Authors: Colin Harvey
—There's no time to waste. I sense magic within. Strong, not yet ready, but building.—
They continued and were soon above the parapet. They dropped onto it and separated, becoming visible again. They were spared discovery as everyone was on the far side watching Gabriel's diversion. The spellhound ran down steps to a central square with a huge skylight in the middle.
Jocasta had no idea how much longer they could avoid discovery. She hoped they had enough time.
The argument was going against O'Malley. He looked at The Godmother, who watched with an air of detachment.
"It isn't the blasted barkeep that's the problem,” a woman said. “It's that bitch from Frehk, going around making wild accusations about her friend here.” O'Malley frowned, puzzled, and The Godmother stared at him.
"Do you think this friend would pay a ransom?” The Godmother asked, staring at O'Malley.
"You could hand me over to the militia.” They wouldn't—he was suggesting it to buy time, while he broke the ampoule.
Not the Spell of Elsewhere,
he thought.
Maybe this one
.
The side effects included dehydration, so he drained his glass, refilled it and drained it again as the spell started working.
The spellhound felt the surge of energy, peered down through the glass, saw the flare invisible to human eyes. It had just seconds. It found an identical ampoule in one of its pockets and leapt—
"We
own
the police,” one of the woman insisted. “This—"
The skylight exploded, and a shadow momentarily eclipsed the sun, then, haloed by a rainstorm of glass shards, tumbled downwards into a cacophony of rage.
The spell in O'Malley's pocket expanded across his hand, up his arm, and across his torso, clambering into orifices, seeking instructions from his cerebral cortex.
"Call the guards!” A woman's voice was shrill with panic. A huge black shadow reared up beneath the other side of the table where it had landed, and a woman's body flew through the air. It clouted a woman, and O'Malley caught a glimpse of lava-red eyes before his own were covered with a second skin generated by the spell, and everything went filmy. He went through another change of perception, and double vision created a nightmare scene full of milling women and two black creatures, before his sight returned to normal.
The spellhound dived for cover as O'Malley vanished, taking with him a piece of the table and parts of the women nearest him, amputating their limbs surgically, but without anaesthetic. The room turned into a maelstrom of screams and whimpers, and it shook as if punched from all sides by a fist, as air rushed to fill the vacuum created by O'Malley's disappearance.
The spellhound, realizing it was precious seconds too late, vanished in a glare of light, taking with it into the past bits of those unfortunate women nearby, who were sucked into the temporal vortex, leaving behind a scene reminiscent of an abattoir.
Jocasta hated being a spectator but had few options. All she could do was wait, pressed flat against the wall, peering down into the room while the spellhound went after O'Malley and Gabriel decoyed the defenders on the far side. Normally she was glad to be the brains while the spellhound was the muscle, but now she was desperate to shoulder arms and wade in with them.
She felt, rather than heard, a noise, as if the universe had just twanged a cosmic harp. The room imploded, O'Malley vanished, and the whole building shook. Seconds later, the same great noise was repeated, and the spellhound vanished. The room folded in on itself, and Jocasta barely managed to scramble to safety from a suddenly dangerous vantage point.
She had a dreadful certainty that neither of them would emerge from that room. Feeling old and tired, and suddenly bereft again, she walked away, ignoring the clangour of the alarms she activated. Such was the chaos, no one heeded them anyway.
Everything reversed. The spellhound flew up through the air amid a halo of shards. They reassembled into the skylight as its body vanished beyond. O'Malley walked backwards out of the room, and the women left, also backwards.
Night followed day followed night, in a seemingly endless procession. The roof vanished, then the walls were gone, and the building was un-built by hordes of scurrying drones. Finally even the city itself was deconstructed.
The spellhound hurtled across harsh desert landscapes where sand moved like water. The spell affected time, not space, but it knew even the most accurate of spells would suffer a little spatial drift, just as clocks lost time. As decades became centuries, then turned into millennia, that drift would increase, until it could end up half a world away from where it started.
The spellhound speeded up. It started regressing by minutes, then hours, and soon travelled days in seconds. Soon the people around it disappeared from view, to be replaced by near-invisible flickers of movement.
It began to dehydrate, just as O'Malley would, tongue twisting and bloating, feeling the need to suck moisture from somewhere, anywhere. It was the knowledge that O'Malley suffered as it did that drove it on, that would not allow it to be the one to crack first and drop back into the normal time flow. That and the faint afterglow of O'Malley's own bubble of time, fleeing just ahead of it, always just ahead of it, into the distant past.
The castle was a squat bulk gleaming in the fine rain, waiting for events to unfold, the hum of traffic the only sound. Less than forty kilometres away people slaughtered each other daily in a vicious internecine struggle, but, separated by a strip of water and a frontier, the war, like the past, was another country and things were indeed done differently there.
Outside the castle, the rest of the city centre comprised low-rises with preservation orders on almost every building. Farther out rose the ziggurat shapes of the arcologies towering hundreds of feet high. The effect was akin to a tribe of pygmies surrounded by giants.
The castle was homely rather than the usual hulking mediaeval fortress, a Victorian gentleman's romantic view of what a castle should be. The keep was small, the walls low (though all-encircling) and, inside, the furnishings were opulent.
There was movement, busy but unhurried. Cleaners polished the ornaments and silver, and made sure every surface was spotless. Ancillary staff ensured each conference room had a supply of glasses and cups. Security people checked deliveries, while those making them muttered at the delay. The building was well guarded, but the security had been unobtrusive until that day. There were secret servicemen from the European Union, joined by Americans intent on preserving their country's unequalled record for impartial but secure arbitration. Nothing would get past their scrutiny. Especially not the reporters camped out overnight.
The first to arrive at the castle were the security details from either side. Walking mountains of muscle, eyes never still. Every movement could be an assassination attempt. They checked the rooms their delegates would be in, opening cupboards, scanning the rooms, thoroughly irritating the staff who had worked long through the night to make the place ready. They went over lists of names, checking each one, objecting if there was a hint of affiliation or possible sympathy for the other side.
Then came the arbitrators themselves, politicians either constantly briefing, being briefed, or talking into their wrisps.
Last of all came the factions: first the rebels, sharp-suited, eager to give their version of reality to the watching world, the men standing subtly apart from the women, both groups hawkeyed, fanatical. Then the delegations from the government coalition, actually two groups: first the minority Conservatives and then the Liberal majority. Amongst the phalanx of bodies, one woman appeared to be of little significance. But though she tried to shrink down within the government group, one of the reporters saw her and shouted, “Ms. Davis-Kosigin—” Before he could get any further, a couple of burly security men had him by an arm each and frog-marched him away. The others took the hint. The stakes were far too high for anyone to deflect them from finding a ceasefire that could be made to work, perhaps even a lasting peace.
Outside O'Malley's bubble of time, the scenery gradually became cooler and wetter as he fled further and further back, the landscape gentler, less abused.
O'Malley was glad he'd drunk those last glasses of water, but even so, the flight back through time took its toll. The heat inside the exoskin was barely tolerable, and though it was theoretically a closed system, O'Malley suffered severe dehydration. His tongue was black and swollen, his mucus sticky, and when he felt his face, he touched sunken eyes and saggy skin. He ached to escape what had become a prison, but the immense fires that raged blasted the world outside.
Only when he was past the conflagration and could no longer stand confinement, did he suspend the Spell of Yesterday, slowly, to allow the energy to dissipate into the background. Re-entering now-time too fast would be catastrophic for him and his surroundings. He slowed gradually, saw the world outside looked to be descending into anarchy, perhaps even the infamous Time of Burning, still remembered even though it was shrouded in legend. Still, he had little choice. He needed liquid.
The stars no longer left movement trails across the sky, and his drift brought him within sight of a city. To one side was an illuminated strip of land where blurs of movement resolved themselves into swarms of ground-effect craft as he gradually slowed. They looked unbelievably primitive.
The exoskin peeled back, and when it cleared, he emerged into now-time in the middle of a downpour, opening his mouth wide to allow the precious, beautiful water to run all over his face, into his mouth and down his throat.
When he'd drunk his fill, he looked around. He'd begun to shiver—the local temperature was considerably colder than he was used to. But he was still so weak he dared not use another spell to go anywhere warmer. He would learn much more from walking, he told himself, exploring the terrain. He set out in the direction of the lights.
The ceasefire was officially into its fourth day, nearly a record, but nobody was fooled. The quickest way to the cemetery was to be lulled into a false sense of security. So they drove into work in their council-provided armoured car, past the German Freikorps sent in by Berne to maintain order, the infantry huddled down by their tanks in the swirling snow.
"What's the hold-up?” Sergei fretted, anxious as ever to get to work.
Karen patted his hand. “Relax, hon. The Freikorps have a roadblock near the bottom of Park Street. The queues are blocking other junctions."
He squeezed her hand in turn and shot her a thin smile. He said, “The traffic's bad. Surprising, given how few people are prepared to risk their necks crossing the lines."
"They're stopping every car and checking it.” She gave her make-up a glance in the mirror and patted a stray hair into place. “Relax,” she soothed. “It's just routine."
"I know.” He stroked the bit of fluff on his chin, a sure sign he was nervous. “But I don't like Germans."
She hoped they weren't going to start
that
argument again; he only lived there because of her, but she wished he wouldn't make it so obvious. “I'd forgotten the old Russian philosophy of Forgive-and-Forget,” she said dryly.
He turned up the sound for the local news. “We've received unconfirmed reports of a massacre in an isolated gay community behind Hetero lines at Greenbank. It's believed to be retaliation for a Homo snatch squad raid last week,” the announcer said. “At the time the squad took at least a dozen adolescent youths for what is termed indoctrination."
She changed channels to an international net. “Not this morning,” she pleaded.
"We could live elsewhere, and you wouldn't have to worry,” Sergei said gently.
"And I'd have to leave Gramma.” Her answer was equally gentle, but firm.
The man on the radio was talking to an impartial expert, guaranteed to infuriate everyone. “Without a bipartisan approach, this ceasefire will fail, as all the others have. One side or the other calls a ceasefire and uses the time to regroup. Then the killing resumes—"
Karen snapped it off as they reached the roadblock. “Good morning,” she said cheerily, giving the young officer a big smile.
"Good morning, Madam.” He had eyes so blue they were almost transparent, a chin she thought he could open tins with, and skin
so
smooth. His English was flawless, albeit accented. “There is a rumour of a terrorist attack on the Council Office. Please be extra careful this morning, won't you?"
"We will.” She nodded. “Thank you.” She elbowed Sergei to be quiet. “They mean well,” she muttered as the young officer waved them through.
"I hate it when you flirt,” he said.
She knew he did but hid her smile. “It means nothing, darling."
He sighed when they cleared the blockade. “How the hell did we end up in this situation?” It was a rhetorical question, of course.
"Don't underestimate our achievement,” she half-joked. “It's taken fifty years to make our killing this organised. Back in Gramma's day, it'd just have been an occasional mob looking for a bit of queer-bashing."
"Then the queers started to fight back.” His tone of voice was neutral, and she wasn't sure whether the thought pleased or saddened him.
"Once the gays were given rights, equal or not,” she said, “you can't put the genie back in the bottle, can you?"
They drove to the end of the crescent around College Green, from where he would drive the hundred metres back to the facility's underground car park.
Karen kissed him goodbye. “I'm visiting Gramma tonight, so I'll see you at lunchtime."
"Okay.” He looked even more like a teddy bear, she thought. “Call me."
"Oooh,” she teased. “Are those neurons firing?"
"Sceptic."
As he pushed her out of the car, Karen looked back. “I might bring company."