The blinding silver light lessened and then dimmed, and Maertyn opened his eyes, only to find that scores of corridors swirled before him. Vertigo and nausea wrenched at him, and he immediately closed his eyes again.
Are you all right? As it had been with the woman in scarlet, Maarlyna?s voice was clear in his thoughts, not his ears.
I'm better…now. I opened my eyes…very disorienting. Where are we going? Maertyn grasped her smaller hand more firmly, holding on to the warmth of her presence.
To the center…or something like that.
The center of the canal? That's a thousand kays to the east…
The sense of a soft laugh bathed him. A control center, I think. I can't read theinscriptions on the wall…yet they're familiar…and I feel as though I should.
Maertyn concentrated on holding her hand and trying to follow her lead, not that such was difficult, because she was walking in a straight line.
We're going to stop and turn here. We're almost there, I think.
Where?
Maarlyna didn?t answer, but guided him through what must have been a door or an archway, because the sleeve of his shoulder brushed against stone. Then she stopped.
Maertyn took another half-step, then halted as well.
You can open your eyes, dear. It shouldn't be too bad.
Maertyn did. He found himself in a small chamber, no more than five yards by three, standing beside Maarlyna and facing a whirl of scarlet and gray that coalesced into a solid figure in a scarlet singlesuit, except that before the image or person solidified, a man in silver and gray stood there…
That…it was you… Maarlyna?s surprise went beyond the words in his head.
…only to be followed by a woman in pale ice-blue, before returning to the indistinct scarlet-clad figure.
Words echoed in Maertyn?s mind, but they were not directed at him. That he could sense.
The battle…not fought in one time…the choice…yours…to be key…keeper…of allthose…choose fate…the universe…this event-point…only you…so few…ever…able to see…
For all his concentration, Maertyn could only grasp fragments of sentences or phrases, words clearly directed at Maarlyna, a conversation to which he was party only in the sense of a partly deaf man trying to understand a rapid exchange between two others in an ancient tongue.
Wait! That preemptory command was Maarlyna?s. She turned to face Maertyn. Even though her mouth opened, he could hear the words only in his mind. You need to know…
Know what? He offered a wry smile. I have the feeling I'm not going to like what I'mgoing to hear.
It's not as bad as it could have been, dearest.
But…?
Would you want everything to end?
What do you mean…everything? Life? The world?
Slowly, she nodded. And I saw what I might be…and the awful emptiness that willhappen if I don't…
Can't you…or this power you're being offered…can't you just deal with the Gaerda? he pressed.
When I've asked you about politics and the government, sometimes, you've said to me…itdoesn't work that way. This doesn't work that way. If I choose…what I feel isright…things…between us, they'll change.
How?
I'll never be able to leave the station…I told you once that it was like coming home. Ididn't know how true that was…
Maertyn just stood there, his eyes burning, and not because of everything shifting around him. Time seemed to freeze, as though he could not move. But…why?
Everything affects everything else… She swallowed.
Maertyn could see that, and the tears flowing from her eyes.
If youknewthat Tauzn would destroy the world, what would you do? she asked after a time.
I still wouldn't want to lose you. Yet he knew that those words were not an answer, not with the Gaerda waiting outside the station, and not with the tears in her eyes.
Neither one of us will die. Things will be…different.
Different? How? He paused. Can we be together? Can I touch and hold you?
If you wish…for as long as…we can.
What do you mean…if we wish?
I'll be different. I'll know more…I think. I'll see things that will be hard for you to see.
Maertyn moistened his lips. Like the corridors that shift? They don't for you, do they?
No. Not in the way you mean.
He just stood there, trying to think, looking at the woman he loved, and for whom…He pushed that thought away. He?d done what he?d done as much for himself as for Maarlyna, and she?d hung on to him even when she hadn?t understood. And now…it was his turn. "Where you go so will I go…" Those words were cribbed from somewhere in the past. That he also knew. He also understood that while no feeling was truly new, that lack of novelty did not mean lack of truth…or love. And yet…how could he let go…?
How could he not…when she had already been through so much?
Finally, he looked at her again. I love you. I trust you. Do what you feel is right.
I love you…more than you know.
Maarlyna turned slightly and stepped forward. So did the indistinct figure…and they merged. Just as suddenly, Maertyn and Maarlyna stood alone in a small room. Thin consoles sheathed in golden-silver light lined the walls. Several panels on the consoles displayed stylized digits he could read, and letters he could not. At the same time, he had the feeling that the consoles were both there…and not there…although they did not flicker in and out of existence.
"What happened?" Maertyn swallowed.
The woman before him had Maarlyna?s features and slim figure, but the amber eyes were now silver, and her hair was a shade that somehow combined gold and silver without appearing old. And she wore the scarlet singlesuit.
"You…you?re the one, now, who appeared in the tube-train station?"
"Not exactly. That was a probability construct of the…canal." A sad smile crossed her lips. "I have a faint recollection of that, just as my memories of the Maarlyna who was before you healed her are faint."
"Why you?" asked Maertyn.
Maarlyna looked at him. "Why me? Did you hear what she said?"
He shook his head, trying to concentrate on his wife…if she were any longer just his wife.
"She said that I have less knowledge than others, but that knowledge can be learned. What cannot be learned is to see things as they are…as once in ancient times, a poet said, to see them played upon a blue guitar…" Maarlyna offered an embarrassed smile, one that recalled the woman he loved. "I couldn?t make up words like that, you know?"
Maertyn had liked the flow of those words, and the feeling they evoked, but could only guess at the instrument to which they referred. "But…what was she?…and you?"
"She was the construct…the…pattern…the knowledge…of the last keeper of the Bridge…the canal." Maarlyna took his hand, and hers was cool, but still warm enough for him to know that she was indeed still there. "We need to go back. I…we have some things to do."
"Where?"
"Back in the station. It?s easier there, or it will be for them."
"Them? Are the black-shirts in the station? How could they-"
"No. These aren?t the Gaerda. I can?t explain yet, not exactly, because I?m still two people, except I?m not, and I?m afraid if I don?t do what I must while I still know what it is, I won?t be either." Maarlyna began to walk back along the corridor, now lit in the pervasive silver-gold, but without any consoles.
"What are you going to do?"
"Prevent the unraveling of eternity…in our universe. If I can…The keeper…the pattern…said I could…"
The unraveling of the universe? Maertyn wanted to shake his head. In the space of a few days, his once-quiet wife had gone from someone he thought he knew into someone very different, more confident…and someone or even something possibly far more powerful. And he really didn?t understand why or how, all because he?d maneuvered himself into getting assigned an obscure research project, as much to protect her as anything.
He found he had to walk quickly to keep up with her as she walked through what was, or had been, the lower kitchen area and up the ramp to the main level and into his laboratory. There she glanced around. So did Maertyn. All his tables and equipment were there, but overlying them were colored but more than ghost-like images of consoles sheathed in light.
Maarlyna kept looking, although Maertyn had the feeling she was looking somewhere he could not see.
Then the light shifted again, and Maarlyna seemed to shimmer, as if she were there, and not quite there, except she was. Before her, as if through a shining veil or a misty mirror, stood two indistinct figures, although one was apparently a tall woman clad in pale golden armor, or something similar.
Maarlyna said something, but it meant nothing to Maertyn. He concentrated, realizing that the little he "heard" was in his mind and thoughts.
…face the end of eternity…
Why…nothing fixed before? asked one of the ghost images.
You could not see it…needed key and keeper…no time…You perceive…continuityas…temporal…no time. There are only…event-points.
…something you're doing for us?
That is what a keeper does.
With those words, Maertyn sensed sadness…melancholy. He wondered why and lost his concentration on what was going on before him.
…universe…a pivot point…battle…that will decide whether all continues.
What about you?
I am the keeper…last keeper fought…the ring in the heavens…
Maertyn tried to follow the seemingly mental interchanges, but lost much of what Maarlyna was saying. He did get a sense that whoever she addressed faced a far bigger problem than he and she did, and that the political machinations of Tauzn were almost trivial by comparison.
Suddenly, the light changed, and the two of them stood alone in the workroom.
Maarlyna looked very tired.
"Are you all right?"
"We need to eat."
"Can you tell me what all that was about?" Maertyn rubbed his forehead, trying to massage away the headache he hadn?t realized that he even had.
"After we eat. Doing…that…is harder than I thought."
"Doing what?"
"Talking across time. But time doesn?t work that way." She turned. "I have to eat something. I?ll tell you then."
Her face was pale. He didn?t say another word, just took her hand and walked out of the laboratory and down the ramp to the kitchen area.