134
You are half in and half out of null-space. You are able to see through the walls of your Time Machine and even through your own flesh as if they did not exist. You try to switch the Variac Drive on again, but nothing happens. You are caught in a time flux. Unable to do anything else, you look around. You arc hanging in the air above verdant pastures and a wide blue river Before you is a magnificent city, its houses, mosques and minarets surrounded by a high and well-defended wall. Gold and turquoise gleam below in the sun. The pastures and groves are deserted but around the walls is a horde of mongols, beyond count. There are more horses than men - each warrior has a remount. You ask CAIN for an update on the history of this time and place. CAIN chimes, The city before you is Baghdad, on the banks of the river Tigris, in Mesopotamia. The year is 1258 AD and the people of Baghdad have been under siege for some months by the mongols, led by their general, Hulagu.'
The mongols, dressed in furs and leather, look strangely out of place by the warm banks of the Tigris. They wear conical helmets topped with spikes and plumes of horsehair, and strips of boiled ox-hide laced together and painted brightly, affording them the protection of armour without weighing down their horses. They carry curved swords, hooked lances and short bows made of layers of horn and wood. As you watch, some of them show off their skill, standing in their stirrups, drawing arrows from their quivers and firing them at the city walls, all in one swift, lithe movement. They cannot see you, hanging frozen in the air. As you watch, they gather together and the Caliph of Baghdad, Mustasin, walks forward from the gates of his starving city, flanked by faithful retainers. He kneels before Hulagu in a gesture of surrender. Using the external microphone, you can hear what passes between them. Mustasin is clearly petrified and he begs for his life and the lives of his people. The cold, impassive Hulagu demands to know where his treasures are hidden. Mustasin, seeing a ray of hope, tells Hulagu of his hiding place. When satisfied, Hulagu signals to his men, who massacre the Caliph and his attendants. The horrified people of Baghdad make no attempt to close the gates and the mongols sweep into the city like a tide of soldier ants.
You are held in the air above Baghdad for over a month, and in all that time the slaying continues, the bestial ferocity of the Mongols remains unslaked. Only after forty days and the death of 800,000 people does the stench of rotting flesh force Hulagu to abandon the smouldering palaces, mosques and libraries of the dead city. After they have gone you cannot see even a dog or cat moving in the streets - all life has been wiped out. Shaken by the awful spectacle you have had to witness you are thankful when your Psychic Awareness registers a change in the flux of time You engage the Variac Drive once more and this time rematerialise as planned. Because you were trapped in a time flux, when you materialise no time has passed between the moment you were caught and the moment you were released. Your digital clock shows that in 3033 AD it is still the same day on which you began your mission. Turn to 122.