Free End of the Century by Chris Roberson Page B

certitude, leaving behind nothing but a cold, creeping confusion.
    â€œGalaad?”
    He felt strong hands on his shoulders, shaking him, and looked up into the face of Artor.
    â€œOh,” Galaad said senselessly. “It's you.”
    And then he collapsed into a heap on the cold tile floor.

    A short while later Galaad found himself before a hearth, the warmth of the flames licking at his bare feet. Artor had sent for wine, and poured strong undiluted cups for himself and for Galaad. Then the servants had been sent away once more, and the two men sat facing each other, made ruddy in the red light of the hearth's flame.
    Galaad studied the cup in his hands, self-consciously. It was glass, and stamped with images of men in chariots driving horses and with the names of long-dead charioteers. A souvenir of some departed procurator's trip to Rome, perhaps, a prized possession for generations of his family, now all fled and gone. Galaad sipped the strong, heady wine and tried not to think of how easy it would be to smash the glass against the bronze of the hearth, and all those lingering memories of empire dashed into fragments.
    Across from him, Artor drank from a simple clay cup. There was some irony in that, the man who was bringing order back to this farthest outpost of a dead empire drinking from a workman's vessel while Galaad drank from glass fired in the heart of empire itself.
    â€œYou have had a vision,” Artor said at last, breaking the long silence. It was a statement, not a question, but Galaad could not help but answer.
    â€œYes, majesty,” he said, his own voice sounding far away in his ear.
    â€œBut it happened between one moment and the next. You said something about smelling flowers, and then a glassy look came into your eye as you paused, and in the next moment you were talking again.”
    Galaad nodded, wincing. “Sometimes they last longer, I am told, but in the main they take no more time than that.”
    â€œWhat could you possibly have seen in so short a time?”
    Galaad shivered, and tightened his fingers around the glass. “Time seems to run more slowly in my visions. Or with more speed. I'm not sure how best to say it.”
    â€œThe duration seemed longer for you than it was in reality?” Artor suggested.
    â€œSomething like that,” Galaad answered with a nod.
    Artor leaned forward and regarded him through narrowed eyes. “And you say that you have never been to Dumnonia?”
    â€œNo, majesty. I've never been further south than Corinium, and then only briefly.”
    Artor leaned back in his chair and ran the tip of his finger around the rim of his clay cup, thoughtfully. A long silence stretched out between them, and Galaad was grateful to have the dancing flames of the hearth to watch, to give him something to occupy his attentions.
    â€œYou do not seem mad,” Artor said at length.
    â€œNo?” Galaad could not help but smile. “I thank you for saying so, majesty.” His smile wavered, and he struggled to keep it in place. He remembered the citizens of Glevum, and his own wife. “Though there are many who might take issue with that.”
    â€œHmm.” Artor nodded. “I don't doubt.” He paused, reflecting. “I had a friend once who went mad. We fought together against the Saeson, when Ambrosius still lived and was Comes Britanniarium. When we were younger than you are now, our cohort suffered a terrible loss to the Saeson, and my friend and I were among the few who survived the retreat. I was shaken, having never before seen so many of my fellows fall before the enemy's iron, but my friend…It was as if he could not fit everything he had seen andheard inside of his head, and so had to force out things like reason and sense to make room. He seemed to dwell always in those short hours of battle, even when days and weeks had passed, fighting the skirmish over and over again in his thoughts. In the end, he