John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

Then he heard voices from below, and cautiously knelt again to peer out the window. Grimwald had emerged from the chapel, obviously alive, and Paul was crestfallen. Apparently the water and wine were not sufficient lures, or perhaps Grimwald was not so pious, seeing fit to ignore them. So he had only one recourse now, and his hands were tight on his rifle as he slowly forced himself to stand on unsteady legs.

He positioned himself to one side of the tall, narrow embrasure. Damn, he thought. Here I am, another Lee Harvey Oswald! His mouth was dry, his throat tight. Sweat dotted his brow. He peered out to see Grimwald clasp the arm of the chief cleric, smiling. It was now or never, he thought, and he aimed his rifle, sighting down the thin, cold metal barrel. He knew what the next moment might mean for him. He had no idea when his retraction might occur. He had only told Robert and Maeve to watch the Golems closely, looking for any sign or variation, and the many problems they had that night with the Golem module haunted him now. What was it Kelly had said—there could be a lag time between intervention and the appearance of a variation in the Golem reports? In those seconds or minutes, his life rode in the balance.

The moment he pulled the trigger the gun would surely fire with an audible crack. He knew heads would instinctively snap toward the sound, and then how long would it be before these men at arms were up the tower ladder, growling and shouldering their way up through the trap door to get at him? He thought he might stand on the door, but he weighed all of 165 pounds. They would get to him soon enough, even if they had to hack the trap door to pieces with an axe. He could defend himself with the rifle, but what good would it do? It would only introduce yet more disastrous variations in the time line. He had little doubt that within ten minutes of firing his lethal round, he, too, would be a prisoner of Grimwald’s retainers, or worse, he would join the dark captain in the cold clutches of death. Grimwald was to meet his rightful death here and, if need be, Paul would die himself before he killed anyone else.

All this passed through his mind in a heartbeat as he watched Grimwald leave off his clasping handshake and move to the side of his horse. A retainer held the reins as he made ready to mount. Paul slipped off the safety and his finger tightened on the trigger, his chin close by the rifle’s bore. Then, just as he was about to fire, he stayed his hand when he saw Grimwald sway on his thick bowed legs, then stagger, falling against the side of the horse, which skittered back with alarm. The big man fell heavily to the ground, with a dull thud. Immediately his retainers were at his side, aghast.

There was shouting, hard words that Paul did not understand. Fearful that he might be seen, Paul cowered back away from the embrasure, hiding the rifle beneath his cassock again. He heard quick footsteps in the chapel below. They were in through the sacristy and into the tower now! Had he been seen?

Then something creaked and the hanging bell moved, clanging loudly. Paul stopped his ears with the palms of his hands, a look of anguish and fear on his face. They had seen him, and by God, they were raising the alarm, ringing him out, dulling his senses with the hard peal of the bell. Again and again it rang, accusing him, singling him out, shouting in his weary mind— murderer, assassin, wretch! And the sound of the bell was a hammer on the anvil of his soul as he coward against the wall there, the rifle tight between his knees as he waited for his inevitable doom.

They hadlittle more than a minute to rest after Paul’s shift concluded, for a moment later the Golems were already signaling variations in the Meridian.

“Hold on!” said Nordhausen. “Something’s up!”

Maeve was at his side immediately. They were looking at the chart again, and were relieved to see that the line of green that had been stubbornly stuck in the year 714 was now again on the move. The shades of green darkened and migrated further along the Meridian, passing through the years 720, then 725 and moving towards 732, the pivotal date for the Battle of Tours.

“This is looking very promising,” she said. “Any documentation on what has happened?”

“Searching now,” said the professor. “Let me see if I can get something from the continuation of Fredegar’s Chronicle… Here, I’ve got the file up…. “Grimwald was assassinated, poisoned, while praying in the Church of St. Lambert. This while his father lay ill at Jopille on the Meuse… By God, he’s done it!”

“Then our torpedo struck home,” said Maeve. “Paul made it through and delivered his javelin dart to Grimwald. God, I wonder how he managed it? So what about the battle?”

“Never mind that now!” Kelly shouted. “I’m pulling Paul out right away.” He was working feverishly at his console, checking readings, toggling switches, adjusting dials. “Someone get down there, will you!”

Minutes laterMaeve watched Paul step over the event horizon and appear in the whirl of light and color, a thick acrid fog in his wake, resolving to blue mist. She went to the intercom to send up word that all was well, then came up and gave him a big hug, surprised to feel something hidden under his monk’s robe.

“Bring that bloodied javelin back with you?” she asked, curious.

“Well…” Paul gave her a sheepish look, opening his robe to reveal the .22 caliber rifle.”

“You took that through?”

“I had to be sure,” he said. “You made your point too well, Maeve. Was I supposed to rush the man and try to best him at arms? You should have seen him!”

“You killed him with the rifle? That will leave a slug in his corpse!”

“No, no, no,” Paul held up a hand. “I didn’t fire a shot.” He told her what had happened, and she slowly regained her composure, suddenly realizing what he had gone through, and remembering what it was like herself, at that very place, yet nine years earlier on the Meridian.

“So you’re Rantgar now,” she said softly. “Well you can join the club. I suppose I’m just another of Dodo’s retainers.”

Paul smiled, “It was risky, Maeve, I know. But it was all I could think of—all I could do.”

She nodded solemnly, understanding. They were about to leave when Maeve caught something out of the corner of her eye. She turned to squint at the Arch, advancing cautiously towards the event line, stooping to get a better look at something on the floor. “Now what in God’s name is this?” She could hardly believe her eyes.

Could there be a feedback loop in the system? She had no idea how the physics worked and the equipment had been running fitfully all night, relying on secondary power sources and invaded by a virus sent from the future, albeit a benign one if they were to believe Rantgar.

“Did you take that through as well?”

Paul turned and looked, puzzled, shaking his head in the negative. But what he saw, sitting square on the middle of the yellow event horizon line, set his mind spinning again, and gave rise to a thrum of anxiety in his chest. “It couldn’t be,” he said aloud. “It just couldn’t be…”

Maeve started to reach for it, her fingers enshrouded by the fading mist and pricked by the remnant of icy frost there, then she drew her hand back, afraid to touch the thing.

“What do you make of that?” She looked at Paul, extending her arm pointing at the floor in the arch. “It appeared just after your retraction,” she said.

Paul stepped over to the ready line again, Maeve advancing cautiously behind him.