Byzantine Pyrrhichios: Escape

Rose slunk into the bedchamber she'd been given in Constantine's palace, closing the door firmly in the servant's startled face, and then wilted suddenly against the back, trembling.

How had she ever thought this would be an adventure? She hated it – hated every second she spent in this horrible, beautiful, holy place. Even though she'd taken to wearing a large, plain piece of cloth, shawl-like, covering her blouse and her hair, she was still instantly recognized and followed every moment by crowds large and small. They all stared at her continuously, as if they expected her to toss rainbows from her fingertips, heal all the sick in the city, and fling the Persian army across the world with a glance. All her protestations that she was just a visiting human, a woman like everyone else, fell on deaf ears – and she'd quickly begun simply keeping her mouth shut. The past two weeks had surely lasted longer than two years!

Jack and the Emperor had hit it off like thieves, and spent every moment together, riding around to inspect the city's defenses and direct the crews working on various repairs, checking Orban's work, and talking long into the night about wars and strategy, while Rose herself had trailed along haplessly in their wake. She'd acted as Jack's interpreter in the beginning, but he'd seemed to soak up the language like water, and needed her less and less as the days went by. Now she merely sat or walked or ate silently, mute but far from unnoticed, enduring the stares and whispers as best she could. There was simply nothing else she could do.

Pushing off from the door, she drifted across the room and sat on the edge of her wide bed, pushing her sleeve up over the time jumper and checking it automatically. Still no change. She'd asked Jack to show her how to use it and he'd at least taught her what some of the buttons did, although he maintained that fully understanding the details of programming it would take months of hard work and advanced mathematics. Still, she idly played with it, punching in numbers and symbols without comprehension, carefully staying away from the combination that would activate it.

"Most holy and gracious lady..." came a whispered greeting from the window. Gasping in shock, Rose jerked her head up and stared at the bedraggled woman who had appeared there, holding an obviously sick toddler in her arms. Another penitent had somehow snuck in to ask her for healing.

And as suddenly as that, she Could. Not. Take. Any. More.

Without even checking to see what was in the window, she stabbed the Activate button, and the woman, baby, and despised room disappeared from view in the trans-temporal blaze.

^..^

Of course, as she'd been sitting down, she landed hard on her butt at the other end. Coughing from the miniature dust storm her arrival had raised, Rose struggled to her feet, rubbing her backside and looking warily around at the chaotic scene. At least it was quiet – and apparently empty. She'd landed in a workshop of some sort, wood and glass and pots of paint piled everywhere, with drawings and plans scattered about willy-nilly. Every surface was covered with junk. When and where was she?

She started to look at the jumper to see if she could make sense of the data, when a clatter to her right drew her attention. She wasn't alone after all. A young man was standing, gaping at her (oh, how tired she was of seeing tonsils!) a few feet away in the clutter, the small pile of wood he'd just inadvertently kicked over still settling.

"Where am I? When?" she asked him, but he just continued to gape, no flicker of comprehension crossing his face.

"I just want to go home." She wasn't any closer to it now, obviously. There was only one way to get there that she could see. She pushed the recall button on the jumper, as she'd done a thousand times the past fortnight, just to see the date and (presumably) location of her kidnapping dance across the time piece – and this time, went ahead and activated it, jumping to the future and out of the stranger's workshop.

And behind her, the glass artisan sank to his knees, in awe of his answered prayer for divine inspiration – and then scrambled to his feet again, grabbing some nearby charcoal to sketch out her heavenly features (although they'd never fade from his memory), and began to transfer it to stained glass for the centerpiece icon for the glorious cathedral being built down the street in this new eastern Roman capital, Constantinople.

^..^

At least this time she landed on her feet – although the hard headlong smash into a brick wall two stumbling steps out of the blaze didn't do much to help her mood. She managed to stay upright, reaching a hand to the wall to steady herself and catch her breath, then looked around to see where she'd arrived. It proved to be a dingy, dirty, but blessedly modern-looking alley – and the noise of traffic from a few yards to her right sounded just about right for a contemporary city.

Desperate now, Rose ran to the mouth of the alley and nearly whooped in relief: yes, this was undoubtedly Wynburne Avenue – look, there was her favorite big bookstore just across the street! She was less than a block away from the small city park where she'd been grabbed by Corvantes' goon. Choking back sobs, she dashed that direction, ignoring both the odd looks of passersby and the glimpses of shops that just didn't seem right for some reason. She skidded to a halt at the corner, though, gaping in slowly-dawning horror.

The park wasn't there.

Instead, a parking garage soared high above her head, five stories at least; the crumbling, paint- and oil-stained concrete with its complement of tattered posters and billboards proclaiming its age – it hadn't replaced her beloved little green overnight.

She stared back and forth from the garage to the street corner signs, verifying over and over that she was at the right place. Just to her right was a news stand, and she drifted over to unwillingly check the date on the papers piled there.

Of course, it was the date of her kidnapping. She wasn't likely to forget it.

The weight of the time jumper on her wrist caught her attention again, and she pulled her arm up in slow motion and pushed the recall button one last time. The backlight was still white. She was still in Alpha Universe.

Farther from home than ever.