“Iril Varay,” he said: England.
Paddles bit deep. A coxswain chanted the stroke as an invocation to Her of the Sea; for Auri, who had been reborn, told how The Storm was no goddess but a witch. A baby wailed, a woman sobbed quietly, a man lifted his spear in farewell.
They slipped around the western ness and Avildaro was gone from them. A mile or so further, through the gathering night, they descried the raider fleet. The coracles had been drawn ashore, the galley stood off at anchor. A few watchmen’s torches glowed starry, so that Lockridge saw the proud curve of figurehead and sternpost, the rake of yards into the sky.
It was a wonder that these Vikings of the Bronze Age were not yet in decimated flight. Storm and Hu would have separated, of course, to rally confused and scattered Yuthoaz around their flame guns. But then, for some reason, Hu had run off alone. Even so, Storm by herself could—well, that was behind him.
Or was it, really? Fate-ridden, she would not rest until she found and destroyed him. If somehow he got back to his own century . . . no, her furies could track him down more surely then than in the wide and lonely Neolithic world. That was the more so if he burdened himself with this boatload of aliens whom he could not abandon.
He began to doubt his choice of England. Other megalith builders were fleeing there from Denmark, he knew. He could join them, and live out his days in fear. It was no life to offer Auri.
“Lvnx,” the girl whispered beside him, “I should not be so happy, should I? But I am.”
She wasn’t Storm Darroway. And what of that? He drew her close. She was fate too, he thought. Maybe John and Mary had wanted no more than to give her gallant and gentle heredity to the human race. He wasn’t much, but her sons and daughters could be.
It came to him what he must do. He sat moveless so long that Auri grew frightened. “Are you well, my dear one?”
“Yes,” he said, and kissed her.
Throughout the night the fugitives went on, slow in the murk but every paddle stroke a victory. At dawn they entered the fowl marshes and hid themselves to rest. Later the men hunted, fished, and filled waterskins. Fog blew away on a northeast breeze, the stars next evening stood brilliant to see by. Lockridge had mast raised and sail unfurled. By morning they were at sea.
That was a passage cold, cramped, and dangerous. None but the Tenil Orugaray could have ridden out a storm they met, in this overloaded frail craft. In spite of all misery, Lockridge was glad. When the Koriach didn’t find him, she might conclude he had drowned and quit looking.
He wondered if she would be sorry. Or had her feelings for him been another lie?
After days, East Anglia rose low and autumnally vivid before them. Salt-crusted, wind-bitten, hungry and worn, they beached the coracle and devoured the sweet water of a spring they found.
They had expected to look for a seaboard community that would take them in. But Lockridge said no. “I have a better place,” he promised. “We must go through the underworld to reach it, but there we will be safe from the witch. Would you rather skulk like animals or walk in freedom?”
“We follow you, Lynx,” the son of Echegon answered.
They made their way across the land. Progress was not fast, with small children along and the need to hunt for food. Lockridge began fretting that they might reach his goal too late. Auri had a different impatience. “We are ashore now, my dearest. And yonder grows soft moss.”
He gave her a weary grin. “Not until we have arrived, little one.” Seriously: “You are too important to me.”
She glowed at him.
And in the end, they waded through icy meres to an island which the tribes roundabout shunned. Natives had told Lockridge, one night when the travellers stayed in a village of theirs, that it was haunted. He got exact directions.
Under bare trees stood a carelessly erected lean-to. One man waited, sword in hand. He was burly and kettle-bellied, with hair and beard falling grizzled about pocked, battered features.
Gladness jumped in Lockridge. “Jesper, you old devil!” he shouted. They beat each other on the back. When Lockridge had his sixteenth-century diaglossa in place, he asked what this meant.
The Dane shrugged. “I was fetched hither with the rest of the fighting men. The witchmaster asked for a volunteer to guard the gate this final while. I said I would. Why not do my lovely Lady a service? So here I’ve sat, with a bit of duck hunting and such to keep me amused. In case of trouble, I was to do something to an engine down below, that’d tell Her. Naught’s happened, though, and taking you for ordinary savages, I didn’t send any summons. I thought instead, more fun would be to scare you off. But good to see you again, Malcolm!”
“Isn’t your guardianship nearly over?”
“Yes, in a few more days. Priest Marcus told me to watch the clock and be sure to leave when the time came, or else the gate would disappear and I’d be stranded. I’ll go up to the other gate he showed me, and thence be wafted home.”
Lockridge looked on Fledelius with compassion. “To Denmark?”
“Where else?”
“I am here on secret business for our Lady. So secret that you must not breathe a word to anyone.”
“Never fear. You can trust me, as I you.”
Lockridge winced. “Jesper,” he said, “come with us. When we get where we’re bound, I can tell you—well, you deserve more than life as an outlaw under a tyrant. Come along!”
Wistfulness flickered in the little eyes. The heavy head shook. “No. I thank you, my friend, but I’m sworn to my Lady and my king. Until the bailiffs catch me, I’ll be at the Inn of the Golden Lion each All Hallows Eve, waiting.”
“But after what happened there, no, you can’t.”
Fledelius chuckled. “I’ll find ways. Junker Erik won’t stick this old boar as easily as he thinks.”
And Lockridge’s people stood freezing.
“Well . . . we must use the corridor. I can’t tell you more, and remember, this is secret from everyone. Good-bye, Jesper.”
“Good-bye, Malcolm, and you, my girl. Drink a bumper to me now and then, will you?”
Lockridge led his followers below the earth.
He had prepared a story to fool anyone who might have been on guard here. At worst, he would have used his energy gun. But it was luck finding Jesper. Or destiny? No, Satan take destiny. If Storm happened to think the fugitives had come this way, and sought out the Dane herself to inquire, he would talk; but that was extremely improbable, and otherwise he would keep his mouth shut. Lockridge would never have gotten the idea himself, except for Auri’s nearness.
He entered the gate of fire. The Tenil Orugaray gathered their whole courage and followed him.
“We need not linger,” he said. “Let us be reborn. Hold hands and come back to the world with me.”
He took them out along the opposite side of the same gate. That corresponded to the moment when it first appeared in the world, as it would vanish a quarter century afterward.
The anteroom, like the island, lay empty. He used the control tube Fledelius had given him to open the entrance above the ramp, and close it again. They emerged into summer. The fen lay green with leaves and reeds, bright with water, clamorous with wildfowl, twenty-five years before he and Storm were to reach Neolithic Denmark.
“Oh, but beautiful!” Auri breathed.
Lockridge addressed his band. “You are the Sea People,” he said. “We will go on to the sea and live. Folk like you can soon grow strong in this land.” He paused. “As for me . . . I will be your headman, if you wish. But I shall have to travel about a great deal, and perhaps call on your help from time to time. The tribes here are large and widely ranging, but they are divided. With the new time before us, coming in from the South, they will be the better for as broad a oneness as we can shape. This is my task.”
Inwardly, he looked at his tomorrows, and for a while he was daunted. He was losing so much. His mother would weep when he never came back, and that was worst of all; but himself, he surrendered his country and his people, his whole civilization—the Parthenon and the Golden Gate Bridge, music, books, cuisine, medicine, the scientific vision, every good thing that four thousand years were to bring forth—to become, at most, a chieftain in the Stone Age. He would always be alone here.