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“I do it to save Mother Russia.”
The king's agent took three long strides and reached for the Eyeof Naga.
“You do it because you're a demented meddler and you have nocontrol over yourself!” he barked.
“Keep back!”
Blue lightning crackled from Blavatsky's hands, hit Burton inthe chest, and knocked him off his feet. He thumped down onto hisback. For a second, it felt as if the flesh was boiling off hisbones, but the torment passed in an instant, and, with aninvoluntary groan, he pushed himself up and faced his opponentagain.
Her voice echoed in his skull: “ Pah! There is no satisfactionin wounding your body, but your mind, malchik moi- ah!-what greatvalue you place upon it, and how fragile it is! ”
She drove a pitiless spike of shame into that part of his memorywhere regrets and disappointments dwelt, expecting to cripple himas she had in their previous encounter.
Burton reeled and groaned, but then steadied himself and turnedhis awareness inward. His Dervish meditation had fortified andstrengthened his mind to such a degree that her assault did nodamage, but rather gave him a route through which to respond. Hethrust mortification along the mediumistic cha
She recoiled and cried out, shocked at the power of hisriposte.
“ Oh bozhe! You bite back! ”
“Stay out of my head!”
“I will do as I please, rebenok. And conceit?” She laughed. “Youthink that is my weakness? Nyet! Eto vlast! It is strength!”
The king's agent shook his head. “No, madam. The love of one'sown excellence serves only to obscure one's own mistakes.”
“I have made no mistakes!”
Burton looked into the woman's eyes and treated her to one ofhis characteristically savage smiles.
“Haven't you?”
She attacked again, digging fear into his insecurities, but hisqualms had been modified by the conception that weaknesses are, infact, the seeds of future strength. She was easily repelled, andhis response-doubt driven into her confidence-was devastatinglyeffective.
She moaned and twisted in her web of ectoplasm.
“This self-assurance of yours was not there before!” she gasped,and there was a hint of anxiety in her tone.
He felt her poking around his mind, preparing for anotherthrust. He pounced, locked her into position, and pierced her witha sharp edge of fear.
She screamed.
“That was breaking time followed by a prise de fer,” he said. “Ilearned it from an expert.”
Blavatsky hung silently and he saw that she was trembling.
“Good,” he said. “Perhaps now we can talk?”
“Speak,” she whispered.
“Your plan, madam, is defective for two reasons. The first isthat you regard Russia's future as predestined; something fixed intime; a fate it is sure to suffer unless you interfere.”
“I watched it happen.”
“You watched a possibility, but there are many, many possiblefutures.”
“You are wrong! I have seen what I have seen.”
“Does your certainty not seem a little peculiar to you? Destinyis far more malleable than you think!”
“You ca
“But I do-and I shall show you how!”
He guided the writhing, invasive tendrils of her consciousnessto a seemingly insignificant path in his own mind and pushed themalong it into his recollections of Spring Heeled Jack.
Blavatsky absorbed the memories, and he felt herastonishment.
“ Oh bozhe! A man who jumped through time! How can this bepossible? ”
“The point is this, madam: the time we are living in is not thetime that was meant to be. Maybe, before Edward Oxford came back tochange his past, Russia's prospects were far less tragic. We shallnever know. His actions altered the course of future history forthe entire world, and now you are seeking to do the same. If he cando it, and you can do it, then surely it's entirely possible thatsomeone else will do it, too. In fact, I contend not only thatanyone can do it, but that we all do! Destiny is not fixed. It isthe ever-changing consequence of uncountable actions-actionsundertaken by every single person on the face of the planet, eachwith a unique understanding of reality and of how to deal with it.Even the most obscure, uneducated, unimaginative nobody can, anddoes, make a difference.”
“Burton,” came a faint hiss from above, “I have to save MotherRussia.”
He looked at the suspended woman and shrugged. “Then you have touse your clairvoyance to predict every single action taken by everysingle person every minute of every day from now until whateverfuture date you decide that her fate has been fulfilled to yoursatisfaction. If you don't, then someone, somewhere, will dosomething that will modify the results you seek. It is inevitable.No single person can make future history entirely what he or shewishes.”
Blavatsky hung silently. Her black eyes flicked nervously fromBurton, to the motionless clockwork man, to the quietly singingdiamond, and back to Burton.
“All this for nothing?” she mouthed.
“As I said, your plan is defective for two reasons.”
“What is the second?”
Burton sighed and braced himself. “The second fault, MadamBlavatsky, is that it's not even your plan.”
“What?”
“No one-not even a lunatic like you-could possibly believethemselves exclusively capable of shaping future history. Notunless, that is, the history they're trying to manipulate isactually their own past.”
Bolts of etheric energy started to crackle around the woman'sbody. The library filled with the tang of ozone.
“I do not understand,” she whispered.
The king's agent paused, severed his mediumistic co
Blavatsky suddenly arched her back and shrieked. Etheric energycrackled over her entire body. Blood sprang from her eyes, ears,and nose. It oozed out from her brain tissue and dribbled down ontothe Eye of Naga.
She twisted and struggled and her scream rose in pitch then diedto a bubbling gasp.
She hung limply, and for a moment, there was completesilence.
Her mouth opened.
A man's voice, deep and gurgling, heavily accented, andsaturated with evil, came from it: “Very clever, tovarishch. Youare correct. Man from future know history and can change history tomake new future. Kukolnyi -you say puppet, da? -very useful!”
The king's agent gave a grim smile. “About time,” he said. “Iwas begi
“ Nyet. ”
“All this while, thinking she was acting under her own volition,she's been doing your bidding. Tell me, how does it feel to haveforeseen so clearly the ma
“I see assassination. See death. I think it… disappointing.”
“How soon? From your perspective, I mean.”
“Two years from now.”
“Then you are speaking from the year 1914?”
“ Da. But I must tell you: I am to make different-umm-schedulefor us both. My death, I vill delay; yours vill be much more soon,nyet? ”
“ Nyet,” Burton replied.
Grigori Rasputin chuckled maliciously.
The rivulets of blood that had been trickling from MadamBlavatsky slowed to irregular drips. Burton could see that thewoman was close to death.
“So let me venture a guess,” he said. “Your clairvoyancerevealed to you the circumstances of your future betrayal anddemise, and the subsequent fate of your country. You could havesaved yourself by simply avoiding the assassins, but still therewould be Germany, still Nietzsche, and, in all probability, stillmore assassins. So you traced the history of the war back to itsorigins, seeking a way to alter its course, intending to preventyour own murder and the disaster that would befall Russiaafterward.”
“Entirely correct, tovarishch.”