Excerpt 1
2537 A.D.

. . . Daryl decided to call the game to a close this time. “So did the guild accept you?”
Casually Jean-Pierre leaned against the tree in the arboretum. “I passed all the tests and psychological profiles and completed the training program satisfactorily. Yes—” The young man finally dropped the suspense. “I am now a full-fledged novice member of the time traveling branch of the historical guild.” . . .

. . . Suddenly Keith’s expression changed, and Jean-Pierre knew that he had not shielded his thoughts closely enough. Once again it was driven home to him that Keith was frighteningly observant, especially with his telepathic talent. The game was up. “What else is going on, Jean-Pierre? Or more specifically, what have you brought with you?” . . .

The young man expelled a breath and gestured for everyone to be seated. Please. Before he took the unoccupied chair, he verified that the security proofing and intruder alert were set. Gingerly he placed a disk at his side and directed a thought at it.

Shimmering, the little silver disk keyed into the thought and morphed into a valise which Jean-Pierre unlocked using DNA access. Deliberately he opened it and reached inside carefully. His hands gently wrapped around the item secured inside, and slowly he withdrew it and set aside the case.


Excerpt 2
June 1652 – Paris

Jean-Pierre met his father’s eyes for the very first time, wondering if he could possibly speak through the constriction tightening his throat. A moment longer he looked down on the man an inch or two, perhaps three. Porthos then read the unspoken message there—the one about whether he really wanted that information disclosed here. Porthos nodded his head in response to the unasked question, and the young man drew a deep breath. Attempted to relax. “I’m your son.” Jean-Pierre understood what it meant to truly feel like one had been flung into an abyss while having no idea when one might slam into the bottom.

“Parbleu,” Aramis murmured, and the whole room dropped into silence, eyes fixed on the two largest men they’d ever met.

Mighty Porthos blinked several times as he struggled to find his voice. “How old are you?”

“Two and twenty,” was the automatic response. Nearly three and twenty, but Jean-Pierre wasn’t going to quibble over the matter of a month or two.

“Who’s your mother?” The whole room poised in tense watchfulness, waiting anxiously for the man’s response to that question. Laurel met Jean-Pierre’s gaze, and in that instant the young man knew that she already realized who he was and when he was from. Even with her powers somewhat latent, the beautiful duchesse somehow knew.

“Cynthia,” he murmured softly.


“Cynthia,” Porthos echoed, and his son nodded. At the same time Aramis, Athos, and D’Artagnan all seemed to grasp the significance of the boy’s parentage. Porthos’ son from over eight hundred and eighty-five years in the future.


Excerpt 3

“Easy, Guillaume. You’re going to be fine.”

“Fine. I’m going to be fine. I’ve got some soulless, mind-stealing shapeshifter out to get me and time travelers and heaven knows what else, and I’m going to be fine!” Guillaume’s voice was clearly defensive and hostile. “Just who are you anyway?” His voice stopped abruptly on the upward crescendo.


Excerpt 4
October 1652 – Near Avignon

The trees, tall and majestic, stood as silent watchers. Seeing all that passed beneath their limbs as they had for countless centuries. Again, in this crisp, cool dawn they resumed their sentinel duty as a small party wove beneath their bows and came to stand in an equally small clearing. Four men and one woman. All mute as the first rays of light played across the skin of their faces and the backs of their hands.

In his hand the tallest of the group held a thermoTriresin, metallic plastic the size of a paperback book. Branches rustled as if whispering to each other. The woman glanced around, on guard. Seeing nothing, she dropped back into a state of deliberately-relaxed attention. Zut she was jumpy. Felt like her first solo spy mission all over again. Or was it more like the trepidation she had felt the day before her wedding?

Laurel took herself to task for being so ill at ease. Soon she’d be joining her husband. The rest she would not think about right now. Her eyes stayed focused on Jean-Pierre as he intensely regarded the comstat. Watched as he set the device by hand and by mind command. Then double-checked the settings. At the same time the duchesse noted the musketeers were doing the same as she was.

Jean-Pierre looked up from the readings, and a luminescent, scant blue portal with silver glimmerings opened in the fabric of the space-time continuum. Nothing could be seen on the other side of the portal-like bubble.

“After you,” the young man managed to say despite the tightness of the muscles in his throat. One by one, Laurel and the musketeers stepped into the hazy light and disappeared, waiting in nether-space for Jean-Pierre to enter and close their route, sending them to the 26th century.

A moment longer the large man paused. He knew once he stepped through that portal it would be a very long time, if ever, before he knew peace again. Young. He was too young and unprepared for this. Consciously he shut out the rest of his thoughts and strode through the shimmering opening. If Guillaume could face this thing, then so could he.

Onto themselves the globes of light collapsed, and a little blond-haired figure sprinted forward. Paused not even a second before she dove through the fading color spray. At the last possible instant another large, masculine form darted from behind the tree, thrusting his body into the very last quivers of warped energy field of space and time. He too disappeared. And in the clearing the trees continued to whisper. The sun rose. Another typical day.