long as Egarn was willing to talk, and they sat late over the remains of the porkley and heard Egarn’s tales of his own country and a time he called the past.
Early the next morning, Arne and Inskor rode to a high bluff and sat on a log looking at the sweep of forested hills that marched in diminishing order into Easlon. Beyond the horizon were the other nine peerdoms— safe for the time being from the ravages of Lant because of Egarn’s weapon and the valiance of the Easlon scouts. The grizzled old scout wore leather scouting garb; Arne, the wool jacket and trousers of a one-name crafter, much stained by travel. As first server of the Peer of Midlow, he was entitled to a uniform appropriate to that high office, but he disdained it. Two more nondescript-looking men had ever held the fate of a world in their hands—if they actually did. That was what they were trying to decide.
“All of this is beyond me,” Inskor said. “I can’t believe it is possible to travel through time and kill someone. We both know the past is over and done with, but if what Egarn says is true, while you and I are sitting here talking, I also am sitting somewhere else and talking with your father as we often did many sikes ago.”
Arne’s gray eyes were fixed on more remote horizons. “What Egarn said about the past—the wars and the destroyed civilization—explains much we have wondered about.”
“Maybe,” Inskor said doubtfully, “but talking about the past and traveling there are two different things. This Johnson must have been a monstrously evil man if the len he invented really did destroy the world and kill off most of the human race. If that could be prevented by murdering him, there is no doubt someone should do it. But who would believe such a thing is possible? Even if it could be done, Easlon has dozens of len grinders who can make a Honsun Len with ease. So does Midlow. So does every other peerdom. Why does Egarn think killing one man would make the len disappear? Surely someone else would have made it if this Johnson hadn’t.”
“A complicated thing like the Honsun Len can’t be made until it has been thought of,” Arne said. “It is the
“He doesn’t know,” Inskor said. “He hopes the past will be set on a new path toward a future without war and catastrophe. If many futures can exist at the same time, whatever that means, then we may not notice anything different. If the past has only one future, then the world we know would simply stop existing. We might vanish like the flame when you blow out a candle. Obviously he doesn’t know—he is simply guessing. He says if we do disappear into nothing, we would be sacrificing ourselves for the welfare of humanity. This is the one chance humanity has to keep most of the people of Earth from living out their lives in mindless slavery.”
“It
“No. Not a word of it. I would have asked him to make one and show me.”
“We are in the same position with this talk about time travel, so we will ask Egarn to build his machine and show us. He may not be able to. Some of the things he needs are so rare they may no longer exist, and without them he can’t even make a beginning. Even if he builds his machine, it may not do what he expects it to, and I have my doubts that Roszt and Kaynor can learn the past’s ways well enough to carry out his mission. If a total stranger who talked and behaved oddly suddenly appeared in Midd Village, people would keep an eye on him and stop him if he tried to kill someone. The past shouldn’t be much different in that respect.”
“That is true,” Inskor agreed. “Egarn says there were guardians who did nothing but try to prevent serious crimes like murder.”
“In any case, it may be sikes before Egarn’s machine is ready, and we can stop the the project any time we choose—if it doesn’t stop itself because of difficulties that can’t be overcome. There are only two decisions that must be made now. The first is whether to let Egarn start—because if he is to do this thing, he must start at once. He is elderly, and the future for the Ten Peerdoms looks bleak. The longer we wait, the more likely it is that events beyond our control will decide this for us.”
“I hate having to make decisions about things I don’t understand.”
Arne smiled at the old scout. “You have already made several important decisions about this, my friend, and all of them have been correct. The most vital was deciding not tell your peer about the weapon. I would trust my own peer with my life. I already have, several times. I feel the same way about the Peer of Easlon. Among the ten peers, they alone merit any kind of trust, as you well know, but I wouldn’t trust either of them with Egarn’s weapon.”
Inskor glumly agreed.
“Do your scouts know how totally secret all of this must be?” Arne asked.
“Only Bernal, Roszt, Kaynor, and one len grinder know about Egarn. The len grinder is Inskel.”
Arne nodded approvingly. Inskel was Inskor’s son, now middle-aged himself and highly skilled.
“The moment they were safely within Easlon, Bernal came on ahead to tell me what had happened, and I made certain no one else saw Egarn. Roszt and Kaynor have been with him ever since. Egarn showed Inskel how to make the weapon. Inskel divided the labor among the best len grinders in the peerdom. No one of them did enough work to understand what it was Inskel was making, and none of them knew that anyone else was helping him. Each was sworn to secrecy, of course. That was as much care as we could contrive when copies of the weapon were needed so urgently. The scouts who used them also were sworn to secrecy, but except for Bernal, none of them knows anything about Egarn. Are you really going ahead with this?”
“I will decide before I leave here. There are so many uncertainties in Egarn’s plan that it will probably come to nothing anyway, but the decision to start must be made at once. If we delay, we may find that it can’t be done at all. We will have ample time later to decide whether we really want him to send assassins into the past.”
“Will you confide in the League of One-Namers?”
“Not even the League can be trusted with this. I have to guard against spies in everything I do. There are always a few one-namers who will sell their birthrights for favors and advancement. Where Egarn is concerned, we can’t afford a single act of treachery. No one is to know this secret who doesn’t need to know it.”
“Where will Egarn work?”
“That is the second thing to be decided,” Arne said with a smile.
“I suggest Easlon. The Prince of Midlow will turn that peerdom into another Lant within a tenite of her mother’s death.”
“Some of us doubt that she will wait a tenite.”
“Yes. A pity. It is Midlow’s tragedy, but it is bound to affect all of us. I haven’t seen her since she was a child. They say she is a beautiful woman.”
“The most beautiful in the Ten Peerdoms. And the most vicious.”
Inskor leaped to his feet. A horseman was approaching in the valley far below them. “Messenger,” he said. “We had better meet him.”
They mounted and rode back down the slope. The messenger brought his galloping horse to a halt when he saw them approaching.
“The peer is coming!” he gasped.
Inskor turned to Arne. “I must be there to greet her.” He rode off at a furious pace with Arne and the messenger trailing after him.
Inskor’s command post was a large stone building artfully concealed in a mountain forest. It served as his residence and also as a supply depot for his scouts. Usually there were several of them resting there between missions. He was waiting at the entrance when the Peer of Easlon rode up at a smart canter.
She rode superbly despite her short, plump stature. Her daughter the prince was with her, only eighteen sikes old but already a radiantly beautiful woman. Their only escort consisted of two elderly servers, one of whom had been sent on ahead to announce her coming.
Inskor greeted them warmly and assisted them in dismounting. Then he sank to both knees and told the peer quietly, “Majesty, you should not have come here. You should never travel anywhere without a strong escort. You should never come this far east no matter how many servers accompany you. You and the prince should never travel together. These are perilous times.”
“Perilous for an invader, certainly,” the peer said. “But surely not for a peer traveling in her own domain.” She signaled Inskor to rise.
