A Tangle of Gold

by Jaclyn Moriarty

‘A lion in mint tea,’ Sergio prompted.

  Samuel sighed. ‘You both believed in the other,’ he said, ‘and you were right to believe. As for me,’ Samuel’s voice grew wry, ‘well, I’m afraid I did drop that Spell on purpose. Elliot’s quite right about me.’

  3

  Everyone was ready for a joke, so they took Samuel’s declaration with quiet smiles, while they reflected on his wisdom about Elliot and Madeleine.

  ‘My pardon,’ Samuel said after a moment, ‘but that was not an effort to be witty.’

  Madeleine glanced at him. ‘You’re not a Hostile.’

  ‘Indeed, and I am not,’ he agreed, and he bowed his head, pushed back his hair and turned down the top of his earlobe.

  Nobody took any notice. They continued roaming their own thoughts.

  Samuel straightened, exasperated. ‘Can nobody see what I am showing you?’ He pressed down his earlobe once more.

  A tiny circle was etched onto Samuel’s ear.

  ‘Huh,’ Elliot said politely. ‘You have a . . . wait. You are not suggesting you’re part of the Circle!’

  ‘Indeed, and I am. Why do you think I did not come along to see Sir Isaac Newton? Long and I have known him. He’d have greeted me as an old friend.’

  Half-smiles froze around the room. Uneasy glances darted.

  ‘I was born in Durham, England, in 1496,’ Samuel pronounced. ‘A fine year to be born, other than the Black Death and so forth.’

  The uneasy quiet was transforming itself into a stunned silence.

  ‘Shall I tell my tale?’ Samuel inquired. ‘Very well. I grew up cheerful but awkward and there were those who liked to taunt me. I lost my parents to a drowning accident when I was eleven. Not long after this tragedy, there came a day when three bigger boys chased me through the market. They threatened to toss me in the river, weighed with stones, to join my parents. The loss of my parents was still big in my heart, fear of these boys was like gunpowder . . .’ Samuel smiled. ‘Madeleine dreamed these events, you know. Anyway, such absence and emotion can prompt a stumble to the Kingdom of Cello, and this, they did. I found myself in an office tower in Jagged Edge. Leonardo da Vinci was there. He befriended me. He introduced me to the Shining Ones—as they then were—and I joined them. I did not age beyond twelve. Leonardo, incidentally, was opposed to immortality and returned often to the World to avoid it. Ironic, as he now has a strong dose of immortality himself—in the more theoretical sense of the word.’

  Nobody spoke.

  Samuel propped a pillow behind him. ‘I remember going to the Lake of Spells with you all, and being so afeared the magic would exclude me! The jig would be up! One must be under sixteen to enter, recall? However, in my heart, I suppose I am still twelve.’

  Elliot frowned. ‘Just to be clear,’ he said. ‘This is all a yarn you’re spinning?’

  ‘A what I’m whatting?’

  ‘You’re making this up. The way people tell ghost stories at summer camp. To be funny. Only you’re still working towards your punchline.’

  ‘I am many things,’ Samuel said patiently. ‘But as to a butterfly wrapped in sticky destiny, I am rarely funny! Call yourself my deepest apologies, Elliot—Ko, Keira, Sergio—but I was the traitor in the R.Y.A. You see, I have lived long in Cello, under the care of the Circle. Not long after my arrival, I settled in Olde Quainte and learned the language. I drifted between villages, always the newcomer. The Circle are my only true family. Now and then, they ask me to perform a favour for them, and the latest was to join the Royal Youth Alliance—using my World knowledge—and ensure that the Royal Family would never be rescued.’

  The room was perfectly still.

  ‘I cannot believe you,’ Sergio whispered.

  ‘Indeed, and I can scarcely believe it myself.’ Samuel sighed. ‘In my defence, I believed nobody would be harmed. I thought the Royals safe in the World. True, I tried to undermine your every effort, Princess Ko, every moment of every day, at the same time as appearing to help. I dropped the Locator Spell. I suggested we enter the word cellist into the spell, hoping we’d only snare cello players. And so forth. And yes, I transcribed the accounts so you’d miss the vital parts, and when Ko demanded the originals, I reinforced the blackouts, little knowing you would use a spell to remove them. And yes . . .’ Samuel paused. He reached for his cider mug, found it empty, ran a thumb around its edge, and turned to Elliot. ‘Yes, when you told us you had solved the cracks, I got word to my friends at the Circle at once.’

  A pale sadness washed across Elliot’s face.

  ‘They promised me you would not be hurt,’ Samuel whispered. He spoke slowly. ‘But it is clear that they contacted the W.S.U., assuming that this would take you out of the equation, and stop the Royals from being rescued. And thus, you, Elliot, were placed in great danger. Call yourself my deepest regret.’ Now he roused himself. ‘Most recently, I kept the Circle informed from Bonfire while we were there, again believing—as I had been assured—they would only have the Royals sent back to the World. Not hurt them.’ He turned to Madeleine. ‘It seems the Hostiles had their own plan, Madeleine, and I owe you my apologies as to a pumpkin—’

  ‘You might want to skip that bit,’ Keira suggested.

  ‘It reinforces the apology!’

  ‘No, it sort of undercuts it.’

  Samuel considered. ‘Perhaps you are right. I will not last this night, I fear, but I wish to tell you, Princess Ko, that you have always had my heart. Thus, my heart broke each time that I betrayed you. Perhaps that will help, a little, knowing that?’

  ‘Not in the least,’ Ko said promptly.

  Sergio looked from Samuel to Ko and back again. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘Ko has always been drawn to bad boys and, in a beautiful twist, Samuel now turns out to be far more wicked than the wild and wicked stallions of Innismore Plains!’

  ‘Thank you,’ Samuel said, closing his eyes onto a smile. ‘I’ve always been so very good, you see.’

  4

  ‘I have a question,’ Keira said.

  Samuel opened his eyes and gave a single, slow nod.

  ‘Look, you might’ve been around for centuries, but you’re also just some kid who’s been selling us out, so maybe quit with that wise guru nodding thing.’

  ‘Very well, but where is your question?’ Samuel said. ‘I will not last the night.’

  ‘So you said. But if you’re immortal, you’ll last all the nights. And I thought you were sick because you used the O.Q. magic to help us. If you were actually working against us, why would you have used the O.Q. magic? Or anyway, why are you sick?’

  Samuel raised himself a little higher. ‘I will not last the night,’

  he began.

  ‘Oh, he’s a broken record,’ Princess Ko complained.

  Madeleine squinted at Samuel. ‘I can see more black patches, so you are getting bad again. But I’ll just unknot them and you’ll last the night.’

  ‘You would do that? Despite my treachery? Your kindness! It is as to a termite in a pot of cold spaghetti!’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Ko said firmly. ‘The two are unrelated.’

  Samuel propped himself higher. ‘Despite Madeleine’s kindness—and setting aside its relationship to termites which, Ko, I believe you have not altogether—anyhow, despite all that, I do not believe I will last the . . . I see you have all tired of this phrase. Call yourselves this. There are things I wish to say. Will you hear me?’

  ‘It depends how loud you speak,’ Sergio declared.

  ‘And whether there’s any ambient noise,’ Keira reflected.

  ‘Quite,’ Samuel agreed vaguely. ‘At any rate, yes, I may be technically immortal, but O.Q. magic is the one thing that trumps that. And yes, I did use O.Q. magic—with no success—for that, I hoped to find some potion that might save both the Circle and the Royal Family.’

  ‘So you’re not a total bad-ass,’ Keira pointed out. ‘What is that sound?’

  It was a soft trill: the telephone that stood on the tabl
e by Samuel’s bed. ‘Complaints about the noise,’ he guessed, reaching to answer it.

  A moment later, he replaced the receiver. ‘Not complaints,’ he said, mildly surprised. ‘It seems there is a gentleman downstairs who wishes to see Madeleine and Elliot.’

  ‘What gentleman?’ Ko asked.

  Samuel opened his palms in a shrug.

  Madeleine and Elliot looked at Samuel. They looked from him to the telephone, to the door and then to the others in the room.

  ‘Eventually, you’ll have to look at each other,’ Keira said.

  But they only glanced at each other’s shadows as they walked down the stairs to the lobby.

  5

  Wooden skis had been affixed to the wall, crossed to form a large X. A vending machine glowed. A man in a hooded parka sat in an armchair, sipping from a thermos. As they approached, he stood, drawing back the hood to reveal white locks. It was Isaac Newton.

  ‘Ah, good, you are here,’ he said, turning his back on them at once, so that his parka rustled noisily. He moved into the wine bar that adjoined the lobby. It was empty, the bar itself in almost-total darkness, but Newton set his thermos on a tall table anyway. He pulled out one, two, three bar stools, and gestured for Madeleine and Elliot to sit.

  As they did, their eyes swerved to catch each other.

  ‘I asked after you at the husky sled stop,’ Newton explained, ‘and was directed here.’

  ‘Okay,’ Elliot said after a beat.

  Newton drew a crushed sheet of paper from his parka pocket and pushed it across the table. They peered down, trying to read in the dim light.

  ‘It’s the page from my guidebook,’ Newton said impatiently, pulling it back. ‘The one your friend Keira handed over? After you left, I was looking at it, contemplating the girl’s remarkable vision, and then the printed words themselves leapt out at me. Here. I’ll read them to you.’ In sweeping tones, he read: ‘GOLD: Many claim this Colour does not exist, and I myself have made futile attempts—’ He glanced up, frowning. ‘Yes, yes, I’ll skip that bit. Here we are: Legend says that the Gold, unlike all other Colours, can be made. One requires only a magic-weaver, a truth-seer and the Philosopher’s Stone. Legend further holds that, once made, Gold is the Elixir that can cure an ailing Kingdom. He stopped reading and rolled the paper up with a triumphant flourish.

  ‘But that’s just a story, isn’t it?’ Elliot said. ‘There’s no such thing as Gold.’

  ‘Quite.’ Newton rested his elbows on the table, affable. ‘I quite agree. And yet perhaps not? Recall that I mentioned a great quarrel between Tobin and myself, just before the cracks were sealed? It was over this very question. You see, Tobin had found an ancient scroll containing the words I just read. He wanted us to try it. He thought he could be the magic-weaver, and I could be the truth-seer. I thought it was nonsense, the idea of making Gold—creating an Elixir.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ Madeleine said. ‘You studied alchemy all your life.’

  Newton gave a breath of laughter. ‘Both Tobin and I studied alchemy obsessively. We joined alchemical societies. We were fascinated by it. But for different reasons. Tobin believed in its magic; I wanted to comprehend the science behind it. When Tobin found these words on the ancient scroll, he took them at face value.’ Newton uncurled the paper. ‘I believed they were mere codes: signifying a formula, a set of elements. We fought. We separated. The cracks were closed.’ He unscrewed the lid of his thermos and raised it to his mouth, eyes darting around the room. ‘Reading this today, it occurred to me that the Kingdom is certainly ailing. Colours out of control, crops failing, the Hostiles, the Loyalists, the Jagged Edge Elite, all at each other’s throats, the Circle—my Circle—tightening its stranglehold around all. What if a Gold could save us? What if Tobin was right about this? A magic-weaver and a truth-seer would be required and I understand, Madeleine, that you’re a magic-weaver?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘She is,’ Elliot confirmed.

  ‘And you.’ Newton turned to Elliot, his eyes bright. ‘You are a truth-seer.’

  Elliot raised an eyebrow. ‘First I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘You don’t know it yet? That can happen. A truth-seer may have to grow into his vision. But I believe it is what you are, Elliot. I saw it suddenly—being something of a truth-seer myself—once you had gone. Come. Think. Have you not noticed a tendency to see through nonsense to the truth? Or for truth to leap at you fully formed?’

  Elliot shook his head firmly. His eyes slid towards Madeleine. ‘I just told Samuel he was a traitor who was faking O.Q. poisoning. I know nothing.’

  ‘But Samuel was the traitor,’ Madeleine argued. ‘You were right about that.’

  ‘Ah.’ Elliot was dismissive.

  Madeleine was studying Elliot in profile, thinking fast. ‘When your dad went missing,’ she said slowly, ‘you knew he hadn’t just run off with the teacher, like everybody thought. You saw that truth.’

  ‘I thought he’d been taken by a Purple,’ Elliot objected. ‘I didn’t see that he’d gone to the World!’

  ‘Well, now, truth-seers can’t see all the truth,’ Newton interjected. ‘Nobody can, not all at once. It would kill you, or anyway blind you. Truth-seers catch sight of pieces of truth.’

  ‘So does everyone,’ Elliot said.

  ‘On your last day in the World . . .’ Madeleine was thinking aloud. ‘My nose was bleeding and you told me something serious was going on. You were right about that too. Although, maybe,’ she smiled quickly, ‘you were just flirting with me.’

  Elliot’s eyes flew towards her and away. ‘Not sure I’d flirt about a nose bleed,’ he said, smiling faintly, and in that moment, she caught something, the spark of him, the Elliot of him. It was gone again now: he was back under his shadow.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ Elliot said. ‘I don’t remember my time in the World.’

  Newton was standing, zipping up his parka. ‘Perhaps I’m wrong,’ he said. ‘But you saw the truth about me, Elliot. The words you spoke tonight? About me and about my Tobin? You saw through to my essence.’ He tightened the lid of the thermos, shuddering slightly. ‘I did not enjoy it in the slightest.’

  After a pause, Newton spoke again, rapidly now, his eyes on the table. ‘Not the whole truth, of course. What you didn’t know—what you could not have known—was that after the cracks were sealed—when I believed I had lost Tobin forever—I tried to make Gold on my own. The idea possessed me that this was how I could find my way back to Tobin. Of course, it was foolish. There was only me. I was lost, broken, desperate, stupid. I fractured my arm. The story of how that happened is not an amusing one at all. My heart, my soul, the very essence of me was fractured by my loss, and I don’t believe I ever healed right. Once I had calmed down enough, I created a crack-opening machine but by then it was too late. I had hardened myself against Tobin and love. I had met the other immortals. I had new, ruthless, selfish goals. And, as you pointed out, Elliot: I wanted to steal Tobin’s light.’

  He looked up, bowed slightly, pulled his hood over his head and walked towards the doors of the inn. These slid open. Newton paused and stepped back, watching the doors falter and close again.

  He turned and hurried back to them.

  ‘Almost forgot,’ he said. ‘You need a magic-weaver, a truth-seer and the Philosopher’s Stone, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s what it says,’ Madeleine agreed.

  ‘Do you know the original name for the Undisclosed Province? Its real name?’

  They both shook their heads.

  ‘It was Philosopher’s Stone,’ Newton said. ‘That could be relevant.’

  ‘Could be,’ Elliot agreed.

  Newton turned again and this time he headed directly into the night.

  6

  Back in the room, the others were waiting expectantly.

  ‘It was Isaac Newton,’ Elliot told them.

  ‘Isaac Newton,’ Samuel repeated, musingly. He was lying on his bed now, staring at the cei
ling. He shuffled himself into a sitting position. ‘As to a wicker outdoor dining set in winter, I believe that Isaac Newton is wrong.’

  ‘No kidding,’ Keira said.

  ‘He is wrong to help the Circle take Cellians to the World, yes, I see that now. But I believe there is a greater wrong at the heart of his philosophy. He sees Cello as magic, and the World as reality, and he believes that the two should be kept separate. However, it has become clear to me that we need both. Magic and reality are reflections, shadows of each other. By sealing the cracks—by running a line between Cello and the World—we stop them interweaving. Thus, there is nowhere for sadness to go.’

  Madeleine blinked at him. ‘Sadness doesn’t go anywhere. It just is.’

  ‘I beg to differ. I believe our two dimensions were once aligned so that sadness could move between dimensions, always transforming into beauty. Here is my theory: despair from the World should flow to Cello, transmuted into the Cello Wind. Cello’s melancholy, meanwhile, becomes colour and light in the World. Tell me, how often do we hear the Cello Wind these days?’

  ‘Almost never,’ Sergio said.

  ‘Exactly. And is there colour and light in the World?’

  ‘Sure,’ Madeleine said. ‘When I was there, I saw both.’

  ‘Your eyes adjusted,’ Samuel said placidly. ‘When you first arrived, did it seem colourless?’

  ‘I guess. Yeah.’

  ‘No doubt, older Worldians reminisce about brighter days, when apples shone a brilliant red or green. Each generation, the Wind gets quieter here, the colours grow duller in the World. And meanwhile!’

  This last word he punched, startling the room.

  ‘Meanwhile, the sadness remains trapped. It loops back on itself. In Cello, Colours have accumulated to breaking point. The World is heavy with captive sorrow.’ Samuel’s voice grew distant. ‘Consider screams of pain and grief, the anguish of unanswered pleas. Those who sit alone and whisper: Help me. Those who stand on street corners, shouting those same words, while crowds pass by, unheeding. Those who breathe I love you into window mist, addressing one who does not hear, or does not care, or does not even exist. Tears that fall unseen in cars with windows closed. Dreams that ache. Letters unread, messages unanswered. Tell me, have you never been alone, howling in your bed at darkest night, and thought: This agony? What can it be for?’