Page 39 of The Time Roads

When he came to, he was stumbling along a muddy path. Stars winked overhead between the budding trees, and a heavy watery scent filled the air. He was cold. Hungry. Terrified and bruised. Someone had attacked him. Síomón had fought off the man and snatched away his knife. What came next was unclear. He only remembered that he came across a different man, walking alone by the river. Memory flickered. He recognized Paul Keller. Must stop Paul. Must.

He blinked and saw a knife flashing through the darkness. He blinked again, and a woman’s shriek reverberated in his skull.

No!

He opened his eyes, the word still echoing in his ears. For a moment, he could not focus on his surroundings. Gradually he took in scattered details.

Crows taking flight overhead. The craggy trunks of the oak trees. The gamekeeper’s hut. The scent of wood smoke and approaching snow. Leaves crackled in the distance. Someone was coming.

“Síomón? Is that you, Síomón?”

Gwen.

Lines radiated from the point where he stood, shimmering in the cold clear winter light. He saw himself walking toward Gwen, in three, four, a dozen directions. One future to invent a new machine so that he and others might travel through time. One to …

“One to heal,” he whispered. He glanced up, and across the wavering lines of the future, he saw a solitary red balloon, gliding through the gray skies. Síomón’s fingers closed over the knife hilt. He set the blade against his throat.

“One,” he whispered. “Exponent one. Minus…” His hand shook. “Minus one.”

A quick strong movement.

A spray of blood.

0

* * *

Síomón. Where are you, Síomón?

Here. Oh, Gwen, I nearly lost you. I nearly lost myself.

Hush. It’s all right. I’m glad you came back from the university. I have some new equations to show you.

But Gwen, we have to be careful—

Yes, my love, I know that now. Come with me.

She took him by the hand and led him along the woodland path.

ARS MEMORIAE

APRIL 1904

Years ago, during his mathematical studies—studies broken off, or discarded, he no longer knew which—Aidrean Ó Deághaidh had proposed certain theories involving time and its equations. The modern scholars were wrong, he declared, when they talked about measuring time in discrete units. The ancient philosophers had touched closer to the truth when they described time as a continuous ether, its flow rising and falling like a river’s current.

Ah, but I was wrong, too, he thought. Time was like sunlight pouring in all directions, susceptible to prisms and mirrors, or even a child’s hand.

An automobile horn bleated in the streets below, penetrating the leaded windows of Doctor Loisg’s private study. Off in one corner, a grandfather clock ticked away the seconds, its muffled rhythm a counterpoint to Loisg, who spoke in hushed tones about trauma and its effect upon memory. It was an old topic—one they had often discussed over the past year.

“Commander Ó Deághaidh? Are you well?”

Loisg was studying Ó Deághaidh closely, a look of mild concern on his fair round face.

“My apologies,” Ó Deághaidh said with a smile. “My attention wandered. You were asking?”

“About your dreams, Commander. Specifically, the nightmares.”

You asked about them last week, Ó Deághaidh thought. And the week before.

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