Part 30 (2/2)

Her eyes darted back to the journal. But he said he had never tested it... ”You are asking yourself how it works. If you care to read the journal, you will know. But if you are in haste, know this, time is not a river but a vortex, and with enough power man can jump into another part of the swirl.

Or perhaps man can't, but you can, my dear Contessa, you who are not human. Do you think I did not notice the hum of energy about you? I measured it without your knowledge, and was astounded. The people around you feel it as vitality, a force of personality, an incredible attraction to you, but I know better. Your power is real and it is incredibly strong. It keeps you young and heals you. The you of today thinks I did not know those things about you either. But the you who you will be told me. It is the knowledge of this source of power that inspires me to build a machine worthy of its use.

My only regret is that I will not live to see it used. But you, who started me on this quest, told me you must not find it until after I am dead. It will wait for you, who live forever, to use when the time is right.

So, my dear Contessa, pull the lever. Use your power, think of the moment you want to be as you jump into the maelstrom. That will influence the machine. You will end up in the moment you imagine.

But be warned: The machine will go with you but it cannot stay long in another time. To return, you must use it again before it disappears. I do not know how long it can stay. I do not know what will happen if you make it back to the time you are in now, or what will happen if you don't. I give you only the means to change your destiny, or perhaps all of our destinies. Use it if you will.

Donnatella sat there, stunned. She couldn't think. A time machine? And one that confused even the grand intellect of the one who made it. She leafed through the pages of the journal. Complicated drawings, long blotted pa.s.sages containing theoretical explanations of the vortex, records of his useless attempts to find enough energy to power the machine flipped past her. She stopped and read a few. She was doing it only to delay the moment of decision.

And why? She knew what she would do here. Once she had been too timid to break the Rules and grab for the prize of true love. Now she was willing to risk everything, and determined to have the courage to do it.

Her heart thudded in her chest as she rose from the table and stared up at the great machine. Did her Companion have enough power to run it? She could just test the theory-pull back if she got some initial result. But she wouldn't. What if timidity ruined everything as it had so long ago? What if she drained herself in an experiment, making the real effort impossible?

No, it was all or nothing.

She swallowed, her eyes filling for the second time tonight.

The handle of the machine was a bra.s.s lever about three feet long and topped by a glowing jewel. She reached out for it. The great diamond fit her palm exactly.

She pulled. There was a creak but nothing else changed.

”Companion.” She called her other half out loud in the wavering lamplight. A surge of power shot up her veins. A red film fell over her field of vision. Above her, the early morning light would be filtering into the nave of Il Duomo. The priests would be moving quietly about, tending the votive candles or kneeling in prayer. The machine was still.

”Companion! More!” The whirling black vortex of translocation began to swirl around her feet. She couldn't allow that. She pushed it down, but kept the power humming in the air. There was a great grinding sound and the largest of the metal cogs in front of her began to move. Still she called the power from the parasite in her blood that was part of her, and more than her. A white glow formed a halo around her. Every detail of the cavern stood out, sharp-edged. The movement of the gears cascaded down from the great, cogged wheel to the hundred smaller ones. The jewels sparkled. Gears whirled ever faster until the eye could not follow them.

”More!” she shrieked into the hum that cycled up the scale, and lifted her arms in supplication. Her Companion was at its limit. Was that enough?

Nothing more was happening. The machine was faint behind the white glow. Her. body stretched itself taut with effort. What next? She couldn't hold this level of power forever.

Ahhhh. The destination.

She thought of the moment she had almost decided to make Jergan vampire. Emotion poured through her as she stared at his wounds, not knowing if he would survive them. She could feel the machine move even faster. It was just a blur beyond the corona of her power. And then it slowed. She saw herself from somewhere outside herself standing, glowing, in front of the great machine, as it seemed to creak almost to a halt it moved so slowly. Had she failed? The power still poured from her body into the room. A feeling of incredible tristesse came over her. s.h.i.+p would not win through. Her only hope of happiness, or of giving Jergan his own forever, faded.

She thought of the moment he came into her life...

Everything snapped back to motion and she felt herself being flung like a stone in a sling-shot into more and more and more speed. The jewels lit up. They magnified the power into colored beams that crisscrossed, swinging in arcs across the stone ceiling. Pain surged into every fiber of her body. Then, blackness.

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