Onyx felt his pulse quicken as he saw human tracks high up on his left. At precisely that moment a horn sounded somewhere ahead. He spurred his horse forward. Rounding the next bend he saw a clutch of people on the road. He loosened his sword. Pleasure rose from his loins as he contemplated what he would do to these people in just a few minutes. He didn’t rush, as he could see his soldiers fanning out on either side of the road; being higher than his prey, he could spot that the soldiers and the people he hunted hadn’t yet noticed him. One of the boys shouted something and the other spun around and then pulled at the woman’s sleeve. They’d seen him and the soldiers. Now they knew they were trapped.
He drew his sword and cantered up. The woman, a matron in her forties by the look of her, had both boys gathered to her. One looked just like her, with his blond hair peeking from under his cap. The other, with darker hair and a paler face… Rhory Bruce, Rhory Bruce! thought Onyx, preparing to see blood spatter over the snow. Onyx felt the elation surging through the man’s limbs. He knew in some otherworldly way that these boys must die, and die now. He didn’t care about the woman. The boys must be destroyed. But he would do it slowly. That would work best. Some force or intelligence seeped into his mind – Onyx could feel it – it instructed him. He’d seen the darker-haired boy before, in a vision, a vision with Hecate. He crossed himself, drew his sword and raised it. The boy held out his ski sticks, as though these would protect him, and clattered his long skis around. The shorter boy also moved, but glanced to his right. The soldier decided where he would skewer the taller boy first, just enough to bleed like a pig but not enough to die.
The vision had ended there with the soldier about to strike and the boys hollering, as though that would make a difference. Onyx had felt sick as she struggled to open her eyes in the crypt. The other two women jerked back into awareness of their surroundings in Devon at the same time. Emerald muttered to Onyx, “We nearly lost you,” but said nothing more. They’d left and disrobed in silence before repairing to the kitchen to compare notes.
Onyx finally reached an A road and saw London signposted. She left the satnav talking to her as a great weariness settled in. A sign told her a Little Chef would appear in five miles. She contemplated another cup of tea accompanied by egg and beans. Not the wine bar meal she’d planned for this evening, but hours had somehow been lost. It often happened when you played footsie with time. Instead she reached over to her phone on the passenger seat and switched on the playback. Emerald had spoken first.
Simoneas
The phone produced a high-pitched whistle, the sound of a kettle nearly boiling coming through the tiny speaker. A chair scraped on the floor and Emerald’s disembodied voice spoke.
“No tea for me, thanks, Magda.”
A clink of cups followed by another chair moving.
“At first I saw a series of still panoramas. I think I was tuning in to someone’s memories, something they looked at a lot. A barren hillside, with a few rather sad looking palms, the long wooden cantilever that the Egyptians use to draw water from a well. A camel. A hut made of mud and palm fronds. A large wooden cross by a pile of stones.”
Emerald cleared her throat.
“I could sense rather than know that the woman whose consciousness had entangled mine was rejecting something behind her. She only stared at this view with its makeshift altar.
“After some moments that picture faded and I could see the sea from the edge of a city. What shook the woman – I could feel her loathing – was the huge structure built on an island across a stretch of harbour water. She stared at it and irritation pulsed through her. It took me a moment to recognise as it was illumined by daylight. The building that irritated her so much had to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Lighthouse in ancient Alexandria. But she used this building to steer by. Once she knew for sure what she could see, she set off walking. People were all around her. I could feel their fear of her. No, not so much fear, as awe. She carried a cross made of two gnarled bits of wood bound together with twine.”
A clock in the dining room struck the hour and Emerald paused.
“She walked for ages along the quayside. Boats were drawn up. She’d no interest in them and only gave them sidelong glances. I on the other hand would have dearly loved to study them, but only saw what she chose to look at. She stole glances at the people around her, watching her. I could feel the little jets of pleasure that people were staring and pointing. Some smiled and waved. Some even cheered. Children ran ahead. I think they’d guessed where she’d chosen to go.
“The harbour extended a long way and her limbs ached, but she had an iron will and kept walking, with the sun hot on her neck.
“Ahead she focused on the spit of land that extended across the harbour, providing a narrow causeway to the island that held the lighthouse. Something there she hated even more than the lighthouse.
“On our left were storage buildings for goods unloaded at the port. People sat there working or shifted barrels. Lots of activity, but everyone was aware of this strange woman.”
A dull thud reminded Onyx that Emerald had thumped the table making the phone bounce.
“Then I saw him. The snivelling little nuisance, our own Luke Time-Walker, the Bruce boy. He stared at me. Well, not me, the old woman who had snagged my consciousness. But he stared, as though he knew. And she stared back, even stopped walking for a moment. A girl whispered something to the brat and he looked away.”
A car overtook Onyx and the male driver threw a glance her way. She braked and let the other car pull ahead.
“So his presence pulled you to Alexandria? Is that what you’re saying?” Magda’s voice asked tinnily from the phone.
“Yes. I think it must be that. His presence back there completely overrode the intent in our Rituale to contact Diamond. But I’m sure we can turn this to our advantage. We’ll discuss that in a minute. My story’s not complete yet.”
“Sorry,” said Magda.
“Leaving the Bruce brat behind, she continued along the harbour and turned onto the causeway. People now sensed where she was headed. Children ran in front. Some people looked manic. Really gleeful. Others pale and shocked. It took forever for her to walk over this bridge. The sea pounded on our left and I could feel the spume in the air. She looked neither to left nor right. Her shadow slid over the cobbles on the roadway in front of her, cut with two deep grooves made by chariot wheels and carts, I would assume. She banged her cross on the stones at her feet, using it as a walking stick and making some sort of point. She didn’t look up.
“Eventually we reached the far side. Then she stopped and took a long look at the building she’d come to visit. It was a temple. Women stood on the steps, priestesses who served there. A woman descended, perhaps their leader. An old woman, quite bent.
“I could hear people chanting. It took time to realise they were chanting a name. ‘Elizabeth, Elizabeth.’ This had to be the name of the woman whose mind I inhabited. She raised her cross and slowly turned round in a great circle, looking at the crowd. On the far side of the water I could see Alexandria with its pillared buildings. In front of the temple soldiers stood guarding the bottom steps and the priestesses. The men looked unhappy. They clearly feared this woman. The elderly priestess did not. She walked down holding a golden ankh in her hand. I felt her power. As a priestess, she could see deeply. I even think she sensed me. Moments later I returned in consciousness to our room.”
Onyx hit the pause button. Both Emerald and she had been drawn to where the Hammerford boy had been. These times must link in some way; some resonance must hold them together. She desperately wanted a cigarette. There were none in the car and anyway she’d successfully given up some time ago. But the urge was there. A red and white sign glowed in the darkness ahead, and yellow lights lit a rain-swept courtyard with a few parked cars. The Little Chef. She would have a cup of tea and egg and chips and work out what all this might mean.
Muzak inconsequentially reminde
d everyone in the café of the theme from the film Titanic. Onyx pushed her smeared plate with its cold chips to one side, and fitted an earpiece into the phone. She fiddled with the controls until she found where Magda started her story. The young woman’s voice, smooth and dark, flowed into Onyx’s ear.
“My vision also started with still images. Amazing really. Three-dimensional and frozen. In the first picture I, or the person I became, studied a papyrus scroll. The lettering looked Greek. I couldn’t read it but felt the meaning. It had to be old, very old, even then. But I – or Simoneas – which is who I was, knew it to be relevant to now. And to me – or rather to him. It gets confusing doesn’t it!”
“Next he’s at the docks of a busy port. Perhaps Alexandria. I could only see what was captured in this panoramic still image. Faces of children, lots of children. All of them frightened. Tears and snot, that sort of thing. Older people, not well dressed, stand with their heads bowed. I hear again and again in this guy’s consciousness. ‘Where is he? He must be here. I MUST find him.’ But he doesn’t. I think the children and young adults must all be slaves.
“Then I’m with two other men. Tall black men with fine clothes and tightly curled oiled hair with beads. The men are as black as night. And identical. Twins I guess. I sense their cruelty and power. We’re all looking at a cage or prison of some sort. It’s before dawn, a smudge of pale green in the sky and flickering torches.”
“Come on, Magda,” the voice of Emerald butted in. “I like the scene setting but we have work to do. Did you also see the Bruce boy?”
A pause while Magda took a slow sip of tea. A clink as she set down her cup.
“My Simoneas is one of us. He can see more than most. It’s a girl, or young woman who catches his attention first. I register she’s not part of his prophecy, or whatever it is written in Greek on the papyrus scroll. But he senses she’s unusual. He thinks he may have seen her before but cannot remember where. Then he sees his quarry. The one he seeks. And yes, Emerald, it is Rhory, as clear as the day is long. Our schoolboy is caged in with other children and dressed like a Greek. Of course my visionary doesn’t know he’s looking at an English boy from far in the future. He’s no way of conceptualising that. He thinks the boy is from some different realm. Some far-off magical land. But he knows the boy is the key to power, immense power. And he wants him. He wants him really badly. To steal his power if he can.”
“Does he get him?” asked Emerald.
“I don’t know. The vision more or less ended there.”
“More or less?” Onyx heard her own voice ask a question.
“I saw one more image. Still again. A huge man, tall, wide, immensely strong. He’s staring at me. Well, not me, you understand. Simoneas. At that point the vision ended.”
Onyx removed the earpiece and leant back in the plastic settee. How to make sense of all this? Emerald had suggested they’d dipped into a possible past. A past that might lie on an adjacent trajectory to their actual past. She couldn’t see how the boy from Hammerford could have returned to the actual past with the portal in Hammerford Park closed down.
Onyx had a different theory. Young master Bruce had found another way of moving back through time and would have a real and possibly permanent impact on their plans unless he could be stopped.
For a moment the buzz and kerfuffle of the restaurant faded and Onyx found herself linked with Emerald and Magda in their dance as Hecate. The man on horseback, with flowing blond hair moving slowly in the dark wind, pointed his glowing sword at the three of them. Then she knew.
Back with a bump to the strains of a dreadful theme tune from a film she couldn’t remember, surrounded by overweight truck drivers and thin salesmen finishing their suppers, it was the three of them who’d opened the portal. In trying to capture Rhory Bruce on the inner planes, they’d opened the doorways of time to him. And he’d passed through. Now they had to turn it to their advantage. Their vision had shown them how. The boy from Hammerford was their key back to the nexus point in time in old Alexandria. Now they must use him to move things the way they wanted. After all, he had no idea what was happening. How could he have? He was just a pawn, and she was queen of this particular chessboard.
She paid the spotty youth at the till, and went back to her car with a smile on her lips and a wobble of her hips for the truck drivers who were all watching. She had a plan.
In Limbo
“Hey, look, Rhory, we’ve got seats right by the stage,” said Natasha.
Mohammed walked ahead with Aida and pulled a chair back for her. The stage area, sitting in the middle of an enormous tent, had rows of tables all around. Ours had a prime view.
Jugglers, and people on tall stilts, wandered round by the tables, giving everything a festive air. Although this Tent Extravaganza, as our programme announced, was clearly aimed at the tourists, there seemed to be plenty of locals. Egyptians enjoy a good circus act, apparently. Natasha looked pretty hot with her eye make-up on and a miniskirt over leggings. Her hair, now more or less grown back since her brush with cancer, shone ultra-blonde where it caught the stage lights. Music, from a frenetic band over to one side, crashed with Eastern promise into our ears. We could hardly hear each other. Our table had olives, dates and dips. Some bread arrived shortly after we sat down. We swatted away the occasional fly but the mosquitoes left us alone, as Auntie had drenched us in anti-mozzie spray when we reached the Desert City.
We’d left Alex by the main Cairo road and hummed along in the Daimler. Mohammed drove quite fast and I clocked him checking the mirror once in a while. He spoke to Aida in Arabic for a bit, and I could hear concern in her voice as she responded, but Natasha pointed out a colourful truck we were overtaking and I didn’t tune in to what they might be saying. Shortly after, we took a side road and spotted sand dunes picked out by weak street lighting. We parked the Daimler on a flat, gritty car park, directed by a man dressed in white, wearing a turban and a red sash at his waist. Aida pointed out the night sky as we crossed to the large central tent.
“Later in the evening they’ll put out most of the lights so we can see the stars, but you can get a fair idea even here. Luckily there’s no cloud tonight.”
“It’s pretty chilly though, Auntie,” said Natasha, hugging around her shoulders a shawl she’d been lent
“They light a bonfire too, and set off fireworks.”
“That should be fun,” I said, being a sucker for fireworks.
Natasha and I ordered cokes and Auntie had a small, very black coffee. Mohammed didn’t join us at the table, but sat some distance away with some men he seemed to know.
“Mohammed told me you were mugged, Rhory. You should have said.” My aunt took off the glasses she’d been using to read the programme.
My mouth went dry and I searched for the right words. This conversation could quickly get out of hand.
“Someone stole your phone, is that right?” asked Aida.
“Yes, Auntie,” I said.
“Can you survive without it or do we need to buy you another one?”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
“He can use mine,” said Natasha, “if he needs to.”
“Well, use the landline if you want to talk to your mum and dad. Or Skype. I guess that’s cheaper.”
“I’m not sure how, Auntie,” I said, “they’re skiing in Switzerland, remember?”
“Oh yes. Silly me. Of course, they’re skiing.” Aida glanced over to where Mohammed sat with his burly mates. “Well you’re safe enough here.”
It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that I might not be safe. I looked around to see if any of the men who’d tried to grab me might have joined us in the tent, but the lights all went out. The musicians played twangy Middle Eastern type music and a spotlight illumined a belly dancer. The entertainment had started.
The needs of nature being what they were, I went in search of the loos. Directed to some tents a distance away from the Extravaganza tent, I’d done what I neede
d to do, holding my breath most of the time. On my return, I checked out my knowledge of the stars. The inky-black sky sparkled with individual pinpricks of light. One, much brighter than the rest, surely had to be Venus. And above me I could recognise the Big Dipper. Or was it the Great Bear? The stars shone with a far greater brightness than when we’d arrived.
I had on the neat leather jacket Mum had given me for Christmas, but the wind proved icy cold. The sand under my feet gave way and my mind nearly did as well. The Tent City had vanished. The stars sparkled with total clarity because all the lights had also disappeared. I stood ankle-deep in snow and the wind carried sub-zero temperatures straight to my bones. I stumbled on a few paces, towards great chunks of stone and a forest of trees whispering in the icy wind.
The music of Abdul and his Three Brothers came back as suddenly as a sound system being switched on, and the cool Egyptian night felt positively tropical.
“Are you all right?”
I swung round to find Mohammed a few feet away, a cigar in his hand. Some distance behind him the man mountain I’d seen by the Alexandria bookshop stood lighting a cigarette.
“You know, Rhory,” said Mohammed, “some people think there is a temple complex beneath these sands. They sense it you know. Your aunt sent me to find you, the limbo dancing is starting.”
“How you feeling?” asked Natasha.
“Totally grim,” I said.
“We all had the same food in the tent though and Auntie and I are fine. So’s Mohammed.”
I turned on my side, a wave of nausea sweeping through me, chilly and sharp. It passed and I eased myself up onto the pillows of my bed.
“You’re sweating,” said Natasha.
Time Knot Page 13