First Place Story, 2001.

Vigil

Magee Gilks

“Yes . . .”

Angel looked at the battle-worn man lying on the couch. He lay in coma now. Such stillness was foreign on a face formerly so filled and carved by life. She longed to see his eyes again. His life lay there. Every mile, every battle, every joy and every betrayal had left their mark in the depths of Alexander’s eyes. Their reality had slammed into her the very first day in Babylon. They’d pulled her full into time itself, and objectivity be damned.

She remembered everything about her first sight of Alexander: the air, spiced with the aroma of horse and human sweat; swirling dust; creaking wagons and braying mules, the wicker of horses and the jingle of harness; the rumbling thunder of the march and the susseration of hundreds of conversations up and down the line. And laughter. It was a victory march, after all.

She and her partner Jackman crouched in a field of alfalfa next to the yellow road.

“I’m going in.” She’d won the coin toss for the first tour. “See you in twenty-four hours.”

She touched the phase-shift control on her belt; the air around her shimmered briefly as she slid a heartbeat out of sync with time. Now she would never be here, because she’d just been. The same principle, in reverse, had brought them back through the centuries.

She rose, strode from the field and calmly fell in next to one of the horsemen of the Royal agema. The horse shied and whinnied nervously, then calmed as the rider twitched the reins and muttered a sharp command.

Angel grinned until her cheeks ached. She was here, twenty-four hundred years in the past, walking with the army of Alexander the Great!

Passing through the massive gates, Angel entered carnival. Garlands hung everywhere; cheers and music twined in the air; heady myrrh incense fought and almost won against the stench of too many people, too close together.

Not too far from her, sunlight glinted on bright armor. The golden-haired young man who wore it flashed a fierce smile and threw his arms wide to gather the acclaim of the throngs. His eyes, north-blue and only half-tamed, swept over a sea of upturned faces.

When they touched upon her, Angel swayed with the impact. Then she lifted her arms and cheered.

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