live? Are we to help him live or let him die? Or kill him ourselves?” His hand strayed inside his robe enough to show Mac the hilt of his dagger. “Life or death. Just let me know what it is to be.”
“What makes you think someone wants to kill him?” Mac asked, although he was leaning toward life, since Columbus didn’t die until, the download pushed the date through his hangover: 20 May 1506, after being ill for a number of years. From complications of Reiter’s Syndrome, which was a—
Mac shut it down. All that mattered was Columbus didn’t die today. Plus, for some reason, accessing the download made the hangover worse.
“Why did he go to Portugal first?” Geert asked. “I have heard that Columbus left the Nina in Lisbon and traveled to a town just outside the city to meet King John II. If this is true, then his life is in danger from Spain. Also, why are the Centre Suisse here? Why has no one disembarked? Something is not right.”
According to the download, Columbus had disembarked in Lisbon and met King John II. Something historians had not found worthy of much mention, nor was there any information about what happened at that meeting. But Mac had enough of the big picture to make a decision for the immediate future.
“Let’s go with life,” Mac said.
Geert seemed relieved.
Thermopylae, Greece, 480 B.C.
SCOUT WASN’T THERE AND THEN SHE was there, but she’d sort of always been there. It was the best way to explain how she arrived, becoming part of her current time and place without fanfare or excitement among those around him. She was in the bubble of this day, not before, and hopefully she wouldn’t be here afterward.
And she knew she wasn’t Scout. Not completely. She felt the tendrils of the past, a lifetime before her, many lives before, part of her blood, her genes, creeping into her consciousness, from the present stretching into the past. A long, long way back, like the way the spiral of the Possibility Palace faded down, far down, into a distant haze.
All the way back to Atlantis, a dim golden beacon before the start of history as we know it.
Scout, who was immediately aware she was called Cyra in this time and place, knew if she remained Cyra long enough, she’d have it all: The history of her bloodline; memories of Atlantis. But if she remained here, past twenty-four hours, there would be no Scout to remember anything.
She would revert back to Cyra and Scout would no longer exist.
She almost gagged at the foul stench of death that filled the air; the tint of iron from massive amounts of spilled blood.
“If the words of your Oracle are true, this is my final night,” Leonidas said. “What say you, priestess of the Oracle of Delphi? What of the prophecy?”
“The words are true,” Scout replied.
“The way you paused,” Leonidas said. “It almost gave me hope. But it’s strange. Before every battle, I have felt fear. Of being maimed. Killed. Most of all defeated. But no matter how dire the fight appeared, or how terrible the odds, I always believed deep inside that none of those would happen.” He sat up and looked at his soldiers. “We all know we’ll die one day. Everyone does. In battle or of disease or inevitably of old age. But it’s always in the future. Not today.”
Scout felt an affinity, affection for Leonidas, a memory of what she’d felt for Nada. She could also sense darkness in him, the ability to kill. But there was another side to such darkness, the side that had allowed Nada to make the decision to go back and sacrifice his own life to make things right.
“When you take this map,” Leonidas said, “will you stay with it or do you deliver it somewhere?”
“I will know when I have it.” So, this was about a map, Scout thought . But she could sense it wasn’t a typical map. It was special.
Of course, if it wasn’t special, why would she be here in the first place?
Leonidas continued. “And after you fulfill whatever
“What makes you think someone wants to kill him?” Mac asked, although he was leaning toward life, since Columbus didn’t die until, the download pushed the date through his hangover: 20 May 1506, after being ill for a number of years. From complications of Reiter’s Syndrome, which was a—
Mac shut it down. All that mattered was Columbus didn’t die today. Plus, for some reason, accessing the download made the hangover worse.
“Why did he go to Portugal first?” Geert asked. “I have heard that Columbus left the Nina in Lisbon and traveled to a town just outside the city to meet King John II. If this is true, then his life is in danger from Spain. Also, why are the Centre Suisse here? Why has no one disembarked? Something is not right.”
According to the download, Columbus had disembarked in Lisbon and met King John II. Something historians had not found worthy of much mention, nor was there any information about what happened at that meeting. But Mac had enough of the big picture to make a decision for the immediate future.
“Let’s go with life,” Mac said.
Geert seemed relieved.
Thermopylae, Greece, 480 B.C.
SCOUT WASN’T THERE AND THEN SHE was there, but she’d sort of always been there. It was the best way to explain how she arrived, becoming part of her current time and place without fanfare or excitement among those around him. She was in the bubble of this day, not before, and hopefully she wouldn’t be here afterward.
And she knew she wasn’t Scout. Not completely. She felt the tendrils of the past, a lifetime before her, many lives before, part of her blood, her genes, creeping into her consciousness, from the present stretching into the past. A long, long way back, like the way the spiral of the Possibility Palace faded down, far down, into a distant haze.
All the way back to Atlantis, a dim golden beacon before the start of history as we know it.
Scout, who was immediately aware she was called Cyra in this time and place, knew if she remained Cyra long enough, she’d have it all: The history of her bloodline; memories of Atlantis. But if she remained here, past twenty-four hours, there would be no Scout to remember anything.
She would revert back to Cyra and Scout would no longer exist.
She almost gagged at the foul stench of death that filled the air; the tint of iron from massive amounts of spilled blood.
“If the words of your Oracle are true, this is my final night,” Leonidas said. “What say you, priestess of the Oracle of Delphi? What of the prophecy?”
“The words are true,” Scout replied.
“The way you paused,” Leonidas said. “It almost gave me hope. But it’s strange. Before every battle, I have felt fear. Of being maimed. Killed. Most of all defeated. But no matter how dire the fight appeared, or how terrible the odds, I always believed deep inside that none of those would happen.” He sat up and looked at his soldiers. “We all know we’ll die one day. Everyone does. In battle or of disease or inevitably of old age. But it’s always in the future. Not today.”
Scout felt an affinity, affection for Leonidas, a memory of what she’d felt for Nada. She could also sense darkness in him, the ability to kill. But there was another side to such darkness, the side that had allowed Nada to make the decision to go back and sacrifice his own life to make things right.
“When you take this map,” Leonidas said, “will you stay with it or do you deliver it somewhere?”
“I will know when I have it.” So, this was about a map, Scout thought . But she could sense it wasn’t a typical map. It was special.
Of course, if it wasn’t special, why would she be here in the first place?
Leonidas continued. “And after you fulfill whatever
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