This mortal coil

Rough draft part 1.

 

by Bradley J. Barton

click here to listen to this story, or right click here and choose "save target as" to download the mp3 file

It was a chilly evening in early September when the priest of the small town went to call on one of his parishioners, one who had rarely come to church, but someone that the Father still felt responsible for.

 

He’d already checked the man’s home, hoping to talk him out of what the priest feared he had decided to do. All the signs were there: the large donation he’d made to the parish, the gifts he’d given to friends and neighbors, not to mention the death of the man’s wife. The door of the small two bedroom house that the husband and wife had bought back when they’d such high hopes for starting a family had been left unlocked, not unusual in the small town, but not what Franklin Forte was normally in the habit of doing. The house had been left dark except for the light in the kitchen. The home had been meticulously cleaned; the only thing left out had been the short handwritten note that now rode in the priest’s pocket, a note which had confirmed his worst suspicions. Now, Father Jackson walked down the gravel path toward the logging bridge that the note had mentioned, flashlight held in one chilled hand, the waning gibbous moon still providing enough light that he hadn’t bothered to keep it on, except for the stretches of the path that had gone under the obscuring branches of the forest.

 

Even with the light, the Priest hadn’t dared to move too quickly, despite the growing sense of urgency he felt, despite feeling that there was little time left. Too many rocks, tree roots, and unexpected dips in the path meant the he’d risk a sprained ankle, or perhaps worse if he didn’t choose his footing with care, and he didn’t dare move nearly at the speed that he’d have chosen, not when an accident could leave him at the bottom of one of the steep sided hills that the path clung to, not when getting to the bridge was the only hope for the life and soul of one of his flock.

 

Father Jackson breathed a sigh as he came out from another small clump of trees, turned around the side of the hill and caught sight of Franklin standing in the middle of the bridge, looking down at the rushing white water far below him, and smoking a cigarette. The sigh was a sound of mixed relief and worry, relief that he wasn’t too late, and worry that he wouldn’t be able to help.

 

The wooden bridge, wide enough for the logging trucks which had once used it to bring timber down from the mountains, thumped hollowly under his feet as he strolled out to stand next to the other man. Without speaking, Franklin fished his pack of smokes from his pocket and offered it to the priest. Father Jackson took a smoke and waited until Franklin light it for him, drawing in a lung full of a vice he’d not been able to rid himself of.

 

“You know,” the priest said after he let the smoke from his lungs, “these things will kill you.”

 

 

Franklin made a sound, a single humph of something like laughter, a sound that seemed to the Father to hold the wait of years.

 

“If that were only true,” Franklin said, speaking with the very slight accent that Father Jason had never been able to place and letting out his own cloud of smoke to drift away on the night air.

 

 

There was a silence between them then, frantic on the priest part as he tried to figure out what words or combination of words might save Franklin, resigned on Franklin’s part as he waited to see what words the priest would choose. Eventually, Father Jason pulled the folded piece of paper from his pocket. He didn’t bother to unfold it, just letting the sight of it let Franklin know that he’d read it, and understood what had driven the man out to this spot on this night, the choice that he made and that the Father hoped to derail.

 

“Are you in such a hurry to meet death en?” the priest asked.

 

“I should tell you,” Franklin said after another pull on his smoke, “You won’t be able to talk me out of it. I’m sorry if it disturbs you, but there are things you don’t understand.”

 

“I understand your grief,” the priest demurred, “I understand how dark and hopeless it must seem now. But the Lord doesn’t give us more than we can bear. Besides, I doubt that she’d approve.”

 

Franklin shook his head, “Aggie would understand. She knew I’d go to find her again once she’d gone.”

 

 

“Oh yes, ‘Please don’t grieve for me my friends’” Father Jason said, quoting the note as he put it back in his jacket pocket, “I go to be with my wife and hope to find a better place for us both.’”

 

Franklin shrugged, “Yes, well, I told you you wouldn’t understand.”

 

The priest opened and shut his mouth, trying to decide whether or not to speak what was on his mind, but Franklin beat him to it.

 

“You’re worried about my immortal soul?” he asked, an incongruously mischievous grin spreading across his narrow features, “suicide is a mortal sin, right? How can I find my wife if she’s playing a harp and I’m some place a bit wormer?”

 

Father Jackson nodded reluctantly, certain that this was the wrong argument, but unable to deny what had been said.

 

 

“Tell me Father. If a man dies by other than his own hand, can it still be considered suicide? Suppose someone arranges to be killed by the police, or makes an effort to spend time in bad neighborhoods with large amounts of cash that he flashes. Is that still a sin?”

 

“Yes,” the priest answered, wondering where this was going, “It’s a matter of intent. Whether or not you kill yourself directly, taking an action to cut short God’s gift of life is to spit in the face of your creator.”

 

“What about your Christ?”

 

Father Jason blinked a couple times as he tried to figure out exactly what the other man was asking. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t quite follow you.”

 

“In your scriptures, it suggests that Jesus knew he was to be killed. Yet he went to his death willingly. He even chastised one of his followers for attacking the soldiers that came to arrest him. He healed that one guy’s ear. He spent all that time on the cross, apparently able to come down at anytime; but he didn’t.”

 

“That’s different.”

 

“How?”

 

Father Jason took a few moments to consider. “I suppose that it is because he died for us and our sins, not because he was unable to stand living, but to allow us to have eternal life.”

 

“Ah, so something that would be a mortal sin becomes a most holy sacrifice.”

 

“Yes,” the father said, though he was beginning to suspect there was some sort of verbal trap coming, “He laid down his life so that others might live.”

 

“Now,” Franklin said, “Suppose that I am doing something like that. Suppose that I’m actually doing this so that I can try and let someone else live longer, healthier. Suppose, in a way that you don’t understand, ending this life is not the cowardly act you believe.”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“I know you don’t, but humor me please, and answer my question.”

 

“If it were true,” the priest said thoughtfully, “then it would be different. But I don’t see how what you plan could be anything like that. I certainly hope you don’t believe that your gifts, or even the donation to the church in anyway justifies what you are about to do. You cannot buy your way into heaven. Only god’s grace can give your soul its salvation.”

 

 

Franklin gave a short nod. “I know you don’t see it, and you won’t, but I’m literally going to find her again. I think I can save her this time. At least I hope so.”

 

“Wait, you mean Agatha?”

 

Franklin nodded again.

 

“I don’t see how your death will help anyone,” the priest said, a ting of irritation entering his voice, “Let alone someone who has already passed on.”

 

“I know. But your ignorance doesn’t change anything. Now, perhaps you’d best leave. I don’t think you’d care to watch.”

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” father Jason said firmly, “and neither are you. Why don’t you forget this nonsense? Come back to town with me. Things won’t seem so grim in the morning.”

 

Franklin eyed the short priest with his balding head and paunch, his wrinkles and soft build. “I doubt that you could stop me,” he said musingly, “but I prefer not to disturb you. Please Father, for your own sake, leave me to my task.”

 

“Disturb me?” Father Jason said, “And what about the people who will have to search for your body? What about the people of the town who are your friends? For that matter, what if the fall doesn’t kill you? Don’t you think being broken and battered will be a little disturbing?”

 

Franklin laughed out loud. He pulled a knife from his pocket. “I’m going to slit my throat first,” he explained, “I’m afraid there really is no graceful way to exit. I thought that at least in the water, after my bowls let go I’d be somewhat washed. It’s really the best I can do; there’s no really clean way to deal with this.”

 

Father Jason shoved his hands in his pocket and kicked his foot a few times. He’d thought that they’d talked long enough to cause him to hesitate. Suicides were generally a spur of the moment choice, something that most people would turn away from once they were shown that someone cared enough to try and stop them. Even when they’d planned it for some time, they’d have hesitation marks on their wrists, jumpers would scream on the way down, discovering too late that they didn’t really wish to die like that, people who took poison would call 911 once they began to feel the drugs taking affect. If he could just figure out a way to stall the other man for a time, maybe he’d come to his senses, or at least be unable to nerve himself for another try.

 

“You say I don’t understand,” the priest said as inspiration struck.

 

Franklin shrugged, “Yeah. I’m sorry, but there are things you don’t know about.”

 

“So, tell me about them. Explain. At least take confessional once last time before you do this thing. Even if you really aren’t committing a mortal sin as you say, I imagine you could use the blessing.”

 

“”that would take a long time,” Franklin said, idly playing with his knife.

 

“So,” Father Jason retorted, “are you in that much of a hurry? You can’t spear the time to put an old priest’s mind at ease?”

 

Franklin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He turned to look into the night. “No,” he said, causing the priest to step forward, ready to try and rest the knife from him, though he didn’t expect he’d be able to, “I guess I’m not in any rush. If there’s one thing I have far too much of, it’s time.

 

Alright Father, you talked me into it. I warn you though; it’s a very long story, and one that you’ll have trouble believing, much less understanding.”

 

Father Jason smiled at took a couple calming breaths of his own, letting his pounding heart slow as he realized that Mister Forte wasn’t about to end his life right away, right in front of him. “Well,” he said with a brittle cheerfulness, “This is hardly the place for a long story. Suppose we head back to town.”

 

“Lead on Father.”

 

The two men turned and walked back toward the path, there’s steps in awkward syncopation resounding on the bridge.

 

“You know,” Franklin said conversationally, “It was another priest who first showed me how I was different. It was a very long time ago, both for the world and myself, longer than you can probably imagine…”

 

1 :: the first time.

 

The first time it happened was the worst. I’d know idea what had happened to me, so when the soldiers arrived and took us to the castle, I was in fear of my life. Alchemy was officially frowned on by the church; though nearly anyone who was anyone dabbled in alchemy to one extent or another. It was a bit like some of the lesser illegal drugs that your culture frowns on so publicly and yet which so many of you use so regularly. One could indulge, but one still kept a low profile as much as possible. For the most part, the habit was ignored. After all, alchemists had been responsible for more than one form of medicine, had discovered gunpowder, or at least brought it to the west, and held out the promise of so much, without having to rely on a God, who had a habit of being conspicuous by his absence.

 

It was more because of the local lord’s brother, than any real infraction on our part. Certainly I, a mere boy who had come with his father to sell things to the others, couldn’t have been responsible for any great crime. Still, the Lord’s brother had brought the priest, and a number of knights from a militant and holy order, brought them when he knew his elder brother would be involved, knew that the church would officially support the reason for our deaths.

 

I didn’t know any of that at the time. All I knew was that some men with swords and guns had come and gathered us up, that we’d been taken back to the castle, and that they were putting a noose round my young neck, just as they’d already done to several of the older men.

 

I remember feeling aghast and angry. I remember the feel of the coarse rope as they lowered it over my head. I tried to buck and twist aside, my hands tied behind my back, two large men holding me while the third tried to put the rope round my neck. The rope caught halfway down my face. I’d felt a wild hope then, that maybe I’d be able to twist away, maybe I’d be able to keep the rope from being put in place. I even tried to catch at it with my teeth. But with another yank, the damn thing fell into place, and the men that had been holding me stepped away.

 

I tried to say something then, tried to beg for my life, though even had the rope not already been tightening, I doubt that I would have been able to say anything coherent. My rope had been tossed over a beam that had been erected for the purpose long before I was featured and fixed to a wagon. Along with four other grown men, all to my right, I felt my feet leave the ground as the horse was walked forward a few paces.

 

It hurt. I recall feeling annoyed as the coarse rope dug into my neck, surprised at how painful it was. After that first moment I found that I couldn’t breathe. I’d snatched a breath to try and speak just as the noose tightened. I was surprised that the fact that I couldn’t empty my lungs was so uncomfortable. That was almost the last thought I had, the last reasonable, almost calm thought. The rest was a mad and useless kicking as I tried to snatch more air, or get something, anything that would let me relieve the terrible pressure. My face was hot and swollen. It felt like my head was going to explode. There was a hideous rushing sound in my ears and an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. My heart pounding, vision covered in swirling spots that merged into a darkness that swallowed everything, and there was a strange metallic taste far back in my throat that I couldn’t seem to spit away.

 

 

After a time, I began to feel different. I could still feel my body flailing away in mindless reaction, but it was far, far away from me. I was beginning to be covered by a feeling of distance, of softness, like having my body covered in wool, like having the strange dancing sparks of fire that had obscured my vision leaking across to swaddle my entire body, all my senses. For me, for that first time, the last to go was my hearing. I could hear the small crowd, could hear the guards yelling taunts. Suddenly I felt something give way inside, and there was a spreading warmth as my bladder and bowels let go with a sustained flatulence that surprised me with its volume and duration. I heard the guards and crowd laugh as the trumpeter made his instrument make a sound like the one my failing body had.

 

“Hey,” I thought as the rushing sound in my ears grew louder and the sound of the people around me seemed to fall away, “That’s the way I’m trumpeted into the afterlife?”

 

Of course, the thought wasn’t nearly so well worded. It was more of a feeling, a sense of being offended, of injustice that my life had not only been cut off, but that I was the butt of such a tasteless joke. My last wish as the life flowed away from me was that I could somehow get back at the damn trumpet player.

 

 

 

I woke, rolling over on the cot that was inside the tent my father had setup for the meting of the alchemists. He was already outside, just as he’d been at the beginning of what must have been a dream. My hand Stoll to my neck, surprised to find only the smooth unbroken skin of the child I was, not bruising or cuts like I’d more than half expected. What a nightmare I’d just had.

 

The tent flap was pulled aside and my father stuck his head in.

 

“Ah,” he said, “You’re awake. Good, there’s someone who would like to talk to you. Get a move on boy; I can’t keep him waiting forever.”

 

My father moved away, just as he’d done in that dream I’d just awoken from. He’d just spoken the same words he had from my dream. It was strange. Never before had I dreamed such a long and detailed dream. I’d never had a whole day go by while I slept and then woken, much less had the day I’d awoken to start as the dream had. Still, the day wasn’t quite as I’d dreamed it. In the dream, I hadn’t been surprised to find that I was still alive. In the dream, I hadn’t been surprised at how what my father had just told me was so like what I had just dreamed.

 

I rolled out of my cot and grabbed the clothes that my father had left out for me. The same home spun shirt and breeches I’d dreamed I’d been wearing when I was hanged. Not that there was much difference between one set of plain clothing and the next, but this shirt had a hem that needed darning on my right sleeve, this pair of breeches had that funny shaped patch on the left knee that I had dreamed I’d picked at nervously while talking to the alchemist from last night.

 

 

Outside the tent, the morning sun was just high enough to paint the clearing with rosy light. It was the day of the summer solstice, and those who had gathered to explore their art and science were already milling about. Far off to one side I could see the huntsmen lounging by the horses. The lord had let it be known that he would be in the woods today hunting stag. While in fact, he had arranged to meet these other men who shared his obsession from from the prying eyes of the village that surrounded his castle.

 

Really though, it was about the worse kept secret in all the land. The wind rustled the trees and stirred up a bit of dust from the hard pack dirt.

 

Spread around the clearing, small groups of men stood or squatted, dressed in a mix of the finest and the worst. Several small fires had been set inside rings of stone, the stone often including crystals or hunks of mettle. Over the fires of very carefully selected wood and other items, pots were dangling. As I watched, a man at one of the fires consulted a roll of parchment, nodded to himself and pulled a pinch of something from a sack he’d bought from my father yesterday morn. He dropped it in the pot and there was a soft whoosh and a cloud of pail green smoke.

 

 

A short way in front of my father’s tent, the Lord himself was standing, talking with my father and the sage.

 

 

My father saw me and called me over. I reached the small group of men and greeted the lord and the sage. The lord was a very tall man, with light brown hair, and dark eyes.

 

He was dressed in the finest fabrics, and in the latest fashions. His clothing could easily have been worth more than the rest of the village. My father by contrast, was wearing clothes more sturdy than stylish. I’d seen him dressed in finery that would have put the lord’s to shame; but my father was very careful about what outfits he chose to wear in front of which person he needed to do business with.

 

He explained it to me once when I had asked him why he let the lords sneer at him so.

 

“You have to understand,” my father said, stretched out on the other sleeping cot in our tent in the middle of the desert we were crossing with a caravan. “If I dressed as well as the lords, they’d be uncomfortable. They need to know that I’m not stepping outside of my station. When we buy, I need to look like I have enough power that I don’t need their offer, like I could walk away at any second and take all my gold with me. It’s not about the money, more about one's place in the world. When dealing with the lords, so long as I don’t seem to be getting above myself, they will buy what they need to follow their deliciously risqué hobby. If I put on airs, we’ll be for the gallows.”

 

I thought about that memory and what I had dreamed as the men spoke over my head.

 

The third man was the sage. He said his name was Jacque, but he was about as French as haggis. He was probably from Persia, the area you call the Middle East. He, along with a list of items, had been what the lord had commissioned us to find.

 

The sage was dressed in a fairly simple robe. Many of the alchemists my father and I dealt with, affect robes, embroidered with astrological, mathematical, or other symbols. The sage was different. He wore his rope in such a way that I gained the impression that he dressed that way because it was simple, as if he had better things to think about than what covered his back.

 

“I thank you for the chance to speak with the boy,” the sage said, placing one hand on my shoulder, “Come with me lad.”

 

I was led away from his lordship and my Da, the elegantly thin, long fingered hand of the sage guiding me with gentle pressure.

 

 

The sage led me to one of his tents. He actually had several, including more than one for working, and some for his servants, and this small one, holding nothing but a table and a few chairs, along with rolls of parchment and some bound books. The sage sat me down on a camp stool on one side of the table, and took the seat across from me. In the far corner of the tent, set on a small table was the stone.

 

Resting his elbows on the wooden table, master Jacque rested his chin in his hands and gazed at me, a distant and thoughtful look on his face. I squirmed under his gaze, feeling like one of the leafs or small insects that he had held under the lenses he kept in a felt lined box.

 

“What his your name boy,” he said as he straightened.

 

“They call me Frank, sir.”

 

“And how do you feel this morning, Frank? Do you feel any different than yesterday?”

 

I looked over at the stone where it sat on the table, looking no stranger than any of the half crystal rocks that often circle the alchemist’s fires. When I looked back at the sage, his eyebrows razed and the corners of his mouth lifted ever so slightly.

 

“I, ah,” I began, “I feel fine sir. It’s just…” I answered, feeling oddly like I shouldn’t change what I was saying from what I had dreamed.

 

The Sage made a sound of encouragement.

 

“That is,” I said, “I feel the same as what I dreamed I felt like last night.” There, I’d said it. Not very clearly, but I’d brought up the strange dream at least. Surely, I thought, master Jacque will know what to make of it.

 

“As you dreamed?” Master Jacque said, inviting me to explain.

 

“Well, yes sir, that is. Last night I had a dream like none I’ve ever had,” I took a deep breath and launched into an explanation. I fear I was babbling, though I was still but a boy and one could expect nothing else. But I told Sage Jacque how I’d had a dream that was as clear in my mind now as any memory of any yesterday. I told him how in my dream I had been called to his tent and that he had shown me pictures and diagrams, asking me what I knew of them. I spoke of how I’d been a little proud of how many simples and diagrams I’d been able to identify, of how much I’d gleaned from watching my father do business, and of how I’d been a little embarrassed at my illiteracy. Then, after he’d uncovered that I had no more knowledge of alchemy than a boy of my age who was still illiterate, who knew nothing of the subject other than what he’d gleaned from watching his father do business could know; he’d given me the stone to hold. He’d then gone through the same pictures and scrolls, the same questions, like he expected holding the stone would have made me understand more. I told him how when I left the tent in my dream, running outside at the sound of a horn being winded, I’d watched as soldiers in milord’s green and gold had come ridding into the clearing, how I’d watched a man with a cross bow kill my father, how we’d been gathered up and hanged in small groups.

 

When I finally ran down, the sage remained quietly thoughtful for some time.

 

“Frankk,” he said eventually, “You say that your dream is not the same as this day?”

 

“That’s right sir,” I said, “I didn’t tell you of my dream in my dream.”

 

“Strange,” Master Jacque said, more to himself than me, “Is it a true vision? You say that you do things of which you saw nothing, yet you have described exactly what I had intended to try with you.”

 

He turned, reached over, and lifted the stone in his cupped hands. He placed it on the table between us and looked down at it, idly running one hand across its lumpy and irregular surface. The stone looked at first glance to be no more than any ordinary piece of granite with veins of crystal running through it; but if one looked at it for any length of time, one would find themselves trying to catch sight of a pattern that wasn’t quite there. It was as if someone had meant to carve some of the symbols that master Jacque hadn’t shown me this time into it’s surface, like the veins of crystal just mist forming some kind of meaningful shape.

 

 

 

“I wonder,” Master Jacque said, then looked up and fixed me with a sharp gaze. “Tell me lad. Do you recall which symbol I showed you first in this dream of yours?”

 

“I think so,” I said as the sage lifted a sheet of parchment from the pile on the edge of the table. “It was Pisces, I think, the sort of fish one?”

 

Master Jacque nodded and placed the piece of parchment face up on the other side of the stone. “And the second one?” he asked me, lifting a book and opening it to the page that had been marked.

 

“It was one I didn’t know sir.”

 

“How about the third?”

 

“I’m not sure master. I, that is, you showed me many of them. I think it was either the twins or the ram.”

 

Jacque smiled and lifted a second sheet, “the ram is correct, and as it happens the twins were next. This is astounding. Tell me boy, do you know the gifts that the stone is meant to bestow?”

 

“Not really sir,” I said with a shrug, this was no part of my dream, and I wondered if changing this part would keep the other from happening. “Isn’t it supposed to change things into gold or something?”

 

The sage chuckled warmly. “No Frak. That is, I believe that to be metaphorical. If the stone grants such, it does so by providing the knowledge. The task is still for the sage to perform. No, the stone grants life and knowledge, or so it has been said. Eternal life and a deep understanding of the forces of this corrupt world.”

 

“Oh,” I said, just to make some sort of sound that would show I was paying attention while the sage looked back down at the stone again.

 

“Here,” he said, giving the stone a gentle nudge in my direction, “Place your hand upon the stone.”

 

I did so, the rock feeling chill under my hand.

 

“What do you feel?” Master Jacque asked.

 

“Nothing,” I said, “that is, I feel the stone, but it is like touching any rock.”

 

“So, nothing like last night?”

 

“No sir, nothing like.”

 

“Ah, perhaps the eternal life is different than what we’d assumed. Perhaps the knowledge is like the gold. The stone may make it possible, but the gaining of wisdom may still be for the sage to do. Imagine if you had lived and studied. Imagine if you had a dream, not of one day, but an entire life time. Then you may come to us again and know all that a man may have learned over his life, yet still be but a strapping young lad.”

 

“I guess so.” I said, looking over my shoulder toward the tent’s opening.

 

“I wonder if the affect remains,” he continued after a moment, one hand stroking the stone again, “Is it truly a short life that ended and you have returned, or is it just a dream of things that may pass. If the former, would your death again send you back, or would you end like any mortal. If the latter…”

 

 

 

This time, my father was hanged. At least I assume he would have been, he was lined in the group of five to go after mine. They hanged me in the first group this time so that they could make my father watch.

 

This time, remembering how it had felt to have too much air while being choked to death by the rope, I let out all my air just as the noose tightened. It didn’t help. It still hurt, only instead of making a giant fart sound, my stomach muscles spasm and tried to make me throw up. Nothing could get passed the noose, and it ended up in my lungs, since at the same time my stomach wanted something to go out, my lungs desperately wanted something to come in. It burned like hot irons in the chest, something I unfortunately know the feel of from another time.

 

 

The Sage had called his lordship and my Father into the Tent, and tried to get me to explain the situation. He was convinced enough that he sent orders to have his gear stowed, and his people ready to move.

 

“Now, Frank, tell them of what we have discovered.”

 

There was a long silence after the Sage had spoken. My Father and his Lordship had strange expressions on their faces. I was too young to recognize it that time, but it amounted to something lie religious ah. They were half expecting something miraculous, half afraid nothing would happen, and half hopeful it would turn out to be nothing, and yes, I know that’s three halves.

 

Considering how primed they were for the unexplainable and magical to happen, they sure took a lot of convincing.

 

We wasted a good bit of time at first while I tried to figure out what the Alchemist Sage had meant by “what we have discovered,” complicated by the fact that I wanted to tell them exactly what the Sage had asked, but thought I had to fight to be heard. Once all that was untangled, his Lordship poo pooed the whole thing as some sort of dream, while my father asked if I could prove what I’d told them.

 

A bit more time was lost when His lordship took offence at the fact that my father was still taking what I’d said seriously. His Lordship felt that if he had pronounced it nonsense, all around him should agree. The Sage talked him out of that one with a mix of logic and flattery.

 

Eventually, both his lordship and my father were at the stage where they wished for proof. A bit more time was lost as we found that I couldn’t recall the order of the symbols from my dream. My father was half convinced; the Lord was still saying that knowing them out of order was inconclusive, when the debate was ended by the sound of a horn.

 

The second time wasn’t quite as bad as the first. I more than half thought I would be back and I had the satisfaction of knowing I’d been right all along. Also, just as they were about to grab me, I twisted away and ran over to that damn trumpet player. Just as the other men got a hold of me again, I managed to kick him where it would do the most good. The trumpet player wasn’t feeling well enough to play at all.

 

 

This time, as soon as I was certain I was back in my little cot, inside my father’s tent, I jumped up and pulled on my clothes. I actually ran right into my father, darting out of the tent opening just as he was bending to stick his head in and check on me. He reached out and grabbed me by the back of the shirt.

 

“Here now boy,” he said, sounding a little annoyed and a little amused, “You know better manors than that. You say excuse me when you blunder into folk.”

 

“Dah,” I cried, “We have to get going. Soldiers are coming to hang us all.”

 

“Is that right?” he said, “Well, Master Jacque wants a word with you, so the soldiers are just going to have to wait.”

 

I stood there, mouth probably hanging open. I couldn’t believe that my father was just standing there while people were coming to kill us. “Dah,” I tried, “I mean really for real soldiers.”

 

“And I mean really for real you’re going to talk with master Jacque. He wants to ask you about last night. Now you be on your best behavior, none of your cheek, understand?”

 

“But…”

 

My father stopped dragging me forward by his grip on my shirt and squatted down to my eye level. “Hey, Frank,” he said  in the voice he used to let me know we were talking man to man now, “I don’t know what all went on last night with what happened and all, but I want you to do as I say.”

 

“But dah,” I said as he paused, “they’re coming to kill us. The soldiers are…”

 

“Easy,” my father said, “the soldiers, I hear you talking. But you need to talk with the sage for two reasons. One, because we’re to be paid for your help... and secondly,” he said, raising his voice to walk over my half voiced objections, “Secondly because I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t know whether or not what happened might have hurt you some how, and the sage is the only one who might be able to make certain that you are going to be alright. Now, can you settle down, forget the soldiers for a second and talk with master Jacque?”

 

“Yes sir,” I said, not sounding too excited.

 

“Good,” My father said and straightened to his feet, “I knew I could count on you Frank. Go on now, maybe he’ll ask you about your soldiers, ay?”

 

I walked away from my father and toward the little ten where I knew Master Jacque was going to take me to talk.

 

“Hey Frank,” my da called after me. I stopped and looked back toward him. “That way,” he said, pointing to where the sage and his lordship stood together talking.

 

I turned and trudged dispiritedly toward the men. I was acutely conscious of how little time I had, of how little time we all had; but to the boy I was then, the Sage and his lordship were the wrong direction, and so I walked as slowly as I could get away with. I’m not certain how, but this meant things would go quicker in my young mind. The sage actually noticed me well before I reached them and came walking over. He called some joke about how he didn’t intend to eat me, apparently mistaking my expression for nervousness at our meeting. The last couple of times, he’d have been right as well, but being hanged once or twice concentrates the mind marvelously.

 

As soon as I was certain that Master Jacque was heading in my direction, I turned about and darted to the small tent. I stopped at the opening and turned round to find to my dismay and growing impatience, that the sage had stopped. He was looking at me in amazement.

 

 

I’m afraid I wasn’t nearly as polite as my father had told me to be.

 

“Here now,” I called, “You want to talk or what? Come on with yourself already.” I said and stepped inside the tent.

 

By the time Master Jacque had joined me, I was sitting on the camp chair, and tapping at the table impatiently. He tried; he really tried to regain his composure. He went through the sit down across from me and look at me all thoughtful routine, complete with long silence, but I didn’t have the time to indulge him.

 

“Look,” I said, “I’ve already done this day twice now. Soldiers are coming to hang us all. I know what the first few symbols you meant to test me with are. The stone did something to me alright, and we have to get out of here.”

 

I could see right away that I’d made a mistake. I resolved right then to try and break the news to someone in pieces. Obviously, if Master Jacque’s reaction was anything to go on, dumping it all at once tended to leave them too confused to function. He stammered a bit, started to ask one or two questions, changed his mind, and finally tried going all thoughtful again on me.

 

I got from my chair and lent passed the end of the table to pick up the stone. I put it in the middle of the table, sat back down and spoke.

 

“The fish, then it’s a drawing in a book that I don’t know the name of, some snake that is eating its own tale. Then it’s the ram, then the twins, after that I don’t remember the order so well, but you’ve got a bunch I’ve never seen, a few I’ve seen but don’t know the names of, and the rest of the Zodiac in that little pile there.” I gestured to the stack of parchment and books that was on the end of the table. “Please, we don’t have time.”

 

“This is astounding,” the sage said, sounding all astounded all right, “Perhaps the immortality of the stone is not of the form we’d thought. Tell me lad, do you know the gifts that the stone is meant to…”

 

“Yes,” I said shortly, “Life and knowledge. We’ve been through this.”

 

“Imagine,” master Jacque said with growing excitement, “If it is true. What if you’d had a long life and come back to us now. Suppose…”

 

He trailed off on his own, and to his credit managed to focus on the most important information after only that little time to adjust his entire world view. He stood and moved out of the tent decisively, calling my father and his lordship over and having a quick conference. I don’t know what he said that time, but the other two men, instead of arguing and demanding proof, got to work tearing down right away.

 

The result of all this was that it was three days before they found us, tracked down by the same huntsmen that had been ordering in our camp, a man who they’d hanged right along with the rest of us that first couple of times.

 

There’s a mood that I get some times. I’ve seen in others as well. The closest your modern language has to describing it is gallows humor. As I say, that’s close, but not quite. The mood is fey. When you know that you cannot escape something and it suddenly strikes you as funny. When the fear of death in those around you seems ridiculous, right along with all the pomp of those who are going to end you life with all do ceremony. In latter years I’d see it amongst soldiers—men who would stand in plain sight, bullets whipping past their ears while the setup a barbeque or something equally ridiculous. I got my first taste of this mood when they caught up to us at last.

 

I considered it a real sign of progress when I was hit by a crossbow bolt instead of hung by the neck.

 

It hurt.

 

 

 

The priest poured the amber liquid over the ice in his host’s glass and placed the bottle back on the table. It was Franklin’s third drink, while the Father was almost ready to pour himself a second. The night had worn on with Franklin telling his impossible tale and the Father trying to decide whether or not to humor the obviously deranged man.

 

“I can’t really remember how I died next,” Franklin said as he accepted the drink, “I know I was burned to death fairly soon, but I can’t remember if it was that time or the next time. I do remember that I tried dragging all three of them into the tent. I must have been hanged again, because that never worked. It was much faster to just explain to the sage and let him talk to the other men. Otherwise they spent so much time trying to convince themselves that I was making it up that we never got out of camp. It wasn’t until the first time that I just ran away that we survived for more than a week or so.”

 

“You ran away?” Father Jason asked, reaching for the bottle to pour himself a second drink

 

“Yes. I’d finally decided by that time that I was just going to try and save myself. Ironically, that’s when the others actually made it with me. The three of them and a few of the others would try to track me down and be away from camp when it was raided. Not that our problems were over. It just meant that his lordship would go off to try and get his holdings back from his brother, and the rest of us would wander around the country with no supplies and no money. It was a horrid, miserable, vicious time. Not just for me but for everyone. I died and returned over and over again. It was so bad that I became convinced that I’d died the first time, and all the rest of this was just my personal hell. I was beaten to death, drowned, stabbed, tortured, raped; it was the first time I was raped. It just went on and on.”

 

“So how did you escape?”

 

Franklin shrugged, “Trial and error. Mostly error. But eventually I knew exactly what to do in order to weave our way through the mess. I found out that if I could managed to keep the Sage and my Father alive, I could apprentice with the sage and live a fairly good life, especially when I’d come back after fifty years or so, I’d know much more than anyone could believe. I learned to keep my head down and my mouth shut, and I’d be able to take advantage of what I’d learned. For example, I could tell my father which ships were going to come back full of gold and such, and which ones would probably not be coming back at all. It was a good way to make our lives pleasantly comfortable. But no matter how comfortable and long a life I managed to give myself, whether I died in seventy minutes or seventy years, I kept coming back to that damn tent, and I’d have to fight my way through hell again.”

 

“Ah,” Father Jason said, “It sounds like it was kind a hard on you.”

 

“No kidding. It was almost the worst when I’d lived a full lifetime. I can’t tell you what it’s like, spending your last days with grandchildren playing about your feet, knowing that when you pass away, all you’ve done and worked for will just be gone. Gods, to wake up after slipping away quietly in your sleep, only to have to dodge every mad dog moron who could sit a horse or swing an ax.

 

It wasn’t exactly conducive to spiritual calmness. Hell, if it was the first time for a lot of different ways to die, it was also the first time for a lot of different ways to kill.”

 

 

 

 

In third person. Ddsfdsjejeijeijeiijeijieijeijijeijijeijei want to put another thing here, but I’m afraid I’m going to stall out if I do.

 

“Well,” Father Jason said after a sip of his whisky, “That’s an amazing story, and you do seem to have a lot of conviction…?”

 

Franklin waved his hand to bat this away, “Conviction is what you have when you’re trying to prove how sure you’re sure.”

 

“Um, but… You lived how long, when you lived the longest?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know. Don’t think I ever lived much passed seventy, and usually was gone around fifty or so.”

 

“But the time you describe. I mean, that all had to have happened, if it happened at all, hundreds of years ago.”

 

“Yeah,” Franklin said matter a factly, “but that was all before I broke the stone.”

 

 

The Father frowned.

 

“Look,” Franklin said at his expression, “I’m sorry to sound flippant, but…”

 

Franklin stopped; he froze. For a full two breaths he simply sat, drink forgotten in one hand. Then, he set his glass down, and placed his hands on either side of his head.

 

“Wow,” he said, breathing the word out, “That hurt.” He sort of shook himself and looked back at the priest. “What was I saying?” he asked.

 

“Um, something about flippant?”

 

“Right, I was going to say that I’ve done this a lot of times. I don’t make it a habit to tell people about my, ah, condition; but every now and then I need to, or just get in the mood to tell my story. I’ve been around like this for a very, very long time, and I’ve ended up having the same sorts of conversations over and over again.

 

Anyway, I was going to go off on how I know you think I’m crazy, and how you’re about at the stage where you want proof. The thing is though, that I’m ready to prove it.”

 

Father Jason straightened unconsciously, drawn in despite himself. “Really?” he asked carefully.

 

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Franklin said earnestly, “I want you to know that. Just, the kid shot me when I tried to grab his gun.”

 

 

There was an incredibly loud slam from the front door and the priest spun half round in his chair to look. He was just in time to see the door fly open, tearing part of the door jam away from the wall as the figure outside delivered a second kick. With another quick shove of its foot, the figure cleared the door and pointed a rather large gun at Franklin forte.

 

“You!” he said, “Just sit there.”

 

As he spoke, he crossed the room, leaving his gun trained on Franklin until he was quite a bit closer.

 

“Mistake that.” Franklin said easily, as though commenting on a football game between teams no one really cared about. “He shouldn’t get that close. It’s like an invitation to jump him.”

 

“Shut up!” the figure said, thrusting his gun forward menacingly before adding, “Now start talking.”

 

Franklin burst out laughing.

 

“I'm sorry,” he said, “You didn’t say that last time.”

 

 

“Darth?” the voice caused the gunman to spin and point the gun at the Father, but almost immediately his entire posture changed.

 

“Father Jason?” he asked, and looked down at his hand, as if surprised to find he was pointing a gun at the priest.

 

“Right there,” Franklin said, adding a noise of appreciation when the gunman stepped away from the table and pointed the gun back at him with a two handed grip. “Very nice,” he said, “You see that Father. That’s how I got shot last time. I thought I could jump him when he was distracted by you, but he moves away like that, gives himself plenty of room and blows me away.”

 

“What’s your name kid?” Franklin asked after the silence had stretched for just a little too long.

 

“That,” Father Jason said with heavy disdain, “Is Mister Humphrey Darth. Isn’t that right Humphrey.”

 

“Darth?” Franklin said, lifting his glass from the table, “You’re name is Darth?”

 

“You,” Humphrey said, “shut the fuck up right now or I’ll blow your head off!”

 

“Darth!” the priest said in shocked disapproval.

 

“You can’t win, Darth,” Franklin said, filling his glass from the bottle on the table, “If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you could possibly…”

 

“Shut the fuck up!”

 

 

 

“I can see why you go by Darth,” Franklin continued, leaning back in his chair and taking a sip of his drink, “I mean if the alternative is Humphrey.”

 

Father Jason drained his glass, and poured himself another drink with a shaking hand. “My god,” he said, “you’re telling the truth. You really have my god.”

 

Darth took a few steps back, moving the gun from one man to the other.

 

“Oh, hey,” Franklin said, “Don’t run off or anything. Sit down, have a drink, tell us your desperate story.”

 

“You mean you don’t know?” the Father asked Franklin.

 

“Hell know, he’s only shot me once.”

 

“What?” the gunman said with something of a squeak.

 

 “Oh yeah,” Franklin said evilly, “You should have seen your face. I mean you still had on the hood, but your eyes nearly fell right out of your head.” He tapped himself on the chest and lent forward, “right there. Took me just long enough to die for a good exit line, but my lungs filled up with blood too quick.” Franklin’s shoulders gave an involuntary twitch and his face lost the mocking grin. “Gods,” he said almost to himself, “I hate that feeling.” He paused “Next time,” he said seriously, “shoot me in the head. Torso shots hurt.”

 

 

“Darth,” Father Jason said, “I want you to give me that gun, alright? Just give me the gun and we’ll get you some help.”

 

“Hey,” Franklin asked the priest, “How did you recognize him anyway?”

 

“His voice,” Father Jason answered, “It’s not really a lisp but…”

 

“You mean how he sort of sits on his sibilance’s? There’s almost a whistle on his s sounds.”

 

“Hey!” Darth said angrily.

 

Franklins head made a quick motion and he was staring into the gunman’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said, drawing out his s sounds, “we certainly seem to have somehow made some one self-conscious.”

 

“Franklin,” Father Jason said sharply.

 

Franklin sat back and dropped his challenging glair. “Sorry father,” he said, “My condition makes me a little reckless.”

 

“And rood,” the Father added pointedly.

 

“And rood,” Franklin admitted, “Hey, Darth, let me get you a glass and…”

 

“Don’t move!” Humphrey Darth barked.

 

“Ok,” Franklin said, lowering himself back into his seat slowly, “Father, why don’t you get our guest a glass and some ice.”

 

“Darth,” Father Jason said with careful calm, “Give me the gun. Ok? Just give me the gun, and we’ll talk. That’s all.”

 

“Oh hell Father,” Franklin said with a heavy sigh, “Let the kid keep it if it makes him feel better. He’s obviously not going to shoot you, and… well, let him keep it. He can cover us from the couch.”

 

With a disgruntled sigh, Father Jason got to his feet. Darth’s wrist visibly trembled as he tried to decide which man to point his gun at, but he settled for keeping it pointed vaguely in Franklin’s direction. Father Jason fetched a glass and put a couple cubes of ice into it from the tray in the freezer. He filled the glass from the rapidly depleting bottle and brought it over to Darth. Absently, with motions like an automaton, Darth took the glass. He looked down at the drink in his hand, looked at his gun in the other, and back up toward the priest.

 

“For god’s sake,” the father said, “You may as well take off that thing on your face. You can’t drink with it on and we already know who you are.”

 

With a convulsive motion, Darth thrust the gun into the priest’s hands and reached up to tear the cloth hood from his head. Father Jason almost dropped the gun, his face a study of conflicting impulses as he juggled to hold onto something he had never wanted to touch in his life. He brought the gun over to the table, holding onto the very end of the grip between thumb and fingers like something filthy he’d been forced to pick up. Franklin reached out and plucked the gun from his hand. The Father made a tiny abortive sound of protest while franklin did something to the gun, and the end of the handle slid out of it. Franklin put the now empty gun on the table and laid the magazine he’d removed next to it.

 

“There you go father,’ he said, “It’s as harmless as a paperweight now.”

 

 

Franklin nudged the magazine with one finger. “Forty caliber,” he mused, “And hollow point.” He looked up at Darth, “Is there something you wanted?”

 

 

Darth took a deep breath, glanced at his gun wistfully, and spoke, “How old are you?”

 

Franklin nodded, “A lot older than I look; but you figured that out already.”

 

Darth swallowed, “And you had it, right, I mean back when it first came out of Africa.”

 

“Oh,” pause, “Oh deer Jesus.”

 

The priest cleared his throat.

 

“Sorry Father,” Franklin said, “That was really something of a prayer anyway.” He looked back to Darth, “Yes, I had aids, and I got better, and yes, I’ve been a live for even longer than you’re probably thinking.”

 

 

“Full on aids?” Darth asked, “Not just the virus?”

 

“I had malignant tumors all over my body caused by the end stages of the sickness. Yeah, full on Aids.”

 

“How?” Darth said, almost whispering, “I don’t need to live forever, just, please, how did you beat it?”

 

“In the old days I’d sell you an amulet and you’d go off happy until you found out that you were dying anyway. I’m sorry, I can’t help you. Not in the way you think.”

 

“Please,” Darth said, “I won’t tell anyone. If you need anything or want anything, just ask. Please.”

 

“Darth,” Father Jason said gently,

 

“No,” Darth said, rubbing his hand across his eyes, “No. I found you.” Darth crossed the room and picked up the gun, putting than magazine back in place and yanking back the slide. “Now,” he said, pointing the gun at Franklin’s head, “You tell me, or you won’t be telling anyone anything else ever again.”

 

“You come up with that line just now,” Franklin asked, “Or have you been rehearsing.”

 

“Tell me damit!” Darth screamed.

 

“Maybe you should try and explain,” Father Jason said.

 

“Right, right,” Franklin said, “Look I’m sorry, Humphrey or Darth or whatever your name is. You too Father. I’ve been sort of messing with you instead of just explaining. Aggie used to call it screwing with the mortals. Have a seat and let me lay this all out for you. I’m going to try and keep this as simple and short as possible…”

 

 

 “Frank!” Jerold called, waving his arm to help get his son’s attention, “Hey, Frank!”

 

“yes da,” Frank answered as he trotted over, passing the complex diagrams and seven carefully laid fires in the middle of the clearing where the five men consulted parchment, made notes, and occasionally added something to one of the fires, or slightly adjusted the position of one of the small piles of rock.

 

“They are needing more sulfur,” Jerold told his son, “Be a good lad and go fetch them a bag full.”

 

“Ah da,” Frank half wined, wrinkling his nose in disgust, “they aren’t going to burn it are they?”

 

“I imagine they will.”

 

“But it stinks.” Frank said with feeling.

 

“Go on lad,” Jerold said with a laugh, “Fetch it along and you can go wait upwind if you want.”

 

From the middle of the strange design, the Sage, master Jacque, called to Jerold in a language that Frank didn’t know. His father answered in the same language before turning back to his son, “come on, lad, get a move on!”

 

Frank sped off, skirting the edge of the work area and ducking behind their tent where the cart, still half filled with supplies for the alchemist, waited. It wasn’t long before he came back in sight, holding a heavy sack before him in both arms and squinting against the glair of the setting sun as he returned. He rushed it back over and stood, panting for breath, by his Father.

 

“No, boy,” Jerold said, “Take it to Master Jacque. Frank turned and moved reluctantly into the midst of the alchemists. “And mind you don’t upset their work.” His father called after him.

 

Frank walked the sack over, but paused, seeing no way to enter the figure without crossing the lines. At the center fire, the largest one around which the other six had been set, the sage broke off speaking with one of the other alchemists and called to the boy.

 

“It’s all right,” he said in the French of nobles and tradesmen, “Just step over the lines and bring it here.”

 

Unable to see his feet passed the large sack he was carrying, Frank decided to try and cross as few lines as possible. He moved to his right, staying outside of the large hexagon within a circle that had been drawn between the six outer fires, moving close to the nearest fire so that he could step over the circle and corner of the hexagon at once. He looked down to one side, lining his feet up and mentally marking the position of the lines. Carefully he stepped over the circle, passed one side of the hexagon, and into the point of the six pointed star that had been drawn inside of it.

 

He slid himself passed the tripod holding up a symbol made from twisted wires, and at last reached the sage.

 

“That’s a good lad,” master Jacque said, “Just set the sack there.”

 

Frank lowered the sack and stepped back, turning to hop back out of the figure and get away before…

 

“Here, lad,” master Jacque said, “Hold on to this for me.”

 

From the edge of the clearing, well outside and clear of the figure where the alchemists worked, Jerold watched as the sage dragooned his boy into helping. Frank took the bound book from the sage, and stood ready, only fidgeting a little as the sage scooped a handful of sulfur from the bag and tossed it into the central fire. Jerold laughed aloud when the yellowish, fowl smelling smoke billowed out, the breeze blowing it directly into his son’s face.

 

 

 

 

The sage called the other five men to him and spoke with them for a bit. Each man took a handful from the bag and moved back, one man standing ready at each fire while master Jacque took his book back from Frank and paged through it. The sage found his place and studied the page. He nodded to himself and looked down at the line of shadow cast by a pole that had been set in the ground, watching as it slowly drifted across the ground. When the end of the shadow reached the edge of a symbol that had been drawn in the dirt, Master Jacque called out, and the other six men dropped their sulfur into the much smaller fires on the edge. Six new columns of smoke twisted up, leaning inward as the air rushed in to feed the huge fire in the center, wreathing the interior of the design in the fumes. Jacque pinched his nose shut and made a face.

 

Master Jacque looked down at the boy with an indulgent grin and waved him away. Frank lost no time in making good his escape. He darted out of the figure and scurried back to where his father was standing.

 

“Sorry about that load,” Jerold told his boy, “I didn’t think they’d make you stand about like that.”

 

“Stinks!” Frank said with feeling.

 

“It’s alright, lad,” Jerold said, “We’re making enough from this so that you’ll never need stand around with smelly old fellows again. We’ll have enough to move to a nice town, become proper merchants. Tea, or silk, or spices, no more running round looking for strange rocks, or dusty old books.”

 

Jerold’s gaze had gone far away as he saw the life he’d find for them once this was done and he could settle down within his mind’s eye. He focused back on what was around him in time to see a deep frown and dark scowl on his son’s face.

 

“What’s wrong Frank?” he asked, “You can’t tell me you’ll miss that sort of stench now, can you?”

 

“No da…” Frank said. Looking as though he had things he was unwilling or unable to put into words.

 

“Is it the life you’ll be missing then?” Jerald asked. He tousled the boy’s hair when he nodded. “All that running about.” He said, “No fit way for a man to raise his boy. Truth though, I’ll be missing it too. We’ve seen some amazing things over the years, haven’t we lad?”

 

Frank nodded.

“You know Lad,” Jerald said with a sigh, “I’d never have drug you round like this, if plague hadn’t taken your ma and sisters.”

 

“I like it,” Frank protested, trying to say in that short sentence how much he loved their life, and how worried he was that it might be ripped away from him.

 

“You do now?” Jerald asked, “Sad to see it go are you?”

 

Frank nodded as much as he could, evoking a soft chuckle from his father at his exaggerated head motion.

 

 

“Well now, just because I’m off the road don’t mean I won’t be trading.” Jerald squatted down to look his son in the eye. “You know boy, I’m going to be needing men I can trust. I’ll be wanting to send men out to find me knew deals, to keep track of my cargo, and to tell me what’s out there.” Jerald waved toward the sunset. “Seems like you might be a man like that for your da one day. What you think?”

 

Frank looked up with a dumbfounded expression. It was apparent that such a thought had never crossed his young mind.

 

“Sure you can,” his father continued, growing excited by the idea, “We’ll get settled, get you your letters and figures, make sure you brush up on your Latin and Greek. Why, I shouldn’t wonder if you did better at this than your old man, once you’ve a few years on.”

 

“You really,” Frank started, “I mean. I’d do you proud Da.”

 

“Right,” Jerald said as he got to his feet, “right, you’ll do that. But now, I need you to fetch me the box. You know the little one, it’s just under the rope if I remember right. You know the one I mean?”

 

“Yes sir,” Frank answered, “Only it’s under the seat on account you were showing that one fellow this morning.”

 

“Right, fetch it along, and mind your manors when you get back. I see his lordship is headed this way.”

 

Frank returned to find his father and his lordship deep in conversation.

 

“Still,” his lordship said petulantly, “He’s been at it for more than a week now.”

 

“Master Jacque seems to know what he’s about,” Jerald said, “I should think if anyone could manage it, My Lord, the man that you found will be the man to do it.”

 

“The man that you found,” the lord corrected, “I’m expecting results here Jerald.”

 

“Well,” Jerald said carefully, “As to that. I’d consider what you’ve got now, not what he may or may not be able to do this night. Master Jacque brings with him much knowledge. Even if he fails, he can make you… that is, with your wisdom in yoke with his, there’s no telling what you’ll be able to do.”

 

The lord glowered back at the symbol and the men working inside of it. “What good is a tool if it doesn’t do the job?” He asked, as though addressing his question to the night air.

 

“Beg your pardon my lord, but does the workman throw away the hammer when he bangs his thumb, or does he swear at the skys, and swing it again.”

 

 

The Lord made a harrumph sound, “I see your point; but the dolt is merely driving a nail. Not quite the same thing as fetching the stone from the air, is it?”

 

“No my Lord.”

 

Frank shifted his weight from foot to foot. He only relaxed a little as the lord grew quiet and thoughtful. He’d been there when the Lord had struck the deal with his father, nearly four years ago. That was a very long time, but he could swear that his father had made certain that he would be paid whether or not he even found the sage. It wasn’t the first time a highborn had changed the deal on them at the last second. They had all the gold, but their whims could get people killed. Frank was just glad that the lord hadn’t called the huntsman over to set his dogs on them, or asked one of his two knightly friends to lop off their heads, or even drawn his own sword, or fired his own pistil.

 

“You really think they can do it?” the Lord asked, sounding more introspective than angry, “that would be a marvel, even if it did nothing. A stone made by man, instead of God.”

 

Jerald chuckled, “As to that, I’ve seen them make stone before.”

 

“What?” the lord sounded near anger. Frank edged a bit over to stand behind his Da.

 

“No, my Lord,” Jerald said, “Not the stone, but A stone. Indeed, my boy just fetched it for me if you’d care to have a look at it. Here now, frank, hold still and show his lordship what’s in the box there.”

 

Reluctantly, Frank stepped forward, keeping his eyes on the box and fumbling to lift its lid.

 

“Your Lordship,” Jerald said, “You’ve met my son?”

 

The Lord made a bit of a grunt, all the acknowledgment he felt the boy deserved.

 

“Hold still frank.” Jerald said sternly as he steady his son with a hand on his shoulder and lifted the latch on the box with the other hand.

 

The lid lifted, and Jerald pulled a small bundle, wrapped in oil soaked cloth out of the box. He unfolded it slowly, careful to keep the crystal within from touching his hands.

 

“There you are lord,” Jerald said in a half whisper, holding his hands up so that the light from the alchemist’s working shown off the crystal’s facets. The lord reached out his hand, but Jerald took a slight step back.

 

“Best not to touch Lord,” he apologized, “the stone burns flesh like a fire.

 

“Truly?” the lord asked, his hand frozen in mid jester, “and you say that this was made?”

 

“That’s right Lord,” Jerald said, “The sage made it over these past months. It came from a pot into which he’d put nothing but a liquid and a string. After a time, he pulled the string out, and very tiny rocks were stuck to it. I watched him, Lord. He spent the whole day at it, carefully teasing the little glittering things from the string with the smallest of tools, a sort of clamp, much like the sticks they use in the east for dining. He looked at them one by one, under the lenses which your lordship found so diverting. He chose one, placed it back within the pot, and sealed it away. This is what grew.

 

“He made a stone from water?” the lord asked, finally dropping his hand.

 

“Not water as such, milord, but a substance that would cause you to die screaming if but the least drop were to touch your skin. The venom of the world snake itself, or so I was told.””

 

The Lord shook his head slowly, “A stone that burns grown like a plant in poison. I must have master Jacque show me this.”

 

“Yes, lord,” Jerald said, “there is some of the venom left, and I’m certain the sage will oblige, but such a working takes many, many days.”

 

The lord snorted, “Very well Jerald, you’ve convinced me. I’ll keep the sage even if he fails. I’ll even let you keep your gold, ay?”

 

“My Lord is most kind.” Jerald said as he wrapped the cloth back around the crystal. “Frank,” he said, putting the bundle back in the box his son still held, “You go and give this to Master Jacque. Then fetch back the sulfur and take it back to the cart.

 

The lord took another drink from his wine skin as Frank moved away.

 

As he walked toward the alchemists, Frank looked over the six outer fires, trying to figure out which one was giving off the least amount of fowl smelling vapors. Half the circle was blocked off to the south by a curving framework of wires that had been strung on a framework of wooden struts and mettle poles stuck into the ground. He settled on the fire on the far north. It wasn’t quite true north, but if a line was drawn from the center fire and through the fire that Frank was walking toward moving counter clockwise around the circle, around the hexagon, around the six pointed star, the line would run along the earth and pass directly through the earth’s magnetic pole.

 

He waited there until a breeze blew the smoke away from his path, and crossed into the circle, into the magnetic north corner of the hexagon, and the top point of the six sided star. He crossed from the north and west, the small fire on his left, stepping into the figure with his right foot, and turning to face the central fire.

 

The sage stepped over and stood before him. Frank opened the box, and the sage lifted the cloth bound bundle from within. The sage turned, holding the cloth over head. He peered up at the stars for a moment, then carefully placed the bundle down on a round of wood, unfolding the wrappings until the crystal sat revealed, its ten sides shimmering in the firelight. With two small wooden rods, the Sage carefully pushed the crystal, using his tools to hold it in place while he teased the cloth out from under it.

 

Frank shut the box and looked to the left of the fire, where the sack of sulfur sat, forgotten on the ground. The sage had lifted a device, a wire frame that held some of his lenses, and was peering at the crystal through it while adjusting how it sat on the diagram that had been burned into the top of the wood. Frank Judged that he’d probably be at it for some time, and moved, clock wise, stepping from point to point, until he stood in the bottom point of the six sided star.

 

There was a much larger framework now, and what looked to frank almost like a sculpture made of gold and copper wire, strung all across the southern half of the circle. With no where better to put it, Frank shoved the box inside the sack, knotted the top, and hefted it, looking around for the best way to leave without getting in the way. One of the men had moved to the eastern end of the frame work blocking off the southern half of the circle. He was carefully adjusting the wirers, and winding another bit of copper around the pole on that end. He was in the way, so Frank moved around the other side of the central fire, stepping in each point of the star, moving clockwise, until he stood in the top point once more, facing away from the central fire, watching the fire to his magnetic north and waiting for the smoke to let him passed.

 

 

The sage took a small package and tossed it into the fire. Knowing what was about to happen, he moved back quickly, calling to his acolytes to stay clear. Frank felt a sudden wave of heat on his back. The smoke, even the flames of the fire streamed away from him. He nearly dropped the sack, but managed to grab it before it hit the ground, stepping back to keep his balance, running into the sage.

 

Frank did well. He managed to lob the whole bag of sulfur over the fire and out of the figure as he fell, and he curled up so that he didn’t cross any of the lines. The Sage didn’t do quite as well. His arm had been thrown up to shield his eyes from the flair of light coming from the central fire. When he ran into Frank, he fell forward, and reached out with that arm, knocking the round of wood forward and sending the crystal into the blaze.

 

When Frank heard the alchemists start to yell, he forgot all about avoiding the lines, or dodging smelly smoke. He and his father and been around these people long enough to know that when an alchemist starts acting like it’s going wrong, the best place to be is far away. He leapt from the ground and jumped over the Fire, landing out of the figure and not stopping until he’d crossed the rest of the clearing and hidden behind the trunk of a large tree.

 

 

The alchemists conferred, but none of them seemed willing to move away. Master Jacque was flipping through his book, and looking at two scrolls he had held open for him by his students.

 

“Too soon,” he kept muttering, saying it over and over again in different languages.

 

Gradually the excitement died down. Gradually, it became apparent, that in fact, nothing was happening. Nothing continued to happen. The sage shut his book and cursed in his native tongue.

 

“That boy,” he called in French, “where’s that boy.

 

That boy ducked further behind the tree and tried to swallow passed the lump in his throat. He’d ruined it. He’d put his foot in it, good and proper, and he’d be for the lash. The lash if he was lucky. His lordship might hang them all come morning.

 

“Frank,” a voice whispered from further in the trees, “Frank, it’s your da.”

 

“Da, Da I’m sorry.”

 

A shadow melted from the gloom under the trees and put his hands on Frank’s shoulders.

 

Easy lad,” Jerald whispered, “Keep it quiet now. I saw. The sage backed into you right enough, and he should have had a care out when he knew you’d just brought him a thing. Trouble is, boy; I’m not sure how his lordship’s going to take on. Sounds like the mighty alchemists are getting set to blame a child, and his lordship’s just dumb enough to believe it, see?”

 

Frank nodded.

 

“Right,” Jerald said, “We’ll just slip away while they’re all still flapping about like chickens over it all. Stay out of sight, and they’ll forget you like as not. Get to the wagon, and I’ll meet you there.”

 

Frank’s father melted back into the shadows under the trees, and Frank took a motion in the darkness as a jester for him to go to his right. Figuring that his Da wanted them to split up for now, he worked his way round the tree, and peaked back at the knot of men still standing in the middle of their figure, the fires still burning, the puissant smoke still drifting into the air.

 

A short way in front of Frank was a clump of bushes, followed by more trees. If he wanted to go that way, he’d be in sight of the men by the fires, if one happened to look in that direction, but Frank judged they were too busy gabbing at each other, and likely blinded by the firelight in any case. He stole from behind the tree and moved toward the concealment of the bush.

 

There was a deep crump, and something shot straight up out of the central fire, trailing sparks and smoke as it flew up into the sky. Every eye was drawn toward the brightly glowing object as it seemed to hesitate far above them, then come falling down. It nearly hit the fire it had come from, but suddenly shot off, skimming over the ground, and straight toward Frank.

 

Frank did the only thing he could think of under the circumstances, he ran. The glowing object had nearly reached him when he threw himself behind the tree. The object kept going, over the bushes, and off into the trees, but Frank saw it slow, and come drifting back, not nearly so fast as it had been moving, but fast enough. He turned round and ran into the clearing, moving as fast as he’d ever gone in his life, hardly a wear of what was in front of him.

 

He and the glowing object reached the other men one atop the other. Frank dodged his way into the middle of the confused people and they ran in all directions, careening off one another and knocking over the wire framework in their confusion. The glowing object paused, coming to a halt just short of the men, and backing away when one or two of them came blundering in its direction.

 

The sage began yelling, and ran toward the object. It moved away and jigged back and forth while the sage tried to catch it, screaming multilingual imprecations at the top of his voice.

 

For a few moments, it was a three way chase, the sage chasing the glow chasing the child, but Frank was brought up short when his lordship grabbed him by one arm, causing him to spin half around. The light slammed into his gut and knocked him off his feet...

 

“I don’t know what I looked like<” Franklin said, “but they told me later that the glow leaked from the stone and into my skin.”

 

“That was the stone?” Darth asked. As Franklin had told his strange story, he had become more relaxed, eventually taking the magazine out of the gun and placing it and the gun back on the table as he took a vacant chair and joined the other two in sipping their drinks.

 

“Right enough,” Franklin said, “The thing is, while I was still in the air, before I landed on my ass, I swear that what I was holding onto wasn’t any rock. It sort of squirmed around under my hands, like something alive, but after I hit the ground and the glow under my skin died away, I was left holding a rock.” Franklin held his arms apart about a yard, “round about this big, as big as my whole stomach was at the time.”

 

“And that cost you one soul,” father Jason mused.

 

Franklin looked over at the priest and gave a short nod. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess you’re right. I traded my soul for an odd sort of eternal life. Just remember one thing before you condemn me, Father. I didn’t choose this deal...”

 

The sage bent down and took the stone from Frank’s grasp. He stood for a moment, holding the stone and looking into the night sky. He muttered something in his own language, and his brows grew together in an even deeper frown.

 

“That’s it then?” his lordship asked, waving at the stone in the Sage’s hands. Master Jacque’s frown smoothed away, but he simply blinked at the lord. “Well, let’s see it then.” His lordship demanded and took the few steps over to the sage.

 

The sage released the stone with evident reluctance, and his lordship stood and looked down at it, turning it this way and that in the firelight.

 

“That’s it?” he asked, “all this,” he indicated the ruins of the apparatus around them and the year of preparation with a jerk of his head, “this is what we get? A bloody rock! At least the one that burns was pretty.”

 

“I don’t understand.” Master Jacque said.

 

His lordship burst out laughing. “A rock.” He chortled and half tossed it back to the Sage. “A be damned rock. I’ll be damned.”

 

The alchemist gathered round the Sage as his lordship strolled off, still chuckling to himself. They each took a turn at holding it, and then out came the tools and measuring devices. Frank was put to work, dousing fires, helping to carry what could be salvaged from the wreckage, running errands. He was surprised to find that some of the wire had melted, running down the iron poles in bright rivulets, and fusing into little lumps where the wires had crossed. The copper wire, not to mention the gold and silver wires, were worth quite a bit, and Frank and his father eventually rolled the whole thing up and carried it back to the wagons.

 

The alchemist set up a table and oil lamps and huddled over the stone. Frank caught bits of the conversation and gathered they were having something of a problem.

 

“I tell you” one snatch of conversation floating on the air, “Every time it comes out different.”

 

As one of the alchemist, who had a good eye and hand, was attempting to set the image of the stone on parchment with ink and quill, the sage found Frank and took him over to the figure, now just lines in the dirt, holding a lamp up in one hand. He asked Frank question after question, going so far as to actually have the boy walk through the motions he’d taken. When they reached the part where Frank had jumped over the northern fire, he paused.

 

“And so you left the circle.” He said, his tone making it half question half statement.

 

“Yes sir,” Frank said, “I heard everyone yelling and wanted to get something between me and whatever was going wrong.”

 

The sage’s lips curled up slowly at that, “A good idea.” He allowed. He rubbed his chin for a moment and his eyes looked into the middle distance.

 

“Sir,” Frank said diffidently, mistaking the Sage’s look for anger or disapproval, “I’m awful sorry about what I did.”

 

“What’s that?” the sage said.

 

Frank looked down and scuffed a foot in the dirt, careful even now to be certain his foot was outside the lines of the diagram. The left knee of his breeches had an odd shaped patch that resembled a fish with no fins. Frank picked at it as he tried to figure out what the Sage was asking, and how he should answer.

 

“It wasn’t your doing,” the sage said after a moment, “It was my mistake. The sort of mistake that I’ve sent students away for.”

 

“Yes sir,” frank said, feeling that he should say something and unable to find anything else.

 

A hand fell on Frank’s head from behind him, and Jerald ruffled his son’s hair. “Here now,” Jared said, “You been pestering the sage there lad?”

 

Master Jacque nodded at Frank’s father, “I’m sorry to have kept your son from his bed.”

 

“No harm done,” Jerald said, “But I think he’s right Frank. We’ve a long enough day tomorrow; best you get yourself on to sleep now.”

 

As Frank left to return to the tent he shared with his father, the lord came strolling over. “Interesting work Master Jacque,” frank heard him say as he walked off, “I wonder if we mightn’t try this again. I’m thinking what happened wasn’t entirely to plan?”

 

Frank’s path took him passed the table where the alchemist was trying to draw the stone just in time to see him toss down his quill in disgust.

 

“Every time,” he said to no one in particular, “Every time I look at it, it looks different. I can’t draw it if it won’t hold still.”

 

Once he’d entered the tent and crawled into his cot, Frank found that it was impossible to fall asleep. He was too worried by what had happened, too concerned about how things had gone wrong and afraid that he and his father would still be blamed. Eventually, his father came into the tent and lay down on his own cot.

 

“What’s going on?” Frank asked.

 

“At the moment,” Jerald answered, “You are going to sleep, and so am I if you’ll let me.”

 

“But what about...”

 

“Don’t worry about it lad,” Jerald said, “His lordship is talking about trying again next year, and he wants us to gather some of the supplies for the next try. We’ve got our gold, and more on the way besides. Now, it’s sleepy time.”

 

“Does that mean we aren’t going to get that house in that town?”

 

Jerald chuckled softly in the darkness, “You know lad, I don’t really know. We might just put that off for one more year. That’s if you won’t mind knocking about with your old man for a little while longer. For now though, nothing will make anymore sense until the morrow, and the morrow will come all the faster if you go to sleep. So, just lay back, shut your little eyes, and let it all go for now.”

 

“and that was it,” Franklin said with a shrug, “I spent the next few thousand years waking up that next morning after every time I died. Of course, the first time I had no idea what was going on. I’ve often wondered what it would have been like had I not been hanged so quickly. I could easily have spent my whole life with no clew of what had been done to me.” Franklin paused and looked thoughtful, “I guess that’s what I did; but it was a short life, so I knew rather quickly. Imagine if one of the alchemists had been hit by the stone instead of just some dumb kid. They would spend the rest of their lives figuring that they’d failed, when in fact, they had already gained their immortality. Of course, we all got hanged that first time, so I guess they would have known fairly soon too.”

 

“I still don’t see how you’re still alive now,” Father Jason said.

 

“Well, as to that,” Franklin answered, “I need to tell you about the last time I woke on that morning. Actually, I need to tell you of the last several times. I’m afraid that I really did wish to end my life. What you feared I was doing tonight, Father, I was in fact trying to do. I’d just finished one of my longer lives when...”

 

Isabel held the lamp up, ignoring the way her arm complained at the extended time she was forced to keep the light aloft to guide her steps through the small dirt streets of the small town. It was the shortest night of the year, and she was certain she knew where to find her father. The last glow of the sunset still colored the western horizon, while the first few stars were already shining in the velvet sky. It was no time for a woman to be out on her own, and her steps were rapid and purposeful, driven by her annoyance and fear.

 

The inn’s windows spilled light into the street, a mix of a yellow from oil lamps that match the one she carried, and the ruddier flickering light of the fire. She pushed her way through the front door and peered about the small room, wrinkling her nose and the mixed smells of stale ail, old sweat, and even staler Uren. He was there, of course, ensconce in one corner and, from the sound, in the middle of either a story or one of his little tirades.

 

“You people,” Frank said, slurring his words as he waved his jack, ail slopping from what was obviously far from his first, “You haven’t a clew. You go about your little lives, doing the same things over and over, saying the same things. No perspective, that’s what’s missing from the world.”

 

Isabel took a deep breath and said a silent prayer, asking her god for strength. She caught the eye of one of the barmaids, local girls with quite a few less years on them than her father, or even her for that matter. The girl came over and lent in to listen.

 

“How long has he been at it this time?” Isabel asked, dreading the answer and hoping she was in time to keep the old fool from angering some hot headed visitor too far.

 

“He’s just started mistress,” the girl said with a shake of her pretty young head, “I don’t know what set him off this time. He was in the middle of one of his taller tales when...”

 

“Alright, I’ll handle it.” she told the barmaid, and crossed the room, still holding her lamp in hopes that it would make her look as ready to leave as she was feeling.

 

“Father,” she said as she came up to Frank’s side, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m afraid I need your help.” She said sweetly.

 

The old man looked round and blinked at her through eyes dimmed with age and drink. “Ah, Isabel,” he said with a too loud voice, “what are you doing out. Don’t you know how late it is?”

 

“Yes father,” she said, “that’s why I’m hoping you’ll escort me home.”

 

“Get yourself lost again have you?” Frank said, “I swear, if your feet weren’t attached, they’d walk off without you. Let me settle up with Jeb and we’ll be getting you home right enough.”

 

Old man Frank pulled himself off the bench, no more than a plank set on a couple of short log rounds, with some little difficulty. He walked with the over careful steps of the drunk, and the short limping strides of the elderly. Jeb saw him coming and waved him away.

 

“Here now,” The innkeep called, “You know your money be no good here you old reprobate. Get yourself off before your daughter has to be carrying your old bones.”

 

There was a general chuckle from the common room. Isabel shot the innkeep a dirty look, but fortunately, this time, old man frank simply laughed along with the rest of them, instead of taking umbrage and demanding another ail just to prove that he could take it. Instead, he took his daughter’s arm and reached across to hold the lamp as they stepped into the darkness of the summer night. It was no surprise that the old man was let to drink without payment; he owned more than half the inn, and more than half the town for that matter.

 

“I’m glad enough you came along,” Frank said in what he probably thought was a quiet and confiding tone, “I think there must be a storm coming. I can feel it in my bones.”

 

They walked in silence. Isabel taking the lamp when the old man’s hand began to tremble with the strain of holding even so small a weight. With no one around to observe his frailty, he made no fuss, just giving up the burden and shaking his head at his own weakness.

 

“You think we could visit your mother?” Frank said, breaking the silence.

 

Isabel was shocked enough to come to a stop. “Now?” she demanded, “In the dark?”

 

“You needn’t come along,” Frank said testily, “You can even keep the lamp. I can see well enough by starlight to walk a road I already know.”

 

She knew better, of course. Perhaps he could have traveled alone once, but age had dimmed his sight and stolen his strength, and at night, the graveyard was home to many a dark shadow, and the sorts of people who thrived in their concealment.

 

“Couldn’t we go in the morning?” she asked as she began walking again, “that way you can bring her some of those flowers she used to love so much.”

 

Frank sighed, “Think you may be right lass,” he admitted, “It was not but an idle wish. I am feeling very tired tonight. Think it would be best if I just crawled into my big old man’s lonely cold bed. Ah, but how I miss her. Did I ever tell you how we met? It was near enough the first season that I took on my own. Your grandpa and I had done many trips and deals together, but after he’d settled for a nice little house, nothing compared to ours mind you, but nice enough, he sent me off for some schooling. I’d finally learned enough to satisfy him, and I’d gone away to do on my own what we’d once done together. In those days, the land was covered with armies and bandits. Like locusts on the ground they were, a plague of desperate and dangerous men, all too many with the new wheel locks, and hard enough it was to tell the difference between the soldiers and outlaws as made no never mind. I’d lost my whole cargo to one group or another; I didn’t stick about to ask names, you understand. I stumbled upon a campsite, filled with music laughter, and enough strong men to give the wolves, four legged or two legged, pause. They were a small camp of gypsies that had taken in a few stragglers from the countryside, mostly those as could pay. I was one, and she another. She had the darkest eyes I’d ever seen, the darkest and brightest, if you take my meaning. Now, there are those that would tell you that gypsies aren’t to be trusted, and that’s near enough the truth; but the folk had already taken what money we had as payment for sharing their fires, and the protection of their men. As we’d nothing for them to bother cutting our throats over, we were safe enough. So, there I was, and there she was, two lost little lambs, without a penny to our names, far away from anything that we could call home. Still, the night was young, we were young, and there’s a spice to finding yourself safe after nearly parting this world at the hands of thugs and fools.”

 

Isabel continued walking her father along, half listening to the old story and making the appropriate sounds of interest. It was an old story, one she’d been hearing since she was, as her father might put it, no taller than an old boot. The story was a little slower than usual, without the spark the old man usually gave his stories. He seemed to loose his place now and again, peering around him in the gloom as if surprised to find himself out in the night. Then he’d recall himself and return to the tale.

 

They reached the three story manor, Frank climbing the hill it was perched upon with wheezing breaths and muttered complaints. She walked him into the front room and found her youngest squatting on the floor, pushing her brother’s wooden toys about and creating complicated dialog for the little soldiers.

 

“Geraldine,” Isabel said, a maternal warning in her voice.

 

“Grandpa,” the child said, pretending not to have noticed her mother’s impending anger, “it’s broken. Can you fix it? Please?”

 

The child held up a tiny toy wagon, no bigger than her tiny forearm. One of the wooden wheels had come off its tiny axel. Old man frank crossed the room and sank into the chair by the fire.

 

“Bring it here, little one,” he said, his voice full of gentle warmth, “Let your old granddad have a look-see.”

 

She padded across the wooden floor and put the broken toy into his aged hands. He turned it this way and that in the firelight, making sounds of mock concern as he examined the damage.

 

“Ah,” he said, looking down at the young girl with a serious expression, “A difficult task you’ve set your granddad; but I think I can manage It.” he passed the toy back to the girl, “Only not tonight. Tonight this old man needs to sit by the fire for a spell, and little children need to go off to bed before their mother gives them a swat for being up so late.” And he gave the child a wink.

 

The made came in, holding a candle. “I’m sorry mistress,’ she stammered at the sight of her youngest charge, “she must of slipped out of bed when I wasn’t looking. I’ll put her to bed now.”

 

Isabel shook her head, “I’ll take care of her,” she told the maid, “You go ahead and get your rest.” She paused as her father began to nod in his chair, and gestured the maid over, “though maybe the master could use some mold wine and a blanket before you go off to bed.”

 

With the candle still in one hand, the maid performed something of a half curtsy, holding out only one half of her skirts as she dipped in an automatic and respectful response. “As you say mistress,” she answered, and smiled over at the old man, “I’ll take good care of your father mum.”

 

Frank continued to half doze in his chair, thinking back on what had been a long and full life. The made came in and put a blanket round his shoulders.

 

“Ah, Rosalina,” he sigh, reaching out and grasping the young maid’s hand. His eyes opened and he peered at her, blinking a few times in confusion.

 

“I’m sorry sir,” she said.

 

“Oh... Melissa, isn’t it?”

 

“Yes sir.”

 

He gave her a gentle smile, “Pardon an old man and his wandering mind,” he said, releasing her hand.

 

“That’s alright sir,” she answered, “Shall I fetch you your wine.”

 

Frank waved her away, “Not tonight. I think I’ll just rest here and think of her. Maybe I’ll see her in my dreams tonight. I’ll not be seeing her again otherwise, ay?”

 

“Oh, now sir,” the maid said, feeling a soft glow inside at the love the old man still felt for his wife, “I’m certain sure that she’ll be waiting for you when it comes your time,” she made a small jester with one hand, “May that day be far and far enough off.”

 

Old man Frank snorted, “I could wish that you were right, deer; but it’s not heaven I’ll be headed for, I’m afraid.”

 

“oh now,’ she said, “I can’t imagine that you’re right about that one, sir.”

 

“Oh,” Frank said with a chuckle, “get off with you already. Let me rest now.”

 

Frank sighed, letting his old man’s body relax as the maid drifted from the parlor. She really was a sweet child. It was too bad she was wrong. He turned his eyes back to the fires and watched the blurry image of dancing light that was all his eyes would show him now. His lids were growing heavy, and he was growing sleepy, which was not bad at all, at all. He let his eyes slip shut and drifted away.

 

His drifting thoughts settled for a moment on the broken wagon, the little toy that his littlest progeny had begged him to fix. It was an easy job, in fact. All he’d need was a little glue. He’d fix it tomorrow, or failing that, a little later. At any rate, he’d get to it in time. If there was one thing that old man Frank had in abundance, it was time.

 

As his thoughts began to fall apart, and the first edge of dream began drifting across the inside of his eyelids, he unknowingly whispered his wife’s name, for one last time.

 

Frank opened his eyes and gazed up at the fabric of his father’s tent. It took him a moment to realize where he was. As soon as he did, he sat bolt upright on his little cot, and screamed. He rolled from his cot and crouched at the tent’s door. If he remembered right, his father would be coming in right about... now!

 

Jerald had already been walking toward his tent when his son let out a blood curdling scream, piercing the comparative calm of the morning and causing Jerald to quicken his steps. Just as he reached the tent, Frank burst from within it, knocking his father over with his head slamming into Jerald’s stomach. Jerald twisted half around as Frank scrambled away, his hand just missing the boy’s ankle.

 

“Gone!” Frank was crying as he crossed the side of the clearing, “all gone. It never happened. I hate this. Hate, hate, hate it!”

 

His young legs pounded the dirt with the pain free ease of his youthful body. All the aches and pains were gone, his vision was sharp, his body obeyed his thoughts without the creaking and complaining he’d gone to sleep with. As he drove himself straight toward the tent where the stone would be sitting, he could barely remember a vague impression of having been moved to his bed, his daughter and grandchildren gathered round, crying softly while the priest performed extreme unction. That may have been no more than a dream, the fears of an old man distilled into images that drifted across his failing mind as his life ebbed. Either way, whether or not he had really been given his last rights, it hadn’t worked. He was here, just a boy, and there was nothing about this time he would call heavenly, the return of his health no fit recompense for being thrust back into this violent time, the fact that his father was still alive unable to compensate for the loss of his family, for the loss of a life that had not even happened yet.

 

Jerald half rolled to his feet and ran after Frank, the longer strides of his adult legs allowing him to easily overtake his son and grab him from behind. “Here now,” he said as frank turned and delivered a sharp kick to his father’s shin, “what’s gotten into you boy?”

 

From off to their left, his lordship and the sage stood dumbfounded as they watched Jerald trying to hold onto his son. Frank, still dressed only in his smallclothes, was screaming, kicking, attempting to bite and claw, desperately twisting his little body to escape his father’s hands. They hurried over and grabbed the boy. It took all three men to hold the child still, while a string of fowl curses came from his lips. He cursed them, begged them, struck out with blows that were as hysterical as they were ineffective.

 

“Fools, bastards! Thrice cursed shit covered postulant motherless idiots! Donkey loving toadstools! Let me go, damn you! Let me go!”

 

“Master Jacque,” Jerald cried over his son’s cries, “what’s the matter with him? What’s happened to my boy?”

 

Master Jacque shook his head to show that he was as bewildered as the others, then cursed in his own language as Frank used the momentary distraction to sink his teeth into his arm. “I don’t know,” the sage said, gritting his teeth against the pain, “but we’d best truss him before he does himself a mischief.”

 

“Rope!” his lordship called, “Bring us rope!”

 

The three men were so busy trying to hold the boy still, that they failed to notice the cunning look that came into Frank’s eye. He let his body go limp, took a deep breath, and put on an expression of confusion. “What?” he said, “Where am I? Da? What’s going on?”

 

“I don’t know, lad,” Frank’s father answered, “You just started screaming and took off. You were giving us a bit of a handful there for a while. Are you feeling more yourself now?”

 

“I was dreaming,” Frank said, and looked down at himself, “hey, where are my clothes?”

 

“Is he alright?” his lordship asked as one of the alchemists hurried over, a coil of rope over one arm.

 

“Come on, lad,” Jerald said, “Let’s get you dressed and...”

 

Frank twisted to the side and darted away, making for the tent and the stone.

 

“Grab him!” his lordship cried.

 

The alchemist with the rope tackled the boy, and the four of them tied him hand and foot. Frank returned to his struggles, useless as they were, swearing and cursing as before. If anything, his language was even viler. The men stood round the bound form of the child and looked concerned and thoughtful, according to their natures.

 

“I’m afraid something may have gone terribly wrong,” the sage said eventually, “Last night, reviewing what your son had done and my records, I found that he may have unknowingly performed the final steps of the ritual. Yet, the working was far from complete. He may have bonded to a corrupted stone. Certainly the stone doesn’t appear as we’d expected. The stone is meant to be both door and lock, and if it was poorly formed, something may have come through. I’m afraid that he may have been joined to something dark.”

 

“What can we do?” Jerald asked.

 

Master Jacque shook his head, “I’m not certain. I’m not even certain that your son was bonded to the stone. His behavior has certainly changed. Unless he’s been prone to such outbursts in the passed?”

 

“No,” Jerald said, “never. Nothing like this. He’s had his little temper tantrums, but only as a very young boy. He hasn’t done anything like this before. I don’t even know where he learned most of those words he’s been spouting.”

 

“I may be mistaken,” the sage said, half to himself, “It may be that the boy was simply unable to absorb the wisdom of the stone. Perhaps such a young and unformed mind was strained beyond its limits. In any case, I feel it best if we keep the boy and the stone apart, at least until we’ve a better idea what has so greatly affected the lad.”

 

“I’ll give you young and unformed,” Frank spat in the native tongue of the sage, “You bloody puppy!”

 

Frank was carried back to the tent he shared with his father and dumped on his cot. He was still trying to loosen his bonds when the trumpet sounded and the soldiers raided the camp. The man who found him laughed, making a joke in the local language about this one coming with his own rope for hanging.

 

“Maggot!” Frank snarled, “Goat fucking mayfly. I’ve seen your death.”

 

“Oh,” the soldier said, yanking the boy off the cot and letting him fall to the hard pack dirt with bruising force, “have you now?”

 

“Oh yes,” Frank said with a wide grin, “You catch the French pox from fucking the pig you call your mother and...”

 

His words were cut off when the soldier drove his booted foot into his side, driving the air from his lungs. It felt like he may have broken a rib or two while he was at it. Frank would have screamed at the pain from the second and third kick, if he’d been able to draw enough air to do so. He was still half curled against the pain, expecting another blow at any moment when he heard another voice.

 

“Here now,’ the new comer said, “what’s the hold up?”

 

“This one’s got a fowl little mouth on him,” the soldier said, sounding as petulant as Frank’s granddaughter when she hadn’t got her way. The memory brought tears to his eyes where the abuse had been unable to. He forced his eyes open, blinking rapidly to clear his sight and was able to make out his lordship’s brother standing over him.

 

“Oh, hey,” Frank managed to grunt out, “it’s the village idiot. You’re a little early today. What’s a matter? Run out of piss and shit for breakfast?”

 

“Why you little bastard,” the lordling said, drawing his own foot back.

 

Taking his queue from his master, the soldier joined in, and the two of them kicked the boy to death. If they’d paused to check, they might have been surprised at the boy’s expression. It was difficult to tell, as he was unable to draw breath, and he was half choking on his own blood, but Frank was laughing.

 

This time, as he opened his eyes to be confronted by the same view of fabric overhead, Frank curled his small hands into tight fists.

 

“Calm,” he said to himself, “Easy. Wait your chance this time.”

 

He took a few deep breaths and shut his eyes, waiting the few agonizing minutes for his father to arrive.

 

Jerald stuck his head inside the tent. “Ah,” he said, “You’re awake. Good, there’s someone who would like to talk to you. Get a move on boy; I can’t keep him waiting forever.”

 

Frank got to his feet, grabbed the all too familiar breeches and shirt, pulled on the clothing, and stepped from the tent, blinking at the bright an rosy morning light. His father waved him over and Frank approached him where he stood with the sage and his lordship.

 

“I thank you for the chance to speak with the boy,” the sage said, placing one hand on Frank’s shoulder, “Come with me lad.”

 

Frank suffered himself to be led by the gentle pressure of master Jacque’s hand, resisting with an effort of will the urge to break away and hurry to the tent where the stone waited. Master Jacque led him inside the tent and sat him down in the old camp chair, taking the seat across from him, resting his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands, and considering the boy with a thoughtful look.

 

For a moment, Frank returned the sage’s look with a level gaze of his own, before he recalled that he was meant to be a nervous young lad, and he began to ostentatiously fidget as he had all those thousands of years ago when he had first gone through these events.

 

“What his your name boy,” Master Jacque said as he straightened.

 

“They call me Frank, sir.”

 

“And how do you feel this morning, Frank? Do you feel any different than yesterday?”

 

Frank was unable to prevent a snort of bitter laughter. He shook his head, denying with the motion the millennia of memories crowding his young mind. He looked over at the ordinary looking stone where it sat, unassumingly resting on the small round table in the corner of the tent.

 

“I wonder,” the sage said, turning to the small pile of books and parchment on the side of the table at which they sat, “If you might humor me for a bit.”

 

Frank gave a long suffering sigh, rested one elbow on the table and nodded his assent.

 

The sage’s lips curled up slightly in amusement, “I shouldn’t think this will take too terribly long, young master.”

 

Frank shrugged, fighting down his inpatients and managing not to look toward the stone. The sage lifted the first piece of parchment and held it up so that Frank could see what was drawn upon it.

 

“Do you know what this is?” Master Jacque asked.

 

“It’s Pisces,” Frank answered.

 

The sage set the parchment down and opened a small book to the page that had been marked. “And this?” he asked, showing Frank a picture of a snake that was eating its own tail.

 

“I don’t know,” Frank lied.

 

The sage closed the book and picked up another sheet. Timed seemed to drag along, flowing like thickened honey too long in the jar. Frank was hard pressed to pretend ignorance, doing his best to remember which symbols he hadn’t known all those years ago. He was fairly certain that he’d made some mistakes, not naming things he’d known, even then, and naming a few which he hadn’t known; but the lapses didn’t seem to overly affect what the sage was doing. At last, the sage lent over, lifted the stone in both hands and set it on the table. Frank almost reached out as soon as the stone had landed, but restrained himself. The sage gazed into the middle distance, one hand stroking over the irregular surface of the stone.

 

 “Tell me boy,” master Jacque said, “do you know the gifts that the stone is meant to bestow?”

 

“Not really sir,” Frank lied again, “Isn’t it supposed to change things into gold or something?”

 

The sage chuckled warmly. “No Frank. That is, I believe that to be metaphorical. If the stone grants such, it does so by providing the knowledge. The task is still for the sage to perform. No, the stone grants life and knowledge, or so it has been said. Eternal life and a deep understanding of the forces of this corrupt world.”

 

“Oh,” Frank said as conversational filler while the sage looked back down at the stone.

 

“Here,” he said, giving the stone a gentle nudge in Frank’s direction, “Place your hand upon the stone.”

 

At last, it was what he’d been waiting for. Frank placed one hand on the stone and put on a thoughtful look. Moving with careful deliberation, he lifted the stone from the table, holding it up to his eye level and peering at it as though he could see something within its depths, despite its dull and opaque coloring. The sage turned back to his pile of papers, lifting one of the first symbols that Frank had claimed not to be able to identify. He turned back to show Frank the drawing just in time to watch the boy jump from his seat and bolt out of the tent, the stone clutched to his chest, knocking the camp chair over in his hurry.

 

Frank ignored the cries of the sage as he pounded across the clearing. He ran to the nearest of the small fires and lifted the stone over head, ready to bring it smashing down on one of the rocks around the small blaze. The stone was plucked from his grasp before he could attempt to break it, and hands reached out to restrain him. Men, including his lordship and Jerald, gathered around, reaching out to hold the boy as he struggled to get free.

 

“Break it!” Frank begged as he twisted and fought uselessly, “Please, pleas break it.”

 

“Master Jacque,” Jerald cried over his son’s cries, “what’s the matter with him? What’s happened to my boy?”

 

Master Jacque shook his head to show that he was as bewildered as the others, “I don’t know,” the sage said, “but we’d best truss him before he does himself a mischief.”

 

“Rope!” his lordship called, “Bring us rope!”

 

 “Damit!” Frank screamed as he was bound hand and foot, “Let me go! You don’t understand. You don’t know, you can’t know what it’s like.”

 

The men stood round the bound form of the child and looked concerned and thoughtful, according to their natures.

 

“I’m afraid something may have gone terribly wrong,” the sage said eventually, “Last night, reviewing what your son had done and my records, I found that he may have unknowingly performed the final steps of the ritual. Yet, the working was far from complete. He may have bonded to a corrupted stone. Certainly the stone doesn’t appear as we’d expected. The stone is meant to be both door and lock, and if it was poorly formed, something may have come through. I’m afraid that he may have been joined to something dark.”

 

“What can we do?” Jerald asked.

 

Master Jacque shook his head, “I’m not certain. I’m not even certain that your son was bonded to the stone. His behavior has certainly changed. Unless he’s been prone to such outbursts in the passed?”

 

“No,” Jerald said, “never. Nothing like this. He’s had his little temper tantrums, but only as a very young boy. He hasn’t done anything like this before.”

 

“I may be mistaken,” the sage said, half to himself, “It may be that the boy was simply unable to absorb the wisdom of the stone. Perhaps such a young and unformed mind was strained beyond its limits. In any case, I feel it best if we keep the boy and the stone apart, at least until we’ve a better idea what has so greatly affected the lad.”

 

Frank groaned in despair as he heard the men repeating the same conversation they’d had the last time. He was taken to the tent he shared with his father and put on the cot. This time, he didn’t even bother to try and loosen his bonds. He merely waited for the sound of the trumpet, and the shots from the guns of his lordship’s brother’s men.

 

The same soldier came into the tent, laughing at his own whit as he repeated the same feeble joke.

 

“Maggot!” Frank snarled, “Goat fucking mayfly. I’ve seen your death.”

 

“Oh,” the soldier said, yanking the boy off the cot and letting him fall to the hard pack dirt with bruising force, “have you now?”

 

“Oh yes,” Frank said, doing his best to make the insult sound fresh, “You catch the French pox from fucking the pig you call your mother and...”

 

His words were cut off when the soldier drove his booted foot into his side, driving the air from his lungs. It felt like he may have broken a rib or two while he was at it. Frank would have screamed at the pain from the second and third kick, if he’d been able to draw enough air to do so. He was still half curled against the pain, expecting another blow at any moment when he heard another voice.

 

“Here now,’ the new comer said, “what’s the hold up?”

 

“This one’s got a fowl little mouth on him,” the soldier said.

 

Frank looked up at his lordship’s brother and delivered his next line, “Oh, hey, it’s the village idiot. You’re a little early today. What’s a matter? Run out of piss and shit for breakfast?”

 

“Why you little bastard,” the lordling said, drawing his own foot back.

 

Taking his queue from his master, the soldier joined in, and the two of them kicked the boy to death, exactly as Frank had planned.

 

“And so it went,” Franklin said, pouring the last of the bottles contents into his glass, “I tried everything I could: calmly explaining, running straight for the stone, waiting until the sage gave it to me. I even tried smashing it while I was still sitting with master Jacque, but the wooden table wasn’t hard enough to do it any damage. Eventually I stopped trying to break it while I was still in that camp and started trying to survive a bit longer. I’d decided that I could hunt down the stone after I’d made certain that at least my father had escaped the raid.”

 

“I don’t understand,” Darth said, “why were you trying to break it in the first place?”

 

“I wanted to die,” Franklin said with a matter of fact air, “You have no idea how hard it was to keep returning to that damn tent. I figured that if I could manage to break the stupid thing, I’d probably be killed right then and there. At the very least, I assumed that once it was broken, the very next time I died would finally be the last.”

 

The priest made a thoughtful sound, then shook his head, “this is all so impossible. I tell you Franklin, if you hadn’t predicted that this young man would arrive with his gun, I’d be calling for someone to take you down to county medical right now.”

 

Franklin chuckled politely and sipped at his drink. “I’d hardly blame you for that,” he said, “it wouldn’t even be the first time I was put away as a potential source of harm to myself and others. Actually, that happened a couple of times even before the sage had me tied so I wouldn’t do myself a mischief.”

 

“So, did you ever actually manage to break it?” Darth asked.

 

“Well,” Franklin replied, “as to that, it’s about time I told you the tale of the very last time I awoke on that morning, in that damn little tent. I’m not sure how many times I’d tried by then, but...”

 

The sun had just risen enough to paint the clearing with rosy light when Jerald walked over to the small tent that he shared with his son. He stuck his head inside and spoke to the boy.

 

“Ah,” he said, “You’re awake. Good, there’s someone who would like to talk to you. Get a move on boy; I can’t keep him waiting forever.”

 

When Jerald reached his lordship and the sage, he glanced over his shoulder to see if his son had come out of the tent yet. He was surprised to see Frank step out, and turn to run off behind the tent. Half thinking his son had to take care of some urgent morning business, he didn’t really feel too worried until he realized that Frank wasn’t stopping to squat in the bushes. In fact, he was working his way up the hill at the southern end of the clearing, half climbing the steep slope by grabbing handholds of the dense vegetation, showing no signs of slowing or intending to return.

 

“Frank!” Jerald called, cupping his hands to his mouth to help his voice carry, “Frank! Where are you going, boy?”

 

Only part way up the hill, Jerald’s son paused long enough to turn and yell back, cupping his own hands in unconscious imitation of his father. “I’m leaving!” Frank yelled, “You’ll have to come catch me.” The boy paused a moment before adding, “And bring the damn stone for a change, will you?”

 

“Hey,” Jerald called uselessly, “Frank! Frank, get back here!”

 

“Now where is he off to?” Jerald wondered aloud, then turned to master Jacque, “I’m sorry,” he apologized, “I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

 

The sage rubbed his chin thoughtfully before speaking, “how odd. And he asked for the stone.”

 

Jerald shook his head bemusedly, “I don’t understand, but he’ll be back soon, like as not, once he’s gotten over his little joke.”

 

“I’m not so certain,” the sage said, “I’d not meant to worry you, but...”

 

“But what?” his lordship prompted.

 

 “I’m afraid something may have gone terribly wrong,” the sage said reluctantly, “Last night, reviewing what your son had done and my records, I found that he may have unknowingly performed the final steps of the ritual. Yet, the working was far from complete. He may have bonded to a corrupted stone. Certainly the stone doesn’t appear as we’d expected. The stone is meant to be both door and lock, and if it was poorly formed, something may have come through. I’m afraid that he may have been joined to something dark.”

 

“What can we do?” Jerald asked.

 

Master Jacque shook his head, “I’m not certain. I’m not even certain that your son was bonded to the stone. His behavior has certainly changed. Unless he’s been prone to such actions in the passed?”

 

“No,” Jerald said, “never. Nothing like this. He’s had his little temper tantrums, but only as a very young boy. He’s never just run off like that before.”

 

“I may be mistaken,” the sage said, half to himself, “It may be that the boy was simply unable to absorb the wisdom of the stone. Perhaps such a young and unformed mind was strained beyond its limits. In any case, I feel it best if we keep the boy and the stone apart, at least until we’ve a better idea what has so greatly affected the lad.”

 

“So what does this mean?” his lordship asked, “has the boy gone simple, or...?”

 

Master Jacque shook his head to show that he was as bewildered as the others, “I don’t know,” the sage said, “but we’d best catch him before he does himself a mischief.”

 

His lordship reached out and snagged Jerald’s sleeve, halting the man who, by his demeanor, had obviously meant to go running after the lad. “Hold on there,” he said soothingly, “if you’ll wait but a moment, we’ll do this right.”

 

The lord walked away, calling to his retainers to ready the horses. Master Jacque stood, a thoughtful look on his face, while Jerald stood irresolute, still half tempted to take off after his son on foot.

 

“Horses,” the sage sighed, “I’m not really much of a rider, I’m afraid; but it’s probably best that I accompany you. Perhaps I’ll bring my lenses. It may be that we’ll find a use for the ability to see far off things close, or small things greatly enlarged while we go after your lad.”

 

After some time, his lordship returned, leading a couple of horses behind his own mount. He rained in next to Jerald and gestured at the grey mare.

 

“That damn huntsman,” the lord complained, “He tells me that he’s no use without his precious dogs, and that his leg won’t let him keep up with us. I guess it will have to be you and me then. Ungrateful lout.”

 

With a half hearted shrug, Jerald moved to mount the horse that his lordship had indicated. “Master Jacque will be along in a moment,” he told his lordship, “He said something about his lenses.”

 

“Alchemists and their toys,” the lord muttered.”

 

Frank looked down from where he was concealed amongst the bushes and trees on the crest of the hill. He shook his head in disgust as the men began riding out of the clearing. They always, always set out in exactly the wrong direction. They most likely figured to ride round the hill and cut Frank off, unaware that he intended to work his way to the east along the top of the hill. They most often found his trail eventually, but Frank wasn’t feeling that patient this time. He stood, pulling off his shirt and waving it as a banner to attract their attention.

 

“Up here,” he called, though he guessed that they probably couldn’t understand him at this distance, “come on you pox ridden fools. Olli Olli, tally hoe and let’s go!”

 

He watched the men pull their mounts to a stop. The sage held up his arms, one in front of the other. Frank couldn’t see them from here, but he was fairly certain that master Jacque was using his lenses to be able to see Frank more clearly, a trick that he’d seen the sage show his lordship. Frank waved to his right, indicating with the jester the way he meant to go. He pulled his shirt back on to protect his skin from the twigs and branches he was forcing his way through. After he’d gone a double handful of paces, he paused, pulled his shirt back off, and waved it at the men again, trying to make certain that they knew which way he was going. He was gratified when they turned their mounts and road to the east, not trying to force the beasts up the hill, but paralleling Frank’s course. From the other end of the clearing, a few other mounted men came riding toward the three men, some of the other alchemists joining in on the chase after dousing their fires, while others continued their experiments, condemning themselves to death in their ignorance.

 

“Hold on a moment,” his lordship said, “I’ve a suspicion that the boy may be playing us for fools. If he wants to get away, why would he show us the way he’s really going?”

 

Jerald shook his head, “I’m not certain my lad is that devious,” he demurred, “Besides, he told me that we’re suppose to catch him. I don’t know what he thinks he’s leading us to, but...”

 

“I have a simple enough solution,” the sage said as the other mounted meant road up to join them, “we can split our forces to cover either direction.”

 

“Good idea,” his lordship agreed, “Jerald, why don’t you head to the west. Master Jacque and I will keep going this way for now. We’ll all circle the hill. There’s no way the lad can get down before we’ve ridden round, and we’ll just meet on the other side. One group or the other will be bound to catch him before long, and we can have a little chat with the boy once we’re all together again.”

 

Frank cursed as he watched the men split and go cantering off in opposite directions, his father riding along with the morons who had gone exactly the wrong way. He tried waving his shirt again, but either the men heading west didn’t see him, or were ignoring his display. He’d hoped to lead them all farther away before the raiders’ arrival, but it looked as though he wasn’t to be given the chance this time. Well, he’d done this before too, and he headed down the southern slope of the hill, judging as best he could where the two groups of riders would come together.

 

“Hail,” his lordship called as the two groups came back together, “Any sign of our quarry?”

 

Jerald shook his head, holding one arm out palm up to emphasize his empty hands.

 

“Ah well,” the lord said, “He must still be up yonder. He can’t stay on the hill forever. Perhaps if we spread out. A few of you can ride back round to the north side, in case the lad tries to double back on us.”

 

“You people are impossible,” Frank called from where he clung to the southern slope, about half way up the hill and a little to the east of where the mounted men sat astride their horses, “couldn’t you just once do what you’re meant to?”

 

“Frank!” Jerald called, kicking his horse toward the hill. The animal balked at the steep and overgrown terrain, and Jerald wasted some effort trying to wrestle the mare.

 

“You’ll have to come up on foot,” frank said, “and try and stay down once we reach the top. There’s something you’ll be wanting to see that you’ll not want seeing you.”

 

“Frank,” Jerald called sternly, “that’s enough and more than enough of this foolishness. Come down here this instant.”

 

“Sorry da, I can’t just yet. Come along now or you’ll miss the show.”

 

Jerald swung off his mount, muttering something about a belt under his breath. He paused at the base of the hill and looked back toward the other men. The sage had already dismounted clumsily and was picking his way toward the hill. His lordship pursed his lips for a moment and then swung down to head along with the other men, waving at the rest of the group to stay put.

 

“Alright then,” the lord said, “I guess we’ll just go and see what the lad has to show us. I don’t mind telling you that it had better be good.”

 

In the open, the men, with their greater size and longer strides could easily have over taken the young lad; but in the bushes and vines of the hill, their size worked against them, and frank was easily able to keep just out of their reach. The three men paused to catch their breath, unused to this particular form of exertion.

 

“Reminds me of hunting rabbits with my brother when we were no older than your boy.” His lordship said, a grin spreading across his face despite himself.

 

“You hunted rabbits?” Jerald asked, “By chasing them through the bush? Hadn’t you ever heard of snares?”

 

“Certainly,” the lord said, beginning to wriggle his way up slope once more, “but we felt there was little sport in such. My father wasn’t best pleased with us. He felt that it was beneath our station to go on so. I was a stubborn lad though, and I couldn’t see much difference between our hunting the rabbits, and our father hunting the fox that hunt the rabbits,” the lord paused to work his way through a particularly dense bit of growth, “no difference other than the horses hounds and horns.”

 

A horn sounded in the distance and Frank looked back from where he clung to the slope, only a few strides ahead of the men, “Well,” he said, “Your brother is hunting other game this day.”

 

There was the sound of distant gun shots, sharp cracks muffled by distance.

 

“Come on you lot,” Frank said, resting on his belly just bellow the crest of the hill, “Master Jacque, I hope you’ve brought your lenses.”

 

The men crawled up abreast of the boy, keeping themselves low to the hill, their annoyance with the lad forgotten in their curiosity. Master Jacque fished two of his lenses out and held them one before the other, peering through them to the west and north, back at the clearing they’d all begun their morning at.

 

“There,” Frank said, “do you see? Your lordship, I’m afraid your brother is playing the favorite sport of the nobility.”

 

“Speak clear, boy.” Frank’s father said.

 

“Sorry dah. I mean he’s committing fratricide. I’m sorry your lordship, but he’s brought the bishop and intends that you’ll hang by the neck until dead, before the setting of the sun this day.”

 

“What?” the lord asked sharply, reaching over with an abrupt motion to snag the lenses from the sage’s hands, knocking them to the ground in his haste. Frank cursed under his breath and twisted about in place, fishing under the plants to find the lenses while the sage breathed an oath of his own in his native tongue.

 

“You’re more than right,” Frank answered in the same language, coming up with the two small round bits of clear glass, “If I hadn’t learned from the stone of what was coming, we’d all be for the rope this day.”

 

“You speak my tongue?” the sage asked sharply, still in a language that only he and the boy could understand.

 

Frank passed the lenses to his lordship as he answered, switching back to the French of the nobility, “I do. It’s but one of the things that the stone has shown me.”

 

“One of what things?” Jerald asked, feeling completely out of his depth.

 

The lord squinted as he moved the lenses closer and farther apart, trying to find the trick of them. “I can’t see a bloody thing through these,” he complained.

 

Frank absently plucked the lenses out of the lord’s fingers, switching them one for the other and putting them back in his hands.

 

“Yes father,” Frank said, “the stone has given me its gifts. That’s how I knew we needed to get out of their this morning. I’d hope to lead you a bit further along,” he said with a wave to the east, where the hills grew gentler and the undergrowth was replaced with the large and venerable trees of the forest proper, “but you decided to make things more difficult than that.”

 

“My god,” his lordship breathed, looking through his lenses, “the lad speaks true. That’s my brother, and he’s... he’s... that little bastard!”

 

“I wanted to get you passed the road before the attack,” Frank continued, “for some reason, his lordship’s younger brother rides in from the northeast. If you’d gone the way I was trying to show you, we could have been away into the woods before he arrived. Now we’ll have to strike south and hope that bastard of a huntsman doesn’t set his dogs on us too quickly.”

 

They brought the hounds,” the lord said as he passed the lenses back to the sage, “I should have slit that traitorous lout’s throat this morning when he refused to follow us.”

 

“Hold one moment,” Jerald said, “If you knew they were coming, why didn’t you tell us, instead of running off?”

 

Frank sighed, “Ask yourself this, father, and think on it careful. Would you have believed your young lad if he told you? The same way the stone told me of the raid, I knew that you would not. If I’d tried to warn you, we’d have been dead within only a few days, and that’s if luck was on our side. Without luck, and a goodly bit of it as well, we’d be dead before nightfall. This way, at least those of you who have come after me have something of a chance.”

 

“A chance indeed,’ the lord half snarled, his face contorted with smoldering rage, his hands curled into tight fists, “A fighting chance. Come my good fellows. We’ll ride to the village. I’ve still enough loyal men to show my wretch of a brother the error of his ways. We can... what?” the last word was a question directed at Frank, who was shaking his head slowly from side to side.

 

“Those men who are most loyal to you are already either dead, or lined up for the rope. If you go to your home now, you’ll merely give your brother what he seeks. No, milord, there’s a way, but you’ll have to trust me.”

 

“Trust you?” the lord sneered, “follow some slip of a boy? And what would you have us do, other than slink off with our tails between our legs.”

 

“perhaps,” the sage mused as he lifted his belly far enough off the ground to slip his lenses back into the pouch on his belt, “My lord, it may be that we should take what counsel we are offered, even from such an unlikely source. Tell me, lad, the knowledge you’ve gained, does it tell you...”

 

“Master Jacque,” Frank interrupted, “I’ll answer all your questions. But this is not the time to debate the finer points of alchemical knowledge transfer. We need to get back to the horse and headed south,” frank turned his head to look into the eyes of the lord, “And I tell you this. You may do as you please; but if you don’t follow me, your brother will become the knew lord, and you’ll become food for the crows.”

 

“Why you little whelp,” the lord snarled, raising his hand to strike at the boy.

 

 

 

“We’ve already been here too long,” Frank said, arresting the lord’s motion with his tone, “by now, that traitorous lout has set the hounds on us. Hit me if it will settle your mind, but if you wish even the smallest prayer of justice, let’s get on your horses and ride south while we still have what little time remains.”

 

“It’s possible,” master Jacque said, “That the stone has given the lad more wisdom than we might wish to credit. He may indeed be wiser than us all.”

 

While the lord’s face went through several expressions, his hand still raised to strike, Frank began squirming backwards. “Come on,” he said, “It’s all of our necks we risk by arguing. You can always thrash me about later.”

 

The lord paused a moment while the other two men began copying the boy’s example. He looked back to the clearing, gazing at the columns of thick smoke rising from the fires that his brother’s men had set. “Idiot,” he sighed, “My deer brother, shouldn’t you have finished looting before burning? And who will put out your blaze, I am wondering.”

 

The four of them headed down the hill, half crawling, half slipping down the overgrown slope. Frank led the way, picking the path of least resistance and occasionally crawling back up to help extricate Master Jacque’s robes from the creepers and thorns that the sage had a positive talent for finding.

 

“Thank you lad,” the sage said in his language at one point while frank suck the bead of blood a thorn had drawn from his thumb, “You’ll pardon me I hope, but I’m terrible with names.”

 

“Frank,” he said, answering the question that the sage hadn’t quite asked and asking a question of his own as they continued down, “I don’t suppose you actually brought the stone with you for once?”

 

“I’m afraid not,” master Jacque answered, “to tell you the truth, I was afraid that you might have been possessed by some dark spirit. I judged it best to keep you from the stone until we understood better what it had done to you.”

 

Frank snorted, “Never simple, is it? Well, the hard way then.”

 

“The hard way?” the sage asked as his robe snagged another creeper.

 

“Not now,” Frank said, “I’ll explain later. I’ll tell you this much though, the stone doesn’t work quite as you’d assumed.”

 

Jerald freed the sage’s robes this time, letting his son continue to lead them down slope. He was more than a little confused, and was feeling an equal measure of worry. It was his son; at least the boy looked and sounded as his son always had; but the words he spoke, the way he carried himself, the confidence with which he had faced down his lordship on the top of the hill, these things weren’t the actions of a youth. The lad was acting like a much older man, like someone who had seen even more of the world than his father. He wasn’t certain how he felt about it. He wasn’t even certain that the boy, who’d just reached the bottom of the hill and begun walking over to the mounts, was truly his son any longer. What would this creature, this confident figure with depths of knowledge still unplumbed need of his da? Jerald blinked back tears at the thought, shaking his head to rid himself of the distraction, doing his best to focus on the immediate crisis. Such emotions could wait, no matter how much he felt like he’d already lost the last member of his family.

 

“Like this,” frank said, holding the reed between his teeth and pinching his nose before lying back in the muddy water near the shore of the small pond. He came back up after a brief time and looked toward his father. “I really don’t understand why you’re having so much trouble,” he said, “It’s easy.”

 

It was the mainstay of many a romantic tale. The heroic lover, hiding from the hard handed father, brother, or husband, would rest on the bottom of a lake or stream, breathing through a hollow reed until nightfall when he would whisk away his lady love and they’d ride away to live happily ever after. Unfortunately, there were details about such a tactic that the songs and stories didn’t mention. For one thing, Jerald found that that his body refused to let him take a breath at all at first while he was under water. His chest would expand, but his throat would close and he couldn’t quite convince his body that he could actually breathe. Frank showed him the trick of lowering his face under the surface slowly, taking tentative breaths as the water closed over the mouth and nose until the body was comfortable and confident that, yes, breathing was possible and he wasn’t about to drown himself. Then there was the fact that the only way to breathe through the reed was to face toward the surface. Jerald needed one hand to hold himself in place and the other to hold the reed straight, but when he filled his chest with air, he’d start to float upward. He could stay down if he grabbed a handful of water weeds, but that left his nose open, allowing water to come pouring into his sinuses. The third time Jerald came spluttering to the surface, Frank gave his father some mud to stuff up his nostrils. That worked for a time, but as he lay on the bottom, the mud would dissolve, flowing both up and out until the water came pouring in again. Eventually master Jacque gave them some wax to replace the mud. Then Jerald discovered that a grown man needed more air than could easily be drawn in through the narrow tube of the reed. Every breath was an effort. He was forced to suck the air in and blow it out, making the exercise anything but relaxing, and causing him to need all the more air. On top of that, if he filled his lungs with as much air as he felt he needed, the handful of weeds would get pulled out of the mud. Jerald found himself starting to float from the bottom, only to sink again when he blew the air out, and more often than not, he’d have drifted a bit, to some place where the water was too deep. The top of the reed would go under the surface, and he’d have to come up, choking and coughing. By contrast, Frank seemed to be having none of these difficulties. He’d stick his feet into the mud, pinch his nose shut, and then breathe almost normally, having no trouble drawing enough air for his smaller body through the reed.

 

“I’m telling you,” Frank said as his father bent double, coughing violently to clear the water he’d swallowed from his chest, “this would really be simpler if I went by myself.”

 

Jerald shook his head mutely, unable for the moment to get enough breath for speech.

 

“I guess we can try giving you a rock,” Frank said, “You can try holding it on your stomach. Unless you’re ready to listen to reason.”

 

Jerald straightened, took a deep breath through his mouth and blew the wax plugs from his nose. He took another couple of breaths, waiting to see if he needed to cough any more. “I’m not going to let my boy go off to face armed men alone.” He said when he felt better, pointing his reed at his son for emphasis, still standing in water up to his knees, mud and slime fowling his hair and close.

 

“I’ve done it before,” Frank said, spinning his own reed round in complex patterns like a juggler or mummer, over and under hand, through his fingers, causing an almost musical sound  as the ends of the plant spun through the afternoon air, “the only reason we’re having this argument is because I’m trying to keep you alive.”

 

Jerald dug at one ear with his finger, “what’s that?” he asked.

 

“You,” frank said, pointing his reed at his father like a wand as his father had done but a moment before, “I’m trying to keep you alive. If something goes wrong and I’m killed, I can try again. If something goes wrong and you’re killed, where does that leave me?”

 

The night before, Frank had led the small group of men through and around the countryside, doubling back, looping around, crossing and recrossing their own route, the sound of the dogs baying now behind, now in front, now to the side as he confused the trail. When they’d finally stopped for the night, camping behind a bolder and along the side of a cliff, literally between a rock and a hard place, with no fire to give away their position, he’d taken the time to explain how he’d been spending what he said had been many thousands of years. Intellectually, Jerald understood his son’s point; but even so, he couldn’t let his boy go alone. Even if it kept him alive, it would make him the sort of man that he wouldn’t want to live with.

 

“And if you’ve done it before,” Jerald said, “and you still end up back in our little tent, doesn’t that mean that you went and got yourself killed?”

 

Frank sighed, “The first few times,” he admitted, “but once I got the hang of it, I ended up with guns, powder, and bullets. There’s a matter of timing to the business, and I’m not sure if having you along is going to change things. I really wish you’d reconsider.”

 

“Look, lad,” Jerald said, attempting to explain how he felt, “we’ve gone through this already. You may be some ancient and wise sort now, but I’m still your father, and no man worth his own spit would let his son do such a thing on his own.”

 

“Stubborn,” Frank said with a sad little smile, “Just like your granddaughter. I used to have a hell of a time getting her to bed. Then, when I was older, she’d come along to the inn and have as much trouble getting me to go to sleep as I’d had with her. I wish you could meet her. Maybe this time, maybe...” Frank’s small hands tightened on his reed with enough force to crack it as tears began flowing down his face.

 

Ignoring the filth that covered them both, Jerald waded the few steps that separated him from his son to hold the lad in his arms, offering what comfort he could for a pain that he couldn’t begin to fathom.

 

“No, not again, No more, no more,” Frank sobbed into his father’s chest, his breath coming in hitching sobs as he balled like any boy pushed passed his limits.

 

Jerald smiled a slight smile. For a time, he was the boy’s father once more. For a time, while he held the lad and murmured the sort of meaningless reassurances that a father gives his child, they were simply father and son.

 

Once the storm of weeping had subsided, Frank gave his father a squeeze, and pulled back, wiping the back of his hand across his dripping nose.

 

Frank looked down at the reed he’d ruined. With a small sigh, he took another from the mud and used his small belt knife to trim it, using the chore to avoid his father’s eyes.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said with a sniff, “I guess I’m still just a child after all.”

 

 “That may be,” Jerald said, “but I’ll tell you a truth. Even grown men have such moments. Now, what say we find me the rock you were talking about. We can’t have me thrashing about like a fish on the line, now can we?”

 

“or you could try it this way,” Frank said, and placed the reed to his lips, his lower lip stuck out slightly, holding it so that it rose strait up along the side of his nose, and lowering himself down to rest under the water, belly down and face forward.

 

Jerald stared into the muddy water. He copied his son’s action and found that he could hold the reed in place with one hand and half float just beneath the water’s surface. He came back up to find his son wearing a wide grin.

 

“You said I had to face... I mean... why didn’t you tell me...”

 

Frank laughed aloud. “Sorry,” he said, “I was hoping you’d give up. I should have known better. Mulishness runs in the family, after all.”

 

The three men huddled next to the small fire they’d set, more for comfort than warmth, as the early summer night was quite balmy. They were passing a skin of wine round and complaining in cheerful fashion. They were looking more at the dancing flames than the night about them. They’d scouted the immediate area just before sunset, and had seen no sign of the old lord, the one who the church had marked for death, nor of the loyal men who had been away from the village when the new lord had struck.

 

“Ere now,” one of them said as he gave up the skin to the man on his left, “keep this company for me. I’ve got to be seeing a man about a horse.”

 

The man went over to the edge of the pond, dropped his breaches and squatted down to relieve himself. He was half singing along with the old drinking song the others had begun back at the fire as he did his business, the inexpertly rendered melody punctuated by soft grunts as he clenched his stomach to empty himself of the results of the new lord’s well spread table. It was a fine night, he thought to himself, and the duty was easy enough. He was half day dreaming about how he’d be spending his pay, when a thin arm came round from behind him and he felt the cold bite of the utilitarian knife, slicing his throat from one ear to another. The gasping gurgling complaint that was all he managed before falling over was drowned by another bawdy chorus from his mates, and the small figure rummaged around for a bit before melting back into the shadows where he passed one of the recently deceased man’s pistils to his father. They moved a little ways off to a spot that Frank indicated with a small jerk of his head, there eyes well adapted to the night’s darkness. The men by the fire ignored the wicker of the horse tied to the back of the wagon, the animal venting its nervousness at the smell of the blood. It was quite some time before the other two men noticed that their companion was taking quite some time. One of them called a scatological joke while the other dropped the empty wine skin and walked to the wagon to rummage for another.

 

“Ay,” the one by the fire called again, “sing out would you ya bloody minded bastard?”

 

The other man returned from the wagon, holding the last of the wine they’d filched before setting off with their wagon and its load.

 

“What’s the matter,” he said to the man by the fire, uncorking the skin and lifting it toward his mouth, “goose walk over your grave?”

 

“He’s not back yet.” He answered, peering into, what was for him, the impenetrable gloom of the evening.

 

“”Aye? Well, himself did feed us a lot of onion,” he said with a chuckle, “I may spend some time asking about that horse my own self.”

 

Still standing, the man with the skin took a long pull of the wine and corked it before passing it to his comrade and sauntering toward the first man’s body, its trousers still round its ankles.

 

He passed less than an arm’s length from where Frank and his father lay, belly down in the brush, their faces smeared with the same mud they’d clung to on the bottom of the pond while they’d waited for the sun to set. He literally stumbled over the body. They heard him swear a breathless oath.

 

“Trouble!” he said, all signs of cheer gone from his voice, “bring light.”

 

The man by the fire grabbed a near by bit of brush and stuck it in the flames to set it alight. As he hurried to where his friend crouched by the body, Frank touched his father’s shoulder. Jerald and Frank pulled lengths of wire they’d borrowed from the alchemists from their belt pouches. Frank gave his father another touch on his shoulder, waving toward the man with the burning brand when Jerald turned his head toward him. They moved carefully through the brush, keeping as low to the ground as they could, moving slowly to keep from making a sound that might give them away. Frank made a motion, indicating that he wanted his father to stay where he was before belly crawling away. Jerald gritted his teeth to keep from saying anything, pointing his face at the ground when the man with the light passed to keep the light from reflecting from his eyes as Frank had told him he might need to do.

 

“what’s going on?” the man with the brand said, leaning forward to shed the flickering light of the flames on the body and cursing when he realized that his companion had been murdered while they’d sat obliviously round their fire, singing that old drinking song as the life flowed from their comrade’s throat.

 

“His throat’s been cut,” the other man said grimly, “and I can’t find his pistils. Did he bring them along?”

 

“what?” the man with the makeshift torch said, spinning round to look wildly into the darkness, unable to see beyond the small circle of light with eyes still blinded by the firelight. He reached to his hip, but found that he didn’t have either his gun or sword with him. He rushed back to the camp fire, back to his weapons, ignoring the other soldiers curse as he left him in the darkness. The man by the body turned to call back the other, but a loop of wire dropped over his head and was pulled tight round his neck. He tried to push himself to his feet, but the boy’s weight through him off balance and he crashed back down to the ground.

 

“Now!” Frank screamed, and the man he was clinging to had just enough time to realize that he was being murdered by a child before the darkness swirled over his eyes.

 

The other soldier spun round and took a single step at Frank’s cry. The next heartbeat, and a loop of wire was around his neck. He dropped the burning branch as his hands instinctively moved to his throat to scramble without effect. He jerked spasmodically as Jerald pulled back, lifting the soldier to his toes and cutting into the flesh of his neck with the wire, causing a small spray of blood to mist into the night air.

 

 

As quick as that, it was over. Jerald let the lifeless body slump to the floor and stood, breathing heavily as he waited for his pounding heart to settle. Frank rushed passed his father. He grabbed the empty wine skin and hurried back to the pond, dunking it to fill it with water.

 

“Get the horse,” he said over his shoulder.

 

As Jerald approached the sturdy draft horse, speaking softly to sooth the panicky animal, frank used the wine skin to douse the flames where the soldier had dropped his branch. The damp vegetation covering the ground had just begun to smolder, and the fire went out with a hiss and sputter.

 

Jerald coaxed the horse into its harness and called to his son when the wagon was ready. Frank joined his Da, climbing up on the wagon’s seat as Jerald clucked and flicked the rains. The frightened horse was more than glad to leave behind the smell of death, and they clopped off into the night, leaving behind the three bodies of the armed guards.

 

A childish laugh floated through the air. “The first time,” Frank said with glee, “that’s the first time we did this together and we bloody well did it.”

 

“Aye, lad,” Jerald answered, “I’ll not be saying I told you so, but I’ll be thinking it real loud for days to come.”

 

The morning had dawned grey and cloudy, an overcast that threatened, but had not yet delivered rain. The draft horse plodded along stolidly, flanks covered in sweat as though the three figures on the wagon seat had been forcing the pace all through the night. The figures were talking loudly of a good sail that they’d stumbled into. There were two grown men, one huddled inside a plain robe synched at the waste with a belt that held several small pouches, his hands inside the sleeves and his hood drawn over his head, while the other was dressed in woolen shirt and trousers. The boy, in shirt and breeches, was bouncing up and down on the seat, continually asking the man who was evidently his father how much further they had to go with a time honored phrase: are we there yet? To either side, the forest was crowding the road, no more than a pair of ruts worn in the dirt by generations of farmers taking their produce to town, or returning with what they’d purchased.

 

The wagon came abreast of an old oak, still covered in the broad green leaves of early summer despite having been split halfway down its length by lightning sometime in its passed. The boy stopped bouncing and looked from side to side. “Right about now,” he said quietly, his tone at odds with the youthful enthusiasm he’d been showing a few heartbeats before. From the shadows amongst the trees, several men stepped out, standing both before and behind the cart. They were dressed in chain male halberds and holding naked blades in their very capable looking hands.

 

“Hold!” one of them said, a rangy man who hadn’t bothered to draw the broad sword from the scabbard on his hip, “there’s a new road tax my good fellows, and I think you’ll be wanting to pay it good and quick.”

 

“Faw!” the robed man spat, pulling back his hood, “I’d not of thought it of you, turning brigand just because you’ve been marked for death.”

 

“My lord!” the rangy man said, recognizing the face of his master, “You’re alive!”

 

“For the moment,” his lordship said, “and as such, I’m still lord of this land. Tell me Goodman, what have we done with your sort in the past?”

 

The rangy man looked down at the track in evident shame, then snapped his head back up to speak to the rest of the men. “Here now, you lot put up those blades. It’s Himself, back from the grave like as not.” He looked back at his lordship and swallowed, “ah, sir, we hanged any thieves who we could lay our hands on; but I swear to you, you’re the first we tried to rob. Ah, that is...”

 

The deposed lord’s chuckle was accompanied by the sound of swords being slid home. “Easy man,” he said, “I don’t have time to hang you right now. We’ve a little matter of a usurper to deal with first. I can always hang you louts afterwards.”

 

The group of men chuckled nervously, as if they weren’t entirely certain whether or not their master was joking.

 

“We’d heard you were for the noose,” the leader said.

 

“As my loving brother would have it. But he’s not always gotten his way, now has he?”

 

The rangy man grinned at a memory he shared with his lordship. “No milord,” he said, “I guess he hasn’t at that.”

 

“Tell me of your plans,” the lord ordered.

 

“Well, milord, we’d not really gotten that far. We thought maybe we’d strike off and join up with one army or another. Evil days these, but it does mean work for our sort. Only trouble was that we hadn’t enough food for the journey. We thought we could waylay a farmer or two, and then get away. I’m sorry about the thieving, but we figured we’d only be taking from your brother, and he’s stolen the whole province, or near enough to it.”

 

“Thieving from a thief,” the lord mused, “Well, all that’s off now. We’re going to take back what’s mine, and you lot are going to help me do it.”

 

“Begging your pardon sir, but I don’t see as how we can. Your brother, May he suffer a pox of the worst sort in the worst place, has armed his thugs with flintlocks. We had only our blades when we heard the news.”

 

“Yes, the fool was always one for the latest and greatest. He never understood that it is men that make an army, not whatever toys they use for their work.”

 

“I see as how what you say makes sense,” the Goodman said diffidently, “but a naked man has little chance against an armed one, no matter how good and brave he might be.”

 

“As to our need for provisions,” his lordship said, ignoring the other man’s objections, “I say that I’m still alive, and as I still breathe, I’m still lord of this land. As I am still lord, the farmers are still my charge. As they are still my charge, I can’t be having my men stealing the bread from their mouths. Unfortunately, I don’t have much in the way of food stuffs at the moment, so we’ll need to be striking quickly.”

 

“But milord,” the rangy soldier said, gesturing at the back of the wagon where the sacks of grains were piled high.

 

“Ah, yes,” the lord said, “we may as well get this cart unloaded. I assume you’ve a camp somewhere in the woods?” the lord paused, continuing at his man’s nod, “right enough. We’ll have to leave the wagon here. Oh, and post a man here. I’ve a few companions who’ll be coming along with some horses in a bit of a bit. I’m afraid they’re none of them very good riders, and the mounts aren’t the sort you’d be wanting to ride into battle, but they’ve been with me since my brother’s attack, and I’d not be leaving them in the cold.”

 

“Ah, um, yes my lord,” the Goodman said and turned to address the half dozen men milling about the wagon, “come on you dogs, you heard, get to humping those sacks.”

 

The men set to with a will, glad to have direction again. The first few sacks came off the wagon as the lord, Jerald and Frank got down. Several of them men cried out in surprised delight as they uncovered the barrels of powder, small sacks of shot, and the flintlock pistols and rifles that had been hidden under the grain.

 

The Goodman turned to his lord with a look of glad surmise. “Bless you lord,” he said, “but you’ve the luck of the very devil himself, if you don’t mind my saying.”

 

 

 

His lordship smiled and placed his hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Not at all Goodman,” he said, “as it happens, my large measure of luck came in a small package. Meet Frank, an all together remarkable young lad. He and his father will be coming along with us, and I’ll insist that you treat them as you would myself. In particular, the lad here’s voice is as my own. Don’t let his youth fool you, and don’t, on your lives and honor, do other than exactly what he tells you to do. It’ll take some getting used to, I know, taking orders from a boy; but if we’re to succeed, you’ll do as he says without pause or question.”

 

The rangy man blinked a couple of times, but nodded in agreement. “Yes lord,” he said and took a breath to nerve himself for his next question. “Lord, what about the church...?”

 

“You mean how the bishop has condemned me as an evil sinner, a man who makes deals with dark forces, who’s fit only for the rope, if not the fire?”

 

“Yes lord.”

 

His lordship waved at the wagon, “that’s no more than a way to hide from the truth. The same whey my brother ships his guns hidden under sacks of grain, he hides his ambition behind the bishop’s robes, not unlike hiding behind a woman’s skirts. Besides, the hypocritical little bastard’s dabbled in alchemy a time or two himself”

 

“Yes lord. I see as how that’s so, but...” the Goodman looked over to the wagon and notice several of his men were standing about, looking over the weapons. “Hey! You dogs get back to work. They’ll be time for that later.”

 

“Don’t worry,” his lordship said when the rangy soldier turned back to him, “I’ll simply beg the bishop for an indulgence. I’ll take confession, renounce my evil ways, and make a suitable donation from whatever my brother’s fever dream has left in the treasury.”

 

“Yes lord,” the soldier said, still sounding less than certain.

 

The lord reached into the robe he’d borrowed from the sage and pulled out a flintlock pistil, waggling it negligently back and forth, “Don’t look so worried,” he said, “I’m sure his eminence will see reason.”

 

A slow smile spread across the soldier’s countenance. “Yes lord,” he said with growing confidence, “I’m sure he will at that.”

 

Jerald moved to the front of the wagon and began loosing the horse from the harness while the soldiers began distributing the supplies for the march into the forest.

 

“We’ll have to move the stuff in relays,” the Goodman said, “We just don’t have enough strong backs to move it all at once.”

 

Frank nodded, “I expected that would be so,” he told the soldier, “it should give the others plenty of time to catch up with us. Once they are here, we can load up the horses. I shouldn’t think we’ll have to make many trips after that.”

 

The Goodman looked down at the small lad who was telling him his business and visibly decided against saying anything. He simply shook his head and muttered something under his breath. He moved away and hefted his own load. Jerald and a couple of the men began tying some of the cargo on the horse’s back. The animal stood, occasionally stomping a foot and eyeing the sacks of grain with a speculative air.

 

“We’ll get you folk to the camp with the first load,” the Goodman said, “there are a few more men there and they’ll keep you safe while we go back for the rest of it. Yes,” he turned and pointed to a few of his men, “You, you, you and you. You’ll be staying with the wagon. Get yourself a rifle and a couple pistols a piece, and make sure that you’re ready incase trouble comes sniffing along. You two stay with the wagon, you go that way,” he waved down the wagon trail in the direction that the cart had been heading before the aborted larceny,” and you the other. Stay within earshot, get yourselves under cover and be ready to sing out if the wrong sort comes your way. You two with the wagon, stay put, even if you should hear trouble. You’ll be wanting to get the supplies into the brush before anyone comes along, then you can go and help take care of whatever the matter may be.”

 

The four he’d chosen made a salute and picked out some weapons to begin the complex process of loading the guns. Once the party was ready, they moved off the road and into the forest, Jerald leading the draft horse by a line tied to the halter, his son ambling along beside him. At first, the going was a bit difficult, the men forced to muscle their way through bushes and brambles, but a short way under the forest canopy, the going became easier as the brambles gave way to the sorts of plants that could grow in the shadows of the forest sentinels.

 

“I’ll be glad to get to camp,” Frank said to his father, “It will be nice to get a little sleep before I have to run around at night again.”

 

Jerald grunted in response.

 

“I suppose you’ll be wanting to come along again too,” Frank said, “I’ll probably be glad of your company, if last night is anything to go on. We’ve got to arrange a bit of something for our friends back at the village to be dealing with. Now that I think on it, with you along it should be easy enough. All I’ll be needing from you is to keep a lookout, and maybe you can toss a rock or something to distract a guard or to if it comes to that. We’ll figure it out after I’ve gotten a bit of a nap.”

 

“Right.” Jerald said laconically.

 

Frank looked up at his da with slight concern, “something the matter?” he asked.

 

Jerald shook his head, more to settle his thoughts than in denial, “Just ruminating on a question,” he said looking down at his son.

 

“Oh? What would that be?”

 

“Frank,” Jerald said seriously, “why are we doing this?”

 

Frank missed a step, and Jerald gave him a nod as he saw that his son had no quick answer. Frank’s face shifted through several expressions as he visibly considered and rejected several answers. Finally he looked up at his father with a look of relief and opened his mouth to speak.

 

“Hold on there, lad,” his father interrupted, “before you are after telling me whatever lie you just came up with. I can’t help but think that you’ve your reason, but that you don’t think you’re old Da should be hearing it. Am I near the truth?”

 

Frank looked away from his father and hunched his shoulders.

 

 

“Seems to me,” Jerald continued as his son’s silence confirmed his suspicion, “that we could just as easy leave these good folk to their own selves, and you and I could head away. I can’t help thinking that there’s something you’re after hiding from me. I’m hoping you’ll be after trusting me with the truth.”

 

“You won’t like it.” Frank said with a sigh.

 

“That’s as maybe,” Jerald answered.

 

“It’s funny,” Frank said, “I’ve done this many, many times before. I mean this particular sequence of events; I’ve also simply been hanged that first day. Anyway, it’s strange how many things stay the same, while other things are a little different every time. The three dooffs are always by that pond at night, the one always goes to that one spot in the bushes, but they don’t often sing the same song. Master Jacque never brings the stone with him out of camp, the Lord always takes some convincing, but you and the rest sometimes ride one way and sometimes another. Still, this is the first time you’ve thought to ask me that question.”

 

“As to that,” Jerald said, “I’m thinking you might take it as a good sign. If you’ve something new this time, and all the other times you’ve been killed off one way or another... well, maybe you’ll be finding whatever it is that you’re looking for. You say we’d not tried to work together before either, and look how well that came out. You should think on it. Think on how I can help you and whether or not you might be meant to be telling your father what’s going on with you.”

 

“You’re quite the smooth one,” Frank said with a smile that was almost proud. They walked in silence for a bit, at least they weren’t speaking; the air around them was full of the sounds of birds, rustling leaves, soft voiced comments from the soldiers, and the steps and occasional long suffering sigh of the horse. “I’ll tell you,” Frank said with sudden decision, “but it’s going to take some explaining, and I want you to promise me you won’t try and stop me.”

 

“Now, that I can’t be doing. Not until I know what it is you don’t want to be stop from.”

 

“Fair enough,” frank said.

 

When they reached the camp, the rain that had been threatening all morning finally came down, a soft pattering precipitation. The camp was in a clearing that the men had made with their own sweat, using wood axes and even their swords to open the area up. It was surrounded by a palisade of wooden poles, their tops sharpened to points. The group bringing the supplies called out. there was something of a commotion as the few men who had been left to watch the camp site were brought up to speed, crying out in delighted surprise at finding their lord alive and well, showing even more excitement at the weapons. Frank and his father were given a small tent and some bedrolls to let them get some sleep, frank asking the lord to have someone come wake them once they were ready to plan the attack that they were to make come the next morning.

 

Frank rolled himself up in the bedroll and seemed to drop off to sleep instantly. Jerald wasn’t quite so lucky. The rangy Goodman had bellowed some orders and the axes came out again to clear an area for an expedient firing range, a place to allow the twenty or so loyal men a chance to become used to using their new guns. The sound of blades striking wood, the shouted orders, the good natured cursing and complaining, even the persistent sound of the rain on the canvas roof of the tent kept Jerald from getting the sleep he so desperately needed and wanted. He tossed back and forth, finding himself growing increasingly annoyed at the noise. His anger was driving him even further from sleep’s embrace, and it didn’t help at all that he knew is irritation was ridiculous, that he knew the preparations the noisy soldiers were making could make the difference between victory and all of their deaths. Every now and again, as he rolled from one side to another, he’d catch sight of his son, sleeping peacefully, like any old soldier able to catch rest whenever the opportunity was given.

 

There was a brief respite when the range had been cleared, but Jerald had no more than dozed off before the first few cracks of gunshot began sounding, and he was yanked back from the brink of sleep. Finally, Jerald realized that he still had the wax nose plugs that master Jacque had made for him and which he’d not needed once his son stopped trying to convince him not to help, and finally showed him the real trick of using a reed to hide underwater. He put them in his ears and was at last able to fall asleep, the gunshots still audible, but no longer able to overcome the weight of all the events Jerald had gone through since his son had been struck by the strange glowing moving object that had become the stone. He was so far berried under the soft blanket of his exhaustion, that he didn’t notice when the rangy Goodman came to fetch his son.

 

Frank put a finger to his lips as he crawled from his own bedding, nodding at his father who was making a moist rumble of a snore. The soldier nodded his understanding and pulled back out of the tent. Frank came out in no more than a few breaths and smiled up at the soldier. “Thanks for that,” he said, “My poor father really doesn’t need to be there while we make our plans. In fact, if he’s to help me tonight, he’ll be needing as much rest as he can get.”

 

By the time master Jacque and his acolytes were led into camp with the horses, the entire wagon load of supplies had already been shifted into camp, leaving their mounts unburdened, as there were too many low slung branches to make riding them practical. The brief rain shower had given away to a sunny afternoon, with a blue sky so sharp it seemed it should cut through all the weariness that the alchemists were feeling. They weren’t used to such sustained efforts, and they were glad of a chance to find places to rest. Master Jacque wasn’t let to joining them, however, as his lordship had left specific orders to have him brought to the command tent as soon as he arrived. A broad shouldered soldier led him to where he was wanted, and the two guards at the tent opening gestured him through. Inside, his lordship, Frank, and a rangy looking older soldier were gathered round the table. Some sand had been spread across the table’s surface, and someone had made a crude map of his lordship’s estates, small markers placed to indicate the battle plan for the next morning. The sage was unable to make much of the arrangement, and he reflected, not for the first time, on how every endeavor of human effort seemed to develop its own set of jargon and symbols, as obscure to the uninitiated as any of the mysteries he and his students spent their lives investigating would be to the average peasant.

 

“Still don’t like it,” the tall soldier was saying, “Everything has to go just so, and things just don’t do that.”

 

“They will,” frank assured him.

 

“Even if they do,” the old soldier continued, “we’re still out numbered by at least two to one.”

 

“I’m going to help take care of that tonight,” Frank said, “they’ll be a bit distracted when the time comes. All you need do is make sure that the attack begins when the bishop finishes his outdoor mass.”

 

“And what sort of distraction are you thinking of providing, slip of a lad that you are?”

 

“Master Jacque,” his lordship said, “come in. just the man we needed to see and just about the right time as well.”

 

“I’ll explain exactly what’s going to happen when I get back from my little errand tonight,” frank said, “I don’t want you surprised after all. That we can save for the usurper and the bishop. But first, I want to be certain everything is in place. If something goes wrong this night, we’ll have to figure out some other way of accomplishing what we’ve set out to do.” The boy turned to the sage, “Now, master Jacque, I’m afraid I’m going to be needing one of your lenses.”

 

Master Jacque’s hand went to his pouch in a protective reflex, but he chided himself for the pettiness and gave the boy a nod, “certainly. Which one was it you wanted to borrow...?”

 

Frank was shaking his head, “I’m sorry. But I didn’t mean borrow. I fear that the lens won’t survive the use I mean to put it to.”

 

Master Jacque’s hand tightened all the more on the pouch containing his tools, and he swallowed, his face going pale as he showed more fear for his glass than he had for his own life.

 

“My lord,” the rangy man said, “If you’re done with me for now, I’ll go be seeing to the men.

 

The lord gave his man a nod, and the tall soldier excused himself and stepped from the tent.

 

Master Jacque,” the lord said in an oddly gentle tone, “I know how much those things mean to you. I promise that I’ll pay for a new one, and it is only one of them after all.”

 

“It isn’t simply a matter of gold,” the sage said, “If that were so, I’d give it up gladly. It is rare to find anyone who can provide such clear glass, and ground to such exacting specifications.”

 

“Is that so?” his lordship said, “well, there’s a glassier that comes through every few seasons, and he does fine work. Why, he’s even made lenses to perch on a man’s nose and sharpen his vision. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Even if our man cannot help you, I give you my word that we will find a way to replace your sacrifice, and more besides. When I’ve my rightful place again, you and your students will no longer have to travel from place to place, always one step ahead of the church. I’ll endow a school for the investigation and teaching of the alchemical arts, and you’ll be its head, if you’re willing.”

 

Master Jacque swallowed again, his eyes going distant as he heard the lord offering him what he had desired for much of his lifetime. At last, not without a pang, he handed his pouch over. Frank fished through it until he’d found the one he wished, and he handed the pouch back with care.

 

Master Jacque’s hand came up as he saw which one Frank had chosen. He lowered it again with real reluctance. Frank happened to have chosen the lens that he used the most often, one that made small object seem larger. Certainly the sage had other lenses he used for similar work, but those made things even larger, large enough to show that an apparently clear drop of water could play host to an entire retinue of strange creatures, too small to be seen at all with the unaided eye; but those lenses were too good at what they did. For examining a leaf, or insect, the lens now in frank’s hand was much more suitable. “Be careful with it,” the sage said, then shook his head at his own foolishness. “That is, be careful with it until you’re ready to spend it. I’d not wish it to be broken carelessly or without affect.” He paused and his face took on a look of sudden interest, “tell me, lad,” he said, “what working do you intend? I’ve never heard of one that would use up the lens.”

 

Frank chuckled, “I’ll explain it to you, right enough. But first I need a couple of other things from you. Do you have your sundial chart?”

 

The sage nodded, “Oh certainly. Those are far from rare, or even especially difficult to produce.”

 

“Good, I also need that needle of yours. The one that always points to the north.”

 

The alchemist looked concerned once more, “Is that to be used up as well?”

 

Frank shook his head, “No, that you’ll be getting back. I just need it and the chart to no how the sun will move in the sky on the morrow. It’s a matter of angles, you see.”

 

The sage looked almost comically relieved as frank came round the tent, pulled back the opening, and took a look at the sun and the shadows outside.

 

“It’s getting on toward midday,” he said, “or a bit passed if I’m not much mistaken. I’ve a lot of ground to cover, so, master Jacque, if you could be getting me what I’ve asked for, I can be getting on my way.”

 

“You want me to have your father woken?” the lord asked.

 

Frank stood, tent flap still pulled back, chewing on his lower lip in thought. He shook his head as he made his choice. “No sir,” he said, “If he can sleep, let him. I’ll make better time without one of you hulking types in toe anyway.”

 

The Sage moved out of the tent to go and find what the lad had requested. Frank moved to follow him, but the lord halted him with a word.

 

“Hold on one moment there lad,” the lord said, “I’d have a word or two with you before you go on your way.”

 

Frank let the tent flap fall shut behind the sage and turned his attention to the lord.

 

“I’m wondering,” His lordship said, “if you’re quite a certain as you pretend about what we’re to do tomorrow.”

 

Frank sighed, “No,” he admitted, “Not certain sure, but even if everything goes wrong, the worst that will happen is that I’ll be killed, one way or the other, and then I can try again. Don’t worry milord; we’ll get you back your holdings, if not this time, then the next, or the one after that.”

 

“Alright then, lad,” he said, “That’s all I needed to hear from you. I’ll not send my men into something when there’s no hope, and from what you’re saying, in the end, we cannot lose.”

 

“Near enough the truth,” Frank said and moved out of the tent.

 

His lordship stretched luxuriously before walking out of the tent. He watched as master Jacque and the lad conferred, doing something with a chart spread on the ground. Frank was holding the bit of glass that was so deer to the sage, glancing between it and the sun overhead. A small curl of smoke rose from a bit of tinder he’d placed on the ground, and frank gave a curt nod of satisfaction. He took a length of string, used it to measure the distance from the ground that he was holding the lens, and cut it to length. The lord mentally shrugged to himself as frank pocketed the string, a small needle on a silk cord, and the chart, which he folded carefully to fit into his belt pouch without wrinkling it. He didn’t pretend to understand what the lad was up to, but he’d been more than serious about endowing the alchemical school. It was something he’d been thinking on for a good long while now, and, truth be told, he’d likely have done so whether or not he’d needed to convince master Jacque to give up one of his personal treasures. The world was full of mysteries, and the lord who could harness such forces would likely earn great wealth for himself and his people. If only his foolish younger brother could learn to step back from his petty ambitions and look at the larger picture. Still, his brother had never been one for taking the long view. Why, had the fool been willing to work with his older brother, instead of trying to snatch what wasn’t rightly his, he’d likely have been setup with his own estates when what the alchemists could teach them allowed them to annex some neighboring lands.

 

“A shame brother,” his lordship thought, “but a fool and his head are all too easily parted.”

 

Whistling a marry tune, his lordship strolled off to see about finding himself something to eat and a place to rest. He’d be wanting his strength soon enough. After all, there was much to be done.

 

It was nearing the middle of the night when the cook and a made came out into the shadows and walked to the old stables. The building, waddle and daub, hadn’t held horses in living memory. Instead it had been used to store whatever needed protecting from the elements but still needed to be close to hand. The cook was, for her time, getting on in years, while the made, a mere slip of a girl, was just barely pubescent, prime marriageable material for this place and time. The two men who had been set to watch the powder magazine greeted the ladies, grumbling without much conviction that the two women shouldn’t be out so late, and certainly shouldn’t be distracting them from their duties.

 

“Oh, come now my good fellows,” the cook said, smiling so that the dimple in her chin was shown to best advantage, “Himself can’t begrudge you a little comfort on this chilly evening.

 

In fact, after the rain of the day, the air did have a slight chill, and the two guards took the heated mugs of wine with relish. The cook pulled the cover from the basket that the maid was holding, and the aroma of fresh cook bread whofted through the night, causing the small figure hiding near the old stable to regret that he hadn’t eaten before he’d set out. She always claimed that she was merely bringing them some scraps, but the smell gave her the lie, making it all too obvious that she’d made something as fresh as anything she’d have sent out to the high table. The two couples indulged in a little cuddling, nothing too distracting as the guards were a good sort, the sort of men who’d not let even such a pleasant thing as an armful of woman distract them overly from their duties. Still, even the bit of kissing and nuzzling was not strictly allowable, for exactly the reason that it might allow a stealthy enemy the time he needed. Of such small lapses was Frank’s magic made of, and he crawled from the bushes along the old stable’s eastern side and began working on the thatch at the side of the building, listening to the women’s giggles with a slight smile on his face.

 

Frank was glad that the two men were engaged so, and not only because it gave him all the time he needed. Though the guard’s distraction saved him from having to use either wire or belt knife, not to mention that he’d not be forced to leave a couple of bodies lying around to make the other soldiers suspicious, he was mostly glad for them because he couldn’t help feeling a certain sneaking sympathy for the poor fellows, ignorant of their fates. The men, whose only fault was choosing the wrong master, would at least have spent their last night doing something pleasant. Frank had watched many people, living and dieing, and he couldn’t understand why so many of them chose to spend their all too short lives as they did. There were many more desirable things to do than spend all of ones time trying to cut short one another’s limited allotment of breath. Of course, when one lived in a time where fighting was the order of the day, it was difficult to find time for the more agreeable activities. It became a trap that the people made and set for themselves. Not that Frank wasn’t as guilty as the next fool, as evidenced by his current little self-appointed chore.

 

Frank pulled the needle from his pouch and held it up on the end of its cord, squinting in the moonlight and the slight glow from the lamps the guards around the corner were holding while it turned to face the north. He took a couple of pieces of wood that he’d carefully glued together in order to show him the angle he needed in the darkness, and used his small belt knife to make a tiny opening in the side of the old wall. With the string he’d used to find the focal length of the lens, he measured out a short distance inside the small building. He snaked his small arm into the darkness, emptying a small vile of powder next to a keg that was shoved against the inside wall. The barrels would block the sight of Frank’s little gift from anyone who should chance to look inside, unless they went to the trouble of clearing the magazine. He added a little bit of tinder and positioned the lens in the thatch, using some small wires to help hold it in place as the maid and cook made excuses about the hour and headed back for their beds, whispering and giggling to one another as they walked away.

 

“There goes a fine lass,” one guard said to the other, his smile clearly audible in his voice.

 

“And you can be having her,” the other man disagreed without ranker, “Me, I prefer them with a bit of meat on their bones and some miles behind them. That little bitty bit of a thing you’re after holding is not but skin over bones. Me, I like something I can bump up against.”

 

“That’s fine for an old horse,” the younger man said, “but a young stud needs more of a fresh faced filly. She’s still got some of her growth to come, and May haps she’ll fill out a bit more. Besides, have you seen her eyes, how they sparkle when she smiles at you, and the way she tilts her head when she laughs...”

 

“Ere now, and it’s a poet you are after all. Why don’t you get back to your circuit while you compose your next little sonnet?”

 

The guard chuckled and grabbed up the end of the bred, holding it in one hand and his lantern in the other as he came round the corner, musing pleasantly on the question of whether or not the maid would consider hitching her life to such a rough sort as himself as he chewed slowly, savoring the fresh baked flavor. He walked along the eastern side of the old stables, conscientiously alert for any sign of trouble; but trouble, in the form of frank, had already moved off, and was getting farther away by the heartbeat. His lamp light sparkled off the curved surface of the glass in the wall, but the tell tale glimmer was well below his eyelevel, and he was watching for trouble outward instead of in, and he failed to notice frank’s handiwork. That would remain true for the rest of the night, no matter how often either man would walk passed. He did take the time to look over the side of the building, as he did each time he reached a corner, but by then, the lens was once more hidden in the night’s gloom.

 

Frank’s father woke just passed dark, dug the wax plugs from his ears, and stepped from the tent to find his son. He walked from one soldier to the next, asking after his boy, but finding that he had already left, leaving Jerald behind him. He cursed softly, not wishing to waken the men, most of whom had bunked down for the night to catch what rest they could before they mustered out in the morning. Jerald found that he couldn’t sleep when his boy was out there, somewhere in the night. He walked round the camp, unthinkingly choosing a path much like that of the sentries, though as he was walking at near their pace, he hardly noticed that he wasn’t the only man circling the palisade in the darkness. He was left to his own thoughts, and as often happens when a man wakes in the middle of the night, they were growing as dark as the night itself. The sky had just begun to lighten with the glow of false dawn when Frank finally returned. Jerald wasn’t certain whether he was more relieved or angry, relieved at his son’s safe return, angry at the fact that he’d been left behind.

 

The camp bustled into life, frank returning having apparently been the signal to begin the final preparations for the attack. Jerald stood to one side as his son spoke with his lordship and several of the soldiers, feeling too out of place to force his way into the knot of figures that seemed to him to be hanging on every damned word the lad was speaking. At last the group broke apart, the men moving off in all directions as each man attended to whatever oh so important task that they had before them. Jerald felt that he was the only one there with no purpose, and he found himself unaccountably reluctant to bother his own son.

 

“There you are,” Frank said as he saw his father and began to walk over, “are you ready? We’ve got to get going here pretty quick.”

 

Jerald felt his skin go cold as he pictured his son in the middle of the chaos to come. He opened his mouth to try and talk him out of any such madness, but frank continued talking as he took the last few steps to where Jerald was standing.

 

“Now I don’t want you thinking that you need to be picking up a gun. You’re a fine enough shot when it comes to hunting, but this is soldier’s work. I’ve got a good place for us to watch the show from, and watching is all either of us should be doing.”

 

Jerald nodded at this, smiling to himself as his son told him more or less what he had been about to tell the boy. The soldiers doused the fires and lined up in several rows, each headed by one man with a lantern, each man with his hand on the shoulder of the one in front of him. Jerald and frank joined the end of one line and the small force began moving through the brush to the west, toward the old cart path where his lordship had first been reunited with his loyal men. The journey was tense and uncomfortable. The armored men cursed in whispers, realizing the need for stealth, but unable to avoid all the obstacles in the darkness. At last they reach the small path and turned south, making better time as they headed for the old roman road. They were doing a little bit of back tracking, heading first west, then south, then east, then north, but the road meant that the men would still arrive much sooner than Frank had been able to the previous night.

 

The old road had once been paved with stone, but it had all been salvaged for building material, and now it alternated between stretches of gravel and hard pack dirt, still slightly muddy from yesterday’s rain. They made much better time now that they’d turned to the east, much better time than Frank had when he had traveled across country, and the men were finally able to dress themselves into something like a proper order for marching. Jerald and Frank let the soldiers pull a head of them when the road turned toward the northeast, and they were joined by the alchemists.

 

“Alright then,” frank said, looking around at the others in the glowing light, “We’ll be striking directly north for a ways. Once we reach the stream, we’ll go directly east until we’ve reached the edge of the wood. Master Jacque, if you have your lenses, we’ll be able to climb a tree and get a good enough view of the battle from far enough away that we shouldn’t end up in any danger. Still, it’s hoping I am, that none of you will take it in your heads to do anything foolish. Once we turn east, the order of the day will be silence. I’d prefer we didn’t do much chattering even while we head north, but after we turn, we’ll be approaching the actual castle. It’s never been a problem, but nobodies ever been fool enough to burst into song either. Are we all clear?” Frank looked around and nodded as he saw they understood, “alright then, let’s be going.”

 

The alchemists and frank’s father formed a line much like the soldiers had when they’d first left camp, only they were following the lad now, and the boy wasn’t bothering with a lantern. At first, the majority of them continually knocked their heads against low slung branches, until Frank seemed to remember how tall his companions actually were, and he started hissing over his shoulder when he wanted them to duck. By the time they turned east, the small group was commendably silent for men, the most of whom weren’t hunters or woodsmen of any sort.

 

The sun was about a half a hand span over the eastern horizon when frank brought his small group to a halt. He waved toward the trees about them, walked over to one, and began shimmying up it. Jerald and Master Jacque came just behind him, while the other alchemists chose some of the other trees. After climbing up a ways, they got above the level of the omnipresent bushes and creepers, and were able to see the village in the distance passed the fallow fields. To the south the old road came out of the trees, and crossed the fields to the front gate of the castle, turning east and going on its way just where the old wooden building sat.

 

Frank took a bit of rope and tied himself to the trunk of the tree, sitting higher up than the full-grown men could, just where a couple of branches came together and letting his feet dangle down. He stretched his right foot down a ways to touch his father on his shoulder.

 

“Hey,” he whispered, “I’m going to catch a little sleep,” he said when Jerald looked up, “Nudge me if I start to snore.”

 

Jerald nodded his understanding, watching with some envy as his son closed his eyes, lent forward against the rope holding him in place, and looked to be off to sleep on almost the next breath.

 

Jerald peered passed the leaves of the tree in which he perched toward the village, shading his eyes against the heat and glair of the rising sun, gripping a branch with the other hand to stay anchored in place. Master Jacque seemed reluctant to break out his lenses in such a precarious position, undoubtedly afraid of dropping them, but it was a pretty good view in any case.

 

The view wasn’t bad at all, the new lord thought from where he stood atop what his family had always called the castle, a wooden structure that had been a poor excuse for a fortress even when it had been first built, back in his father’s father’s father’s time. There was a well in the courtyard which would let the defenders wet down the wooden walls and foil any attempts by attackers to burn their way in, but the flammable nature of the walls meant that several of the more effective methods for defense were counter indicated. One couldn’t use naphtha to burn an attacking force, or pour boiling oil or molten led on their heads if it would do the attackers work for them at set their own castle a blaze. Of course, the family had never suffered any serious attempts at siege, the family holdings being too out of the way for anyone to bother over much with. Not that such a thin form of protection was anything to be relied on. His older brother, the former lord, had plenty of money to have done something about it, but the fool had been nearly oblivious to the dangers of the time. Instead, he’d wasted the family’s money on blue sky projects, always expecting the next moon-brained scheme to make their fortunes, while the neighboring lords eyed their estates with increasingly greedy interest. The fool just couldn’t seem to understand that there was any real risk, despite the fact that their father had been killed in a hunting accident, the oldest political ploy under the sun.

 

The new lord lent on his elbows, resting them on the wall around the edge of the structure he stood on and looked down to the south with a worried frown. The bishop was there, in the middle of the morning outdoor mass he’d insisted on. The old fool had demanded that the small group of mercenaries he’d brought with the first load of weaponry should go unarmed for the service, claiming that since he was holding a mass, the area was ipso facto, a house of god, making the carrying of weapons an offence in the eyes of the lord. The bishop had agreed only reluctantly to let a mere ten men keep their guns, so long as they didn’t attend. The new lord had only managed that small concession by insisting that the bishop hold an evening service for the household, calling the ten men his honor guard and claiming that he wouldn’t lower himself to attend church with the common run of soldier. The lordling had seen the looks and heard the mutters, and he was afraid that even the fifty men he had would decide to abandon him.

 

It hadn’t been supposed to have come out like this. The bishop was supposed to ready the area to host a good-sized regiment of one of the militant holy orders. In exchange, the family was to receive flint locks, shot, powder, and gold. The guns had arrived, the powder and shot were here, but troubles elsewhere had changed the plans of the knights, and now this paltry company was all that stood between the estate and the next black hearted bastard who took it into his head to add his lands to his own. To make matters worse, the lords who had agreed to sell food stuffs were insisting that he honor the deal. They seemed to think that he owed them for the food, even if the mouths weren’t around. Of course, without the money from the knights, he couldn’t afford to honor the arrangement, even if he believed that he should.

 

The Bishop was in the middle of the last song, some latten thing that exhorted the faithful to strike down the lord’s enemies with sword and flame. The soldiers sang along with the chorus, not knowing the verses, but willing enough, even if they weren’t especially musical. Still they were better than the bishop. The skinny old bastard had evidently heard of the Italian style of singing, but had learned only to be loud and to have that ridiculously overstated quaver in the voice, making him sound like an oversized tone-deaf goat, bleating an impotent challenge across the field that the younger goats could ignore with no more than a contemptuous ear flick.

 

The bleating bishop had, of course, not bothered to tell anyone that the regiment of knights were no longer to be billeted on the family estates, not until well after they’d already attacked the fools on the morning of the summer solstice. The skinny old bastard was a true believer, or at least skilled at showing public piety, and he hadn’t wanted to risk the younger brother’s backing out when he heard that the deal was off. He’d been right in his way, the lordling wouldn’t have done any of this had he not believed it to be a way out of the whole the older brother had dug. The sermon had been much about the evils of men, turning away from the lord their god toward idolatry and false profits, a not very veiled reference to the elder brother and the death sentence that still hung over his head. The new lord sighed and glanced to his right, toward where the old road disappeared into the forest. He could only hope that his brother was long gone by now. He’d not relished the necessity of ending his life; he’d been more than a little pleased when his brother had been elsewhere during the raid. Odd that was, that he hadn’t been there with his precious alchemists, doing whatever moronic bit of pageantry they’d bilked his brother over this time.

 

The lordling snorted to himself. Alchemy, a fashionably wicked hobby that fools with more money than sense could use to make themselves feel important, giving them the chance to run about and act all secretive, like they had any secrets worth keeping, like anyone and everyone couldn’t tell what was going on when the odd supplies were moved from place to place. When he’d been younger, the new lord had been, he was embarrassed to recall, as hot for the madness as anyone else; but over time he’d realized what alchemy really was-- a fierce and mystical fire for tossing gold into, expressly for the purpose of turning it into led. He shuddered to think how much had been spent on those freeloading charlatans just for what he and the mercenaries had interrupted. Sadly, his elder brother wasn’t a fool with more money than sense. He had little enough sense, but though he put on a good show, he had even less money. he’d only been able to keep up appearances, not to mention prop up his hobbies, by selling off chunks of land, the most of which had been snapped up by the same oily neighbor who had been hunting with there father on the day he’d had his little accident.

 

Of course, the older brother claimed that he was making an investment. The new lord swallowed as he remembered the results of an earlier, “investment,” a thing of fire, steam, pipes and pumps. The robed mountebanks and ninny-hammers who styled themselves alchemists had claimed that one day this contraption could replace people, could take away the drudgery of life and do the work of men. As if anything that had required so many of them to keep running would save labor. His brother had been convinced by an old drawing, purporting to show a mechanical turtle driven by the same principle that had supposedly been constructed by the Greeks. Still, that was his older brother through and through, seeing sweeping change in every child’s toy he was shown. The damn thing had burst one day, bathing an innocent maid in super heated steam. She’d taken days to die, screaming all the while.

 

If only his older brother had learned his lesson, maybe there’d still be some funds in the family coffers. The lordling would liked to have offered an amnesty to the man who had delivered the supplies for whatever they’d been up to; he’d be the only one who would have had any hope of recouping some of the funds that had been tossed in the fire this time, but the bishop would have none of it. He still sent what they’d gathered along the old road to the south, hoping against hope that something could be gained by attempting to sell it. He’d sent every last bit, down to the dullest bit of scrap. Unfortunately, the idiot mercenaries had burned the camp before they’d tried to gather what was there, carried away by either holy zeal, or a childish excitement with setting uncontrolled fires. The most valuable items, the books and scrolls, had been consumed as a result.

 

The new lord glanced to his left and close in toward the castle he stood on, at the old stables where the powder was stored, along with the guns of most the men while the service took place. Stupid, stupid stupid, to leave the weaponry outside the walls, but the bishop had claimed that the guns weren’t really the family’s property, and that it was inappropriate to store them within the walls. The younger lord figured it was a minor power play, a way to emphasize to the mercenaries who was really providing their gold and provisions. He lifted his gaze to watch the ten armed men as they road round the small village, too far out and too spread out by more than half, but unable to cover the area otherwise. At least no one else in the area had flintlocks. If a rifle regiment came marching forth, ready to take the last of his family’s lands, the burning lengths of rope they carried to set off their matchlocks would give his men some warning as they sent up a distinctive pattern of swirling smoke.

 

The trouble, the new lord thought to himself with a sigh, was that his older brother had never been able to step back from his petty obsessions and see the longer view. The family had always taken its responsibilities to the people living under their protection seriously; until their father had died and his older brother had begun selling off what wasn’t truly his. If only he’d been able to work with his younger brother. Why, with a proper plan of management, his older brother could have had his little experiments on some bit of land far from innocent maids and the disapproving eyes of the church. The world was full of dangers, and the fool had never learned to look toward the defense of his charges.

 

As the new lord reflected on his troubles, the bishop gave the final blessing, telling the mercenaries to go in piece, an ironic blessing considering the sentiments he’d been drilling into them over the course of his sermon. The sun crept up the sky, and the shadows along the eastern wall of the old stables inched downward.

 

The first crack of rifle fire sounded as almost a single sound. A cloud of smoke rose from where the men had been, half hidden within the edge of the forest to the north and east of the village. The lordling’s head snapped around to see the twenty men come marching along the road, double timing their way toward the old stables. He yelled to the men below, bellowing orders for them to get to the magazine and get armed, though it was unlikely he could be heard over the shouts and yells of his men as they automatically did what he was shouting about anyway. The ten mounted men wheeled their horses about and road toward the attackers.

 

The lordling cursed with feeling as several of the few armed men fell from their saddles, dead, dieing, or injured and out of the battle for the duration. The attackers were using flintlocks, obviously the load that was meant to have arrived within the next several days, delivery times weren’t possible to predict with any certainty, and he’d not realized that some of the precious flintlocks had been stolen. It must be his older brother.

 

The attackers were taking their own casualties, but, at least for the first few moments, they’d outnumber the new lord’s honor guard, and they were making the most of the opportunity. How had they known to attack now? Had they learned that the old goat was to have most of his force unarmed for the service, or was it just bad luck that his brother had chosen this morning for what could only be a last desperate attempt to regain his power and position?

 

The new lord lifted his own rifle and attempted to sight in on the group of his brother’s men. It was a difficult shot from here, made even worse as he was attempting to shoot downwards, but... yes, that man, striding along in the front rank, it was his brother, and the lordling squeezed off a shot. He cursed again as the only result seemed to be that a man to his brother’s right went down, as likely a shot from someone else as his own rifle. He lowered his gun and began reloading, though he knew that he didn’t have enough time to make any real difference. Below him, the rest of the mercenaries had rushed over to the magazine, but hadn’t been able to move to the old stable doors under the fire of the approaching men.

 

“Yes!” the new lord cried as he saw a man begin to tear away the thatch of the western wall in order to give the men access to the interior.

 

The older guard from the previous evening managed to widen the whole enough to gain entry, and the mounted men had finally arrayed themselves between the attackers and the magazine. He’d not seen any torches with the attackers, and he could only assume that they’d intended to take the old stables in tacked. They’d misjudged their timing though, and they’d stopped advancing, switching to volley fire in an apparent attempt to take down the remainder of the honor guard before the rest of the men were armed and ready to join the fight.

 

The old soldier stuck his upper body inside the building, snarling unconsciously as his armor was half caught in the thatch. He was in the middle of tearing away a bit more when he realized that some of the smell of smoke wasn’t coming from the nearby gunfire, but from inside the magazine. He saw it then, an innocent curl of white smoke rising lazily through the still air of the inside, such a small thing, hardly worth noticing at all. He breathed a soft word, half prayer, half oath, his god’s name the last word to pass his lips as the entire stock of powder went up in a billowing flaming explosion that blew apart the waddle and daub structure, along with most of the men who had been crowding in behind him.

 

The new lord had not quite finished reloading when the magazine exploded. Startled by the sound, he spilt his vial of priming powder. His few mounted men had been knocked forward by the same blast that had decimated their fellows. The horses were cavalry mounts, trained to not panic at the sound of gunfire, the smell of blood, the clash and clamor of close combat, but no creature, man or animal, could help but react to the thunderous sound, and what was from where the mounted men had been, an actual physical impact. What horses hadn’t been knocked to the ground had reared or bolted, unseating all but one man. Even that soldier, the only one who’d managed to keep his seat, had only been able to do so by dropping his gun and grabbing his mount’s main with both hands.

 

The mercenaries who were still on their feet, shocked from the explosion, had thrown up there hands, even before the old lord had bellowed for their surrender. The new lord’s hands squeezed his rifle with the hot burning strength of his rage, his knuckles turning white with the force of his hysterical grip.

 

“Bastard,” he whispered, “stupid, damned, bastard.”

 

When they heard the blast, Frank opened his eyes and stretched, still held in place by his rope. He looked down at his father as he began to untie himself from the tree.

 

“Well,” he said, “that should be our queue.”

 

Jerald had been half disappointed that he hadn’t really been able to see much from where they were perched, but mostly glad that he hadn’t had to watch the blood and death. The attack had taken place on the opposite side of the village from their trees, and he’d not seen much more than the smoke from the guns, and a whole lot of people running around.

 

“I’m sorry it wasn’t a better view,” frank said as he clambered downwards, “but it wasn’t safe to be on the other side. You might have noticed that was the way all the bullets were flying.”

 

Jerald hadn’t really thought about it, but he supposed that his son was right. The alchemists joined Jerald and Frank on the ground a little behind them, having had a little trouble with their robes, and the group headed along the fringe of the forest toward the old road.

 

Frank began whistling a little tune as he trotted forward, leaving all but his father behind, who merely lengthened his strides to keep up with the lad.

 

“What’s your hurry there, lad?” his father asked.

 

Frank looked over and smiled, “No real rush, but this is the first time we’ve managed this little trick. I’d like to be there to get a good look at what we’ve done.”

 

“Right enough, lad. Though I’m thinking there’s not much pretty about how things are like to be after a battle.”

 

“You’re not far wrong there,” Frank said, “still...”

 

Jerald shook his head. He kept forgetting that his boy had likely seen this sort of thing before, and a lot more besides.

 

“Come on!” the old lord called upward to the figure still standing on the top of the wooden castle, “get yourself down here. I’d like a word or two with you, my dearest brother.”

 

The lordling scowled down and whispered his answer, “Yes, brother. I’ll be right down.”

 

He kept his rifle down below the level of the wall, keeping it from his brother’s sight and moved to head down. It wasn’t a word he wanted to give his brother, but it would be rather good enough. He paused a moment when he’d lowered himself down the latter that led up to the roof. He pulled his last vial of priming powder out and carefully poured its contents into the pan, unaware of the slightly manic grin he was wearing.

 

As they reached the fringe of the small village, a collection of rood huts squatting round the base of the wooden castle, Frank suddenly broke into a full run, leaving his father to wonder what had got into the boy now. Frank rushed down the muddy walkway that passed for a road in the village. He came out from the buildings, saw his lordship standing with hands on hips, gazing toward the castle gates where they were opened just enough to allow a man to pass. He redoubled his efforts, sprinting for all he was worth.

 

His lordship’s younger brother stepped out of the gate and raised his rifle, snarling at his brother as his finger squeezed the trigger.

 

Frank tackled his lordship, knocking into his knees and causing him to hit the ground with considerable force. The bullet that had been meant for his face flew over his head while he was still falling, and the old lord could have sworn that he actually felt it, coming so close that it seemed to part his hair.

 

His lordship’s younger brother stared as the old lord climbed back to his feet, thanking the boy who had saved him as he did so.

 

“You,” he said. His face crumpled and he through his rifle to the ground. “You’ve the luck of the very devil,” he cried and fell to his knees, placed his hands over his face, and burst into wracking sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he chanted, rocking himself slightly from side to side.

 

His lordship accepted a loaded pistil from one of his men and pointed it at his younger brother. Jerald came puffing up, having broken into a loping run after his son. He hadn’t been certain what he could do without a weapon, but he hadn’t been willing to let the boy face whatever had him bolting off like that alone. He came to a stop and watched the tableau, the lord holding the pistil toward his younger brother, who continued sobbing on the ground. At last, his lordship lowered his gun with a sigh, the weight of the world seeming to fall on his shoulders.

 

“Can’t do it,” he said half to himself.

 

 

The bishop came running over, swearing roundly in several languages. “what’s the matter with you?” he demanded, addressing the remaining mercenaries, “are you just going to let this evil man get away with this?” the bishop stocked over to where the new lord knelt and snarled down at him, “On your feet. You’ve still god’s work to be done.”

 

“Well now,” his lordship said airily, “now here’s one I could stand to be shooting.”

 

The bishop turned, his face draining of color as he saw the lord’s pistil come back up and point at him.

 

“How dare you?” he said, his voice lacking the fire it had held just a heartbeat before, “You would threaten a man of god?”

 

The lord walked forward, following the bishop as he backed up against the wooden wall of the castle. The bishop slid down to sit in the mud, the vestments he was still wearing from his ill-fated morning mass becoming stained by the filth. The soft click of the pistil’s hammer being pulled back seemed loud as an actual gunshot in the sudden silence.

 

A slow, unpleasant smile spread across the old lord’s face as he spoke, “Forgive me father, for I have sinned.”

 

It was late evening when Jerald found his son, standing atop the castle in roughly the same position the lordling had held before the battle. He was sharpening a dagger he’d got from some where with slow deliberate strokes, causing a rhythmic shhwit shwwit sound, and gazing off in the distance. Jerald guessed the boy wasn’t seeing much of what was before him, as he hadn’t reacted to his father’s arrival. He soft-footed his way over and placed his hand gently on the boy’s shoulder. Frank jumped as though goosed and looked round.

 

“I’m curious about a thing.” Jerald said.

 

“What’s that?” Frank answered with a guarded expression.

 

“You said this is the first time we’ve managed to retake this place for his lordship?”

 

Frank nodded, his shoulders relaxing slightly at the comparatively neutral topic.

 

“I wonder as to how you knew that his lordship’s brother was going to take that shot, seeing as how you’ve not been here before, if you take my meaning.”

 

“Oh, that. You’d asked me why I was in a hurry, right?”

 

It was Jerald’s turn to nod.

 

“Well, it suddenly hit me that there was still time for something to go wrong. I figured I’d hurry along, and if nothing was the matter, I’d not have spent anything but a bit of my breath. When I got there I saw his lordship’s brother coming out the gate with a rifle, and I could see what he meant to be doing by his expression.”

 

Jerald chuckled a bit, though the sound was a little forced, and there was something of an awkward silence.

 

 “So,” Jerald said, forcing his voice to remain calm as he ticked a finger against the blade in his boy’s hand, “Is it trying again that you’re thinking on? I’d have thought you’d be pleased and proud with how things have turned out.”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Frank said with a heavy hearted tone, “it isn’t even here. All of this,” Frank said with a flick of the blade to indicate what they’d been through, “and it’s not here.”

 

“And what is it you’re looking for?”

 

Frank shrugged as he answered, “I guess I did promise to tell you.”

 

Instead of speaking directly, Frank returned to drawing the blade along the stone he held in his other hand, his eyes returning to whatever internal vista he’d been watching before his father had startled him from his reverie. Jerald lent one elbow on the wall, half facing his son, giving the lad as much time as he needed.

 

Frank drew in a long breath through his teeth, stilled the motion of his hands, and let the breath out in a huge sigh that turned into a yawn somewhere in the middle.

 

“The stone.” He finally said simply, as though there had been no pause between his father’s question and his answer.

 

“Oh,” Jerald said, as if he understood.

 

“I was going to break it.” Frank said, looking down at the dagger and turning it so it reflected the light of the slowly setting sun in a crimson flash.

 

“And what would that do for you then?”

 

“Let me die.” Frank said in a half whisper.

 

Jerald swallowed passed the sudden lump in his throat. “Oh?” he said noncommittally as he could manage, once he felt he could trust his voice.

 

Frank’s shoulders twitched with a suppressed bit of bitter laughter. “I told you you wouldn’t like it.” he said.

 

“And it’s right you were,” Jerald said honestly, “and now you think you can go back and do better. Better than what we’ve just gone through?”

 

Frank looked to the blade again, gazing at it as though he could read secrets within its shining surface. “I thought maybe this time I could, I mean... Oh hell, father. I don’t know. I’m just so tired. So damn, damn, damn tired.”

 

“Is it so bad?” Jerald asked, “Do you really need to use a knife now when we’re set to have a good life this time, you and I?”

 

“Oh da,” Frank said with a shake of his head, “I know you don’t want to lose the last of your family; but you won’t even know. Besides, you don’t understand what you’re asking. Have you any idea how often I’ve had to watch you die? And it never gets any easier.”

 

Jerald reached out and squeezed his son’s shoulder. “So, you’ll break the stone, and that will be that? I mean, you’ll be passing on right then?”

 

“I don’t really even know. I’m just sort of hoping. I figure I’ll either die right then, or the next time I die will be the last. Finally the last.”

 

“Aye, and so you’ll finally be free. I don’t pretend to understand all this, but I can’t say as how I blame you for wanting an end to the business. Can’t say as I’m pleased, but...”

 

The two of them lapsed into silence, just standing together as the sky darkened above them and the first few stars began to shine.

 

 

“You wouldn’t have to break the thing right away if we had it. You could... Maybe,” Jerald murmured.

 

“What’s that?” Frank asked.

 

“May haps there’s another way,” Jerald answered, straightening as the idea took hold, “Suppose instead of starting over, we go look for your stone together?” Jerald shifted to look toward the old roman roadway, “tell me, lad. Do you know where your stone went?”

 

“His lordship’s brother said that he sent it south with the rest of what they found at our campsite.”

 

Jerald nodded, “I’d thought as much. Was he after trying to sell it?”

 

“Well... yes, along with the rest of it.”

 

“Right,” Jerald said with mounting excitement, “and the only people who would give him any value for what looks to be a plain old rock are the sorts of people you and I already know. What’s say you and I head south and see if we can’t sniff your stone out together?”

 

“You’d actually do that for me?” frank asked, blinking at his father in surprise.

 

“Not for you, lad, but with you.” Jerald began to pace, “Let’s see, there’s miller; he’s always been a fool for such things, and Solomon, he’s been buying worthless trinkets for years on the off chance one of them might turn out to be genuine. Why between the two of us, I shouldn’t wonder if we could even catch up with your rock before the summer is up.” Jerald halted and turned abruptly to face his son. “I’ll be making a bargain with you, lad, a once in a life time deal, if you want to call it that.”

 

Jerald smiled weakly at his father’s humor. “What deal is that,” he said, using a tone that Jerald recognized as a mockery of every rube who thought he was being a careful negotiator.

 

“Simple, my good man, and I can see you’ll drive a hard bargain so I’m just going to lay it all out for you. I’ll trade you, one more life with your old father for your old father’s help in finding the stone. You can’t go wrong; if I can’t deliver you can try again on your own. What have you got to lose?”

 

Frank sighed and switched to a serious tone, “I really don’t know.” He turned to look out into the night again.

 

Jerald seemed to deflate, but he lowered the hand he’d held out to his son and took a deep breath. “You think on it.” he said, “At least promise me that you’ll not be using that knife before you’ve slept on it.”

 

“Oh,” Frank said as he thrust the dagger into the top of the wall, “don’t sound so worried. I really think you’ve got something here. Maybe if I write down a few things and study them a while...”

 

“Well,” Jerald said, his eyes suddenly stinging with tears of relief that he blinked rapidly to clear, “all of this will make sense on the morrow,” Frank joined him in finishing the phrase, “and the morrow will come all the quicker if you go to sleep.”

 

The two of them chuckled as they headed inside to find their beds, leaving the dagger stuck in the wall behind.

 

Jerald woke the next day to find that his son wasn’t in the bed they’d shared. He found that the affect of sudden and intense fear was an excellent way to become fully awake in a remarkably short time. He tore round the corridors of the castle, asking after his son whenever he met another person, rarely staying more than long enough to read their blank expressions. He eventually found Frank in the lord’s study, perched on a tall-backed chair, his feet swinging as he wrote something on a scroll and hummed happily to himself.

 

“Hey there Da,” frank greeted him cheerfully.

 

Jerald clenched his teeth and took several calming breaths, trying to remind himself that it wasn’t his son’s fault that his father had assumed the worst. If he understood things aright, if his son had, had decided to take another turn, he wouldn’t have woken up this morning at all, but back on that day, back in that camp. Come to think of it, in a way, his son made his choice for the whole damn world.

 

It had been a bear few weeks ago when the alchemist attempt to make the philosopher’s stone had taken a turn they’d not intended. Somehow, what had shot out of the central fire, after a years worth of preparations and a final weeks worth of ceremony and careful procedure, hadn’t quite been what they’d been after. The glowing object had darted around the clearing, dodging the other men, most of whom had been only too happy to avoid it, and finally slammed into Jerald’s son, frank. The glow from the object had flowed through Frank’s body, but hadn’t seemed to cause him any harm, other than a small bruise on his stomach where the stone had impacted. The stone itself had turned out to be disappointingly normal, the sort of midsized rock that farmers dug up in their fields every planting season and stacked along the edge to form their stone walls. No one would have given it a second glance, except perhaps to tilt it in the son to make the small veins of quarts glimmer prettily, though unremarkably. In actuality, the stone was stranger than it appeared at that first glance. Though no one could catch it changing, every time the alchemists had attempted to measure it in anyway, it had been slightly different: length, thickness, weight, all changing without notice. One of the alchemists who had been known for his skill with a quill had eventually tossed it down in disgust, unable to do more than waste parchment as the stone wouldn’t, as he put it, hold still.

 

Frank had awoke the next morning as a changed person. Instead of the slightly shy and eager to please child, Frank had become someone else, someone who claimed to have lived for thousands of years, returning to the same morning every time his life was ended, continually forced to avoid the dangers of his childhood, only to return again and again, no matter how long a life he managed to create for himself.

 

Frank had awoken on that morning and ran from the camp. His father, several of the alchemists, and the lord who had sponsored the experiment had gone in pursuit. When they’d caught up with him, a top a hill over looking the clearing where they’d been camped and where they’d done the experiment, they’d watched from the concealment of the bushes and creepers as his lordship’s younger brother road into their camp, his mercenaries burnt what they found, and put those who hadn’t come after the boy to death.

 

Having gone through these events so often, Frank was able to use his experience, along with the knowledge of countless lifetimes, to thread the small group through events, eventually regaining the lordship his power. The bishop who had condemned his lordship for dabbling in alchemy had taken his confession and gave him an indulgence, ending the threat over all their heads. It had taken some convincing, but his eminence had been remarkably reasonable when the barrel of the lord’s flintlock pistil had been less than an inch from his anointed forehead.

 

Somewhere in the middle of all those goings on, Jerald had taken a moment to ask his son why precisely they were doing all of this. The fight between the Noble brothers had really been nothing to concern them, at least nothing once they could put some distance between themselves and the family quarrel with guns. It certainly would be far from the first time that they’d left town, just squeaking away before some zealot caught up with them, and, if they continued to sell supplies to alchemists and their patrons, it wouldn’t be the last either. Events had conspired to keep Frank from quite getting a chance to explain, or frank had used events to avoid explaining; but after they’d finally managed to survive and regain the older brother’s rightful place for him, Jerald had found his son, standing atop the lord’s castle, sharpening a knife and looking off into the distance.

 

Frank had finally explained that he wanted to find the stone, but that it was no longer in the castle, or anywhere nearby for that matter. Jerald had, just barely, managed to convince Frank not to slice himself open right there and then in order to go back the few weeks since that morning and try again. He’d woke, his son was gone, and he’d been convinced he’d decided to end this life after all. No matter how much Jerald might believe what the lad told him about how they’d all be brought back to that time, everyone with no memory of what had happened before but Frank, Jerald couldn’t help but react like his boy was ready to commit suicide, plain and simple.

 

At first, Jerald had been convinced that he’d already lost the last member of his family, just as he’d lost his wife and daughters to plague, but the more time he spent with Frank, the more he came to understand that it was still his son, a vastly more experienced version, but still his son.

 

“What are you up to there?” Jerald asked the boy, trying to keep either his worry or any sign of relief out of his voice.

 

“Oh, well, I’m just writing down what I can remember about what hasn’t happened yet.” Frank answered, holding up the roll of parchment carefully as the ink dried, “What ships come back, which ones don’t, what sorts of new methods and devices are going to make lots of money, which towns are going to be sacked soon, a bit of what the weather will be doing, hard winters and the like. Stuff like that. I figure that his lordship can make a goodly amount of money if he goes about it proper. You and I always managed to, and we never start with as much gold as the lord has even on a bad year. He agreed to give us a couple of men to keep us safe, a wagon, some food stuffs, a couple of letters of introduction. We’re hoping you’ll be willing to act as his agent for a few years. It will keep us out of the alchemy business and should make us plenty of money.”

 

“I see,” Jerald said, wondering when Frank and the lord had hammered all this out.

 

Frank stretched his arms above his head and turned to slip off the chair. “Right,” the boy said, putting down the quill that he’d not known how to use just a bear few weeks ago, “so, who do you think we should see first?”

 

“Well, it’s Solomon I’m figuring on; even if he didn’t pick it up himself, he’ll have heard what ever roomers are floating around. If we come up empty there we’ll have to try Miller, then maybe check with the factotum and see if our pigeons even came in with what they were after selling. If they’re too stupid to keep their heads down, that nest of wires is the sort of thing that will set tongues to wagging. If they are smart enough, then tongues will wag, but only folks like us and Solomon will be hearing of it.”

 

Frank nodded once, “Barton’s Cove than.” He stated, “Makes sense. That’ll be the first port they hit if they stick to the old road, and I can’t be seeing rubes like the ones they’re like to have sent having any other ideas as to how and where to sell my stone and the rest of it.”

 

The previous night, Jerald had promised to help find the stone so that his son wouldn’t use the dagger he’d been sharpening. Frank hoped to end his endless cycle of lives by smashing what had trapped him in a loop of his own life. Jerald had volunteered to help find where it had gone, so long as Frank agreed not to try smashing it until his father had already passed on.

 

 “So we’ve got a deal then?” he asked his lad, just to be absolutely certain.

 

Frank spat in his palm and held out his hand. with a wide smile in which Jerald made no attempt to hide his relief this time, he spat in his own hand and clasped his son’s, sealing the bargain.

 

Jerald heard the sound of the polished wooden door opening behind him and half turned to see who it was. His lordship strode inside, walking with the strides of a man who was trying to do several things at once, a clerk trailing behind him. “Ah, lad,” his lordship said, “there you are. And Jerald, has the boy told you what I’d have you do for me?”

 

Jerald nodded.

 

“Good good, and you’ll help me out then?”

 

Jerald nodded again.

 

“Perfect,” the lord turned to address Frank, “the mercenary commander tells me that you may be having a little trouble with the men he sent south. They won’t be knowing that they’re no longer meant to attack you.” The lord held his hand out to the clerk without looking, “My brother’s letter, and the one from the captain.” He said and paused until the clerk handed him the documents he’d asked for. “These are letters from my brother and the mercenary captain, oh and here’s one from the bishop as well. They’re meant to be traveling with a clerk who can read them; but the captain told me to tell you to tell them ‘the chicken is out of the pot’ should you chance to come on them and they should not be willing to read what you’ve got. I gather it’s some sort of code phrase that will let them know to be leaving you be.”

 

Frank took the three letters and thanked the lord, rolling them up and taking a few pieces of parchment from the desk, handing them over in return. His lordship glanced through them, chewing at his lower lip, muttering now and again as he came across a particular bit of information. “Well,’ he said, lifting his head and rolling the papers back up, “I’d best be giving these to my personal factotum.” He said, turning to offer the papers to Jerald.

 

“Those are yours to keep,” frank told him, “I’ll be making more copies while we’re traveling if my Da wants them and doesn’t want to just use my head. If you decide to trust your brother again, he’ll be wanting to make his own plans with what I’ve written. I hope you can figure a way to let him work for you and not be causing more trouble. The man’s got a good head on his shoulders, long as there’s no bedimmed bishop filling it with nonsense.”

 

The lord shrugged and shifted to pass the documents to his clerk. “Be sending these to my brother in his accommodations. Have him take a look and...” the lord smiled a smug little grin, “ask him if he still thinks I’ve been turning gold to led, ay?”

 

The clerk bowed, clutching the considerable pile of parchment to his chest, and left the room to visit the younger of the noble brothers in the dank little cellar that had been pressed into service as his cell.

 

“Well,” the lord said, rubbing his hands together with the air of one who had finished a task to his own satisfaction, “have you two broken your night’s fast?” he asked, “ah,” he continued at their head shakes, “I’m sure the kitchen can provide you something. That seems to me to be about all. You can get yourself fed and on your way.”

 

Of course, it wasn’t that simple, not for the people actually going on the trip. There were always last moment details to deal with. What with one thing and another, it was well into afternoon when Jerald, his son, and the two soldiers were at last ready to leave on the search for the stone.

 

After all the preparation the trip itself was rather uneventful. Jerald was glad of the time to rest, sitting next to his son on the wagon seat as the boy used ink and quill to write down much of what he’d left with his lordship, and a few other facts besides. The two soldiers had come on their own mounts, and if it hadn’t been for the need to carry food and grain for the men and mounts, Jerald and frank could have traveled with no wagon at all. Their cargo was, unusually, nothing but some coin for spending, a pile of letters for handing to various people, and the information within frank’s young head and ancient mind.

 

Frank did a sort of half skipping step, dodging yet another bucket full of filth being tossed from one of the windows of the upper floors. Jerald wondered exactly how much of Frank’s time had been spent in cities, though, Barton’s Cove was more city by crowding than by number of people or actual size. The fishermen and few permanent residents were often outnumbered by the hucksters, wagon drovers, sailors, ship masters, and above all, the merchants who regularly migrated their way through the small bustling port. At the moment, they were doing their best to thread their way through the barely controlled chaos of the streets to find one of the permanent residences, or at least a semi-permanent resident as the man they sought often spent his winters further south to sooth his old lungs complaints.

 

When they found it, there was a new addition to the gated two story home, namely a good sized couple of fellows, with professionally blank expressions waiting on either side of the gate.

 

“Hello,” frank said, “we’re here to see Solomon.”

 

The large fellow on the left looked down and frowned at the boy, while the man on the right growled a not very complimentary answer at what he took for a child playing games.

 

Jerald hurried to catch up and put his hand on his son’s shoulder, “you’d best let me, lad,’ he said and turned back to the guards, “Forgive my son. He does run away with himself at times, but he’s also right. Could you inform the master of the house that Jerald and his son Frank are here to speak on some business?”

 

The man on the left reached out and hit a small brass gong, about four inches across, with a little felt covered hammer that was dangling from a string next to it. After a few breaths had passed, a runner came from somewhere and the man on the right told the boy, no older than frank seemed, that he was to tell Master Solomon of his visitors. The boy ran off, leaving Jerald, Frank, and the two guards to return to ignoring one another.

 

“I’m sorry about that Da,’ frank said, “You know, I keep forgetting about how old I am again,” Frank waved at himself, indicating his child’s body, “You’d think I’d be recalling it considering how tall everyone round me is.”

 

Jerald’s lips quirked with slight amusement, “thought we were to be keeping such things quiet now?” he said, quietly.

 

Frank jerked his head like an impatient horse, “right,” he said shortly, cutting off his next words as he saw the boy returning, still moving at the scurrying run he’d used to deliver his message.

 

“My Master gives you his compliments,” the boy said, managing to sound only slightly breathless from his running, “and bids you attend him in the front parlor.”

 

The left-hand guard, who seemed the one for actually doing things, pulled the bar in the gate to one side and the rot iron monstrosities parted. Frank and Jerald stepped through, moving at an easy walk, which seemed to make their youthful guide a little impatient, as he half bounced on his feet, darted forward, came bustling back, and with an air of patience, finally managed to curtail his pace to something closer to that of the guests he was meant to be leading.

 

The yard was well worth slowing for. the house was set roughly in the center of a well kept set of gardens, Strange and ill matched statues set almost at random in little nooks created by carefully trimmed bushes, a fountain that burbled merrily to itself off to one side, a small pond with the bright flash of large decorative fish just discernable in the murky waters, and a small wooden bridge that crossed a rocky little stream that chuckled almost musically to itself as frank and Jerald’s footsteps thump hollowly across. They moved down the pathway of smooth rounded stone that led from the bridge and across the well tended lawn that separated the house proper from the gardens.

 

Even before they’d reached the grotesquely ornate double doors of the front entrance, a formally dressed manservant was opening them to reveal the master of the odd property. Solomon was a corpulent elderly man, with a shock of white hair and biers that failed to hide the deep wrinkles of laugh lines round his eyes. It seemed a face made for jocularity, and the impression was far from misleading.

 

“Jerald!” the jovial old man said, his face splitting in a wide and pleased grin as he rushed down the wide steps of his front porch to clasp Jerald’s hand, “It’s a fine thing to be seeing you. How ave you been keeping yourself, then? And your lad ere,” Solomon bent slightly and placed one wide and pudgy hand on Frank’s head to ruffle his hair, an indignity that the boy bore up under stoically enough, “You’ve been sprouting right up, you have. Near a man full grown you are.”

 

“We’ve been well and well enough,” Jerald answered, wearing the grin that the old fellow always seemed to inspire, “We’ve been up north a ways, helping the lord take care of a few domestic squabbles.”

 

The old man’s bushy white eyebrows shot upwards, “Troubles now? You’d not have been caught up in that business with the church now, would you? Nasty, that.”

 

“You’ve heard about it then?” Jerald said with mild surprise.

 

“Aye, some rough and tumble sorts came through not too long ago with the tail to tell. But what am I thinking, having you stand out ere in the cold like this. Come in, come in.”

 

Jerald and Frank shared an amused glance at the old man’s phrasing. It was far from cold out at the moment, and in fact, it was pleasant enough to get inside Solomon’s house, more for the shade and the pleasant drafts from the many open windows than for anything like warmth. They followed their host inside as he bellowed orders at his household at the top of his considerable voice, and Jerald and frank were led by the money lender, part time trader, former wagon drover, former soldier, present-day scoundrel, and sometime dealer in alchemical curiosities to a comfortable room where they’d spent many an hour before, hammering out the details of one trade or another.

 

Now then,” Solomon said as he settled himself creakily in a chair in his parlor, lifting his brandy snifter and taking a healthy sip of its contents, “You’ve a tail to tell, or I miss my guess.”

 

“Well,” Jerald said after trading a look with Frank, “We found ourselves in the middle of a bit of trouble, right enough. Seems the lord’s younger brother wasn’t caring much for the way his elder brother was running the family’s estates. He found himself a pet bishop and raided our camp site. Fortunately, his lordship and we were out of the area at the time. Several men danced on the end of a rope, but thanks to a certain fellow that was with us, we managed not to be joining them this time round. This fellow was something of a sage, an oracle one might say, and it was with his help that his lordship took back what was his. The bishop, who turned out to be the one who’d planted the notion in the younger's head, gave us all our indulgences and everything is as close to right as can be.”

 

“Seems to me that you're not telling me near the half of it,” Solomon said, “I can’t be seeing why you’d be after mixing yourselves in such a business. Seems to me that you’ve shook the dust from your feet afore. Why you let yourself get into such a mess?”

 

Jerald did his best nonchalant shrug, “We couldn’t be getting our payment from the bishop, now could we?”

 

Solomon shook his head, “Nice try, man; but you’ve left behind the odd lot of coinage before. By the heavens, I’ve always said you were too timid, not willing to take a good risk. Can’t see as you’d be changing now over one little delivery, not with your lad there in toe to take the risk whether he wants to or not, ay?”

 

“Well,” Jerald said carefully, “as to that... my boy and I are looking for something. We’re on what you might be calling a quest, the lad and I, and it was in our heads that the quickest way to find what we were looking after was to get back what the younger’s men took from the camp site. Only by the time we were all right and tight, the... item was already sent down the old road.” Jerald shrugged and waved one arm, “which brings us to you, my good man. We were thinking that if anyone was to be knowing where we could find such a thing, that it would be yourself.”

 

Solomon gave a nod and smiled to acknowledge the compliment, “so, what particular thing might you be after, then?” he asked, a certain sparkle deep in his eyes at the prospect of a deal in the air.

 

“Let’s not be getting too far ahead of our wagons,” Jerald said, his tone light enough to avoid causing any offence, the same sparkle dancing within his eyes, “first off, it’s wondering, we are, whether or not you’ve seen anything from the north coming through here of late.”

 

“As it happens, I’ve a tail of my own to tell on that score. But, as you say, let’s stick to the rout and have a look-see at the color of your money.”

 

“Oh,” Jerald said with the genuine smile of a man who knows he has exactly what the customer wants, “we’ve coin enough, and better than coin besides.”

 

Recognizing his queue, frank pulled the scrolls from his satchel and laid them on the table. Solomon reached out to unroll the nearest, but Jerald put a hand gently over the parchment and gave the old man a very slight shake of his head.

 

“What we have here,” he said, lowering his voice and adding a theatrically furtive look around for any eavesdropping servants, “is some words penned by the oracle I told you of. I can give you my own solemn word on it; the fellow truly has knowledge beyond our ken, and not the vague sort of dribble you and I have been seeing spouted before. These scrolls contain long lists of events that have yet to pass. Events which a cunning old fellow could turn to mundane enough advantage, despite, I might even say, because of, their otherworldly source.”

 

Solomon’s fingers twitched slightly as though he would reach out for the scrolls, but he put his hands on the table, interlaced his fingers, and sat back with a show of indifference which fooled no one there. “Well now,” he said with a show of consideration, “Seems to me that I’ve only your word for what’s on that bit o’sheepskin ere.” Solomon held up a hand to forestall Jerald’s objection, “Nothing against your solemn word, man; but seems to me that we’ve been taken in before, both you and my own self, and I’m not after wanting to buy me another pig in a poke.”

 

“True that,” Jerald side, “but you paid a shiny enough bit of coin for bits and pieces with less assurance than I give you. Still and all, I have a way round the barricade, so to speak.”

 

Solomon gave a flick of his fingers to indicate that Jerald should continue, lifting his snifter with the other hand for another sip.

 

 

“Let’s say that you are holding what I and my lad here are after. I’ll unroll one of the scrolls enough to be showing you a line or two. If what’s been written should come to pass, of which I have no doubt, then you can consider trading us what we seek for the remainder of the words written.”

 

Solomon tugged at the end of his beard, looking off into the distance as he answered, “And that is fair, and more than fair enough.” The old man dropped his hand and sighed, “Still and all, there’s yet a bit of a birr in the wool.”

 

“Oh?” Jerald asked.

 

“I’m afraid I sent the lot of it off already. Actually, there was a man I know who paid me well enough for taking it with him. He traded me the secret for turning ordinary iron into loadstone.”

 

“Heat it up tell it glows good and proper,” Frank said, causing the older men to look at him as though they’d forgotten he was there, “Line the bar up so that it is facing north and south along its length, then be giving it a few good whacks with your hammer while it cools.”

 

“Ah,’ Solomon said, managing to keep his voice mild despite how the color had just drained from his face, “that’s part of it.”

 

“That’s near the whole of it,” frank disagreed, “there’s some falderal you’ve likely seen about prayers, incantations, herbs for the fire and such; but what I’ve told you is all you really need do. There’s one incantation that helps, and one herb you can put on the fire just before you pull the iron out. Either one will make your loadstone a bit stronger. Both together will as well, but no stronger than adding either one by itself. I’d have told you that for no more than your hospitality.”

 

The old man looked like his brandy wasn’t quite agreeing with him.

 

“Ah,” Jerald said, “You could say that my Frank here and the oracle got to know one another rather well. I expect that’s how the lad picked that little tidbit up.”

 

“That little tidbit,” Solomon said with an uncharacteristic frown, “cost me something I’d much rather have kept my hands on, and a bit of gold besides.”

 

“And what was that?” Frank asked, sounding surprisingly like his father.

 

“It was a rock,” Solomon said, “but such a rock as you’ve never set eyes on. Not that it was much to look at. I took it in with a wagon load I bought from a few mercenaries, the same fellows who’d come in with the tail of your lord’s troubles. The only thing they had that seemed worth much of anything was a mess of wires, gold, silver, copper, all rolled up with iron poles and half melted together. But another thing they had was this ere rock, as I said. I took it into my little shop just to be giving it the treatment. I swear to you, it changed every time I took a good look at it. I tried weighing it, but the scales would go out of balance every time I turned my back. I tried the Archimedes method to find its volume; but no sooner had the water stopped flowing out of the bucket and I moved to see how much the damn thing had pushed out than I heard the water dripping again. I turn me back again and the water stops flowing.” The old man held up one hand, finger and thumb a short distance apart, “that far down the water’s level was from the top, and yet the rock still looked as dull as could be.”

 

Solomon looked from one of his guests to another as they exchanged a heavily laden glance.

 

“Ah,” he said with a small nod, “I take it that the rock is what you’re being after, then?”

 

“Yes.” Jerald answered simply.

 

“Well now,” Solomon said with another tug on his beard, “them that has it, only left yesterday morn, and they’ve many a heavy wagon full of what they’re hauling. I shouldn’t wonder if you could be catching up to them, if you happened to know who you were meant to catch up with and which way it was they were going.”

 

Jerald snorted, “And you’d be after trying to sell us that? We could figure that out from any gossip in town. Tell you what,” Jerald fished a few small pie shaped pieces of silver coin from his money belt, “I’ll give you four bits if you just come out and tell us.”

 

“No need to be insulting,” Solomon said, “be putting away your pieces of eight. All I ask is for a look at your scrolls ere. Just a quick peek so as I can tell later if your oracle penned true.”

 

Jerald’s face grew clouded, but he subsided at the touch of his son’s hand on his arm.

 

“Tell me,” Frank said to Solomon, “do you know what this fellow meant to be doing with the... rock?”

 

Solomon smiled, fully aware that the information was likely to make his customer all the more eager, “He was planning to be seeing how it reacts to fire and hammer.”

 

“Ha!” Jerald barked triumphantly, “A smith! And heavy wagons. Come on Frank, all we need do is ask after the last smith to leave with charcoal and pig iron.”

 

Solomon winced slightly as he realized that he’d slipped. “No fool like an old fool,” he muttered under his breath, but his mind was already forgetting the advantage he’d so carelessly given up with his over loose tongue as he watched the change in Frank’s demeanor.

 

The boy had been taught as a bow string, sitting forward on his seat, leaning over the table since Solomon had told them of the strange rock, but now he sat back, the very picture of relieved relaxation.

 

“I guess we could at that,” frank said negligently, “but I don’t see as how we need bother. Sounds as though this fellow will be after breaking the stone for us.”

 

“Damit Frank!” Jerald bellowed, “You promised!”

 

“Like a bloody painting they are,” Solomon thought to himself as he watched the affect the boy’s offhanded phrases were having on his father, “The worried adult and confidence of youth.”

 

Jerald slammed his fist down on the table, causing the decanter of brandy and glasses to jump, “You said another lifetime for my help. You going back on your word, boy?”

 

Frank let out a long and weary sigh, the most exhausted sounding breath Solomon had ever heard. It put him in mind of a soldier, bruised and bloody from a just completed battle, told he was to march all day and night to fight again.

 

“I guess not,” Frank said in answer to his father, “If you insist we go chasing after it and all.”

 

“Don’t sound so glum, boy,” Jerald said as he slumped in relief as profound as his son had shown mere moments before, “You don’t know where it’s headed. Could be that it will be lost before this smith gets a chance to do anything but haul it about a bit. Seems to me that you’d want to make certain, ay?” Jerald met Solomon’s eyes, “Take the damn scrolls. Just be telling us who and where.”

 

The old man managed, with an effort that was as invisible as it was heroic, not to crow in triumph as he untied the black ribbon round the nearest scroll and unrolled it. “His name is Whalen, and he’s headed...” Solomon trailed off, his hands beginning to tremble as he read the item just beneath a warning of a heavy storm whose hail would damage this year’s crops. “He’s headed to his death.” He breathed in an aghast half whisper.

 

With hands that still shook, Solomon laid the scroll on the table, turned it so that his guests could read it, and put his finger next to the line that had so upset him: Cuthbert, raised to the ground, its people put to the sword. The date was less than a week off, about one day after Whalen the smith meant to arrive.

 

“Hold on a second,” Darth said, interrupting Franklin’s long and somewhat rambling story, “You mean to tell me that there’s some magic spell that makes a magnet stronger?”

 

“So you know what a loadstone is,” Franklin said with a shade of approval coloring his voice, “It’s true, or at least it was true.”

 

“Pardon,” Father Jason said, “but suppose one of us wasn’t quite sure what the other two were talking about.”

 

The sun, by this time, was peaking its way above the distant curve of the earth, painting the image of the broken door in morning light. The air that was sneaking its way in through the damage was more than a little chilly, but the three of them, warmed by another bottle of scotch, hardly paid it any mind, even when the draft grew strong enough to push the door back and forth on its remaining hinge, eliciting a distracting squeal of out of kilter metal.

 

“Right,’ Franklin said, “The mettles that can be turned into magnets have these little magnetic domains in them. They’re like microscopic magnets inside the material. They’re most often pointing in every which way, so the over all affect is that you have a chunk of iron, or nickel, or whatever the others are that I can’t pull off the top of my head, but just a chunk of metal, not a magnet. If you do something to line up all the little domains, the metal becomes magnetized. If you heat a bit of bar stock passed its Kiery temperature...”

 

“Sorry?” the priest asked.

 

“Oh, sorry,” Franklin said, “there’s a certain temperature for every substance that you can turn into a magnet. If you make it hotter than that temperature, it will stop being a magnet. If you heat something above that temperature and line it up with the earth’s magnetic field, give it a few whacks and let it cool, you’ll get a magnet out of what was just a plain old chunk of metal. I know it doesn’t seem like that big a deal nowadays, but at the time...”

 

“I know all that,” Darth interrupted, “but you said there was, like a prayer and some kind of plant that would make it stronger?”

 

“You following this so far, Father?” Franklin asked the priest, who replied with a nod, “to answer your question,” he said to Darth, “Yes and no,” Franklin took a swig, mostly to annoy the gunman, who tapped his fingers impatiently on the table, “There was a chant you could do while hammering on the glowing metal, and an herb you could toss on the fire, true. Either one or both would make your magnet a little stronger, true. But I learned later that if you didn’t happen to know the story that related to both the herb and the chant, it wouldn’t have any affect what so ever. I concluded that it had more to do with what the actions did to the alchemist’s mind than the actual actions themselves.”

 

“Bullshit!” Darth said explosively.

 

Franklin turned a hand palm up and lifted it slightly, “The truth, in fact, though I understand why you’d have trouble with it. You, both of you, were raised worshiping your science.”

 

“I might have to argue with you there.” The priest said gently.

 

Franklin shrugged, “Oh, certainly, Father, you follow your god as well, but you have been surrounded your whole life by a certain set of assumptions. They are so much a part of this culture that people rarely even realize that they have them. Even the church, in these enlightened days, has groups of priest who run around debunking miracles, and no one in the upper echelons truly believes in angels and demonic forces, not in the literal sense of actual creatures that visit the material plane and interfere directly with mortal lives.”

 

“What you say is true,” the priest said guardedly, “at least as far as it goes.”

 

“Oh come off it,” Darth said, “I’m supposed to believe in what you say just because you feed me some crap about my world view blinding me to the truth. Can you say newage?” he pronounced it so that it rhymed with sewage.

 

A laugh was surprised out of Franklin, “that’s good. I’ll have to remember that one.”

 

Darth pointed a finger at Frank as though he’d just caught a suspect in a lie, “Oh? I would think mister has lived for ever and ever, would have heard every damn joke there is by now.”

 

“Oh sure,” Franklin said easily, “but it’s not so much the joke as how it’s told. Anyway, you’re starting to get to the stage where you’re wanting proof. I can’t show you the trick with the magnet; the language it used is gone now. Sorry, but there are a lot of sub-dialects that got lost as people began to travel more, and writing began to really take hold.”

 

Darth shook his head, “that’s not all I’d like to see some corroborating evidence for.”

 

“Damn,” Franklin said with a grin, “You really were a cop. Anyway, you already know something strange has been going on. Otherwise you wouldn’t have come at all. You must already have started to believe some pretty odd things.”

 

Darth, who had been comfortable in his roll of interviewing a witness, seemed to deflate as his expression grew uncertain.

 

“right, proof,” Franklin said as he pushed back his chair and got to his feet, swaying slightly from the effect of the alcohol he’d consumed, “Woo, Scotch,” he said and moved toward a desk in the corner of the living room, separated from the kitchen where they’d been talking by nothing more than the floor changing from tiling to carpet. “Anyway,” he said as he began rummaging through the drawers, “Alchemists were sort of stumbling toward something like your science. They didn’t really have much of a method to their experiments, and there were a lot of plain old cranks, but they did have one advantage.” Franklin made a pleased sound as he found what he was searching for, and he carried a piece of scratch paper and a pen back to the table. “You see,” he said as he put the pen to the surface of the paper and stroked it rapidly back and forth, checking to see that it still had ink, “the natural philosophers who were the forerunners of your scientists were mostly fairly devout men. Isaac Newton, who wrote more on alchemy than he did on gravity, was what you might call a real bible-thumper in his way. They wanted to learn the mind of their god by examining closely all his works. Then, somewhere along the line, they got it into their heads that they didn’t need the hand of god anymore to explain what they’d described in such detail,” Franklin shook his head at their folly, “Like they have even begun to understand what they’ve put their numbers to. Anyway, the alchemists, on the other hand, had nothing against the idea that there could be a link between the mind and the world we live in. they spent a lot of time searching for it, in fact. They sort of took it as a given that a link like that must be there. They had this idea called the great chain of being-- From the simple animals, to the mammals, to the apes, to man himself, and thence to the angels, and finally god. They figured that a man who was advanced enough, should be able to gain some of the powers of the heavenly host; hubris, but there it was.”

 

Franklin pushed the pen and paper toward Darth, “Here,” he said, “Write down a number, or some text, or draw a picture. Hell, you can do all three or anything else you want. I’m going to go outside. When you’re done, lay the paper face down on the table and call me back in.”

 

When the broken front door had swung to with a sound of protesting metal from its hinge, Darth turned to Father Jason, “do you have any idea what he’s doing?”

 

The priest shrugged.

 

“Ok,” Darth said with a sigh and bent to the paper. He drew a simple picture, wrote a few lines of verse, and added a long number. “Alright,” he called over his shoulder as he flipped the paper face down, “I’m ready.”

 

With another teeth grating creak from the door, Franklin came back inside. He paused to give his door a dark glance as it swung back closed, or as close to closed as it could get, making its annoying sound again. “I’m going to have to do something about that,” he said and turned to cross through his living room, into the kitchen, and to the table where the other two were waiting. He reached out and lifted the piece of paper, turning it over to look at what Darth had written. Franklin’s lips began to move as he began to commit what was written to his memory.

 

“Hey!” Darth objected.

 

“Nicely apropos,” Franklin said as he laid the paper back on the table, “There are more things in heaven and earth.”

 

“I thought you were supposed to astonish me by knowing what I’d put down.” Darth complained.

 

“Oh, you will have been going to be impressed enough by now when we get here again,” Franklin answered as he lifted the handgun and its magazine. He pushed the magazine back into the gun’s handle, gave it a good whack with the heel of his hand to seat it home, took hold of the top, moved his hand back and forward as he jacked the slide, casually put the barrel of the gun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

 

The only result was a soft click from the weapon, and a somewhat louder and incoherent sound of protest from the priest. Franklin took the gun from his mouth and frowned at it.

 

“It jams pretty easy,” Darth said, sounding almost apologetic, “You have to really rip the slide back and then just let go.”

 

“Oh,” Franklin said, pulling back the slide and pushing the small button on the gun’s side to lock it back against the tension of the gun’s internal springs, “I’m used to a different action. I’ve even had guns go off on me if I just let the slide go.”

 

“Yeah, well, every gun is a little different.” Darth said with a shrug.

 

“That’s true enough.” Franklin answered.

 

“And exactly,” Father Jason said slowly, as though speaking to someone who was far from their right mind, “what were you doing?”

 

“Thought it was obvious,” Franklin answered as he stuck his fingers inside the gun to try and tease out the forty-caliber hollow point bullet that had stuck, “I was going to blow my brains out.”

 

Father Jason knocked back half his drink in one gulp. Franklin took the bullet that had hung up out of the gun and put it on the table. He jacked the slide again, this time pulling back on it sharply and letting go to let the spring take it back forward. “I’m just going to die and go back to when I was still waiting outside.” He explained while he readied the gun, “I’m really glad you chose that quote from Hamlet,” he added to Darth, “It will give me a really good line to say when I come in. anyway...” and he placed the gun back in his mouth.

 

“Hold it,” Darth said sharply.

 

Frank’s eyebrows went up as he looked a question at the gunman, gun still in his open mouth.

 

“You don’t have to do this,” Darth said, “Actually, I was just thinking that if what you’ve been saying is true, you’ll end up walking back in and doing what will strike me as something any stage magician worth his top hat could.”

 

“Oh,” Franklin said after taking the gun out of his mouth, “You’re one of those.” He sighed and put the gun back on the table, not bothering to take out the magazine. “What sort of proof would you need?” he asked as he sat back in his chair and reached for the bottle.

 

“I can already tell that you at least believe what you’ve been saying,” Darth said, “You couldn’t have known the gun would jam; so you really meant to blow your head off.” Darth shrugged, “Good enough for me, for now.”

 

“Well, then,” Franklin said and took a sip of his drink, “In that case, where were we...?”

 

Whalen the smith was worried. He paused at the front of the train of wagons and looked back. They were moving through a sparsely forested set of rolling hills where bandits had been known to attack and run off with trade goods in the passed. The long train of wagons was mostly carrying charcoal and pig iron, metal that was fit for nothing fancier than some cast iron work without being hammered for a good long while to drive out the impurities. Most of it would be stacked with alternating layers of the charcoal in pits for extended periods. After they’d been heated in the pits and the carbon from the charcoal had reacted with the iron, Whalen and his apprentices would be able to hammer off shards and flakes of steal that would form around the round chunks of iron. Then they’d be able to work that steal into the arms and armor for which there was an increasing demand. It wasn’t the sort of cargo that was normally a target for your average brigands; the iron was too heavy, the charcoal too bulky, and it would be difficult to find anyone who would pay coin for such other than the very people it would have to be stolen from. Still, the very reason Whalen’s skills were in such high demand was the reason he was nervous-- war and roomers of war. An army might decide to take such supplies where a ragged band of thieves would take one look at what was being hauled, and the several mounted guards with their matchlocks, swords, and armor, and let the group of travelers be. His other worry was the weather.

 

From where he stood, he could look in any direction and see glowering dark clouds, visibly swirling in high altitude winds. Such heavy clouds promised a real blower of a storm to come, and the fact that the only bit of blue sky was seemingly just above their heads was no comfort. It was actually making the smith all the more nervous. He’d never seen such a ring of storm clouds before, never felt such still and heavy air while listening to distant thunder rumbling all around. Even the thunder was odd. He’d not once seen the lightning that usually preceded such a sound. Instead, there’d be a rumble, then the sound would circle in a rolling ripping progression all the way around them, like god was tearing a hole in the very heavens, a hole that they were standing in the center in, ready to be swallowed and never seen again in this corrupt world. The thought caused him to shiver reflexively.

 

Whalen turned to face ahead along the trail and frown at yet another reason for concern. The trail was about to enter a section where the trees would be all too close in and thick. Such terrain could all too easily be hiding any number of unpleasant surprises. The smith wasn’t the only one who was worried. The wagons were pulling together, decreasing the space between them and making it easier for the guards to keep them covered. The guards were gathered in a small knot, using a lantern to set their lengths of rope alight and looking up with frowns at the clouds, muttering prayers and making jesters to try and hold the rain back. If the rain did begin to fall, they’d be having one hell of a time keeping their powder dry, much less using their bits of burning rope to touch off any gunshots. Unfortunately, the flintlocks that were beginning to enter the area weren’t quite so susceptible to precipitation, and the guards could find themselves at a serious disadvantage.

 

The guard captain called toward the front of the wagons, hailing Whalen and waving him over once the smith had turned. Whalen began heading down the line at a half jog, hoping that it wasn’t any sort of trouble that couldn’t be handled by the guards, or even better, by a few words.

 

As he trotted passed the wagons, he passed by one in particular. Like the others, it was covered with canvas to protect it from the weather, but unlike the others, the things under the cover were much more likely to interest thieves. There was a goodly bit of gold and silver, the precious metal wires half melted and tangled with copper and iron poles. Less alluring, but more interesting was an unassuming bit of stone. Whalen had been intrigued by it back in Barton’s cove when that old scoundrel Solomon had shown him that the rock was inconstant. It could be measured, and so long as you kept watching it, the stone would remained balanced, or the length you’d found, or whatever measurement you’d taken; but turn your back, or even glance aside, and the scales would tip, the stone would become longer or shorter, never so much of a change that you’d have noticed it without checking, but always changing slightly whenever your attention wandered. Whalen let one hand trail along the rough wooden side of that wagon as he passed, giving it a final proprietorial pat as he reached its end. It was, after all, his personal wagon, including amongst its contents a couple of small sized anvils and one or two of his hammers, including his favorite, one that had been a gift from his master when he had finished his apprenticeship these many years ago.

 

“What’s happening?” Whalen asked as he reached the guards, who were just dispersing to spread out and offer the wagons their protection. He had to repeat the question, partly because of his naturally soft voice, always a surprise when people first met the broad shouldered man, with his muscles near iron hard from years and years of working his craft, and partly because of another rolling rip of thunder that chose that moment to circle them.

 

“We’ve some visitors on the way,” the captain said, waving the arm holding his own smoldering end of rope passed the end of the wagon train to indicate the two figures approaching on horseback.

 

The pair of riders were coming at the gallop, their mounts steaming in the too hot, too heavy air. The one on the right was significantly larger than the other, both the horse and the rider, while the other almost looked to be a child.

 

“Looks like we’ll be seeing some rain after all,” Whalen said as he noticed how soaked the riders were.

 

As one, the captain and the smith glanced upwards. What had been a large circle of blue sky was beginning to shrink, the dark clouds spinning round as they closed in overhead.

 

The guard captain crossed himself at the sight. “Saint Marry and Joseph,” he said, “Like the eye of the very devil that is.”

 

With an effort, the smith managed to tear his gaze away from the hypnotizing sight above and look to the more immediate, and more comprehensible, problem riding toward them. “You’d best make ready to greet our new friends,” he told the captain, “they don’t look to be ere for trouble, but...”

 

“Right you lot!” the captain bellowed, “We’ve folk to be greeting,” he pointed to a few of his men, “You and you, either side of the trail and a bit back a ways, you and you, same thing but stay a few spans behind the first two. The rest of you keep your eyes to those trees before us. I’m not wanting to be taken down by wolves while talking to a shepherd. Keep it polite boys,” he told the four headed toward the back of the wagons, “you’ll not touch fire to your guns unless they fire first or I give the order.”

 

The men arrayed themselves according to their orders, blowing on the ends of their ropes to keep them lit as the wind picked up. Whalen walked further back, stopping just behind the last wagon to watch the riders. They’d closed much of the distance in the time it had taken for the guards to ready for their arrival, and the smith was mildly surprised to see that what he’d first taken for a child, was actually a child, a boy of what he guessed to be around twelve summers or so. He and the other rider, a man who bore some resemblance to the lad, pulled their mounts to a walk to continue their approach, the man’s hands held out to either side and well away from the pistils stuck through his belt.

 

“Hello! We’re looking for Whalen the smith; we’ve a message for him!” Jerald called, razing his voice to shout over another peal of thunder, louder than the sky’s earlier grumbling complaints.

 

The smith took a few steps forward, ignoring the guard captain’s half voiced complaints about people who hire guards and then go traipsing about. “That would be me,” he said as the captain dismounted and took up a stance a pace or so behind and to his right.

 

The lad slid down off his horse and passed the rains to the man, who took them with an abstracted air. The boy hurried over to where the smith stood and offered a leather tube to him. “A message from Solomon,” the lad said.

 

Whalen took the tube that had protected its contents from the rain the riders must have come through and undid its end. Inside was a rolled bit of parchment, which he opened to find a letter. He squinted at it, trying his best to read it in the rapidly dimming light, and despite the way the wind was trying to tear it from his hands.

 

Frank scuffed his foot in the dirt impatiently while the smith puzzled over Solomon’s less than neat handwriting. The man was actually mouthing along with what he was reading, and showing no signs of hurry. The message was a fabrication that Solomon had insisted that Jerald and his son should take with them.

 

“It’ll save you some difficult explaining,” he’d said as he rolled it up and put it inside its protective covering, “I’ve told him that I learned of the army’s plans through a source he knows I have, one he trusts as much as the stalwart fellow trusts anything.”

 

it had sounded like a good idea at the time, but now, confronted by the way the smith was plodding through the text, Frank was having trouble keeping his hands from ripping away the letter and reading it for the man. True that there was no logical reason for his sense of urgency; but he was close, so close to the stone, and he found that he could almost feel it, a nearly physical pressure, like needing desperately to find the privy.

 

Whalen at last finished the letter and looked up sharply. He looked back along the length of his wagons, and cried out to the guards, to the drovers, “Turn round, get turned around. We’re heading back and we’re doing it right now.”

 

Halfway through his order, the last bit of blue above them was swallowed by the black layer of cloud spinning closed. Replacing the last glimmer of sky, a flash of lightning burst out of the gloom. But it wasn’t just a flash. The sky directly above their heads held a glowing, spitting tangle of white hot discharges, too many dancing forks and tongues of lightning to be counted. They formed into a single flickering mass that provided a light near as bright and steady as the vanished sun, but with an unhealthy lambency that made the men’s skin appear as pale as so many ghosts. The horses of the guards and the mules in their traces began to rear, buck and plunge.

 

Whalen spun round and began running up the trail, yelling over the hissing roar above as he came to each driver, Frank unnoticed as he followed close on the smith’s heals. The drovers were more than pleased at the order, and they began trying to calm their animals enough to get them turned about.

 

Jerald kept his seat with a skill beyond any he’d ever had in the saddle before. He gave up any hope of holding onto Frank’s mount, simply letting the young gelding run off to find his own damnation. He shortened the rains of the grey-coated mare he was riding and found himself actually matching the strength of his arms against his mount’s frantic head tossing. To his dimly felt astonishment, he actually won, and the horse stilled, her head lowered, ears laid back, trembling in every muscle. Jerald touched his heals to her sides to nudge her forward and allow him to catch up with his son, but as soon as she realized he meant to let her move, she chose her own pace, and he flew passed the wagons at the best speed of which his panicked horse was capable.

 

Frank let the smith run ahead as he came to a particular wagon. This was it. He knew, just knew that the stone was in this very cart. He reached for the canvas covering, ignoring the half audible protest of the man on the wagon’s seat. As he began to lift the covering, a horse blew passed him, so close that he felt the breeze of its passage, even over the whipping wind of the storm, and felt the impact of the animal’s hooves on the earth as she pelted passed. He let go of the canvas and looked toward the panicky animal, recognizing the grey mare his father had been, and still was riding. He was clinging to the rains and trying without affect to stop her rushing flight.

 

Jerald found that he had no prayer of slowing, let alone stopping his mount. She continued running up the wagon trail, pulling ahead of the lead wagon where it was half turned round, the driver cursing at his mule and the smith trying to turn the animal by main strength, tugging on the mule’s halter rope with only slightly more success than Jerald’s useless efforts to stop his own beast. He wanted to turn round in the saddle and call back to his son, though he squashed the impulse ruthlessly. He had no idea what he would bother to say, he seriously doubted that he could be heard over the continuous thunder overhead, and if he had any hope of not taking a dangerous spill, he needed to keep his eyes forward and give the damn horse what little direction she was willing to take. This meant that he was the first to notice the other group of men as they spilt from the trees ahead. They were just as disarrayed and panicked as the men around the wagons behind him. Several horses were running back along the trail and over the ground in random directions. Jerald caught a brief glimpse of one man, his foot caught in the stirrup, being drug along the ground by his horse at a full gallop.

 

Things began to slow, and for a confused moment, Jerald actually thought he was gaining control of his mount. Things took on an unnatural clarity, making it easy for him to watch the man ahead of him lifting his rifle, sighting in, the puff of smoke torn away from the gun’s barrel almost as quickly as the bullet smashed into Jerald’s chest and knocked him out of the saddle.

 

He had plenty of time to watch as the ground floated up towards him, the flash of the mare’s legs, every single solitary blade of grass. He was surprised at how little pain there was, even thinking, “this isn’t so bad,” before he hit the ground.

 

“Damn,” he thought, “that hurts. Poor frank. No wonder he... he... the stone... my son.”

 

Frank screamed. It was an animal sound of mindless emotion-- pain, rage, fear, anger. His father lay on the ground, crumpled like so much discarded trash, the wind that was ruffling his clothing giving his body an obscene semblance of the life that had fled his mortal coil. Frank wasn’t fooled, had no doubt, fully understood that his father was dead. Lost in that timeless moment of his personal hell, he failed to notice that the raging ball of fury, the convulsing knot of lightning was lowering, elongating as it came like the questing finger of God, pointing at the wagon, at the stone, at the hammer, at the boy. He tore at the canvas, tearing it from under the ropes holding it in place with hysterical strength. He let the wind have it and leapt into the back of the wagon.

 

Close into the seat, Frank saw an anvil, a hammer, and the stone. He put the stone on the anvil and lifted the hammer over his head. The wagon, the boy, the hammer were all bathed in a blue glow, sparks flashing off them in all directions as Frank, screaming a mindless challenge at creation, brought down the hammer with every ounce of strength he possessed. The finger of god reached down, the sky tore open, and Frank was lost in the pure white blaze of nothingness.

 

Author’s note: that was it, the entire 2007 NaNoWriMo entry. The rest of this is the rest of part 1’s rough draft.

 

A stillness that was all motion, a silence so profound that it was all sound and fury

A light so bright that it was the deepest darkness,

The zero divide,

The thought that had thought itself, the paradox from which flowed all reason.

The task, the work that was already finished and which could never be completed.

 

Something was wrong. The flow, the current, the pattern, a clot, a blockage, a knotted tangle. Lost within the immense infinity that was no more than the smallest part of the whole was a spark, a... mind? Yes, a mind, something limited and limiting, something that clung desperately to what it had... known? Even as it sought escape. A shift, and the mind was given distance, gifted with the idea of what had been and what was not yet, it’s strange insistence on a past, a present, and a future was satisfied, and the mind gave the moment a word.

 

“Oof!”

 

Another shift, a rummaging through these, thoughts? And the mind presented another word, a way to... understand? The... question? That what the mind had become trapped in was... thinking?

 

“Pain?”

 

An instant, an eternity, and the thought understood understanding, drank in language.

 

“How droll!”

 

Pleasure and pain, anger and conciliation, and fear and love and hate and life and death and birth and loss and hope and joy and laughter and, and and and...

 

It saw now, and it borrowed another concept to understand further what it... felt? Envy, yes, envy for these little flickers, these brief glorious things. They were so small, so limited, but that gave them the chance to do? To dare? To dream? To strive, to fail and succeed?

 

The small mind was crying out, desperately demanding an end; but... it?  Yes, it, had just found these creatures. A shift, an expansion, a dipping into the fullness that couldn’t be held by this little mind, anymore than a rock could understand what the little mind thought and felt. These, minds, these, people, had their part to play, and it would watch. It would watch, must watch, its first desire would not be denied, anymore than it would willingly let go of what it had learned; the desire for desire was too strong. It understood why the little mind wanted to end, but it took one more word, one more concept to give its answer.

 

“No.”

 

He was stuck. Master Jacques had once shown him a piece of amber with a small insect trapped within its depths. Frank felt much like that fly, trapped, unable to move. His hands gripped the haft of the hammer, its head against the surface of the stone. In front of him, hanging in the air was a rain drop. Odd... had it been raining? He couldn’t move, couldn’t even shift his eyes the slight distance to be able to bring the drop of water into focus. It hung there, blurred in his sight, shimmering with the strange high pitched vibration that he felt through his whole body.

 

Frank tried to struggle, but his body didn’t respond. No matter how much effort he put into it, he remained as still as any statue, only the vibration, only that. He could remember, in a distant way, like a dream that was already being forgotten, what he’d just been through, the strange... mind? Being? God? That he’d been so briefly a part of. He’d received the impression that he was being sent back, that he had a task to perform before he’d be granted the oblivion he had so desperately been seeking. Something must have gone wrong. Certainly he could do nothing of note if he was to remain like this, forever in the instant when the hammer had fallen.

 

With a growing sense of panic, frank mentally twisted and struggled, until he did something that he’d never be able to describe, a sort of push, and the high pitched vibration changed, lowering, slowing. The rain drop was dancing now, visibly dancing up and down, and the hammer was jerking in his hands, repeatedly coming a short distance above the stone only to strike the stone again and again. Another, “push,” and the vibration was changed into motion. The hammer continued to dance in his hands, coming a few inches upward and falling again, the rain drop would fall a scant half an inch only to jerk back to where it had started. Another, stronger push, and frank was holding the hammer overhead, poised to deliver its blow. This time, Frank left the hammer balanced overhead. He lowered it slowly, dropping it to his side as the rain came pouring down. The stone was gone. The anvil was bear.

 

He looked around to find he was in the middle of a battle. Men and horses rushing this way and that as swords clashed and men cried out in pain and anger. It was far too wet for guns, even the flintlocks couldn’t be used in such a wet and blowing storm. A few moments of standing there, and a gunshot rang out, someone hadn’t fired yet, hadn’t been forced to try and reload when there was too much moisture in the air to keep the gun powder dry. Frank felt a flash of heat as the bullet struck home. He gave another push and was back in the wagon. He bent over, knees buckling with the remembered sensation of being shot, and the bullet that had killed him last time flew over his head.

 

Frank got back to his feet and looked behind him to see the wagon guard that the shot had been meant for falling from his saddle, blood gushing from the wound in his shoulder. The one who had fired his pistil let it fall from his hand as he road toward the wagons. He yanked his sword from its scabbard, turned his horse and swung the blade. Frank’s perspective spun dizzily as his head came off his shoulders. Another push and frank dropped, letting himself fall across the contents of the wagon as the sword whistled through the air where his neck had been, and the rider thundered passed.

 

“Ha!” Frank cried as he realized that things had changed, that he no longer would be forced to start over whenever he was killed. He scrambled back to his feet and jumped from the wagon. A hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around so that he was looking up into the face of the wagon guard’s captain.

 

“Ere now, boy!” the captain bellowed, “Get yourself under the wagon afore you get hurt.”

 

The captain loped off, screaming orders and trying to find a mount as he went. He was wrong though. Frank didn’t want to be safe, quite the opposite. Off to the right, his father’s body still lay, broken, discarded and forgotten in the chaos. Frank needed to die, needed to be able to give a much stronger push. He ran out to stand in the field, waving his arms and screaming at the soldiers of both sides.

 

“Kill me!” he screamed, “Damit! One of you mother loving fools kill me!”

 

No one obliged. He was ignored by both sides as they clashed with one another.

 

Frank sat in the mud and considered. He needed to push back further, but when and where. One of the attackers came at the gallop, and for a moment, Frank was certain he’d be lucky enough to die under the horses pounding hooves, but the damn animal avoided him, actually jumping over him where he sat in the mud and continuing forward to ride down the smith.

 

Frank nodded to himself. He really didn’t need to bother; he’d already found and struck at the stone, but he figured that he owed this Whalen something, if only because he’d held the stone for a time so that Frank could reach it. he got back to his feet and walked over to where one of the guard’s lay, moaning in pain and holding his hand just above the leg that had broken, trying to keep himself from clutching at the limb as his instincts demanded, the bone poking out of the flesh of his thigh.

 

“Ere now, boy!” the man gasped, unconsciously echoing the words of his captain, “Get yourself under one of the wagons... Ere! What you think you’re doing?”

 

Frank bent down and pulled the dagger from the man’s belt. He smiled at the poor devil, and drew the blade across his own throat. The blade slid his skin apart with silken ease; this man had kept a good edge on his weapon. He could feel the cold of the edge, the air as it bathed the sides of the slit he opened. For just a moment, the blood pooled, making it feel like his neck was being deformed by a bubble under the skin, but the next heartbeat and the blood came gushing out, almost seeming to burn with the heat of the flow that spurted through the air to bathe the dumbfounded guard’s face. If he hadn’t already been gagging on his own blood, hadn’t already begun to grow dizzy and faint as he bled out, Frank would have laughed at the poor fool’s purely flummoxed expression.  He fixed the moment he wished to return to in his mind, and pushed.

 

“That was it,” Franklin said, “From then on, whenever I died, I could go back any amount I chose. If I thought it would help, it could be just a few seconds. If I felt like I needed more time, I could go back years if I wanted to.”

 

“That really doesn’t explain how you’re still alive.” Father Jason said.

 

“Yeah, well,” Franklin said, “at first I was afraid that I’d reach the end of my lifetime and be sort of stuck again. I mean, what’s the use of being able to replay bits of your life if you still only get to replay the same eighty years or so. Turned out not to be that way. For whatever reason, the more often I die, the farther back I go, the healthier I get. I don’t even age unless I don’t push back for a long time.”

 

“So,” Darth said, voice heavy with disappointment, “that’s how you beat it.”

 

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Franklin said gently, “but I can’t give you the sort of help you want. I don’t know how what happens to me does what it does. There’s no magic cure. At least, not one that will work for anyone else. The best thing you can do is try and enjoy the time you have left.”

 

“It wasn’t for me,” Darth said with a sigh, “My daughter, my little girl. She was born with it,” Darth’s hands gripped the edge of the table tightly as he blinked rapidly, “she was born with it. You know? She was supposed to be safe. She’d lived long enough that we thought she was one of the babies that would be immune, but...”

 

“So what did you intend?” the priest asked, breaking the silence that had threatened to continue indefinitely, “back when you were about to jump off the old bridge.”

 

“Ah,” Franklin looked over at Darth, who was still lost in his private tragedy, “Suppose we save that for another time.”

 

Darth straightened and got to his feet. “I’ve got to get my meds from the car,” he said, “then I’ll... I guess I’ll...”

 

“Look,” Franklin said, getting to his own feet, “why don’t you crash on the couch.”

 

Darth nodded, too tired and depressed to argue.

 

The three of them stepped into the morning. Father Jason and Franklin forte stood about awkwardly as Darth took a large pill case from his jeep’s glove compartment. He hefted it and gave it a little shake, causing the contents to shluff and rattle.

 

“I shouldn’t have had any alcohol,” he said, obviously just to have something to say, “anyway, it takes me a while to take all these, and they usually knock me out for a while, so... I guess I’ll say good night, or,” Darth gestured up at the bright blue sky of the morning, “Good morning, or whatever.”

 

 “The glasses are over the sink,” Franklin told him, “and there’s milk soda and orange juice in the fridge if you want something to chase them with other than water.”

 

Darth nodded his thanks, and walked back inside.

 

“I guess I should be getting along,” Father Jason said.

 

Franklin fished out his pack of cigarettes, pulled one out and offered the open pack to the priest. The father remained after Franklin lit their smokes, the two of them sharing the comfort of their mutual addiction in silence.

 

“I could probably help him,” Franklin said when his cigarette had nearly burned down to the filter.

 

Father Jason blew out a last cloud of smoke and pinched the paper just above the glowing end of the smoke, letting the chary fall to the ground where he could step on it. he twisted his heal back and forth to be certain it was put out and pocketed the butt, raising his eyebrows at Franklin instead of speaking.

 

“Yeah,” Franklin said with a deep breath, “Sort of how I was going to save Aggie. You know the cancer was already too far along by the time we caught it?”

 

“Yes, that’s something I’ve been wondering about. Why didn’t you go back then and warn her?”

 

“A couple of reasons. First off, the damn sickness is a rollercoaster ride. The doctors keep telling you that there’s hope, and then, two years later, she’s gone. The other reason is because of parallel dimensions.”

 

The priest made a gentle sound of inquiry as Franklin pulled out another couple of cigarettes.

 

“You’d think I would have thought of it, you know? It seems so obvious to your people, but I didn’t have the advantage of all that science fiction you grew up around.”

 

“I really shouldn’t chain smoke like this,” Father Jason said, his tone one that made it clear that he had no intention of refusing or interrupting.

 

“Anyway, Aggie took the idea seriously. The first time I showed her what I could do was the last. She balled me out for it. She actually screamed at me, and you know how quiet she was most of the time. She figured that I had left a dead body for another version of her to deal with. She made me promise never to do that to her again.”

 

Father Jason nodded, some of the things the woman had said when he had come to give her her last rights finally falling into place. “That’s why she thanked you for staying,” he said, “I thought she had been afraid that you might just run off, but that’s not what she meant, was it?”

 

Franklin rubbed a hand across his mouth before answering, “No, not that. She knew I’d be tempted to push back a ways and try and catch the cancer early enough to do something about it. That’s what I was going to do from the bridge. I was going to go back, set myself up as a psychic, she was into that sort of thing when I first met her, and tell her to go to the doctor. I couldn’t leave her though. I don’t know if a parallel world splits off when I go back or not, but she was certain if I went back, one of her would have to deal with my suicide on top of her illness. She was so certain that I couldn’t take the risk. I couldn’t do that to her; even if the her I’d be with would never know.”

 

“I’m surprised you hadn’t thought of that yourself.”

 

“I did, sort of,” Franklin said with a shrug, “but I sort of ignored it. The same way you people ignore the way you all live under a death sentence.”

 

“And Darth?”

 

Franklin compressed his lips as his brows drew together in a frown of thought. “Ok,” he said, “I’m guessing that good old Humphrey in there gave it to his wife shortly before his daughter was born. HIV can hang around in the body for years before the symptoms show up, and the man seems as driven by guilt as fear. I could go back and keep him from ever catching it in the first place, but then there’d be no guarantee that his little girl would ever even be conceived. And what about whoever he caught it from? Should I save that one too? How far back along the chain should I go? There’s no telling what sorts of changes would happen, and the more I save, the further back I do it, the more things would change. If I change too much, maybe the nuclear war that we dodged by the skin of our teeth would happen after all. You see?”

 

“My son,” the priest said gently, “I don’t envy you at all, the sort of choices you’re faced with.” Father Jason took another drag. “I’d ask you one favor though, for me and for Aggie.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Supposing that Aggie was right. Suppose you go back and leave us poor mortals to deal with things without you while you change things for yourself. Wouldn’t you think, as a sign of respect, that it would be good to wait until after her funeral?”

 

Franklin chuckled, “what is it about people I call father? Alright, you’ve changed my mind. I won’t push back until after I’ve paid my respects at least. I’ve actually got another idea of how I might save her anyway, and I’ll have to stick around for quite a bit if I want to make it work.”

 

The priest gave him a smile of relieved approval. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, “Now, I should probably get going. Old men like me need their sleep, you know.”

 

Franklin watch the priest walk down the road. He continued to stand and smoke for several minutes, considering what he needed to do. The experts were constantly predicting the cure within the next ten years. He could set himself up with some money, win a lottery or two, fund some research, and go back with a much more certain way of saving her. Even if that didn’t work out, he could always do what he’d been planning to before the father had distracted him.

 

Franklin turned and looked at his broken front door and frowned. There was still the question of what to do about this Humphrey Darth person. The man was entirely too clever. He’d be bound to think of how Franklin could help him. It wasn’t something Franklin wanted to deal with if it was at all possible to avoid the issue.

 

He dropped his smoke on the ground and walked over to his battered old blue ford pickup. He climbed in, fished his keys from his pocket and started the old truck up. He’d have to change his name, go to ground. This time, he’d probably have to drop the name Frank, at least until he was fairly certain that Darth had given up. Half humming an old folk tune that was centuries old, Franklin forte drove out of town, intending not to return in this lifetime.

 

It was late afternoon when agent Humphrey Darth woke. He rolled off the couch and to his feet. He’d been having some disturbing and confused dreams, most of them mostly forgotten; but he’d figured out a way that this Franklin bastard could help. He tore through the house, calling the man’s name, but there was no one there. He eventually found that the old truck he’d seen in the driveway was gone. He was certain it was Franklin’s truck; he’d checked its license number against the vehicle registration information he’d gathered before setting out on what had turned out to be this useless trip.

 

He came back inside, his steps as heavy with despair as they’d been that morning when he’d learned that there was no cure to be had. He sat in one of the chairs by the small round kitchen table. He put his elbows on the table and cradled his head in his hands, holding still for a long time, mind blank. He drew in a shaky breath and lifted his head with an effort of will. In the middle of the table was his box of pills. He stared at it, trying to gather enough energy to take his medicine, but unable to quite muster enough ambition to do more than look at the case and the gun laying forgotten next to it.

 

Darth reached out to pick up the gun, thinking that he could at least put the dangerous weapon away; but his hands began shaking so badly that he found that he couldn’t pick it up. He pulled his hands back and looked at them. They still trembled for some reason. He tried another couple of times, but each time his damn hands betrayed him, unwilling or unable to grip the gun. He drew his hands back and looked at the damn thing where it sat, loaded, cocked, and ready.

 

“Ready for what?” he asked himself aloud.

 

The answer came to him like a revelation, and idea full, complete, almost beautiful. “Oh,” he breathed and his trembling subsided.

 

He had no trouble lifting the gun this time, though his hands began to shake again as he tried and failed to match Franklin’s casual air as he stuck the gun in his mouth. The barrel clicked against his teeth, which were chattering as well. He pulled the gun out of his mouth and shook his head. He placed his hands on either side of his head and squeezed, feeling the cold mettle of the gun against the right side of his face where he still held it.

 

“Coward,” he cursed himself as the tears began running down his face, “My fault.”

 

With an abrupt motion, he straightened and shoved the gun back in his mouth, cutting his lip against his own teeth. He couldn’t quite manage it. He tried, but his finger just wouldn’t tighten.

 

“Squeeze,” he thought meaninglessly, “Don’t pull.”

 

He squeezed his eyes shut, tasting the metal and blood as he kept the barrel where it was. He shouldn’t do it anyway. Only a worthless shit would abandon his little girl when she lay so sick. The least he could do was be man enough to stay with her until the end.

 

He began idly squeezing at the trigger. There was plenty of play, and he wasn’t really planning to do it. It was just a nervous motion, a tick, a game. How close could he get?

 

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

 

Each time his finger tightened, he felt a thrill run through him.

 

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

 

His breath would halt, his heart seem to stop.

 

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

 

It was almost soothing.

 

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

 

What the hell was he doing? What sort of stupid game was this? His body relaxed as he let go of the notion, let go of his pain, let go and decided that he wouldn’t do it.

 

The last of the tremors left his muscles as his finger tightened, one final time.

 

There was a muffled report, and agent Humphrey Darth felt no more pain.