The stairs finally opened out on a maze of corridors, each lined with niches to hold the bodies of the early Christian dead. Most were filled only with piles of dust now or sometimes a clutter of bones. Occasionally a skeleton hand intact still clutched a crucifix, or some shred of rotted fabric fluttered in the air that circulated from somewhere.

Before she headed into the maze, she got her bearings. She must go southeast. That would take her back under the nave of the main building of the Duomo. She took a breath and started out. It took her several wrong turnings to make her way to the other edge of the maze, but she was rewarded by finding a long, straight corridor that led away from the main catacombs.

This was it. She knew it. Whatever Michelangelo Buonarroti thought would make her happy was at the end of this corridor. This was foolish. There was no doubt about that. He couldn't know what would make her happy, and if he did, he couldn't give it to her. Traipsing around in catacombs on a treasure hunt that would no doubt prove disappointing if it wasn't useless altogether was a sign of just how desperate she had become.

But she was desperate. She didn't know how much more she could take of the gnawing regret that had overwhelmed her in the last years. So, foolish as this was, however likely to end in disappointment, she couldn't turn and walk away. She started down the corridor.

It ended abruptly in a solid wall of plaster. She set down her lantern, her stomach fluttering no matter how she tried to tell it there was no cause for excitement. Hefting the sledgehammer, she hauled it back and slammed it into the wall with all her strength. The plaster crumbled, revealing carefully cut stone that fitted exactly together. Dust choked the air. This would take some doing.

Again and again she swung at the stones until she could pry at the ruined corners. Her fingertips were bloodied. No matter. They healed even as she glanced at them. But she was going about this the wrong way. Instead of trying to heave the stone out, she pushed on it. It toppled into the darkness beyond. She pushed on the neighboring stone, and then another until she was standing in a pile of stones, coughing.

She lifted her lantern and stepped through the cloud of dust into the darkness.

And gasped.What stood towering above her was a maze of a different kind. Giant gears and levers interlocked in some crazy pattern that was positively beautiful. The metal gleamed golden, still shiny with oil. At points in the mechanism were set what looked like jewels the size of her fist, red and green and blue and clear white. Those couldn't be diamonds, could they?

She stood dumbfounded, staring. What was this thing? A machine of some kind. But what was it for?

It was long minutes before she could tear her eyes away from the beautiful intricacy and look around the room. There was no dust, except for the puff that had wafted in from her exertions with the wall. The place must have been tightly sealed to have kept out even dust. How long had it been sealed like this? Probably since the note was written. Besides the machine the room contained only a simple metal chair, golden like the machine, and a table to match in a corner, un.o.btrusive. And on the table was a leather-covered book.

Emotions churned through her. Disappointment lurked at the edges of her mind. A machine could not give her back happiness, no matter what it pumped or measured. And yet, there was something almost otherworldly about this most human of creations.

She pulled out the chair, sat, and drew the book toward her. The cover had mold on it. Even a sealed room couldn't keep out mold. Carefully she opened it. The first page startled her. "For Contessa Donnatella Margherita Luch.e.l.la di Poliziano, from her friend Leonardo da Vinci. I dedicate to you my greatest work."

Shivers ran down her spine. Twice in one night she had received notes from friends dead three hundred years. They must have expected her to open them long ago since they believed she would have been dead as long as they were. Whatever they wanted her to know or do with this machine, she was very late in accomplishing.

She turned another page.

"When you read this, for I know you will, you will have found my machine. Magnificent, isn't it? And only I could have designed it."

Leonardo, the dear, always had quite an ego. Still, the man was amazing. He was probably right about the machine.

"I could never find enough power to test it, and yet I know it works. Or at least in one possible reality, it works. But really it is all too complicated, even for one of my intellect. I must find a way to get you here. Something you will keep by you through all the years, something valuable. A piece of art? You love the arts. Buonarroti, that dwarf, will know something. But of course, whatever I do works, because you are here, reading this, and I know you are reading this because ... Or it doesn't work, and everything is changed, and I never built the machine, or wrote this explanation, and I am not who I am, and you are not who you are...

Well nevermind that. I have no choice but to fulfill my part in this epic, or this tragedy, whatever it turns out to be.

So here is all the truth I know.

What you see before you is a time machine."

G.o.ds, do you jest? she thought, looking up at the machine filling the s.p.a.ce. It gleamed in flickering lamplight, towering above her. The jewels sparkled as the light caught them. The possibilities flickered through her in response. What if she could go back?

Undo the decision that took Jergan away from her, have the promise of happiness she had seen in Gian's and Kate's eyes this evening. This might be the one thing that could make her happy.

Her eyes darted back to the journal. But he said he had never tested it... "You are asking yourself how it works. If you care to read the journal, you will know. But if you are in haste, know this, time is not a river but a vortex, and with enough power man can jump into another part of the swirl.

Or perhaps man can't, but you can, my dear Contessa, you who are not human. Do you think I did not notice the hum of energy about you? I measured it without your knowledge, and was astounded. The people around you feel it as vitality, a force of personality, an incredible attraction to you, but I know better. Your power is real and it is incredibly strong. It keeps you young and heals you. The you of today thinks I did not know those things about you either. But the you who you will be told me. It is the knowledge of this source of power that inspires me to build a machine worthy of its use.

My only regret is that I will not live to see it used. But you, who started me on this quest, told me you must not find it until after I am dead. It will wait for you, who live forever, to use when the time is right.

So, my dear Contessa, pull the lever. Use your power, think of the moment you want to be as you jump into the maelstrom. That will influence the machine. You will end up in the moment you imagine.

But be warned: The machine will go with you but it cannot stay long in another time. To return, you must use it again before it disappears. I do not know how long it can stay. I do not know what will happen if you make it back to the time you are in now, or what will happen if you don't. I give you only the means to change your destiny, or perhaps all of our destinies. Use it if you will.

Donnatella sat there, stunned. She couldn't think. A time machine? And one that confused even the grand intellect of the one who made it. She leafed through the pages of the journal. Complicated drawings, long blotted pa.s.sages containing theoretical explanations of the vortex, records of his useless attempts to find enough energy to power the machine flipped past her. She stopped and read a few. She was doing it only to delay the moment of decision.

And why? She knew what she would do here. Once she had been too timid to break the Rules and grab for the prize of true love. Now she was willing to risk everything, and determined to have the courage to do it.

Her heart thudded in her chest as she rose from the table and stared up at the great machine. Did her Companion have enough power to run it? She could just test the theory-pull back if she got some initial result. But she wouldn't. What if timidity ruined everything as it had so long ago? What if she drained herself in an experiment, making the real effort impossible?

No, it was all or nothing.

She swallowed, her eyes filling for the second time tonight.

The handle of the machine was a bra.s.s lever about three feet long and topped by a glowing jewel. She reached out for it. The great diamond fit her palm exactly.

She pulled. There was a creak but nothing else changed.

"Companion." She called her other half out loud in the wavering lamplight. A surge of power shot up her veins. A red film fell over her field of vision. Above her, the early morning light would be filtering into the nave of Il Duomo. The priests would be moving quietly about, tending the votive candles or kneeling in prayer. The machine was still.

"Companion! More!" The whirling black vortex of translocation began to swirl around her feet. She couldn't allow that. She pushed it down, but kept the power humming in the air. There was a great grinding sound and the largest of the metal cogs in front of her began to move. Still she called the power from the parasite in her blood that was part of her, and more than her. A white glow formed a halo around her. Every detail of the cavern stood out, sharp-edged. The movement of the gears cascaded down from the great, cogged wheel to the hundred smaller ones. The jewels sparkled. Gears whirled ever faster until the eye could not follow them.

"More!" she shrieked into the hum that cycled up the scale, and lifted her arms in supplication. Her Companion was at its limit. Was that enough?

Nothing more was happening. The machine was faint behind the white glow. Her. body stretched itself taut with effort. What next? She couldn't hold this level of power forever.

Ahhhh. The destination.

She thought of the moment she had almost decided to make Jergan vampire. Emotion poured through her as she stared at his wounds, not knowing if he would survive them. She could feel the machine move even faster. It was just a blur beyond the corona of her power. And then it slowed. She saw herself from somewhere outside herself standing, glowing, in front of the great machine, as it seemed to creak almost to a halt it moved so slowly. Had she failed? The power still poured from her body into the room. A feeling of incredible tristesse came over her. Ship would not win through. Her only hope of happiness, or of giving Jergan his own forever, faded.

She thought of the moment he came into her life...

Everything snapped back to motion and she felt herself being flung like a stone in a sling-shot into more and more and more speed. The jewels lit up. They magnified the power into colored beams that crisscrossed, swinging in arcs across the stone ceiling. Pain surged into every fiber of her body. Then, blackness.