Excerpt: The Revolutionist

You can read the chapters at my LiveJournal, here: http://kaichi-satake.livejournal.com . In the meantime, here is a nice excerpt, Chapter Two:

He felt as though he had fallen from far above the ceiling, though the feather bed and pillows gave no evidence of such a drop. The bed ropes didn’t jump and squeak against their posts, and the walnut frame didn’t pop and moan, but his body did. Traveling always wore him out, and leaping from one time and body to another was seldom a smooth and easy transition. Even worse, if a dimension or two got in the way.

He looked over at Margaret and found her looking back at him, her big blue eyes full of worry. She half sat up and fussed with the lacings on his night shirt, but she didn’t meet his eyes. “Why do you start so, when you awaken? You frighten me!”

“I don’t mean to.” He smiled and pulled her against him, held her tightly and buried his nose in her golden curls. “I’m only eager to wake up to you, my Maggie.”

She sighed and pushed herself off of his chest, finally let her eyes catch his. She pouted and poked him in the breast. “Are you going to take me to Boston, today?”

He sat up and pushed her farther off of him. “No.”

“Button Wallace! You promised!” she said, her angry eyes following him as he climbed out of bed. “You’re going to her, aren’t you?! I won’t have you going to see that woman, any more! You said you wouldn’t!”

“I’m not going to see a woman. I’m going to see a witch.”

“What?!” She nearly screamed the word, and flung herself out of bed. She followed him around the room, violently shaking her head and watching him dress. “You aren’t going to do any such thing!” She grabbed at his sleeve and wouldn’t let him fling her off, clutched his arm and tugged on it with all her might, trying to lead him back to the bed. “You aren’t! You get right back into that bed! You aren’t a well man! You can’t be, with such nonsense in your head! You must be fevered!” She frantically reached for his forehead and cheeks.

He brushed her hands away from his face. “Let me be! I’m not fevered.” Once she had stopped pawing at him, he turned away, combed his russet hair back from his face and tied a black ribbon around it. He could feel her sulking and trembling behind him, but he didn’t let it deter him from finishing his toilet and slipping into his best wool coat. He took his weapons from their box, stuck the knife into his boot and thrust the pistol under his belt, took up the bags of powder and shot and wad and tied them down, too. Snatched up a tricorn hat and faced her, again. Her eyes were full of horror.

“They’ll hang you.”

“Probably,” he said, with a smile. “With or without a witch.” He leaned forward and gave her a gentle kiss. “Don’t wait for me, here. Go to Amelia’s. Say nothing about me. And if I don’t come back, forget you ever knew my name.”

She threw her arms about his neck and kissed him, again, more passionately than he had first kissed her. She held onto him for a long few moments, afterward, and he didn’t resist her. Her bosom heaved against him with her every quiet sob, and the feeling made him ache, deep in his heart. He kissed the top of her head.

“Don’t cry, my Maggie. I’ll be back.”

She clung harder and sobbed her muffled words into his coat. “No you won’t!”

He pulled himself free of her grasp, kissed her forehead and plopped his hat onto his head. “Goodbye, my Maggie. For now.”

He walked straight out the door and didn’t look back, heard her scream an obscenity at him and slam the door. That was better. He hated long, sobbing goodbyes. They dragged at his heart and soul, and he needed all his wit and spirit about him, today.

**********

Button Wallace hurried himself along High Street, not stopping to greet any of his neighbors or even acknowledge them. The people of Medford, Massachusetts had grown used to Wallace’s eccentricity and anti-social nature, so none of them thought anything of his behavior. He took two turns and doubled back on his route, in the hope that nobody would pay any attention to where he was going or see him entering the clockmaker’s shop. Satisfied that no one was watching him, he slipped through the open shop door and met John Fulton at his back counter.

The clockmaker scowled at him over his wire-rimmed glasses. “You, again!”

“I’ve no time to argue, Mr. Fulton. I need the portal.”

“You just used it! You’ll wear the damned thing out!” Fulton leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Besides that, it isn’t good for you! I can see what it’s doing to you, flittering back and forth, hither and yon, in such frantic fashion! Why, you’re worn to a stub, Mr. Wallace! Wait a few more days, won’t you?”

“No! I can’t wait! Can’t you see what they’re doing?!”

The clockmaker sat back and returned his eyes to the works he had been tinkering with, when Button had come in. “No, I can’t. And you know I can’t.”

Button leaned onto the counter to put himself right into John Fulton’s face. “They’re growing a grid, Mr. Fulton. It must be destroyed, or everything is lost!”

“And how do you propose we destroy it? How do you even know that it’s a bad thing? What evidence have you got that would justify our interference in the plans of the Mages, Mr. Wallace?”

Wallace sighed. “You haven’t felt the vibrations. You haven’t seen the spires! All you need to do is see the spires, to know what they are, and that they’re evil!”

“Well, you know I can’t see them,” Fulton said, with a sad shake of his head. “And even if I could, I doubt I could find any clue as to what they’re meant to do.”

“They’re meant to control us!”

“Aren’t they already controlling us?”

“Damn, but you’re impossible!” Button slammed his fist onto the countertop and rattled the gears in the clock Fulton poked at. “I need the portal! I’ll show you the near-grown spires on the other side, if you’re not too addlepated to remember me!”

Fulton resignedly laid his clock aside and waved Wallace around the end of the counter. “Come along, then. But don’t blame me, when you drop dead of exhaustion!”

The clockmaker led Wallace through the storeroom, where he opened a tall cabinet and began removing all manner of junk from inside it, until he had made a narrow passageway to the back wall. He took hold of Button’s arm, to stop him from rushing through. “Do a favor for me, Button; don’t come here in the daytime any more, yes?”

He waited until Wallace nodded his agreement before he released his arm. As the Destroyer moved through the portal, Fulton partly closed the door to conceal the flash of light, and he looked back toward the front of the shop, to make sure no one was around. Seeing the way empty, he opened the cabinet, again, and replaced all the junk, then latched the door and returned to his counter.