John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

“You’ve made your point,” said Paul. “But if Rantgar has evaporated into the ether, we have no other choice but to shift in and see that the job is done. And it’s not as grim as you paint it. He was killed at the shrine. He’ll probably be kneeling before Lambert’s tomb, and most likely alone at that point. The retainers and soldiers will be outside.”

“Pick up that thing and see what you can hit with it,” said Maeve pointing to the javelin Rantgar had left behind.

“It doesn’t have to be all dash and valor,” said Paul. “We can use our heads, be stealthy, and we can use a reagent…”

“What?”

“Poison,” said Paul. “Whatever weapon we use will have to possess a lethal bite, even if it is something as small as a needle. I’ve got compounds down in the lab that would be absolutely fatal. All we have to do is deliver the barb somehow. Our task is to eliminate Grimwald, by any means possible. His presence in that Meridian was apparently a heavy stone on Plectrude’s side of the scale. If he lives, then Charles fails to secure power before Abdul Rahman’s invasion in 732. So we’ll have to shift in and see what we can do about it. It may be that we won’t be able to do a thing. Yes, we may fail. If we lose the singularity we’ll have to shut down and it could take days to regenerate—that’s assuming we have a viable world to live in here, and the food, fuel and freedom to continue operating.”

“Well, we’d better draw lots then,” said Robert. “There’s no point risking two of us on a venture like this, as much as moral support might make that more comfortable.” He reached into his pocket, recovering the pencil he had put there earlier, and he put it back in the cup with the others, willing to leave the matter to chance as it should be. There was no way, he realized now, that he could cheat his friend. So if fate chose him, he resolved to go, though he could not even begin to contemplate what he may have to do. Could they find allies there, other agents of the Order who might render assistance? He shared this idea with Maeve.

“It’s very likely that they have an operation planned, and so yes, there will probably be agents there. Identifying them is the trick, I suppose.”

“Don’t bother with the lots, Robert,” said Paul. “I’ll take care of this myself.“

“Now, now, my man. I’m perfectly willing to stand this watch as well.”

“You said it yourself, Robert. No need to risk the two of us, particularly after what we just witnessed with Rantgar. I have a good idea of what I will do here, so I’m going down to wardrobe. I’ll be in the Arch Bay in ten minutes, Kelly.” He picked up Rantgar’s javelin.

“But where are you going? What’s the target? I’ll need time with the Golems to process everything.”

“Look in the Retraction Module. Rantgar was certainly going to go somewhere, right? Put me right on those temporal coordinates. As for the pattern buffer, you’ll just have to purge his data and substitute my pattern.”

“Alright… I’ll clear extra RAM so I can store a double pattern sweep before you shift. Don’t worry. I’ll keep a firm hold on you.”

“Double or nothing,” Paul smiled. Then he turned and headed for the great titanium door.

Maevewas on the intercom a few minutes later . “Kelly? we’re good to go down here. You can ramp it up at your discretion.”

Kelly looked at Robert, and received a thumbs up for reassurance. He toggled on the power systems monitor and began to take the Arch up to 80%. The wine of the turbines harried them all as they listened, feeling the thrumming vibration.

“Looks like that little worm just activated,” said Kelly. “Golems just fed a huge block of data to the breaching module, undoubtedly the coordinates for this shift. I’ve got a good pattern on Paul, double sweep, and he’s installed. OK, Robert. Get ready on the Golem Module and watch for variations. On my mark… Three, two, one. Initiating Time shift… Looks good, a little bump there on the integrity line but it’s settled down now. I think he made a good shift.”

A few moments later Maeve was on the intercom confirming that Paul was gone. “We’ve launched our torpedo,” she said. “He’s on his way, God help him…”

It wascompletely dark when he manifested on the coordinates, and Paul spent a breathless moment regaining his senses, stooping low and groping about on what was obviously a firm wooden floor. As his eyes adjusted to the light he saw he was in a circular enclosed room, with walls of hard stone and three tall embrasures or slits in the upper wall, open to the cold night air. Something loomed before him in the darkness and he reached out, tentatively, trying to feel what it was. The cold touch of metal was the last piece of the puzzle he needed.

I’m in a bell tower, he thought. Thank God I didn’t walk right into the bell and announce myself! He moved, ever so cautiously, and peered out of one of the three window slits. He could dimly see the gleam of moonlight on water, and he guessed that he must be in the chapel that was built to house Lambert’s tomb and shrine on the banks of the River Meuse. He had no idea what time it was, but reasoned it might be the hour before dawn. The coordinates clearly meant to put Rantgar here, in a position to possibly fling his javelin or fire an arrow from one of these windows. They wouldn’t want him lurking here very long, he thought, so the hour of Grimwald’s arrival must be very near, possibly at dawn.

He had little time to waste, so he felt his way along the wall for a door, but there was none. Then he looked down and saw a knotted rope at his feet off to one side, and realized there was a trap door in the bare wooden floor. Sweating and very nervous, he took something from beneath the folds of his robe and laid it softly on the floor, right beneath the window that opened directly above the chapel entrance, about twenty or thirty feet below.

Maeve’s challenge concerning the javelin echoed in his mind. Yes, he knew there was no way he would ever have been able to hurl the weapon through the embrasure with any hope of hitting someone. Rantgar had undoubtedly trained to perform this task to perfection, over all the many years he lived out his assignment here. But Paul had no such training, nor even the strength that would be required to make for a lethal throw. So it was not the javelin he set down, but something else, and thankfully, Maeve had not been so meticulous about screening him before the shift. She noticed the slight bulge beneath his cassock, assuming it was the weapon.

“Oh, Paul,” she had said. “Sorry about being such a curmudgeon, but what in the world are you going to do with that?”

“Leave it to me,” he told her quietly. But what he didn’t tell her was that he was concealing his .22 caliber rifle beneath his robe. It was the only weapon he knew anything at all about using, and it now had a very deadly bite. He had coated the tips of three bullets with a lethal compound from the lab, and slipped them ever so carefully back into the ammo clip. They would be the first three rounds fired if it came to that, but his primary plan involved a less direct approach.

He hesitated as he set the rifle down, afraid to leave it out of his sight for a single instant. Then he slowly pulled on the trap door rope, opening it quietly. A ladder led down into the neck of the bell tower, and he slipped his narrow frame easily through the opening, gathering his robes tight about him as he descended. His feet, in woolen slippers with leather soles, were whisper quiet. Stealth was his one advantage. Who would think anyone was up in the bell tower at this hour?