Nine Eleven, page 12
part #5 of Area 51- Time Patrol Series
“The girl is who we just sensed in the house,” Thyia said.
“You’re talking about a ghost,” Doc said.
“A spirit,” Thyia said. “Still alive, in essence. The owner of the house was kidnapped by the colonists from his bedroom down the hall. He spent some time in considerable discomfort as a prisoner before he was ransomed. He firmly believed he’d been betrayed by one of his servant girls.” She indicated the window. “He suspected she signaled the raiding party by showing a lantern here. He believed it was seen by colonists from the steeple of a church on the other side of the water. The colonists rowed over then took him while he slept. He was treated poorly in captivity, chained to the floor and fed only bread and water.”
The download brought Doc up to date on the story. “So he killed her after he was ransomed and came back.”
“He did,” Thyia said.
“A fifteen-year-old girl.”
Thyia indicated the door. “He threw her down the stairs. Broke her neck. There was no trial, no investigation. She was an indentured servant. Just a girl who meant nothing to anyone. And she was innocent.” Thyia looked at the wall as if she could see outside the house. “She’s buried in an unmarked grave; she rarely comes to the house. She must have sensed we were here.”
“How do you know this?” Doc asked. His download had some vague material about a ghost haunting the Billop House, but not much detail, particularly the part about the girl being innocent.
“She just told me,” Thyia said.
“I didn’t hear or see anything.”
“The Sight.”
Doc considered that. “So she hasn’t suffered the forever death?”
“No. It wasn’t her time.”
“She’s here forever?” Doc asked. “What is a spirit? Is it the soul? How does it exist?”
“Your scientific mind is trying to understand,” Thyia said. “That’s admirable. Maybe the spirit of a human is more than science?”
Doc reeled in his imagination. He was here on a mission. Thyia had done nothing to help or hinder him on his last mission, unless, of course, there had been a Legion waiting to kill him.
“She’s not here forever,” Thyia said. “She’s trapped here until the man who killed her dies. She wasn’t guilty of signaling. She was just doing her evening duties, lighting the lantern. It was an unjust death. Like many.”
Doc looked out the window at the first indication of dawn. Mission first. “Do you know what the Shadow has planned for today? How it’s going to try to change my timeline?”
“I don’t.”
“Why are you protecting me?” Doc asked. “You claim to have killed a Legion in Philadelphia, and you seem pretty edgy here. Why?”
Thyia looked at him. “You’re sick.”
“What?”
“You’re ill,” Thyia said. “I sensed it last time we met. I’m sure of it now.”
“It will pass,” Doc said.
“Will it?” Thyia got up, then walked to the door leading to the stairs and peered down. “You’re not very grateful.” She opened the door. “Someone else is coming to join us. She knows more.”
Doc gripped his dagger. Footsteps on the stairs. A tall, willowy figure, cloaked in black like Thyia and carrying a Naga staff in one hand, entered the room. The staff had a sharp blade on one end, made from a metal that had stymied Doc’s attempts at analysis. At the other end was a seven-headed snake, the Naga of Hindu and Buddhist legend.
The figure threw her hood back as Thyia shut the door behind her. Doc recognized her immediately from Scout’s description: thick, black hair with a streak of white flowing from above her left eye, over the top of her head, to the end behind her left shoulder. Smooth skin like Thyia, but it appeared aged.
Pandora seemed surprised at seeing Doc. “You’re ill.”
“She just told me that,” Doc said, irritated with the medical analysis from women of myth. “You’re Pandora.”
“I thought Scout would come,” Pandora murmured, more to herself than Doc. “But it makes sense they would send you. You visited this same year before. When is Scout?”
“Why are you here?” Doc asked.
“To help,” Pandora said. She walked to the table, leaned the Naga against the wall, then sat. She appeared tired. She turned to Thyia. “There is one about. I sensed him.”
“I thought I felt the presence,” Thyia said. She took out her bow then nocked an arrow, although she didn’t draw.
“Legion?” Doc asked.
Pandora nodded. “Yes.
“Why is he here?” Doc was getting tired of asking the same question, but it occurred to him he didn’t know why he was here, other than to make sure all went as history recorded. “Is he going to attack the attendees?” Killing John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Admiral Howe would definitely change history.
“Not unless he has to,” Pandora said.
“Do you know what he’s going to do?”
“He’s going to do nothing,” Pandora said.
Doc frowned. “What do you mean, ‘nothing?’ He has to do something to change the event. To change the timeline.”
“No,” Pandora said. “He doesn’t. The initiating event for the change already happened over a year ago.”
Mountain Meadows, 11 September 1857 A.D.
The Spartan’s body was gone, leaving dust that blew away in the breeze, and then there was nothing.
Moms took several deep breaths, trying to shake off her shock as she sheathed the saber. Why would the Shadow send a Spartan to kill her, when it could just as easily wipe her out by killing her many-generations-removed ancestor?
Did it work like that? Moms smiled grimly; she had no idea how this mess worked.
She picked up her musket, checking the priming. She was still here, so her mission wasn’t over. The Shadow had tried to take her out and failed, but there had to be more at play. Would the Shadow stop the massacre? Was Josiah Turner’s presence here merely a coincidence? Moms knew what Nada would say about that: There are no coincidences.
As she walked toward the Mormon camp, she saw a figure highlighted on a ridgeline at the edge of the meadow to the left, overlooking the camp and the wagon train. A man on his knees, hands clasped, face turned upward.
Even though she’d made no noise, the man lowered his hands and turned his face toward her, a pale circle reflecting moonlight. He got to his feet then gestured for her to come over.
“Welcome,” he said, extending his hand.
Moms shook it, uncertain about the parameters of this meeting, especially given what had just happened.
“You’re the one?” he asked. “The one I asked to be sent?”
“Who did you ask?”
He withdrew his hand and stared at her. “Are you a woman?”
So much for cover of darkness and men’s clothing. “I am.”
“Strange,” the man said. “Things must be different in your time.” He nodded. “Of course, they would be different in your time.”
“Who told you to meet me?” Moms asked, realizing he could as easily be another agent of the Shadow as one of the Time Patrol.
The man smiled. “The Lord, of course. I prayed for an angel to guide us out of this folly we have fallen into. It is not too late.”
“What do you mean, my time?”
“From beyond this time,” the man said. “I do not pretend to understand how the Lord works, but He certainly has the power to move his servants across the eons if he desires. I have prayed for days, ever since the troubles started. It did not occur to me He would send a woman, but why not? All who are pure of heart become angels, don’t they?”
Moms knew the team would question the pure-of-heart thing, but of more concern were the mixed messages. “They do,” she agreed for lack of anything else to say, although when the Time Patrol dealt with ‘angels,’ it usually meant the influence of Valkyries, members of the Shadow.
The man turned toward the campfire. The voices were a low, urgent murmur, one or another occasionally climbing higher, arguing, pleading. “They are divided about the order.”
“Whose order?” Moms asked, cutting to the heart of an enigma even Edith had been unable to unravel: who was ultimately responsible for the massacre? Historians had mostly absolved Brigham Young of giving a direct order; indeed, a rider had been dispatched from here to Salt Lake City at the beginning of hostilities, asking for guidance, and had only arrived at the Mormon Capitol the previous day. There was no way Young could get an order back here before morning, and the order he finally did send, instructing them to do nothing, would arrive too late, days from now.
“Major Haight brought the order,” the man said, “although he claims the intent, if not the wording of the order, comes from someone with more rank.”
The download informed Moms that Haight was in charge of the two companies of Mormon militia gathered here, better known as the Nauvoo Legion.
“Who, with more rank?” Moms asked.
He shrugged. “I know not. There are many secrets, and anger blurs clear thought. Blood has already been spilled, and it has greased the slide into barbarism. I tried. I truly tried.”
“Tried what?” Moms asked.
“To hold them back. The Indians. I tried to stop them, but they attacked anyway. And then, when several were killed, they threatened to turn on me, on us.”
That was in line with Edith’s history of events. The Mormons had incited the local Native Americans to attack the emigrants, an effort that had been repulsed by the wagon train, with several attackers slain along with several emigrants.
“Where are the Paiutes?” Moms asked.
He pointed south. “Camped there. Waiting. Brother Young met with them just a few days past and promised them all livestock they could plunder. I warned him that would set alight a blaze we will not be able to contain, but my words fell on stone. The problem is compounded by the sad reality that some of my brethren were seen among the Indians during the attacks bearing arms against the emigrants. With the Federal Army coming—” He shook his head.
Edith’s download pressed information on Moms. Growing up, she’d only heard vague whisperings that the family had once lived in Utah and practiced Mormonism. Moms had arrived in the midst of ‘war’ here in 1857, one that would result in few actual confrontations, but would still be called the Utah War. Americans in the east were leery of the Mormons, and newspapers, as was their manner, inflamed people’s passions with stories of polygamy and a ‘theodemocracy’ growing in the West, on the other side of the Rocky Mountains.
Bowing to popular pressure, President Buchannan had ordered almost a third of the not-very-large United States Regular Army westward out of Fort Leavenworth to deal with the situation and replace Brigham Young as governor of Utah.
Given their history, the Mormons took the threat seriously. From their founding, they’d been pushed out of one place, then the next, sometimes with loss of life. First from Ohio, to Missouri, where in 1838, seventeen Mormons, including children, were killed by a mob. They were then displaced to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1839, building a city that grew so quickly in size, it rivaled Chicago. Things went well until 1843, when Joseph Smith, the founder, made two revelations: first, that the dead could be baptized, sort of a retroactive cleansing, and second, that polygamy was not only permissible, but in some cases, such as Smith’s, necessary.
Rather convenient, Moms thought. Actually, it wasn’t convenient, as polygamy, among other things, caused friction with those who weren’t of the faith. Smith announced he would run for President, and was arrested along with his brother. Both were killed by a mob, leading to the final emigration west to Utah.
Now, as far as the Mormons were concerned, they were being pursued once more. It was a confusing and fearful time, especially here, because the envoy dispatched to Brigham Young for orders was still in Salt Lake City, as was an officer of the U.S. Army who was negotiating with Young to find a peaceful solution.
“What are we to do?” the man asked, intruding on her historical meanderings.
Let them die, Moms thought, but didn’t dare speak it out loud.
“We are to do the Lord’s bidding,” Moms said, as vague a cop-out of responsibility as she’d ever given.
The man nodded. “We should go to camp. Learn what is being determined. I feel blessed to have you arrive and to be at your side.”
“What’s your name?” Moms asked.
He seemed confused. “I thought you would know. John Lee.”
Moms took a deep breath then slowly exhaled. There would be 120 dead emigrants tomorrow, and there would be one man executed for the crime twenty years from now, and he was standing in front of her.
Teutoberg Forest, Germania, 11 September 9 A.D.
The Centurion retrieved his sword, then brought it up to face the Jager as the Legionnaire went on guard, half facing Roland, half the Germanics crowded on the other side of the clearing. The two Romans edged close, shoulder to shoulder.
“Who are you?” the Centurion asked them both.
Roland ignored the Romans and focused on the spear in the man’s hand. Roland knew it was stronger than steel, made from metal salvaged from a Naga staff. “You’re a Jager.”
A woman’s voice came from behind Roland. “What beast was that? What happened to it?”
Too many people, asking too many questions. Roland looked over his shoulder. The tribespeople had gathered some courage and come forward with their weapons, a mixture of farming implements, knives, axes, and a couple of swords, at the ready. At the lead was an old, heavy-set woman, a scythe in her hand.
“How do you know what I am?” the Jager asked.
“I met one before,” Roland said.
“You did? And a Grendel?”
“That, too.”
The man chuckled. “But you live, so that is good. Unless you ran. Many run.” He looked about. “You didn’t run here. None of you. Brave. Foolish. But brave.”
“What did you say of our menfolk?” the Germanic woman demanded.
The Jager looked from Roland to the two Romans, then to the tribespeople. “An interesting gathering. Some of you are enemies. But you.” He nodded toward Roland. “You’re different. Where did you meet one of my brethren?”
“Not here,” Roland said. “Not now.” Cryptic, but accurate.
“Our men!” The woman came closer, raising the scythe. “They went off to battle. What did you say of them? Did you see them?”
“Good ears,” Jager said. He jerked a thumb the way he’d come. “They’re back there. They met a battle, just not the one they were expecting.”
The woman didn’t wait to discuss it further, hustling past them, forgetting about the Romans, the beast, everything, going for her men, the rest of the old men, women and children following.
“We’ll be off, then,” Rufus said, backing up.
“Hold, Rufus,” the Centurion ordered. “What is all this? Magic? Demons?”
“You could call it that,” Roland agreed. “What Legion are you from?”
“We are from Varus’s command group,” the Centurion said. “What is this of their men off to battle? Battle who?”
They know nothing, Roland realized. Was he here to kill the Grendel? But then he was still around. And if—
His train of wondering derailed as the wails of women echoed through the dark forest.
“They found their men,” Jager said. “What remains of them after their meeting with Grendel.” The Jager went into the forest.
Roland looked at the two Romans. “They’re dead, or going to be dead soon.”
The Centurion was confused. “The Germanics?”
“Your three Legions,” Roland said. “The Seventeenth, the Eighteenth, and the Nineteenth.”
The Centurion stared at him as if he’d uttered complete nonsense. The wailing from the Germanic women added to the surreal situation.
“You can come with me and survive,” Roland said, “or try to go back and die. And there’s nothing to go back to. Varus and the Legions have been wiped out.” Or are being wiped out, Roland thought, still not certain of the timing.
The Legionnaire asked, “How do you know this?”
“Arminius betrayed Varus,” Roland said. “He’s led him into an ambush.”
“Never trusted that Germanic bastard,” the Legionnaire muttered.
The Centurion was stunned. “I was on duty when Segestes, Arminius’s father-in-law, came to Commander Varus before we set out. He warned Varus of betrayal.”
“He was right.” Roland didn’t have time to discuss it. If a Jager was here, Roland had a good idea of the rest of his mission. Killing Grendel had only been part of his mission when he went back to Heorot, the Great Hall in Denmark, where Beowulf had battled Grendel. Afterward, Grendel’s mother, Aglaeca, had shown up, an even worse nightmare than her son.
Roland went into the woods, after the Jager. He heard arguing behind him, but focused on moving forward, toward the sound of grieving.
Another clearing was ahead. The Jager stood on its edge, next to a tree. Roland came up next to him. The wailing was subsiding, the tribe overwhelmed with the spectacle of body parts strewn about, some in the trees. Not a single corpse was intact, the destructive power of Grendel clearly evident in the carnage. Roland felt something wet drop onto his shoulder. Above him was a leg. He stepped away from the dripping blood.
“At least ten men,” the Jager said. “They didn’t know where the beast was vulnerable, as you did.”
“We were lucky,” Roland said, “and we couldn’t have finished it off without your spear.”
The Jager glanced at him. “There’s never luck when you fight a Grendel. There is only skill. My brother must have taught you well. Will you tell me now where you met him?”
“No,” Roland said, “but we fought together. And I know enough that the Grendel wasn’t alone, was it?”
“No. They always go in pairs.”
“We called the other one, the female, Aglaeca,” Roland said.
“That is what we call it. It seems your people have learned from our people.” The Jager was about to say something when the two Roman soldiers joined them.
