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  Blinded, Leather Cap jabbed wildly with his spear. One of the thrusts missed him by inches.

  He shouted to Maíre and Caitlin, “Now! Run! I’ll be okay. You need to get back to Dugal!” Both women leapt to their feet, and within seconds had vanished into the rainy darkness.

  He backed away, and stood up, still keeping the flashlight in Leather Cap’s eyes. The man’s expression became shrewd. He’d clearly figured out that however his prey was magically making a powerful beam of light, it wasn’t hurting him. Clearly, if he had been able to do more, he would. Grunting laughter, Leather Cap reared back, prepared to pitch his spear at the source of the blinding beam.

  That’s when Darren remembered the electronic air horn.

  He felt for the button on the little plastic square, and fortunately for him, as he probably wouldn’t have had a second chance, found it on the first try. He squeezed the button as hard as he could, as if the pressure of his fingers would make a difference in its volume.

  An earsplitting honk filled the quiet night air. Leather Cap’s spear throw went wild, and there was a whiff of wind of it as it flew past his left ear. The Viking gave an involuntary cry of fear, and his hands went to his ears.

  “Evil spirit!” Leather Cap shouted, and turned and ran back toward the bonfire. “An evil spirit of the island has come!”

  He watched his enemy retreat, and burst into helpless laughter.

  “Yeah!” he shouted after him, and gave another celebratory honk on the air horn. “That one’s from my mom! She sends her regards!”

  It was only then that he remembered he was still holding his spear in his right hand. He’d never make a real warrior. Real warriors didn’t forget they were holding weapons.

  He looked in the direction of the fire, and listened for the sounds of pursuit. There was heated conversation going on— it sounded like an argument—but he couldn’t understand any words.

  He should at least find out what they were planning. If they were going to try and capture Maíre and Caitlin, he could warn them. Maybe they could take shelter elsewhere on the island.

  He shook his head. This island must be doing something to his brain. If anything like this had happened in Seattle, he’d have run in the opposite direction as fast as he could.

  Well, maybe it was because Maíre didn’t live in Seattle. Yeah, that could have something to do with it.

  He crept toward the fire as stealthily as he could manage, and before long he could hear the conversation—or, more accurately, the fight—that was taking place.

  “… brains of a dog and heart of a mouse!” one voice shouted. “Fool! Worthless cur! You let the women escape?”

  “They were protected by a spirit!” said a voice that he recognized as Leather Cap. “An evil spirit with fearsome power! His single eye glowed like the sun! And he had a voice like the trumpet of Heimdall!”

  “I heard the noise he made,” said another man. “To my ears, it sounded like a strangled goose.” There was general laughter at this, followed by an angry grunt, and the sound of shoving and fists hitting flesh.

  “Stop, fools,” said the first man, who was evidently the leader. “Get torches. The women cannot have gone far in the dark. We will find them and bring them back. And if we see Grim’s evil spirit with one eye and a voice like a trumpet, I will stick a spear through his breastbone myself.”

  Sounded like his cue to exit. He briefly wondered if he could find his way back to what was left of Dugal’s house in the dark, then decided that it didn’t matter, that anywhere was better than here. But he had not counted on the speed with which the Vikings could move, once they’d made their minds up. He had only gone a few feet, when the leader, jogging in his direction with a torch, spotted his silhouette in the shadows.

  “There is one of them!” the leader shouted. “After him!”

  He stumbled forward, and tried to fumble for the flashlight, but this time the darkness and the panic defeated him. He turned to see the leader bearing down on him, eyes wild, mouth open in a broken-toothed grin of triumph, his face ruddy in the light of the torch clutched in one massive fist. His muscular right arm went back, holding a spear that looked like a tree trunk with a barbed end. Giving a great cry, the Viking threw the spear directly at his chest.

  There was a moment during which he watched with strange, focused clarity as the enormous shaft sliced through the air toward him, knocking aside raindrops that glinted in the torch light. He felt like he could see air molecules moving out of the way of the razor-edged bronze tip. Then there was a sudden feeling of recoil, as if his body had been shot from a bowstring, and the entire scene—Vikings, spear, rain-drenched hillside in the dark, the wavering, sputtering torches—vanished, to be replaced by nothing at all.

  Part 2: The Keymaker

  When Darren’s consciousness rebooted, he found himself sitting on the floor in Fischer’s office. He was soaking wet, shivering uncontrollably, and his glasses were fogged and askew. Maggie looked at him, her eyes sympathetic behind her own round eyeglasses.

  “Had a nice trip?” Fischer said amiably.

  He struggled to his feet, and through chattering teeth said, “Dammit, Fischer, you almost got me killed!”

  “Let’s focus on the word almost,” Fischer said. “I always believe in looking on the bright side of things.”

  Maggie gave a little snort, which Fischer ignored.

  “So, more importantly, did you find Lee?” he asked.

  “No. I didn’t find Lee. I did find a crapload of really ugly Vikings who did their best to kill me. I also found Maíre Gillacomgain, but I’m not sure what I accomplished other than making sure her father was away from home, off on a wild goose chase with me, and unable to protect her and her brother and their mother when the Vikings attacked.”

  “Lucky thing for dear old dad, I would expect. How did the girl herself fare?”

  “Well, she and her mother got captured, but I rescued them.” He bit his lip. “Well, I think I did. You didn’t let me stick around long enough to see if they got recaptured.”

  “You rescued them?” Fischer sounded impressed. “From Vikings? Those guys were serious badasses. Maybe I misjudged you.” He paused, and then frowned at Darren, skepticism in his bright blue eyes. “Seriously? Vikings? Like, axes and beards and horned helmets and the works?”

  “I didn’t see any horned helmets. And most of them seemed to have spears, not axes.” He shuddered. “Great big nasty spears with sharp metal points. One of them hurled one at me, right before I came back here.”

  “Well, there’s another stereotype shattered. Too bad. I always thought the horned helmets were a nice touch.” Fischer looked at Maggie, who shrugged a little. “Anyway, it’s kind of peculiar that Lee never showed up. If he didn’t cause the divergence, then what did?”

  “The Vikings?” His shivering was abating, and he rubbed his arms, trying to get feeling back into his limbs.

  “Oh, yeah, the Vikings were great time travelers,” Fischer said, rolling his eyes. “That’s gotta be it.”

  “Well, I don’t hear you proposing any better theories,” he said.

  “He has a point,” Maggie said. “If Mister McCaskill didn’t show up personally to cause the divergence, it rather bashes a great hole in our idea of what caused this situation, don’t you think?”

  “It might be that you didn’t see him. Was McCaskill traveling with the Vikings, perhaps?”

  “I didn’t see him there. But it was dark. He might have been there somewhere. At that point, I had other things to worry about, like how not to end up missing valuable body parts.”

  “Well, you seem to have managed that well enough,” Fischer said. “You look mostly undamaged, although you’re dripping all over the floor.”

  “It was raining.”

  “It does that in Scotland,” Maggie said.

  “So, how did you know to get me back right before the spear hit me?” he asked. “I thought I was a dead duck.”

&nb
sp; “We didn’t,” Fischer said. “We let the computer handle that. The computer keeps track of where you are, and pulls you back if things get a little dicey.”

  “And the computer always gets you out just in time?”

  “Always. Lightning-fast processor. Cutting-edge technology.”

  “Well, there was Janowsky,” Maggie said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Fischer said. “I’d forgotten about Janowsky.”

  “Janowsky?” he said. “What happened to Janowsky?”

  “Well…” Fischer acted a little reluctant to discuss the topic. “Janowsky was a Monitor who worked on our custodial staff. He was a bit of a thrill-seeker.”

  “Morbid type, if you ask me.” Maggie’s round face radiated disapproval.

  “He wanted to take a vacation back to the eighteenth century, and experience the French Revolution first-hand.” Fischer paused. “He got his wish, I guess.”

  “He died? I thought you said your computer always kept track of where you were, and could pull you back to the Library!”

  “Oh, he came back to the Library,” Maggie said. “Just in two separate chunks, as it were.”

  “It took forever to get that stain out of the carpet,” Fischer said.

  Darren looked at Fischer, horrorstruck. “That’s terrible!”

  “Yes, well, we’ve upgraded the microprocessors since then. And in any case, you survived, didn’t you? Not too many people survive having a Viking chuck a spear at them. That’s two attempted murders you’ve lived through. I would think you’d be feeling pretty confident by now.”

  “Well, I’m not! In fact, confident is exactly what I’m not feeling! You send me back to freakin’ medieval Scotland, without a jacket, without any idea of what I’m doing, to try to find someone who’s already tried to kill me once, and who’s supposed to do something that we don’t even have the first idea of what it is, and he doesn’t show up but the freakin’ Vikings do, and nearly kill both me and this poor sweet Scottish girl who got captured because I went off with her father to try to find someone who wasn’t there, and I nearly get skewered by a spear, and you expect me to feel confident?” He stopped, staring at Fischer, panting a little.

  “You got that whole sentence out in one breath,” Fischer observed. “That was awesome.”

  He made a strangled, inarticulate noise of frustration.

  “Look, Ault, we’re trying to help you. If you’re not confident, you could at least be a little grateful.”

  “For what?”

  “For trying to bring your sorry ass back into existence.”

  “I’m assuming, since I’m back here in the Library rather than back in my apartment, that whatever it was I accomplished in Scotland—which at the moment seems like not very much—didn’t fix the problem.”

  “No, I’m guessing it didn’t. If you had fixed everything, I suppose you would have found yourself back in Seattle, not here. But let’s find out.” Fischer swiveled his chair toward his computer. Let’s see… what was the Scottish girl’s name, again?”

  “Maíre Gillacomgain.”

  “Right.” Fischer typed the name in. “What kind of weird-ass name is that, anyway?”

  He bristled. “She’d probably say the same thing about ‘Archibald.’”

  Fischer looked up at him sourly. “Shut the fuck up about Archibald, or I’m going to lock you in the top floor of the southeast wing.”

  “What’s in the top floor of the southeast wing?”

  “No one’s sure,” Maggie said. “All the records are written in languages no one speaks any more.”

  “Oh.” He subsided, but gave Fischer a glare. Somehow after nearly getting spitted by a Viking, Fischer didn’t seem quite so intimidating.

  “Well, look at this,” Fischer said, and Maggie and Darren went behind the desk.

  On the screen was an entry for Maíre Gillacomgain, and after her name it said: “Actual End Track Code = GGY899410-1918, spouse unknown,” followed by a list of dates and places.

  “So?” he said.

  “Check out the difference,” Fischer said, and with a click flipped to the screen that they’d been looking at immediately before his departure—the results that Norton SuperBifurcator had unearthed. He saw Maíre’s name again, followed by “Actual End Track Code = GGY837789-0098.”

  “So?” he said again.

  “Different end track codes,” Fischer said, his voice adopting a tone that sounded as if he were talking to a very young, and rather unintelligent, child.

  He raised his eyebrows. “So?” he said, for a third time.

  “Jesus. You send this guy on an adventure, and he comes back all snarky.” Fischer tapped the screen with his index finger. “Whatever you did changed the Gilla-whatever chick’s end track. In other words, you altered the course of her life.” Fischer typed in a command, and on the screen that appeared, he entered the two code numbers, then clicked a button that said, “Compare.”

  Within seconds, the computer responded.

  Gillacomgain, Maíre, Actual End Track Code = GGY899410-1918, divergence with Alternate End Track Code = GGY837789-0098 occurs on 16 August 903. Cause: abduction by Olaf Gudredsson, Actual End Track Code = AJK187228-4732. Actual End Track locked 12 December 955, South Uist, Hebrides, Scotland. Alternate End Track potential lock would have occurred on 18 August 913, Odense, Denmark. NOTE: unresolved temporal divergence associated with these track codes. Data maintenance necessary to reestablish correct tracking.

  “See?” Fischer said. “There you are, then.”

  “There what is? What does all of that mean?”

  Fischer snorted with annoyance. “Did one of the Vikings knock you on the head, or are you always this dense?”

  “Patience, Fischer,” Maggie said. “He’s new to all of this, remember.”

  “Fine.” Fischer took a deep breath. “Look at the alternate track. That’s what she had before you went back in time. That was what the computer said earlier was her actual track. And see? She died. Ten years after she was captured, in Denmark. That’s what ‘end track locked’ means”

  “Oh, my god,” he said. “That’s horrible! They recaptured her?”

  “No, you twit,” Fischer said. “I said that was her actual track. As in past tense. Now it’s just an alternate. Whatever you did, she got another forty-two-odd years of life because of it. And it looks like the Vikings didn’t recapture her.”

  “Thank god. I don’t think I’d have been able to forgive myself if what I’d done had made things go the other way.”

  “A tad smitten with her?” Fischer said, his mouth in a sardonic twist. “I could tell from the moment you got back here. The way you go all misty-eyed whenever I mention her name.”

  “She’s sweet,” he said, a little defensively. “And gorgeous.” He sagged. “Or was. I guess she died over a thousand years ago. I don’t even know how to think about that.”

  “You shouldn’t dwell on it,” Fischer said. “It isn’t healthy. Move on.”

  “She asked me to stay with her. Back there in tenth century Scotland.”

  “Did she? I hope you told her no.”

  “Well, it’s not like I had much choice in the matter.”

  “No, I suppose not. But you know that staying there wasn’t an option in any case. That’s how we got into this mess in the first place, someone going back in time and fucking everything up.”

  He looked at the computer again. It was hard to imagine her entire life, boiled down to a few lines in a computer archive. Not fair.

  He pointed at the last line on the screen. “What does all of that mean? ‘Data maintenance necessary to reestablish correct tracking.’”

  “It means the problem still hasn’t been corrected,” Maggie said. “The computer still has detected some sort of anomaly that it can’t resolve.”

  “So nothing I did made any real difference.”

  “All of our actions, even the smallest ones, make a difference,” she said. “Most of us never find out wha
t that difference is. All choices have consequences, however insignificant they seem at the time. However, the truth of that statement is only evident here in the Library, where we can see what would have happened if we had acted otherwise. Without that information, what happens simply… happens.”

  “I don’t know how you can stand it. If I knew all of the potential consequences of what I did, I’d never leave my apartment again.”

  “That, too, would be a choice, and have consequences,” she said. “You can’t escape it. It’s the price of being human.”

  “Well, I don’t like it.”

  “We’ll file that in our folder labeled ‘Tough Shit,’” Fischer said. “Man up. You saved this girl from being captured by the Vikings. You should be happy about that.”

  “I am. It’s just a little overwhelming.” He paused. “Could you see if her brother survived? He got hurt in the fight with the Vikings. He’s a nice kid. I hope he didn’t die from his injuries.”

  Fischer scowled. “I am not going to check on the fate of everyone you happened to meet in Scotland. Besides, the whole point of this is to set things back into their original tracks, which does not entail giving you all sorts of information you have no need to have.”

  He looked over at Maggie for support, but she gave a little shake of her head. “Fischer is right, Mister Ault. The contents of the Library are not, in general, safe for the ordinary human. It may seem unfair, but it’s a slippery slope. Finding out whether that unfortunate young man lived or died, over a thousand years ago, would help no one, least of all him. And once you felt the right to have access to that information, would you not want more? To find out the potential fates of people you care about now, people who are still alive and whose actual tracks are not yet locked? Foreknowledge of the future is a dangerous thing, Mister Ault. If you were given that knowledge, that act alone could well alter the track you are supposed to be on. We cannot do that.”

  “I don’t exist,” he said, a little sullenly. “I don’t have a track.”