by Adam Oster
“So, you have any goods on this Wizard guy?” Griff asks. “You know, like things he’s afraid of or ways we might be able to break into the cathedral?”
“Why do you ask?” Addy asks in return.
“Well,” I answer carefully, “you see, we’re from far away and, um, The Wizard stole something from us that we need to help us get back.”
“Are you talking about the Pendant of St. Christopher?”
Griff’s spoon stops in front of his opened mouth.
“You know about the pendant?” I ask.
“Of course I do. I was the one who brought the relic within this city’s walls.”
“Wait, what?” Griff asked.
“So, The Wizard stole the sphere from you?”
“Oh, heavens no,” Addy answered. “It is actually still within the case I brought it here in, safely within my own chambers.”
“You’re saying that the pendant is here within the rectory?” I say, the excitement in my voice surprising even me.
“Yes, my dear, that is precisely what I’m saying.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Griff says, standing up as he holds out his arms. “I thought The Wizard had that sphere thing. How could it possibly be here?”
“Don’t you get it, Griff?” I ask. “Addy has the original, the one that’s actually from this time frame. This is the one that will become the other ones.”
“So, you’re trying to tell me that there are three of those things around here now?”
“Three of them, but also the same one,” I say as I grin at his growing frustration.
“I absolutely hate time travel.”
“So, it is true,” Addy says, his breath catching in his throat. “The pendant does offer safe travel across the ages?”
“Yeah,” I answer. “We’re from the future, way way way in the future actually. We think The Wizard is as well.”
“That would explain a great deal,” Addy responds. “I have long questioned his possession of the relic, considering my belief that there was only one ever produced. In fact, I believe he first arrived on the very day I returned the relic to this rectory.”
“Returned?” I ask.
“Ah, yes. You see, the pendant of St. Christopher has long been held by the brothers of York. There was a dark day, approximately a hundred years back, in which the sphere was removed. We had hunted for those years until I was finally able to track it down and bring it home.”
“So, we have a way home then?” Griff asked. “We just borrow the Father’s version of the sphere thingie and we should be able to get right back to where we were, shouldn’t we?”
“Sounds like it,” I agree, looking at Addy, whose face turns to a frown.
“I apologize, but I don’t believe your quest should be nearly so simple. You see, after I was able to verify that he and I both had a version of the same relic, I dug deep into the texts to see what I would be able to find regarding the special properties of it. There seems to be one major limitation.”
“One way trip?” I ask.
“Not exactly,” Addy continues. “You see, the purpose of the relic was to always provide a safe return trip. However, the return trip is always to a place within the relic’s history.”
“I don’t get it,” Griff says.
“I believe what Father Addy is trying to say,” I explain, “is that the pendant was designed only to travel along its own timeline, so, you can only go to times and places that it’s been.”
“Okay, but I don’t see how that doesn’t mean we can’t get home. We got the damned thing in the future in New York.”
“We got our version of the pendant in the future. This one hasn’t been around that long yet.”
Griff rubs his temples in frustration. “No doubt about it. I hate time travel.”
“Okay,” I say, “think about it like this. What if time is like a river, constantly flowing in one direction? We would be something like a stick floating along on that river at the standard pace. Time travel is kind of like finding a way to move backwards along the river.”
“That still doesn’t explain how there could be three of the exact same thing in the same place at the same time.”
“Well, no, so, I guess the way to look at that would be. Well, you know, if you’re going backwards on the river, maybe you’d find something that was put into the river after you, right? And then you take that along with you backwards. No, actually that doesn’t work.”
“You’re making my head hurt.”
“Sorry, these analogies always seem to come a lot easier in the movies.”
“Let’s just stop talking about it and get to the important stuff, like how the heck we’re going to get the pendant we need to get back home.”
“Oh, yeah,” I agree. “Is there any sort of secret passage or whatever that would allow us to get back into the cathedral?”
“Yes, my dear, there is,” Addy answers. “However, it has been closed up on both ends. Neither The Wizard nor our brotherhood wishes for the other to be able to traverse the tunnel.”
“Well that’s not very useful,” Griff groans.
“We do still have a tunnel that will lead you outside of the city walls. We can also offer you a change of clothing to allow you to better travel undiscovered.”
“That would be awesome,” I reply.
“Yeah,” Griff agrees, “that should work out alright, I guess. How much is this going to cost us?”
“As servants of the Lord, we offer our assistance without call for recompense. With that being said, if you were to come across some way with which to unseat the man who has taken over the house of God, we would greatly appreciate the returned favor.”
“Right,” Griff nods, “get rid of the guy who’s got this town under his thumb in return for a stinky tunic and an escort out of town. Seems about right.”
“Griff,” I warn.
“Sorry. I mean thanks.”
Chapter 15
After our bellies are filled, we are given a moment to change clothes before being led downstairs to the building’s cellar. The room is dark, lit only by the small candle held in Father Addy’s hand. The room is so dark, in fact, that it is difficult to make out much of the surroundings. Father Addy moves through it easily and we follow directly behind him, hoping not to trip over any unseen items below.
He walks to the far wall of the basement and pushes aside a thick dark-colored fabric, showing a roughly hewn tunnel that goes on into even further pitch black darkness.
“Here,” he says, offering me the candle. “Although you just need to follow the path straight to the other end, I would think you might appreciate something to help light the way.”
“So, where is this taking us exactly?” Griff asks skeptically. “I mean, this isn’t going to get us locked back up in that dungeon underneath the cathedral, is it?”
“Dungeon under the cathedral?” Addy asks.
“Yeah, you know, big dank basement under the marble floors where The Wizard seems to be keeping a few dozen people prisoner?”
“There is no dungeon underneath the cathedral,” Addy replies with a frown on his face. “Not to mention I’ve already stated that the path between—“
“I’m pretty confident there is,” Griff disagrees. “We were put down in a hole before we ended up here.”
“That is a house of God, there would be no call for a prison within those walls, not to mention the fact that I have reviewed the designs for the building on countless occasions. The foundation of the building is set at ground level, there is nothing underneath it.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, bub,” Griff says shortly, “but there is most definitely a dungeon under there, and from the looks of it, it’s been there for a long time.”
“This is troubling,” Addy says as he bites his lip.
“What’s wrong, Father?”
“What possible reason would this Wizard have for placing a dungeon within a house of God?” Addy asks.
“I already told you, this thing’s been there for ages. It’s not something he’s dug up over the last year or anything, at least not the room we were held in.”
“And I’ve already told you that there is no call for a prison within a house of God. However, the texts which describe the construction of the cathedral do contain a note that has always plagued me regarding the arrival of a mysterious man who aided in the design of the building.”
“So?” Griff asks.
“The description of the man matches the description of the man who is currently residing within those very same hallowed halls. Now that I know the legend of the Pendant of St. Christopher is true, it isn’t difficult to believe that he and The Wizard may be the same person.”
“What would that matter?” I ask.
“I’m not certain,” Addy answers reflectively. “However, I’m beginning to fear that what is currently going on within the city of York may be much more than we had originally bargained for.”
Chapter 16
Father Addy departs with very little more to say, leaving Griff and I to stare down the long open tunnel ahead of us. After a brief hesitation, we enter, and follow the dark path to wherever it leads. The walls are damp and the air smells of rats and beer. I realize that these tunnels probably serve as more than just a secret exit, but are possibly where the good Father and his brothers allow their beer to ferment, remembering that the men of the cloth were also known to be master brewers at this point in history.
We make it to the other end of the tunnel without issue. There we find a rickety, slightly rotten, ladder leaning against the wall. Griff climbs up it with the candle and finds it leads to a covered hole, which he opens. We exit into a meadow outside of the city walls. As Griff helps me to my feet, he surveys the surrounding area.
“Hard to think all of this is from thousands and thousands of years ago,” he says.
“Well, not thousands and thousands. We’re probably closer to around 600 years back.”
“Whatever smarty pants. I’m just saying, you’d think it would look a lot different.”
“Different from what?”
“I don’t know. I just always thought that if I had traveled through time I would be more immediately aware of it. Instead we spent the first hour or so we were here thinking we had just gone off to some Renn Fest in the middle of Central Park.”
“Yeah,” I agree.
“Seems to me that would be a credit to the human race though, wouldn’t it?” he continues. “Everyone’s always talking about how we’re destroying the earth, but 600 years ago still looks basically the same.”
“Maybe,” I allow. “But just taking a look around, you can see the trees here are a ton taller, and thicker than they are at home. The air feels fresher. There seems to be a lot more wildlife here too.”
“Well, yeah, if you’re going to compare a field in Britain to Central Park, of course things are going to look better.”
“I think if you looked closely enough, you’d see that the earth is a lot better off right now, you know, in the past, than they are today, in the future.”
“Maybe you’re right. I guess it would’ve been cooler to travel to the future though.”
“I don’t know,” I disagree. “I kinda like it back here. It’s wonderful to breathe air not filled with smog.”
“Ugh,” Griff scowls. “Yeah, instead you get horse poop.”
“You’re such a grump,” I laugh. “What happened to the happy go lucky Griff that was ready to take on the world?”
“I don’t know,” Griff replies. “I guess I’m just missing the game. I don’t like that we’re stuck back here with no one around to scam.”
“That’s the deal? Once a con always a con?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“Well, that’s a good thing, because we’ve gotta come up with a straight swindle to work on this Wizard guy to get the pendant back so we can get back home.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not going to be able to just break into the cathedral, are we? Not with all those peasants already at his beck and call. No, we’ll have to come up with the perfect scheme to work our way into his graces and swipe it from him.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” Griff says, his smile returning. “This’ll have to be a full on long con though, won’t it? We’ll have to set some ground work in the town itself, then use our newly created support system to craft some sort of story. Yeah, you’re right, this is going to take a bit of prep.”
“So, what are you thinking? Pigeon Drop? We could use the fact that Father Addy has a third sphere.”
“Maybe,” Griff says as his eyes glaze over in thought. “I’m thinking we might need to come up with something even bigger, maybe a combination of cons, maybe something new altogether.”
“There’s my old Griff,” I grin. “Let’s con this Wizard.”
Phase 3: Build Up
Think of it as foreplay. Make that sucker scream to be let in on the scheme before you give him even a glimpse of it.
– Scammer’s Bible
Chapter 17
“Or we could maybe go about doing some form of Love Con, since the guy obviously has a thing for you. Of course, in retrospect, maybe he was –“
“Hey there, big con, why don’t we first work on getting back into the city so we can find someplace safe to sleep for the night?” I ask, noting the darkening sky above us.
“Oh, that’s nothing. You saw the river that bisects the town, right? Wait for about half an hour when things are nice and dark and we should be able to sneak back in.”
“You think Geoffrey will still be waiting around for us to give us a place to sleep?”
“Doesn’t matter, we’re not staying there.”
“Why not?”
“Because, I have a hard time believing that The Wizard doesn’t know Geoff is hiding things from him. He’s probably got that library all staked out just waiting for us to come back.”
“Okay, so what are we going to do for the night? The rectory?”
“Naw, we need to stay as far away from there as possible, too. I’m sure the Father is right that the peasants don’t usually like to break into church grounds, but once they tell The Wizard they saw us go in there, he’ll threaten each of them until someone finally comes in and turns over every table.”
“Well what the heck are we going to do for the night? We definitely can’t stay out here.”
“Simple. That tavern we stopped off in when we first got into town was renting out rooms.”
“But won’t she recognize us and turn us into The Wizard just like anyone else?”
“Doubtful. I’d guess they were all focused on what we were wearing. In these gross tunics we should blend right in. So, we’ll just pull an old school Protection Racket to pay, right? I can’t imagine anyone’s tried that out around here yet.”
“Isn’t that what The Wizard is doing?”
“Well, yeah, but—“
“Plus, did you see the woman running the counter? There’s no chance we would be able to strong arm her into thinking she’d be safer by paying us money.”
“Well, I don’t see you coming up with any better plans.”
“Couldn’t we just pay her? She seemed to be pretty interested in the change I offered her. I’ve got a ton of it in my bag.”
“You mean as in actually paying for the room?”
“Yeah. That not okay with you?”
“Absolutely not! I’m still not happy that we paid for lunch.”
“What if I let you work a Three Card Monte to get us some drinks for the night?”
He pauses to think about this briefly. “Deal!” he says as he holds out his hand to shake on it.
“Yeah, because we both know how much a handshake with you is worth.”
“Have I ever led you wrong before?”
“Have you ever led me right?” I laugh as I shake his hand.
“Alright
, why don’t we go set ourselves for breaking into town?”
Chapter 18
We keep as close to the walls as possible as we make our way around the city. The sound of guards on the wall makes it apparent that we’ll have to use extra caution on our way back in. Since The Wizard is supposed to be the sole reason this city is safe, I’m guessing these guards aren’t a normal thing to find on the walls, meaning they must be out purely for the purpose of looking for us.
Griff seems to understand this as well, considering he’s moving as though he’s in a bad spy movie. I can almost hear him humming a theme song as he goes along his way.
We make it to the river without issue. The river itself, however, is a different situation. Griff turns from the river to look at me. He seems deflated.
“What’s up?” I ask in a whisper. I try to look hopeful.
“I don’t remember the river looking quite so big before.”
“Yeah?” I shrug. “It doesn’t look so bad.”
“Come on, kid. You and I both know we can’t just hop in there and swim into town. We’d be killed.”
“What do we do if we can’t go in this way?”
“I don’t know. I had put all my eggs into this basket. You got any ideas?”
“Well,” I offer, “we could try scaling the wall.”
“And put ourselves right in view of those stupid guards?”
“Not necessarily,” I shrug. “Maybe we could get up there while they’re scoping out a different part of the wall, you know, when they aren’t looking this way. At the very least, the bricks seem like they should be pretty easy to climb up.”
“Seems a little too easy, kid. Aren’t these walls made to keep people from sneaking in?”
“Sorta,” I reply. “I mean, I think they were built more with an army in mind. I’m pretty sure spies weren’t all that normal of a thing back then, erm, now.”
“You going to take the blame if we get caught?”