A Question Of Time, Fred Saberhagen [best fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

fauna that flourished a million years before they were born.

      It was still daylight, or it was daylight again, under clouds. There was light enough to see a snarling, furry nightmare approaching among the rocks and scanty brush, to see it before it became an immediate threat. Joe, aiming to kill, sent a revolver bullet close enough to discourage the approach of a saber-toothed tiger.

      Studying the landscape warily, he observed how something that looked like a wolf—and yet was somehow different from any other wolf that he had ever seen—watched this demonstration intently from a little distance.

      “What was that?” asked John, pointing in another direction. “I thought I saw an elephant.”

      “A hairy elephant,” confirmed Bill’s voice. “Those tusks, they looked like shovels.”

      Joe carried the heavy pistol ready in his right hand. The group pressed on, with Drakulya in the lead, a leader who paid no attention to such mundane matters as a few restless predators. To him they were simply animals, not worthy of much concern. Sarah was still at the leader’s side, and now, more often than not, he was carrying the old woman, lifting her over obstacles as if she weighed no more than a glove.

      Meanwhile she gave directions in a weak but eager voice.

* * *

      They had reached the very dooryard of the little house before Cathy came out to greet them.

      “Mother,” she said at once, when her eyes fell on old Sarah.

      Tears were running in Sarah’s eyes. “A very old and feeble mother, dear. Can you ever forgive me, Cathy? I tried to hide you, to protect you, to save you, and perhaps there was no need.”

      “Where is Tyrrell?” Drakulya demanded.

      “My father rests during the day.”

      “If I can face this clouded daylight, he can do as much. Where does he rest?”

      The young woman in the doorway shook her head. “I don’t know.”

      What Drakulya might have said or done next, Joe was never to learn.

      Two voices were heard, coming from down canyon. In a moment Maria came into view in that direction. She was walking hand in hand with the glowing image of Edgar Tyrrell.

* * * * * *

      “He has given himself to it,” Drakulya muttered. “Or it has taken him.”

      The walking, glowing man, guiding an apparently willing Maria by the hand, came within easy hailing distance, and called out: “Welcome, Prince of Wallachia.”

      “I do not come in peace, or in friendship.”

      “Then let your fate be on your own head, Drakulya.” Tyrrell’s image glowed and wavered. He dropped Maria’s hand, and she began to edge away from him.

      Tyrrell’s voice boomed out. “You see, I need fear the sun no longer,” he proclaimed. “I am no longer nosferatu.” And with that he disappeared—

      —to be replaced by a green-eyed young man. “I am no longer a mere breather,” this one said. And in turn vanished—

      —to be replaced by the red-haired young woman, whose lips moved but whose words could not be heard. And then replaced by one older human figure, and another, their faces and outlines blurred, so that no one could see what they might have looked like in full life.

      —and, when his turn in the cycle came round again, Tyrrell was back.

      He said: “This is our planet’s life that dances before you, Drakulya. It was madness on my part to think that I could ever capture the essence of earth’s life in a carved rock—”

      Drakulya’s voice rang out. “Tyrrell, if you have still enough of your mind left to understand, hear me. What you have done is madness. The madness of the artist is allowable, even necessary. But you have gone beyond that. Human lives, not only your own, have been destroyed. The damage you have done to the planet’s spirit must be undone.”

      “Human lives?” The artist was scornful. “What are they? What is any human life, even yours or mine, compared to this?”

      “Speaking as a human, I consider my own life a very great thing indeed.”

      Drakulya had done with arguing. He spread his arms, and murmured magic.

      To Joe Keogh, standing by with Brainard’s pistol ready, the language sounded something like simple German. But he knew it must be more than that.

      Suddenly, the ground of the Deep Canyon quivered underneath Joe’s feet. Others were feeling a great change too; uneasiness spread among the group.

      “Hello. I’m Jake.”

      Tyrrell was gone again. Now the creature showed the face of the green-eyed young man, whoever he had been in life. It called itself by Jake’s name, and then once more by Camilla’s.

      Camilla and Jake appeared in rapid alternation, each of them calling for the other. For a brief time their voices sounded desperate.

      Then the young man, whose cheerfulness seemed to have been fully recovered, held the stage again. “This is Jake, everybody. We’re going to be friends.”

      Maria had been slowly making her way to join her rescuers. Like most of them, she watched in awe and fear.

      Drakulya’s arms were still extended, his lips still murmured words.

* * *

      The creature was visibly beginning to dissolve under his magical assault—the powers of the earth, Joe thought, were re-ordering themselves. Sequentially the thing of light disgorged a number of animals. Joe could recognize bears and deer. His mind recoiled from less familiar shapes.

* * *

      Tyrrell had not yet been vanquished. He reappeared again, shouting something to Sarah—Joe could not understand the words. He called his daughter’s name for a last time.

* * *

      Cathy did not seem to hear. Her full attention was somewhere else.

      “I need tools, physical tools,” Drakulya cried to her, and to Sarah. “Where are they kept?”

      “The workshop!”

      Willing young feet dashed away. Young hands were soon back, laden with heavy, mundane miner’s tools.

      “Those are my tools!” screamed the wraith of Jake, looming amid boiling light.

      Drakulya grabbed up a miner’s pick.

      The man who had been called Strangeways struck at the ground with iron, using all his strength. The tormented earth buckled up, sending people staggering, exposing a sharply demarcated seam between two layers of rock.

      “The Great Unconformity,” murmured Sarah.

      The seam writhed in the