Eschaton Page 10

  Bentley saw his chance and grabbed the body of Darkling, dragging him to one side and placing his broken body on one of the pews.

  ‘I’ll come back for you,’ he said to the ravaged corpse, turning to see Dalton and his entire team disappear.

  Then he took out the coin and opened its timeline.

  38

  Titanic

  [Atlantic Ocean. Date: 14th April 11.912]

  ‘You need to drink this,’ implored Caitlin, holding the cup up to Josh’s dry, papery lips.

  His eyes flickered open, and for a moment he had a vague, faraway stare, then Josh did as he was told, gulping the water down — it tasted good after all the smoke he’d inhaled.

  He tried to move his legs, but the pain brought tears to his eyes.

  ‘Don’t try and get up yet. I dissolved some painkillers into the water, but they’ll take a few minutes to kick in.’

  Relaxing back into the bunk, Josh closed his eyes and listened to the little sounds she made as she moved around the room, soothing sounds made more soporific by the faint thrum of engines.

  He woke an hour later, and there was still a dull throbbing in his leg, but his head was clearer now.

  ‘Where are we?’ he asked.

  ‘On a ship,’ she said nonchalantly, helping him sit up and adjusting the pillows behind his back.

  That explained the noise of the engines, he thought. ‘And how did we get on a ship?’

  ‘After you passed out I took you through the nearest portal. The whole place was falling apart, and we were lucky it still had enough power to function.’

  ‘Do you know when?’

  ‘By the looks of the décor, I would say early twentieth century. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up before going out for a recce.’

  She gave him some more tablets and another glass of water. He didn’t ask where she’d got them from, or how. Their cabin looked like a hotel suite from an old 1920s movie, so he guessed it came with room service.

  Ten minutes later the pain in his leg eased. ‘Nice place,’ he said, shifting his weight so he could sit up on the bed.

  Caitlin was reading in a chair on the other side of the state room.

  ‘Don’t get up or you’ll burst your stitches.’

  Josh looked down at his leg. His trousers were gone, and the band-aid from Fermi’s lab was missing, leaving a long black wound running down the side of his thigh.

  ‘Should it be that colour?’

  ‘I was thinking the same thing,’ she said, coming over to inspect it. ‘It might be infected. I cleaned it up as well as I could.’ She pointed to an empty bottle of vodka on the side table. ‘I think you should see a doctor. There’ll be one on board, as this is an Olympic-class ocean liner on its maiden voyage — according to the welcome pack.’

  Caitlin showed him the booklet.

  Josh read the words on the cover. ‘RMS Titanic?’

  ‘She’s the largest ship in the White Star Line. She’s on her way to New York. By the time we get there, you should be healed enough to walk. I thought it would be nice to get some RnR.’

  ‘We can’t stay on this boat, Cat,’ he said through gritted teeth, trying to stand.

  ‘Sit down!’

  ‘We have to get off this ship!’

  ‘We’re in the middle of the Atlantic…’ She opened the brochure at a map of the voyage.

  ‘Have you never heard of the Titanic?’

  She shrugged. ‘No, what’s so important?’

  Josh looked worried. ‘In my timeline it hit an iceberg and sank — over half of the passengers died!’

  ‘Well, it didn’t happen in mine.’

  Josh sank back onto the bed. ‘So how do we know which one we’re in?’

  ‘Probably better not to leave it to chance.’ She stood up and went to look through one of the large portholes at a sky full of stars.

  ‘I would say we’re just south of Newfoundland. Do you know when it happened?’

  ‘No. Can you see any large white floaty things?’

  ‘I know what an iceberg is, and no, there aren’t any.’

  He laughed. ‘That’s what the Captain said just before it hit the ship.’

  ‘Can you see if you can find us a way out of here? I tried, but that bloody timesuit has messed up my ability to weave.’ She waved at the suit standing in the corner, looking like someone had attacked it with a chainsaw.

  Josh reached out to the nearest man-made object, a small lamp next to his bed. The jewelled beading rattled on the shade as the ship suddenly shuddered. Josh tried to find a timeline from it, his face a mask of concentration. ‘No. The drugs might be throwing me off.’

  ‘Shit.’

  There was another, deeper tremor this time accompanied by the keening sound of distorting metal.

  ‘Bad timeline,’ coughed Josh, who was looking very pale. ‘You need to get up to the deck.’

  ‘I’m not leaving you.’

  ‘Women and children first,’ Josh explained, ‘they left most of the men behind.’

  Caitlin looked horrified. ‘You’re not playing the martyr card — you’re too bloody important.’

  39

  Timeship

  Da Recco held Rufius’ hand as Lyra inserted the needles carefully into position along imaginary lines in his arm.

  The Italian navigator whispered prayers under his breath as she worked.

  ‘When are you from?’ Lyra asked without looking up.

  ‘A time of religious fools. Thirteen hundred and fifty-four.’

  ‘And Josh rescued you?’

  ‘Si, from the hands of the holy tormentors.’

  Lyra wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but she smiled all the same. ‘Was Caitlin with him?’

  Da Recco nodded. ‘They go off to some party, with the colonel,’ he said in his heavy Italian accent, annunciating in all the wrong places. ‘And this is all that came back.’

  The old man’s body was still in remarkably good shape, though the virus was taking its toll, Rufius was a big bear of a man and a natural fighter.

  Her mother stood behind Lyra, watching every move like a hawk.

  ‘How many are you planning on using?’ she asked in the annoying way parents did when you were trying to concentrate.

  ‘As many as it takes,’ Lyra muttered without looking up. ‘I will need to anchor myself while I’m looking for it.’

  ‘And what are you planning to do with “it” when you do?’

  ‘Well, first I’m going to put it in that,’ she said, pointing at the large glass specimen jar on the side table. It was covered in runes and esoteric symbols that Lyra had spent the last hour etching into the glass. ‘Then I’m going to take it back to the Xenos and see if we can borrow their non-corporeal lab. Does that sound like a plan?’

  Alixia seemed satisfied with Lyra’s response and let her continue.

  Lyra closed her eyes and let her hand linger on the last pin. She slowly and carefully eased her mind into the old man’s timeline.

  Usually, when Lyra entered another’s chronology, she would immediately get an empathic sense of the essence of the person. Some seers referred to it as their soul, but she preferred to think of it as the distillation of their experiences; their life condensed down into a purified series of sensations and emotions. It always had a colour and luminosity. Some were like stars in a nebulae, while more troubled individuals, would be like stormy thunderclouds.

  Rufius’ essence was like a night on some cold, barren planet a million years from the sun.

  She shivered inadvertently and felt her mother’s hand on her arm.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she whispered.

  The usual lines associated with a man of his age and experience were gone, his chronology devoid of any events. It was as though they’d petrified and crumbled into a cloud of dust that had been blown across the surface of that dead planet.

  It was something Lyra had never encountered, not even in the victims of a Monad attack — which coul
d suck the life-force out of its victim’s past in seconds.

  Like black snow, the dark swirling fragments swarmed around her. She tried to dig deeper into his timeline, but it was impossible to catch anything more than a tiny moment of his life, and Lyra was about to give up when she spotted a glimmer of light.

  Far off, fading in and out of sight, a beacon glowed in the darkness. She pushed her mind towards it, feeling the malevolence around her increasing the deeper she went.

  Her defences were too strong for the evil presence. The pins she’d set into place were like anchors into her past: strong memories and emotions that she could call on to protect her — to remind her who she was. They surrounded her psyche like shields, holding back the leeching effect of the contagion, but she could feel their energy being drawn off — it would not be too long before they would be used up.

  She would have to reach him soon.

  As she approached the glowing nexus of energy she felt an essence reach out, a warm aura that enveloped her — it was his, and she moved inside the event, the only piece of his life that was still intact.

  ‘There’s a problem,’ Lyra explained to the old man as they sat in the waiting area. From what she could gather, his wife was inside the consulting room with Doctor Crooke, having an examination, while Rufius, who looked much younger and less world-weary, was made to sit outside and wait for the results.

  This was one of his most precious memories, full of emotional energy and he’d obviously retreated into it when all else was collapsing around him.

  ‘What kind of problem?’ he asked, looking for all the world like nothing else could ruin his day.

  ‘You’re being attacked, some kind of virus from the maelstrom. Everything we have tried has failed to stop it.’

  His smiled faded and his eyes grew distant as he tried to access his own timeline.

  ‘From the maelstrom, you say,’ he said thoughtfully.

  ‘I don’t have all the details, but Caitlin’s mother told me you were involved in a breach.’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve no memory of that.’

  She coughed. ‘I’m not surprised. Your chronology has lost all its cohesion. I’m not sure what we can do.’

  ‘The founder will know. You must take me to him,’ Rufius instructed.

  Lyra felt the last of her defensive anchors giving out.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said sadly, holding his hand.

  He smiled. ‘Don’t worry my dear, I’ve had worse.’

  Lyra seriously doubted that.

  40

  Brother Valient

  The floor began to tilt, a couple of degrees every few minutes. Tremors shook the ship as the seawater caused the boilers to explode, and with each shock, they could hear the hysteria of the passengers echo down the corridors. The sounds of the frightened people drowned out the instructions of the officers who were trying to calm them over the tannoy system.

  ‘You have to go,’ said Josh into her hair as she hugged him.

  ‘No I don’t,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe in a couple of minutes we’ll get our abilities back and we can both just jump out.’ The stress in her voice was making it higher than usual.

  He could feel her heart beating hard in her chest. ‘Yeah, or maybe not. Better that you find out before we sink under the water though?’

  ‘I’m not leaving you and that’s final. If we’re going down, we go together. That’s what being in love means.’

  ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘Are we really going to do this now?’

  ‘You started it.’

  She pulled away from him, wiping tears from her eyes. ‘Well, I don’t think there’s going to be many more chances to say I love you.’

  He smiled weakly, the pain in his leg obviously worse than he was letting on, Caitlin thought.

  ‘I know.’

  She punched him hard in the arm. ‘No, you don’t. You say it!’

  ‘Okay! I love you too.’

  She kissed him hard, holding his face in her hands. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

  ‘Now, do you think you can walk?’

  He grimaced at the thought of it. ‘Not far.’

  ‘I have a theory. I think we need to get away from the suit,’ she said, putting his arm around her shoulders. ‘There may be some kind of latent field coming off it that’s blocking our ability to weave.’

  Josh shifted himself off the bed, trying not to put any weight on his leg.

  ‘Shit!’ he hissed through his teeth.

  She tried to support him as they moved to the cabin door. The sound of the mayhem outside had calmed a little as the passengers moved to the other side of the boat. Caitlin realised from the upward angle they were on the wrong side of the ship.

  As she opened the door, she tested the handle for any sign of a timeline, but still there was nothing.

  The oak-panelled corridor was strewn with a jumbled collection of discarded belongings, lifejackets and broken crockery, all of which was slowly inching itself up the side of one wall. The camber made it harder for Josh to keep off his bad leg and Caitlin could feel him leaning on her more heavily with every step.

  ‘Let’s just get to the stairs and then we can rest,’ she said, trying to sound encouraging.

  ‘Okay,’ he replied, panting through the pain and putting his other hand against the wall.

  There was a loud groan from somewhere deep below, and Josh imagined the large jagged hole the iceberg was making in the hull. Screams echoed up from the lower decks as the ship pitched further over.

  ‘Anything yet?’ Josh asked as Caitlin touched the door of another cabin.

  She shook her head and they continued.

  They came to a junction with another corridor, one that led to the other side of the ship, and halfway along the passage a priest was administering the last rights to someone lying on the floor.

  Or at least that’s what Caitlin thought he was doing.

  The priest looked up from the corpse, and she saw the book he was reading from. Even from a distance she recognised the temporal patterns updating themselves across the page, and the shapes were unmistakable; he was holding an almanac.

  ‘Hey!’ she shouted. ‘Tempus fugit!’

  The man crossed himself, put away the book and got up off his knees. Holding on to the side rails, he carefully made his way down the sloping passage towards them.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said in a strong Scottish accent. He was a thin, gaunt-faced man with haunting eyes that reminded Caitlin of Edward Kelly, the Grand Seer.

  ‘We can’t weave,’ she explained, ‘and Josh is too weak to make it to the lifeboats.’

  The priest nodded. ‘Temporal exclusion. This event is not to be meddled with.’

  ‘Can you help us?’

  He looked around furtively, checking to see if anyone was watching.

  ‘I can, but there may be consequences.’

  ‘Worse than staying on a sinking ship?’ Josh groaned.

  The priest stared at Josh, his eyes narrowing like a snake deciding where to strike.

  ‘When have you come from?’

  ‘Twentieth,’ Caitlin lied before Josh had a chance to respond.

  The ship pitched further over, and they moved aside as a pile of rubbish slid down the passage along with the body he’d been ministering to.

  ‘You’re not from this timeline,’ he said, looking at Caitlin.

  ‘And you are?’ she replied defiantly.

  ‘I’m your only chance of surviving this event,’ he said, taking out his tachyon and checking the dials. ‘Now, in the time we have left I would appreciate the truth.’

  Caitlin was confused. The man was no Draconian, nor from any other guild she could think of. He could be a watchman, but most of them had visited the Chapter house, and none of them were religious types — nor did they like to get too close to dead bodies.

  ‘You’re a reaver aren’t you?’ she declared. ‘You’re here for the dead?’ />
  ‘Don’t try and judge what you don’t understand, girl,’ he said and sneered. ‘The future of the continuum hangs in the balance, and my research may save us. Now I’ll have the truth, or I’ll leave you here to drown.’

  ‘My name is Caitlin Makepiece,’ she said in a tone of self-importance, but the priest’s face remained impassive, so she decided to play the only other ace she had. ‘And this is Joshua Jones. The Paradox or Nemesis, depending on which timeline you come from.’

  His eyes widened as she spoke.

  ‘The Paradox?’ he repeated.

  Josh smiled weakly. ‘In the flesh. So, can we leave now?’

  The man grasped Josh’s arm, and his eyes rolled back into his skull.

  Caitlin went to push him away, but Josh shook his head. The man was a seer, there was no doubt, but Josh couldn’t feel his presence in his timeline at all, it was as if he was a ghost.

  The priest was gone for over a minute before his eyes returned and he came out of his trance.

  ‘So it is true, the Eschaton has begun,’ he whispered to himself.

  Josh felt the ship shift once more. ‘Time to go, my friend.’

  ‘Brother Valient,’ the man said as a way of introduction, pulling back the sleeve of his cassock to reveal the number eleven surrounded by the most beautifully complex set of temporal tattoos.

  ‘Augur of the eleventh crisis,’ he added, running his fingers along his forearm, and as he did, the symbols seemed to come to life.

  Seawater began to pour into the corridor, and Valient gripped them both by the hand. ‘This may be my favourite moment.’

  41

  Maelstrom

  Sometimes, in the quiet, dark hours before dawn, Dalton wondered what it would be like to enter the maelstrom. He’d always thought of it as a place of pure chaos, but with his limited understanding of the realm, he imagined it would still have a set of rules like physics and gravity.