Time Shards Read online

  Abruptly, he startled a bevy of grouse—the flock burst into noisy flight all around him, followed by coarse laughter and more baying from behind him. His legs and lungs burned as he strained to push his body to its limit, ducking low-hanging branches and crashing through thistles and brambles that cruelly bit the flesh of his hands and legs. His breath came ragged and sharp, as if a knife were working its way into his chest. His greatest pride, the silver torc given to him when he became a man, now clamped down on the corded muscles of his neck.

  Even in his desperation, he fought to think.

  I can’t outrun them. I have to try and outwit them. He took a sharp turn to the left, then to the right, seeking to throw them off his trail. He repeated the pattern, then again, and in one particularly dense thicket of alders he jerked to a stop and ducked behind a trunk, fighting to stay still.

  I can’t make a sound.

  I can’t make a sound.

  I can’t make a sound.

  Long agonizing moments passed while he waited and listened for his pursuers, hoping they would race past him. His aching legs and arms trembled, his heart thumped loud and rapid as a bodhrán drum, and his chest rose and fell as he struggled to breathe and stay hidden.

  Where are they?

  Had he finally shaken them?

  Suddenly they appeared, barely two paces away, grinning like skulls and howling in triumph. His failed ruse had only allowed them to close the distance. Cam pushed off the tree and tore away again at a new angle, yet both hunters and prey knew the game was coming to an end.

  He was becoming dizzy from the chase, his steps growing more unsteady, and more than once he tripped over a stone or unseen root and stumbled toward the ground, only to force himself up to his feet again. The Catuvellauni never slackened their pace for a moment, and he became certain they were toying with him.

  Cam prayed to the spirits of the trees and stones. Forgive my trespass. Please give me your aid. As the fire in his lungs turned white-hot, a strange light appeared somewhere up ahead, catching his eye. Without knowing in what direction he was going, he turned and ran toward it, hoping against hope that he had reached his kinsmen. As he ran into the light, however, a flash of a warning struck him.

  What if it is the enemy?

  It wasn’t. It was nothing more than a small break in the trees, a tiny green meadow lit by the few stray shafts of sunlight that could breach the leaden sky. Bursting out, Cam came to a ragged stop, trying to catch his breath. With a shock, he realized he had trespassed into the center of a fairy ring of mushrooms—very bad luck indeed.

  And then it was too late.

  * * *

  The Event radiates out from a single point on the timeline, a cataclysmic energy surge that reaches a critical threshold.

  The result is a shockwave that shatters six hundred million years of space-time into an untold number of fragments. The overwhelming majority of them are instantaneously converted to energy or blasted into subatomic particles. Only a tiny fraction of a single percent of the timeline remains, to coalesce back into a semblance of the original order.

  It is both the end of the world…

  …and the beginning.

  3

  Romford, United Kingdom Present day

  Gavin’s lips had barely touched Amber’s when the boat started shaking.

  Her eyes flew open to see the formerly quiet river now bucking and heaving beneath the punt, water bubbling and frothing like a pot of soup left too long on a burner. A high keening noise replaced the sounds of the birds. The smell of ozone, charred wood, and cooked seafood filled the air.

  “What’s happening?” Amber looked about wildly as fish floated to the top of the now boiling water. Gavin shook his head, confusion stamped on his face.

  “I don’t know!”

  A deep, unnatural thrumming began, like an industrial-sized dynamo firing up just below the boat. It resonated through Amber’s body, in her very bones, prickling along the skin of her arms and setting her teeth on edge. Droplets of water and tiny will-o’-wisps began to slowly jitter and float up into the air in an impossible, chaotic swirling dance, as if the laws of physics were fraying at the edges.

  Her hair whipped around her face, crackling with static electricity, and she clutched Gavin’s hands. Then the air erupted all around them. Amber screamed, but the sound was lost in the roar as a streaming wall of brilliantly colored light, both beautiful and terrifying, rose up through the center of the boat, stretching up into the sky.

  It flowed like a gravity-flipped Niagara Falls of raw power and light, just a foot from their faces, roaring with fury. The heat coming off the wall was close and searing. Only it wasn’t just a wall—it surrounded them until they were in the center of a tube of fiery brilliance.

  The keening noise spiraled into a wailing cry that threatened to burst her eardrums, the sound driving a spike of pain into her head. Just when Amber thought her skull would break open, the towering walls of light were gone again, and the deafening sound cut off as abruptly as it had started. Her hair settled back against her head, although her heart still pounded wildly.

  The boat seemed oddly frozen in place.

  An instant later it lurched to life again, but it was moving down. It fell a yard or so until they hit bottom with a bone-jarring, squishy thump. Amber threw herself backward, still clutching Gavin’s hands as water rushed toward them, filling the inside of the boat.

  There was an odd whooshing noise, almost like water running out a drain, as the boat gave one last dizzying lurch, pitched forward at a crazy angle, and then slid further until it came to a sudden, ungainly halt. The water drained back away from them until only a trickle remained.

  What was that?

  Adrenaline coursed through her body as she peered cautiously over the side of the punt. They rested on top of mud, dead fish and frogs littering the muck that until recently had been covered by the river.

  “Omigod,” she breathed. “That was the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen!” The quaver in her voice came as a shock. “Gavin, what’s happening?”

  He didn’t reply.

  Suddenly she noticed how limp his hands were in hers, and wondered if he’d been knocked unconscious. She looked down at his face, noting the expression of surprise on his handsome features, his head lolling to one side.

  Amber let out a throat-wrenching shriek as she frantically let go of Gavin’s hands. Deprived of that last support, he slumped down to the bottom of the boat, resting face down against her feet so she had a clear look at him.

  He’d still been straddling the middle seat when he’d leaned in to kiss her, twisting his body a bit awkwardly forward, so most of his torso, right hip and leg, and both arms now lay at an odd angle.

  Everything that had been on the other side of the wall of light—including the other half of Gavin—was gone.

  4

  The western border of the Trinovantian kingdom, Southeast Britain, AD 9

  The pair of Catuvellauni scouts burst out of the dark of the trees into the bright clearing. They smiled in triumph, swords ready for the kill.

  Cam raised his eyes to the sky.

  Gods of my father, hear me. Andraste, Goddess of Victory, grant me the chance to warn my people. Camulos, Lord of War and Sky, grant me strength.

  A ghostly calm emptiness filled him, his heart crushed down to a jagged mass of broken hopes in the pit of his stomach. Nothing remained but to fight and win, or die well. He reached for the knife at his belt. It was gone. He looked around for a weapon—a branch, a rock—then settled for two fists. His killers laughed, flanking him as they slowly closed in. Wind began to whistle through the pines and oaks, keening as if the wood spirits were already howling to avenge his death.

  Then the trees themselves came alive, trembling and shaking their rage. The scouts stopped in their tracks, for the first time seeming uncertain and frightened. The eerie sound rose until it filled the air, and then with a mighty roar, a sorcerous wall of shining g
reen and violet eldritch lightning-fire came to vivid life behind him. As he turned its light split the clearing in half and stretched off into the woods on both sides. The towering wall reached up and grew toward the clouds, casting a strange glow on the overcast sky.

  Cam threw himself to the ground, and the Catuvellauni scouts followed suit. The thunderous thrumming of sheer power that came off the shimmering wall of light echoed in his breastbone and made his head spin. An endless storm of banshees continued to rush out of the very earth, wailing into the heavens above. Then without warning, the wall was gone again.

  A new and very different forest lay beyond it.

  Denver, Colorado, AD 1924

  When the house started shaking, Maddie’s first thought was for her bread dough, rising in the oven. It would fall and give Jared another reason to find fault with her, although lord knew, she couldn’t control nature if it decided to throw an earthquake into the mix.

  Her second thought was that the shaking was oddly rhythmic for an earthquake, punctuated by loud, evenly spaced thuds that grew closer and more violent with each impact. Tea sloshed over the rim of her cup and the couch bucked, the legs almost coming off the ground. Her wedding china clattered in the rosewood hutch, saved from shattering to the ground by the thin railings around each shelf.

  A terrified yell brought Maddie to her feet, her bread dough forgotten as she made her way to the back door, throwing it open. She stopped in her tracks as she saw Jack, their cheerful mailman, staring up in terror at what looked like a giant feathered lizard with an oversized head.

  As Maddie watched, the creature dipped that big head, seizing the mailman between razor-edged teeth. His scream was cut off as the creature bit down, swallowing the top half as Jack’s legs fell to one side, hitting the ground with a dull thud. The thing scooped up the remains, chewing as it stomped further down the street, into unfamiliar swampy land that lay beyond. That swamp replaced the cheerfully painted houses and white picket-fences that had been there that morning.

  Maddie shut the door quietly, backing up until she’d reached the couch, where she promptly curled up under her grandma’s quilt. She thought she’d stay there for a while.

  Island of Oahu, AD 864

  The strange storm faded in the span of a few heartbeats, swifter than the conch shell blasts the holy men had blown to warn the islanders that the gods had descended. Waves of divine lightning had scarred the sky above the seas, leaping forth like a waterspout from the deep. From atop the promontory their people called Lē’ahi, the two young sisters who spent their mornings tending to the sacred fires had been graced with a magnificent view.

  They witnessed the gods of storms and seas at play.

  In respect and fear, the sisters bowed and averted their eyes until the sun returned and smiled upon them. Only then did the teary-eyed girls dare to look up and hug one another, shaken and yet elated. They had witnessed a miracle.

  Holding hands, they turned from the clifftop to return to their village below—only to catch sight of a second miracle. Below them lay Waikiki, which, until a few moments before, had been a swampy place of rivers and streams that fed the turquoise sea.

  Now a gigantic structure stood there. More like a mountain than a hut, far too immense to have been built by mortal hands. It was wide enough to cover a village, perfectly square like a konane board with edges straight as fishing spears. It towered into the sky as high as the hills, shining like the sun.

  High up in the towering structure, a man slid open an invisible door and stepped out onto a shelf that projected there. He whistled and called out,

  “Baby, you would not believe the view from up here!”

  Mount Vernon, Virginia, AD 1789

  “Mr. President!”

  Excited steps clattered down the hall, then George Washington’s secretary burst into the study. The president looked up from his writing desk in surprise. As he did, he noticed a keening wail coming from somewhere in the distance, impossible to localize.

  “Tobias, is the coach here already?”

  “No, sir. It’s not that. It’s outside—come quick, please!”

  Washington furrowed his brow, but arose to follow Tobias Lear out back to the mansion’s piazza. Tobias shielded his brow with one hand and pointed to the sky.

  “Look, sir!” he said. “Can it be some manner of lightning storm? Or the Aurora Borealis?”

  A cyclopean curtain of brilliant light obscured their view of the Potomac. The mysterious phenomenon appeared to have completely encircled the mountain on which the estate stood. Its rays reached up high overhead. Soon the shimmering walls blocked out the sky entirely, and the two men stood staring up as from the bottom of a fiery well.

  “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before in my life,” Washington murmured in awe.

  Tobias nodded. “It beggars belief.”

  As the two men continued to stare in wonderment the sound grew louder, more piercing, and then… the spectacular show of light simply vanished.

  Along with it went the river valley below. With a boom of thunder, a chilling blast of frigid air blew past the two men, startling them—but not as much as the new vista that lay before them. Mount Vernon had become an isle of green in a sea of pale frozen tundra. Where the Potomac had flowed was now a river of another kind—a moving carpet of huge tusked beasts with shaggy fur.

  “Great God in Heaven!” Tobias stammered in disbelief. “It looks like a migration of… elephants.”

  “Not elephants, Tobias,” Washington corrected, even as he struggled to comprehend the sight below. “Mastodons.”

  Upper Makefield Township, Pennsylvania, AD 1776

  A fine Christmas night, General Washington thought, huddled in the Durham boat with his men, cold and wet.

  A damp cloak of uncongenial drizzle had been cast off in favor of the mantle of winter in full force. Biting rain, then sleet, then snow. Save for the ice floes clogging the way and crunching against the sides of the boats, the Delaware was an inky black void of freezing water, choppy and treacherous. Few of his troops could swim.

  We need a victory.

  He considered the fourteen hundred Hessian mercenaries quartered in Trenton. Summer and fall had yielded nothing but one painful defeat after another. The morale of the Continental Army was spent, and their enlistments would expire soon. Tonight’s sneak attack was his last chance, and its outcome would make or break the entire revolution.

  “Well, I’ll be a lobsterback’s daughter,” one of the oarsmen muttered in disbelief. “Look at that now. The damn river’s boiling!”

  It was true. Despite the dark and the damp, great curls of steam were billowing from the black water. The inky river, so heartless and cold before, now roiled and churned with an angry new passion, and far down in its depths a growing light burned below them.

  Washington half stood to marvel at this odd turn, but before he could decipher its meaning, an eerie sound filled the air. A rising drone that tingled in their teeth and breastbones. Enormous walls of light burst into life, ringing the far horizon on all sides of the soldiers with a shining flame that banished the icy winter night.

  The vision lit up the river and the tiny men in their cramped boats, bathing them in the brightness of noonday, walls of angelic light towering above and encircling them in a shuddery, thundering brilliance that continued to rise into the heavens as far as they could see, reaching up to the stars.

  Then the waters and ice floes of the river—all the boats, with all the men and horses and cannons—were thrown into the sky and consumed in a final destroying blast of raw energy as everything in sight tumbled up and away into the void.

  On the road to the Theater of Pompey, Rome, March 15, 44 BC

  Beware the Ides of March.

  Above the thronging crowd along the Via Lata, borne by eight red-headed Thracian slaves in his sedan chair, Caesar kept his face proud and unreadable, but his thoughts were dark as the hateful phrase returned yet again, unbidden.


  Beware the Ides of March.

  He dismissed it. There was too much to be done. In three days he would lead the army against the Parthian Empire, far to the east. A chance to regain Rome’s honor following their most recent defeat at Carrhae. With that victory under his belt, the last resistance of the senate would be gone. But this morning one last senate meeting remained, before he could get on to the greater task before him.

  And yet, always obstacles.

  Rumors of ill omens ran wild through the city. To have well-drawn plans and the careful work of years continuously undone by rank superstition and fear… that was vexing.

  Men worry more about what they can’t see than about what they can.

  At yesterday’s supper, the question had arisen as to what sort of death was the best. He had quipped, “An unexpected one.” Everyone laughed. Then last night he dreamt of flying above Rome, above the clouds, clasping the hand of Jupiter himself.

  But his bold and intelligent wife, no superstitious fishmonger’s doxy, had been beset by nightmares about his safety. In the morning, her eyes red and slick with tears, she pleaded with him not to go out, begged him to postpone the senate meeting instead. He had never seen her so disturbed.

  Beware the Ides of March.

  March 15, the day of the Ides—today.

  The slaves were hard-pressed to navigate the sedan chair through the throng. A familiar figure jostled through the crowd, waving a scroll frantically and shouting to gain his attention. It was Artemidorus, the rhetorician. The little man leaned as close as he dared and stretched out a lanky arm, and Caesar deigned to take his scroll. He handed it in turn down to a servant, who would hold it for later. This alarmed the Greek.

  “Sire!” he protested. “The letter is of the utmost importance to you—I pray you, read it at once. I pray you!” But Artemidorus was left behind, mired in the crowd as Caesar’s retinue continued on its way. His desperate pleas were drowned out by the clamor.