The Corridors of Time

18

l827 B.C.

Lockridge crossed the auroral curtain. “When are we?”

Hu checked the calendar clock. “Later than I desired,” he said. “The end of August.”

So Avildaro has lived a fourth of a year since we broke Brann and the Yuthoaz, Lockridge thought. Auri, about as long. Me, a few days, though each one passed like a century. What’s Storm done here, this whole summer?

“The uncertainty factor is what makes transtemporal liaison so difficult,” Hu complained. He half turned back to the gate. “We might try again.” The four soldiers who accompanied them showed alarm. One man actually started to protest. Hu changed his mind. “No. That sort of thing can entangle you in the grisliest paradoxes, if you’re unlucky. I did get some couriers back and forth during the past several weeks. At last report, everything was still going smoothly, and that was little more than a local month ago.”

He started up the ramp. His men fell in around Lockridge and Auri. The girl clutched the American’s hand and breathed, “Are we truly home?”

“You are,” he said.

In an abstract way, he wondered why no garrison of Wardens was maintained at a gate which had become as important as this one. Well, he decided, she’s got a variety of reasons, includin’ the fact that she needs to keep as many loyal men as possible in her own era. But mainly, I reckon she doesn’t want to chance givin’ the show away, in case some Ranger scout reconnoitres this far.

They emerged. The sun stood noon high over a forest rich and vivid at season’s climax. A herd of roe deer, cropping the meadow, bolted and flushed a thousand partridge. Auri stood for a moment with glory in her face, raised her arms to the sky and shook back an unbound mane. Before they left, she had changed to the brief garb of her people. Lockridge noticed how startlingly her body had matured while he was gone.

He wished he’d had the nerve to ask for kilt, cloak, and necklace, instead of the green uniform given him.

“And we are free again, Lynx.” Abruptly the girl must leap and shout for joy.

You are. Maybe. I hope, he thought. Me? I don’t know.

They had not mistreated him, during those two days he was held in the palace before being taken here. He could stroll about as he liked, with a single guard. They asked him, quite courteously, to make his report under a drug which inhibited lying; and he had done so, spilled the whole beanpot, because the alternative could be a mind machine. Afterward Yuria had held lengthy discussions with him, not the least ill-tempered. Her position was that, imprimis, his background did not equip him to understand a totally different civilization; secundus, what he had seen was not a fair sample; tertius, tragedy must be integral to any human life which was to realise its full nobility; quartus, granted, abuses did occur, but they were correctable, and under a wiser government they would be.

He’d said nothing to that, nor accepted the favours she offered. She was too alien to him. They all were.

Hu spoke an order. The party rose and aimed for the Limfjord.

This day I’ll see Storm again, Lockridge thought. His heart slammed. He couldn’t tell how much was fear and how much—well—herself.

Nevertheless, she would judge him. No one else dared. Not only was he a chosen of hers, but he had that enigmatic word from her future.

The woods fell behind. Brilliance danced on the bay, where Avildaro stood under its holy grove. Some fisher boats were out, and women at their work between the cabins. But camped to the north and spilling eastward—

Auri screamed. Lockridge ripped out an oath.

“The Yuthoaz! Lynx, what has happened?”

“By God, Warden, start explaining” Lockridge choked.

“Be easy,” Hu called over his shoulder. “This was planned. Everything is going well.”

Lockridge slitted his eyes and counted. The Battle Axe people were no horde. He saw a dozen or so chariots, parked outside the tepees of their chieftainly owners. The men, gathering excited to stare at the flyer band, numbered little over a hundred. Others might be out hunting or whatever, but surely not many.

They had brought their women, though. No Orugaray female wore coarse wool sweaters and skirts. Small children scrambled among them. Older ones tended herds of cattle, sheep, horse, a wealth of livestock grazing miles over the range. Turf sheds were being erected.

The enemy had returned to stay.

Storm, Storm, why?

Hu brought them down at the Long House. View of the encampment was cut off by the huts clustered around. The open area before the doorway was deserted; no villager stirred in what had once been the jostling, haggling, laughing centre of the community. Voices from afar hardly touched this sunlit silence.

The house itself was changed. Garlands used to hang over the lintel, oakleaf in summer and holly in winter. Now an emblem shone in gold and silver, the Labrys across the Sun Disc. Two warriors stood proud guard, leather armoured, plumed and painted, spear, dagger, bow, and tomahawk to hand. They gave the newcomers a Warden salute.

“Is She within?” asked Hu.

“Yes, my master,” said the older of the Yuthoaz, a stocky forkbearded redhead. The wolf was painted on his shield. Tarred, Lockridge knew Withucar again. His broken arm had knitted. “She makes Her magic behind the blackness.”

“Keep this man here for Her summons.” Hu went inside. The skin curtain flapped to behind him.

Auri covered her face and sobbed. Lockridge stroked the bright locks. “You need not stay,” he murmured. “Go seek your kinfolk.”

“If they live.”

“They must. There was no second fight. The Storm brought back the strangers for some purpose of her own. Go on, now, home.”

Auri started to leave. A soldier grabbed for her. Lockridge slapped down the man’s hand. “You have no orders to detain her,” he barked. The soldier stepped back with fright on his countenance. Auri vanished among the huts.

Withucar had watched the interchange with more amusement than his awed companion. His face cracked in a grin. “But you are him who got away from us!” he bawled. “Well, well!”

He leaned his spear and came over to pummel Lockridge’s back. “That was a warrior deed,” he said with quite genuine warmth. “Ha, how you tumbled us about, and for the sake of one little girl! What fortune had you since? We’ve become your friends, you know, and I’ve seen the gods so close these past weeks that I grow jaded and think you used no wizardry, only tricks I’d be most glad to learn. Welcome, you!”

Lockridge collected his wits. Here was a chance to get an honest account. “I went afar, on Her business,” he said slowly, “And know not what’s happened in these lands. No little surprised am I to find your clan returned.” He planted a barb: And to find yourself playing sentry like any common youth.”

Withucar signed himself and answered with quick gravity, “Who but the highest born is fit to serve Her?”

Uh . . . yes. Still, when did the charioteers do so?”

“Since this midsummer, or a while after. See you, we were a frightened people, after him we thought the very Firelord was beaten and ourselves scattered by outlanders whose weapons were real metal. We counted ourselves lucky to get home, I can tell you, and made big sacrifices to the gods of this land. But an emissary came from Her and spoke to our council. He said She was not too angry with us, we being simple folk whom the giant had tricked. Indeed, She would fain use us as warriors, for Her own must go back whence they came.”

Of course, Lockridge remembered. The English had to be sent home: too ill adapted to be efficient help in this age, not to mention being too noticeably foreign. Storm had dropped a remark about some idea she’d gotten, for arming this headquarters of her newest theatre of operations. . . .

“Well,” Withucar continued, “we were unsure. Adventurous youngsters might join Her guard for some years. But family men? So far from our own kind and gods? Then the emissary explained She wanted a warrior people to come and stay. The fishermen are brave, but untrained in order of battle and modern weapons. She wanted us, not only our hale men but our entire tribe.

“We would get land, and be honoured. So would our gods be. Sun and Moon, Fire and Water, Air and Earth—why should they not wed, and be worshipped alike? So in the end, those phratries you have seen remembered how they were getting too large for their pastures, bethought themselves what could come of alliance with One so powerful, and trekked hither.

“Thus far, we’ve fared right well. We’ve skirmished just enough with the Sea People further along this shore to keep us sharp and fetch in some plunder and slaves., Next year there will belike be a real thrust, to make those places pay Her due respect which haven’t already done so. Meanwhile, we are settling down in a good land; and She, Sister to the Sun, walks among us.”

Storm, these Northern races were never before cursed with empire.

Harshly, Lockridge asked, “How do you get along with the Avildaro natives?”

Withucar spat. “Not so well. They dare not fight, when She has said they must not touch us. But some have stolen off overseas, and the rest are a surly lot. Why, you know what their women are like; yet if a lad of ours wants a bit of fun, his only hope is to catch one in the greenwood and force her. For we’re not supposed to harm them either, you know.” He brightened. “However, give us time. If they’ll not often trade with us, we can manage by ourselves. In the end, we’ll make them ours, even as our ancestors made those they overra’ into their own image.” He leaned close, nudged Lockridge in the ribs, and confided, “Indeed, She intends that outcome. She promised me Herself, not long ago, there’d be weddings between the high houses of both people. And that way, you see, the inheritance goes from their mothers to our sons.”

And the end of it, Lockridge thought, is Junker Erik.

No, wait. That was Ranger work.

But hadn’t the Wardens laid the foundation?

He fell so silent that Withucar was hurt and returned to his post. The sun moved toward afternoon.

For all his brooding, Lockridge was idiotically glad when Hu appeared and said, “She will see you now.” He almost sprang past the curtain. No one followed him.

The Long House was still fireless, coldly lit by the globes. The blackness still cut off the rear end. Where Lockridge stood, the floor had been covered with some hard material and the walls draped in grey. Furnishings and machines of the future stood among the wooden pillars like a jeer.

Storm came toward him.

The gauntness of her captivity had departed. Blue-black hair, golden skin, sea-green eyes, glowed as with a light of their own, and her gait flung her robe back against breast, hip, and leg until he must think anew of the Winged Victory. That robe was white today, deeply cut, trimmed with the blue of Crete’s kingdom. The lunar crescent shimmered above her brows.

Malcolm,” she said, in his own language. “This is my true ward: that you came back.” She caught his face between her hands and looked at him through a beating stillness. “Thank you,” she said in the Orugaray.

He knew when a woman awaited a kiss. Dizzily, he stood his ground and tried to keep every doubt and resentment. “Hu must’ve given you my report,” he said. “I’ve nothin’ to add.”

“Nothing you need add, my dear.” She gestured to a seat “Come. We’ve everything to talk about.”

He joined her. Their knees touched. A bottle and two filled goblets stood before them. She gave him one and raised her own. “Will you drink to us?”

“Brann gave me wine too,” he rasped.

Her smile faded. She regarded him long before she set her glass down again. “I know what you are thinking,” she said.

“That the Wardens are no better than the Rangers, and to hell with ’em both? Yeah, I reckon so.”

“But it isn’t true,” she said earnestly, never releasing his eyes. “Once you mentioned the Nazis of your time as a case of absolute evil. I agree. They were a Ranger creation. But think—be honest—suppose you were a man from the Neolithic now, transported to 1940. How much difference between countries could you have seen?”

“Your cousin Yuria used some such line of argument.”

“Ah, yes. Her.” Briefly, the full mouth hardened. “Someday I must do something about Yuria.”

She eased, laid her hand on his thigh, and said soft and fast, “You met two, exactly two people in my future, who for their own purposes had rescued you. For an hour or so, you were in their world. They took you back to a place of their own choosing, and left you after making some calculatedly ambiguous remarks. Come, Malcolm, you have had scientific training. What sort of basis is that on which to draw conclusions? Any conclusions!

“You saw what you were meant to see. You heard what you were intended to hear. They want something to come about to which you are a key. But what is a key, except a tool? You saw merely a world that has changed. How do you know the roots of that change are not a Warden victory? I think they must be.

“For, Malcolm, a great deal of the wrong you met in my land is due to the war. Without an enemy, we would need less discipline, we would be free to experiment and reform. Yes, I know what Istar is like. But you are not so naive as to think the most absolute ruler can simply issue a decree and have her will come to pass. Are you? I must use what fate has given. It so happens that Istar supports me. Her successor—and I cannot upset the law of succession with dangerously shaking the whole realm—the one who would come after her is of another faction.”

“Yuria’s?” he asked from his daze.

Storm grinned. “Dear Yuria. How she would like to be Koriach! And what a poor one she would make!” She grew sober. “I don’t undervalue myself, Malcolm. You have seen what I can do. By trapping Brann, with your help, I have dealt the Rangers what could be the start of a mortal blow. So few are able to mount these temporal operations, and so much depends on them. While Brann was free, most of my energy had to go simply to fending him off. Now, I know who’s gotten his command, and frankly, I can think circles around Garwen.

“But our very triumph has loosed a whole new set of problems. While you were gone, faithful Hu had his spies out, and his messengers went back and forth. My rivals—oh, yes, there are more and darker palace intrigues at home than you have guessed—those who plot against me, under the hood of friendship we must wear while the war continues—they’ve seized on the strategic issue. Did not Yuria hint at rewards if you would be her agent in my camp?” Lockridge must nod. “Well, for purposes of rallying support, that faction maintains we must continue to concentrate our efforts in the Mediterranean and Orient. Ignore the North, they say; it has no importance; though the Indo-European conquest will surely happen in the South and East, let us keep it from becoming of real value to the enemy. Whereas I say, abandon those regions; keep only a token force there, while the Rangers tie up their best men; unknown to them, let us create in the North a thousand-year stronghold!”

He drew his attention from high-boned features and curving body to say, with less force than intended, “Is that why you’ve betrayed people here who trusted you?”

“Ah, yes. I’ve called in the Yuthoaz, and the megalith builders don’t like it.” Storm sighed. “Malcolm, I had you read books and spend time in the Danish National Museum. You should blow the archaeological facts. The new culture is coming in and will mould the future, and nothing you or I can do will remove those relics which prove it from their glass cases. Yet we can control the details, of which the relics say nothing. Would you rather the newcomers take Denmark as they are going to take India, with butchery and enslavement?”

“But in God’s name, what’re they to you?”

“I couldn’t keep the Englishmen,” she said. “They have been sent home, except for a handful who will guard that gate until it closes in several weeks. As a matter of fact, I’ve even sent those agents you met back to their sixteenth century. Once the basic work here was done, they were of little help. And because of my rivals’ pressure, I cannot order real experts from Crete—not until I can show solid promise here.”

She gestured widely. “What then will I show?” she said. “A new and long-enduring nation. A powerful folk who, under whatever mythological compromise, follow the Goddess. A source of supplies, wealth, men if we need them. A section of space-time so well defended that there we can build Warden strength against the final conflict. Given the beginnings of this—well, the other Koriachs will incline toward me. My position at home will be secured. More important, my plan will be accepted and our full force brought to bear here. And so the Ranger obscenity will come nearer its destruction—after which we can right some wrongs in our own place.”

Her head sank. “But I am so alone,” she whispered.

He couldn’t help himself, he must take the hand that lay empty on her lap. And his other arm went about her shoulder.

She leaned close. “War is an ugly business,” she said. “One has to do heartbreaking things. I promised you, after this mission you could go home. But I need every soul who will stand by me.”

“I will,” he said.

After all . . . did he not have a mission unfulfilled?

“You’re no ordinary man, Malcolm,” she said. “The kingdom we build will need a king.”

He kissed her.

She replied to him.

Presently she said in his ear, “Come on, you man. Over yonder.”

The sun declined. Fisher boats returned from a west where the waters sheened yellow, smoke rose out of huts, the Wise Woman and her acolytes went forth to offer their evening oblations in the grove. Thunders beat across the meadows, where the Battle Axe men drummed their god to rest.

Storm stirred. “You’d better go now,” she sighed. “I’m sorry, but I do need sleep. And this being divine takes most of my time. But you’ll come again. Won’t you? Please.”

“Whenever you want,” he answered, deep in his throat.

He walked into twilight. Peace dwelt within him. Beyond the Long House he found the Tenil Orugaray at their lives. Children still romped outdoors, men gossiped, through open entrances he saw women weaving, sewing, cooking, grinding meal, shaping pots. His passage left a wake of silence.

At the cabin which had been Echegon’s, he entered. Here he could stay.

The family sat around their fire. They scrambled up and signed themselves, in a manner that not long ago had been foreign to them. Only to Auri was he still human. She came to him and said unsteadily, “How long you were with the Goddess.”

“I had to be,” he told her.

“You’ll speak to Her for us, won’t you?” she begged. “She may not know how wicked they are.”

“Who?”

“Those She brought in. Oh, Lynx, what I’ve heard! How they graze their beasts in our crops, and seize unwilling women, and scorn us in our own country. They raided our cousins, did you know? There are people from Ulara and Faono, my own dear kinfolk, in their camp this night—slaves. Tell Her, Lynx!”

“I will, if I can,” he said impatiently. He wanted to be alone with this day for a while. “But what must be, must be. Now, may I have something to eat, and then a quiet corner? I’ve much to think about.”