‘No. You’ll simply go mad, lose your mind, lose your identity, lose everything that makes you who you are. You won’t die.’
‘Forgive me if I don’t find that a reassurance.’
Tinkerbell shrugged, pulled the axe away, offered his hand. Sam glared it at, but reluctantly let Tinkerbell help him up. Loki was staring at the pair of them. ‘Cronus is coming? Cronus is going to be free?’
‘It’s all right, pups. Lucifer will stop him.’
‘But… but he’s coming! He’s everywhere, he’s coming!’
Sam frowned. He could hear something in Loki’s voice, something like…’Erm… Tinkerbell?’
And there it was, the translucent film spreading across Loki’s eyes, the grating quality entering his voice as he turned to Sam and said, ‘Hello again, little light and little fire.’
‘Hello, cowardy Cronus.’
Loki’s hands lashed out, striking the bars. Sparks flew from them but still he gripped, grinning as the wards fluctuated up and down. ‘Little light and little fire is going to die,’ he said.
‘Cowardy Cronus is thick.’
Tinkerbell said nothing, edging away from Sam, as though afraid he might catch something from the man who dared talk to one of Cronus’s possessed.
‘Have you ever considered what it would be like to serve me?’ LokiCronus said.
‘Excuse me? Little light and little fire, the guy who you tried to kill while possessing Thor, serve you?’
‘You can’t be happy serving Time.’
‘Who said anything about serving anyone? I’m me. I believe very firmly in the independent spirit.’
‘Little light and little fire is just a pawn.’
‘Little light and little fire will find his own path, thanks anyway. Now bugger off, because you know as well as I that it’s nigh on impossible for a Greater Power to sustain possession for more than a few minutes. Let alone a Greater Power who’s been behind bars for a few million years.’
‘I destroyed Balder. I can bring you down too.’
‘Delighted, I’m sure. But you haven’t brought me down, have you? I’m still up and running and waiting for something interesting to happen. And pal, I don’t think you are going to bring me down. I’m going to kick Seth hard in the arse and leave you to rot, because I don’t like you any more than you like me.’
‘I will destroy you.’
‘And I’ll become a great cook.’
Almost grudgingly, the film faded from Loki’s eyes and he staggered back, clutching at his face and wailing, ‘Doddery old man, leave a doddery old man alone!’’ Sam watched him with pity on his face, but didn’t move.
‘You just faced down the former master of the universe,’ said Tinkerbell.
‘Look, either he remains locked up, in which case he’s no threat to me, or he gets freed. In which case I either get driven stark raving mad destroying him, or die in the attempt. Whatever happens, he can’t touch me.’
‘Have you realised what happens if you use the Light against him? To destroy a Greater Power you must touch the mind of everything that lives – and even Cronus, to a small degree, shows signs of life. You’ll touch his mind too.’
‘And yours, and the mind of Time and the minds of everyone else in the universe – but, you know, I don’t think I’ll be in a fit state to take notes, do you?’
‘I’m sorry it has to be like this, Lucifer.’
Sam sighed, brushing off dust that wasn’t on his clothes. ‘Tinkerbell, I need a favour.’
‘What?’
‘Five minutes alone with an Eden Portal.’
Tinkerbell’s eyes narrowed faintly. ‘Who are you double-crossing now, little light and little fire?’
‘The whole goddamn universe, pal.’
But Tinkerbell gave him his five minutes, which was more than enough.
SIXTEEN
Unpaid Debt
I
n the tunnels of Asgard, the Eden Portal looked like any other. But then it always had, since the wards were written on the inside.
Sam slipped his mind into it, recognised the wards. After all, he was the one who’d written them. Seeing his own handiwork, he marvelled at its strength. So much power, tapped from so few minds, to create wards that if anything were even thicker than those made by Light herself. They lay across the Way of Eden like a giant blanket across the horizon so that, whatever way you turned, still they were there. Grey and unobtrusive, but as hard as rock. You couldn’t puncture wards like that. They’d just absorb the attack. There was nothing extreme here, and nothing extreme would tear the wards, yet at the same time anything less would be a drawing pin against a blue whale.
He called, nonetheless.
She answered instantly. She must have been waiting for him to speak.
Silence. Then,
She was gone.
Sam sat in front of the Portal and marvelled. He got to his feet and began to smile all over. He walked down the corridor.
Tinkerbell stood at the far end. ‘Lucifer,’ he said in a low voice, ‘who’ve you double-crossed?’
‘Like I said, the entire goddamn universe.’
‘You seem very happy about it.’
‘Tinkerbell, you would not believe. Come on. I need to scry.’
A simple target. They went to Trafalgar Square, and Sam sat on the edge of a fountain, looking down into the clear, toxic water. True to tradition, a hundred pigeons scurried towards him for food, then sensed, with better instinct than humans, who he was and hastened off in the other direction.
He stared into the water. Simple scry, no need for precautions. Just one mind to another.
And the water that Sam stared at rippled, shifted, and exploded in his face. He staggered back, wiping the water from his eyes. Tinkerbell had leapt to his feet with a cry of ‘Shit!’ and now followed his look of surprise with a wry smile. ‘That, I take it, wasn’t what you meant to do.’
‘I think I’ve pissed someone off,’ said Sam.
‘Anyone I know?’
‘Oh, just th
e ruler of the universe. Come on, let’s leave.’
‘You’ve screwed Time?’
‘Only in a polite little way.’
They walked briskly towards the river, past busy Charing Cross and along the Embankment.
‘Why exactly have you done this? I thought you and he were getting along fine.’
‘He said he’d kill someone very dear to me unless I did what he wanted. I’ve now removed that option from him. One of his Queens is offering her protection.’
Tinkerbell stopped, and seized Sam by the arm. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I know about this. You get Day involved and Night tries to kill her. You get Fire involved and Water tries to kill him. You get any Greater Power other than Time involved and —’
‘The Queen of Eden, Light Incarnate, is protecting her. When I sealed the Way of Eden I removed the reason for my brothers to summon Darkness. Darkness is Light’s opposite, but she is weak, not acknowledged as a Queen of Heaven, and Light hides herself away in Eden, where no other is allowed to set foot. For preventing Darkness being summoned, Light owed me a favour. I’ve just called on it. Time will not move against one of his Queens, nor will the other Greater Powers, because Light is Queen of Eden in her own right and greater by far than any of her sisters. That’s why Time had Balder by her – the greatest, golden child by the greatest, golden Power. No one will act against someone who is under Light’s protection.’
No one except things like Cronus.
‘Let me guess. They’ll act against you, who arranged the entire business?’
‘Yeah. That’s the only real drawback.’
Tinkerbell’s smile was beginning to look painfully taut. ‘So. You’ve won?’
‘Not yet.’
‘But… you might not have to destroy Cronus? Time has lost his hold on you?’
Sam saw. Slow and deliberate, he interlaced his fingers and began twiddling them. A tiny, tiny gesture that might just be attributed to nervousness, but could be something more. People on the busy street gave them no attention as he stopped and looked at Tinkerbell. A tourist boat on the Thames passed, the loudspeaker commentary declaring, ‘And here we see the fascinating…’ and passed out of earshot. Sound carried well across water.
‘You’re a strange man, Brian Hunter. Tinkerbell. You told me I should try to save the lives of thousands. Potentially, that’s what I’ve now done. I’m free to stop Time in his plans, where these same thousands die.
‘Yet though you seemed to put the lives of the many before the one, still you’d see many destroyed – for one. For a doddery old man who murdered the Son of Light, sold his soul to the enemy of his father, lied and tricked his way through his youth and finally lost his mind. For him, you would not care that I died. Why? Because he’s your grandfather?’
‘If Time’s lost his hold on you, Sebastian, you no longer have any need to destroy Cronus.’
Sam seemed to not hear him. ‘You spoke of revenge. Revenge against a Waywalker? Who? Who do you want to see destroyed?’
‘If Cronus isn’t going to be killed, then Loki will not be freed.’
‘It must be connected to Loki. A Waywalker connected to Loki.’
‘Lucifer.’ Something in Tinkerbell’s voice caught Sam’s attention. He looked up, frown still on his face, fingers still twiddling. ‘I can’t let you ruin this,’ said Tinkerbell.
‘I thought you’d say that.’
Tinkerbell hesitated. And as Sam threw the coiled magic, unwinding from his fingers like a spring snapping open, Tinkerbell smiled. He knew, Sam realised. He knew about the magic in Sam’s fingers, and hadn’t done anything to prevent it from building up. Even as it struck him across the side, and spun him round in a circle just in time to hit Sam’s counter-spell and get shoved to one side, he knew. Even as he hit the edge of the wall that lined the side of the Embankment, pivoted off it and fell into the river below, he knew. He knew that Sam was going to hit him with the spell, and hadn’t done anything.
As Sam leant over the edge of the wall and looked down to see Tinkerbell surface from the river and pull desperately at the harsh yanking of the tide, he wondered why.
SEVENTEEN
Conquering Time
M
ore memories, of old times.
He’d naively thought that he could just close the Way of Eden and return home to his roomy bedchamber in Elysium. He’d been wrong.
Three hours after Sam had set the wards in the Way of Eden, his mind had cleared enough for him to dare head home. The guards at the gate of the city had let him pass, recognising him for a Waywalker. But he’d seen it in their look. They knew that his eyes, usually black, were now turned grey as the noise of the Light faded from his ears, darkening the whiteness of his irises with them, so that his eyes returned to normal only by degrees. They were afraid of him.
His room hadn’t actually been in the palace, but in a street near it. He was, after all, just a bastard Son of Time, rather than the genuine article.
The house was a burning wreck.
He heard the minds of the people around him, heard them knowing what he should have known – that his own brothers had burnt his house down as retribution for sealing the Way of Eden. It was unlikely they would stop there.
And in that sea of minds, that he was still half aware of as the effects of the Light faded, he felt two others that were neither focused on the crowd nor on the gutted house, but were entirely dedicated to watching him. And these minds were… cold. It made his fingers tingle just to touch them. They reminded him of snakes, but at least snakes had a genuine motivation for killing. These creatures existed to kill for no other satisfaction than the murder itself. And they were about to kill him.
It was that revelation that prompted him to shield himself behind a distortion spell. Which was why the first crossbow bolt only bounced off the cobbles nearby, and why the second embedded itself in a door inches from his right ear. He ran, but knew he wasn’t about to lose these assassins. Firedancers were persistent. He fled to the palace, where he thought that perhaps he might receive protection. The guards were, after all, sworn to protect all Children of Time.
Indeed, the ordinary guards did not attempt to stop him. But he felt fear grip him again when he entered the populous great hall and saw Jehovah whispering to his archangels. Catching sight of him, Jehovah rose to his feet, touched the archangel Michael on the shoulder. Michael turned, saw Lucifer too, and advanced towards him. The other archangels followed, spreading out around Michael to form an arrowhead of tight faces and drawn blades. A space cleared between them and Sam and, imperceptibly, the crowds in the hall shuffled to seal the doors with bodies.
Sam looked round for help, and every eye he caught avoided his gaze and fell elsewhere. At the end of the hall Jehovah rose to his feet and stared mercilessly down as the archangels formed a ring of metal around Sam. Within it Sam turned like a trapped animal, before facing Jehovah once again across the silent hall.
Then, without warning, he smiled.
‘You know I was right,’ he called out, loud enough for Jehovah to hear.
‘Time will tell,’ replied Jehovah.
Continuing to smile, Sam shook his head. ‘You never knew the extent of my power.’ He didn’t move a finger, didn’t say a word, but vanished where he stood. The archangels stirred in consternation, but still the silence filled the hall, pouring in from every direction.
‘Don’t move,’ snapped Jehovah. ‘He’s within the ring of steel. It’s illusion. Stab him, and you’ll see.’
So, tentative at first. then gaining confidence, the archangels lunged and stabbed at the empty air beyond their swords – which nonetheless appeared to come away clean.
‘You can’t do it,’ called out Jehovah. ‘You can’t sustain illusion like that, and escape.’
There was no answer, except, high above, a window cracked with a dull ripping sound. All eyes went up. No one there. Each gaze danced round the room as one after one every window cracked, but none shattered.
‘Where are you?’ called Jehovah.
They all saw it. Lights darkened throughout the hall, the sunlight through the shattered windows seemed to grow faint, the darkness crept out of every shadow and thickened.
Timekeepers: Number 2 in Series Page 21