Nexus Point (Meridian Series) (35 page)

       “But you don’t have a spatial locus yet.”

       “I will in a second or two. All
archeologists use GPS to mark the exact locations of their dig sites. All I
have to do is key the researchers name in the Geo-Sync database and I can read
all their recent registries.”

       He was already throwing switches and Maeve
knew that there was nothing she could do to take this away from him. She
breathed heavily. “Alright,” she said with equal finality. “You’re the only one
who can run all this.” She waved expansively at the banks of glowing computer
terminals. “We’ve got a hundred thousand Golems running wild out there, so I’ll
go, while you keep watch on everything from here.”

       Kelly stopped cold, pivoting to face her. “I
didn’t mean to drop this on you, Maeve. Look, I’ll take the risk. I can program
things and automate the jump. The retraction sequence can be triggered five
seconds after I open the continuum. You just wait—“

       “Oh,
no,
mister.” She deliberately
imitated the tone of voice Kelly would always use with Paul in their secret
banter. “The three of you have already bounced all over infinity and back while
I sat here worrying about it all.” She folded her arms, decided. “It’s my
turn.”

30

The wind howled
about the high stone walls of the Eyrie Of
Sinan, whistling through the lancet windows in greeting. The Master of the
Tower had come home. Three riders reached the castle gates at dusk, and a hush
had fallen upon Massiaf. The troops of the faithful
Fedayeen
were
assembled in silent ranks in the courtyard beyond the gate, breathless with the
sight of Sinan. The Old Man dismounted, throwing back the thick hood of his
riding cloak, his dark eyes scanning the brothers, black as basalt, yet lit
with an inner fire. He had seen much on his journey from the east. The land was
alive with movement and the din of marching men at arms. The hooves of fifty
thousand horses troubled the earth, and he knew
a
turning point had come

       The Kadi had given orders that the severed
head was to be left untouched where the Sami’s men had planted it in the
courtyard, a silent testimony to the misdeeds of his rival. Sinan took notice,
but passed quickly on, as though the doings of the castle were well known to
him. He was bound for the high tower, driven by some pressing need. There he
would meet with the two stewards of the castle, and hear their complaints.

       The Kadi came first to him, and departed
soon after, his face ashen white, his eyes vacant and confused. He returned to
his chambers without a word while the Sami climbed the long gray stair to the
tower, head lowered with shame. Sinan sat upon the high chair and watched while
the Sami prostrated himself in submission, begging forgiveness for his failure.

       “And how have you failed me?” Sinan’s voice
was icy cold, yet it seemed to reach for that which it already knew.

       “The Wolf,” the Sami whispered. “I have
failed in my charge against the Wolf.”

       “Oh? What charge do you speak of?” Sinan
waited while the Sami groveled in uncertainty.

       “I received your ring, Lord, with an order
to strike the Wolf at an hour and a day that would be appointed. All was made
ready—the
Fedayeen
prepared. Then this stranger came upon us, and I was
possessed with madness.”

       Sinan leaned forward, “Rise and face me,” he
said harshly, and the Sami drew himself up, still kneeling, as he looked upon
his master’s face. “Hear me, Sami of Massiaf: I sent no ring, and laid no
charge upon thee. Quite the contrary! It was my judgment that the Wolf, Arnat,
must live. Did you not receive the signs late sent to you? The Wolf is an
enemy, to be sure, yet he is reckless and overbold. He will stir the Christian
camp to rash deeds, and such will play into the hands of Salah ad Din.”

       Sinan raised a single hand the long fingers
held wide, and reached for a thin shaft of light that skirted the edge of his
dais. “See the ring where it sits now upon my hand?” He let the light play upon
the ruby red gem there, the gleam of light on gold a condemnation of the Sami’s
headstrong ways. “Had you done this thing,” he whispered, eyes alight with
distant flame, “then all of Christendom would not now be marching. The great
castles would still stand well guarded, unassailable, as they have for decades
past. The time appointed for them would never have come, and the heads of all
the Templars would remain fast upon their shoulders to bring untold misery to
the faithful, for years to come.”

       Sinan drew his hand into a fist now, his
voice hardening as he continued. “Yet that error has been avoided—perhaps by
mere circumstance. The Christian host is doomed!” His voice boomed in the
tower; his fist tightening as he spoke. “They will fall like wheat before the
scythe. The Wolf lives, and you may count the coming of this stranger a boon.
Had you carried out this deed, striking down Arnat before his time, you would
have surely done the work of our enemies. Undoubtedly the Order was at play in
this matter, and you were deceived. It was they who sent you this command; not
I.  It may be that the stranger is one of the faithful, in clever guise, and so
I have come hither to see with my own eyes the truth of this matter. I say unto
you now that not by your hand, but by the hand of Salah ad Din himself, will
the Wolf be slain—and all the Templars will kneel before the Sultan’s tent and
be pressed to renounce their faith, embracing the truth of Islam. They will all
refuse and, one by one, their heads will be severed by the Turks. So I have
seen this, and so it will be. It was only mine to assure that no change would
be worked upon the threads of time by our enemies.”

       He let the Sami kneel before him, head
lowered, as the realization of what he was saying wrapped itself about him like
a coiled rope. “Yes,” Sinan tugged on the cords now, “even you, Sami of the
Seventh Gate, have fallen into confusion and misdeed. This is why I placed the
Kadi here as equal!” His voiced rebounded from the hard stone walls of the
tower. “It was given to you both to reach agreement where the death of another
was concerned. I have seen the severed head in the courtyard below, and I know
what passed in the night, and why.”

       The Sami quailed, transparent before the all
seeing eye of Sinan. All his argument, all his reason, now seemed a small and foolish
thing. He had been deceived, manipulated, made a pawn in the game of his
enemies, and his blood ran cold with the shame of his failing. He lowered his
head, unable to look upon his master.

       “The stranger,” said Sinan. “The Kadi tells
me that you wished to kill this man. Is that so?”

       “Yes, Lord. I feared he was an enemy; sent
here to bring harm.”

       “Yet the only harm worked within these walls
came at your bidding.” Sinan let the Sami endure the brand of his words, a long
silence tightening the ropes of recrimination until the Sami was bound in
submission. Then Sinan ordered the Sami to stand. “Arise,” he said. “I foresaw
your misdeeds and so I hastened to come here and restore the harmony of these
walls. Now you will do a thing that I command with my own voice. Hear me! Go to
the faithful assembled below. Choose five men and hasten to the vault of the
hidden archive—you know of whence I speak. There you will find the stranger. If
you are swift and determined, you will serve me well. Even now you harbor a
poisoned blade within your robes. Do not use it! Go instead and bring this man
here that I might speak with him. Had I come here sooner I might have placed
two eyes upon this stranger and seen the full truth of this matter. Now the
hour is late. It is the seventh day! You must reach the archive, and return, 
before the setting of the moon.”

       The Sami was shaking with emotion as he
rose. His Lord had passed judgment, and dispensed his mercy in the same cup.
The Sami drank deep, his fear quenched; his resolve restored. “It will be
done,” he said quickly. “Before the hour of the setting moon.”

       Maeve stood in the chamber of the Arch, her
eyes mesmerized by the scintillating whirl of the lights, her ears ringing with
the thrum of the generators, her body tingling with cold fire. She only had a
few minutes to prepare herself, her heart racing as she shed her clothing,
obedient to her own rules about contaminating the time line. Now she draped
herself in the only thing she could find, a single white sheet from the rest
quarters above. The tachyon infusion was riveting every atom of her being;
taking an imprint that Kelly would use to keep a fast hold upon her in the
brief mission ahead.

       She was dreadfully afraid, yet she forced
herself not to think of what she was doing. The hard yellow line was painted
there on the floor before her. Three small steps and she would cross it,
leaving this time and place behind, and relinquishing the tight hold she had on
her life up until the Arch had come into being. Every instinct in her mind
argued against what she was about to do, yet stubbornly, she took the first
step, tightening the drapery of the sheet about her slender frame, and covering
her head until she seemed a veiled spirit, alight with a thousand hues of
eternity.

       Voices clamored at her from within. What if
something went wrong? What if Kelly made a mistake? What was she doing—leaving
it all like this, letting go? This was the most difficult thing she had ever
forced herself to face, but she took the second step, her eyes fixed on the
status light on the near wall: red for the first step, Amber the second.

       The light turned green.

       Her heart leapt with fright, but her body
moved, as if with a mind of its own, compelled by the fiber of her
determination. She would see this through. Just one small step and she would
cross over the line, pass the threshold of the moment and disappear into the
infinite possibility of time. One small step, and she would vanish from the
here and now, joining the dizzying spin and flow of the auroras in the Arch

       In the chamber of the Archive Paul sat
listening to Jabr as he recited the holy verses of the Koran. He had been
reading for some time, pausing at intervals to take water and to add oil to the
guttering lamp by which he read. All the while the day passed beyond the portal
of the cave, and Paul began to feel a cold lightness of being, a feathery frost
settling over him, warmed only by the brown eyes of Jabr Ali Sa’d and the quiet
meter of his recitations.

       He had reached the eighty-sixth sura, which
spoke of nightly visitations and the temporal fiber of a man’s being. Of all
the world’s great religions, Paul had never studied Islam. Born a Catholic, he
had been drawn to the Eastern traditions after reaching an age when he could think
on his own. Now his office and home were littered with Buddhas and trappings of
the East, and his mentors were writers like Alan Watts, Krishnamurti and Joseph
Campbell. Yet there was something familiar in the rhythm and spirit of the
verse that reminded him of those sermons on Sunday, reverently spoken by the
church pastor from the pulpit, relating one parable after another to the rows
of the faithful.

       Islam was a beautiful religion, he thought,
and surely he could not hear, in any of this verse, the hatred and awful
vengeance that some men,
claiming
to be
Muslims, held against the West. Yet, even as he listened, two great hosts were
assembling near the Sea of Galilee, at a place called the Horns of Hattin—the
Gate of the West. He ran through the history in his mind.

       They had come to that place after decades of
hostility and misunderstanding. Each side had made a claim to holy ground in
Palestine, and one city in particular had been the great bone of contention
between these rival cultures: Jerusalem.

       There, in the place where the Muslims built
the Dome of the Rock, the Knights of the Temple and the Sepulcher had set up
their headquarters in the city. The Muslims claimed the ground and said that
Muhammad and his steed ascended to the heavens above, where he visited Allah
and then returned. The Christians said it was where Christ, the Savior of all,
was laid for a time before he rose in glory and ascended the heavens from the
Mount of Olives. The Muslims called the city Al Kuds, and held it third in the
hierarchy of all holy places, behind only Mecca and Medina. The Christians
claimed the relic of the True Cross was kept safe there in the shrine of the
Patriarchs. The city guarded the Garden of Gethsemane and the Rock of Calvary,
all sacred sites orbiting about this holy center of great strife and paradox.
Each side quoted sura, and chapter and verse, yet while they strove with one
another, all thought of holiness and righteousness was made as nothing.

       The Christian host came, some thirty
thousand strong, from every castle and keep of Outremer. From Syria, and Egypt,
Persia and beyond a much greater host of Muslim warriors assembled, the chafe
of their countless steeds fretting the air with the urgency of war.

       Like two great animals the armies sat facing
one another in the heat of early July, the year 1187. The Christian camp was
set at Saffuriyah, and it was led by many lords in the finery of their gowns,
some strong and clear thinking, some vacillating and misguided. The hapless Guy
had lately been made the new king in Jerusalem, taking the crown from the hand
of Baldwin’s sister, Sybil. Yet it did not fit him well, for he was weak, and
malleable, and undecided in the issue that was now before him. Many lords
argued that the Muslim host was too great to assail. Only by waiting here,
barring the way to the coast and standing on defense, could the army of
Outremer hope to prevail.