David Wingrove - The Empire of Time

For me, it’s time to depart. I have borne witness to the final act of this tragedy — this dark comedy of two nations, hell-bent on each other’s extinction. There is no more.

Or rather, there’s one last thing. One last person I must see.

I stand and bow, first to Adelbert, and then, finally, to Manfred.

‘My Lord …’

But as he shapes his mouth to answer I am gone. As he too will be gone before the dawn. Into the air. Ashes to ashes …

She is not in the sun room. The great lounge is empty and burned out, the great glass window cracked and darkened by smoke. I go up and find her on the battlements, staring out towards the east, her long, golden hair falling to her waist. Beyond her the sun is rising for the last time on a living world.

‘Gudrun?’

She turns to face me, her face in shadow. ‘Otto? Is that you? Have you come?’

‘I said I would.’

‘Yes, but …’

I go across to her and see, as I come closer, that her eyes are gone. Burned from her face. She is blind now. She will never see the dawn. Even so, she seems to stare down at me.

‘What is it?’

I am wearing protective lenses. Fast-reactors, that form a thick film immediately there’s a change in the light. And fortunately so … for as she speaks, there’s a blinding flash, like the whole world has been turned into a negative of itself. Gudrun’s dark shape is outlined in liquid silver.

As it fades — the light bleeding back into the dark — I feel a tingling on my face. My eyes hurt, but at least they’re not damaged.

‘Leipzig,’ I say.

‘Leipzig?’ And then she realises. ‘Oh, sweet mother …’

I step closer, reaching out to take her hands. ‘Your eyes …’

‘It surprised me,’ she says. ‘No one told me …’

Looking up into her ruined face, I could cry for all that spoiled beauty. Even so, she smiles, and as she does, I remember how she looked.

‘There can’t be many left,’ she says. ‘I’ve heard them. Felt the heat from them on my cheeks and on my arms.’

Her arms are burned, I realise. The flesh is peeling from them.

I swallow and make to answer, but at that moment the sound hits us in a wave, the air throbbing and growling, making us both clamp our hands over our ears, for it’s like the sound of a million souls howling forlornly on the wind.

Such an awful, bestial sound.

And then that too fades, and the stillness that follows is strange, for the silence is perfect. It is dawn, but not a single bird is singing. Not a single cock crows. There’s no sound of trains, or planes or-

Gudrun kneels, facing me, her hands reaching blindly for my face until she finds it. Her fingers cup my cheeks.

‘Otto?’

‘Yes, sweet lady?’

‘Do you have someone you love? Back where you come from?’

I am about to say no — not where I come from — but this is no time to be pedantic.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Her name is Katerina. And she is as beautiful as you, my lady.’

‘As I am now?’

‘Oh, you are still beautiful.’

‘But my eyes.’

‘I remember your eyes. If I close mine, I can see them perfectly.’ Her fingers make a small movement on my face, then move back. She stands and looks about her, as if she’s sensing the air, her head turning slowly this way and then that.

‘When …’ Her voice breaks. She takes a moment, then begins again. ‘When do they bomb Erfurt?’

‘Soon, my lady.’

‘And you … you will be gone?’

‘Yes …’

And it feels like a betrayal. Like I could do something. Only I can’t.

‘Will you … will you come back and see me?’

‘See you?’

‘In the Past. You could remind me. Show me the cup. Maybe …’

She falls silent.

‘Maybe?’

She turns, smiling again, looking down at me, almost as if she can still see me. ‘Oh, it would never have worked … the size of me and the size of you …’

I shiver. ‘I-’

‘Oh, I know, Otto. You love Katerina. And you’re an honest man, not a rogue. But it would have been so sweet, to have had you, somewhere, somewhen . In some loose strand of time, maybe. You and I …’

I close my eyes, tormented, for there is nothing I can do. I cannot return. I cannot grant her wish. And even if I could …

‘I must go,’ I say, and find that I hate myself for uttering the words. ‘I …’

‘I love you, Otto. Did you know that?’

I give a tiny, surprised laugh, then look to her. But why is it absurd? Why could I not be loved by such a one as her?

Because she is a goddess, Otto. Because such unions are not meant. And besides, there’s Katerina .

There is. Only this once, I feel, perhaps, she’d understand. For Gudrun, at that moment, burned as she is, still has an unearthly beauty. And maybe that’s why. Maybe such beauty had to perish, because …

But there is no ‘because’. Here at the end, all I can register is the pointlessness of it all. As the last bombs fall, what can I say but that this never should have happened.

Rassenkampf. What madman conjured up the notion?

‘My lady …’

And I jump, because if I stay a moment longer my heart will break.

My lady …

Dead , I think, as the platform shimmers into being all about me. She is dead .

And my heart feels heavy like a stone, and when Hecht asks me what it is, I turn from him and walk away, unable, for once, to trust myself to speak. Wanting only to find some dark and lonely spot and grieve. For that’s what’s needed now.

‘Otto?’

I roll over on to my back and look up. Ernst is sitting there, in my chair, across the room from where I lie. ‘What time is it?’

‘It’s now.’ And he laughs at the old joke. For it’s always ‘now’ in Four-Oh.

He hesitates, then asks. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Me? Yes, I’m fine. You?’

‘It’s just that …’

‘Go on.’

‘Just that you seemed hurt.’

I give the faintest nod, then sit up, knuckling my eyes and yawning. ‘How long did I sleep?’

‘Two days.’

‘Two …?’ I laugh. ‘Urd help us, was I that tired?’

‘It would seem so.’

Ernst stands. ‘Hecht wants to see us.’

‘Us?’

‘Yes, us . And he wants to see us now.’

For once, Hecht comes to the point slowly. ‘It was Ernst’s idea … a good one as it happens.’

I glance at Ernst, who’s sitting cross-legged beside me, then look back at Hecht.

‘Go on …’

‘It’s a sector you both know. Somewhere familiar …’

‘1239,’ Ernst says.

I try not to look surprised. ‘1239?’

Hecht nods. ‘Novgorod. You both know it well, so there shouldn’t be any problems. The idea is to ease Ernst back into things.’

‘Right. And the pretext?’

‘To meet Nevsky,’ Ernst answers. ‘And to get in tight with him.’

‘But Nevsky is in Moscow all that winter.’

‘That’s right,’ Hecht says. ‘So you go to him. You and Ernst. It’ll allow you to acclimatise. To get to learn a bit more about conditions there.’

‘But …’

I stop. I don’t know why I’m objecting. It’s what I want, after all. To go back there and see her. But I’m concerned for Ernst. Worried that this might be too soon, that such a trip might prove too demanding for him.

‘When would we go?’

Hecht shrugs. ‘When everything’s prepared. Ernst will brief you. He’s come up with a neat little scheme. And besides …’ He meets my eyes. ‘… it’ll be good for you both to take things easy. These have been difficult times.’