“Goody, goody, goody!” Mandy said, hopping to and fro like a cricket. “Can I wear my mask to look for Jemmy?”
NOTHING’S SO HARD BUT SEARCH WILL FIND IT OUT
HE’D FELT THE DIAMONDS explode. For some time, that was the only thought in his mind. Felt it. One instant, briefer than a heartbeat, and a pulse of light and heat in his hand and then the throb of something going through him, surrounding him, and then . . .
Not “then,” he thought muzzily. Wasn’t any then. Wasn’t any now. Now there is, though . . .
He opened his eyes to find that there was a now. He was lying on stones and heather and there was a cow breathing—no, not a cow. He made to rise and managed to turn his head half an inch. It was a man, sitting huddled on the ground. Taking huge, irregular, gasping sobs of breath. Who . . . ?
“Oh,” he said aloud, or almost. “ ’S you.” The words came out in a mangle that hurt his throat, and he coughed. That hurt, too. “You . . . okay?” he asked hoarsely.
“No.” It came out in a grunt, filled with pain, and alarm got Roger up onto hands and knees, head spinning. He did a bit of gasping himself but crawled as fast as he could toward Buck.
William Buccleigh was curled over, arms crossed, gripping his left upper arm with his right hand. His face was pale and slicked with sweat, lips pressed so tight together that a ring of white showed round his mouth.
“Hurt?” Roger lifted a hand, not sure where or whether to prod. He couldn’t see any blood.
“My . . . chest,” Buck wheezed. “Arm.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Roger said, the last remnants of muzziness stripped away by a blast of adrenaline. “Are you having a bloody heart attack?”
“What . . .” Buck grimaced, then something seemed to ease a little. He gulped air. “How would I know?”
“It’s—never mind. Lie down, will you?” Roger looked wildly round, though even as he did, he realized the sheer pointlessness of doing so. The area near Craigh na Dun was wild and unpopulated in his own time, let alone this one. And even should someone appear out of the stones and heather, the chances of whoever it was being a doctor were remote.
He took Buck by the shoulders and eased him gently down, then bent and put his ear to the man’s chest, feeling like an idiot.
“D’ye hear anything?” Buck asked anxiously.
“Not with you talking, no. Shut up.” He thought he could make out a heartbeat of some sort but had no idea whether there was anything wrong with it. He stayed bent a moment longer, if only to compose himself.
Always act as if you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t. He’d been given that bit of advice by a number of people, from performers he’d shared a stage with to academic advisers . . . and, much more recently, by both of his in-laws.
He put a hand on Buck’s chest and looked into the man’s face. He was still sweating and plainly scared, but there was a little more color in his cheeks. His lips weren’t blue; that seemed a good sign.
“Just keep breathing,” he advised his ancestor. “Slow, aye?”
He tried to follow that bit of advice himself; his own heart was hammering and sweat was running down his back, in spite of a cold wind that whined past his ears.
“We did it, aye?” Buck’s chest was moving more slowly under his hand. He turned his head to look round. “It’s . . . different. Isn’t it?”
“Yes.” In spite of the current situation and the overwhelming worry for Jem, Roger felt a surge of jubilation and relief. It was different: from here, he could see the road below—now no more than an overgrown drovers’ trace rather than a gray asphalt ribbon. The trees and bushes, they were different, too—there were pines, the big Caledonian pines that looked like giant stalks of broccoli. They had made it.
He grinned at Buck. “We made it. Don’t die on me now, you bugger.”
“Do my best.” Buck was gruff but maybe starting to look better. “What happens if ye die out of your time? D’ye just disappear, like ye never were?”
“Maybe ye explode into bits. I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. Not while I’m standing next to you, at least.” Roger got his feet under him and fought down a wave of dizziness. His own heart was still beating hard enough that he felt it in the back of his head. He breathed as deep as he could and stood up.
“I’ll . . . get ye some water. Stay there, aye?”
ROGER HAD BROUGHT a small empty canteen, though he’d worried about what might happen to the metal in transit. Evidently whatever it was that vaporized gemstones wasn’t bothered about tin, though; the canteen was intact, and so was the small knife and the silver pocket flask of brandy.
Buck was sitting up by the time Roger came back from the nearest burn with water, and after mopping his face with the water and drinking half the brandy, he declared himself recovered.
Roger wasn’t all that sure; the look of the man was a little off-color still—but he was much too anxious about Jem to suggest waiting any longer. They’d talked about it a bit on the drive to Craigh na Dun, agreeing on a basic strategy, at least to start.
If Cameron and Jem had made it through without mishap—and Roger’s heart misgave him at that thought, recalling Geillis Duncan’s careful collection of news reports involving people found near stone circles, most of them dead—they had to be on foot. And while Jem was a sturdy little boy and capable of walking a good distance, he doubted they could make much more than ten miles in a day over rough country.