THRESHOLD OF ETERNITY Page 7

  “Found anything?” Magwareet asked when he had finished.

  “Here,” said a girl with dark hair, and pointed. “This is anachronistic, but it’s an exchange with the close peak where the anchor team was broken up. See?”

  “Oh no,” said Magwareet slowly, studying the green pattern. “Yes, it’s right in this moment, isn’t it?”

  “Is it bad?” Red put in tentatively.

  “It may be. It may be very bad. For some reason we can’t fathom, anything picked up in a temporal surge is more likely to be organic than inorganic, and most likely to be human. The mass of this one is small, but diffuse—which means several people or animals. And if they’re people—”

  “What?”

  “Then 1957 has been invaded by a bunch of the most bloodthirsty savages in history—a war party from the twenty-third century Croceraunian Empire.”

  IX

  In the middle of the eighteenth century the foundations of Lisbon fell apart, and with them the foundations of absolutist religion.

  In April 1906 the same thing happened to the city of San Francisco. Some people said it was just that a negro badman called Stackolee pulled all the waterpipes loose; more logically, it seemed that a lump of the world had vanished from below.

  In 1908 something gigantic fell in Siberia; long, long before, something vastly larger had fallen in Arizona. Of course, there was no reason to connect these things…

  Chasnik, commander of the war party, would have been perfectly invisible to anyone in the Dead Place at the foot of the hill. But it was said that there were still people in some of the ruined cities who knew the magic of the Old Days, and Chasnik had a powerful respect for magic of the kind which had produced the prismatic binocular periscope through which he was surveying the scene. Therefore he kept as much of the rock between him and the Dead Place as possible.

  The Fist of Heaven had been merciful here; it had struck not the city itself but the low ground on the other side of the river. Probably the rush of air and the wildfire had done more damage than the actual blow. Some twenty or twenty-five of the towers were still standing.

  A hint of movement at his side disturbed him, and he scowled down at the fresh-faced boy of nineteen who crouched there. Chasnik had not yet figured out exactly what he was going to do to the official who had ensured that he—he, Chasnik, fourteenth in the roster of raider captains of the Croceraunian Empire!—was sent out this time with a freshly graduated novice magician.

  Still, he wore the symbols: there was power in the blue tattoos across his body and arms, and obviously someone thought highly of his ability.

  Grudgingly, Chasnik stepped aside and let Vyko get at the eyepiece of the periscope. After a quick look, the boy nodded.

  “Quiet enough,” he said. “My bones don’t show any risk in the near future, but—”

  “But what?” Chasnik demanded harshly. “There have been too many reports of miracles lately, Vyko! I’m not going into any Dead Places, no matter how nearly intact they may seem, until I’m trebly sure of what I’m doing.”

  Vyko coloured slightly, but he answered boldly enough. “Do you not see this?” he demanded, bunching his right fist and raising it towards Chasnik’s face. “Do you not know the mark of the Eyes that See? I tell you, Chasnik, that there is no danger in the immediate future for me or anyone who is with me.”

  Chasnik grumbled to himself; he had never really liked the fact that it was not the commander of the party but the magician who could see ahead who made the plans.

  “In fact,” finished Vyko almost to himself, “I have never known the future seem so uneventful.”

  “Nonetheless, I wish to try it for myself,” said Chasnik. “Crettan!”

  “Captain?” A man slid down the side of the hill like a ghost.

  “Cross the valley and breathe on the Dead Place with the Breath of Terror. That way we shall know if there is anyone with power there.”

  “Aye, captain,” said Crettan. He didn’t look pleased, and Chasnik eyed him sharply.

  “Well, what is it?”

  “This Dead Place is largely undamaged,” said Crettan haltingly. “I have heard that—suppose there are—suppose they strike me with the Fist of Heaven!”

  “Blasphemy,” said Vyko quietly, before Chasnik could reply. “The Fist of Heaven is not at the call of men. I shall require an hour of penance from you at camp-time tonight.”

  Crettan scowled and withdrew; in a few minutes they saw, his horse, laden with the generator of the Breath of Terror slip away into the hills.

  There was nothing to do now for a while but wait; Chasnik whispered orders up the hillside, and the party of men relaxed into comfortable positions. Then he found himself a spot and was annoyed when Vyko dropped beside him.

  “Sorry about that, Chasnik,” said the magician informally. “This stuff is all very well for the men—I had to drive the point home—but it’s a nuisance.”

  Chasnik could never get to enjoy the casual way in which Vyko, a beardless boy, assumed equality with him. He only grunted in reply, and, seeing that the captain was not in a talkative mood, Vyko bent to the periscope and studied the Dead Place.

  His heart pounded. This was the first time he had come out as staff magician for a war party, though of course he had made a few trips as a novice. Furthermore, this was the first nearly intact Dead Place he had approached, and he longed to find out what those enigmatic ruins concealed.

  Oh, there would be the obvious things, naturally—it was the war party’s main purpose to discover and scout the sources of metal, plastic and other materials in such ruins. But Vyko, despite his education, despite his carefully nurtured ability to see the future, still wondered how right the stories were…

  These people—of the Dead Places—had angered Heaven, so it was said, and been struck down for their arrogance. Their seed—himself and Crettan and Chasnik and the rest—had been scattered abroad. But there were books, a few, carefully preserved volumes, which hinted at something else. Vyko wanted to find more of those books.

  He knew, for instance, because one of the old magicians at Court had told him, that there had formerly been a curse on the Dead Places, some fifty years or more ago. A man who entered one became sick, his hair dropped out, his teeth decayed, and after long suffering, he died. Yet now the war parties could venture into them without risk except from the few people who had survived in them, or had found out earlier about the lifting of the curse.

  And then there were the stories from the very fringe of the Empire… The Emperor, naturally, claimed dominion of the whole of this land mass; in fact, his war parties were still scouting quite a lot of it after the Empire had been in existence over a century. And certain of the parties, who had been far to the east, had found people who still (still? Without a break, or after rediscovery?) wielded some of the power of the Old Days. They could not have been struck down by the Fist of Heaven, then; they could not have been as arrogant as these men here.

  And—of course—there were the flying things. Vyko had been present at the burning of one of them. It had been huge and silvery, and made a great noise as it came to earth, but before any sign had come from it, the senior officer present had given a slight nod, and the Breath of Terror had eaten it up. Occasionally, they were still seen, but they no longer landed if they could help it.

  Birds—gigantic birds which had fed on the Dead Places until they became metallic and huge. That was all they could be.

  An hour passed as the sun sidled towards the horizon. At last, from the other side of the Dead Place, the Breath of Terror wafted gently across an acre of shattered brickwork and concrete. Vyko found himself hoping that there had been no valuable books in that part of the Dead Place.

  “Now,” said Chasnik eagerly. “Now we shall see.”

  They waited for a tense minute to see an answering weapon strike from one of the broken towers. Nothing happened. Nothing—

  But there was no Dead Place.

  There wa
s a tract of cultivated land.

  There was no rock sheltering them. They lay out, exposed, on a naked hillside.

  In the valley, a machine was at work—if it was work, for it seemed to consist entirely of travelling back and forth, leaving the turned brown soil a dusty grey when it had passed. Even as they watched, a big black carriage that travelled at enormous speed with no draft animals went by on a brown track between the fields.

  Chasnik’s military training asserted itself; a few quick orders before anyone had time to think, and they were safe behind sparse cover. Then he looked round, seeing Vyko nearby.

  “What can have happened?” Vyko said in wonder.

  “That’s a fine question for you to ask!” stormed Chasnik. “You’re supposed to know all that.”

  From up the hill came a keening, as the men realised what had happened. Someone cried, “A miracle!” and Chasnik yelled at him to shut his mouth.

  “Well?” he asked Vyko. “You said the future was uneventful. Now a sorcerer in that Dead Place has picked us up by magic and put us somewhere else. I call that an event.” He was being heavily ironical to help control the nervousness he felt.

  Vyko shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he answered. “Chasnik, I believe a great boon has been granted to us.” His eyes shone. “I haven’t yet got the feel of what is to come, except that it is great and terrible. But look yonder—did you ever see such a machine? There are men with it, too! And that black carriage—there’s only one answer.”

  “That being—?”

  “We are being granted a sight of the Old Days! We have been moved in time.”

  Fear showed in Chasnik’s black eyes for a moment, but he answered roughly, “Magicians’ jargon! Nonsense! I’ll accept a sorcerer can move men in space—I’ve heard of such things often enough—but in time…! No, we must have been sent to one of those places to the east of the Empire where these men with strange powers live. And therefore we have a fine chance to add to the Empire!”

  That’ll teach them to send me out with a freshly qualified staff magician! he added to himself, and went on to picture the advance in status a whole new province of the Empire—especially one with so many secrets—would get him.

  “It’s something I’ve always dreamed of,” Vyko went on, but Chasnik flung up a hand and almost started out from cover at what he saw.

  Panicked—presumably—Crettan had again loosed the Breath of Terror, and the strange machine and its attendants had flared to nothing. The ground about it was charred.

  “Idiot!” said Vyko softly. Crettan’s racing horse now came into sight being ridden as if he was fleeing a thousand devils. “Oh, the idiot! Chasnik, he will give away our position if he comes charging up that way.”

  Chasnik nodded. He glanced up automatically to note the position of the sun—which was bright in a cold clear sky—set the range of his gun to maximum, and aligned it on Crettan’s body.

  They were beautiful weapons, these, Chasnik thought, as the man and horse tumbled together in death. He did not understand quite how they operated—something about total conversion of incident illumination into beamed sonic frequencies capable of disrupting protein molecules was how the magicians referred to it. They were little use at night or on a cloudy day, of course, but for ordinary occasions, sighting one of them on a man’s neck or skull was enough to dispose of him in a second.

  Maybe—one day—they’d discover how to make them again.

  “Conference!” said Chasnik shortly, and the section commanders slid down the hill towards him. There had been no further sound from the men, but Chasnik could tell well enough when there was tension sapping at morale.

  “Sorcerers must have lived in that Dead Place,” he began glancing at Vyko as if challenging him to contradict. “We seem to have been moved somewhere else by magic.”

  The NCO’s stiffened and made as if to move closer together.

  “However!” said Chasnik. “This has great possibilities!”

  He went on to paint the rosy future awaiting men who added new ground to the Empire—skillfully, Vyko had to admit, so that soon enough this apparent disaster had become an apparent blessing.

  Not entirely, though; a few of the older NCO’s looked thoughtfully at their young staff magician while Chasnik was speaking—wondering, perhaps, whether he was competent to protect them after they had been struck by this kind of magic.

  “So we will range out until we discover a centre of population,” Chasnik finished, “and base our further moves on what we discover there.”

  It was not done to mention ‘centre of government’; no sensible official of the Croceraunian Empire referred to the existence of alternative rule.

  It took them only minutes to assemble and move off; Vyko rode thoughtfully at Chasnik’s side as they made for the track leading through the fields.

  For half an hour or so they progressed warily, seeing little sign of life. There was cultivated land all round them, but obviously either awaiting seeding or lying fallow. No one came until they had covered some miles.

  Then a strange noise on the track ahead warned them of the approach of another of the carriages without draft animals. This one was going too fast for them; a hundred-man war party could not melt instantly into the landscape.

  The car halted with a screech of brakes, and a scowling man looked from one of the rear windows, his mouth opening in astonishment at the sight of Chasnik’s men. He called out.

  “Why—he speaks almost our language!” remarked Vyko.

  “Is that so peculiar?” said Chasnik. Tension showed in his voice, and several of the men seemed to be drawing back from the apparent power the car represented.

  Assuming a bold front, he rode forward to the car.

  “Who are you?” the scowling man demanded.

  “Chasnik, fourteenth captain of the Croceraunian Empire,” said Chasnik shortly. The man blinked.

  “Show me your identification papers!”

  “Men do not address an Imperial officer that way.”

  “Why, you—” The man started to get out of the car. Chasnik motioned, and at once a hundred men were visible, weapons poised and aimed towards the car.

  “That’s right,” said Chasnik silkily. “You are plainly a man of some authority. You will get out and come with us.”

  Two soldiers advanced and took the scowling man roughly by the arms; another dealt with the driver of the car. It was standard—and good!—policy to obtain a hostage as early as might be. It was a useful bargaining point.

  “And the carriage?” said Vyko wistfully.

  “Destroy it.” Chasnik signalled the man with the Breath of Terror, and the car flared up.

  “You won’t get away with this,” the man panted. “I am important—I will be missed. There will be search parties, and when you are caught—”

  “Just as I want it,” Chasnik replied. “Camp down, men! Full defensive circle. It’s easier for them to come to us than for us to go to them.”

  With quiet efficiency the circle was made. In twenty minutes the war party commanded ten square miles of ground. Securely bound, the strangers were thrown to the ground in the middle of the ring.

  But before the men could vanish under their improvised screens, there was a howling overhead and one of the flying things circled them three times. On the third pass Chasnik lost patience and ordered it fired on, at which it flew off.

  “That will bring them!” said the captive sombrely. Vyko turned to him.

  “You mean—there are men in those things?”

  The captive stared, and then laughed. Vyko tried to press him, but the man was not willing to answer, and when Chasnik saw what was happening, he forbade it.

  The captive, though, was right. Barely an hour had passed when there were rumblings from up the valley, and a scout came in to report that wagons bearing troops were on the way. Chasnik nodded, and ordered fire to be held for the time being.

  “Oh, but this can only be the Old Days!�
�� said Vyko as he studied the transport arriving, the strangely armed men deploying into the landscape. Another aircraft swooped overhead; Chasnik had not been counting on having to be invisible from the air as well as the ground, but he had done his best to rectify his earlier mistake.

  “You’re the expert on them!” said Chasnik bitingly. “Look yonder! Does that not seem like an officer?”

  Vyko studied a trio of men who had emerged into plain sight and were walking in irregular echelon in their direction, weapons in hand. “It does,” he agreed, meaning the leader.

  “Go down and parley with them, then,” said Chasnik.

  For a horrible moment Vyko felt himself on the brink of a precipice. He recalled what was most likely to happen to anyone attempting a parley with Croceraunians. But then his strong urge to find out more of this wonderful age triumphed. If he only got a chance to ask some questions—!

  With an almost happy smile at Chasnik, he rose into sight.

  The trio ahead stiffened and halted. The officer was the first to regain himself after seeing Vyko’s odd clothing, and the outlandish tattooing on his body. “Come forward without hurrying!” he directed.

  Vyko did so, heart hammering. The others made no move until he was thirty feet from them, when the officer gestured. “All right, stop there. Who are you and where do you come from?”

  Vyko debated his answer for an instant. There was one possibility, of course: this man might understand some of the esoteric signs used by magicians, and see the necessity for talking away from Chasnik’s suspicious eyes.

  He started to make the sign demanding secret conference, but the trigger finger of the soldier on the officer’s right was over-close to the firing pressure. An enormous fist seemed to slam Vyko in the stomach, and he dropped to the earth in a black haze.

  Chasnik, watching, rapped the order to strike, and in a few moments the war party had all but wiped out their opponents.

  Before the sun set, they were masters of the countryside as far as they could see, including two unsuspecting villages and several miles of metalled road.