A Tale of Time City

by Diana Wynne Jones

  “They want you all downstairs now,” she said. Her skinny arm with its little puffed sleeve looked ridiculous holding the gun, but Vivian and Jonathan had no doubt that she would shoot with it, far more readily and ruthlessly than Leon Hardy. They went slowly towards her. Vivian Lee backed against the side of the arch, so that she could hold the gun steady with both hands and still see the rest of the dim, tinkling room. “Where’s the other one?” she said sharply. “The sticky baby with red hair.”

  “Sam’s hiding in the works,” Jonathan said. “If you shoot him, he’ll stop the clock.”

  “It’s a suicide mission,” Vivian said, hoping that this was not true.

  “Stupid thing!” Cousin Vivian said. “Nothing can stop that clock! Come out!” she shouted. “You’ll only get squished!”

  Neither Vivian nor Jonathan could help looking at the place where Sam had last been. And Sam had made it. They saw the faint glimmer of his mind-suit slowly rising through the middle of the pillar.

  “Then you can stay there and go deaf when the clock strikes. It’s ten to twelve now!” Cousin Vivian called. She waited a moment in case Sam decided to come out. Vivian and Jonathan looked down at the glass floor in order not to follow the glimmer upwards with their eyes. “Very well. Stay there!” said Cousin Vivian. She beckoned with the gun. “I’ve got the safety off,” she said warningly.

  They had to go past her and down the stairs without another look at the pillar. There are stairs all the way down outside, Vivian thought. He can be out long before the clock strikes.

  The museum room was almost as dim and yellowish as the room above. All the windows were shuttered except for the one that looked directly out over the Avenue of the Four Ages. There, the museum cases had been pulled aside and Cousin Vivian’s parents were setting up some kind of apparatus in the space. The two Caskets had been put in the niches. Vivian could see them, first dark and distorted by the glass and then clear and in plain view, as the pillar went slowly round—one flattish iron box, a little rusty, and one large silver egg on which pearls and red stones gleamed from whorled settings.

  “I only got two,” Cousin Vivian said. “The other one got in the clock.”

  Inga Lee turned round. “The small one—he could be small enough to get to the pillar,” she said nervously.

  Without bothering to turn round, Mr. Lee said, “It won’t make any difference if he does. I put the shutters down in the bell pagoda. All he’ll get is a bad attack of deafness. Nobody’s going in or out of this tower—and we won’t need Sam until later. Bring those two over here, Vivvie. I need them now.”

  “Why do you need us?” said Jonathan.

  “Shut up,” said Mr. Lee. He said it as if he meant it. Vivian and Jonathan went over to the window without daring to say anything else. “Stand there,” Mr. Lee said, shoving them to one side of it. “And remember—the only use you are to me is as hostages. So keep quiet until the clock strikes and the Gold Casket gets here. I may let you go then.”

  “Why do you need Sam later?” Jonathan said.

  Mr. Lee laughed. “To continue the Lee line,” he said. “You won’t mind a deaf husband, will you, Vivvie?”

  Vivian could not see Cousin Vivian’s face from where she stood backed against the bay of the window, so there was no way of telling what she thought. Beside her, Jonathan was chewing the end of his pigtail. Vivian was sure he was thinking about Sam, waiting beside a dead Patroller to be deafened. There was no way out of the Pagoda except by the outside stairs and, from what Mr. Lee said, it seemed as if there was a shutter between Sam and the stairs.

  “Ah! Here they come!” said Mr. Lee. “The fools have smelt a rat at last.”

  Vivian craned across Jonathan. A group of Patrollers and other people were hurrying up the zig-zag steps to the Gnomon. Mr. Donegal was bounding up in front. Vivian saw Sempitern Walker near the back beside Dr. Leonov, the High Scientist, and the great purple figure of Dr. Wilander towering in the middle. Scattered people were hurrying behind, trying to catch up, Patrollers and Annuate Guards mostly, but one of them was Petula and another looked like Ramona. And a long way in the rear, rushing down the middle of the Avenue of the Four Ages, was Mr. Enkian with his robes flying.

  “That android’s with them—beside Wilander,” Inga Lee said. “I thought we’d made them lock it up.”

  “It must have got loose and alerted the rest,” said Mr. Lee. “Well, they’re not much of a threat. I must say, I expected them to be better organized than this!”

  Vivian suspected that Mr. Donegal was better organized than Mr. Lee thought. There were movements in among the bushes beyond the stairs that looked like more people keeping out of sight while they got Endless Hill surrounded. While she was trying to see if they were indeed Patroller uniforms creeping through the shrub, she heard a faint scuttering. It was outside the tower, from above somewhere. Jonathan’s head moved slightly and then stopped, stiffly, showing he had heard it too. It couldn’t be a trailing shoelace! Vivian thought. Sam’s feet had been enclosed in that mind-suit. But it did sound very much like one. And the scuttering was coming round the wall and getting lower, where the Lees might hear it at any moment.

  She looked at Mr. Lee. He was smiling and holding a small round piece of metal to his mouth. He spoke into it. “Stop!” his voice blared from outside the tower. “None of you come any nearer. This is Viv Lee speaking, Abdul.”

  The people coming up the stairs faltered. Their faces turned up to the window, but none of them quite stopped climbing.

  “I told you to stop,” Mr. Lee’s voice blared. “We have taken possession of the Gnomon and we have two of the so-called polarities of Time City up here with us. We will not hesitate to turn the force of the polarities on anyone who comes any nearer. Get off the steps!”

  The group on the stairs stopped. They did not seem to be quite as well organized as Vivian hoped. They were turning to one another, asking one another for something. She listened hard in the silence, but she could not hear the scuttering any more. Then a Patroller climbed over the stone balustrade beside Mr. Donegal and put something into his hand. They heard his voice, as if he were speaking from right beside them.

  “Viv, you’re mad! What are you trying to do up there?”

  “I’m taking over Time City,” Mr. Lee blared. “It will come to a halt at the end of time in six minutes from now. When it does, the Gold Casket and the Lead Casket will be brought to the Gnomon. I warn you not to interfere with those Caskets in any way. Get off the steps.”

  “Viv, I think we should talk about this,” Mr. Donegal’s voice suggested quietly from beside Mr. Lee’s shoulder.

  “Do as I tell you!” Mr. Lee blared. “I have hostages here. I shall start by shooting one of them to show I mean business.” He nodded to his daughter. She prodded the gun into Vivian’s arm and then Jonathan’s and pushed them out in front of the window, where the group of upturned faces could clearly see them. Mr. Lee took the gun from his daughter and waved it so that they could see that too. Vivian felt unreal. It was like that first night in Patrol Building. She felt as if she was in a film. And perhaps that’s merciful, she thought. “Do you see them?” Mr. Lee blared. “Do I shoot one?”

  There was more confusion among the group. Heads turned. Arms waved, beckoning to the stragglers hurrying up the flight of steps below. Mr. Donegal’s voice said irritably, “I know he’s violent! And that wife of his—” and this was followed by a click as he turned his loud-speaker off and waved everyone towards the side of the steps. In an untidy sort of stampede, everyone hurried to the balustrade and bundled themselves and one another over it into the bushes. Jonathan’s teeth crunched on his pigtail. Elio was still standing there, a small pale figure in his mind-suit. The two Guardians were advancing down the steps towards him, one a long silver glitter and the other tall and dull brown, casting dim, not-quite-real shadows across Elio and dwarfing him completely.

  “Inga!” snapped Mr. Lee. “Get what those things are saying
to one another. Quickly!” He held the gun against Jonathan’s head and neither Jonathan nor Vivian dared to move. Their eyes turned sideways to watch Inga Lee fiddling with knobs on top of her apparatus.

  There was a noise like an army marching through tinfoil. Out of it, Elio’s voice said faintly, “The Lead Casket.” As soon as he said it, Elio turned and leapt over the side of the steps into the bushes. The two Guardians glimmered out of sight, leaving two long faint eye-blots on the stairs.

  “I think those creatures set up some kind of interference,” Inga Lee said irritably. “I can’t pick up what they’re saying in the bushes at all.”

  “At least the steps are clear for the other two Guardians,” Mr. Lee said. He passed his daughter the gun and turned to help his wife. There was more tinfoil crunching from the machine. A voice that might have been Elio’s said, “We could not discover…”

  “Where will the other Guardians come from?” Cousin Vivian asked.

  “A time-lock at the bottom of the steps—don’t interrupt,” said her father.

  At that point, Mr. Enkian, who was clearly not much of a runner, reached the bottom of the steps. He leant on the balustrade to pant before taking the climb. And Vivian saw a small figure come towards him round the hill at a tired, rolling trot. It was Sam. She recognised him mostly by the trot, because most of him was a fluttering shapeless bundle. His mind-suit seemed to have got shredded into a thousand trailing strips.

  Jonathan’s elbow went into her side. They both did what they could to distract the Lees. “I’m hungry,” Jonathan said. “That automat over there still works.”

  “Does it?” Vivian cried with loud, artificial delight. “I’d love a butter-pie!”

  “Can I work the automat, Daddy?” Cousin Vivian asked.

  Mr. Enkian was not listening to Sam, Vivian saw from one eye. He was waving him angrily away.

  “Give your mother the gun first, Vivvie,” Mr. Lee said, still bending over the crunching apparatus.

  From one eye, Vivian saw Cousin Vivian’s skinny arm stretching out to pass the gun to Inga Lee. From the other, she saw Dr. Wilander rise out of the bushes like a purple whale and go crashing down Endless Hill towards Sam. When the stairs zigged the right way, he jumped the balustrade in a whirl of robe and went down them three at a time in huge, limping leaps. When they zagged at the landings, he jumped the balustrade again and tore his way through the shrubbery. He reached the bottom while Mr. Enkian was still waving Sam off. Mr. Enkian whirled round angrily and the two of them began shouting at one another.

  What a time to start another quarrel! Vivian thought, as her other eye watched Cousin Vivian fetch the little pot with a stick in it out of the antique automat. “One butter-pie,” Cousin Vivian announced. She laughed jeeringly and began to eat it herself.

  Elio went tearing down the hill, following the broken path Dr. Wilander had made. As soon as he reached the bottom, Sam grabbed his arm and seemed to be explaining.

  “Mean beast!” Vivian said, desperate to distract the Lees. “I’m starving!”

  “She always was,” Jonathan joined in, shaking with nerves. “When I got a new automat, she poured quickset plastic into it and I had to make do with the old one.”

  “Serve you right for being so snooty!” said Cousin Vivian. She closed her eyes in bliss. “Oh, I’d forgotten the beautiful taste of these things!”

  When Vivian looked away from her out of the window, there was no one at all at the bottom of the steps. Even Mr. Enkian had disappeared.

  Mr. Lee gave up on the amplifier and turned it off. “There’s not much anyone can do now anyway,” he said, looking tensely at the watch on his wrist. “It’s one minute to twelve.”

  They waited, and the minute seemed endless. Jonathan switched on his time-function. It said twenty-nine minutes past six. They watched the green-lit second hand creep round to half-past. It had got two-thirds of the way, when Vivian caught sight of a blur in the distance down the Avenue of the Four Ages. It came closer and larger with astonishing speed and she saw it was Elio—Elio running faster than she could have believed possible. He was getting bigger and nearer as if there was a zoom-lens on him. She could see his legs pounding, his arms beating and his head rolling from side to side, and she knew he was running flat out. But fast as Elio was coming, the second hand on Jonathan’s arm seemed to move faster still. It was nearly at half-past now. She could hear chinks and slidings overhead where the works of the endless clock were adjusting to the shaking of the tower and getting ready to strike.

  Elio is bringing the time-egg, Vivian thought, but what if it’s not the Lead Casket? Or what if it is, but this just helps the Lees to get their hands on it?

  BOING went the great clock, burring everything around them.

  And as soon as it did, a tall young man in green strode to the steps and began jauntily and confidently to climb them.

  17

  FABER JOHN

  This young man was not the time-ghost, but the Watcher himself, bringing the Gold Casket. He cast a solid shadow that folded across the steps. Everything about him was solid and confident. Elio was still running, off to one side. The Watcher was going up briskly, sure of his duty, and he was half-way up the first flight of steps already.

  BOING went the clock, a second time, and again everything burred. Vivian looked for Elio, but he must have reached the bushes. The only person in sight was the briskly climbing Watcher. “Here comes our Gold Casket!” Mr. Lee said triumphantly through the burring.

  BOING came the third stroke. And the Watcher was suddenly struggling. He laboured to put each foot on the next step as if his boots weighed a ton apiece. BOING went the fourth stroke. He staggered on to the first landing and dragged himself across it by holding on to the balustrade. Doggedly he began to climb the next flight, foot by weighty foot.

  “Now we know what’s stopping him,” Mr. Lee said, as the fifth stroke rolled out. “It’s those two damned Guardians.”

  The Iron Guardian and the Silver Keeper had materialised at the bottom of the last flight before the tower. They were standing, waiting. As Vivian looked at them, her eye caught something purple and a glimmer of mind-suit down the hill beyond them, at the edge of the path Dr. Wilander had torn through the bushes. Then she knew what was really stopping the Watcher. The time-egg. It was the Lead Casket. They had been right. Elio was using it as a kind of magnet to pull the Gold Casket back. But he did not dare be seen, in case the Lees shot one of their hostages. When the steps zig-zagged away from him, he could only come to the edge of the broken bushes.

  In proof of this, the Watcher dragged himself up that flight while the next mighty BOING was ringing out. But Elio was waiting in the bushes at the second landing. The Watcher lurched and almost fell to his knees. Vivian could see the Gold Casket, distantly, tall and heavy and glinting. The Watcher held it proudly in front of him, which only left him one hand to drag himself across the landing with.

  “He never does get to the top,” Inga Lee said anxiously.

  “We don’t know that. He disappears on the twelfth stroke,” Mr. Lee contradicted her. “Vivvie, fetch me the Silver Casket. I’ll give him some help.”

  BOING rang the great clock. Vivian had lost count by then. Cousin Vivian went to the pillar, licking her butter-pie slowly to make it last. By the time she came back with the huge pearl-embossed egg, the Watcher was on his knees, crawling near the top of the third flight. From the swirling of the bushes, Vivian thought that there were a lot of people with Elio, pulling one another in a line, to help hold the Watcher back. She prayed that Mr. Lee would not notice as he took the pearly egg and bent over it. Funny! she thought. I wanted the Watcher to get up the steps when he was a time-ghost. Now I hope and hope he doesn’t! Beside her, Jonathan had most of his pigtail in his mouth.

  The steps zagged away from the Lead Casket. With Mr. Lee’s help, the Watcher doggedly plugged up that flight during the next great stroke of the bell. But he almost stuck on that landing. It seemed
that the three Caskets might balance out and pin him to the spot.

  “Get me the Iron Casket, quickly!” Inga Lee said. Cousin Vivian ran this time and got back as the great clock went BOING again.

  “We are going to win, aren’t we?” she asked plaintively as she handed the square rusty box to her mother.

  “Of course. We’re intended to,” Inga Lee said. She put the gun down on the amplifier and bent over the Iron Casket.

  Now, by looking sideways at the struggling green climber, Vivian could see the force that was being used. It was roiling and streaking the air with nearly invisible whorls, so that when the clock rang out yet again, burring everything, Vivian could hardly see the Watcher. He was a green smear, still creeping upwards. As the burring went off a little, she saw the whorling force bellying upwards to cover the two waiting Guardians, then down to eddy across the Watcher as he rounded another landing and toiled on to the next flight.

  BOING went the clock. Jonathan murmured through his pigtail, “Eleven.” The Guardians were moving, walking slowly down to join the Watcher. The Watcher, still holding the Casket carefully to his chest, seemed to look up at them.

  “We’re winning,” said Mr. Lee. “They’ve had to go to meet him. Obstinate, isn’t he?”

  BOING went the clock for the last time. The burring died to silence except for the shaking and chinking of the tower. The whorls of force died away too, fading and curling gently to nothing.

  The Watcher stood up, near enough for Vivian to see he was smiling, and climbed briskly to meet the two Guardians. They turned and came up the steps on either side of him. Up they came and up, to the very foot of the Gnomon. Elio and the other people in the bushes, who seemed to be on both sides of the stairs, kept pace with them, but it was clear that the Lead Casket now had no effect at all.