Those who followed Magic’s way of life had often suffered at the hands of people with righteous ideas.
So they’d stood before the Way of Earth, Jehovah looking proud and imposing at the gateway. ‘We are about to change a world, my loyal servants.’
Sam had kept his face fixed in a suitable expression of awe as one by one the archangels linked hands, forming a chain.
He was at the very back.
‘Don’t let go,’ Jehovah had warned. ‘Follow me. If you let go you will lose your way. For you the Waywalk will seem dark and silent. For me it is full of light and noises. Try not to distract me. If you let go of each other, you will also lose me, and when we Waywalk I am all that keeps you from an unpleasant end.’
They’d finished linking hands, Sam behind Michael. Then Jehovah had led the way and they, silent and faithful, had followed.
Sam had immediately known something was wrong. Not with Jehovah, nor with the other archangels, but with him. He wasn’t seeing the promised darkness, nor hearing the promised nothing. He saw a white mist, in which shadows lurked and leered, heard whispered pleas from lost spirits, sensing just on the edge of feeling a fading world behind and a growing world ahead. With their breathing harsh and shallow, the other archangels seemed unaware of the light and noise around them. Sam gasped as something lashed at his ankle, but passed straight through like a shadow. That gasp left his lungs burning and head swimming, there was so little air.
‘Lucifer,’ wheedled a voice in his ear. ‘Please come to us, Lucifer…’
Ahead he could see a white doorway, towards which Jehovah was leading them. His palm was soaked with sweat – so was Michael’s. Images filled his mind as he looked at that door – images of the darkened oasis where they were going to emerge. And others – of the shadows, of being lost in this endless white mist, of suffocating, of walking on a bed of death and breathing in pestilence as they went.
Only the Sons of Time could Waywalk, everyone else was blind.
But he wasn’t blind.
‘Lucifer.’
He turned slightly, and felt his hand slip from Michael’s. Immediately he was being tugged back, ghostly claws curling round his shoulders and waist, trying to pull him down. He staggered free, running through the mist towards the white door, the image of the destination burning in his mind.
There was no air left to breathe. Jehovah had vanished through the door, and the others were disappearing with him. Sam rushed forward, closing his ears to the pleading voices, and caught Michael’s hand again, holding with a grip of death. Through the mist Sam glimpsed a white, scared face turning this way and that, blind. He’d never seen Michael so frightened.
Abruptly they were through, the Portal closing behind them and the archangels gasping down huge breaths as Jehovah briskly counted them to see that they were all there.
‘Horrible,’ moaned Gabriel. ‘Never so dark, never so quiet.’
‘I think you’d find that what I see is worse,’ replied Jehovah mildly.
Michael was staring at the gasping Lucifer where he’d fallen on the sand and was now heaving in great gulps of air, more shaken than the rest. ‘I… thought I felt your hand slip from mine,’ he said.
For a long while Sam was quiet. Mistakenly, Michael took this merely for the shock of the Waywalk.
‘Must have imagined it,’ said Sam.
He was on the last lap now, the train due in at Kaluga at six fifty-two. As he travelled he prayed to whatever gods he knew didn’t exist that even if his illusions had been seen through, they would not realise Kaluga was the final destination. Then another prayer, this time more fervent than ever before, that Whisperer had made it too. Praying, although he knew there was nothing to pray to, was all he could do.
She was silent before answering.
On the train, Sam lovingly fingered his sword. Even through the cover and the layers of leather he could hear it singing its deadly song. It was his father’s gift to him, just as the others, the legitimate ones, had all received gifts. It was the final proof.
He’d known that only Sons of Time were allowed in the Room of Clocks. He’d known also that only one son was allowed there at any time. Finally he’d known that it was guarded always, by angels loyal to Time and his Queens alone.
But his long hours spent learning spells and tricks hadn’t been wasted. As the sun set over the clouds of Heaven and the stars came out in all their brilliance, Sam had pulled on his white archangel’s robes, beneath which he’d concealed a roll of rope tied around his waist, and slipped from his home in the sky towards the gold and white marble palace that stood on a cliff of diamond.
During the day a staircase of sunlight wound up to it, during the night one of starlight. There was no other way up, and it was guarded. Lucifer dealt with this as only he could have. If it had been Thor trying to sneak into the palace like a thief, there would have been bloodshed and murders. Had it been Jehovah, the angels on guard would have found themselves believing that by letting him past they did the right thing. But Sam was neither of these. Moreover the angels were not expecting a Son of Magic to be in Heaven, let alone trying to enter the palace.
Sam knew Jehovah was on Earth, and would be for a few more days. He knew also that only those highly gifted in magic could see through an illusion. He knew finally, as his mother had told him, that he was her only son not to possess mortal blood, and certainly her only child in Heaven. So at the base of the silvery staircase of starlight, he buried his head in his hands, and when he looked up again, it was not Sam who stood there, but Jehovah.
Confident now, he began to climb. An angel questioned him as he went, and he spoke in the same mild, serene tones that Jehovah always used. At the top of the staircase he wasn’t even out of breath and his very gait was that of Jehovah – a kind of drifting along the ground, floating almost – so complete was the illusion.
‘I am going to the Room of Clocks,’ he told another angel.
There was a hectic moment when, outside the Room and waiting to enter, he saw a different door open, and Athena appeared. She gave Sam a nasty look, old school to young school, and swept by him. Yet just as she passed, she seemed to think better of doing so, and turned. ‘You are visiting the Room?’
He nodded, remembering quickly how little Jehovah spoke.
‘Why?’
‘Because I desire it, sister.’
She frowned slightly, and for a moment he thought she’d seen through his illusion. But then she shook her head and went on, leaving him soaked with sweat and his hands shaking. He clasped them tightly together until the knuckles turned white, in an effort to subdue his trembling, and almost jumped when a soft-voiced angel announced that he could enter.
Bowing his thanks, respectful Saviour to the last, he pushed open the large golden door which at another time he would have denounced as vulgar, and entered a room that roared with ticking. Or, more to the point, one large tick. The walls, the ceiling, the huge floor were covered with clocks, sundials, hourglasses, candles of every kind. At each second the smallest hand moved on every clock, each with a precise click that, heard together, filled the room. Sure of being alone, Sam lowered his illusion and turned slowly, watching as every clock ticked its way towards infinity.
When these clocks stopped, he knew, Time was dead. When they began to run anticlockwise, Cronus was king.
Turning slowly, a tiny, tiny figure in the vast room, he suddenly wondered what he was doing there. Had he expected a sign? Time never gave any. You never saw Time, just as he’d never actually seen his mo
ther, merely a shadowy projection of her. Greater Powers were beyond physical form, which made it hard to keep up eye contact of any kind. But you could ask boons of Time. How did He show He was listening?
Because he’s always listening, because we’re part of him, an extension of his will.
‘Father,’ he called softly, and immediately felt silly. What reaction did he expect? ‘You know, better than I do, why I’m here. If there is a reason, that is.’
No answer. Slowly he knelt, staring everywhere at once.
‘What am I?’ he asked. ‘Your bastard son? Another bastard son out of so many? But you send your bastard sons away, and they’re rarely by a great Incarnate. Children by the Elements, yes. Even children by mortals, where you think that child will serve your purpose. But what is my purpose, in your scheme of things? I have watched your children, and every one has a purpose whether they see it or not. Every one is acting out some scheme of your devising. Time conquers all, but I cannot see what there is for you to conquer.
‘What are you so afraid of that you should keep a compromising child such as me close to you? For the children of Magic are hunted down and reviled. Their power is chaotic, unreliable. It is one of the few things that deny common sense – the miracle makers are all children of Magic, and miracles are not part of your great scheme.
‘So why do you keep me here, yet ignorant of what I am? What future will you use me for, like Jehovah uses humans?’
No answer. But his ears detected a different kind of reply.
Somewhere, a clock was striking out of tune. There was the huge clamour of a thousand clocks hitting the second together – and then, between that second and the next, there fell another click.
So faint; just one clock out of place among them all.
Sam rose, scouring the room for it, searching it out. Refusing to hear any other sound but that dysfunctional tick, he wandered through the room. Halfway round he stopped, pressing his ear to a clock. Then to another. Then another, now staying within a small area and listening hard.
He found it. One clock, about the same size as his face, plain, the numbers in some flowing script he couldn’t recognise, was beating half a second out from all the rest. Sam ran his hands around it, noting the strange shape – distorted, as though a mad smith had started to melt it down and then thought better of it. His fingers, questing round the edge, found a little inlay – and at his touch the whole thing sprang open. He leapt back with a startled cry.
But nothing emerged. Heart pounding in his ears, knowing as he’d never known anything in his life that this was the closest he’d get to talking with Time, he advanced on the dark space behind the clock and reached in. His hand closed round something hard and cool. He felt a jolt on touching it, like electricity.
Withdrawing the object, he found a long, light, silver sword, sheathed in a plain leather case. Nervous, he drew it, and felt it sing in his ears and blood as it sliced the air. He made a few practice passes and knew he’d never felt anything like it. Sheathing it, embarrassed by the huge space around him and the loneliness of his sword games, he laid it carefully at his feet and reached in again.
His fingers closed round a small silver key, dangling by its chain and swinging tantalisingly before his face. As he touched it, images flooded his mind. Images of a silver door, beyond which lay a Portal to another place. A door which only his key, held in his hand, would open. Each Child of Time had one.
But there was more. A silver dagger that looked tailor-made to his stealthy nature. And at the back, unadorned, plain, a silver band. He didn’t dare put it on, not knowing to whom these goods belonged – even though some part of him cried out that this crown sang to him only. Common sense decreed he should not risk the wrath of its owner, in case that owner was not him after all.
And at the very back, a slip of parchment, so old he feared it might crumble to dust in his hands. He unrolled it, and read the strange script slowly and carefully, wondering what language it was in and why he could translate it with no training.
I, Chancellor of the Room of Clocks – he’d never heard of this rank before – do decree that the items enclosed herein be granted only under such situations as follow:
1)
When a Prince or Princess of Time is in dire need of such weapons and his or her cause is decreed just.
2)
When a champion of Heaven is in danger of not completing his function and needs aid through magic.
3)
When the Bearer of Light is chosen.
In
this third instance let the reader be warned that the Bearer of Light is to be feared and respected, for he is forever cursed and blessed. His function is necessary, but he will be the target of the enemy when that necessity dictates action. Therefore let the Bearer of Light be made of curses, for he will better use the blessings that befall him. Here ends my warning.
Sam rolled the parchment up, wondering what it meant. He had a disagreeable feeling that the word ‘necessary’ was a reference to him. He returned the parchment to its dark cranny, reasoning that any items that went with such a firm warning were not for him. Reaching out for the other goods, he heard the faint footfall behind him.
Before knowing what he did, he turned, finding the silver dagger in his hand as if flown there in response to his alarm, and was ready to pounce.
Jehovah stared down at him. Immediately he thought how impossible this was: Jehovah was on Earth and not due back yet. Besides, the guards would never have let more than one person into the Room.
Which left two alternatives. Either he’d been found out and Jehovah had come to evict him, or this being was not who it seemed. Yet as he probed he could find no illusion around the figure. Nor could he sense the power of Belief in Jehovah that distinguished him from a Son of War or a Son of Love. His probes came up against a blank.
‘Put on the crown, Lucifer,’ said Jehovah.
Sam said nothing. He bent down and drew the sword slowly, giving Jehovah time to run or call for help. Inwardly Sam prayed this was what he’d do, thus giving him some certainty of what was going on.
But Jehovah didn’t move as Sam rose to his feet, dagger and sword both drawn and ready.
‘Who are you?’ Sam asked.
‘I am you.’
He spun, to stare at himself, standing off to one side and leaning casually against the wall, wearing his own boyish smile.
whispered a voice in his mind.
‘I am everything that lives.’
He turned again, seeing Michael, this time, moving next to Jehovah’s side.
‘I am everything that dies.’ Jehovah again.
‘You could have told me straight out. I wouldn’t think any the less of you,’ he muttered. ‘Father.’
‘Put the crown on,’ whispered Jehovah.
‘Why?’
‘Put it on, it is yours!’ said Michael.
Kneeling down and placing his weapons on the ground again, Sam reached out nervously. He took the band in both hands, holding it as though it were a fragile thing.
‘If I put this on,’ he said finally, ‘it will weigh down not only on me, but on those who look at me. If I put this on, I cease to be friendly, smiling Lucifer.
‘But I don’t become something different. People who called me friend will see this and they will see a king. Yet I will see them and see a friend.’
‘Put it on.’
‘No. I am happy as I am.’
‘To find out what I am.’
‘Put it on!’ roared Jehovah.
Sam raised the crown, not above his head, but towards Jehovah. ‘You put it on! You who can control men’s lives and decree when they live and when they die – you wear it! You have no need of me!’
Jehovah was gone. Sam was kneeling before the vacant air, crown held up imploringly to nothing. As empty and significant as a dream.
‘Would you deny you
r father?’
He didn’t turn his head, dreading what vision he would see this time. The voice had been kindly, compassionate. The voice he’d always imagined his father would have. He’d wanted his father to be some kindly old scholar, who’d play games together with him when he was young, and when he was older would listen to his woes with a wise smile on his face and laughter in his eyes. And he knew that if he turned his head now, he would see that father, the one he’d wanted, formed from his own imagination the better to manipulate him.
‘Tell me what it is you want, what you’re planning. Tell me why you kept me so close, and at the same time so far.’
‘You are necessary,’ was the simple answer. Sam closed his eyes as his father moved into his line of sight, refusing to look on his dream, knowing the power it would have over him if he did look. He felt warm old hands brush his cheek, then tilt his head up so that his father – no, not his father, an illusion created by his father of someone his real father had never been – could survey his not-son’s features. He felt the warm old hands curl around his own and gently steal the crown from his grasp. He opened his eyes, staring up into his father’s face as he raised the crown above Sam’s head.
Waywalkers: Number 1 in Series Page 16