Robert Silverberg: Crossing Into the Empire

“And when it does, people like you step through the sorcery-fires and move among us bringing the magical things to sell.”

“Yes, your majesty. That’s so.” Why pretend otherwise?

“Where do you come from?”

“Chicago,” Mulreany says. “Chicago, Illinois.”

“Chicago,” the Emperor repeats. “What do you know of this place?” he asks the High Thekanotis. The High Thekanotis scowls. Shrugs. It’s obvious that he finds this whole event irritating and is already eager to ship Mulreany off to the executioner. But the Emperor’s curiosity must be satisfied. “Tell me about your Chicago. Is it a great city?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“In what part of the world is it to be found?”

“America,” says Mulreany. “In northern Illinois.” What the hell, he has nothing to lose. “On the shore of Lake Michigan. We have Wisconsin to the north of us and Indiana to the east.”

“Ah,” the Emperor says, smiling as if that makes everything much clearer. “And what is this Chicago like? Describe it for me.”

“Well,” Mulreany says, “it has, oh, two or three million people. Maybe even more.” The Emperor blinks in surprise and the High Thekanotis glares with such ferocity that Mulreany wonders whether he has made a slip of the tongue and used the word for billion instead. But three million would be amazing enough, he decides. The imperial capital is one of the biggest cities of this era and its population is probably around half a million, tops. “We have some of the tallest buildings in the world, like the Sears Tower, which I think is 110 stories high, and the Marina Towers, which are pretty big too, and some others. We have great restaurants, any kind of food you might want. The Art Institute is a really fine museum and the Museum of Science and Industry is pretty special too.”

He pauses, wondering what else to say. As long as he keeps talking they aren’t going to cut his head off. Does the Emperor want to hear about the dinosaurs at the Field Museum? The Aquarium? The Planetarium? He might be impressed by some statistics about O’Hare Airport, but Mulreany isn’t sure he has the vocabulary for that. Then he notices that the Emperor is starting to look a little strange—turning pale, rocking weirdly back and forth on the balls of his feet. His eyes have taken on a really odd look, a mixture of profound cunning and utter whackiness.

“You must take me there,” the Emperor says, whispering fiercely. “When you return to your city, take me with you and show me everything. Everything.”

The High Thekanotis makes a choking sound and his florid face turns an even brighter red. Mulreany is aghast, too. No imperial citizen has ever come across into Chicago, not even one. They are all terrified of the sorcery-fire, and they have no way of seeing beyond the interface anyway to know that there’s another city out there.

But is the old man serious? The old man is crazy, Mulreany reminds himself.

“It would be an honor and a privilege, your majesty,” he says grandly, “to show you Chicago some day. I would greatly enjoy the opportunity.”

“Not some day,” says the Emperor Basil III. “Now.”

“Now,” Mulreany echoes. An unexpected twist. The Emperor doesn’t want to chop off the heads of the sorcerers he has sent his police to round up; the Emperor just wants one to give him a guided tour of Chicago. This afternoon, say. Mulreany smiles and bows. “Certainly, your majesty. Whatever your majesty wishes.” He wonders how the old Emperor would react to his first glimpse of the downtown skyscrapers. He wonders what sort of greeting Chicago would give the Emperor. The whole thing is nutty, of course. But for him it’s a plausible way out. He continues to smile. “We can leave immediately, if you desire, your majesty.”

The High Thekanotis seems about to have a stroke. His chest heaves, his face puffs up furiously, he brandishes the jade scepter like a battle-axe.

But it’s the Emperor who keels over instead. The excitement of the prospect of his trip across the line has done him in. He turns very pale and puts his hands to his chest and utters a little dry rasping sound, and his eyes roll up in his head, and he pitches forward head first so rapidly that two of the guardsmen are just barely able to catch him before he hits the stone floor.

The room goes berserk. The guardsmen start moaning and chanting; court officials come running in from all directions; the Emperor, who seems to be in the grip of some sort of seizure, arches his back, slaps his hands against the floor, stamps his feet, babbles wild nonsensical syllables.

Mulreany, watching in astonishment, feels the High Thekanotis’s powerful hand encircling his forearm.

“Go,” the grand vizier tells him. “Get yourself out of here, and never come back. Out now, before the Emperor returns to consciousness and sees you again. Now. ” The vizier shakes his head. “Chicago! He would visit Chicago! Madness! Madness!”

Mulreany doesn’t need a second invitation. A couple of guardsmen grab him under the arms and hustle him from the room and down the hall and through the palace’s endless hallways and, at long last, out through an immense arch into the broad plaza in front of the building.

It’s the middle of the day. The 52-hour visitation is long over; the gateway between the eras is shut.

Go , the High Thekanotis said. But where? Afghanistan?

And then, to his amazement, Mulready sees the interface still glowing in the sky down at the eastern end of town. So there must have been another match-up with Chicago while he was in the imperial hoosegow. He can get across after all, back to good old Chi. The Loop, the Bears, the Water Tower, Charlie Trotter’s, everything. Sprinting as if six demons are on his tail, he rushes toward the waterfront, jostling people out of his way. He’ll be coming back empty-handed this trip, but at least he’ll be coming back.

He reaches the Street of the Eastern Sun. Rushes out onto one of the wharves, plunges joyously into the golden light of the interface.

And comes out in a lovely green forest, the biggest trees he’s ever seen this side of California. Everything is wonderfully silent. He hears the chirping of birds, the twittering of insects.

Oh, shit , he thinks. Where the hell is Chicago?

He looks back, bewildered. The interface line is gone, and so is the imperial capital. There’s nothing here but trees. Nothing. Nothing. He walks for half an hour, heading east into the sun, and still he sees only this tremendous virgin forest, until at last he stumbles forward out of the woods and discovers himself to be at the shore of a gigantic lake, and then the awful truth strikes him with the impact of a tidal wave.

Of course. It’s an era mismatch.

The interface must have closed right on schedule, and opened again a little while afterward, but this time the Empire had lined itself up against some other sector of the time-stream very distant from his own. Just as the Empire that arrives in his Chicago is the one of Basil III sometimes and sometimes the one of Miklos and sometimes the one of Kartouf the Hapless, so too does the Empire of Basil’s time line itself up sometimes with Chicago-1990, and sometimes Chicago-1996, and sometimes Chicago-2013—

And sometimes, probably, the one of 1400 A.D. Or of 1400 B.C., not that it makes much difference. Before 1833, there wasn’t any city at all here beside Lake Michigan.

A mismatch, then. He has heard rumors of such things occurring. One of those little thousand-to-one glitches that hardly ever actually happen, and that you assume never will happen to you. But this one has. He’s known a few crossers who didn’t come back. Schmucks, he always figured. Now it’s his turn to be the schmuck. Mulreany wonders what it’s going to be like living on nuts and berries, and trying to kill a deer if he feels like having a little protein. It’s goddamned embarrassing, is what it is.