Mercury Shrugs (15 page)

No, he thought. It can’t be him. He’s ten thousand miles and seven thousand years from now. This is some kind of fantasy my subconscious has concocted because I can’t deal with the thought of Christine being executed. But as he turned back to look at Christine, he could see she was just as stunned as he was.

“I’d leave now if I were you,” the tall, silver-haired man said. “I’m not entirely sure if I told them I’m a god who is displeased with the chief’s choice of sacrifice or if I’m a constipated gazelle who wants to date the chief’s sister.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Mercury led them away from the village while the Pistons were still arguing about how to deal with this silver-haired stranger. When they had gotten a safe distance from the men with spears, Mercury stopped and turned, smiling at them.

“Hey, Christine,” he said. “Hey, Christine’s weird friend.”

“Mercury!” Christine screamed, and threw her arms around him. As she embraced him, she realized there were tears running down her cheeks. Surprised by her own emotion, she forced herself to let go. She regarded Mercury with amazement. “You’re here!” she exclaimed. “And you recognize us!”

“Of course I recognize you,” said Mercury. “Why wouldn’t I… oh, because I might not have met you yet. No, it’s me. Well, it’s 2017 me. You haven’t met any earlier versions, have you? No, forget I asked. I would remember. I see you met the locals.”

“You came back from 2017?” asked Jacob. “Five years have passed for you?”

“Yeah,” said Mercury. “Don’t worry, though, they mostly sucked. How long has it been for you?”

“About four months,” said Jacob. “It actually hasn’t been too bad up until today. Did you come back to rescue us?”

“Well, no,” Mercury admitted. “I didn’t actually mean to come back at all.”

Christine frowned. “You time-traveled accidentally?”

“That’s how
we
got here,” said Jacob. Christine shrugged.

“It’s complicated,” said Mercury. “The planeport got destroyed by, um, me. So the planes are all cut off from each other. Some other angels and my friend Suzy got the idea to build a new portal generator to reconnect them, but then Tiamat showed up, and she used it to free Lucifer, and he converted it into a time machine using a shard from the Eye of Providence. His plan is to erase history and start over with him in charge.”

“Not really
that
complicated,” Jacob observed.

“I guess not,” said Mercury. “Pretty standard Lucifer stuff.”

“But Lucifer didn’t come back with you?” Christine asked.

“No.”

“You stopped him then.”

“Well, so far. I’m expecting him to reopen the portal eventually and try again. In fact, I really should get back there in case he shows up.”

“How did you find us?” asked Jacob.

“Oh,” said Mercury, pulling the miracle detector from his pocket. It still registered only one anomaly, in the direction of the village they’d just left. “I used this thing. I wasn’t actually looking for you, in all honesty. I was just going where this thing pointed. Apparently there’s some kind of supernatural artifact in that village that’s disrupting the interplanar energy channels.”

“The sword,” said Christine.

Mercury shook his head. “It’s true that a flaming sword is a supernatural artifact, but the amount of power it draws is negligible. There’s no way something like that would register on a miracle detector from miles away. It would have to be something like… oh.”

“What?” Jacob asked.

“It’s not the sword,” said Mercury. “It’s the gem in the sword’s handle. The shard.”

“
That’s
the shard you were talking about?” asked Christine. “The one Lucifer uses to build a time machine?”

“I’m afraid so,” Mercury said. “I didn’t put it together until just now.”

“So we can stop him,” said Jacob. “We just take the shard from Isiah Thomas and destroy it. Oh, Isiah Thomas is what we call the chief. You see, I’ve named the local tribes after—”

“Great story,” said Mercury. “Here’s the problem: I can’t destroy the shard. I mean, maybe I could, but ubiquium is an insanely powerful substance. If I start banging on it with rocks, I might accidentally implode everything for miles around.”

“Okay,” said Christine, “then just drop it in the ocean or something.”

Mercury sighed. “This is the other problem. Time travel is a tricky thing. You find yourself in a lot of causal loops. If we take the shard from Isiah Thomas, we might find that in seven thousand years we were the cause of Lucifer getting his hands on it.”

“But if we don’t take it, then not taking it will have caused Lucifer to get it.”

“Exactly,” said Mercury.

“So,” Jacob said, “time will find a way around our efforts to prevent an occurrence that’s determined to happen.”

“You’re anthropomorphizing time,” said Mercury. “Time doesn’t want anything. It just is.”

Jacob shrugged. “It’s a—
unck
—metaphor. Deal with it.”

“Well, we can’t do nothing,” said Christine.

“Why not?” Mercury replied. “The result is the same either way, and doing nothing is less work.”

“You don’t know that,” said Christine. “Maybe we can pull a fast one on time.”

“How?” Mercury asked.

“What if we replace the shard with a fake? Could you do that? Make a dummy shard?”

Mercury shrugged. “I could transmute some sand into glass. Cut it and polish it, and give it a blue tint to make it look like the shard. I still think it’s pointless though.”

“Why?” asked Christine. “If you can sneak in and replace the shard without anyone noticing, then maybe history will unfold the way it did the last time around, except this time Lucifer will end up with a fake shard.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” said Mercury, “but it’s worth a try, I suppose.”

“Can you make us some water while you’re at it?” asked Jacob.

“Sure,” said Mercury. “Scoop up a handful of sand.”

Christine and Jacob each scooped some sand into their hands.

“Boom,” said Mercury, pointing an index finger at each of them. The each found their hands full of water. Christine immediately drank hers, but Jacob was so surprised that he accidentally pulled his hands apart, spilling the water on the ground.

“Um,” said Jacob, regarding his wet hands. “Can you make me some more?”

“No more till we get to camp,” said Mercury. “Come on.” He turned and began walking away.

“Camp?” asked Jacob, as he and Christine hurried after Mercury. “Where’s that?”

“Not far. I just need to get close enough to Eden II that the miracle detector will alert me if the portal reopens.”

They walked nearly another three miles before Mercury proclaimed that they had reached camp, Jacob grumbling the whole way about how thirsty he was. By this time, the sun had set, and a chill had crept into the air. Mercury dug a large bowl-shaped impression in the ground, fused the sand on the bottom into glass, refilled it with sand, and then transmuted the sand into water. Jacob got on his hands and knees and slurped enthusiastically at it.

“Good enough?” Mercury asked.

Jacob gave him a thumbs up.

“Swell,” said Mercury. “For my next trick, fire!” He pointed his finger at a boulder, and it burst into flame. The three of them sat around it, warming themselves.

“I don’t mean to complain,” said Christine after some time, “but we haven’t eaten anything since—”

“There’s a ram in the thicket over there,” said Mercury.

“Where?” asked Christine.

Mercury motioned vaguely in the distance. “Best I could do,” he said. “Food is harder than water. You can’t just make it out of rocks. Well, you can, but it’s awful. Whoever coined the phrase ‘manna from heaven’ never tried the stuff. It’s like eating granola made with dryer lint and chalk dust. Also, you’re going to have to prepare it yourself. I’m busy.” He was rubbing his hands together over a lump of sand he had picked up.

“Okay,” said Christine uncertainly, “but how do I…?”

Mercury set down the lump and picked up another handful of sand. He poured some of the sand from his right hand to his left, and then pulled his right hand away as if stretching a rubber band. He spun the elongated object around and held it out to Christine: a knife made out of glass.

“Careful of the blade,” said Mercury. “It’s crazy sharp, but brittle. One quick sweep across the throat.”

Christine stared at the knife. “You’re going to make me kill a wild ram?”

“I’m not going to make you do anything,” said Mercury. “But if you want to eat, you’re going to have to kill the ram. Now leave me alone. This is delicate work.” He had gone back to rubbing the lump between his palms.

“I’ll do it,” said Jacob. “You can help me gut it.”

Christine nodded and handed Jacob the knife. She followed him as they went off in the direction Mercury had indicated. It wasn’t hard to find the ram; it was flailing about trying to get its horns disengaged from the branches. Jacob put it out of its misery with the knife. He felt a little bad about it, but not as bad as he felt hungry. With Christine’s help, he dragged the carcass back to the fire. They didn’t bother to gut it; there was far too much meat for them to use anyway. They just removed one leg, skinned it, and got it roasting on a makeshift spit. The whole process took nearly two hours. Jacob took the first shift at the spit while Christine slumped to the ground, exhausted. “What do you think, Mercury?” she asked.

“I think,” said Mercury, holding a blue gem up to the light between his fingers, “it just might pass.”

“Wow,” said Jacob, looking up from the spit. “That’s amazing.”

“Yeah,” said Mercury, getting to his feet. “And probably futile. Save some of that meat for me. Oh, and you’ll need this.” He scooped up a handful of sand and bent over to Christine. “Hold out your hand.”

She did so, and he poured the contents of his hand into hers. “Sand?” she said.

“Taste it,” Mercury replied. “I’ll be back.” He walked off into the darkness.

Christine took a pinch between her fingers and tasted it. She smiled. “Salt.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Mercury returned less than twenty minutes later, holding a stone that looked to Christine identical to the one he had been carrying when he left.

“So?” she asked.

“I did it,” said Mercury. “Slipped in and out unseen. Replaced the shard with the fake.”

“So that’s the real shard,” said Jacob, regarding the gem in Mercury’s hand. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Drop it in the ocean, I guess,” said Mercury.

“Now?”

Mercury shook his head. “I can’t leave you two alone that long this close to the Pistons. Those guys are persistent. Ran into a slew of them on the way over. A slew of Pistons? A passel of Pistons? Anyway, Isiah Thomas seems to have decided I’m closer to the constipated gazelle than the angry deity, and he wants his sacrificial lambs back.”

“Can’t you just wipe them out with your miracle powers?” asked Jacob.

Mercury shot him a dubious glance. “Easy there, Josef Stalin. I’m not really supposed to use my ‘miracle powers’ for genocide. Also, that would kind of defeat the whole Prime Directive approach we’re taking to replacing the shard. I’ll get you guys to Eden II tomorrow. That place is a long way from the Pistons’ village, so it should be safe. You can keep an eye on the portal location in case Lucifer shows up. Don’t try to stop him, just hide and watch. Hopefully he won’t show up until after I get back. Once I do, we’ll figure out what to do next.”

Christine frowned, trying to make sense of the perverse causal schema in which she found herself. “But what if this is how Lucifer gets the shard? What if he shows up right when we get to Eden II?”

“That’s not how it works,” said Mercury. “If Lucifer from 2017 manages to travel back to now, he already has the shard.”

“Why don’t we go right now then?”

“Because you two are starving, exhausted, and in no shape to travel. The world isn’t going to end if we camp here for the night. Probably. Anyway, I don’t need to sleep. I can stay up and watch the shard. Hey, let me do that. You’re burning one side.” Mercury took over the spit from Jacob and Jacob lay down across the fire from Christine. “Get some sleep,” said Mercury. “I’ll wake you up when it’s done.”

Christine nodded lazily, then lay her head back on the ground. She was just thinking how nice it would be to have a pillow and wondering if that was within the range of Mercury’s transmutation abilities when suddenly it was daylight. She sat bolt upright in a panic, thinking something must have happened to Mercury.

“Relax,” said Mercury, who was sitting on a rock a few feet away. “I didn’t want to wake you. There’s plenty of food, if you’re hungry. I’m afraid it’s cold though.”

Christine nodded dumbly and made her way to the water bowl, shivering as she left the warm glow of the fire. As she drank, she noticed a large black scorch mark on the ground a few yards from their camp. She looked at Mercury questioningly.

“Burnt offering,” said Mercury. “Had to dispose of the rest of the carcass. Figured it was a better option than attracting hyenas.”

Christine nodded again and walked back to the campfire, which was now just smoldering rocks. She gave Jacob a gentle kick in the ribs, waking him up, and then tore into the hunk of meat Mercury had left on a slab of rock next to the fire.

When they had eaten and seen to their other immediate needs, they set off toward Eden II. Mercury thought they could make it there by mid-afternoon. Jacob mentioned the possibility of flying there, but Mercury wasn’t keen on the idea. Carrying one person while flying was hard enough, he said; carrying two was downright dangerous, not to mention extremely uncomfortable for everyone involved. So they walked.

Occasionally they would stop for water, which Mercury miraculously created out of sand. Around noon, they took a break under the shade of a small stand of trees and ate some salted ram meat, which Christine had packed in the basket she and Jacob had taken for collecting berries. Even after a hearty lunch, there was still enough left over for one more meal.

As the day wore on and the heat intensified, they had to stop for water more frequently, and Christine began to wonder if they were going to make it. A small cloud had been following them since the late morning, blocking much of the sun, and Christine suspected it was Mercury’s doing. Even so, the heat was oppressive. She wanted to just lie down and let the buzzards finish her off.

But as they surmounted a small rise, a large dome-shaped structure came into view on the plain below: Eden II. It really was an impressive structure; she supposed that if it weren’t for the thing’s remote location in the middle of this patch of worthless desert, one of the tribes of the region would have set up shop there. But it was just too far from any source of fresh water or food to be of much practical use. So it sat abandoned, its once lush jungle dying, its expertly constructed dome slowly crumbling. In seven thousand years, there would be no trace of it.

“Who’s that?” Jacob asked, and Christine redirected her gaze to where Jacob was looking. It took her a few seconds to discern the figure in the distance, barely distinguishable amid the waves of heat emanating from the desert floor. At first she thought it was an animal of some sort, an anteater or a hyena, but then she realized it was a person, hunched over as if looking for something.

“Nisroc,” she found herself saying.

They stared for several seconds longer. “No,” said Jacob at last. “It can’t be. He’s still looking for the sword?”

“He’s looking for something,” said Christine.

“Hold on,” said Mercury. “That’s Nisroc? The demon that I spray-painted and dropped onto the roof of the Vanden Heuvel building?”

“You did
what
?” Christine asked.

“Oh, you weren’t there,” said Mercury. “Long story.”
[10]

“I don’t think he’s a demon yet,” said Christine. “He’s still working for Heaven at this point. He kicked us out of Eden II. Said he was supposed to be guarding it with a flaming sword, but he lost it.”

They watched for a moment longer and the tiny, hunched-over figure of Niscroc continued to scour the desert.

“Should we tell him?” said Jacob.

“He’ll probably keep looking for the next thousand years if we don’t.”

“All right,” said Mercury. “Let’s go.” He set off down the slope toward Nisroc, Christine and Jacob following close behind. Some ten minutes later, they were standing a few paces from Nisroc, who continued obliviously scanning the ground. He gave no indication of having seen them.

“Hey there,” said Mercury at last.

The man stopped and looked up at Mercury momentarily. “They just checked on me yesterday,” he said. “It doesn’t help to keep pestering me, you know.” He went back to scanning the ground.

“Did they?” asked Mercury. “We must have gotten our signals crossed. How goes the search?”

“It would go better if you people would leave me alone and let me look. Or help. You can look over there.” He pointed vaguely in the direction he had just come from.

“I think you already looked there,” said Mercury.

“So now you’re going to tell me how to do my job?” said Nisroc. “I’ve been doing this for four months, you know. I think I have some idea how to do it.”

“Ah,” said Mercury. “A proponent of the labor theory of value.”

“I have a system,” Nisroc sniffed. “I go East-West on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and North-South on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.”

“What about Sundays?”

“Sundays I go in circles.”

Mercury nodded. “That definitely bears some superficial resemblance to a system,” he said. “However, I’ve got some good and/or bad news, depending on how attached you are to your current occupation.” He held up the shard between his fingers.

“What’s that?” asked Nisroc.

“It’s what you’re looking for,” said Mercury.

“No, no. I’m looking for a sword.”

“Right, but this is what your bosses really care about. This is the shard from the Eye of Providence.”

Nisroc frowned dubiously. “I’m pretty sure I lost a sword.”

“This is the gem from the handle,” said Mercury. “The sword isn’t important. Look.” He pulled the miracle detector from his pocket. “See, this thing is… uh oh.”

“What?” Christine asked, craning her neck to see the display.

“Two blips,” said Mercury. “The portal is opening. Come on!” He took off running toward the dome in the distance.