John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

“That’s all,” he said. “There’s nothing more. And it’s clearly another warning. What do you make of it?”

Maeve sighed. “It’s fairly obtuse,” she said. “Maybe you’re correct in assuming it’s metaphorical, but what could it be referring to?”

“Very strange,” said Nordhausen. “What would they do with all these cryptic phrases? I don’t see how this information could be instructions on how they must act.”

“It’s cryptic to us,” said Maeve, “but it’s a code , Robert. They may know exactly what each of those phrases refer to. Remember all the cryptic phrases the BBC was broadcasting to the French underground prior to the D-Day invasion? They were perplexing to the Germans, but made perfect sense to the intended recipients.”

Robert nodded, conceding the point. “And this is odd. That phrase, those who drink the wind, is associated with this cartouche. It’s a royal name, or at least it is being used to confer special status to the named person. If it was phonetic it would read Ke-hai-lan . I’m not familiar with any Egyptian deity by that name, or Pharaoh either.”

“Well it’s probably referring to a person from the 8th century then. Perhaps one of the Arab generals or leaders?” Maeve was trawling for anything she could find.

“Hold on a second….” The professor was scouring the image of the stone, noting any instance of that cartouche. “Yes,” he said. “Every time it appears it is accompanied by this determinative figure of a horse.”

“A horse?” Maeve was struck by that, a gleam of recognition in her eye. “Could it read—”

At that moment there was a shudder throughout the building, and the sound of an explosion. They looked up at the overhead lighting as it fluttered, then dimmed, then went out altogether. The room was bathed in red emergency lighting now.

“Power outage!” Kelly shouted. “I’m firing up the number one generator!” He flipped a switch and they could hear a turbine rolling over with a distant wine, somewhere far below them.

“We’re off the grid,” said Kelly, watching the levels closely. The Arch spin-flux integrity had slipped to 45%, and it was still falling. “Come on, baby. What’s taking the auxiliary turbine so long?” The power level was falling, down to 41% now, but then it stabilized and began to climb. “That’s better,” Kelly breathed. “It’s a good thing we had it at 50%. That 10% buffer saved us. You can’t maintain a Nexus Point with less than 40% on the spin.”

The red emergency lab lights winked off and the overheads came back on. “I’ll take it back to 50%,” said Kelly. “Hope that didn’t affect the Nexus field much. I better give Paul a call.”

A moment later he was on the lab intercom system. Paul was down in the garage, just finishing up filling three fuel jugs with gasoline he had siphoned from the cars. He swore loudly when the power fluctuated, then the garage was suddenly plunged into darkness. A queasy feeling came over him, and he swayed.

Off in the distance, near the entrance to the circular ramp that led out to the surface he caught a glimpse of something in the pale emergency lighting. It wavered, then resolved to the form of a hooded man holding a long object in his right hand and slowly advancing, peering intently at him as he took a step forward.

“Who’s there?” he said, leaning heavily on his Honda for support. But when he looked again the figure was gone. “Guess I’ve been breathing too many gas fumes,” he said aloud to himself, still feeling light headed.

The lights came back on and he heard Kelly on the intercom: “Hey Pablo, I just had to make a trip to the mound. Went to the bull pen for a setup man. Looks like the grid outside is down, and the number one generator is coming on-line as we speak.”

Paul went to the nearby wall, toggling the intercom switch. He was very tired. “Good job, Kelly. I’ll be right up…” Then a wave of nausea swept over him and he fell.

When Paul failedto arrive Kelly went down to the garage level to look for him, finding him sitting on the floor, somewhat dazed. He called up to Robert and Maeve, and they soon had Paul up in the control room, a fresh cup of Peet’s coffee in hand. It was his turn to be swaddled in a nice warm blanket.

“I thought I was the one suffering jet lag, Amigo.” Kelly quipped. “What are you trying to pull on us?”

“It was very odd,” said Paul. “I thought it was the fumes from the gasoline at first, but then I got very light headed.”

“The Nexus field weakened when we lost primary power,” said Kelly. “It’s very likely that it diminished somewhat, and you may have been dangerously close to the border zone.”

Paul nodded. “That sounds like a plausible explanation,” he said. “But it was strange… Just after the power went down I thought I saw someone near the entrance ramp to the garage, peering intently at me—in fact, slowly advancing towards me, holding something.”

“Holding what?” asked Robert.

“Well… it looked like a sword!”

They stared at one another, perplexed.

“What would happen if someone encountered a Nexus Point in the outside world, Paul?” Nordhausen was curious. “What would it look like, a huge shimmering ball of light or something?”

“Of course not,” said Paul. “We’ve had alerts before, and the Arch was up and running when we arrived here, walking right into the Nexus Point it was generating. So it has no unusual appearance at all. But the longer it stands, the deeper it goes. After a while people on the outside become out of phase with the Time inside the Nexus—or vice versa—so someone from the outside might have no awareness of the four of us, for example. We may be slightly out of phase with the normal vibration of their Time—there, but unseen.”

“Can someone enter it from the outside? I mean, could a lab tech decide to come to the facility here early and just wander into the Nexus? What if that was a maintenance person holding a mop?”

“Sure,” said Paul. “Aside from the fact that this portion of the facility is behind a gated security entrance, there’s nothing to stop someone on the outside from coming here. We could come and go, for example, but I don’t advise we try it. The longer you are in a Nexus Point the more out of phase you are with the world outside it. That’s what causes the odd dissonance when you first cross the border. You have to re-phase with Time and the dissonance can be fairly debilitating, as I can attest!” ”

“So the Assassins could just rush in here and put us all to the sword?” Nordhausen was still digging.

“If they could see us,” said Paul, recalling the vision he had perceived. “My guess is that Time has a way of dissuading them because a Nexus Point is protected from the effects of causality. It’s like a Time out, to turn a phrase nicely, or a kind of neutral zone. Who really knows? If this is correct the Assassins know it would be foolish to try what you propose. And, well, we’re still here, so we might be out of phase in here, and therefore protected by other means as well. They could walk in and yet be unable to even see us!”

“Then who was that down in the garage?” The professor finally got to his point. “You say it appeared as if he was looking at you, coming toward you, as if aware of your presence?”

“What Kelly just said is very likely the culprit,” said Paul. “The Nexus probably contracted slightly with the power outage. I must have still been inside, but very near the border, and it was a near run thing. Perhaps I was right at the edge. In such an instance I might have started to re-phase with the outside Meridian and become vulnerable to causality, if only for a brief moment. Yes,” he concluded. “Whoever it was seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see them.”