by Sarah Rayne
“It was about that time that a small group of people formed themselves into a kind of International League. I don’t know the details,” said Annabel, “and I don’t think anyone else does now. They might have been businessmen or bankers or churchmen. Yes, they might certainly have been churchmen, because people still followed the Church then.”
Taliesin started to ask what churchmen and churches were, but was silenced by a quick glance from Fael-Inis.
“They wanted, you see, to measure how close the world was to a war where these terrible weapons would be used,” explained Annabel. “They thought the war would probably never happen, but they couldn’t be sure that it never would. Perhaps there were statesmen in with them as well. And they all thought they ought to calculate the imminence of this final last war. Some people thought it was a senseless exercise, of course, but —”
“But,” said Taliesin softly, “if you are about to blow up mankind and bring about the end of civilisation, perhaps it is as well to be a little prepared,” He studied her. “Were those weapons, those monsters, truly so powerful?”
“Oh, yes,” said Annabel. “Oh, yes, they were every bit as powerful.
“They agreed, this group of people, that they would try to be continually aware of the squabbles between countries, and of the incidents and the crises, and all the things that might spark off a war. Because wars,” said Annabel severely, looking absurdly young as she said it, “can be started from the tiniest of incidents.”
“Such as necromancers becoming greedy,” murmured Fael-Inis. “Go on, Annabel.”
“They wanted to set up some kind of device, designed to show how severe the danger was. How close. It would have to be simple and direct, but it would have to have impact.
“They came up with the idea of a Clock,” she said, and then stopped, as Taliesin made a sudden questioning movement. “You do know what a clock is?” said Annabel, half laughing, half exasperated.
“A device for measuring time,” said Fael-Inis with exquisite courtesy. “My dear, you should ignore our poor friend, for I fear he has lived a very sheltered life.”
Annabel said, “But I cannot begin to understand —” And stopped and laughed the warm, abrupt laughter again.
Taliesin said, “Time has always been measured in some form or other. I do not see —”
“But,” said Fael-Inis, turning to him, “in this world, Mortal, the people are ruled by it. Yes?” This to Annabel, who nodded. “Here,” said Fael-Inis, “it is necessary to have a very exact idea of time, you see.”
“While I was working for the Institute of Knowledge,” said Annabel, who had been searching her mind for a way to explain, “it was necessary for me to — to be at my desk at the ninth hour exactly.”
“Exactly?”
“A bell would ring,” said Annabel. “And if I was not seated at my desk, ready to work when that bell rang, I was severely disciplined, and perhaps I lost a little of the money due to me that day.”
“How truly terrible.”
“Also,” said Annabel, with relish, “I could not leave until another bell rang at the eighteenth hour.”
“My poor child,” said Taliesin, and Annabel laughed again.
“It does not seem so if you have known nothing else.”
“That is why,” said Fael-Inis, taking up the explanation, “they have what are called clocks, machines which give the exact hour of the day, and the precise minute.”
“And that is why,” said Annabel, “the notion of a Clock was attractive to those people who wanted to know how close the world was to its final holocaust.”
“They were measuring the world’s life by hours and minutes,” said Taliesin, still not fully understanding, but grasping the concept now.
“Yes. I believe that the Clock itself was sited somewhere in the north of Europe,” said Annabel, her eyes faraway now. “Sweden or Switzerland perhaps, although I am not sure. And they met once a year, to move the hands of the Clock forwards or backwards, depending on the events of that year. Depending on the quarrels between nations, and the disagreements between governments. Midnight was what they called the Doom Hour.” She glanced at Taliesin. “You — you do have midnight in your world?”
Taliesin said, “Yes, we have what we call the deep midnight, which the sorcerers believe to be a deeply magical time.”
“Well,” said Annabel, who would have liked to hear more of this, but thought she had better continue, “they called midnight the Doom Hour. If ever it was felt necessary to move the Clock’s hands towards midnight, then it would mean that the holocaust was almost upon them. The terrible war that would end the world would have become inevitable.” She paused again, and Taliesin said, “Yes?”
“They met for many years,” said Annabel. “They did not meet in any particular secrecy, but they didn’t make a great display about it, either. They moved the Clock’s hands accordingly, and although it was frequently close to midnight — sometimes it was within ten minutes of it — somehow it never quite reached midnight.” She looked up. “I think they would have been quite honest about it,” said Annabel. “I do not think they would have deluded themselves. That was not their aim.
“And so the Clock never reached midnight.”
She stopped speaking, and Fael-Inis said, “But now?”
“The Clock disappeared,” said Annabel, “nobody knows quite when, for who does know the precise moment a thing disappears? You only know that you go to look for it, and it is no longer there. The Clock vanished, and no one knew when.”
It had not seemed to matter. Annabel, stealing down to the badly lit vaults beneath the Institute of Knowledge, had read the reports and seen the records. Nobody thought that the world was in danger by that time. People had become used to the idea of those terrible weapons forged nearly a century earlier. They had grown complacent. The holocaust would not happen. There was more tolerance in the world. People were learning to respect one another. Nobody wanted to blow up the world any more. It had been a good time to live.
“It was a good time to live,” said Annabel. “Countries who had been in a perpetual state of half-war were talking to one another. Richer countries were trying to help poorer ones. The disappearance of what some people had called the Peace Clock, and the dispersing of the small group who had controlled it, was a small matter.”
Fael-Inis, his eyes on her, said, “What happened next?”
“It is difficult to know the sequence,” said Annabel, as she had said earlier. “But the time was already beginning to run out for us. There was already concern about the world’s resources — food and power and water. There were droughts, dreadful arid months when the rainfall was so low that the great reservoirs began to dry up. Then there were famines — not just one, but many, all following one on top of another. People died by the thousands. And then there was the Disease, which the people of the time called Plague. It became rife and then virulent. Food supplies were dwindling. The rain forests were dying. And the water and the fuel were slowly running out.” She looked at them both. “It did not happen quickly, of course,” she said. “Not nearly as quickly as I am making it sound. It took years, decades. But it was happening …”
The world dying, not with a bang but a whimper …
Taliesin said, “But the world still lives. Annabel, the world is surviving.”
“No. The world is dying.” Annabel looked at him. “It is doubtful if there are many more months left to us.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I do know it. We all know it. The knowledge is not supposed to be out, but it is. It has leaked, little by little. Even the Drakon knows it can no longer hide the truth. Everyone knows that the world will soon end, although whether it will be with a whimper or a bang, we cannot tell.” She turned to look at them very directly. “Some years ago, the Clock was found,” said Annabel. “Deep in Ireland’s eastern mountains. Miners or pot-holers or explorers found it. It was there. And they found that all through its
lost years, it had been moving. Living. Ticking. The hands had been moving by themselves. Forwards. All of the years when we had believed ourselves to be moving away from the disaster, away from the great, all-destroying war, we were moving towards it,” said Annabel, her eyes huge and dark. “The Clock had taken on some kind of life. It had lain there quietly in its mountain hall, and the hands had been creeping slowly forward. Nearer and nearer to midnight. The Doom Hour.
“They have tried to destroy it, but they have failed. And now there is a kind of superstition about it. They dare not attempt its destruction again.
“But they watch it ceaselessly. There are permanent vigils now, through every hour of every day, for they dare not miss the slightest movement now. The Drakon has sent in its own people to mount watch and to record every quiver of movement it makes.
“But it is moving forward all the time,” said Annabel. “It is very slow but it is unmistakable. The hands show one minute to midnight now. And when they touch midnight, the world will end. We have come to believe it. We all of us believe it.
“We are a doomed race and a dying world, and there is nothing anyone can do to save us.”
*
To Taliesin it seemed as if the three of them were entirely alone at the centre of a doomed and lost world. Annabel had brewed up a fresh pot of coffee in the bright, clean little room which she called a kitchen; they were warm and safe and closed in with food and drink and fire and companionship.
But outside is the darkness, and the howling confusion, and outside are the raging winds, and the endless night that is to come …
The words formed themselves in Taliesin’s mind, and with them came a vision so horrific and so dreadfully vivid that his senses reeled. He glanced to where Fael-Inis sat motionless, but Fael-Inis only blinked expressionlessly like a cat.
The darkness and the howling confusion and the endless night … It is approaching, thought Taliesin. Inch by inch, the world is ending. The Doomsday Clock is ticking closer to midnight, and somewhere beyond human vision, the Four Horsemen are waiting to lead the Apocalypse into the world.
And then: I wonder how it will happen? he thought, and as he framed the thought, Annabel, who had been pouring the coffee, said, “We do not know how it will happen yet,” and Taliesin jumped, because it was somehow unexpected to find a trace of the Samhailt here.
“But there will be theories as to what will happen?” said Fael-Inis.
Annabel said thoughtfully, “It is a quite strongly held belief that there are a number of countries in the world which still secretly maintain the weapons. Countries that were once shut off from the rest of the world, and sealed away from it. There was a phrase they used,” said Annabel, “the Iron Curtain. Part of the world was shut off behind an Iron Curtain, and for many years no one knew what went on in those countries. Our ancestors worked to lift that Curtain,” said Annabel, back in the past again, her eyes remote. “They worked very hard to lift the barriers that had been raised. They opened the Brandenburg Gate and they ripped down the Iron Curtain. That is quite old history, of course, but it must have been such a wonderful time to have lived through.
“But the barriers are back; the Iron Curtain of our ancestors has descended in a different place. We hear whispers of faceless leaders who are banding together to overthrow the larger countries. They would be ruthless, those leaders, and if they have the weaponry of the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries, then we are certainly doomed. They will use them against us unless we submit to their demands.”
“You would not submit?” said Taliesin, knowing the answer.
“Of course not,” said Annabel, and grinned at him. “We used to have an expression, in one of the really old wars: ‘Death or glory.’ They say the men used it going into battle against the enemy, although,” said Annabel thoughtfully, “I am not sure at this distance quite which enemy, because there have been several, you understand. But it’s rather a good expression, isn’t it?”
“A battle-cry,” said Fael-Inis solemnly. “Yes, it is a very good one.”
“Well, anyway, we should fight those greedy, selfish leaders,” said Annabel, her eyes bright. “Of course we should.”
“Death or glory,” said Taliesin.
“Well, yes.”
Fael-Inis was still seated quietly on the flame-orange sofa, but the other two suddenly turned to him, and Annabel thought, How remarkable he is. It is as if he has suddenly pulled on an invisible string, and we have both been compelled or commanded to attend to him.
Fael-Inis said, “The Doomsday Clock —”
“Yes?”
“Where is it now?”
Annabel studied him before replying. Then she said softly, “It is set deep in the heart of the mountains, in a remote part of Ireland. I do not know the true name of the place, but they say they were once called the Fire Mountains.”
Fael-Inis made an abrupt movement forwards, and the dying firelight caught his eyes so that they glowed. Almost to himself, he said, “So they still exist, in this brave new world, do they …?” And then, as the other two looked, “No matter,” he said.
“They had to find somewhere very safe for the Clock,” said Annabel, because he seemed to be waiting for her to continue. “Somewhere where it could not be tampered with.” She looked at them both to be sure they understood this, because it had been very important that people should not tamper with the Clock. “It is deep within the Fire Mountains,” said Annabel, “and it is guarded day and night.” She frowned, because there had been curious and rather sinister tales of the Clock’s guardians. Creatures not quite human, summoned from out of the past … No one had believed this, but there had been an odd and inexplicable note of authenticity about the tale. The Three Guardians, the three terrible Powers from a long-dead world, guarding the Cavern of the Doomsday Clock …
“They say,” said Annabel, “that the Clock is set high on a shelf of rock, narrow but regular. What our ancestors would have called an altar.” She glanced at them, but this word seemed familiar to them. “It is lit by burning torches, set high up in the inside of the mountain,” said Annabel, “and the torches are never allowed to go out.” She paused again, for there had been no reason to ensure that the Clock was always lit, only that no one had been able to bear the thought of the Clock ticking away the world’s last days by darkness. “The torches are kept burning,” said Annabel. “They are lit and replenished every four hours.”
“Firelight?” said Taliesin, for crude firelight did not somehow accord with the legends that had come back of this marvellous age.
“It is the only source of light that we can trust now,” said Annabel.
“And so the Doomsday Clock is set on its altar,” said Fael-Inis softly, “and it is deep within the Fire Mountains which once I knew as well, Mortal, as you know this room where you live.” He looked at them, his face alight. “Our task is clear, you know.”
“Is it?” said Taliesin, and Annabel started to say, “But what is your task?” and found she could not quite frame the question after all.
Fael-Inis stood up and looked down at them both. “We must travel to the Fire Mountains,” he said. “We must somehow penetrate to the torchlit Cavern of the Clock.
“And once we are there, we shall stop the hands from reaching midnight.
“We shall save the world.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Taliesin stood in the bright room that Annabel had called a kitchen, and watched her moving about, placing the mugs from which they had drunk coffee in a round bowl made of some hard shiny substance; reaching into cupboards for food and bags.
“Shall you really accompany us?”
Annabel turned round and looked at him and, without warning, the sudden wide grin flashed. “Death or glory, remember?” And then, more seriously, “Are you truly going to save the world?”
“I don’t know,” said Taliesin, who did not.
“You couldn’t expect me not to be in on the saving of the world,�
�� said Annabel. “I couldn’t not want to be.”
“It will be very dangerous,” said Taliesin, leaning against the doorframe and watching her.
“I know,” said Annabel, and grinned the gamine grin again.
“Dangers and darknesses and raging seas,” murmured Taliesin. “All the sweet risk of all the perils ever known to … What is that?”
“Chocolate,” said Annabel, wrapping squares of a dark, rich-looking food. “A great rarity now. But very sustaining. And I thought we would take fruit and these biscuits. And the milk. Milk,” said Annabel severely, “fresh milk is unbelievably difficult to obtain now.” She packed it all away carefully, and then stood looking at Taliesin rather shyly. “I do not understand any of it,” said Annabel. “I don’t really believe that any of it is happening. Or if it is, then perhaps it is happening to somebody else, and perhaps I have got into somebody else’s dream. Are you a dream?”
“Are you?” said Taliesin very softly, and looked at her, and saw how her hair shone like copper, and wanted to pull her into his arms, and hold her hard against him, and take her back to the untidy house in the Street of Money-Lenders, and watch her curl up by the fire, and see her hair turn to a blaze of colour. It would not do, of course: she was from a different world, and it was impossible that their two worlds could ever mingle … And we are spirits of a different sort, he thought, and knew that this was not so, for they were of the same mould. Remarkable and incredible, and above all ironic that he should penetrate Time and enter a doomed world, and find the one woman above all …
He thought that she was looking at him and he thought, as well, that she was probably guessing or hearing his thoughts. And because this was not to be borne — for I must leave her here to face whatever terrible Fate awaits this world — he hunched a shoulder and said, “You are very trusting, Annabel,” and at once thought, And now I have used her name, and it sounded exactly like a caress …