Unknown

by Paul Kelly

  “Stop him, Sybil!” Sam shouted, but she wasn’t listening. She was back in the mines. She could hear the scream of the slaves, could see the endless chains, could smell the stench of the sweat. She blinked and it was gone. “Sybil!” Sam shouted at her. Quickly, she allowed the sound of the Pulse to wash over her, but it was too late. In the distance, the boy disappeared from sight.

  Beside her, Sam struggled to his feet. “What happened there?” he demanded.

  “He was too quick,” stuttered Sybil.

  “Maybe if your body were encased in lead!” snapped Sam. “What is wrong with you?”

  Sybil shook her head and stared at the ground for a moment. “You have no right to speak to me that way,” she muttered after a moment. “You’re a Guardian, nothing more.”

  “Sybil, come on, we were friends once.”

  Sybil stared at the ground for a minute, her thoughts racing. ‘How could she have let him go?’

  “I have to leave, Sam,” she murmured. “I have to… get home… lots to be doing tomorrow…”

  “Fine,” answered Sam, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

  Suddenly, half a dozen Guardians and a Pulse-Master came running towards them.

  “They went that way.” Sybil said, motioning. The Guardians didn’t stop to question them, but just kept running, swords clattering at their waists, intent on the chase.

  “See you later, Sam.” Sybil muttered, and then began to walk in the opposite direction, towards home.

  Sybil would have screamed if it didn’t display so much emotion. She stepped off the Board platform she had used and then walked the rest of the short way to her home. She stamped up the thirty three flights of stairs that led to her apartment. She walked in to her room and stared at herself in the mirror. Half her face was still covered in blood from that insane nosebleed. She felt rage fill her.

  ‘Her own body was turning against her!’

  She turned on the tap to wash it off. The water gushed out and splashed the front of her shirt in a way that just added to her general sense of frustration. She turned it down and leaned on the sink, breathing deeply and watching the water flow down the plughole, its surface glittering in the light of the bulb above her head. She looked back up, staring at her bloodied face in the mirror.

  ‘What was wrong with her?’ she stared at the face, feeling contempt fill her. ‘Why had she let him go? She was not one of them!’

  Raising one hand, she curled it into a fist and smashed the image. There was no pain. Glass cut her knuckles and she watched the blood slowly trickle down her wrist. She breathed heavily, gasping for breath. From her nose, she felt blood begin to slowly flow down her lips.

  Chapter 7 – Solomon

  “We need to find Truth first!” shouted Elijah as he and the old man he had rescued bolted through the maze of skyscrapers.

  “Are you crazy?” the old Seer shouted back. “They’ll kill you on sight for escaping the Testing Centre! Let’s get out of here first, we can come back for your sister!”

  “How are we going to do that?” screamed Elijah, his lungs burning with the effort of holding a conversation whilst running for his life.

  “I have friends in the Future Storm,” replied Solomon, who didn’t seem to be having the same problem. “They raid the mines all the time. They’ll help you.”

  Elijah bit his lip; he hated the idea of leaving Truth behind and pinning his hopes on the Future Storm wasn’t exactly a comforting thought. Truth must be terrified right now. And if she was in the mines, she wasn’t likely to last that much longer. Conditions were grim in those dark tunnels. But the old man was right, he had a better chance, Truth had a better chance, if he got help. A failed escape attempt would be worse than doing nothing, even if doing nothing felt so much worse.

  Elijah breathed in deeply, trying not to let his imagination wander. Dangerous and dark thoughts lurked in the corners of his mind and he didn’t want his imagination to meet them. He tried to concentrate on the horizon.Beyond it was the plain where he had arrived. His breathing was shallow and strained now and his breath spat clouds into the cold night air. They’d been sprinting for almost twenty minutes and it was taking its toll.

  Then, suddenly, they burst past the last skyscraper, their feet touching grass. But there was nothing there. The Wyvern Elijah had been praying for had not come back. They were alone on the grassy plain. Above them, the stars were just beginning to pierce the night sky. He gasped for breath, leaning on his knees. Behind him, he could hear the clatter of metal tipped shoes on concrete. They were coming.

  “What now? What’s Plan B?” asked the old man.

  “Plan B is your job,” panted Elijah. “I came up with plan A.”

  “Now you tell me,” the old Seer replied, his head spinning around furiously, searching for an exit. But the only one was the path which the Guardians were now furiously running down. The only other option was off the edge.

  “You’ll have to kill them then,” he relinquished. “You should take out the Pulse-Master first, if you can, he’s the real threat.”

  “You think I can just turn it on and off like that?!” gasped Elijah, still trying to get his breath back. “You think I’m a light bulb is that it? That it’s all so easy and simple?”

  “Well, I was kinda hoping for it.”

  The footsteps got louder.

  “You know the timeline’s there,” insisted the former prisoner. “It flows through everything just use it!”

  Elijah shuddered. He was right, he knew he was. He could see it there, a flicker of rainbow, just at the edge of his vision. All he had to do was reach out and grab it… But the ancient face of the woman in the testing centre was there too, her eyes terrified and accusing. He couldn’t control it. It was too powerful. The Skylands were right – it wasn’t a gift; it was a curse. Suddenly the old man leapt at him, his wiry frame deceptively strong. He grabbed Elijah’s arm, twisting it behind his back in an arm lock.

  “I am not going back to that place, because of your fear!” he growled in his ear. “Use the timeline now or your arm is very abruptly going to be relocated to the backside of your head!”

  “I can’t…”

  The Seer twisted his arm and Elijah yelped in pain.

  The old man began to back away, towards the edge, still holding Elijah in an iron grip.

  The Guardians ran towards them, crossing half the plain in seconds. Behind him, Elijah knew they had reached the edge.

  “Don’t come any closer!” his captor shouted. “Come an inch closer and I’ll fling him off!”

  “You’ll what??” shouted Elijah. The old Seer wrenched his wrist towards his shoulder, sending searing pain soaring through him.

  In front of them, the Pulse-Master snorted dismissively. “Take them,” she said.

  “Now this may seem a bit unorthodox,” the old man whispered in Elijah’s ear. “But don’t panic.”

  “What do you mean? What might seem-” Elijah’s words were snatched away as suddenly the ground disappeared from under him.

  “You insane bast-” he screamed as he hung in the air for a second before dropping like a rock.

  Light exploded around Elijah, blinding him momentarily, his eyes burning. He hit the back of the Wyvern like a tonne of bricks. Almost sliding off it, he clung for dear life to the old man who’d somehow managed to move in front of him as they fell. The beat of the Wyvern’s wings rippled through the air and Elijah shouted in relief as it soared up above the rim of the island before twisting in mid-air to move like an arrow towards the Earthlands. Elijah clung all the harder to the old Seer, his shouts of relief turning to screams of fear as the wind tore at his robes, whipping them around him. He shut his eyes tightly, praying for the ride to end as every other second he lost his grip, only barely saving his life by grabbing back onto the Seer in front of him.

  “This is more than unorthodox!” he screamed, his throat dry and painful, his every sen
se afire. He could feel every gust of wind on his skin, could smell the stench of the old wool he clung to and could hear every beat of the Wyvern’s wings. He didn’t like any of it. Although he was willing to admit it was a welcome alternative to a broken arm.

  What felt like hours later, the Wyvern screeched to a stop on the ground, flinging sand and dust into the air as it landed. Elijah and his fellow passenger tumbled off to land in a heap on the sand. Elijah clung all the harder to the former Seer’s robes, his body locked in a fear-filled foetal position around the old man.

  “Get off me!” the Seer shouted, pushing Elijah’s body away. “You are not a three-year-old girl and I am most definitely not your mother!”

  Elijah rolled away and then stopped, staring straight ahead in shock, his whole body stiff. “How did you…” he stuttered. “How did you…”

  “How did I what?” asked the old man irritably, shaking sand off his robes. “What is wrong with you boy?”

  “How did you know?” finished Elijah pathetically, his mouth closing dumbly.

  “I hoped, I guessed, I prayed. What does it matter? We’re alive now aren’t we? What more do you want?”

  “You guessed?” Elijah asked disbelievingly. “Who are you?”

  “Ah, I was hoping we could try to answer that question!” the old man exclaimed, suddenly looking pleased with himself. “I used to know you see, when I was a Seer, I knew I was a Seer. Solomon the Seer. It had a nice ring to it, good alliteration, you see? But then I got too old and I gradually began to lose the ability to use the timeline and suddenly I woke up one day and I was just Solomon. Solomon not the Seer. And now I’m just not sure about the whole thing. I mean who am I if I aren’t a Seer? I’ve always been a Seer and ‘Solomon not the Seer’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it…”

  He walked around for a while, shaking his robes about in a frenzy. Elijah just stared.

  “Then I tried being Solomon the Terrorist for a while,” he continued, shaking his head in disbelief. “That was fine, but I really don’t think it was for me. Almost got me chained up in the mines. Far too dangerous really, why if it weren’t for you, for you…” he spun around, suddenly throwing his hands up in excitement. “That’s it boy! I’ll teach you! Everything you need to know to be a Seer, I’ll show you everything... I will be Solomon the Teacher!” He shook his head. “No, that’s not quite right, it’s a good concept but it’s not what I’m looking for…” Suddenly he drew himself up, folding his arms and puffing out his chest in pride. “You, my rapt pupil, may address me as Solomon the Wise.”

  Some of the shock and awe had begun to wear off Elijah at this stage and he laughed. “You have got to be kidding me. You’ll have more luck turning the sand back to soil then you will with that. This whole freaking world will become a tropical paradise before I start calling you that.”

  Solomon’s face fell. He looked disappointed. Elijah almost felt like calling him wise just to cheer him up. But he was still slightly sore about the Solomon-threatening-to-break-his-arm-thing. He stood up suddenly, studying the sky. In the distance, dozens of black specks were appearing.

  “They’re coming after us,” he whispered.

  “Hmm?” Solomon asked, his face still looking hurt.

  “They’re coming!” Elijah shouted. “Run!”

  They ran straight for Prazna and snuck in through one of the massive marble gates. There were no guards. The Skylands had long since banned them. The gates themselves only still stood because they were frozen in time, a skill long since lost. Solomon led the way to the Future Storm, guiding them slowly through the twisted streets, their hoods pulled tightly over their faces. Elijah was silent as they walked, torn between guilt ridden thoughts of Truth and a desire to remain inconspicuous. Solomon was not.

  “Where was I before? Oh yes, Ekriam’s salad, that was it, before you interrupted me with all your mad talk of escaping with our lives. Brilliant salad, put in nine different kinds of beans, nine! I didn’t even know there were nine different kinds of beans. I hear it’s gone downhill since. But, of course, I haven’t been back since the city was cut into nine. I wonder if they based it on the salad…”

  He saw Elijah’s sceptical and slightly panicked look. “Really! Nine bean salad, it was amazing! Oh, right you meant the walls. Difficult to get the subtleties when it comes to ominous silence, but oh well.”

  Elijah made a strained hissing noise. The kind of noise that is universal for ‘please shut up, I don’t want to tell you to shut up because it would draw even more attention than you are already drawing, but please shut up’. Solomon continued on relentlessly. “They put giant walls up all over the place you see, splitting it into nine districts. Believe me, if you thought Prazna was bad, you should see Ekriam. It was Seer heartland back in the day and the Skylanders don’t want it to be that again anytime soon. There are Wyverns at every wall just waiting for a Seer dumb enough to come near. Sure, by now it’s the most secure place in all of EarthSky, the Future Storm don’t even have one person above ground. Whenever they try, they last about ten minutes before being Silenced.”

  Elijah didn’t answer. It would only encourage him.

  “I have to say, I never thought I’d be going back to the Future Storm,” the old Seer mused. Elijah almost screamed. Who advertises that they’re going to a secret terrorist group? It’s supposed to be secret! That’s the whole point, when it stops being secret, they call them freedom fighters instead, that’s how you tell the difference! Shut up, shut up, shut up! “But, hey, I have to live up to my name. I’m no Solomon the Wise if I don’t teach you am I? No sir. No I’m not. Just left down here,” he said, indicating with the wrong arm. Elijah turned right and started to walk faster, in the way one does when trying to pretend they are in no way associated with the person talking to them.

  “Now Coral, that’s a beautiful city,” continued Solomon, running to catch up. “It makes its money from fishing and given that most of the world is a desert now, it’s in pretty high demand. Guess even the Skylanders couldn’t figure out how to destroy the sea. Lovely city, paved in stone. Stone! Can you imagine that? None of these dusty roads here or those crappy concrete ones they have up above, no, proper, decent stone. Feels good beneath your feet you know what I mean? Just in here now,” he indicated a tavern to their left.

  Elijah went in the one on their right. It was dark as they entered, a couple of dim light bulbs giving the room a bare, fluorescent glow. The whole place reeked of vomit and stale beer. Solomon walked straight up to the counter and smiled at the barkeep in the kind of open bright manner that would force anyone with a soul to unconsciously smile back. The barkeep did not smile.

  “How are you doing Aon?” he asked.

  “Well enough,” the barkeep replied cautiously, standing up straight to showcase his full seven foot of height. “Who’s yer friend?”

  “Just someone for Ash to see,” smiled Solomon, unperturbed.

  The huge barkeep rested one hand on a club that looked like it had been deliberately made to be so heavy only he could lift it. “You know Ash doesn’t like surprises Solomon.”

  “She’ll like this one,” Solomon assured him, using a tone of voice that is normally reserved for large and dangerous animals.

  The barkeep grunted and jerked his head towards a wooden doorway which had ‘Staff Only’ crudely painted on it in white. Solomon smiled at the man and led Elijah through the doorway. It smelt even worse than the rest of the tavern. Elijah wondered if it was a defence mechanism. Closing the door behind them, Solomon tucked his thumb into one of the floorboards and lifted it up, revealing a trap door. He flipped it open, grabbed a candle from a nearby shelf and lit it on a lantern. Holding the candle in one hand, he began to climb down a ladder into the inky darkness below. Elijah followed, slightly uncertainly. He was suddenly very aware that he knew very little about this old man he had rescued. And that he was now following him into utter darkness. Inside the cellar there were
barrels everywhere, but at least the smell of vomit was slightly muted. It was hot and Elijah’s skin began to itch uncomfortably beneath his woollen robe. Close by, he could hear a rat’s paws scamper across the floorboards. At least he hoped it was a rat.

  Solomon picked up a stick and began to tap out a beat on the barrels on every side. Each barrel made a slightly different sound when hit, the sound depending on the amount of beer they had in each barrel. Elijah tried to follow the beat for a while, but after about the fifteenth barrel he completely lost track. Then the beat stopped, Solomon replaced the stick and just stood there, waiting expectantly. Then one of the walls began to move. Slowly at first, but gradually, the wall in front of them creaked open, each end folding into the now cramped cellar.

  Solomon smiled and turned to Elijah. “Welcome, young Seer, to the Future Storm.”

  Chapter 8 – The Future Storm

  As they walked down the passage, Elijah heard the walls close behind them with a dull thud. It was dark and oppressive in the strange tunnel and the sound of the closing doors echoed all around him.