowing sun-whitened hair. But her mouth was unsteady and tears blurred the sky-coloured eyes.

“Why, what’s the matter, little one? Why aren’t you at the feast?”

She stopped beside him. Her head drooped. “I wanted to find you.”

“I was around, except for when I was talking to The Storm. But you—” Now that he thought back, Lockridge realised that Auri had not danced or sung or gone with anyone to the greenwood. Instead, she hung about the fringes like a small disconsolate shadow. “What’s wrong? I told everyone the curse was off you. Don’t they believe me?”

“They do,” she sighed. “After what has happened, they find me blessed. I didn’t know a blessing could be so heavy.”

Perhaps only because he didn’t want to dwell on his own troubles, Lockridge sat down and let her cry on his breast. The story came out in broken words. Quite simply, her journey through the underworld had filled her with mana. She had become a vessel of unknown Powers. The Goddess must have singled her out for who could tell what. So who dared meddle with her? She wasn’t shunned, or any such thing. Rather, she was reverenced. They would do whatever she asked, on the spot, except treat her like one of themselves.

“It. . . isn’t . . . that they won’t . . . love me. I could wait . . . for you . . . or someone else, if you really won’t. But . . . when they see me . . . they stop laughing!”

“Poor kid,” Lockridge murmured in the language of his mother. “Poor tyke. What a hell of a reward you got.”

“Are you afraid of me, Lynx?”

“No, of course not. We’ve been through too much together.” Auri hugged him close. Face buried on his shoulder, she stammered, “If I were yours, they, they, they would know that was right. They would know this was the Goddess’ will which had been fulfilled. I would have a place among them again. Would I not?”

He dared not confess she was entirely correct. She would always have a special standing. But once her now unguessable destiny was no longer potential but actual, for the whole world to see, awe would be lost in ordinariness and she be granted plain, easy friendship.

“I don’t think any other man will ever dare touch me,” Auri said. “But that’s best. I don’t want anyone but you.”

Damnation, you idiot! Lockridge raged at himself. Forget her age. She’s no American highschooler. She’s seen birth and love and death her whole life, she’s run free in woods where there are wolves and paddled skin boats through storms, she’s ground grain with stones and dressed skins with her teeth, she’s outlived sickness, North Sea winters, a war, a trip that’d have had most grown men gibberin’. Girls younger than she is—and she’s older than Shakespeare’s Juliet—are already mothers. Can’t you set aside your stupid inhibitions and do her this one kindness?

No. That day in the skiff, he had come very close to surrender. Now he faced dreadfulness. He could only hold to his course by keeping his mind filled with Storm. If he came back alive, he would demand as his payment that she let him forsake all else and follow her. He knew she was indifferent to what he might do with any chance-met female. But he no longer was. He couldn’t be.

“Ami,” he said, cursing his own gaucherie, “my work is not done. I must depart soon, on Her business, and I don’t know if I will ever return.”

She gasped, clutched herself to him and wept until both their bodies shook. “Take me with you! Take me with you!”

A shadow fell across them. Lockridge looked up. Storm stood watching. She carried the Wise Woman’s staff, wreathed with hawthorn; she must have gone forth to bless the people now hers. Dark hair, dress of ocean, cloak of rain, fluttered in a sudden gust, around the tall form.

Her smile was unreadable, but not like the one she had bestowed on him in the Long House. “I think,” she said with an edge to her tone, “I shall grant the child her wish.”