Dee bowed his head respectfully, and the colonel did the same. Josh felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. The truth was that he had no idea: his history lessons had never really involved Elizabeth I, and certainly not this version. He tried hard to think of any questions from his mother’s quiz shows regarding the Spanish Armada. He wished he could ask her now, as she had such a good memory for random facts, especially historical ones.
Then it came to him: “What are Hellburners?” A tiebreaker question from University Challenge. The English Navy had set fire to their own ships in order to break the Spanish fleet’s formation.
‘They were turned back, my Lady.’
Elizabeth smiled gracefully.
Dee was scowling at him, and Josh remembered what Eddy had told him in the travel pod.
‘But this won’t be the last war. The battle tomorrow will be the first of many.’
13
Colonel’s Study
Painted wooden models of bi-planes hung suspended on fishing lines from the ceiling of the colonel’s war room, arranged as though they were in the middle of a great air battle.
Every spare inch of wall was covered with heavily annotated maps of England and charts of the surrounding seas. Long red lines of ribbon were pinned across them, mapping out routes of possible attacks. It reminded Josh of the attic room in the colonel’s house, but these plans were different somehow — more sinister.
‘So you believe me?’ Josh asked, gazing around the room.
The colonel ignored him, too busy flicking through an old journal and talking to himself in the way he did when trying to solve a problem.
Josh helped himself to some whisky from a crystal decanter on the sideboard. The interview with Elizabeth had been intense, and his hand shook a little as he poured the liquor into a glass.
He closed his eyes and let the heat of the scotch warm him, feeling the tension release in his neck and shoulders. Two interrogations in two days had taken it out of him, and still he was no closer to finding out how to fix the timeline — the change went further back than he’d expected.
Josh found himself staring at an oil painting of a semi-naked woman. It reminded him of the one from the French revolution — except in this one, there was no swan, only a lady reclining on a sofa, her hands placed strategically to cover her modesty — as his Gran would say.
‘Reubens,’ said the colonel, ‘a life study from the thirteenth century. I studied under him for a while before the war — before I lost my good eye.’ He pulled off his eye patch and showed Josh the milk-white orb beneath.
Josh coughed as he drank, the whisky catching in his throat. ‘You studied art?’
The colonel stiffened a little and put down the journal. ‘Don’t presume to know me, boy, no matter what may have transpired in other times — you and I are not acquainted.’
Josh put the glass down and turned to face him, the alcohol giving him a little Dutch courage.
‘But we used to be, and I think a part of you is still in there — a part that wants to help me sort this mess out.’
The colonel grunted and turned back to his charts. ‘Kelly tells me that Mistress Eckhart sent you back herself. I’m curious to know how exactly you persuaded the History Burner to let you go. If I’d have known, I’d have had you shot myself and sent your body back to the witch.’
Josh could tell by his steely tone that he wasn’t joking.
‘I guess she believed in me. She and I were kind of close once — in another time.’
‘Ha! You’re telling me you melted the ice queen’s heart? I didn’t think she had one.’
‘I think she knows, deep down, that something is wrong with the continuum.’
‘Well, your little speech to her Majesty about something being out-of-place certainly struck a chord — Dee’s beside himself.’
‘It’s one of your theories! You told me that someone was trying to advance the past, bringing knowledge back to make the present — what was the phrase? Technologically something?’
‘Superior. Technologically superior.’
‘Yeah, someone has changed this timeline. You’re using weapons that you weren’t supposed to have for another six-hundred years.’
The colonel went over to the whisky and poured himself a large glass, then slugged it back in one go. He stood for a moment with his eye closed, savouring the smooth liquor as it washed down his throat.
‘Do you know what was written about the Paradox? Why we have spent so long fighting about it?’ the colonel asked wearily, the years of constant conflict having obviously taken their toll.
‘No. They asked me a whole bunch of stupid questions about it, but no one ever told me what I was meant to be.’
The colonel poured himself another drink and cleared his throat. Josh noticed that adults tended to do that when they were about to say something that made them feel uncomfortable.
‘The prophecy states that the Paradox, apart from being from the future, of course, is a lodestone — a kind of compass. That he or she would instinctively know when the continuum was not on course. That they would have some inherent ability to detect deviations — when we’d strayed from the prime eventuality.’
He drained the whisky again, took Josh’s glass and poured them both a very large measure.
‘The ability to retain the knowledge of how things should be, no matter what changes are made to the past; to be the persistent vessel of memory, that is the true power of the Paradox.’
Josh wondered if the colonel wasn’t a little drunk. The old man’s eyes were red-rimmed, and there were tears in the corners of both.
‘After all these years,’ he muttered, slumping back into his chair. ‘I’d begun to question whether you could actually exist.’
‘Well, I’m here now. So, do you think you can help me fix it?’ Josh asked, putting his drink down. ‘Because this tastes like shit.’
14
Gunpowder
They’d spent many hours going back over the last five centuries. The colonel would consult one large leather volume after another, reading aloud events that bore little or no resemblance to anything that Josh could remember about his own timeline — which he admitted wasn’t great. He wondered how his old history teacher, Miss Fieldhouse, would feel about the fate of mankind relying on his recollection of her lessons.
As far as Josh could make out, the past had become significantly more violent; the advances in technology had been mostly for the military, escalating the scale of their conflicts and bringing the world to the brink of total devastation more than once.
‘Why didn’t you just go back and fix it?’ Josh asked the obvious question after they gave up on the twelfth century.
‘We tried, many times,’ the colonel said, sighing, ‘but the Determinists were adamant that events were following the grand plan. When the Paradox debate got out of hand, they went on a witch hunt for the Copernicans and purged them. Any surviving members are in hiding, branded as Magii, with a price on their heads. They left us blind, so we have no way to calculate the best outcome, no access to the continuum.’
‘And you can’t go forward?’
‘Nor back, but we made sure that they couldn’t either,’ he said with a glint of pride. ‘It is a fragile truce, a stalemate.’
Josh wondered what he’d done to earn the nickname ‘Butcher.’ It sounded bad, but you never knew how much of it was true — war made people do things they never thought they’d have to and so he decided it was probably better not to ask.
‘How did the Determinists become so powerful?’
‘I assume the situation became so critical that they had no choice — it’s one of the disaster scenarios that Lord Dee considered when he shut down the Infinity Engine.’
‘He can stop it?’
‘Yes, in a time of crisis. He had no choice but to disable it before things got any worse. I think, secretly, he was waiting for you.’
‘So how come I can still travel?’
<
br /> The colonel laughed. ‘Time is not controlled by the engine, the continuum is merely a computational model, an observational tool. You are the Paradox, the “Strange Attractor”, and aren’t bound by the laws of the continuum.’
‘Cool — I think.’
The colonel opened another book and leafed through the pages. ‘Shall we continue? Battle of Hastings, 11.066, at which Guillaume, Duke of Normandy and his knights attempted to conquer Britain.’
‘Knights? That sounds like the right kind of history. He won, right? Harold got shot through the eye with an arrow.’
‘Bullet.’
‘Bugger.’
‘The Saxons were massacred by the French artillery.’
‘Next.’
The colonel leafed back through the pages of the book, his face a mask of concentration. Josh watched as he went back and forth to the shelves, picking out other volumes and silently comparing a series of events.
‘That’s strange,’ he murmured. ‘I have cross-referenced three other reliable historians. I don’t know why I missed this before.’
‘What?’
‘Before 11.066, there’s no mention of gunpowder being used in mainland Europe. China had invented it a hundred years before, but not really used it in any tactical way until —’
‘The Battle of Boju?’ suggested Josh.
‘Yes. How did you —’
‘I was there. So how did it get out of China?’
‘Someone gave the Normans the alchemical formula and taught them how to make the guns. But there are records that show that no one traded with China until Niccolò Polo met the Kublai Khan in 11.266 — two-hundred years later.’
Josh remembered something Caitlin had said about the impact of future technology on the past: ‘It was like giving a five-year-old a nuclear weapon.’
The colonel’s face lit up. ‘I believe we’ve found our deviation,’ he said, patting Josh on the shoulder. ‘Now all we need is a way to get back there — we need to go and see the Founder!’
15
Founder
When they arrived at Richmond Palace it was buzzing with the defeat of the Spanish Armada. By the time Josh and the colonel were finally allowed an audience with Lord Dee, he seemed to be in unusually high spirits.
‘Rufius!’ Dee smiled. ‘It’s good to see you, my old friend!’
Josh thought the founder sounded a little tipsy.
‘My Lord,’ the colonel replied with a bow, ‘I hear the latest Spanish assault was well and truly routed?’
‘Indeed it was,’ Dee acknowledged with a wave of his hand. ‘The wind changed exactly as I predicted.’
Josh had no idea how many men had just died, and guessed it didn’t matter when you were protecting your country.
‘My Lord, I have a special favour to ask of you,’ the colonel requested more formally.
Lord Dee’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘How special?’
‘I need a platoon of Dreadnoughts — just for a day or two.’
‘My most elite troops? Why on earth would you require their services?’
The colonel hesitated slightly. ‘I believe I have located a potential... deviation.’
‘A deviation?’ The founder scowled. ‘Not another one of your ridiculous theories about those elusive Determinist sappers by any chance?’
‘No.’ The colonel waved his hand. ‘Not that. Jones here has helped identify a level five variance in the eleventh century. It wouldn’t require a whole platoon, perhaps a fireteam: a lensman, three artificers and a nautonnier should be sufficient.’
Lord Dee raised his eyebrows and steepled his fingers in front of his face. ‘A level five is it now? Perhaps I should accompany you myself.’
‘By all means, Master,’ the colonel lied, ‘but won’t the Queen be requiring your counsel on the repercussions of the Spanish assault?’
‘Quite possibly,’ Dee agreed, turning to Josh. ‘What say you Master Jones? Does the Paradox believe I should spare such a valuable resource at this time?’
Josh didn’t really know what to say. He’d never heard of the Dreadnoughts or had a clue what an artificer was, but the colonel was glaring anxiously at him. He was obviously pushing his luck — the founder was a clever man, whatever his strategy was, and it seemed to put the colonel off his game.
‘I have to go, with or without your precious Dreadnoughts. It’s the only way to put things right.’
‘And what exactly is it that you’ve discovered?’
The colonel told him about the gunpowder, and the difference between the Norman conquest in Josh’s time and theirs. The founder’s eyes closed as he listened to the plan to find the source, his lips moving silently as if he were whispering a prayer.
‘I can spare two,’ Dee concluded, opening his eyes. He wrote out a note and stamped it with his personal seal. ‘A lensman and an artificer. A thorough impact assessment would take weeks, but by my approximation, they should give you at least a seventy-two per cent chance of locating the variance and rectifying the deviation.’
He handed the note to the colonel.
The old man took the note and smiled at Josh like a kid who had just been given the keys to the sweet shop.
16
Dreadnought
Josh had encountered the Draconians once before, when they’d rescued Caitlin and himself from a prehistoric cave in the deep, ice-bound past of the Mesolithic. Sim was always talking about them: it was hard to hide his obsession with the most adventurous guild of the Oblivion Order.
Caitlin’s parents had been part of the Nautonniers, the exploration division of the guild, but he knew virtually nothing about them. Josh had always assumed they were nothing more than a bunch of cartography nerds off on some school trip into the dark ages.
None of this prepared him for his first encounter with the two members of the Draconian Defence Service, or Dreadnoughts, as they were more commonly known.
After the meeting with Lord Dee, the colonel had led Josh down through a series of interconnecting tunnels beneath Richmond Palace. He’d explained that this was all that really remained of the Order’s headquarters, nothing more than a storage facility for their most precious ancient artefacts. Antiquarians in long black robes bustled along the brick-lined vaults, carefully carrying the most unusual objects as if they were made of glass. They stared suspiciously at Josh and the colonel, and he was sure he heard more than one curse muttered behind their backs as they passed.
‘What are sappers?’ asked Josh, as they took a right-hand turn into another tunnel.
‘Hmm?’
‘The founder said you had a theory about Determinist sappers?’
‘Time tunnellers. Trying to dig back into the past.’
‘Really? How do they do that?’
‘Through the maelstrom of course! Bloody dangerous job though. Ah, here we are!’
The colonel stopped at an iron-bound door, one of many that Josh had seen along the passage. Unlike the others, there wasn’t a symbol or sign to hint at what was behind it. The old man smiled, tapped his cane upon it three times, then pushed it open and stepped through.
Josh was totally unprepared for the bright sunlight that greeted him on the other side, nor the thick, humid Amazonian jungle he found himself surrounded by. He shaded his eyes, blinking as he stared back at the open door into the dark corridor of bustling academics, one of whom stopped, tutted, and slammed the door shut.
They were standing in an ancient sandstone courtyard. Vine-covered statues of Aztec gods gazed down at them with cold, pitiless eyes. A goat was bleating, tied to a stake in the middle of the sandstone floor. The heat and the ancient carvings reminded Josh of a holiday competition his mum had entered once, somewhere in Mexico. She’d banged on about it for weeks — Teotihuacan.
‘Sohguerin,’ the colonel called out. ‘Captain Leone Sohguerin?’
A woman appeared out of thin air. She was tall, with coffee-coloured skin and long black hair adorned with feathers like a na
tive-American. Her jacket and trousers were leather, studded with symbols. A set of bandoliers were wrapped around her upper body, on which hung her own personal collection of curiosities: charms, artefacts and some things that looked a lot like shrunken heads.
‘Colonel Westinghouse,’ she acknowledged, snapping to attention.
The captain scrutinised Josh with cold dark eyes. ‘And this is?’
Josh stepped forward, offering a hand. ‘Josh.’
She ignored it.
‘I take it you have a mission for me?’ she asked, bending down to take a long knife from her boot and cutting the tether to the goat. It ran off into the bush, bleating its thanks.
‘Still after the Quetzalcoatl?’ The colonel nodded towards the disappearing goat.
‘It’s a worthy prey,’ she said, pulling out a multi-coloured feather that had been woven into her hair. ‘The feathered serpent has powerful wisdom.’
‘And not forgetting the wind jewel?’
She blushed a little. ‘Who wouldn’t wish to command the elements?’
They were suddenly cast into shadow as if a dragon had flown across the sun. Josh instinctively looked up to see a man in a crude parachute gliding over them before landing gracefully a few metres away.
‘Sergeant Johansson?’ the colonel asked the captain.
The captain put her knife away in one fluid movement. ‘Base jumping off the Pyramid of the Moon. Says it helps him understand their culture. He’s full of shit — he’s looking for treasure.’
The canopy of the parachute collapsed, and Josh saw a young man in a similar outfit to the captain’s.
As he gathered up the cords of the chute, he smiled and waved at them. He was a big man, with a dark beard that reminded Josh of a much younger version of the colonel.
‘Sergeant Johansson, Artificer First Class, reporting for duty, sir!’ said the young man when he reached them.
The Infinity Engines Books 1-3 Page 41