He prowled through the ruins, smoothing the village’s dead embers over a lifetime of memories and the ashes of friends he had known from childhood. Finally Marof returned to tell him Roszt and Kaynor were ready and eager to leave and would be on their way by nightfall.
Arne embraced the old man again and took his leave of him. Then he rode east to a raging war already lost.
15. ROSZT AND KAYNOR
The off-duty members of Egarn’s team gathered in is workroom. Roszt and Kaynor had taken their leave of the guards and sentries earlier, and now they embraced the other members of the team in turn, listened to a few last words of advice, and paused to rub the dog Val’s silky ears.
At the far end of the room, a contraption very like the strange machine that had snatched Egarn out of the past stood waiting for them. Nearby, the cabinet with the large len showed a night scene with an expanse of grass and dim shadows of trees in the background. It was the park Egarn had chosen for their landing.
Egarn called, “Fornzt?”
The housekeeper came forward carrying a small crock.
“It is the last of the wine,” Egarn said sadly. “We have missed Arne badly from the moment he went to war. Now when we use the last of something, we know there won’t be any more.”
The others were silent. The wanton destruction and slaughter of the towns and people of Midlow had left all of them stunned.
Egarn took the crock and raised it to Roszt and Kaynor. The long sikes of intense work had aged and enfeebled him, and the final preparations had left him exhausted, but at this moment his eyes flashed with triumph. “The hearts of all of us all go with you,” he said. “If there is a benevolent spirit anywhere who watches over the tribulations of men, may she grant you courage and wisdom and bless you with the success you deserve.”
He tilted the crock and took a swallow of wine. Then he passed it to Inskel and turned away. The others drank in turn, Roszt and Kaynor last. As the lank scouts followed Egarn, Val uttered a sharp bark and leaped after them. Gevis, the assistant schooler, who now had neither school nor students, grabbed the dog and held him. Egarn made a final check of his controls, and then he stood poised with the cord in his hand. He nodded at Kaynor.
With a cheerful wave at the others, Kaynor positioned himself in the circle Egarn had chalked on the floor. He was fingering his bare chin. Egarn thought beards would attract attention in a society where most men were clean-shaven, so both Kaynor and Roszt had been shaving for monts with a razor of honed glass, but they still missed their beards.
Egarn pulled the cord; Kaynor vanished. All eyes turned to the grassy setting shown on the large len. Kaynor’s shadowy figure had just made a perfect landing. He performed a series of exultant skips, and then he turned in a complete circle, arms extended—the signal that everything was all right.
Egarn mounted a small ladder to reset his apparatus. Then he took his position again, cord in hand. Roszt stepped into the circle. As Egarn stretched the cord taut, Val uttered a sharp bark, wrenched free from Gevis, and leaped after Roszt. Hands snatched at the dog—too late. There was a chorus of cries as dog and man vanished together. The same instant, the len showed the dog gamboling beside Roszt and Kaynor. The scouts from Slorn seemed as overjoyed to have Val with them as he was to be there. All three of them skipped with delight as they walked away.
Inskel spoke wonderingly. “The dog lived!”
He turned to Egarn for an explanation, but the old man had just received a tremendous revelation, and for long moments he could not speak.
“When one travels through time, one can’t return immediately,” he said finally. “I almost died trying. But the danger must diminish with time, and the dog had been here long enough to have it wear off completely.” He added wearily, “I could have returned to the past anytime after a sike or two. When I found out about the Honsun Len, I could have gone back myself and made certain it couldn’t be invented. Maybe I should go now and help them.”
Inskel looked at him worriedly. “You can help more by staying here.”
On the len, three diminishing figures—the two scouts and the dog—danced merrily into the distance. Gevis made adjustments to follow them. The expanse of grass ended at a road that led to the park’s main gate. The sign above it read, Alomia City Park.
Roszt and Kaynor had spent monts studying Alomia’s “downtown.” They knew every business establishment facing Main Street and what its function was. They knew how frequently the police patrolled the area at night and what the officer did. They had laid out a route from the park to the business section by way of the town’s alleys, and they followed it without incident. Once there, they paused by the rear entrance of Frylon’s Clothing Store while Roszt inspected the lock. Frylon’s was to be their second stop. The first was the Alomia National Bank, whose rear entrance was next door.
Egarn had invented several tools for them. He called the first a lock pick. The small tube produced a temporal force field, he said, which opened a lock just like a key if the beam was fixed on it while the tiny tube was rotated. Roszt and Kaynor didn’t pretend to understand that, but Fornzt had located several doors in the depths of the ruins that had locks, and Egarn had cleaned and oiled them and made them work, and they practiced until Egarn was convinced they had the skill to open most locks they would encounter. Those that refused to cooperate could be melted away with a second tool, a miniature version of Egarn’s weapon.
The third was an anti-burglar alarm device. When operated near a wiring system, it produced surges of power guaranteed to burn out everything connected to it. Egarn had instructed them carefully in its use. He didn’t want them to cause a catastrophe at the local telephone company or even interfere with the bank’s night lights, but the burglar alarm had to be knocked out. They wouldn’t know for certain whether this tool worked until they tried it.
The last was a small hand light powered by the energy of time. It was tiny enough to be enclosed in a fist, but its illumination could be adjusted from a trickle to a flood. On this night Roszt and Kaynor would need no more than a trickle—their eyes easily adjusted to darkness because of their sikes of scouting and living underground.
Each of them carried two of Egarn’s weapons for ultimate emergencies. He hoped they would never have to use them except perhaps at the climax of their adventure when they had identified the Honsun Len Johnson beyond any doubt.
Roszt traced the outline of the bank’s door with the anti-burglar alarm tool. They paused to listen for alarms before Kaynor applied the lock pick. He turned the tube, and the door opened. They slipped inside with Val at their heels. At a gesture from Kaynor, the dog obediently seated himself by the door. Roszt ranged about tracing the bank’s alarm system while Kaynor locked them in. Then they went directly to the safe and went to work.
Steve Sterovitz, one of the two Alomia police officers on night patrol, had been delayed by a complaint about prowlers. The prowlers of course had vanished by the time he reached the scene. Now he was performing his nightly check to make certain doors of business establishments were properly locked. He strolled along nonchalantly. In his opinion, nothing exciting had happened in Alomia, Ohio, since about about 1920 when the town experienced its last runaway horse, and his thoughts were not exclusively on his work.
At Frylon’s Clothing Store, he paused to look at the window display. A sign in screaming red letters proclaimed, “THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT—50% OFF ON ODD SIZES!” The odd sizes on display were outlandishly-patterned suits with equally silly, broad-brimmed hats. There was a luggage sale, too, and the two manikins wearing the suits were carrying suitcases, while other cases and bags had been left about their feet for them to stumble over. Sterovitz tried to imagine anyone actually wearing clothes like that and failed.