At last the man stopped speaking, but the face on the body was still blank.
“You used one of them,” King asked, indicating the Forgotten behind the bars.
“It seemed…right. I don’t know how else to explain it.” Alexander shrugged.
“I’m not questioning your choice. I know this can’t be easy for you. What about all this blood? And the broken equipment?”
“I thought about that,” Alexander said, standing and stretching his neck from side to side. “When I found her, I saw her body, and the spilled glass of water. We’ll need to remember that. But I didn’t see anything else. The whole room could have been in shambles and I wouldn’t have noticed. Afterward…well, there won’t be much lab left when I’m done.”
King nodded. If something were to happen to Sara or Fiona, whatever inanimate objects surrounding him would get the full force of his vented anger. He felt his concern over seeing them again well up, but he and Alexander were almost done. Alexander had sworn King would be returned to his time, his family, friends, daughter and future wife. The end was in sight. “Okay. Let’s get the glass of water,” King said.
“You could have mine, if you asked politely.” Standing in the door, watching the two of them, an earthenware cup of water in her hand, Acca Larentia looked angry.
FORTY-EIGHT
Acca Larentia placed a hand on her hip, waiting for an answer from the two men.
She wore the same dyed fabric dress from the market. Her sandals, interwoven with thin strings of gold, showed her wealth. Her hair was a little more windblown than it had been in the market, but it still strongly resembled the styles King had seen his mother wearing in photos from the 50s, when she was a young woman. Acca’s face was flushed with color, but her skin was perfect. The woman was absolutely beautiful, and once again, King could see waiting centuries for her.
“Acca…” Alexander whispered and took a step forward. “Do you recognize me?”
She took a step closer, lowering her cup. “You do look…familiar, sir. Perhaps a heretofore unnamed brother of my husband?”
Alexander took one more gentle step and then stopped. “Except you know he has no brother. You know the story of Iphicles to be a false one.”
Acca descended the remaining steps at the doorway to the floor, and walked close, but she kept one of the stone lab tables between her and Alexander. She also warily eyed King. He stayed still, waiting to see how things would play out.
“My husband, Carutius, told me only two people knew that story of Iphicles was false — he and I.” The anger on her face was replaced by confusion. She squinted at him. “You could be my husband’s twin, indeed.”
“You are also one of the few alive who know that your husband’s true name is not Carutius,” Alexander said cautiously. He moved closer to the center of his side of the lab table.
“Who do you think he is, then?” she asked. “And who are you?”
“You know who I am, my love. My appearance has changed slightly, but you see the same man before you. Others have called me Heracles, but you alone in this time know my secret name of Alexander.” A tear began to trickle from his eye down his bearded cheek.
Acca raised a trembling hand to cover her mouth with the tips of her fingers — as if she had suspected this truth, but the full revelation of it confirmed some madness in her soul.
“I left you in the market not an hour ago. Your hair was shorter. Your beard less wild. Your clothes different. Your manner, even, has changed. Is this some trick of the gods? How can this be?”
Alexander quickly related the story of his past — a future he hoped yet to avoid for her. He detailed his journey to the twenty-first century without her, and his constant search for first the secrets of immortality, and then later for a way to travel back into the past to save her. She handled it well, but King supposed the woman who married this man already saw the world as a far stranger place than most people would believe. Alexander finished by telling her his plan to replace her with a duplicate corpse and said, “I have waited a hundred lifetimes to return to this night, this very moment, and undo the darkness I allowed to befall you.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, her own tears now coming freely. “Why put yourself through that anguish again? Why not just keep me safe from your creatures now, and reveal what has happened to your younger self? Then return to your strange time, where events would have changed and caught up to you?”
“It won’t work like that. It…just isn’t possible. What happened in my past, happened. There’s no way to change those things — there is only the possibility of changing the appearance of those things. Do you see? I already know that’s not how things happen, because I’d already remember it.” He paused to sigh, glanced at King, and added, “And…I am a better man, now. Your death changed me. Broke me. Allowed me to be remade into someone who is more worthy of your love. I would not undo that.” He looked at King again. “Time has a way of giving us perspective…and strength to do what must be done.”
“Well, right now we’re a bit short on time,” King said. “The younger Alexander will be back from the market soon. We need to be gone when he arrives, and we need to finish.” He glanced at the faceless corpse.
“Who is this man?” Acca asked.
“His name is Jack,” Alexander replied.
“A strange name, but who is he? Why is he here?”
Alexander smiled. “Look at him closely. Can’t you see it?”
Acca squinted at King, focusing on his eyes. She sucked in a quick breath. “He has my father’s eyes.”
Alexander nodded. “He is our descendant.”
This revelation brought a new concern to Acca’s mind. “Our children?”
“Will lose their mother tonight. But they will survive. They will thrive, for countless generations.” He nodded at King. “Long into the future. And Jack is right, Acca. Please. Let us finish what we must. We’ll take you somewhere safe, I’ll explain everything carefully, and if you don’t like what you hear, I’ll let you make your own choice as to how to proceed.” He stepped around the lab table to her, his hand outstretched.
She looked closely at his face, then reached for his hand. As King watched, he could see an almost electric jolt go through the both of them when their flesh met. Her face changed instantly.
“It really is you,” she whispered.
His tears streamed from his eyes. “Yes, my love. It really is.”
She threw herself into his arms, the cup of water flying from her hand behind them, crashing against the floor, right next to the mostly finished duplicate corpse. Alexander gently placed his arms around the woman as she sobbed into his chest. He laid the side of his cheek on the top of her head as gently as if she were an egg that might crack. King had seen his friend in many moods and manners over the years, but he had never seem him be so very gentle.
King’s eyes returned to the corpse, the spilled water and the shattered earthenware cup. It looked perfect to him, but he didn’t have the memories to confirm that.
“Alexander,” he said softly. “The face.”
Alexander took a deep breath, then stepped back from Acca and delicately raised her chin. “We must hurry.”
She nodded, and Alexander turned to the body on the floor.