The argument was suddenly interrupted by Kelly’s cell phone ringing. He craned his neck toward his briefcase, worried that another alert was coming in from the Golems, but this time it was his green cell phone, jutting from his jacket pocket on the next chair. He reached for it, flipping it open while Maeve folded her arms with a disapproving glare as Kelly listened, his face registering surprise and dismay, then outright shock. He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it with a perplexed look on his face.
“That was Nordhausen,” he said. “He sounded really strange. Here, listen to the playback!”
He handed the phone to Maeve and she pressed the replay message button, raising the receiver to her ear. “Kelly? This is Nordhausen. I’m in trouble. No time to explain. It’s Paul! He’s shifted in time! I’m not sure how, but he’s gone. Look up something called the Gate of the West. Can’t say any more. Rasil is back—” The message cut off abruptly and the two of them locked eyes, the surprise and shock flowing from Kelly to Maeve.
Kelly held out the bottom half of his playing card and, for the first time, Maeve looked at the image on the screen. It was a perfect mate.
Part X
Ghost in the Machine
“He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”
28
Jabr leaned close, his dark eyes searching Paul’s face with a look akin to longing. “Tell me, Do-Rahlan, are you a king; a lord of many lands?”
“What? Why would you ask a thing like that, Jabr?”
They sat in a hidden chamber within the sanctuary of the library, and Jabr had fired coals in a low iron brazier to heat water for coffee and a meager meal. Jabr had rubbed warm oil on a few scratches Paul had suffered in his fall. His left shoulder and back had taken the worst, but it was nothing that would not heal in a few days time.
“Would you wear rich robes in your homeland, and place a golden crown upon your head?” Jabr’s eyes brightened with the light of discovery, his head cocked to one side, bent by curiosity.
“You’re really are serious, aren’t you?”
“And would you wield a great axe in need, the bane of all your enemies? Tell me, is it so? Is that why you were chosen to pass the Well of Souls?”
Paul smiled. “Jabr, I’m afraid that you are as much a mystery to me as I may seem to you most of the time. To answer you truly, no, I am not a great king. I have no lordly robes and there’s never been much of anything on my head but this unruly mop of hair. Why would you ask such things?”
Jabr, hesitated, as if he were trying to decide what to do. Then his expression warmed and he spoke. “Because of the token you carried.” His voice lowered and he turned his head, watching the entrance of the room with suspicion.
“Token? What are you talking about?”
“Forgive me, Do-Rahlan. I have done a thing that may be cause for my death.” He reached in his robes and drew out a small object, his hand unsteady as he handled it, as though he was afraid it would bite. Paul leaned forward to see what he held and a broad grin crossed his face.
“Well I’ll be… Where did you get that? You found that in my pocket, yes?”
“I do not know what possessed me,” said Jabr, his voice laden with contrition. “It is written that all clothing and effects of the Walkers should be gathered and burned in the forge of purity.” Again he cast a sidelong glance at the arched doorway. “I was bearing these things away and this object must have slipped from the bundle. I came upon it in the corridor an hour later, and thought it very strange. Indeed, I should have taken it to the fire at once, but… something gave me pause. I stared at it, as though charmed, and saw it was the image of a lordly king with a golden crown set upon his head. He was dressed in finery of many colors, and his eyes were fixed fast upon a great red diamond where a hand reached to grasp it by his shoulder. Behind the king’s head was an axe with a sturdy red haft.” He handed the object to Paul, his hand shaking visibly now.
Paul took it with a smile. “And you believed it to be some token or talisman, did you? You thought this was my image on the card?”
“It was forbidden to withhold such a thing,” said Jabr, “but it was so alluring that I could not bear to cast it away. Is it magic?”
“Magic? No. It’s just the King of Diamonds—or half of one. My friend Kelly has the other half. We cut it in two and laminated the halves so they would last longer. It was a sign of our bond to one another, and the promise of our friendship.”
“Then this friend of yours was a great sorcerer! I have never seen glass worked to such a thickness. It bends, but does not break!”
“Glass? You mean the plastic lamination?” Paul realized that Jabr would not know what he was talking about and changed his tack. “Yes, he is quite the wizard, my friend,” he said. “I would surely like to see him now, Jabr, because I think I’m in a bit of a fix here. I’m still not exactly sure how I got here, but yet, here I am… and there you are, and Taki ad Din is riding south in the night.” He folded his arms, a vacant expression on his face. “I don’t belong here, Jabr. You understand? I’m out of place, lost, and I don’t know how I’ll get home.”
Jabr’s eyes mirrored the forlorn expression on Paul’s face. “Then you know what lies ahead,” he said softly. “You know the fate that awaits you?”
“Me? My friend, I know the fate that awaits many, all of us, in fact. If I thought about it long enough I could quote you chapter and verse—all the history yet to come, the wars, the famine, the great deeds of kings, and the soaring muse of poets and scholars. I could tell you stories for hours on end, of all that might be—a regular Nostradamus.” Paul sighed heavily. “But my lips must remain forever sealed,” he said sullenly. “I cannot speak a word of the things I have seen; the things I know. My very presence here is an insult in time, an offence, a great transgression…”
He suddenly had a cold thought that his fate was darker than that of a simple man marooned in another time, destined to live out his days there alone. No! He was right in what he said just now. He was not supposed to be here. His fall was an unaccountable accident, a quirk; mere happenstance—and yet here he was! Something in that fall had sent him tumbling into the past.
Now his own theory emerged in a chorus of doubt and fear. He didn’t belong. Time would not bear this insult, and Paradox would have its way with him sooner or later.
“That’s it,” he said aloud. “I’ve been in a Nexus Point all this time! That’s why I’ve been able to sustain myself in this era, but I must have done something to change things somehow. My simple presence here was the knock that has opened some great door, and all the world is swinging on the hinge.”
Jabr’s eyes were wide as he listened, not understanding much of what he heard. But one thing came through the words, and he could sense the distress and emotion of the stranger. He touched Paul on the knee, gently, yet with an inkling of fear. “So you know,” he said quietly. “Those who come through the well often speak in such words. They see things, and hear things beyond our ken. We have thought them to be Angels sent from Jibra’el himself to work divine will upon the land, but they are only men; gifted men to be sure; men of great vision and skill, but doomed to die, as we all must. I am sorry that your time is running out, Do-Rahlan.”
Paul was lost in his own internal reverie, but he heard the emotion in Jabr’s tone as well and focused on the meaning. “Running out?”