Chapter 12London, 1960, and Vienna, 1882
Track Two
Maxwell hit the ground shoulder-first and turned it instantly into roll. He’d learned how to fall long ago. The air was sharp and cold, gritty with dust and mountain-thin, but at least Schwieger’s grip was gone from his throat, and his frantic convulsive inhalation brought air as well as dust into his lungs. He gasped and choked, desperate to cough, desperate to take a moment just to breathe.
He didn’t dare take even that moment. He struggled upright somehow. Schwieger was still on the ground, seemingly stunned by their impact with the soil of whatever new time and place this was. Maxwell kicked him once, savagely, to keep him down, then snatched his own timepiece from his waistcoat pocket. He didn’t attempt to wrest Schwieger’s away fr
