Pug moved from where he had been observing, at Ryath’s side, and said, “Or it could be more. It’s hard to tell.”
Macros blinked and stood up. “Moving through time backwards does make it somewhat academic, I’ll admit. But I had no idea I’d been contemplating so long.”
Pug said, “You haven’t given us much idea of what is going on here. I tried several things to discover what is occurring about us, and have only gained a little notion of how this time trap works.”
“What have you learned about the trap?”
Pug’s brow furrowed. “It appears the spell was designed to reverse time in a field about us. As long as we’re in that field, we are subject to its effect and cannot change it. We’re carried along with the Garden, moving at a leisurely pace backward through the timestream.” Frustration showed clearly in his tone. “Macros, we’ve plenty of fruit and nuts, but Ryath is hungry. She has managed to get by on some of the small game around here, and even has managed to eat some nuts, but she can’t go on this way much longer. Within a short time she’ll have hunted out the game, and then she’ll begin to starve.”
Macros looked over to where the golden dragon lay in a doze, to conserve energy. “Well, we must get out of here, then, by all means.”
“How?” said Tomas.
“It will be difficult, but I expect you two will be up to it.” He managed to smile, returning to something of the confidence he had exuded when both had known him before. “Any trap has some weakness. Even something as simple as a rock dropped from above has a design flaw: it can miss. I think I’ve found the flaw in this trap.”
Pug said, “It would prove refreshing. I’ve thought of a dozen things to do, if I were outside the field of this trap. Ryath has tried to take me outside and we’ve failed. And I can’t think of a thing to do from the inside to fight our flight back through time.”
“The trick, dear Pug, is not to fight the flight backward through time but to accelerate it. We must travel faster and faster, moving at rates undreamed of.”
Tomas said, “To what ends? We move back further from the conflict. What do we gain?”
“Think, Milamber of the Assembly,” Macros said, using Pug’s Tsurani name. “If we go back far enough . . .”
Pug said nothing for a while, then understanding began to dawn. “We go back to the beginning of time.”
“And before . . . when time had no meaning.”
Pug said, “Is this possible?”
Macros shrugged. “I don’t know, but as I can’t think of anything else to try, I’m willing. I’ll need your help. I have the knowledge but not the power.”
Pug said, “Tell me what to do.”
Macros motioned for him to sit, and sat opposite him. Tomas stood behind his friend, observing with interest. Macros reached out and placed his hands upon Pug’s head. “Let my knowledge come into you.”
Pug felt his mind fill with images . . .
. . . and the universe as he knows it shudders. Only once before has he known this sense of panoramic awareness, that time he stood upon the Tower of Testing when he entered the ranks of the Great Ones. A more mature, more knowledgeable observer watches this time and understands so much more of what he sees: the symmetry, the order, the stunning magnificence that spin about him, all tied together in some plan beyond his ability to perceive. He stands in awe.
He casts his awareness about and again is astonished at the wonders of the universe about him. Now he again swims between the stars, again perceiving the mystic lines of force that bind together all things in the universe. He detects a tugging on those lines, and sees something striving to enter this universe from another. It is foul, a cancerous thing that threatens the order of all that is. It is a darkness, a blotting out. It is the Enemy. But it is weak and cautious. He ponders its nature as it falls away from his understanding. He is moving backward in time.