City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis Read Online Free Page B

signature was exactly the same as that generated by the gun held in my hand. It was not the same make or model, it was the exact same gun.
    Of course. Obviously. I was going to shoot myself.
    Means I could see. What about opportunity?
    The time-depth reading on the spot of mist from which the murder-discharge radiated did surprise me. It was a matter of a few seconds, plus or minus. Something was going to make me shoot me in a moment or so from now.
    That left only motive. And I couldn't imagine any motive, at first.
    But then I thought: Why not? Why the hell not?

26.
     
    I swung my barrel to cover D'Artagnan.
    “OK, fancy boy,” I snapped. “Charade's over. Do I need to shoot you to make the real Time Warden show up?”
    “You think I am not a Time Warden?”
    I shook my head. I could have explained that I hadn't seen him chronoshift but once, and that, since he wasn't wearing a Time Warden's mist cloak, such shifts would have been obvious. A Time Warden who did not have other selves as bodyguards? Who lived through all his time lines in blind, first-time, unedited scenes? A Time Warden who didn't time travel? But all I said was: “You talk too much to be a Time Warden.”
    “You may as well put your gun away, Mr. Frontino, or I will have my…” he nodded toward the cataphract and his sentence choked to a halt. He saw the aiming dot punctuating Ugly Boy's face.
    “I don't know if you can see my settings from there,” I said.
    He nodded carefully. “Your deadman switch is on.”
    “And the change-in-energy detector. Any weapons go off near me, and my Unlimited friend here goes off and keeps going off long after I'm dead. Well? Well? I want some answers!”
    The cataphract's launch-harness unfolded from his back like the legs of a preying mantis opening. Tubes longer than bazookas pointed at me. He raised his hand toward me. With sharp metallic clashes of noise, barrels came out of the weapon housings of his gauntleted forearms. I was standing close enough that I could hear the throbbing hum of his power-core cycling up to full-battle mode. The mouths of his weapons were so close to my face that I could smell ozone and hot metal.
    My nape hairs and armpits prickled. I could feel my heartbeat pulsing in my temples; my face felt hot. Standing at ground zero, at the point-blank firing focus of a mobile Heavy Assault Battery, really doesn't do a man's nerves much good.
    “Well?” I said, not taking my eyes from D'Artagnan. “Things are going to start getting sloppy!”
    Even D'Artagnan looked surprised when the frozen image of the Time Warden on the throne stood up and raised his hand. Of course the time-stop had meant nothing to him. He had merely been sitting still, faking it.
    “Enough!” His voice rang with multiple echoes, as if a crowd of people were speaking in not-quite-perfect unison. “You have passed our test, Frontino. You were brought here to assume the rights, powers and perquisites of a Time Warden. You may assume your rightful place at my side. There is no need for a coronation ceremony. Here I give the reality of power.”
    With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed a packet of destiny cards at my feet. The pack fell open as it struck the marble floor. Shining mirrored cards fell open, glittering.
    These were the real things. The glassy depths held images from history, ages past and future, eras unguessed. There were castles, landscapes, battlefields, towers, all the cities and kingdoms of the world.
    The final row lay before me. All I had to do was stoop over and pick them up. If I just bent a little, it could all be mine. Me, pulling the strings for once. Me, the puppet-master, not the puppet. No longer a pawn.

9.
     
    I stood at the window, watching the golden city of glory with eyes of awe. I asked Iapetus. “I still have some questions. May I ask?”
    “Certainly, Mr. Frontino.”
    “How can it be possible? Time travel, I mean? What happens to cause-and-effect?”
    Iapetus' smile was