John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

“For us?”

“We’ve generated a Nexus Point here and, well, we aren’t just anybody, you know. We are willful operators—all Prime Movers and First Cause Initiators. We are the Founders, at least on this Meridian, and we’re sitting here with a functional Arch at our command, up and spinning at this very moment, and a good lead on what we think is happening in the history with this intervention. That’s power —tremendous power to change what happens with this event.”

Robert raised his eyebrows, obviously in agreement as Paul continued. “This wouldn’t be the case if we were still scattered about the city here and the Arch was down. Then I think the Heisenberg Wave would probably generate much more quickly. But fortunately we are here. Remember what LeGrand said when he was trying to convince us to act last time? From here we can act with impunity. Time cannot decide the outcome for this Meridian until we do act, or fail to act, and this Nexus Point dissipates. Only then can the Heisenberg Pulse emit the wave and actually work the final transformation, and knit all these potential outcomes back into one continuum.”

Maeve had a grim expression on her face. “So what we see here on the monitors is the likely outcome of what the Meridian will look like if we fail to prevent this tampering?”

“Precisely,” said Paul.

“Was this a side effect of the retraction scheme you ran for Kelly? Is it something we did?””

“Absolutely not,” said Paul. “If the alert went out when you say it did, then we pulled Kelly out well after that. It’s clearly a counter operation. Our adversaries may have been working up plans along this Meridian for some time. Kelly says this Hamza fellow he encountered was making some effort at correcting the errors of Abdul Rahman. That’s hardly a description of an impartial scribe. They were obviously analyzing this battle, looking for the Pushpoint that led to the defeat of the Saracens.”

“It was more a forfeit than a real defeat,” said Maeve. “At least the way I read what’s been written about it. Apparently the scouts and levees Charles sent to infiltrate the Moorish camp managed to stir up enough commotion that a substantial portion of the force attacking Charles broke off and rode back to protect the booty they had plundered on the way up the valley. The rest of the army saw this and thought they were retreating. Abdul Rahman was outraged, and he personally threw himself into the fray to try and rally his men. He was surrounded by the Franks and killed.”

“That was pretty much a fatal stroke against the army then,” said Paul. “A badly managed force is one thing, but a leaderless army would not have posed a significant threat any longer, particularly against a man of Charles ilk.”

“Right,” said Maeve. “When Abdul Rahman fell in battle, the Saracens broke off the attack altogether and fled. They all retired to their camp site to protect their plunder. Charles fully expected them the renew the battle the following morning, but they slipped away that night, a headless, defeated army heading back to Spain.”

Nordhausen had followed Paul’s Time theory as best he could. He didn’t quite grasp it, but if History was waiting on them now, he would do his part to move things along.

“The importance of this encounter cannot be understated,” he said. “Charles may not have truly earned his nickname here, but in subsequent years he is relentless in opposing further Muslim incursions. He learned from this battle and began to develop his own heavy cavalry, with stirrups to aid the untrained riders, and within five years he had some fairly reliable horsemen.”

“But I thought the invasions ended here at Tours,” said Paul.

“In a broad sense, they did,” the professor continued. “But the Muslims tried landing by sea at Narbonne again four years later in 736, and Charles Martel was ruthless confronting them. And he hounded them out of Provence as well, wiping out Muslim bases in southern Gaul. His son, Pippin the Short, finished what he started, and of course then we get Charlemagne, his grandson.”

“So if Charles dies, or fails at the Battle of Tours, everything changes,” said Paul. “That’s what the Golems are picking up from information in the Nexus. That much is clear. But now comes the hard part. Where’s the Pushpoint? What do we have to do to preserve the integrity of this Meridian? Or, stated another way, what in the world did they do to change the outcome of this battle?” He looked from Robert to Maeve, but neither one spoke.

Maeve went to the history module and began typing a few searches. “Suppose they tried to prevent the birth of Charles,” she began.

“God, that could lead us anywhere,” said Robert. “You could go back generations and knock off a distant ancestor. These people are a cult of Assassins, right? That’s what they do for a living.”

“But that is very dangerous,” said Paul. “If you deliberately eliminate someone from the continuum, you are also eliminating all his descendants, not just the one you may wish to target, and you are eliminating all their respective descendents as well. It gets exponential, and the farther back in Time you go the more dangerous this is. You know the old saying… everyone knows someone, who knows someone…”

“But we prevented the birth of the terrorist Raid Husan al Din,” said Nordhausen.

“He was unmarried, and had no descendents,” said Maeve. “I challenged LeGrand on this, and he confided the information. Husan Al Din was a Free Radical.”

“But Charles Martel is another matter entirely,” said Paul. “He’s a Prime, and you don’t mess with Primes, right Maeve? You drilled that into our heads early on. So my bet is that they could have done nothing to threaten the birth and early life of Charles. No. The Pushpoint has to be somewhere else.”

Kelly had been listening intently, and he was tapping his desk with a thought emerging in his mind. He had been talking with Hamza about the archive, wondering where they would find the space for all the information they needed to store. Then he remembered the scribe telling him about the auxiliary stones they were carving and moving to other locations. That’s how he was able to get his name out there and get the attention of Paul and the Golems!

“Wait a second,” he held up a hand. “Hamza said he was only carving the main narrative there on the archive walls. He said the details of an event would be carved on a stela and moved elsewhere. There just wasn’t enough room there, and they didn’t want all their eggs in one basket either, particularly after I showed up. But here’s the interesting part—he had a way of coding in the location of the stela. Yes, he showed it to me. What was that symbol he pointed out.” He pinched his lower lip, trying to remember.

“Give me a piece of paper!” He was looking around and spied a notebook and pen across the desk. “OK, Robert, what the hell does this mean?” He drew some Hieroglyphic symbols on the paper and handed the notebook to the professor. He had drawn a line of birds, and a circle with an X inside.

“Where did you see this?”

“Never mind that now, what does it mean?”

Nordhausen was puzzled for a moment. “Must be phonetic,” he muttered. “Sau…”

“That’s it!” Kelly remembered. “ Zau . Hamza said the details of this event were to be carved on a stela and sent to another location. This is its location code. Where is Zau?”

Maeve was at the history module. “I’m going to take a chance and assume it’s somewhere in Egypt, and fairly close by the archive site,” she said. “These stones were not that easy to move.” A moment later she had a reference.