by Ben Yallop
‘What time do we need to be in?’ asked Kya.
‘I don’t think it matters,’ interjected Tarak. ’I’m guessing that we’ll find there is a line nearby which will take us where and when we want to be.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t quite believe that Box has done it. He must have had no choice, He knew Qayin would reveal the secret location of the Blood Line to Allende. The Riven King means to clone himself. If he reaches that line he will make copies of himself and render himself essentially immortal.
‘Well, I suppose Allende was going to find it eventually. At least now we might know where and when. Just maybe we can stop him. When he steps from the line with his clone he will be weak. This is the chance Box has given us. If we can get there ahead of the King and hide we can strike just at the moment he uses the line. The power of the doppelgänger effect will work against him and we can destroy him.
‘Based on the code I think we will find that the line near the London Stone will lead us to a day in the month of April. We’ll need to be at the line before dawn to have a chance. I expect Box has left some kind of clue there which will tell us the location.’
Half an hour later they were standing looking at the chunk of pale rock behind the metal grille. The London Stone. The day was bright and the pavement was busy but nobody paid any attention to Tarak, Sam and Kya as they stood there. Sam read the bronze plaque next to the stone.
‘This is a fragment of the original piece of limestone once securely fixed in the ground now fronting Cannon Street Station. Removed in 1742 to the north side of the street, in 1798 it was built into the south wall of the Church of St. Swithun London Stone which stood here until demolished in 1962. Its origin and purpose are unknown but in 1188 there was a reference to henry, son of Eylwin de Lundenstane, subsequently Lord Mayor of London.’
‘Maybe he’s the London Lord from the clue,’ said Kya.
‘We’ll find out. At London Stone open a door. That’s first so I guess we go in there,’ Tarak said pointing towards a large sign which read ‘London Stone’ in gothic lettering next to the rock itself. They ducked through the doorway and went down a flight of stairs into an underground pub. At this time of day there weren’t many people inside. A few tourists looked up as they entered then turned back to their pints of beer. The pull of the line was clear as soon as they entered the bar. There was a gents toilet hidden behind a false wall with painted bookshelves. They stopped in front o fit, waiting for the barman to look away. Tarak turned to Sam and Kya.
‘It is my guess that this line leads always to the same place and time. Wherever and whenever we arrive we’ll have until dawn to work out where we need to go and reach the Blood Line ahead of Allende. We cannot let him use that line. If he does he will copy himself and we’ll all be doomed. Your time and mine. We may need to move quickly.’
Sam nodded. ‘Let’s go.’
Out of sight of the other people in the pub they ducked into the toilet, pulled open the line and jumped through together.
At first, despite the usual weird feeling of disembodiment that came with using the lines, Sam wasn’t sure that the strange doorway had worked. As he felt the floor appear under his feet and gravity reassert itself on his body he looked out into the same toilets. Nothing seemed to have changed. But as they moved back into the bar they could see that the pub was closed. It looked almost the same, the differences were subtle. But it was certainly a different time of day. The underground room was mostly in darkness and the tourists had vanished. Indeed, there was no-one there at all. The three of them hurried up the steps. Luckily the door was locked in such a way that they could get out.
‘Keep your eyes and ears open,’ said Tarak as they pushed open the door to a dark and largely deserted London street. It was clearly very early morning. There were few people around. A man was just setting up a stand handing out free newspapers. Sam took a copy to check the date.
‘It’s definitely an April day. Just like in the clue. It’s 7th April 2002,’ he called to Tarak.
Tarak looked at the sky. ‘And we don’t have much time before sunrise.’
They stood dumbly, waiting for something to happen. Looking around for ideas.
The man handing out copies of the Metro newspaper noticed them. Sam realised they must have looked a bit odd. The man wandered over.
‘You waiting for something, mate?’
‘Yes, sort of,’ said Sam. ‘We’ve been told someone would meet us here. Or that we’d find something here. Something important.’
The man laughed. ‘You get all sorts around here, mate. But no-one and nothing important. Just mad people. That’s all you get at this time of day.’ He leaned in closer. ‘You know one time this bloke comes up to me. He said if I were to strike that stone over there, the London Stone, then I could call myself the Lord of London. He said I could go to Blackheath and find a great treasure.’
The man straightened with a laugh. ‘What does he think I am, some sort of mug? I tell everyone that story. That bloke was one of the maddest I’ve seen here and that’s saying something.’
Tarak had been listening in. He tugged Sam’s arm. ‘London’s Lord enters an ear! I know where to go. We have our clue. The Blood Line is in Jack Cade’s Cavern.’ He started to run towards the train station on the opposite side of the street. ‘All this time the Riven King has been looking for it near a plague pit. That was the rumour. But the line is under Blackheath, which is not a plague pit at all. The black heath does hold one secret though. A secret cave underground. And we have until dawn to get there!’
They ran into Cannon Street station. Sam and Kya hot on Tarak’s heels. Sam looked at the departures board. There was a train leaving in five minutes. Tarak ran through the barriers, opening them with a touch of presence.
‘I just need to do something,’ called Sam letting Tarak and Kya board the waiting train and he hurried over to a telephone, taking a few loose coins from his rucksack.
A few minutes later, on the train, Tarak had time to explain the clues.
‘Box set up a classic Pedlar of Swaffham mystery. It’s an old English folktale. A man, a pedlar by trade, from Swaffham in Norfolk had a dream that he should go to London Bridge and stand there at which point he might hear some very happy news. Well, he ignored the dream, but it came again the next night and the night after that until he decided that he had to go. So, down to London he went and stood upon the Bridge. He stood and stood and looked all around but heard nothing which could be regarded as such happy news.
‘Eventually, a shopkeeper who had seen him standing there doing nothing, came over to him and asked him what he was up to. The pedlar replied that he had dreamed that if he came to London and stood on this exact spot then he would hear incredible good news. The shopkeeper laughed. You’re a fool, he told him. Last night I had a dream myself, that if I were to travel to Swaffham in Norfolk and dig in an orchard behind a certain pedlar’s house then I would find a great treasure. Now, do you think I am such a fool as to go on a long journey on the basis of only a dream. Not me. I am not a fool. And with that he left.
‘Of course, the pedlar soon returned home and dug up his orchard. There was indeed a great treasure there. Legend tells that he grew very rich. He apparently spent some money on reinstating Swaffham church. There’s a statue of him in the building and his image still appears all over town. I don’t know how Box did it but it seems that he set up his own legend.’
‘But that doesn’t tell us where the line is,’ said Sam.
‘You don’t know your Shakespeare,’ said Tarak. ‘There is another legend, popularised by Shakespeare. A character called Jack Cade, a rebel, struck the London Stone with his staff and proclaimed himself Lord of London in 1450. The story appears in Henry Sixth Part Two.
‘Blackheath is home to a little known place called Jack Cade’s Cavern. I’ve never been inside but the Blood Line must be there. Everyone always thinks the big secret about Blackheath is that it was a place where the dead of the Great Plagu
e were buried and that’s why it has the word ‘black’ in the name. But it never was a burial place. The Riven King was always looking for the Blood Line near plague pits. He must have known that Blackheath wasn’t used as a pit and discounted it. It must be how he never found it.
‘We’ve got one chance at this. If this line always brings us here, to this time, then we would render ourselves vulnerable by coming here again. Box has managed to set this up. He has risked it all. If we allow the Riven King and his clones to leave the cavern we’ll never stop him in this, or any other, time.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Blackheath, London
April 7 2002
They came out of the train station and ran up a street called Tranquil Vale. Then they ran flat out across the green expanse of Blackheath, the short grass a blur under their feet. As they sprinted Sam was struck by the weirdness of the situation. On the face of it everything seemed so normal. It was an average morning. In the gathering light people were already out walking dogs and making their way to central London for work. The heath was big enough that they were all far away. A procession of cars moved slowly through the twilight, there was traffic even at this early hour, and they were stretched out like a string of moving Christmas lights. But somewhere nearby, underground, was one of the most dangerous places on Earth and a powerful and evil ruler from another time was on his way to use it. It was just too strange a situation.
As they ran Sam realised that the sky was much lighter. Dawn was fast approaching. Tarak led the way, away from a church with a tall steeple and eventually across the road. They dashed through the line of slow moving traffic, headlights flickering on their legs as they passed. Sam thought they were heading towards a large stately building which stood in front of a long, high brick wall behind which stood many tall trees. But Tarak turned towards some more mundane buildings as they ran.
'The entrance to the cavern is over here,' he panted. 'They built houses around it. I don't think they realised it was there and now the door is in someone's garden.'
They neared the houses and Sam saw that they were headed to an alleyway that ran between gardens. It was darker over here, in the shade of the buildings, where the rising sun couldn't yet penetrate. The shadows around them seemed to move and stir and Sam could imagine that they already held copies of a Riven army, black cloaks billowing around them in the breeze that stirred the trees above them. What would happen if the Riven King had already found this place? One of him could end the world, any more than one and they were surely doomed.
'This way,' said Tarak and he entered the dark alleyway. He gave a quick burst of presence at the ground and he was up and over the fence into a large garden. Sam and Kya followed, landing softly. Sam could see that they were hidden from the house by bushes and trees. Behind them the first rays of the sun began to catch some low clouds, setting the sky on to bloody fire. Tarak put his hands on his knees, panting, looking at a patch of grass in front of him.
'It's okay,' he said breathlessly. 'It's okay. The door is still closed.'
He stretched out a hand and a patch of lawn began to move upwards. As it lifted Sam could see that the floating turf sat on top of a large stone. Underneath was a dark rectangle in the floor. Black as pitch.
'This way,' said Tarak, starting down some stone steps. Sam and Kya followed him into the darkness. With the grating noise of stone on stone they were plunged into purest night as Tarak pulled the doorway closed and they followed the steps down into the cold magic of Jack Cade's Cavern.
Down in the darkness Sam stretched out his hand palm upwards and, as Aleksy had shown him on the fields of Mu, began to rub the air together with a little electricity and presence to create a glowing light in the palm of his hand. He was pleased to create a steady luminous orb. In his light Sam saw that the cavern was bigger than he had expected. His light did not touch the shadowy corners. The room could easily have held hundreds of people, but only Sam, Kya and Tarak were here now. They set off in opposite directions, around the walls, to explore and to find somewhere to hide and wait.
Sam moved deeper into the darkness. His presence light struggled to penetrate the gloom. The air was dry and dusty. It felt like a tomb. But in the middle Sam could feel the hum of the Blood Line. He had never felt anything quite like it before. It seemed to sing to him, to call him closer. It almost emitted a strange echo so that any sound Sam made seemed to be sucked in and reverberate out. Sam took a step closer to it as its weird touch beckoned him.
‘The Blood Line,’ Sam said softly to himself and the door seemed to whisper back. Sam took another step towards it. Tarak appeared quietly beside him.
‘Best not to get too close,’ he said quietly. ‘Come, we need to hide ourselves.’
Sam shook his head as if waking from a dream and made himself step away and back towards the edge of the cavern. The walls were blank rough stone and Sam followed one moving his light across it. Suddenly a face swung into view and he yelped, stumbling backwards as the face of a devil loomed over him. Horns sat atop a grinning face, his presence light causing the hollows of the eyes to look like blank pools in the hideous mask. It took Sam a moment to realise that the face wasn't moving. It was his light which had seemed to make the face twist and smile. Sam gave a quick laugh as he moved closer to the stone carving, which leered out of the wall. It was nothing but the chiselled head of a devil carved from the rock many years ago.
'Hey, come and look at this,' he called across to Tarak and Kya behind him. When he didn't get an answer. He half-turned looking over his shoulder, moving his presence light around into the cavern.
There stood a man, a dark face, wiry grey hair, a black cloak. He smiled the scariest smile Sam had ever seen and inclined his head slightly in greeting. The similarities to the stone devil Sam had seen a moment earlier were stark.
Sam took in more details then as, frozen to the spot, he slowly lifted the light higher into the air to illuminate more of the cavern. As the light spread he saw another man, identical to the first, then another and another. As the light reached the roof Sam saw more dark men step away from the walls, grins fixed to their faces.
The man nearest him dropped his chin towards the ground and looked hard at Sam from under creased eyebrows. The smile didn't move but the man's arms came away from his body, palms upwards so that they caught the light of Sam's light above them.
‘Kneel,' said Allende. 'Kneel before your Kings.’
Sam stumbled backwards quickly in shock. The Riven King was here and he had already used the Blood Line to copy himself. The King nearest him raised a hand towards Sam just at the moment that Sam felt his heels hit something soft on the floor behind him and he toppled backwards over it. It saved his life. He felt a blast of telekinetic energy pass over him as he dropped. He landed on the floor with his legs resting atop the mound. Sam’s presence light had winked out as he had fallen and the room had become pitch black. But even in the darkness he could tell that his legs were lying on a body.
He scrambled quickly backwards into the darkness. How many Kings had there been? Had that been Tarak’s body on the floor? Or Kya’s? Was he now alone in the pitch darkness with multiple clones of the most dangerous being ever to have existed? The darkness was his greatest weapon. He’d have to try to find the exit.
But then a terrible laugh echoed strangely out of the night. An identical laugh repeated many times and all of them echoed so that the noise was a horrible cacophony of manic cackling. A single voice spoke out, horribly close to where Sam had crept to in the darkness.
'You are not the only one who can make a light, boy.'
A speck of light, like a single ember of flame, formed in front of Sam, mirrored in two gleaming eyes. Then suddenly it came to full intensity, a brilliant ball of white light above an outstretched hand. The echoing laugh came again and a dozen other lights switched on, each above a hand so that suddenly the cavern was fully illuminated. Each clone of the Riven King held a light. Sam was surrounded an
d there was nowhere to run.
The Kings stood in a circle around him. Sam turned, not sure where to stop. Now he could see them clearly each King seemed to be subtly different, although they all looked identical. This one stood expressionless and as stiff and upright as a lamppost, this one had a wicked grin across his face like some psychotic killer, the one next to him also wore a smile but one that made him look simple, the next stood disinterested, more intent on rolling the ball of light around his outstretched palm than looking at Sam and what he was doing. But they were all undeniably evil for all their differences. Copies of the most powerful and evil person to have ever existed.
Suddenly two of the clones were shoved sideways by a blast of presence and through the gap Sam saw Kya, hand extended. Sam didn’t waste a split second, with a push of presence he launched himself through the circle as Kya dashed sideways, trying to avoid the King by keeping on the move.
As Sam’s feet touched the floor and he ran a few paces to counter the momentum, he realised too late that he was running towards another figure. A hand was pointed at him. A dark face, expressionless. But then Sam realised that the hand held a gun just a few metres away from him .and it was pointing directly at his head.
‘AMY!’ shouted the figure and at that the moment the trigger was pulled and Sam heard the crack. He had a split second vision of the bullet coming straight for him. He had no time to flinch. Then, impossibly, the bullet was past him. Sam turned to see one of the Riven King’s clones, who had been standing directly behind him, fall to the ground, blood starting to trickle from a hole in the centre of his forehead. Amy, the spy from the roof of Number 10, was there, hands up. She had pulled the bullet in an arc around Sam’s head.
Then everyone moved at once.