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Chapter 1
"The Man on the Doorstep"
By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson
But suddenly my anger grows,
A mighty spirit fills my nose.
My inward feelings all revolt.
A creature such as thou! A dolt!
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The two of us stood faced off on the doorstep of my Canoga Park home. The stranger looked neither formidable nor frightening at about five feet tall with light red-brown hair. I’d rate him as looking soft-bodied and overweight. His features were West European features and his dark tan suit was unassuming. The only curious thing about him was his old-fashioned shoestring tie. What was giving me the willies was the fact that I had brushed with this man before—at the mall only hours earlier. It's never good when a stranger follows a person home, it’s never good.
"I saw you at the restaurant," I said through gritted teeth. "What are you doing here?"
He returned an awkward smile. "I urgently need to confer with you, Mrs. Blake. Something happened to you today, something that has mystified you. I want to help you understand it."
His accent sounded like American English, but it had a rhythm that struck me as foreign somehow. He was right about something weird happening to me a couple of hours ago. I was suddenly wondering whether he had been the one who had caused it. If that was true, I had a good excuse to do some mayhem. The only reason that I wasn’t already beating on him was that the little man wasn't making threats, only asking for a parley.
With my arms crossed, I sternly stated, "I asked you, what are you doing here?"
"I ask your pardon for the means I used to contact you,” he jabbered. “I’ve only done so because a very great crisis is impending. Without help, I have no dependable means to deal with it."
"Deal with what?" I asked with a snarl.
"The menace. I stand in great need of an ultra hero, the most powerful hero that I can locate on short notice."
“Well, good luck in finding one,” I said.
"Please, Mrs. Blake. I know almost everything about you. You are my best choice for an assistant. Believe me when I say that the world stands in unparalleled danger. But even danger is too weak a word to convey the overwhelming proportions of the oncoming catastrophe."
"How overwhelming?"
"The Multiverse will cease to exist, and trillions of inhabitants in every part of Creation will blink out of existence.”
That sounded like raving. “The only multiverse I’ve ever heard of comes out of my son’s comic books.”
“Oh, the Multiverse is genuine. There are nearly infinite universes, and these are collectively called the Multiverse.”
“Sorry, but it doesn’t sound like that has anything to do with me?”
“It involves everyone in the Multiverse! What a god makes, a god can unmake, and a very malignant god is making its way to Earth!”
I grimaced. Was the stranger a “the world is doomed” type?
"May we go inside?" he inquired.
"Look, let’s take this a step at a time,” I said. “Who are you and where do you come from?"
The corners of his mouth tightened into a smile. "I come from a place that you have visited more than once. The Godwheel."
Yikes! I had visited the Godwheel and nothing had ever come out of the Godwheel except trouble! I didn't want to involve myself with the Godwheel ever again. I glanced over my shoulder toward the children's bedrooms. "It's not a good time for me to be entertaining beings from outer space," I said. "I've got children to watch out for."
"Of that I am aware, Mrs.... ah, Sir Lukasz. But I could suggest that we conduct our conversation in some alternate spot."
I blanched. If this little man knew that I had been Sir Lukasz, an entirely different person from the one I was now, he knew something he shouldn’t have been able to know. I was desperate to keep my past a closely held secret. "Decent parents don’t go out at night and leave their children alone in an empty house," I said in a way of evasion.
He smiled again. "I was not suggesting you should be neglectful. If you don’t mind, may I ask whether the youngsters are secure and well – at just at this instant?"
His emphasis made me wary. "As far as I know."
"Excellent. Then we shall remain in this exact instant for as long as necessary. If we do that, the little ones will not be the least disturbed while we parley."
"Can you be less foggy about what you’re saying?"
"Foggy?" He paused as if mentally peeking into a phrase book for foreign visitors. Then the red-haired man exclaimed: "Oh, you're saying that my words have been somewhat unclear. I can explain things best by a demonstration. Is that acceptable to you?”
“As long as you don’t touch me or destroy anything.”
The man reached into his pocket, an unexpected movement that caused an instinctive flare-up of my protective force field. When I sense danger, it rises to a power level so intense that it sets my aura aglow so brightly that it casts a verdant light upon his innocuous face.
The stranger barely reacted to the visible light while casually taking a small foil-wrapped item from his coat pocket.
"What's that?" I asked. I’ve been around the block and know that some very terrible things can come in small packages.
"It's a piece of candy–a chocolate kiss, actually," he said. The little man held the milk chocolate between his right thumb and forefinger. Then he took his fingers away.
And the candy didn't drop.
It had stopped in mid-air, hanging there, levitated.
But my surprise was brief. "What is this game? If I wanted to, I could pull tricks like that, too.”
"What you are seeing is a very elementary demonstration of the effects of the two of us occupying a field of zero time."
"What’s zero time?"
“It is a state in which time passes exceedingly slowly. We’re in zero time now. In and around your house no significant time is passing.”
"I don’t feel anything strange. If you have anything to say, it’s time you said it.”
"To say what’s on my mind succinctly, I've come to recruit you as an ally."
"You seem to know everything about me. I suppose that you’ve been using some sort of super technology to spy on me.
"That's exactly the case! I have virtually all your memories downloaded into my VIGOPS and can draw upon them at will!"
"What's a VIGOPS?"
"It's an anagram in my home language. In your speech, a VIGOPS is, oh, ahh -- a memory bank! "When I introduced my nanotechnology into your bloodstream, it was able to monitor your brain activity and convert your stored memories into a retrievable data stream. I can tap into it remotely wherever -- and whenever -- I am."
I looked at him incredulously. "You've put something into my bloodstream? Was that the reason you poked back at the restaurant? You did it so you could steal the whole contents of my mind? And now you're saying you can read the juiciest parts of my life story anytime you want to?"
"Why, yes. But that is only the most elementary function of the VIGOPS. It is useful in so many different ways."
I was so steamed that I could have whistled. "I usually kill people who shoot me full of high-tech crap without asking!"
He nodded contritely. "That was discourteous, I grant, but I’m functioning under immense pressure because the time is short and the stakes are huge. Be assured that these nanites do not adversely affect the human physiology. Their purpose is to allow a controller to maintain contact with his subject. While you carry those nanobytes, the control relationship can be carried out across multiple planes of reality and through extreme degrees of temporal displacement."
"Get this, Bud! I don't care for being controlled. You'd better hope that you've got me controlled like a roped calf at a rodeo, or else I'm going to do something to you that’s painful and very long-lasting."
"I sincerely hope not, madam -- sir. Once you understand what the situation is, I'm certain that you will come to judge my methods of operation less critically."
If this character was actually in control of me, could he make me do anything he wanted? Could he make me drop dead with a single thought? I took another gander at that damned chocolate kiss of his, still hanging in space.
"Perhaps I should clarify a few more details about zero time," he said.
“Yes, do that,” I said guardedly.
"Because we both have the appropriate nanites in our bodies, we can operate normally while in the same time-dilation field created by my technology. This field places us into a temporal sub-dimension. In such a state, our chronological progression becomes so attenuated that a single second of real time may be perceived by us to be as long as a year."
It sounded like he was claiming to have stopped time, using nanobots that were connected to some sort of alien gizmo. But had time actually stopped? I looked around, trying to find some evidence that would prove that he was talking nonsense. The second hand was stopped and the leaves across the street did not sway with the breeze. Everything in sight was paused like images in a photo. On the other hand, my face, clothes, and hair all felt perfectly natural.
"Anything that contacts our bodies becomes part of the zero-time environment," the stranger explained as if reading my mind.
Damn it! My ultra friend Pinnacle also reads minds, and it always annoyed me.
"The field affords us the illusion that Time is passing normally for ourselves, though that is not so. Feel free to experiment with the concept all you like."
My glance went to the small table beside the doorpost. Upon it rested one of Gus's model autos. I reached back through the door and pushed the latter over the edge. The toy started to fall, but the instant my finger lost contact with it, it stopped dead in space -- just like the candy.
I rounded on my visitor. "Did you stop the kids, too?"
"Of course!"
He had said that bombshell as if it were a good thing! I was very close to flying off the handle.
"Preserving the cherubs in perfect safety was the whole point of suspending Time, was it not?" the stranger asked.
"Maybe we should sit down," I said.
I went into the living room and let the little man follow me inside. I sank into the couch next to Mr. Paws, Evie's teddy bear, and told him, “Please, take a chair." This was all a forced play on my part and I was not feeling the least hospitable.
He laid claim to an upholstered chair. I had expected the stranger to start chattering again, but he seemed to be at a loss for words all of a sudden.
"You're a very strange man," I remarked. "How can you do the things you do?"
He gave a modest shrug. "I have had an excellent technological education."
"Education has its value," I agreed, "but there must be more to it than that. By the way, if it turns out I have to murder you, I'd like to know your name!"
He flashed a grin. "I have been remiss. On Earth, I usually go by the name of Gabriel."
"All right, Gabriel, you have some explaining to do. Are you actually able to play tricks with time?"
"I'm afraid so," he admitted apologetically. The man's mildness didn't exactly reassure me. Some of the most notorious serial killers in history were innocuous-seeming men. "A full explanation would take a long while. It is difficult to adequately explain the basic laws of multi-dimensional mechanics to one from a civilization unversed in that discipline."
"If you're saying I'm too dumb to understand your explanations, maybe you should be recruiting a different person."
"Oh, I'm sure you are by no means...dumb. You have lived for centuries and solved thousands of difficult puzzles, and that requires profound intelligence."
"Well, I’ve had my failures, too," I said. "If you'd prefer working with a big-brained scientist type, you ought to be interviewing my friend Pinnacle."
"Oh, I have analyzed Penelope Lammers' suitability. Alas, she lacks your amazing ultra powers and is sorely deficient in diplomatic flair."
"I don't see myself as being anything special," I told him. "I've made plenty of mistakes and they’ve gotten me killed more times than I can remember."
"But yet, for all those past miscalculations, you once were fated to live in the life of Eden Blake for centuries.”
“Were once fated?” I replied.
Was he saying the prophecy that I had about living for centuries was no longer to be counted on? If I had really lost all those years, I wanted to know the reason why!
TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 2
By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson
A stranger has arrived at Eden's suburban home, and he seems to know everything about her, including her identities as Mantra and Lukasz. She could either kill him or listen to him, so she listens. The story he tells her is unbelievable. He might be a crank, but does she dare risk disbelieving him? If what he tells her is true, the universe is going to end in 24 hours, and saving it will depend a lot on the decision she makes in the next few minutes.
Chapter 2
The Tree of Eternity
Be void of feeling!
A heart that soon is stirred
Is a possession sad
Upon this changing earth.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
.
"Why do you say that?" I asked. "My old master saw the future and said I'd live and active for centuries to come."
"Unfortunately," Gabriel said, "that prediction is not true any longer."
I blinked.
"I do not doubt that Archimage's had a talent for precognition," he continued, "but the looming disaster will negate everything previously pre-ordained. Archimage foresaw a stable Main Bough, but events have occurred that endanger that stability."
"Okay, I'll bite. How long do we have left?"
"If you and I do not act to circumvent it, reality will end on September 15 at 7:11 p.m. That's Pacific Time, of course."
That was tomorrow! I had just visited an altered reality where the world had gone mad following a cosmic energy discharge that came upon the Earth a little after 7:00. The little man now had earned my undivided attention.
But he still had not won my trust.
"Why do you think that?" I asked.
"Anti-Creation is the enemy we face. My people call it the Nemesis Effect. I have traveled up to the last microsecond before it breaks free to observe all the various playing pieces of the disaster. I naturally had to flee from that onrushing future before I would perforce be made a part of that anomalous event."
I frowned. "That's very interesting. But you sound like you're leaving a lot out. Can you be a little less eager to cut to the chase?"
"I'll try. My people, the Ysgorans, travel in time, and also in space. Even one like myself, a person not really involved with exploring duty, has seen this universe billions of years in the future and also gazed upon its primordial beginnings – up to the instant of the Null Place itself."
"What's that? The Big Bang?"
He shook his head. "The Big Bang never happened. The idea is totally illogical and unsubstantiated by scientific data. Those who believe in such a wild hypothesis, are not true scientists at all. The term Null Place denotes the time before Time itself began. Past that point, not even the Ysgorans can time travel into it."
"That's a relief. Up to now, it sounded like your people could do anything."
"We do have our limits. The technology of Ysgor was, in fact, not founded upon any miraculous discovery made by our own people. We were chosen to fulfill a certain required role because we were technically inclined. Those we call the Creators passed their secrets on to us."
"Are you talking about gods of some kind?"
He shook his head. "I refer to the Creators of the Godwheel, not of the Multiverse."
"Weren't the Vahdalans the Creators?"
"No," he said. "The Creators surpassed the Vahdalans in every way conceivable. The Creators established the Vahdalans at the Godwheel, assigning them the humble task of being its caretakers. After many millennia, that stormy race succumbed to a civil war that all but destroyed itself. But you already know something about that."
I nodded. If these alleged Creators were much more potent than the Vahdalans – one of whom I'd personally met – they were not a gang I would like to meet in a dark alley. Or even in the light of the Godwheel's two suns.
"Are these Creators still around?" I asked. I wasn't buying into any of this. I was only hoping that he'd trip himself up and put me in a place to refute his con game, whatever it was.
Gabriel's eyebrows arched thoughtfully. "Whether the Creators have gone beyond recall or remain with us undetected, no one may say."
"Well, then, are the Ysgorans something like the Vahdalans?"
"We are not so impressive as the stormy and exciting Vahdalans. We served in a role analogous to that of a royal watchmaker. Just as an earthly ruling family needed people of special expertise to operate their societies, the Vahdalans depended on the Ysgorans to care for vital temporal matters, especially those which concerned the Tree of Eternity."
"What's that?"
"It's the living diagram that rationalizes the operation of time over the entirety of the Multiverse."
"It's only a diagram?" I asked.
"By no means! Forgive me; it is hard to convey concise meanings in English."
"If you don't like English, I've learned dozens of different languages over the last fifteen hundred years," I said.
"I do fear that no Earth language can express the science behind the structure of the Multiverse. Though I call the Tree of Eternity a diagram, it is something much greater. The Tree comprises the reality that it describes. In your world, a change in reality changes the diagram made for it. But with the Tree of Eternity, any change in the diagram changes the existing reality."
"This is entirely over my head, I'm afraid."
"Basically, the Tree of Eternity is self-operating, but irregularities can occur. The Timekeepers monitor these anomalies and dispatch agents to correct them. I am a Timekeeper myself, even if only a minor one."
I frowned. No such system could be operated – or even maintained -- by mortal beings. So, was Gabriel a liar, or was he more than a mortal being? His appearance, if it wasn't an illusion, made him look like a short, redheaded man who had eaten too many donuts.
"Timekeepers are like gardeners," my visitor hurried on. "We figuratively pull weeds and make sure that Time's course is cultivated and pruned. Typically, when a chaotic event confounds us, we reduplicate it under laboratory conditions and study its longer-term effects. If the effects are positive or harmless, we might allow it to occur in Real Time. If they are destructive, we seek to intervene and prevent it from affecting Real Time."
"What kind of 'laboratory conditions' are you talking about?" I asked.
"A timeline can be created to examine the anomaly. Before you ask what a timeline is, you should know that the concept is foundational to our mission. One reason I have come to you in preference to contacting any other ultra is that you are one of the few who knows firsthand about the existence of alternate timelines."
Yeah, that was for sure! In August, I'd fallen into an alternate timeline where I had never become Mantra. Unfortunately, what Lukasz had become there was appalling! But I had an even worse time of it in a different alternate world when I'd taken the kids out shopping earlier in the evening.
"Each Main Bough of the Tree," Gabriel continued, "has many timelines."
Another incomprehensible term. "Main Bough?"
"It's easiest if you think of a natural tree. It has limbs, branches, and twigs directly or indirectly anchored to the tree trunk. In the Twenty-first Century, science has finally been forced to accept the theoretical existence of alternate worlds. But the human race understands little about the concept and uses flawed terminology when describing it."
"But you haven't said what a 'main bough' is."
"Think of that tree that I mentioned. Imagine that its trunk supports a few great limbs. The trunk is called the Bole, but the limbs issuing directly from the Bole are referred to as the Main Boughs. Each Main Bough exists as a universe of its own. Each has limbs, branches, and twigs, but all Main Boughs depend on the Bole for support. As in a forest, if the trunk is cut, the limbs all fall to earth and die."
"Okay," I said, "I'm nowhere close to understanding where you're going. But I think you're claiming that the world is in trouble!"
"Yes, that is what I'm saying. Think of Argus, the enemy you battled. He threw open a gate into an alien Main Bough and snatched from it the god Thor, who inhabits a Main Bough other than our own. On has to give credit to Argus. It took a god who knew what he was doing to open a passage between separate universes."
"Out of this entire universe, why have you shown up on the planet Earth to try to fix it?"
"Because this is the planet where the Nemesis Effect will soon be released.
"Yeah, that really explains a lot!" I said sarcastically.
"I can see that you are still skeptical! The Nemesis Effect is a force from Outside. It didn't arise out of this Main Bough. Destructive elements have intruded into the universe you know by way of the portal that Argus made. But if destruction befalls this keystone Main Bough, the whole Multiverse is irrevocably doomed."
"And that's the worst possible case, huh?"
"Indeed! If any Main Boughs other than this one were lopped off the Tree, the results would be vast and tragic, but the Tree as a whole could survive it. But this Main Bough is the very keystone of the Tree of Eternity. If the Keystone is destroyed, the Bole is compromised and everything it supports collapses. There is only one Tree of Eternity, and all Creation from the beginning of Time is maintained by it. The fall of the Tree is literally the undoing of Creation."
"What you're telling me is something too big to put my mind around it. Don't you think you can find a better time agent than I am?" I was hoping that he'd say "yes."
"Your perceived shortcomings shouldn't amount to a serious obstacle. The tasks you need to carry out are those you are best suited for. I will use my advanced knowledge to direct your activities toward our focused ends." Here, he paused thoughtfully. "Mantra, if we're going to become colleagues, I cannot emphasize the extent to which you and I will have to depend on one another."
"I don't know yet if I want to be your colleague. I have a life to live here, and this cosmic thing you're talking about must come packed with about a million ways to get me killed." I still didn't believe a word he was saying but I hoped he'd go away and become someone else's problem.
Gabriel wagged his finger at me. "You will not be made safer by remaining at home. So very soon, all that you know will pass away. A sudden rewriting of past, present, and future will occur. In less than twenty-four hours, your entire universe will end. It will not be merely destroyed, but it will mean the erasure of any existence this universe ever had, alone with all its contents.
"So you say! But nothing I've heard or seen tells me I can trust a single word that comes out of your mouth."
"That is true. But haven't you just returned from an alternate reality where the Nemesis Effect has already had its initial effect? If this event manifests here, it will place a false Main Bough where the natural one used to be. The old universe will be blinked out of existence, and a flawed copy will take its place. Then, as your people say, 'It will be all downhill from there.'"
"Well, the world I visited was pretty lousy, but it wasn't a null void."
"That is because of the Tree's self-preservation system. It can perform emergency repairs. Think of a damaged automobile. One may do roadside repairs, but these are insufficient, and a little farther along the road, it will stop again. Then it is repaired again, but that allows for only a short trip before more adjustment is needed. This jury-rigging process cannot continue indefinitely. The Bole collapses when the Main Bough can no longer create a workable keystone. Should the Bole collapse, it will collapse the rest of the Multiverse."
"Oh, come on! You sound like one of those 'the sky is falling' guys," I said.
"Then why not give me a chance to prove myself? If I cannot win your trust, I will try to recruit a less accomplished time agent. But to give you fair warning, your idyllic life will end in less than 24 hours
unless my mission is successful."
I looked him straight in the eye. "If the disaster is so near, why have you waited this long before starting your mission?" I asked.
"As I've said, the Timekeeper leadership was against preventing the catastrophe about to occur."
I decided to keep on humoring the little man. "What reason would the big-cheese Timekeepers have for wanting the Multiverse to collapse?"
"My people share some traits with yours. The scientific mind, wherever it manifests itself in the Multiverse, tends to be very inflexible. If it chooses not to believe something that has not been previously accepted as truth, it seldom reevaluates its long-held beliefs. Instead, it reflexively deems the perceived anomaly to be untrue. When scientific minds deem something to be false, their reaction is to protect the prevailing belief system by obstructing the research of anyone holding a contrary opinion."
"But willfully perpetuating false theories betrays the truth-seeking mission of science," I protested.
"It truly does. But consider the many submerged cities that are being discovered in your world, dating from tens of thousands of years ago. Have any serious expeditions been sent to investigate them? I dare say they have not!"
I sighed. "If super scientists can be so stupid, what, exactly, do you expect
from me?"
"As I have said, I seek your help stopping the annihilation of – well – all Creation."
Well, I'll give the little man a one point: he was nothing if not dramatic.
TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 3
By Aladdin and Christopher Leeson
Chapter 3
The Dark Shoppe
A young fig tree its form lifts high
Within a beauteous garden;
And see, a goat is sitting by,
As if he were its warden.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
.
"Thanks for clearing that up," I said sarcastically. "But you still haven't told me what you had to do with those crazy things that happened to me today."
Gabriel sighed and nodded. "All that will take a bit of telling."
"Then start talking, or get out of my life!" I said.
"I'll try to explain, but listen carefully. The concepts will sound very unfamiliar to you."
"Telling me that I'm ignorant is not going to win you many Brownie points."
He pursed his lips. "To say it simply, by an assiduous exploration of minus time, one discovers causation."
"Minus time?"
"Yes. Minus-time is the time that has already passed by in a timeline. There is also Plus-time, which is the future that results from the accumulation of events in the past. Plus-time allows us to anticipate probable outcomes. Because of the looming catastrophe, we must move swiftly to scout out Plus-time to discover the future hazards that will beset us. When I recruited you to be a scout, I learned a great deal."
"I didn't volunteer for anything! Why don't you do your own scouting and leave innocent people in peace?"
"Because utilizing a time agent is not a one-man or one-woman job. The active agent needs a support team, and no one else was available to support you while you were in alternate time. I had to remain behind in natural time and monitor you so I could anticipate the dangers you were facing. That way, I could help you avoid them."
"You did a lousy job. Danger socked me in the jaw about a hundred times when I was in that messed up world!" I stated.
He shook his head. "Those were mere inconveniences which you were able to handle very effectively on your own. My eyes were set on much graver matters.
"I wish you to understand that your life – the life you're living here and now -- was never at risk. You were never more than a virtual participant in that other world. I used my nanites to digitalize a copy of your conscientiousness and place it into host bodies living in that other time-reality. While you were in that realm, I gathered a great deal of information, while you simultaneously getting an education in the subtleties of alternate time.
"Everything that happened to me seemed damned real!"
"You only believed you had traveled to a strange place and time. In reality, the three Mantras whose memories you now share were never you; your real body remained at the restaurant where I found you."
"If that was so, why are these memories so damned vivid?" I asked.
"That is because the nanites allowed me to record all their thoughts and memories. I took the new memories they acquired and downloaded them into your mind through the interface of the nanites you carry. Their memories became your memories. Do you understand?"
I balled my fists. "Why pick on me? Why not use an AI probe that you could sacrifice without causing grief to a stranger?"
"Because I needed to introduce a living scout into a situation to gain information where an AI probe could not go."
"What happened to those three Mantras after I left them?"
"Alas, they ceased to exist only seconds after I downloaded their memories into my VIGOPS."
"Died? How?" I asked. "I didn't see that they were in any danger when I left! What was the danger?"
"Those realities they were in were unnatural universes that the Tree of Eternity created by its frequent reboots. A reboot reestablishes a new universe that is very like the old, but there will be imperfections that make the two worlds somewhat different. For example, a reboot may cause certain people to vanish from existence. And some new people will be created that the history of the new world remembers, even though they never existed before.
"So, a person could vanish like Contrary did, and appear out of nothing like Thorn Boy?"
"Exactly," the little man affirmed.
"What else did your high tech do to me? Was I brainwashed so I'd become your enthusiastic lackey?"
"Not at all, my dear fel – Mantra. I want to keep you just the way you are – with clarity of thought, lightning reflexes, and battle readiness."
"Are all Timekeepers like you? Do you all take incredible liberties with other people's lives?"
"Regrettably, sometimes one has to be cruel to achieve beneficial ends. Think of a doctor. His scalpel is a wicked instrument, but it is a necessary tool for achieving a healing treatment. "
"Maybe you're so alien you can't understand simple right and wrong. I'd be crazy to get involved with a person like you."
"I can understand your point of view, but I have a way to persuade you of the importance of my mission. Would you be willing to take a journey with me?"
"No journeys," I said. "I've got sleeping kids! I have to watch over them."
"What if I help you find a babysitter?"
"I'd rather pick a babysitter I can personally trust."
"Tonight I arrived here in the company of a person with excellent credentials in childcare. She is waiting outside at this moment." He looked over his shoulder at the front door.
"She's there now?" I asked.
He nodded.
"I'm pretty sure that whatever loonie you've got lined up won't be acceptable to me."
"Oh, I believe the person I found will meet your standards very acceptably."
No sooner had he said that than the doorbell rang.
I used my mystic scene and confirmed that there was a life-form standing outside on the welcome mat. "You let her in," I told Gabriel. "I don't want to get into a crossfire between a pair of Godwheel scoundrels."
Gabriel obligingly rose and went to the door. When it opened, I saw a woman standing there. It was Eden Blake.
Eden Blake?
My doppelganger stepped past the Timekeeper and fixed an unhappy glance on me.
"It's like looking into a mirror," my double remarked to Gabriel.
The little man stepped between us. "Lukasz -- this is, ah, Lukasz. She's a temporal clone of yours originating in a future timeline."
"She's from the future?" I muttered. My double was dressed in "suburban casual" and seemed my age. I glowered at the Timekeeper. "I don't like the idea that you've had a copy of me riding in your hip pocket all this time!"
"Is that a bad thing?" he asked.
"It's a bad thing if you plan to deep-six me and put a ringer in my place."
"I have no such plan. I recruited Mrs. Blake just today -- as your people reckon calendar dates. For a long while, the two of you were living a single life. But at one point, the Main Bough timeline bifurcated and she began a separate existence of her own."
"If you already have a pet Mantra, why do you need me?"
"Because the coming disaster is aimed at this Main Bough and it can be most effectively defended by one who is a natural resident of this universe. I'm of this time and universe, and so are you."
The other Lukasz shook her head and said, "Look, bro, the little guy is weird, but he's made me a believer. I only wish I could do the job he wants you to do since my life is a wreck, and I don't have a whole lot to lose."
"What does she mean her life's a wreck?" I asked Gabriel.
"Don't talk over my head as if I'm not here!" my double growled. "My kids -- my own Evie and Gus -- are dead. There! You made me say it. Are you happy?"
That set me back on my heels. "Dead? How?"
"Rune!" she said with a bitter grate. "He wanted the Sword of Fangs and took Gus and Evie hostage to coerce me into making a trade. I didn't trust his word, so I gathered a gang of ultras to help me take him on. But he saw us coming and killed the children before we could lower the boom."
I knew about Rune – an alien creature with incredible power and vampiric habits. I'd met him more than once and had barely survived the encounters.
"I'm sorry," I said. "But you have to realize that Rune would have killed the kids no matter what you did. He relishes killing."
She looked away. "I know that's true. I've been telling myself the same thing every day since the murders happened."
I knew how she felt. I'd seen a Time-clone version of my son Gus die right before my eyes. That, too, happened because I had made a wrong choice.
"When does Rune strike?" I asked through a tight throat.
"For me, it was October 17, next month," she said. "But I've already lived two years since then. It happened because of a stupid mistake I'd made on the Godwheel. I called Eden Blake by her own name in front of some 'friends.' But one of them was Rune in disguise. That bit of information allowed him to track down the Blake family in my universe and take me surprise."
A shiver ran through me. I had made that exact same mistake. But in my reality, Rune had flown through a gate into another universe – to hopefully never return.
I clenched my fists. "Well, I'm going to make sure that it won't happen in this world's future. One way or another, I'm going to kill that blood-sucking bastard if he shows up in this universe again!"
"I hope you can do that," the other Lukasz said. "But Gabriel tells me that you're going to die tomorrow. If you want to save yourself and your family, I suggest you take seriously what the gentleman is trying to tell you."
This was too absurd! Now I was being browbeaten by myself! This conversation was giving me a headache.
I tossed a frown to Gabriel. "What, exactly, is this journey you were talking about?" I demanded.
Suddenly, the world spun.
#
Out of blankness, a scene quickly rematerialized around me. When I could see again, I wasn't in Canoga Park anymore.
I was in a medieval-style alehouse built from sturdy timber and stone. The tart smoke filling the air was already laden with the bouquet of fermented beverages and other repulsive odors reminiscent of the Middle Ages. My daze now wearing off, I noticed that the people filling the tavern stools were wearing costumes unfashionable since the Tenth Century.
Incredible! I knew this wasn't just any alehouse; I recognized it as an establishment I knew. It was the Dark Shoppe! Centuries ago, that fabled place had served as a clearing house for arcane information. In those days, it had been run by a prophetess.
What had been her name? Diana.
Just then, a raucous male voice sounded off:
"'God's Blood, wench! From whence hast thou appeared in the wink of an eye? If I did not know this place, I would be damning myself for a drunken sot. But the Dark Shoppe e'er hath been a place of miracles. Tell me, lass, hail ye from Faery, or art thou of mortal kind?"
I turned to behold a large knight seated at a table and clutching a tankard in his oversized fist.
"Your name, sir knight?" I asked cautiously, addressing him in the same dialect of Old French that he'd used.
"Sir Lukasz at thy service," he said cheerily. Nudging the youth seated next to him, he added, "And this callow good-for-nothing is my squire, Thanasi."
I was staggered. Yet, why should it surprise me to be confronting Lukasz and Thanasi centuries in the past? Hadn't I just come from interviewing Eden Blake about a babysitting job?
"Cry mercy! What costume be'eth that, milady?" my mail-clad alter-ego inquired. "Art thou pursued by villains and compelled to travel in male attire? Faith, madam! Not e'en the most cracked-brained varlet couldst e'er mistake thee for a boy."
When I looked away, he persisted: "Fair one, tarriest a while. I would fain know thee better."
I was seriously thinking about speaking to him. By pretending to be a prophet friend of Diana, I could alert my counterpart to bad things coming down the chute. I could even have warned him about Thanasi.
But should I do such a thing? Wasn't it dangerous to meddle with history? By trying to help Lukasz, I might get him killed before his time. After all, when I intervened to help a time-clone of my babysitter, Lauren Sherwood, she was attacked and slain. On the other hand, if I let the knight go his own way, I could count on him surviving for another thousand years.
As I vacillated, Gabriel took me by the arm. "Come," he whispered.
"Lady!" the knight called after us -- but I didn't look back. The Lukasz of this era had concerns of his own. Those concerns meant little to me now that I was neck deep in the issues of the Twenty-first century.
"Gabriel," I said to the little man, "this is nuts. Why did you bring me here? I'm impressed, but all this has to be an illusion. Take me home – now!"
"Not yet. You are here to gain vital information. The person whom I most wish you to meet in the Dark Shoppe is not Sir Lukasz. You remember Diana the Mystic, I presume?"
"Of course. Is Diana here?"
I glanced from side to side. Through the smoky air, I saw the raven-haired Mystic standing by a plank table watching us.
As we approached the Mystic, she addressed Gabriel. "I had no alert that you were coming. Who's your attractive friend?"
"You should soon be getting a VIGOPS download; that will explain everything."
She sighed. "I can't wait. But the bull-in-the-china-shop way that you've come barging into my timeline tells me I've just been cloned again."
The little man smiled. "It's all for a good cause, Diana. Creating a new copy of you will start to make up for the casualties that two of your clones have unfortunately suffered."
She blinked with surprise. "I hope they didn't suffer too much, at least not like some of the others have."
I looked askance. How could she be so cold as not to show more reaction to learning of the deaths of persons who were, essentially, her identical sisters?
The Timekeeper clicked his tongue commiseratively. "Their attacker was a possessed demigoddess. Such power! Their suffering must have lasted less than a second. On the other hand, your original self is still well and thriving."
Diana shook her head. "Wonderful! A few minutes ago, I was the original, and now I've gotten a downgrade. I sometimes wonder why I agreed to live like this!" Then, with a grim smile, she looked at me and asked, "Can I offer you two a platter with a tankard?"
I demurred. "I don't think my Twentieth Century body could survive the microbes that swarm all over the Tenth Century. Anyway, I just ate at the mall."
"You'd probably be safe. I've trained my cook staff to prepare food according to Twentieth Century standards."
I suddenly had to wonder whether Diana had been originally a medieval or a Twenty-First-Century human. Of course! Her accent, which I had always found so unplaceable, was actually Old French spoken with the cadence of American English.
Before I could ask her to verify that, the Mystic froze, her glance fixed and staring through me. I looked bemusedly toward Gabriel.
"She's fine," said the man. "Diana is merely receiving the VIGOPS update I mentioned. I arranged for it just before bringing us here. All Timekeeper agents need to be kept well informed concerning unfolding events."
"This is as strange as hell," I told him, "but so far nothing here makes me believe in gods and doomsdays."
The scientist shook his head. "I think you will change your mind. Maybe Diana can help convince you."
"It wasn't like the two of us used to be close or anything," I said.
He grinned slightly. "My information tells me that the two of you were closer than you may have supposed, especially on her side."
Admittedly, I'd always thought that Diana was a looker. Also, I liked her personality. But my wife Marinna had been murdered on a sacrificial altar before my eyes, and my memory of her had always prevented me from getting serious about any other woman.
I changed the subject. "You said before that there's a god in this woodpile," I replied. "Why do you think I can handle him alone? Why not bring in another hundred ultras to improve the odds?"
"I assure you, if we had a hundred gods who were the equals of Loki and Thor, they could not prevail against such an adversary as Nemesis."
I threw up my hands. "Are you kidding? The horned god by himself was strong enough to have me for supper. And I don't think Thor would have been any pushover either."
The Timekeeper grimaced. "Do not underestimate yourself, Eden. You have vital skills; an army traveling with you would only get in your way."
"Whew!" Diana suddenly spoke up. "The download I just got was certainly informative! As if I didn't have enough problems, I've found out the Multiverse is about to end."
Then she glanced my way. "Is it true that you are, in spirit at least, the same person as that knight who's presently sitting across the room?"
I looked back at Sir Lukasz. He was still staring at me. I wondered if I could cool his ardor for my body by reminding him of his deceased wife Marinna.
"Yeah, that's me. Don't ask me to explain," I said.
She shook her head resignedly. "I've been living with time paradoxes for so long that I don't find much that can still surprise me. I've learned that you've become an ultra and have a family. How are you holding up?"
"It's not so great being an ultra." In that alternate world that Gabriel sent me to, I discovered that the only thing worse than being an ultra is not being one.
"How is it being a mother?"
"If you play your cards right, you can find out for yourself," I said.
"I've always let my professional life get in the way of my personal life. I think you've been living in that trap for a long time, too."
"Di, there's something I always wondered," I said. "You always seem the same age every time I've met you over the centuries. How does that work?"
She shrugged. "Advanced science. I receive age-retardant treatments, though I still age very slowly. When age becomes a problem, there's a technology to rejuvenate me, cell by cell. If you decide to work with the Timekeepers, you can receive the same perk." Then she added with a smirk. "With a body like yours, you really should preserve it!"
"I hope that's not necessary. My old master Archimage never aged as long as I knew him, and he told me that my magic would keep me young, too. But my question right now is whether I can believe what Gabriel is telling me. What do you say about that?"
"I could give you an opinion, but the question has many ramifications. It's hard to decide where to begin."
"A person seldom goes wrong if he starts at the beginning," I advised her.
"When you're a time traveler," Diana said, "it's hard to tell the end from the beginning."
TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 4