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zzambrosius_02
Ambros said: “I think I’m ready...”
“Will you be back tonight?” Kim asked.
“50-50.” Ambros replied: “it’s likely that I’ll run into friends, get invited to dinner or parties, drink too much, and sleep by somebody’s fire. If not, I’ll be back tonight.”
“Tomorrow morning, then,” she laughed: “I’ll stay the night, and see you when you drop in.”
Ambros also laughed.
He had his SCA armor on, rattan arming sword and longsword and his shield in a duffle over his shoulder. He picked up a nine-foot carbon fiber pike from the floor beside him. He waved good-bye to Kim, and dropped in to a spot near the Main Battle Field at a site in Pennsylvania.
‘This is the biggest, most elaborate encampment of SCAdians in the world: every year in August right here on this ground,’ he mused.
He looked around; no one paid him any mind. ‘As I expected. I dropped in right beside the Field, and no one even noticed!’ He laughed to himself: ‘The sheer number of people hereabouts, as the first big battle of the day approaches, almost guarantees that my sudden appearance would go unnoticed.’ Being in armor, he fit the scene so well that even someone who looked right at him as he manifested would simply convince themselves of some explanation.
The logistics of getting a thousand or more people ready for a mock battle often took up hours of time, time Ambros had no desire to waste. He’d sent a Commonwealth drone through earlier that morning, and monitored the situation on the ground in Pennsylvania occasionally, as he worked on documentation for an essay. When the drone showed him Staff moving the small cannon into place, he’d armored up and prepared for this trip.
He arched his back a bit, shaking his shoulders to loosen them up. He saw the Banner of the Midrealm set up at the near end of the field: ‘That’s convenient,’ he thought. He lifted his right foot off the ground, testing his weight on the left leg: ‘Feels okay...almost normal.’
He made no move to leave the shade when the various forces began to muster, lining up opposite each other and in the hot bright sun.
After some time, the cannon blasted the beginning of the battle. He watched as one wave of medievalists after another crashed into each other, or stopped (‘Too far apart,’ he thought) and exchanged blows.
When a steady stream of combatants were entering and leaving the resurrection point near the banner, he rose and took up shield and sword.
He entered the ‘resurrection point’ from behind the banner and immediately found himself surrounded by unbelted fighters he did not know: “Sir, may we follow you?”
“If you wish...but you’ll have to do this my way.”
They assented eagerly.
“Okay,” he said: “When we approach the opposite shield wall, we continue moving forward until we can actually engage the Eastsies. I hate standing around waiting to get killed by pikemen. How’s that sound?”
“Okay,” said one hulking mail-clad twenty-something: “I hate waiting to die, too.”
They all laughed.
“Right,” said Ambros, pointing at Hulk: ”You, and you, and that skinny guy over there...stay by me. The rest of you, form a shield wall, tight! One more thing: When I holler ‘BOO!’ that means take a step forward. If you try to stop in pike-range I’ll BOO BOO you forward! Ready? Let’s go: At the walk...march!”
He walked his troop right up to an exposed chunk of shield-wall, shaking his head: ‘Nobody even tried to charge through this gap...’
“BOO,” he shouted: “Boo! Boo!”
He watched as his little troop engaged the other wall; the foe were somewhat perplexed, this not being the usual way things went in such SCA open-field battles.
One of his guys stepped back, sword held high, calling out: “Dead!” Ambros nudged Hulk forward into the hole.
Another fighter went down, then crawled away from the melee; one of Ambros’ reserves stepped in.
His last reserve stepped forward and caught a pike to the chin. He fell, scrambled up, and headed for “resurrection”.
Ambros raised his shield and stepped into the gap. He caught a pike on his shield, and saw that the ‘enemy’ shield wall had begun to crumble.
“Listen up boys! BOO! BOO! BOO! BOO!”
He took three quick steps back and yelled at the warriors on either side: “Roll ‘em up, guys! Through the gap!” Then he yelled happily and charged into the scrum.
He sat at the edge of the resurrection point, happy as could be. He’d exchanged names and MyFace IDs with the fellows he’d led into battle, promising to keep in touch. A couple of the newer guys in the bunch ran back out to fight pickups; the more experienced sergeants and squires expressed their awe at his battle tactics.
He laughed: “Simple enough stuff, guys. Don’t stand on killing ground, and hold a couple guys in reserve. That scales up to the overall commnader, too: Keep a reserve, so you can reset the fight when the other side is tired. Remember those tips and you too can become a famous War Commander.”
When asked to lead them again, he demurred: “One fight like that is enough for a guy my age.”
He pulled his helm off, putting it into the duffel. He drew his leather-and-blackened-steel coronet from its loop on his belt and donned it, wiggling it until it sat straight. He saw that there was a water station in the line of tents that bordered his end of the field. He went in search of food and drink.
Ambros walked along in the gloaming. He’d fought pickup fights in the intervals between battles, and one of his opponents had fed him lunch. In exchange, Ambros had told a story or two from ‘the-good-old-days’ and sung a couple songs for his meal. He had sent his armor and weapons home via Jump, except his steel short sword. He was now returning to the Main Battle Field to hear Mistress Celia Chanter’s performance of Grimbold’s Saga.
“That’s the real reason I’m here,” he mumurred.
One man turned as he passed.
“I will be dipped in shit!” the gentleman exclaimed.
Ambros turned, recognizing the voice: “Anthony...”
He took in the white leather belt and heavy gold chain that Anthony wore and corrected himself: “Sir Anthony, I should say...I have been out of touch.”
Sir Anthony embraced him: “Been a few years, all right. What are you doing back in these parts?”
Ambros shrugged: “Mistress Celia is supposed to take the field to sing Grimbold’s Saga, around about now. Celebration of a life fully-realized, right? I day-tripped the event mostly to hear the poem.”
“Wait, what? Old Grim? I...How? He wasn’t even fifty!”
“He died a Hero, Tony,” Ambros murmured: “Fighting a fire in Nashville.”
Sir Anthony cursed, in Occitan.
Ambros nodded: “Every bit of that. Look, there’s Celia! Let’s get close, I want to really hear this.”
“Oh yeah.”
They began to work their way though a gathering crowd. Event Staff carried a small stage out to a spot on the Field, and Mistress Celia’s apprentices carried her harp and Saxon lute out, placing them just so. A Staffer pushed her in her wheelchair and lifted her bodily onto the stage, chair and all.
She maneuvered herself into position and checked the tuning on each instrument. When she looked up, she saw Ambros and Anthony struggling to get near, stepping among people already seated on the ground. “Pardon us...m’lord, m’lady...may I pass through here...thank you, I beg leave to go on...”
“Please my Lords, my Ladies, make a way! Let those two gentlemen, Viscount Ambrose and Sir Anthony, let them come closer!”
They reached the spot and each man set one knee on the stage near her. She smiled happily: “I am so glad you could attend, Ambrose!”
Sir Anthony bowed his head: “I just heard a moment ago...”
“Come now, Sir!” she said, sternly: “Don’t go making me cry now, I’ve a deal of singing and chanting to do and it will not be a performance worthy of Grim if I’m weeping. Go now, sit close and listen...”
Two squires bearing torches came and stood to either side of Celia. She lifted the Saxon lute and began to strum it. Ambros looked back over his shoulder, imagining this scene from the point of view of a newcomer near the back of the crowd. The lute rang out, as Celia strummed; all was nearly dark, save for the torchlight.
“She’d look like an elvish queen from that far away...” he muttered.
Celia then began to sing and chant verses.
Ambros pushed Celia’s chair along a dark pathway. Torchlight and campfires lit the scenes on either side of them. Celia’s weeping had ceased some way back, but none of them wanted to break the silence. Sir Anthony and one of his squires paced along beside them.
A golf cart with a blindingly bright headlight approached from behind them, then pulled to a stop beside.
“You folks all right? Oh, pardon me, Mistress, Your Excellency, Sir. But we could haul you and your chair to wherever you are going...”
“I would rather continue, with these gentlemen to aid me, but thank you so much for your offer.” Celia smiled.
After sketching a salute, the driver propelled the cart down the hill towards the camping area.
“I am camped just up here by the turn,” said Anthony: “We could rest a bit, and I could buy you each a drink...”
Celia said: “You have something non-alcholic, I expect? Then I’ll accept,”
“Yes, Mistress. I’ll get some ginger ale for you, and I remember Ambrose’s preferences.”
“You have Jameson’s?” Ambros was amused.
“Better than that. I have the Macallan, 18 years old.”
“Twist my arm.”
Anthony’s lady Alys welcomed them. Ambros did not remember her, but she knew him by sight. A Laurel’s medalion hung round her neck.
A Squire brought chairs to the firepit, and they all sat down.
“Yo, Squires!” Anthony called out.
Three more such came from the tents round about. They gazed, curious, at the scene before them.
Anthony got a stack of silver shot glasses from a trunk nearby. He said to Ambros: “You’ll get the Macallan next, I promise. But first...”
He pulled a bottle of cheap gin out of the trunk, twisted off the top and poured, handing a shot to each person around the fire, and then to each of the Squires. They looked uncomfortable, or at least unclear on their Knight’s intentions. A few more men and women gathered from other parts of the camp, drawn by the sounds.
Ambros had no idea how large the household following of his old friend had grown, but he could see at least twenty tents illuminated by the fire, and hear other people revelling nearby.
“Okay,” Anthony said: “First, you Squires have heard me speak of this old reprobate before, but none of y’all have met him. So, this is Viscount Ambrose Mavrokoronas, who got knighted the night before I became a squire to the same guy he’d been squired to.”
The Squires lit up, then. It appeared they did indeed know of Ambros, and that the legends of his deeds had made a goodimpression on them. With handshakes exchanged and general bonhomieestablished, Anthony spoke more seriously:
“I just tonight found out that Count Grimbold is dead...” He raised a hand for silence: “...and I mourn that death mightily. Nevertheless, I insist on good cheer in this camp...and Grim would, too. But.”
He looked at the shot in his hand and continued: “But, there is a duty I feel as part of my mourning.” He raised the glass: “To Grim, whose favorite drink was straight gin, the cheaper the better, I raise my glass!”
They all copied him, Celia with her crystal goblet of ginger ale, the rest of the camp with either gin shots or whatever drink they held when they gathered.
“Will you lead the toast, Your Excellency?”
“Happy to,” said Ambros: “Okay, people: the Grimbold Way is to hammer the shot, and it makes sense once you realize how cheap his gin always was. So... here’s to Grim, and the Grimbold Way!”
Ambros tipped his head back and poured the liquor down his throat.
Everyone else followed suit, and then people burst out coughing and choking.
Ambros held his breath, shuddering at the flavor of the stuff.
Anthony made as if to put the bottle away, tears in his eyes: “I brought that just for Grim. I thought I’d see him...”
Ambros said: “Anyone else want more of that...swill?”
Loud denials rose around the fire.
“Gimme the bottle, if you please, Sir.”
Anthony frowned, puzzled, but handed the bottle over
Ambros took the bottle Anthony extended and looked at the label: “Panther sweat. But it’s exactly the kind of garbage old Grim loved,” he said. He twisted the cap off and tossed a shot into the fire: “Have a drink on us, Grim. Don’t drink all of Old Odin’s mead, not tonight anyway.” He passed the plastic bottle to Celia.
She tossed a bit into the fire and said: “Sing some of those old dirty doggerels of yours for the Valkyries, Grim.”
Ambros took the bottle back from Celia and handed it to Anthony.
“Enjoy Valhalla, dude,” Anthony said, pouring a shot and tossing it into the fire.
Each shot produced bilious blue green and white flames
The rest of the folks gathered around; each tossed a bit of gin into the fire.
Ambros woke early: ‘Not really dawn yet...shit.”
His head pounded, and he felt hangover sweat pouring off him. “I didn’t drink that much...it was the gin. I oughta know better by now. Gin hates me.” He looked around.
He wore his garb still: layers of silk, linen and wool; he remained in the chair he’d been in the night before. Someone had swathed him in blankets and put a woolen hood over his head. It took him several minutes to unwind all the bits.
He closed his eyes then, and stood up slowly. When he was upright he gazed around the camp: ‘Everyone asleep yet. Good.’
He stopped for a moment: ‘My duffle, with my armor and stuff...right, I sent that back before the party...’
He got out his Shifter and concentrated on the Salon; he Jumped.
Ambros strode the hallways if the Command Complex in Athino. He had his helm in hand, so everyone could see his face: not angry, but intent. His cloned leg felt entirely natural by then but still pained him at times. He deliberately did not limp, even when it twinged.
He found the bank of elevators that he sought and made a motion with his right hand. A door opened and he stepped in: “Baso na vathysta,” he said, bracing himself.
The car spun, leaving him slightly dizzy. It sped off in its new direction; he’d never made sense of how the cars were routed or how they crossed and crisscrossed as they sped about.
He groaned and grabbed his head as his ‘position sense’ showed him just what he didn’t really need to see.
“All right!” he exclaimed: “I was just thinking idly about that! I didn’t need...”
It was too late. He knew the whole system now. He cursed mildly, and saw how he’d been routed around several areas of heavy traffic, as the machine calculated a kind of “percentage Status” score compared to every other current user.
The car stopped and the door slid aside. He walked more slowly as he entered a huge cargo bay lit by bright yellow and blue lights high up in the ceiling. He saw Megalos and Gennasi chatting, looking serious, and went towards them.
Ambros returned their salutes and said: “I got a message from Arrenji, she said you’d like my help...?”
“Yes, we would.” Megalos said: “We are beginning a humanitarian intervention in two USIT Lines, Five and Seven in the current nomenclature.”
“Go on,” said Ambros.
“There is a nasty situation in Line Six, because of the nuclear strikes all over the planet in that Line,” said Gennasi: “Lines Five and Seven, being adjacent, are suffering badly as a result, though no one in those Lines really understands why. There is a three-way struggle going on between forces from the Central African Republic, (which doesn’t seem to be a Republic) and a nation named, oddly, Chad. The third country is called the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is...”
“Neither democratic nor a republic, I know,” said Ambros: “What do you want me to do?”
“The...CAR, as it is abbreviated in those Lines, is getting the worst of the fight. Its population is squeezed into the capital city, and the Chads are pushing hard at them. Civilian casualties are rising. The DRC, a mostly Catholic country, is intervening on behalf of the Christian government in CAR. The situation is such that the three sides don’t even understand why they are fighting.”
Ambros nodded: “I saw a report about that. General staff in all three countries were asking what the point was, right up till they took casualties. Now they’re not liable to stop fighting come hell or high water.”
“We’re going to stop them,” said Gennasi: “It’s BWG’s type of mission, to reduce the suffering of civilian populations whenever we can do so.”
“I get that. You think you can do it?” Ambros kept his tone neutral: “Africa is a tough place to fight, or to stop people fightng.”
Gennasi said: “The plan is simple.”
Ambros snorted with laughter, then silenced himself; Megálos nodded sympathetically at him.
After a moment, Gennasi continued: “We drop in to these spots,” a map appeared in front of her: “and push along these four river valleys, separating the warring armies along these lines. Then we can—maybe—evacuate the civilians in Bangui along this river, the Ubangui, into this other country, also called Congo.”
She began to elaborate; Ambros stopped her with a fist by his ear.
“I don’t need to know any more. I’ll help. I’ll do it for Arrenji, and because Black Warrior Guild helped me big time in that Alaskan operation in the Tom Paine Line. But I don’t have time to memorize a bunch of details.” He turned on his MPS and waved the calendar function into view: “I have a thousand things to do...”
Megálos looked at the chart: “That’s somewhat exaggerated, but I take your point. What do you wantto do, right now?”
“I’ll place myself at your service for this operation. I’ll go where you two go, watch your backs, and if you split up I’ll go with the one who needs me most. I’ll run errands, and fight where you tell me to fight, if that becomes necessary. How’s that?”
“It will do. Come with me,” said Megálos: “I’m going on the first wave, into Seven. Gennasi is headed for Five.”
Ambros stood on the launch pad with fifty BWG soldiers and a couple of Sacred Banders whom he knew only slightly. He mused a moment on that: ‘Considering how few we are—less than one percent of the total Hellenic military—you’d think we’d all be good friends...’
It was just that they all had so many duties, “jobs” they needed to do, one after the other, that they never crossed paths much. He knew many BWG members by name; among SB, only Arrenji and Voukli were really friends of his.
The Controller counted down from seven and they Saltated.
A man in a pair of goggles and a mask that made the lower half of his face look like a grinnning skull stood right in front of them with a pistol in his waistband and a rifle held low front. The fellow shouted on a rising note and and a fusillade of incoming fire washed over them.
Megálos spoke quietly, ordering his troops into a wedge and moving forward. More Hellenes dropped in behind them and then still more. The soldiers and militia and (apparent) civilians shooting at them gradually ceased fire and began to retreat.
“Which side is this bunch on?” Megálos muttered.
“Almost impossible to tell.” Ambros waited for an opportunity and then leapt forward, grabbing a heavily armed boy of twelve or so and pulling him in among the Hellenes. He stripped the kid’s weapons away and handed them to Hellenes.
More Commonwealth troops dropped in. Seeing that, the men attacking them ran for the distant treeline or hopped into old Datsun trucks or Jeeps and sped away.
Ambros interrogated the boy, using his recently improved French. Hot wind kicked up dust that blew around them in little cyclones. Vast open areas of pounded dirt spread out in all directions, with miniscule copses or narrow lines of trees, all that remained of once-lush tropical rain forests. Houses sat here and there along the sides of the road, or scattered across the mostly desolate landscape. Some of them were burned, with charred corpses left half in, half out of windows and doors.
He could see bodies on both sides of the road: casualties of the fighting that preceded their arrival. Many of the corpses were mutilated. He decided to concentrate on questions and answers, and what the boy could tell him.
After a bit, he said: “Endaxi, Commander. I got an outline of what’s going on hereabouts.”
“Hang on, I’m putting you on all channels...go!”
Ambros spoke slowly: “Pay attention. Look at these maps. The bunch we dropped in on here? They are a Christian militia. They are defending the edge of the city of Bangui. Their ethnic-religious group has been on top for half a century. The Christian government used to harrass the Muslim minority in CAR. The Muslims from the northern half of Chad started sabre-rattling in protest against that. The disaster in Line Six set off the fightng here in Seven...Catholics from the DRC are simultaneously fighting a Muslim minority in their own country and trying to come to the aid of the Christians in the CAR. That’s the complex part, simplified a lot. But here’s the simple bit...”
A series of explosions shook the ground, all from behind the Hellenic force. The boy cowered and hugged the dirt, which stuck to his tear-streaked face, brown as dried blood.
Megálos said: “Keep talking, Spathos. We got some of those ‘tanks’ back there. Blacks are dealing with ’em.”
“Okay, the simple bit: This road we’re facing down is the front line between the CAR/DRC alliance and the Chads. Each side outnumbers us twenty to one, but we easily outgun them. If we move northeast along this road, push the Chads to our left and the other side to our right, we can separate the warring parties and achieve the first objective of Gennasi’s plan.”
Megálos growled: “You heard the Spathos, folks. Let’s get it done.”
It took two days of hard work and significant reinforcements from Allied Lines, and their own Red Warrior Guild, but they did it. Gennasi dropped in, saying that they’d managed a slightly different tactical situation in Line Five, and had the situation in hand there. She left for the Commonwealth, to organize relief supplies.
Megálos sat beside Ambros in the bombed-out remains of a café along the main road, now a frontier. He looked at the owner, who rushed a cup of coffee out to him.
“Mercí,” he said: “Spathos...”
“Magistros?”
“So...after the first day, they must have figured out that we’re bullet-proof and that we can call on endless numbers of other bullet-proof soldiers. Our APSs sliced their tanks to bits...Why in the name of all the hells did they call a truce and gang up on us?”
Ambros shook his head: “Don’t know. None of the prisoners were privy to the brass’ thinking. If you call it thinking.”
The Magistros shook his head: “They must have lost...no, we must have killed six thousand of them...We came here to help, Ares damn them!”
“Killed pretty much all of their officers, too,” Ambros finished.
“Think that’ll settle them?”
Ambros paused. Then he shook his head again: “At best we can keep them separated while we move the women and kids down to the camps in the Congo—the other Congo.”
“This place is a hellscape. How’d it get so bad here?” Megálos asked.
Ambros said: “This continent got raked over the coals by European colonizers for a hundred years, in some cases more. It’s overpopulated, even with all the recent casualties. Ethnic and religious differences are excuses to fight, but it’s lack of food and water and seeing their kids starving that really sets them at each other’s throats.” He smiled wanly: “Gennasi bit off a big hunk with this intervention. I hope it doesn’t wind up chewing us up.”
“Endaxi.” Megálos sighed: “I think we’re done with your services for now, Spathos. I won’t call you back unless the situation here doesstart to bite back. I’ll see that Gennasi does the same.”
“Thanks. I need to get home...”
“Yeah, I agree. Get.”
Ambros put his helm on. He opened his visor and finished his coffee. He stepped outside into the street, tapping his MPS and Shifter into action: “Magistri Ke’akani? Bring me home, par’kalo.”
“Akuo sas. Tha symmfromei.”
Then he stood on the landing pad in his usual War Room, fighting off the ordinary dizziness of a Saltation into Commonwealth Prime.
As soon as he hit the landing pad his MPS bleated at him. He looked at it, somewhat irritataed: “Is that one of the Wobblies?” he inquired aloud.
“Yes.” The machine popped up a holograph of Heather’s face.
“Keep her on hold...”
He trotted out of the War Room, down to his accustomed locker room. Twelve lepta later, shaved, showered, and dressed in clothes that would not stand out in the streets of Austria, he was back where he’d started
He spoke to Ke’akani: “You have those coordinates I gave you for Vienna?”
“Certainly.”
He stood on the launch pad: “Now would be fine, if you please...”
He walked slowly along, letting his dizziness abate. He had his stick in his hand, just in case: ‘I need it about ten percent of the time now,’ he thought: ‘And having a stick is a good way to nothave to use my firearms, if things get touchy.’
He saw the café ahead on the left. He stood at the streetcorner until all of the traffic cleared and then strode across, breathing deeply.
The street had six-story buildings on either side, with bakeries and cafés and haberdasheries on their ground floors. Apartments and offices and occasional workshops filled the other levels. Most of the construction was of beige stone; one building stood out, dark yellow in the westering sunshine.
‘That’s my goal, a café one floor downstairs...’
He entered the café and found a table in a corner, as he’d been instructed. The room seemed dark after the sunny day outside, the corner tables particularly so.
He pulled out his Shifter and activated the MPS: “Heather?”
Her voice came to his ears only, projected by Hellenic tech. She said: “Dave says you missed your plane...’sup?”
“I had a scheduling glitch. You’ve reached me in Austria.” He let her see his surroundings on her OPhone.
“Oh. It’s all good, then?”
“I cashed the ticket. I’ll donate it to the local Movement, or send it back to you.”
“Okay. Make sure you hand a check to Júlia Rajk, or Miklós Nagy. No one else.”
“Got it. Gotta go, I think my contact just spotted me...” He immediately cut the connection. He put the Shifter away.
A very young woman in a bright yellow dress approached his table. The dress reflected the light of the dim little lamp sitting by him, brightening the table a bit.
“Good day sir. Do I know you?” Her English bore only the slightest trace of a Hungarian accent. She had an angular face, not classically beautiful, but intriguing. Her hair was dark blonde, obviously dyed.
“I doubt it,” Ambros replied: “This is my first visit to Austria.”
“May I sit with you?”
“Take a seat,” he said, in Hellenic.
She did; identities established, she smiled happily: “It is nice to meet you, sir.” She now spoke Modern Greek with no accent at all.
“The same.” He stuck with Rational Hellenic; she would surely understand, even if she thought him a poor speaker of her own tongue.
He waved a waiter down, and let the lady order first.
With lattes in their hands they regarded each other. He said: “You should call me Ambros. What should I call you?”
She shook her head: “You needn’t call me anything.”
He shrugged: “Very well. I am here to see Mrs Rajk and her son...”
She nodded: “I know. It is my responsibility to understand why, and yours to convince me. Who sent you?”
“You know that. Heather Davidov, and her husbands...”
The woman made a face.
“Someone you know, but don’t like, I take it.”
She wiped her face blank and then smiled: “I am sorry. Not every friend is an ally; nor is every ally a friend.”
“Katalavéno,” he said, switching to Greek: “Kai Kyría Rajk?”
“I cannot take you to her yet. Not till dusk...now convince me to trust you. First, what dialect of Greek is it that you speak? ”
“Katalavéno,” he repeated: “I understand. It is an obscurity. I learned it by accident.”
"Something from the mountains then? At first I thought you were just not a good Greek speaker...but your sentences, while ungrammatical, are constructed consistently."
“From the mountains,” he said, smiling wryly: “Indeed.”
“Turn your back,” she said, in a steely voice.
He did so. He heard the spinning of a combination lock, one way, then the other and then her voice again: “This way.”
They walked along a hallway, numbers on doors glowing in the dim lights. She tapped lightly at a door: “Júlia? Your visitor has arrived.”
“Let him in,” came the reply, in English.
The nametag on the doorpost read: “Moholy”.
Ambros entered an apartment, brightly lit by the setting sun. A very old woman sat in a large chair by the west window. The back of the chair cast a shadow over her, so that the yellow, flower-print dressing gown she wore glowed like an old lightbulb. Her face bore an expression Ambros had come to recognize: regret, hope, fear, suspicion: ‘The resumé of an elderly failed revolutionary...’
“Why such paranoid security?” Ambros asked, standing by the door: “The Soviet Union doesn’t even exist anymore. Hungary is a supposedly free country, a capitalist...”
The old lady interrupted: “Hungary is a failed late-stage capitalist economy, a dictatorship run by corrupt bureaucrats. And the KGB is now called something else, but the same sort of evil men run it. They don’t care much about us old people; pursuing us is a sort of hobby to them. But the young ones...” She tipped her head in direction of Yellow Dress: “They are still in danger. Why are you here?”
Ambros paused, thinking. Then he said: “Before we get into that, I will do you a service.” He drew out his Shifter, slowly, and scanned the room for bugs.
Then he said: “Allow me...” and he lifted a lamp from a tabletop. After a moment he pulled a small wireless microphone out of the base.
Both women’s eyes grew wide.
Ambros disassembled the bug, placing the battery and the microphone on separate tables.
“I have a message to deliver...a warning and an opportunity. I want to get into Hungary, and meet a man, Miklós Nagy. He is supposed to be in touch with some people who should hear what I have to say.”
The old woman sat silent for an uncomfortably long time. Then she said: “My son can take you to the border, at the correct spot. But the border is heavily defended; the political class in Hungary is deeply racist, so they don’t want people from Africa or the Mideast to immigrate. As if anyone wants to stay in Hungary as it is today...idiots. They have the highest suicide rate in Europe, for good reason...”
After a pause she continued: “You want to see the veterans of the ’56 Revolution, I suppose...”
“I am more interested in seeing people like her,” Ambros indicated Yellow Dress: “The third generation, the ones who will have to bethe next wave of worker’s councils and militia. They are who needs to hear my tale.”
The old woman sat for another long, silent time, examining Ambros minutely. He stared back.
Finally she spoke to Yellow Dress, in Hungarian: “Bring Laszlo, and send a message to young Nagy.” She turned her attention back to Ambros: “No one is to take any great risk to aid you. Laszlo—your pardon, you should call him Istvan Moholy, never use his real name—he will get you to the border. You are on your own from there.”
“Istvan Moholy. Got it.”
“Well,” said Miklós Nagy.
“Yes,” said Ambros. They were speaking Greek again.
“That could have gone better,” said Ambros, rubbing the knuckles on his left hand. He stopped to wipe a bit of blood off of his walking stick.
‘I apologize,” said Nagy.
“For what?”
Nagy made a motion like a cutoff shrug: “I did not expect violence. Your warnings were vague, it is true. Some irritation might be expected, among so many folk who have been held down for so long. But Alajos had no call to attack you.”
“He didn’t hurt me...” Ambros felt the knuckle on his ring finger pop back into place. He winced: “...not badly, anyway. And that lady...?”
“Czenga. She ended the fight soon, did she not?”
“Yeah. I’ve heard of that technique, using a spike heel as a weapon. Never saw it actually done before.”
“Czenga is known for being a bit abrupt. I hope she did not injure Alajos too badly. I assume you have now accomplished your mission?”
“Yeah. Everyone there heard what I had to say. Doesn’t matter whether they believe me now...” He trailed off, seeing possibilities.
“Shall I return you to the border now?” Miklós Nagy gestured towards the door.
“Nah. I’ll find my own way home. I’ve never been in Budapest before, I’ll take a walk and then split town.”
“The train station is only a mile from here. You have money in Euros or Forints?”
“I’m good,” Ambros said, smiling.
Nagy nodded: “This is the way out...”
Ambros walked slowly down the hallway in the VA hospital in Springfield. He fingered the slap-patch in his pocket, still unsure if he could—or should—use it. ‘It’s not...’ He’d been about to think; ‘It’s not fair,’ but he knew that fairness and justice did not exist in the world, except in as much as humans created them.
He stood in the doorway of Mark’s room, silent, despairing.
At length Mark opened his eyes: “Dude. I guess you heard.”
“I did.” Ambros closed his eyes and tears leaked out: “They gonna treat you?”
“Nah.” Mark used the controls on the bed to sit himself up: “Well, palliatives, right? But that’s all. Only way to save me long term would be a transplant. I’d be bottom-of-the-list because of the other organ damage been done by all the booze.”
“No surgery then. No chemo or radiation.”
Mark shook his head: “No point, doc says. Tumor load on the old liver is just too overwhelming. Doc says it’s most likely meta, now, anyhow.”
Ambros made a face: “I wish there was something I could do.”
“I know, dude. Hey, maybe there is somethin’.”
Ambros entered the room then, and sat by Mark’s bed.
“What?” Ambros stared at Mark’s ravaged features, his sunken cheeks and watery reddened eyes: “What can I do?”
“Get me outta here, man. I can’t even stay awake on the drugs they’re givin’ me. I see all kinda crazy shit even when I’m awake. And the dreams...I don’t need to be back in Nam, even in my dreams.” Mark closed his eyes and his breath went out of him. He snored a little.
Ambros heard a shuffling sound. A man in a Catholic priest’s rig stood by the door, listening. He was tall and cadaverous, looking like a starveling, but emanating a powerful aura of energy and compassion.
Ambros nodded at him; he bowed his head, fingering a string of beads.
‘As they do,’ Ambros thought.
Mark woke: “This sucks, man.”
“I know. I’ll stay a while, okay?”
“Yeah...”
He took the dying man’s hand and held it while Mark shuddered and sobbed. After a bit, the shuddering faded and Mark slept once more.
The priest looked up from his prayers, or whatever he’d been doing: “Do you believe he truly wishes to check out of the hospital?”
“I expect so.”
The padre nodded: “Where would he go, do you suppose?”
“Probably wherever Sarge is. Sergeant Arlen, I mean, if you’ve met him.”
The father sighed and said: “I have. He seemed like a good man.”
“One of the best I’ve known,” Ambros replied.
The priest nodded: “I will speak to the administration.”
“Thank you.”
The father effaced himself and left.
Ambros drew a deep breath and began to meditate: ‘Not the usual “Calm, Relax” meditation. I need to find an answer, one way or the other...’
He held Mark’s hand in his own, still. He slipped the Commonwealth slap patch out of his pocket and moved as if to apply it to the hand he was holding.
It sounded like an alarm ringing inside his skull, or it felt like a bomb exploding in his soul, or it looked like a mushroom cloud on the horizon with the horizon zooming towards him, or....
‘Or...none of the above. It’s a real thing though, even if I can’t describe it.’ He stared inward at a vision of the mayhem he could cause with a quick motion of his wrist: ‘This medicine might save him and it might not...he’s pretty far gone, I guess. But...it’d split the Line, sure as shit. Which means that another Mark would die in agony—at least one other...’
He slipped the patch back into his pocket. The visions of disaster faded from his mind. The alarm went silent.
He let Mark’s hand rest on the blanket and stood up. He walked around the bed and stared out the window at the hot August day on the other side of it. A vent in the floor nearby sighed out chilly air. His MPS activated and his mind encompassed the entirety of the HVAC system in the building. He commanded the machine to silence and shook that vision off, with effort.
He pondered his dilemma: ‘In a way, having this much knowledge of the workings of the Multuverse makes me less free than I once was. I see the best—or only—course of action...and how can I do the wrongthing?’
People passing by on the sidewalk below wore as few clothes as decency allowed. His own short kilt and sleeveless shirt, and his sandals, told the same tale: ‘Hot as blazes out there,’ he mused. He pondered what he knew about global warming, greenhouse gasses, and the poison that daily life in the 21stcentury poured out into the world. He let that go: ‘Only a global revolution can bring an end to that shit. I’m doing what I can.’
He turned and stared at Mark’s ravaged face: ‘There’s no good that comes of splitting Lines. And there’s likely nothing in Mark’s future that would make up for the pain I’d cause to that other Mark, the “quantum-probability Mark”, who won’t exist, or suffer, unless I save this version. My friend.
‘Plus I don’t know if the treatment will work; the treatmentwill split the Line, even if it fails. Even as a native of this Line, there’s no way I can do this. Without...’
He knew he’d made his decision. He knew he’d question it, and regret it, until his dying day: ‘And that’s a lot of years to regret something, what with Commonwealth medicine for myself and all.’
He pulled the patch from his pocket again. He stared as the situation re-formed in his mind. He set the patch on the bedside table and got out his Shifter. He thought of Versingos’ lab, where he’d got the prescription; the image formed in his mind and he sent the patch away, with a nearly inaudible hiss of air.
Then he sat down and watched. Death hovered nearby, and seemed an almost palpable presence to his altered senses. He listened to Mark’s ragged breathing, and wept silently.
Early the next morning, as the sun cleared the horizon, Arlen and Ambros met Mark. The priest—Father Jacob—pushed his wheelchair out the doors of the main lobby.
“Thanks, guys,” said Mark: “and thank you padre.”
“Are you sure about this, my son?” The priest frowned: “Are you not in pain?”
“Yeah, sure, it hurts. But I can think straight, and even walk a bit.” Mark demonstrated that by standing up and leaning on Arlen’s shoulder.
The priest dug in the pocket of his cassock and handed Arlen a bottle: “That’s low-dose Oxy,” he murmured: “Probably enough to get him through to the end. If you need more...” The bottle had a woman’s name in the ‘for’ line, and a red label that said ‘disposal’.
Arlen nodded: “I’ll send Ambros here. He can move around town way faster than I can.”
The priest spoke to Mark: “I’ll pray that your passing will be easy, and that you will not need to seek me out.” The priest made a gesture at Mark: “Ego te absolvo, my son.”
“Thanks padre,” said Mark, as they led him towards a cab waiting nearby.
The priest made the sign of the cross. Ambros saluted Warrior style, and then helped Arlen ease Mark into the back seat. Ambros handed the driver a fifty, and watched as the cab rolled away, heading west towards Arlen’s current campsite, just outside the City limits.
He walked slowly off, considering what the rest of his day had in store.
He headed west on 13th, looking around at the mix of commercial and residential buildings. Small apartment blocks alternated with big old houses and little cottages, and in the course of a three-block walk he passed two taverns and four convenience stores. He wondered at the economic viability of such a model: ‘Well, thirty thousand college students within a half mile of here probably makes that work...’
His MPS pinged him: “Yeah?”
The mechanical voice relayed a message from Anni asking him to attend the day’s class, and could he get there ASAP. He nodded and looked for someplace out of sight, where he could disappear without being seen.
He strode the halls and rode the elevator up to the ground floor, exiting into the Main Hall. He grumbled to himself as he crossed the stone-paved floor towards the exit: ‘I have no idea why Anni wants me at her class today; not my accustomed teaching slot.’
He checked his Shifter at the door, as usual, and exchanged pleasantries with the door guard.
He arrived at Anni’s training ground just as the class took a break. She hailed him.
“What’s up?” he asked.
She shook her head: “I want you to spar with your guy over there...” She indicated with a head tilt the spot where Jimmy sat, breathing hard.
He raised an eyebrow: “Something I should know?”
“Just try him out, okay?”
Ambros went to the racks and found the gear he usually used, donning it, somewhat perplexed.
Just before the class was scheduled to re-start, he approached Jimmy: “Hey vato. Put your helm on, Anni wants me to test your skill.”
Jimmy laughed: “Okay, dude. Let’s have at it.”
They took over the Spathos’ training field. Ambros saluted, and Jimmy (being significantly lower in rank) returned the salute. Ambros adopted a loose stance, somewhat reminiscent of “Boar’s Tooth” from Fiore. He said: “Archizete!”
Jimmy immediately attacked, and Ambros evaded his cut. Jimmy turned to adjust to the movement and attacked again. Ambros slipped back circularly and tagged Jimmy’s wrists.
They went on like that for some time, perhaps a third of a Commonwealth hour, with Jimmy launching ill-conceived attacks and Ambros avoiding the cuts and hitting his opponent on the riposte.
“Okay, Jimmy,” said Ambros at length: “Pack it in, go back to your Archare group.”
Ambros slowly doffed the armor, racking each bit, and stopping to clean the helm of sweat with rags laid by for the purpose. The smell of the helm brought back memories of his first days playing with the SCA in his own Line: ‘So long ago...but I recall that smell, the odor of dozens of previous users of a borrowed helm. Even swapping out the padding fails to remove that smell, if I remember right.’
Anni dismissed the class, then came to stand by him. He stripped off the greave/knee armor and looked it over. He set it in the rack.
“Well?” she asked.
“Very shallow learning curve,” Ambros replied.
“Very shallow,” she repeated: “He gets the attacks real quick, but...”
“I saw that. His defense is lousy, and he doesn’t learn anything from one bout to the next. This is no news, he's been this way from the start. I guess I needed to know that he still needs work.”
“True. So?”
He shrugged: “Not everyone is a natural. Make him practice defenses and ripostes a lot, maybe even set up drills where he isn’t supposed to attack...”
“Yeah, that was my thought...”
He finished her thought: “...but if he doesn’t wake up soon, I’ll have to have another talk with him.”
October was a busy month for Ambros and his family, so much so that it seemed to pass in a rush. Between his teaching duties in two Timelines, social Obligations (again in two Timelines), keeping an eye on three jurisdictions of police, and an occasional mission in one or another unstable place, in his own Line or others, the days flew by.
He sat in his office at the Salon, contemplating the swirl of events that carried the world forward, towards an explosive event that few other than his family could see coming.
He spoke to the G5, turned on his news program, checked the headlines.
The election approached, of course. The polling all seemed to indicate a decisive win for the Democrats’ candidate, a Senator Biden.
His news program showed him a picture. Ambros laughed: “A twin of Vice President Bowden from the President Tom Paine Line. I wonder what drove them each into politics, in such different circumstances? Nature or Nurture?”
Kim came into the office. She was fresh from the shower, her hair wet and a towel around her.
She sat on his lap: “Halloween tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” he replied.
She took his hand and guided it to her belly, swollen with child: “In a way, I wish I’d chosen you to father my baby.”
“I don’t,” he said: “I am unsuitable to be a dad, what with my current vocation.”
“I know. But now Jimmy is talking about following in your footsteps, about becoming a Sacred Band operative and putting himself at risk...”
“He will never make Sacred Band.”
“He’s not going to like hearing that.”
“Well, he won’t hear it from me. But he’ll figure it out eventually. A person has to be top ten percent in multiple disciplines to even get into the running for Black Warrior Guild. I only got into Sacred Band because of the peculiar way I was recruited.”
“True that.”
“What are you up to tonight?” He kissed her ear.
“Didn’t you get enough already?” She squirmed suggestively.
“Oh, I’m sated. I have a report to write and post before I sleep. And Marie wants to buy stuff for trick-or-treaters tomorrrow morning.”
“That’s good. Randy and Marissa are with Jimmy at his room at Open Quarters, and I’m supposed to join them for the night.”
“Sounds good.”
“It’s good again, yeah. Jimmy is being relatively well behaved. For now.”
Ambros nodded: “Let’s hope it takes this time. How did Marissa react to her first Jump?”
“Not badly, considering. It’s a hard thing to learn that the world is not what it looks like, and that people you’ve been so intimate with knew it and...well, not lied about it, exactly, but kept it from you for a while.
“She figured it out, though. She said: ‘You had to be sure of me, and you had to wait for the right time to tell me.’ So that’s working out well."
“Good,” he said, relieved.
“I’d better dress,” she said, rising: “I need to stop at the Library in Athino before I meet Jimmy and all.”
She swayed into the bedroom and he went to work on the report, informing Sacred Band and (eventually) the Commonwealth as a Whole what he’d been up to for the last week.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-08 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-08 06:56 pm (UTC)green and white flames -missing period.
typo 'somewhat irritataed'
typo 'informing Scred Band'
no subject
Date: 2020-08-08 10:55 pm (UTC)