The Shadow Lamp

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Snipe was spared the interminable lessons, because—after one particularly harrowing session involving the ink pot and quills—their royal tutor deemed the lad beyond instruction, or even restraint, and dismissed him to his own devices. Douglas was not so lucky.

  After the lesson a servant would arrive to cook a meal or bring one. Douglas and Snipe would eat and then be left to themselves for a while. Sometimes they walked about the surrounding vineyards—in the unobtrusive company of one or both of their guards—and sometimes they, like good Etruscans, napped through the heat of the day. In the evening Pacha, the royal chamberlain, would arrive to review what had been accomplished by way of the day’s instruction. Occasionally Pacha expressed approval of Douglas’ progress; most often he went away shaking his head in dismay.

  Advancement was slight, each step a battle against an uncompromising adversary, yet ground was gained and Douglas eventually managed to string a few simple words together and have them make the intended sense. Though he felt like a tongue-tied stutterer, he could, after a fashion, make himself understood—in basic matters anyway. The effort was grinding, and lately depression seemed to hang on his elbow and drag at his heels. He had given up trying to keep Snipe occupied and out of trouble. Now he simply let the guards deal with the wayward child, thinking that so long as they were always on duty, they might as well make themselves useful.

  This morning Douglas awoke suddenly and with the instant awareness that something had changed. He lay on his pallet trying to discern in the dim morning light what had brought him so abruptly from sleep. Senses alive, he lay listening but heard nothing that would explain his abrupt arousal. Yet even as he strained into the silence, it occurred to him that perhaps the silence itself had quickened him; less a quietude, it was more a stultifying stillness, an oppressive force that sat heavily on him, making every breath a chore. Here at last was something different.

  Throwing aside the thin coverlet, he rose and cast a quick glance around the room. Snipe still slept, curled up like a cat in his corner; why the strange lad preferred sleeping that way Douglas had never discovered. He moved into the main room of the guesthouse—nothing altered or out of place there—and continued to the door, opened it, and stepped outside onto the vine-covered portico that fronted the little house.

  The air, though cool, was humid and unmoving; the sun had not yet risen, though the eastern sky was glowing with a dull and baleful light the colour of a bad oyster. The vineyards were quiet, the leaves glistening with dew. Oddly, the dog-and-rooster chorus that greeted every dawn was mute. Nor had the guards arrived. They were regular as sunrise; Douglas had never known them to appear later than a few minutes after the sun broke the horizon—a convention that puzzled him, as if the royal guests, chafing under their confinement, would not think of escaping during the night. That Douglas and Snipe had not fled already was due not to lack of opportunity, but to Douglas’ driving desire to penetrate the mystery of the map. To achieve that end, he was willing to endure much—including house arrest.

  As he stood gazing out over the vines and the gentle hills beyond, swathed in blue morning mist, he caught the scent of smoke on the air: not at all unusual, as most of the folk round about cooked over charcoal and used olive wood and old grapevine cuttings to fire their ovens. But this scent possessed a different, darker signature Douglas thought significant.

  In a little while the sun peeped above the eastern hills like a swollen red eye. And still the guards had not appeared. Dressed only in the thin tunic he slept in, Douglas left the portico and walked a short way down the trail, but did not see anyone coming. The unnatural calm pervading the land persisted; if anything it had deepened to a cloying, almost suffocating closeness. The air felt leaden, dead, thick—like breathing treacle.

  A storm must be in the offing, Douglas decided, and returned to the house. He climbed the portico steps, and as his hand reached for the door he heard a shout—a short, sharp, wordless cry—distant, yet stark in the all-pervading silence. Instinctively he turned towards the sound and paused, listening. That first cry did not repeat, but as he opened the door to the guest lodge, another shout reached him: a different voice, and much closer.

  Douglas made an about-face and headed down the trail once more. This time he went as far as the king’s residence—meeting no one on the way—and started down the long ceremonial avenue leading to the main road at the bottom of the hill. He could see a section of the road as it passed between the cypress trees on either side of the avenue; even as he watched he saw a figure on the only visible part of the road—moving quickly, a fleeting glimpse and then gone.

  Before he had taken three more steps he saw two more people. Like the first, they were looking neither right nor left, hurrying west in the direction of the sea. The other thing Douglas noticed was that the closer he came to the road, the stronger the scent of smoke.

  Upon reaching the road he looked in the direction the fleeing figures had gone. The first had disappeared around a bend in the road, and the second pair was just reaching the same bend. Turning the opposite way, Douglas was amazed and a little shocked by what he saw: a dozen or more people running towards him—men, women, and children, family groups, hurrying as fast as they could, quietly, but with visible urgency. Behind them a low, spreading cloud darkened the air above the road: a filthy, dun-coloured pall that stained the sky.

  The cloud was some little distance to the north and building slowly. It took Douglas a moment before he realised that he was looking at smoke. The ghastly stench of hot tar that followed this realisation removed any lingering doubt. He hurried towards the people in the road and called out to them as they came within earshot. “What is? What is?” he shouted in his stunted pidgin Etruscan.

  The first group passed him in a rush; they looked at him but made no effort to reply.

  Another knot of fleeing people reached him. “What is?” he called, pointing to the dirty smoke cloud. “Fire?”

  “Yes, fire!” replied an old man. He cast a hasty glance behind him and threw a backwards gesture. “It is the Latins!”

  Before Douglas could work out what the fellow meant by such an assertion, the old man beetled off, leaving Douglas to ponder the significance of his words. The Latins . . . what? Then it came to him, and he cursed his slow wit. The Romans were coming.

  Before the next clump of frightened refugees confirmed his suspicion, Douglas was already running back up the long avenue towards the guesthouse. As he moved past the king’s palace at the top of the hill, he paused; there was still no sign of life within, so he continued on to the guesthouse and woke the sleeping Snipe.

  “Get up!” He shook the lad roughly by the shoulder. “Snipe, get up!”

  The boy came awake with a snarl.

  “Stop it,” Douglas growled. “Get dressed. We’re leaving. This place is under attack. We’re getting out of here.”

  While the sullen Snipe pulled on his tunic, trousers, and boots, Douglas dressed quickly and took a last look around their rooms. Aside from his linguistic notes and two small curios he thought might be worth selling at auction, there was nothing to be taken away. Pocketing the iron figurines, he stuffed the sheaf of notes into his shirt and called, “Here, Snipe! Let’s go.”

  A moment later they were pounding back down the long avenue through the double rank of cypress trees. They reached the road to find there were now many more refugees on it, and all were fleeing west towards the coast. For Douglas, however, escape led in the opposite direction. The Sacred Road carved into the tufa stone beneath the soil lay to the east. He had no choice but to face the oncoming traffic—weaving his way through, dodging right and left around obstacles human and, increasingly, animal, as more country folk with livestock joined the flight.

  Douglas and Snipe muscled through the ever-increasing throng. Progress slowed. Frustration rose. Desperation intensified as it became harder and harder to force their way along. The whole countryside must be on the move, Douglas decided, and all of
them going the wrong way.

  By the time they reached the fording place in the road, their forward progress had slowed to fits and starts. A step at a time, they waded through the water, and as they started up the bank on the other side there arose a tremendous cry. People began flinging themselves into the water and scaling the steep banks on either side of the road, scattering in all directions.

  Douglas halted. Watching the chaos, he saw a break and made up his mind. “This way, Snipe!” he shouted, diving into the melee. “Snipe! Hurry!”

  Where was that boy?

  Douglas whirled around and scanned the confusion. He shouted again, trying to make himself heard above the screams and cries all around. “Snipe! Here! This way!”

  Terrified people streamed past him, collided with him, knocked him back a step or two at a time, blocking his path. “Get out of my way!” he shouted. Frustrated, Douglas seized one confused, stumbling fellow by the arm. “Fool! Get out of my—” He stopped short. The man was bleeding from a vicious cut to his forehead; blood was streaming down his face and into his eyes. The man could not see where he was going. Releasing the man, Douglas shoved ahead and the oncoming mob parted before him.

  He darted into the gap to find himself face-to-face with another man—this one on horseback. At first glance Douglas thought him another refugee, but a second look told him otherwise. The man, naked from the waist up, his face daubed with yellow stripes on his cheeks and forehead, held a spear with a wicked spike-shaped blade. Another rider followed close behind.

  Latins!

  That thought had scarcely registered when a third raider appeared. Like the first two, he wore the yellow paint and carried a spear. Unlike the others, he did not hesitate when confronted by Douglas standing in the middle of the road. He drove on, his spear levelled.

  “No!” screamed Douglas. Holding up his hands, he cried, “Not Etruscan! English! I am English!”

  This distinction failed to deter the warrior. The raider charged ahead.

  Douglas threw his hands before him and shouted. The horse swerved at the last instant to avoid Douglas, but the spear slashed forward. The blow struck Douglas on the side, spun him around, and hurled him backwards.

  Even as he was falling, he looked down and saw the long, lethal blade piercing his flesh just below his ribs on the left side. And then the ground came up, knocking the breath from his lungs. For one awful instant, he lay pinned to the ground, the spear still in place. Douglas saw the look of fierce hatred on the Latin’s face, saw his arm tense as he made to withdraw the blade and strike again.

  But before the spear could fall, the horse leaped away, carrying the raider beyond easy reach of his victim. Douglas squirmed on the ground. Dust kicked up by the horse’s hooves rose in clouds around him. Choking, he rolled up onto his knees and pressed his hand to his side. Blood spilled in a crimson cascade through his fingers.

  Clutching the wound to staunch the blood, he tried to rise. The pain hit him then with the force of a bludgeon to the head. His stomach heaved and, dry, heaved again. His nostrils filled with the sickening scent of his own blood and bile and faeces, and he slumped forward onto one hand, gagging for breath. Pain clouded his vision. He pushed himself up onto his knees once more. He glanced around for Snipe, who was nowhere to be seen.

  Another Latin raider thundered by and took a swing at Douglas as he passed. The blow was haphazard and only grazed Douglas, striking him on the side of the head. Not enough to hurt him, but enough to knock him down again.

  Unable to sustain the effort to rise, he rolled onto his back. He gazed up into the smoke-stained sky and announced to whoever might be listening, “This is not supposed to happen.”

  Time seemed to slow. He could hear shouts and screams all around him, but they faded to a trivial annoyance. He could feel his wound throbbing with agonising urgency, but this also was of no concern. His eyesight, still sharp, gained focus even as his field of vision narrowed down to a hard little circle of light against an encroaching field of darkness.

  The last thing he saw was the round moon face of Snipe smiling down at him.

  CHAPTER 30

  In Which the Future of the Future Is Considered

  For argument’s sake,” suggested Brendan, “if we grant that the expansion of the universe is a fact—whatever the cause may be—and that the extremely fast outward expansion is actually slowing, what do you think would be the effect if that expansion began to reverse?”

  “I don’t have to think about it,” replied Tony. “I already know exactly what would happen.”

  They had been walking in the cool of the day, and now evening was descending over the Old Quarter as Damascus settled in for a peaceful night. The two men were stopped in the middle of a cobbled lane beneath the spreading boughs of a great cedar tree in which doves were taking roost. The doves, the gentle twilight, the soft evening air, music from the nearby tea shop—all contributed to an atmosphere of tranquillity.

  But for Tony Clarke, the discussion had just taken a dark, disturbing turn and he was feeling far from tranquil. He contemplated a horror that had, for reasons he could not presently define, suddenly become a real and present danger.

  Brendan was waiting for an answer. “Well then?”

  “It would be the end of everything.”

  “Define the end of everything,” suggested Brendan. “In layman’s terms, what do you mean?”

  “The EoE, or End of Everything theory, is the systematic annihilation of all that exists,” replied Tony matter-of-factly. “In a nutshell.”

  “Everything in the universe known and unknown utterly and completely destroyed,” said Brendan, nodding in agreement. “Yes, that would be my understanding.”

  Tony gave a mirthless smile. “Friend, you’re just not thinking big enough.”

  “Enlighten me.” They slowly resumed their stroll, working their way back to the Zetetic Society headquarters, their way lit now by the intermittent light spilling from nearby windows.

  “When a scientist talks about the EoE, he is talking about something far greater than mere destruction,” Tony explained. “Destruction implies damage, demolition, wreckage—there is debris, bits and pieces of stuff left over, along with energy, light, heat, sound, that sort of thing. This allows some possibility, however small, of reconstituting or rebuilding—as following an earthquake or tornado, for example. But with annihilation there is nothing left over. All matter—each and every molecule and atom, as well as energy, light, heat, and the rest—everything that ever existed is consumed in the ultimate cataclysm.”

  “Including time?” asked Brendan.

  “Including time and space, for sure. Whatever future may have been is snuffed out, the present grinds to a halt, and the past unravels and disperses like mist on the wind.” He made an airy gesture with his hands. “There are various theories about how time might be affected during the cataclysm,” he continued after a moment. “Some suggest that the flow of time reverses like a river suddenly changing its course, and we all live our lives backwards to the moment of the Big Bang. Others think that time simply evaporates like a drop of water splashed onto a hot iron. Nobody really knows what form it would take, but most agree that all time—past, present, and future—would cease . . . along with everything else that came into existence at the first moment of creation.

  “Think of all the galaxies and star systems spinning into an all-devouring void; light shutting down, heat dissipating into a cold beyond description; the whole spectrum of energy simply radiating away and ceasing; each and every photon suddenly winking out; all atomic particles—even those in the quantum vacuum—disappearing one by one with ever-increasing speed; the rocks and trees and oceans and the earth beneath our feet dissolving and each flying into its constituent molecules—our bodies likewise—and those molecules simply fizzling away into nothingness . . . everything returning to the primeval void from which it sprang in the instant of creation. Worse still, there would be conscious, living, breath
ing, thinking entities to watch it happen and suffer its unimaginable horrors.” Tony shook his head at the magnitude of the terror. “We would be alive to witness our own obliteration.”

  In the silence that followed this grim pronouncement, Brendan drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Put like that,” he said, “cataclysm does not seem a large enough word to describe it.”

  “Not by a long shot,” agreed Tony. “Fortunately, there is no hard evidence that the outward expansion of the universe is slowing.”

  Brendan said nothing. Tony cast a sideways glance at his lanky companion whose gaze seemed remote, as if fixed on a distant yet distinctly unsettling prospect.

  As if compelled, Tony insisted, “The best scientific evidence we have from close and continual observation shows that the expansion of the universe is continuing full tilt—despite rumours to the contrary.”

  “And it will continue,” observed Brendan glumly, “until something disrupts that expansion and brings it to a halt.”

  “This is . . . correct,” Tony confirmed hesitantly. He studied Brendan’s knitted brow and dour expression. “But if the JVLA data you mentioned was to be confirmed . . . well, that would certainly throw a wrench into the works.”

  Brendan’s downcast eyes shifted to his companion. “Do not misunderstand,” he said. “I have no hard evidence. For me, it is more in the way of a premonition, a feeling of impending doom I cannot explain—and I am fairly certain it derives from the nature of our work at the society. Almost since its very inception, our members have been puzzling over one of the most frustrating riddles of ley travel.”