Waywalkers: Number 1 in Series

by Catherine Webb

  Sam hesitated. This caused the abbot to frown. ‘Why so reluctant? It is a fair test, the one she told me to use. Make him wear his crown, she said. No other man dares.’

  ‘I don’t blame them,’ murmured Sam, almost inaudibly. Carefully he placed the crown on his head and looked at the abbot. ‘I am not mad,’ he said. ‘I am who I claim to be.’

  Still the abbot wasn’t satisfied. Leaning forward, inches from Sam’s nose, he peered into his eyes.

  Finally he said, ‘Yes. It isn’t just a trick of the light. You came, you came.’

  Sam retrieved his dagger and put away the sword, ignoring the disbelief that lingered in the other’s voice. ‘You said you were expecting me.’

  ‘Yes. There was a backup system.’

  ‘Tell me. I mean, everything.’

  ‘Now that is a lot to tell. And I fear I only know parts of it.’

  Sam sat down again. ‘Then tell me what you do know. That, for you at least, will be everything.’

  ‘Ah.’ The abbot smiled. ‘You even speak like she said you would. I imagined your voice – it came very close.’ Wrapping his robes around him and acquiring a serious tone, he assumed the storyteller’s pose. The abbot, Sam decided, was one of those rare beings: a man who reported everything as received by his eyes and ears, not as his mind had interpreted it.

  ‘Six months ago,’ he began, ‘your friend and her companion arrived at my monastery. He was younger, and where she was quiet he was loud, and where she was serene he was always on edge, striving to do something else. So when she requested that I take him into my order for a while, I was doubtful. But my librarian, whom she knew, spoke well of them. In the end I did not regret my decision to take her companion… Andrew’ – he pronounced the word with difficulty – ‘into my order. He was a meticulous worker, and when he wasn’t with the librarian his time was spent helping my monks with their work. He often visited the sick and went with the monks into the lowlands to pick up supplies. He stayed here… oh, for two out of every four weeks, unless the weather prevented him from travelling. We just called him Andrew. He never gave any other name.’

  An immediate clue, thought Sam. Weather wouldn’t have stopped one of us. We would have used the Portal.

  ‘He was always sending postcards – in Cantonese – to England, to France, but mostly to America. He seemed to be looking for something. Each time he returned from the lowlands he’d be carrying more books. Our library nearly doubled. One day I asked him, “Since you have to go down the mountain to buy all these books, why bother to come back up?” He only laughed. “Because up here I am safe. Down there other eyes are watching.” And he was particular about security. No one outside the monastery was to see his face. In the city he would always go through at least four dealers to get one book that he could have got by direct means for half the price. He gave the impression of a man on the run. Except when here, working all hours with my librarian.’

  ‘What changed?’

  The abbot made a judicious noise. ‘First, let me tell you of the backup to this security. He explained it fully to me, you see. “If I’m ever caught out at my own game, there’s someone else. I am, after all, only mortal. Accidents do happen. But he – he will see this thing to its conclusion.” He didn’t have to do anything, he said, because you’d find your way here of your own accord. If something happened to him, Freya would contact you. If something happened to Freya, he was certain you would try to find out what. And once you got on to a scent, he said, you didn’t stop hunting for anything. He seemed very confident that you’d come. I was to give you full cooperation, but to be utterly certain it was you. He described you, your eyes, your crown, your weapons.’

  ‘He seemed very trusting,’ Sam murmured.

  ‘He was playing a big game. That much I could tell.’

  ‘What changed? What went wrong with security?’

  ‘He made a discovery. I don’t know what it was, but he seemed overjoyed. “I’ve found it,” he said. “I’ve found out what the whole game is.” A few weeks later and he announced that he was leaving. He was very scared. So was my librarian, for that matter. Both seemed terrified. ‘‘Tell the one who will come that it’s worse than we thought. Tell him that at least one of the keys has already been found, and they are foolish enough to be going for the fourth.”’

  Sam said nothing. He’d acquired a stony expression and was sitting with his chin in his hands. His eyes were fixed on the flames as though he wasn’t even listening. In fact Sam was a good listener; the best.

  ‘They were to leave the same day. Andrew headed directly into the lowlands, and my librarian planned to follow a few hours later by a different route. I could not convince them to stay. Before my librarian could leave, a snowstorm began. It was so sudden I almost couldn’t believe it – there was no reason why it should have started. At this my librarian became even more fearful. “They’re coming,” he said. “They know I’m still here.” The next morning he was missing, and hasn’t been found since. No caravans left in the night. No furs were taken, nor any animals.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘No one could survive without either,’ he said calmly. ‘Unless they were a brother to Freya, that is. Yet now you tell me she is dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am very sorry. Freya was special.’

  There was a long silence. Sam seemed frozen to the chair, staring into the fire. The crown still rested on his head, lop-sidedly, as though he’d forgotten about it. Finally the abbot spoke again. ‘What was Andrew looking for, that has already cost lives?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suspect, but I don’t know.’

  ‘The keys?’

  ‘Yes. The Pandora keys.’

  ‘Will you tell me about them?’

  Sighing, Sam sat back. ‘A legend, little more. Four keys to unlock four forbidden doors behind which are imprisoned four spirits or people. Hate, Suspicion, Greed are the spirits. Forbidden from Heaven and locked away for all time from that world at least, though their siblings thrive in Earth and Hell.’

  ‘And the fourth door?’

  ‘The big granddaddy of them all. Cronus.’ Sam’s eyes became slightly misty as he murmured, ‘In the beginning was Cronus, and nothing changed. In the beginning was Cronus, and Cronus was the emptiness of life without death and time without seconds. Then came Time, who with his children imprisoned Cronus in a place of nothing for himself. But Cronus is hungry, and wants to add to his nothing the whole universe.’

  Sam seemed to shudder, as though snapping out of a trance. ‘The truth is, Cronus is a vastly powerful entity who no one really believes in, who’s sworn to destroy Heaven, Hell, Earth and, most importantly of all, Time.’ He gave a discomforted smile.

  ‘It’s like the big bang theory, but in reverse. The universe began when Time took over. You get your explosion, after which the universe will continue to move for ever because Time is giving it that nudge it needs, in the form of seconds, minutes, hours etc. But before the big bang, when everything was compressed down at a single point with no change, no movement, no life but still existing – that was Cronus. You have to be careful about defining him. He exists, sure. But I don’t think you can say Cronus lives.’

  ‘Locked away.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How fortunate,’ murmured the abbot. ‘And what would happen if these spirits were freed?’

  Sam smiled faintly. ‘Oh, I’d guess we’re talking minor apocalypse, fall of kings, death of princes. Whoever controlled the Pandora spirits, you see, would literally be able to destroy his or her enemies at a word.

  ‘So, say I had Hate under my control. I could enter Heaven, march up to… oh, Nirvana, and say, “Hi pals, surrender or you die.” And the guys in Nirvana would naturally answer, “Die, die, evil scum, die.” At which point I would release Hate on to them. Brother would hate brother, sister would hate sister. A soldier preparing to charge my army would suddenly loathe the man standing next to him, and attack his own comr
ade. The commander would despise his generals and order their deaths, the generals would despise their commander and try to decapitate him. It would be a bloodbath – while I just sat watching with a smug grin.’

  ‘A fate worth avoiding, then,’ said the abbot. ‘But why do you think Freya and Andrew were looking for the keys?’

  Sam thought for a long time. ‘I don’t know. Freya would never use the Pandora spirits, of that I’m sure. She was a Daughter of Love, so employing Hate would be against her nature, against her blood. Perhaps the keys are in danger from elsewhere – from somebody against whom she was trying to protect them, by finding them herself. And perhaps that someone got to her first.

  ‘In which case Andrew is now very important. Not only might he know where the keys are, but it’s fair to assume that if he’s caught his captors will use his knowledge to their own advantage. Which wouldn’t be at all nice.’

  The abbot sighed, and folded his arms across his chest, the first sign of feeling the cold he’d shown. ‘I do not understand the movements of your kind. I have read in books that you wander the Earth, and every legend at some point is grounded in fact. I have seen people emerge untouched out of a snowstorm with nothing on their backs and then disappear again without a word. I have seen Freya, Andrew and my librarian turn pale at the mention of keys and spirits. I have seen a man with black eyes who wears a silver crown and stares at the fire without moving, no matter what he hears. All this I can attest to. Believe it I do not.’

  Sam smiled, the half smile of one who knows more than he’ll say, and has seen sights no man will ever see again and who still doesn’t think much of them. He turned towards the fire. ‘Where did Andrew go?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How can I find him, then?’

  ‘Freya knew where he would go. They had it all worked out. But…’

  But Freya’s dead.

  ‘Have you got a picture, a description, even?’

  The abbot fumbled in a desk and produced a small photo. It showed a freckled young man standing in front of the Kremlin and grinning at whoever had taken the picture. Sam pocketed the photo without a word, all his thoughts kept to himself. He asked, ‘Who was the Historian?’

  ‘Historian?’

  ‘There was a message in Freya’s diary – meeting with the Historian.’

  ‘I heard of no Historian – though Andrew himself was very knowledgeable in that sense.’

  ‘Or someone called Gail?’

  ‘Andrew did mention Gail. He said Gail was the inside source, the one who gave him early warnings or vital little clues. But that was all he did say.’

  ‘Have you any idea where Andrew might have gone?’ Sam urged again. ‘Anything? What languages did he speak, for instance?’

  ‘He spoke a little French. Also he was fluent in Russian.’

  That wouldn’t help, in a country the size of Russia.

  ‘What have you done with the books they were reading?’

  ‘Locked them away. Very deep.’

  ‘If someone comes, asking to see them…’ Sam hesitated, then dug around in a pocket until he came upon his travel guide and a very old biro that worked after you licked the end. He ripped the back page off the guide and wrote on it a name and address: Adam Hartland, 12 Britannia Drive, London, E8. A house whose owners were fictitious, but whose mail never went ignored: Adam was a regular checker. ‘Hartland’ meant it was for or from Sam.

  ‘Please, write to this address. Say nothing exact, and sign yourself only as the abbot.’

  ‘How dangerous, exactly, was this game Andrew and Freya were playing?’ asked the abbot.

  ‘Everything with my family is dangerous,’ Sam replied, rising to his feet. ‘I pity you mortals who get caught up in it.’ He slung his sword over his back, put on his thermal gear and turned to go.

  Behind him the abbot called out, ‘Why were you given a crown, being a bastard son?’ His harsh words cut through the quiet of that place.

  Sam Linnfer, alias Lucifer, alias the Bearer of Light – the terrible weapon that some said would destroy its very user – froze as though the question were a knife in his back. Without turning he replied in emotionless tones, ‘I don’t know. They say, because Time declared I was his necessary child.’

  And left the room.

  SIX

  Bubble

  S

  taggering once more through the Portal into the little dungeon, it was clear to Sam that someone had been there and recognised his bag, for the door was open and a fire burned on the floor in the centre of the cell, which was otherwise bitterly cold. Two heads stuck round the door at Sam’s arrival. Each wore a tight-fitting iron helmet, possessed frost-silver eyes and had patches of blue scale across their pale skin. Thick white hair grew from the base of their necks, and coiled down their backs. They wore light chain mail beneath white furs and carried iron-tipped spears.

  ‘Corenial, Setrezen,’ said Sam politely.

  ‘The Prince is expecting you, sir,’ growled one. ‘Your normal room has been prepared.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He had taken off his crown, and it now bumped around inside the box at his hip. The demons’ eyes watched it every step of his way down the corridor. They hungered to wear it, he knew, but didn’t dare.

  It wasn’t necessary to take off the thermal gear. Tibet and the part of Hell where Sam had arrived were one and the same when it came to winter temperatures. The only difference was that in Gehenna, at least, it was always winter. Seven eighths of Hell burned for sixteen months a year, and he, Time help him, had chosen to come to the one eighth that didn’t.

  Gehenna was a city with a lot of history. He knew that, because he was an integral part of that history. He’d built most of the place, after all. It rested in the far north of the planet, and for eleven months a year it saw sunlight for a maximum of five hours. The rest of the world, save for another small patch of ice on the southern pole, could claim the opposite. It hardly ever saw night.

  In Sam’s lifetime Gehenna had been a village, then a town, then a city with a castle, then a pile of rubble, then rebuilt, then once more reduced, then rebuilt with city walls and a standing army, and never defeated again, although people tried.

  Oh, how they tried.

  But he’d been careful. Not only did he now have a resident Prince and council, but a network of spies and messengers. He could hear of an attack months beforehand, and travel Earth until the day it was due, to return to Gehenna in time to lay waste the approaching army with all the fiery tricks of his specialised trade.

  Once, he’d ruled full time as king. But in recent centuries he’d become less an administrator and more a part-time emergency worker, as Gehenna, after years of nurturing, had come to do without him except in times of great crisis. He trusted the Prince and the council to manage their own affairs, and reasoned that after thousands of years of Hellish cuisine, and washing in water with bits of ice in it, he’d earned the right to Earth, caviar and central heating. Not being needed any more made him very grateful.

  In the cold corridor, more demons nodded at him as he passed, a mark of respect and little more. They were the perfect winter warriors, he reflected as he acknowledged them. Their hides were thick, their white hair and blue scale were good camouflage, and they could fight for hours, assuming they’d had a big meal beforehand. They excelled in the snow, their summer cousins thrived in the burning desert. With such an obvious line drawn by evolution, Sam couldn’t understand why the demons were constantly warring. If frost demon couldn’t live comfortably in sand demon’s territory and vice versa, why so much war?

  Because they are demons, he thought with disgust. And, for all that I’ve done, they’re still warring primitives who understand nothing outside their own armoury and ambitions. And Time help me, I gave them half the weapons they call their own. I taught them about walls and sieges and craft and cunning, thinking they wouldn’t war any more. And look what happened. For all my services, I bet half of them would sti
ll be willing to stick a knife in my back.

  Climbing a flight of stairs he marched past stony walls hung with tapestries to keep the heat in, towards a wing of the huge Gehenna fortress where the fires always burnt. The tapestries depicted frost demons doing various things to their enemies that Sam didn’t want to look at. He was familiar with them, and they still sickened him.

  He came to a large wooden door guarded by two demons, strode up to it and hammered loudly. It opened immediately.