by A M Russell
‘The deal Davey is?’ he lay down shivering, ‘It’s worse at night.’ He added.
‘That when you wake up; and when you are well enough you will tell Janey everything….’
‘I will.’
‘I hadn’t finished. You will tell Marcia everything…’ I paused but he looked at me with a pained frown.
‘….and you will tell your parents everything too.’
He was silent for a very long time, his expression lost in shadow.
‘You ask a lot of me Davey. It would be hardest on Mother. She is…. An unusual Lady, and has wanted to keep as normal a life as possible for Janey and Myself. But I suppose she would understand all this.’
‘What about your Father?’
‘What about him?’
‘What will he say?’
‘My Mother sent him away….. She was angry at him.’ Then in answer to the embarrassed look I gave him, ‘No… no, it’s not like that. Not like that at all. It has to do with my sister.’
‘What?’
‘Sorry. It’s very confusing even when you do know all the facts. But something like this was bound to happen. My Father and mother are well; what you might say, passionate about their children. But they both want to express it in very different ways. Our birthday was the first time we’d all been together without fighting. My parents haven’t split up if that’s what you’re thinking. It isn’t about that. He goes to visit my other sister.’
‘You have another sister?’ I didn’t quite see where this was going but I thought I better persevere.
‘She appears to be just like us. You would think if you met her, she was just a little older than me and Janey. But she isn’t. She a lot older. In fact she as old as her own mother.’
‘What?’
‘All this… all this maze of reality that is bending time and consequence; has absolutely nothing on the people I come from. There is a paradox in the fabric of our lives that has been there for years. And that is why they didn’t want me involved. Janey was already part of the science team. But someone found out something about our family, and knew that we would control… or they thought we could control the power that they so desperately want to keep for themselves.’
‘And can you? Can you control it?’
‘I have no idea.’ Jared sighed, ‘even if I found I could. The question is would I want to?’
‘But Jared! This is great… you can…’
‘No!’ he said sharply.
‘Sorry..’
‘No. I’m sorry. But please…. don’t…. tempt me. I have to stay on the right side. Between us we have power. And everything I have must be used to help my friends…. Not to defeat my enemies. Because after all they are victims of this scary maze too. They have to be given a chance…. Everyone must have a chance.’
‘But what happens if it doesn’t go according to plan?’
‘Then the bastards win. And you and all the others will find yourselves back at wherever you are supposed to be on a Monday morning; but suffering a really bad hangover. With the disquieting feeling that something happened the night before that you would probably wish hadn’t happened if you could remember it. But since you don’t want to… then it’s best to let it fade away. It’s easy to forget when you don’t want to dig up an unpleasant truth. Isn’t it true of all of us?’
‘Yes. I guess it is.’ I felt deflated by this last statement, so I offered the water bottle back to Jared.
‘Please don’t tell Janey for now. And in return I’ll do as you ask. I promise that.’ Jared turned away from me and pulled the blanket around his shoulders.
I went and lay down on the bunk I had chosen. Through the distant arches of this mountain retreat, the first faint splash of dawn light traced the dimensionless night away. I stared at it for a while, and then finding no calmness or peace of mind; I got up and went to find the lab. I hoped it have a portable clamp that we could acquire, so we had the means to switch the tags to the on, off, or short range position with ease. When that was done I intended to return to the stone chapel. I needed a time to work it all out. I was afraid and confused. And I wanted a simple straightforward fight with clearly defined enemies and friends.
I put the clamp down at the step. The chapel was there as it had been before. I went forward and took a taper from the sand tray on the right and lit it. I found the candles to the right and then the left. There were flowers on the altar table as if freshly gathered just before dawn. I turned around.
‘Hello?’ my voice sounded oddly small in the silence. Not a whisper or a foot fall of any other person could be heard. I was waiting. But for what I didn’t know. Then suddenly there was a movement behind me. I quickly turned.
Jared stood there with Janey. ‘there is something that needs to be done here.’ She said, bringing him forward. He came with her but seemed reluctant, as if something was pulling the other way.
‘Jared,’ Janey said urgently, ‘There is no time. We must fit you back in that body now. Before the sunrise reaches us. Don’t you know that if we wait it might not work.’
‘But why?’ Jared said to her, and stumbled.
‘Help me Davey!’ she looked towards me. I unfroze and took Jared’s right hand.
‘Tell me what to do?’ I said.
‘Help him onto the dais.’
‘You mean that altar thing?’
‘Yes. If course I mean that!’
‘I don’t see why we can’t wait?’ said Jared.
‘You said there wasn’t much time.’ I said to Jared.
‘Yes. But I’m tired. Let me rest for a while.’
‘No!’ Janey again, ‘Get up there. We detected a static time field here. It will make the transition possible.’
I really didn’t need the exertion right now. So I did what I had tried with my sister when she was being a real pain and twisted a Chinese burn on Jared’s wrist.
He yelped at once and then looked at me wide eyed. ‘Okay.’ He said, ‘I’ll do what you want. I get it. I’m going.’
We both let go of him. He went forward and rested his hand lightly on the altar table. Janey went round and lifted the bunches of herbs out of the way.
‘I know this place.’ said Jared; ‘It is a place to rest. It’s happy, not sad. Freedom from pain.’ He reached for my hand. ‘Help me on the surface.’
‘You are burning up.’ I said as my grip tightened. I lifted and took some of the weight, until he sat on the surface.
‘Please Davey. His boots.’ said Janey.
I knelt down to unlace them. That done, I helped swing his feet up onto the stone bed.
‘Are you okay there?’ I said.
Jared looked up at me, his brows drawing together, and he shivered. ‘It’s dark in here,’ he said, and then in a whisper, ‘I’m scared….’ and gripped my hand. He lay down. Janey laid the herbs about his head and his feet. She touched his forehead. She frowned in a concentrated way from the other side of the dais, then Janey moved round to me.
‘Don’t leave.’ Jared said in a slight whisper.
‘We just need to step back a little.’ said Janey, ‘I promise we’ll be here.’
Jared was trembling; ‘I’m cold.’
‘Step back now Davey.’ Janey pulled on my arm.
I almost resisted. I could feel a pull the opposite way.
‘Step back David.’ Jared said, shivering visibly, ‘I think you need to now.’ And he let go of my hand.
I moved down the two steps with Janey. We stood very still. I felt it then; a curling inside me, like a cool fire. We were near enough. Part of me wanted to take a step backwards, and part of me wanted to stay where I was. Such seeming magical things were both fearful and fascinating to me. But this was perhaps a mystery of a different kind. Jared groaned once. Janey bit her lip, and stood like a statue. She kept her hand on my arm. I was transfixed and could not move. And then from nowhere it seemed, I saw a glowing light hovering over Jared. He was turning his head towards us so he could see
we were still there. He began to tremble as one in a great fever would. Then suddenly he was gagging and choking. I felt myself about to move forward instinctively. Janey stopped me; her grip so firm, so unyielding. I just had to watch. He coughed then and rolled onto his side. A spurt of fluid came from his lips. His eyes rolled and closed.
‘Janey! For God’s sake…’
‘Just wait…..’
The dawn light shot through the opening above our heads and in front of us, spears of light that pieced the gloom and struck the wall behind us. Jared all at once rolled onto his back and was quite still. The light around him grew. It spread in streamers and filaments of light; glowing and spreading; every colour I could think of; and then bright gold, and a greeny-gold almost too bright to look at, hardly like an earthly colour. Rather they were made of light. The stone I had held had shown me an impression from deep in my own mind some expression of this light on a smaller scale; but this was issuing forth from the real man. It spilled over the edges of the table and flowed towards us. It flooded around us. It grew like flowers that have drunk in the sun’s fire. Like light and morning, and like something I could never have imagined. Did every soul have such a spectrum? Jared’s was a rainbow of lights. Maybe it was all the people he loved, or all the things he stood for. Every choice, everything he chose that was good. If science could read it, would it tell what manner of man he was. I no longer doubted. Because then he breathed in, and all that colour intensified around his body as if it really was reforming. I felt Janey release me. We both stepped forward and grasped his hands. We helped him up. The light appeared to soak into his skin. But by now there was normal early morning light in the chapel, and we could see each other clearly.
Jared was very still, very calm. First he looked at Janey, and then at me. I don’t think anyone was quite sure if we had done what we set out to do.
‘I’m thirsty.’ Jared said.
Janey immediately fetched her water bottle from the back of the chapel.
‘Would you help me down Davey.’
Jared slid of the surface, and we all sat side by side on the small steps just below.
‘How do you feel?’ I found my voice again. I felt strangely exhausted myself.
Jared put his arms round us both; ‘I have a reason to try to do this. I just need one thing more.’
‘We’ll be with the tribe by sunset.’ said Janey, ‘I know the quickest way out of here.’
‘I hope she’s back at the camp.’ I said.
‘Don’t worry. Marcia is a very resilient woman.’ said Janey with a hint of amusement.
‘When shall we leave?’ said Jared, as we all got to our feet. I picked up his boots.
‘Let see if we can go in half an hour,’ I said, ‘now we have no time to waste.’
But as it turned out we were a little longer than we expected. As we descended the rocky stair that Janey identified for us I expected no more surprizes; still reeling as I was from recent events. Jared seemed buoyed up, and stood straighter and taller. He caught my eye and smiled, ‘Not long now.’ He said. Perhaps we were running closer to an edge. Or perhaps a finish line. What was happening back at home? Did his world change? Was there a road back for him? I was in a state of suspended thought between belief and fear. My life was owed to him now, and I wanted as much as he seemed to, to end this thing; whatever we might call it. Perhaps I was a guinea pig in a maze who had chewed through the walls and not played by the rules. Now we must get out of the maze before it was destroyed.
A little while later I needed to readjust my thinking as we heard the sound of gun fire from a distance. The sound carried in these caves and it was impossible to say where it was coming from. When we emerged from the caves onto the grassy plain that presented a fairly direct route to the tribes people; we were met with a horrible sight.
There was the scene of several people who had been left for dead in what must have been a gunfight we heard earlier.
‘Look!’ said Janey, ‘they came out over there.’
Sure enough, soldiers like little moving specks were retreating back to a little dark depression higher up the cliffs.
‘They must have come out of the caves this morning.’ Jared mused, ‘but this is unexpected.’
‘Is it possible that they are breaking up into factions?’ I asked.
‘I would say yes,’ said Jared, ‘but I suspect something more sinister.’
‘Look,’ said Janey, ‘This one is only slightly injured. It shouldn’t have killed him.’
‘Marcia said that it was probable that they were using larger and larger doses of the time stabilisation drugs to stay out here for a day or so at a time.’
Jared knelt down puzzled; ‘Janey is right. There is no one here who should have died from these injuries. I suspect that this is deliberate ploy to get the rest of them motivated to attack the tribes people.’
‘We have to warn them.’ I said.
‘Yes of course.’ Jared stood, ‘but first we need to send these back.’
‘How?’ said Janey.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked as Jared took out his hunting knife and went towards a study bush. He turned to me. ‘There is only one way to ensure that a soldier does not return to give us any more trouble. It’s quite simple as well.’
‘What?’ I was feeling a crawly feeling in my stomach as I said this.
‘Count how many.’ Jared said to Janey; then to me, ‘Do as I do. Don’t be concerned. We are not going to do anything too yucky.’
He cut some sturdy twigs from the nearby bush, and started to pare them into short sharp bolts. He put a barb into the shaft near to the point as well.
‘Forty-One’ said Janey wrinkling her nose in disgust, ‘what they do to their own.’
‘With friends like that, they definitely don’t need enemies.’ Jared was thoughtful a moment. he held a short bolt in one hand, ‘the thing to remember, if it helps you be less squeamish about doing this, is that you are going to be sending them home today without a scratch on them.’
I liked my lips; ‘Okay.’
Jared felt around for a soft part of the leg, he then stabbed the bolt in with one swift movement. I felt myself gagging at the notion of it.
‘Watch!’ said Jared.
I stared at the soldier. And then he seemed a little greyer. As if the sun had disappeared behind a cloud. Then without warning the soldier’s body crumpled into dust. I went forward to examine the place where he had been. There was nothing. Not even a trace of dust or any other mark.
‘Oliver discovered it. The Summerland twigs work to destroy all connections with this place. They go straight back to Base. And they cannot be recruited again. It has some effect on the basic modulation frequency that got everyone here in the first place. It actually works best on someone who has taken the stabilisation drugs.’ Jared seemed disgusted too.
‘Unpleasant but necessary?’ I ventured.
‘Indeed.’ said Jared. ‘You just make sticks. Janey and I will do this.’
‘No. It’s ok. I’m good.’
A little while later we walked swiftly from the place, following the treeline. The hostile presence of the soldiers we were alert for, but also some sign that our friends were not yet victims of this sickening assault. There was nothing essentially “wrong” in what we had done; but it left a feeling of queasiness inside for me. There had been a moment where I really could have puked; right after the third one I “sent back”; but my sense of shame, plus the practical problem of clearing the evidence should anyone return that way, kept me focused. I was now beginning to feel a little better. Jared seemed in better spirits; yet Janey looked troubled. The freshness of the air was helping. We were aiming for a secluded place to cross the river. The course was deeper there, and there was less chance of being ambushed. The morning seemed to be interminable. It was still only around elevenish. I wondered how soon the tribe would find us. It was unlikely we would ever stumble on them first. Jared seemed especially concerned ab
out the time. We kept up the pace for another hour. At last the river was near. The course was deep here and Janey pointed then: something flashed towards us.
‘Get down!’ Jared yanked the both of us into the long grass. Janey rolled over, clearly winded. We waited and listened. Nothing. I knew better than to speak. Janey wriggled forward a few minutes later and touched Jared’s right hand. She signalled to our left. There was something there. For several brain-aching minutes we lay there keeping perfectly still.
Suddenly with an ululating cry there was a noisy disturbance to our left and near the deeper shadow of the tree line. Someone was running; pounding closer to us. We heard the call again; this time nearer and more insistent.
Jared wrapped both hands round Janey’s waist, and pulled her out of the way. He rolled right over throwing her into my arms. I saw a brief flash of someone running away, and then a man of the tribe bounded in a great leap right over our heads, landed with a cartwheel that carried him with greater momentum towards his prey. He was bronzed and barefoot and wore the skins of the tribe as well as the cloth bindings and the small neckpiece. He was a hunter. I was in no doubt that he had seen us in that fraction of a second of a gymnastic display that my old teacher might have actually described as impressive.
Jared and Janey were practically laid on top of me. We didn’t move for fear of more soldiers. We had to wait. I tried to move slightly because I was being squashed. Jared gripped my upper arm to still me. Janey rolled her eyes at me. She was sandwiched between us, her nose and mouth an inch from mine. We all listened. Then relief. I heard them calling to each other. The sign the hunt was successful. It was a cry like a bird; I recognised it then. We all relaxed slightly relieved. Janey smiled at me.
‘I must say Milnes; you are quite the muscly man now.’
I could feel myself blushing. Janey was pressed down on me in a way that would leave no room for excuses should my mind stray in the wrong direction.