by Gary Russell
The trouble was he had made the mistake back at the Colby Hotel of telling their son that he was going to find treasure in the mountains. He was looking for a rock that many years of research, poring through ancient texts, the aboriginal writings (such as they were, being mostly modern transcriptions of generational folk tales) and studying the ancient texts both at the Neues Museum in Berlin and the British Museum in London had confirmed was somewhere in the Katoomba area. Echo Point, in the shadow of the legendary Three Sisters to be specific. There were ancient stories that there had been a Fourth Sister once, another colossal prong-like rock formation, but that it had been destroyed by the arrival of the object Tomas sought.
On hearing the word ‘treasure’, Roderika had immediately cancelled her plans for a day in the salon, left Josef in the care of his tutor and insisted on coming with him to find the treasure.
‘My darling, I’m not talking jewellery, or precious stones. Not that kind of treasure. No, this is something plainer. Legend calls it die Glanz.’
‘Treasure is treasure,’ Roderika had replied. ‘If it is important enough to have come halfway around the world to this wretched wet place, then it will be a triumph for us to share in.’
‘Our new Chancellor would be very excited if we could bring this back,’ conceded Tomas. ‘I was contacted by the Party—’
‘Did they fund this then? Save my poor Papi from doing so?’
Tomas shook his head. ‘But hopefully they may pay us something if we take die Glanz back to them.’
‘What is it, then? Why would the Party be so interested?’
‘They are rumoured to be interested in the occult and—’
Roderika had just let out a long, slightly cruel, laugh. ‘You believe that? You believe that the Chancellor really believes in that nonsense?’
‘Your father does,’ Tomas replied. ‘That’s why we are here. He could see this coming, all those months ago, when we set off on this trip. He was getting us, getting you and Josef out of Dachau, just in case.’
‘In case what?’
Tomas sighed. If only Roderika had half the political savvy of her father. ‘Your father, me, you – we’re just Parteigenosse, but if Von Hindenburg goes, and your father believes that will happen very soon, there is no telling what the Party will do. This way, we can keep on the right side of the Reichsleitung by giving them something they can examine, keep, lock away, and do whatever it is they do with objects such as this. I don’t know. But your father wanted us safely over here, that’s why he put me on to this mystery.’
Roderika was going to laugh again, but she could see there was something in Tomas’s urgent delivery, something in his eyes, that said he might be right. ‘Papi was concerned for the Sturmabteilung – he said that we needed to protect Strasser. I thought he meant politically but…’
‘Strasser, Rohm, they could fall if Von Hindenburg goes. We are safe here; Josef is safe here. For now. We should find this treasure and decide afterwards if we let the Party have it.’
‘If the Party want it, the Party will get it,’ Roderika said. ‘How could you do a deal with them if you knew how unstable home is?’
Tomas’s rage flared up. ‘I did it to save us all. It will be better to have them on side than to become a victim.’
‘Papi…?’
Tomas took a deep breath. ‘By now he should be safe in Denmark or Sweden. A lot of the old families are heading there, hoping to find a haven.’
Roderika closed her eyes, and then smiled. ‘Darling, you are talking nonsense. You make it sound as if people like my father have something to fear from the Party. We should go find this ridiculous treasure of yours and carry it back victorious to the Chancellor and his Reichsleitung, and we shall be rewarded handsomely. Come on, I won’t have you fill Josef’s head with your paranoid ramblings.’
And Roderika had yelled for Tomas’s Diener to prepare her aforementioned shoes, coat and hat, as she escorted Josef to his tutor.
Thus it was that the Schneidter party was pushing its way through the wind and rain to the base of Echo Point, directly below the Three Sisters in the Jamieson Valley.
Tomas had to acknowledge just how impressive the area was. It was like a massive horseshoe-shaped enclave, enclosed on three edges by incredibly high rock walls packed with trees, waterfalls and other amazing sights. To the ‘front’, the open part of the horseshoe, the valley spread out as a massive rainforest, as far as the eye could see. They had started at the top of Echo Point, come down the treacherous Giant Stairway, pausing at the top to take in the breathtaking vista ahead of them. Even Roderika had commented on how beautiful it was – and as it stretched miles and miles away into the distance, the trees created a fantastic canopy over the ground, and the distant mountains seemed to shimmer with a blue in the haze. She asked if that was what gave the region its distinctive name.
One of their party, an Aboriginal walker called Lue that Tomas had engaged earlier in the week, explained that it was eucalyptus oil rising from the trees because of the sun’s heat that caused the haze.
Roderika thanked him. At which point the heavens had opened, and her mood evaporated with their shelter as they began the long dangerously steep descent down the Giant Stairway.
Tomas was just glad Josef wasn’t with them, to give Roderika more angst and excuses to moan.
Halfway down, Tomas’s Diener tapped him on the shoulder and pointed back at their Aboriginal guide.
‘Lue?’
But Lue was shaking his head. ‘I cannot go further,’ he said. ‘This is our land, our heritage and you seek to disturb it.’
Tomas shook his head. ‘I’m looking for one item, one object. I promise nothing else will be taken or disturbed.’
‘Just one pebble taken is wrong,’ Lue insisted. He hugged his open-necked white shirt tighter around him, like a chill had suddenly run through him, although the wind was no greater here than anywhere else.
‘What’s the silly little man on about now?’ Roderika called up, and Tomas gave her a look that implored her to shut up and not insult Lue.
When he turned back, Lue was gone. By rights, even if he’d just turned around to walk back up, he should still be visible, but it was like he’d just vanished. Swearing at the loss, Tomas carried on down, weighing up the pros and cons if Roderika were to ‘slip’.
His Diener caught his eye and smiled momentarily. Ordinarily, Tomas could dismiss him for such a breach of protocol, but frankly, he understood the poor man’s frustrations at Roderika only too well.
And now, finally, here they were, at the base of the mountain, staring at, well, rock. Lots and lots of rock.
‘Well?’ a wet, angry, dishevelled Roderika finally said. ‘Treasure?’
Tomas swung around and snapped back ‘I don’t think there’s going to be a big red X with “Treasure Here” carved into the wall!’
Roderika, not used to hearing her husband talk that way to her stood and stared opened-mouthed at him.
No, not at him, past him.
Tomas turned to follow her eye line.
‘Oh, don’t mind us,’ said a man. Tall, mid-fifties, greying hair, long dark coat with a red lining, leaning casually against a tree, arms folded.
Next to him, a slightly younger woman, dark hair, black jacket and trousers, stunning dark blue eyes that twinkled with mischief.
‘Wotcha,’ she said.
Despite the rain, they seemed dry as a bone. OK, so the trees might be giving them some shelter now, but to get down here they had to have been exposed to the elements.
‘Who are you?’ Tomas frowned.
‘I’m a friend, and this is my friend, Bernice.’
‘I’m an archaeologist. Somehow being his friend rates a higher mention in my CV than what I actually do.’
‘Sorry,’ the man said. ‘Touchy today, aren’t we?’
Bernice just smiled at Tomas. ‘You’re looking for the lodestone, yes?’
‘The what?’
The s
trange man and Bernice exchanged a look. ‘Not the response I was expecting,’ the man said.
‘No, I thought it’d be more “Oh yes the lodestone for the Ancients of the Universe, can you help me find it, seeing as you’re a brilliant archaeologist, amazing scholar of ancient artefacts and all-round genius at things involving trowels, little fluffy brushes and dirt under the fingernails.” But I guess not.’
Tomas just shook his head, looking back at Roderika and the rest of their party. All of them were similarly staring gape-mouthed.
‘I don’t think he was impressed by your credentials, Benny,’ the man said.
‘I missed off the thing too about being a pretty good reader of human body language. I don’t think Herr Schneidter and Frau Schneidter are getting along today. She’s not sure which of us to give the more poisonous looks to.’
Roderika stepped forward, her angst and ill-humour about rain, mud, everything, gone. In her place was an imperious but powerful woman, the woman Tomas had first met and been impressed by all those years ago.
‘I don’t know who you are, or what you are doing here,’ she said slowly and pointedly, ‘but this expedition is my husband’s. We are here to find the treasure and when we do it belongs to him. To us. To our family. It is not, and never will be yours.’
The strange man widened his arms as if to say ‘No problem’. ‘I assure you, Frau Schneidter, we are not here to take the treasure away with us. We want your husband to find it and do exactly what you say. Nothing more. We’re just, oh, I don’t know, call us observers.’
Bernice nodded. ‘Making sure it all goes to plan and everything works out as it should. Oh, and your treasure’s roughly over there, embedded deep into the lower strata,’ she added helpfully.
Tomas, now oblivious to the weather himself, waved his people over and started digging where the soil met the rock, as Bernice had indicated.
‘Why do you believe these Verrückte?’ Roderika called over.
‘Because, my dearest,’ Tomas replied, ‘I have nothing to lose by doing so.’
Roderika Schneidter looked back at the newcomer and his friend Bernice. Bernice was examining her nails, whistling. The man was tossing a clod of earth from one hand to the other, getting dirtier by the second.
‘And why should I not have you shot right now where you stand?’
The man looked up. ‘Well, that’s not very friendly.’
‘Not at all,’ agreed Bernice.
‘Firstly, shooting us is probably illegal in Australia. I mean, it’s probably illegal in Germany too, but it is 1934, so anything’s possible, I imagine. And secondly, why shoot us? I mean all we’re doing is helping.’
‘Making sure history stays on the right track,’ Bernice smiled.
‘Oh, why did you have to go and say that,’ the man sighed. ‘Look at her now.’
And indeed Roderika was giving them her darkest stare.
‘Last time I got a stare like that,’ the man said, ‘was from a talking bear from darkest Peru called Paddington. He gave good stares. Yours is pretty impressive on the Paddington scale. Eight or nine out of ten.’
‘History?’ Roderika repeated.
‘And we’re focusing on that.’ The man shook his head. ‘Honestly, Benny, think before you speak.’
‘Says the man who didn’t think before he spoke, and now we’re here,’ Bernice retorted. ‘Pot. Kettle. Black.’
‘History will show that we will find this treasure and take it back home, present it to the party, to the Chancellor,’ Roderika said. ‘And he will reward us for finding die Glanz.’
Bernice smiled. ‘Ah, finally, the name is right. The Glamour.’
The strange man looked at her quizzically. ‘You what?’
‘Stop it!’ shrieked Roderika. ‘Stop your talking now!’ She pulled a gun from her handbag. A vintage pearl-handled Smith & Wesson ‘Baby Hammerless’. ‘You will let us take this treasure, and we will all walk away from this!’
Bernice and the stranger took a step back, hands up defensively. ‘Not a problem,’ Bernice said. ‘Believe us, we want him to find it.’
This stand-off lasted a few minutes while Tomas and his men scrabbled with trowels, spades and brushes.
‘I didn’t need a big X,’ Tomas finally muttered. ‘I just needed them!’ He was pointing excitedly at the man and Bernice.
‘Well, far be it from me to take credit…’ the man started, but Roderika was having none of it.
‘I said shut up!’
‘Shutting up,’ confirmed Bernice.
And at that point Tomas stood up. In his hand was an oddly shaped piece of rock, lines of tiny crystalline ridges networking through it.
Bernice blew air from her cheeks. ‘That’s it,’ she said quietly.
Roderika heard. ‘And how do you know? How do you know that treasure would be there, now, today?’
‘It’s been here a long time,’ Tomas started, but found himself covered by Roderika’s pistol. ‘My love?’
‘Give it to me!’ she said, hoarse after her shouting. ‘Now. Give it to me now. My father must have die Glanz! It will buy back his power, his status with the Party!’
The man was looking at Bernice, who shrugged.
‘I’m not sure you should do that,’ Bernice said to Tomas. ‘Web of Time and all that. Record books show you pretty definitely dig it up and hang on to it.’ She looked at Roderika. ‘Curiously, the history books don’t even make mention of the missus at all. Just you. And Josef.’
Roderika swung round to cover Bernice and the strange man. ‘Don’t you dare talk about my son!’
‘Our son,’ Tomas corrected.
And Roderika swung back and fired her gun.
—
To the Doctor all the shouting, the rain on leaves, the mumblings of the men and clattering of shovels as they repaired the ground where they’d been digging was irrelevant. It was the sound of the bullet leaving the chamber, travelling down the barrel and breaking the sound barrier as it spat out of the Smith & Wesson’s front, through the air and powered into Tomas’s left shoulder that scared him. Bernice’s horrified ‘No!’ was lost in the tsunami of events that followed.
First, the shocked Tomas’s jaw opened in pain and surprise.
Second, the newly uncovered lodestone – aka the Glamour aka the treasure aka Graf Feldner’s future success aka the whole wretched reason the Doctor and Bernice Summerfield had travelled back in time to ensure that everything happened as it was supposed to aka that stupid lump of rock – dropped from Tomas’s rapidly numbing hands and fell to the floor.
As it touched the ground, a massive energy pulse shot out, with Tomas frozen at the eye of the time storm. Around him was a violent chronal eddy.
The Doctor was himself caught by the outskirts of the time eddy. But he could withstand it all. Just because he was a Time Lord.
And then, in ghastly slow motion, the Doctor watched, unable to move fast enough, pushing against an interstitial millisecond of time, as the pulse struck the people standing nearby.
Tomas’s manservant, plus the three workmen simply winked out of existence, their time streams instantly thrown into reverse – horrifically, not only did they cease to exist but they never had existed, instantly erased from causality, taking with them any progeny they had and any memories deep within friends and acquaintances.
Thinking quickly, the Doctor roughly shoved Bernice backwards, into the trees and out of the path of the vibrating, shimmering cone of temporal energy spilling forwards.
And he went forwards, into it, ignoring the battering his body was taking.
By the time the pulse hit Roderika Schneidter it had lost its initial fury and, in her case, rather than devolve time, it shredded it around her.
For the briefest of nanoseconds she flittered between how she was now, a 10-year-old child, a baby, an embryo, and a twisted old woman, a skeleton and, finally, atoms scattered for ever.
As the Doctor pushed against the pulse that acted li
ke treacle surrounding him, he too saw the death of Roderika Schneidter, each change in her timeline etched into his mind’s eye. He tried not to look but, like a driver passing a car accident, he couldn’t help but watch. A fascinating example of the devastating things time energy could do to living matter.
He was aware that the men closest to Tomas had simply gone, and focused on remembering that they had ever existed, making that his mission as he inched forward.
Finally with terrific effort, he reached down and grabbed the dropped / dropping Glamour / lodestone.
As his Time Lord fingers touched the rock, the time eddy simply ceased and, next to him, Tomas moved at normal speed, flung back by the bullet that was actually travelling backwards out of his body, pulled back to where it had begun, in a gun that had stopped being there when Roderika had vanished.
Tomas looked at the Doctor, who scooped the rock up and slammed it into Tomas’s hands.
‘Never. Drop it. Again,’ he snarled, with more anger than he intended.
Tomas was just staring at where his wife had stood.
‘Roderika?’ he asked, even though he must have known the answer to his unspoken question.
‘Gone, with your men.’
‘What men?’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Bernice?’ he called.
She was at his side in a second. Her face betrayed that she wasn’t sure quite what had happened but she was focused enough to know that something had, mainly because one moment she had been standing next to the Doctor, then she was flat on her back in a bush, and the Doctor was twenty feet away, all in the blink of an eye.
She saw Tomas hugging the Glamour. ‘Temporal problem?’ she guessed.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Do you remember how many people were here?’ he asked.
Bernice frowned. ‘Odd question. You, me, Tomas and Roderika Schneidter.’ Bernice realised Roderika was gone. ‘Oh. Poor woman.’
‘Poor three other men,’ the Doctor, muttered and explained what had happened to them and their personal histories.