I tore off more of the bread, dipped it into the dark-brown soup and fished out a chunk of carrot. It tasted wonderful. Opposite me, in the sleeping room with wooden walls lit only by candles, sat the boy who apparently had been named Horken. He didn’t smile much and watched me steadily, with his pale-blue eyes tracking every shaky movement of my hand. Like me, he had a chunky woollen blanket around his shoulders and sat on a bed covered with a fleece from more than one sheep, sewn together, that still retained its sheepish smell. The plank of plane wood on my legs, now thankfully encased in woollen trousers, quivered as my legs continued to move of their own accord.
I think Horken, and his mother Signy and the big German doctor, had been as frightened to see me standing there like a fairy without wings as I’d been to see them. Horken shouted something in a strange language that ceased to be strange when I realised he spoke Swedish, albeit with a really thick accent. Swedish and Norwegian are close enough languages for me to understand any Swedes I meet, and I once spent a long summer holiday in Sweden with friends of my mother. I pick up languages quickly.
“He may be a trowel!” I thought Horken shouted.
“Are you a trail?” said his mother, as the big German lifted up his sword by the blade, so the top formed a cross. As I was neither a trowel nor a trail, nor a vampire, that had little effect beyond confusing me even further.
Then I got the word.
“No.” I said in passable Swedish. “I am a boy. An English boy. I’m not a troll. I have just come from…” I stopped. I might do better passing for a troll than someone moving from one epoch to another, switching countries on the way. Mind you, how on earth can anyone explain suddenly turning up in the middle of a mini Stonehenge, wearing what looked like a dress?
Inexplicably, the big German, who introduced himself as Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, said, “We were expecting you. Welcome!”
He kindly gave me his cloak to wrap myself in. From that point on, a combination of the snow, the sub-zero temperatures, the wind and the general sense of total unreality, led to me shivering so hard I couldn’t get words out in gobbets of more than one syllable. The three of them had a hasty consultation, too quiet for me to hear, and invited me to mount a horse. The last time I’d ridden had been on the beach at Bognor. I stared at the stirrup as the horse cast a baleful eye in my direction and snorted its derision. The German’s massive arms plucked me out of the snow and, bare legs on either side of the horse’s neck, with him behind me, I started the brass-monkey route back to where this odd trio apparently lived.
With much whispering I had to follow Horken up to the bedroom he shared with someone called Lennart without meeting anyone else in the house. His mother Signy brought in the food. Of the German with the ridiculous long name there was no sign.
Horken moved back on his bed to rest against the wooden wall. Dried flowers were tied to each of the bedposts and their pleasant fragrance did something to counter the sheep-dip nature of the room.
“So…” he said.
I took a breath and welcomed the brief interlude between bouts of shivering. He continued to stare.
“So,” he said once more, “how come this time you stayed when the other times you vanished?”
I set the plank of wood that served as a tray to one side on the bed, and also moved back to give myself the support of the wall. Finally warmth had started to return to my limbs.
“I don’t know,” I said in Swedish.
I wish I did. This is all very confusing. I guess this boy is one of the Seeds of Life, but he doesn’t seem friendly – not in the way Shoshan and Dimitris were friendly.
His eyes had grown so large I thought he might be turning into an animé cartoon. He bit his lip.
I wonder if he can hear me?
He nodded slowly.
“Holy Mother of God!” he said. “Jesus and all his saints. Yes, I can hear you.”
His hand reached inside his jerkin and he pulled out a small cross that hung by a leather thong around his neck.
“This is devil’s work.”
“No.” I said out loud. “No it isn’t. It’s just that we’ve forgotten how to use this skill. I think our ability to hear each other’s ideas may actually be really, really important.”
Horken stood up, walked over to a small table and poured himself a drink from the jug Signy had put there.
“Do you want some small beer, Rhory?” he asked. For the first time he didn’t sound antagonistic. I nodded. In Sweden and Norway small beer means weak beer. Even Dad allowed me small beer when we were in restaurants in Norway.
“I’ve had very strange dreams,” he said, “and seen some pretty strange things. Even here. Right in my sleeping chamber. I also met someone. I met a … a girl. I think a girl or maybe an angel…”
Shoshan.
“Yes.” He said out loud. And then inwardly, ‘The Blue Lotus girl.’
“I met her too. Shoshan. It means…” I couldn’t think of the word in Norwegian. “It means Lily.”
“Lotus,” he responded.
“Hm, yes, Lotus. That’s right.”
“I saw her in some strange hallway, far, far away. With a great big stone chair. And when I sat in that chair I had a vision.”
Sipping the beer and then helping ourselves to some more, we recounted our tales. I spoke about the image of the god Anubis appearing in my bedroom at night and meetings with druids and Pythagoras and Dimitris. I described, as best I could, the clash at the evil temple and how I’d got in the way of the redheaded priestess. Horken’s mouth dropped open at that.
“We are working against some really bad people,” he said. “Mother says the folk she comes from, the Sami, have tales about a war in heaven. She thinks we’re fighting on one side in that war.”
I nodded. Frankly, it felt like a war on earth that Horken and I were caught up in.
“It’s certainly something like that,” I said.
“So you have moved backwards, you have come from … from a place that doesn’t yet exist?”
I rubbed my chin and made what Juliette calls my ‘monkey face’.
“Well, it’s complex. Actually this time I’ve just come from North Africa and I think I’m meant to take you there.”
The door opened without ceremony. The big German, apparently called Paracelsus by his friends, stood there with Horken’s mother Signy.
“Things are moving faster than expected. We must return to the Judge Circle at first light. A prophecy must be fulfilled for all our sakes. Then you’ll head north.”
“Why?” said Horken.
“Because,” said his mother, “Pettersson plans to have us arrested for fomenting rebellion. He’s the magistrate and will come tomorrow evening when the Danish soldiers have returned.”
We Enter the Circle
Håkan beckoned me over to the window. Icy air poured over us as we looked out through a gap in the shutters. Weak moonlight gave some illumination and a lone dog barked a few times. In front of the house a tree-lined pathway meandered towards the lane that led, according to Håkan, to the nearby town. I’d become used to eau-de-sheep-skin, but being this close to Håkan reminded me that people in the Middle Ages didn’t wash that regularly.
The previous night I’d found out the date. We were slap bang in the middle of Henry VIII’s reign, if we were in England. Here, a cruel Catholic king ruled from Denmark, even though followers of Luther grew stronger in Sweden every day. That was why Lennart and Håkan’s father were not at home. People like them were organising in the south of the country. They wanted Swedish independence. Not surprising really. Håkan asked me if Sweden succeeded. He couldn’t understand when I said I’d no idea, but they must have succeeded some time, as Sweden was ‘now’ Lutheran.
Håkan could write. He showed me how to spell his name with a tiny ‘o’ on top of the first ‘a’. I wrote my name for him and explained I might be distantly descended from a Scottish king. Not so distant for him, of co
urse. He smiled, more or less, and nodded.
Dark, bulky shapes glided in front of the house. A figure on a horse led other horses and two silent carts, which floated over the snow.
“We have two sleighs. Gregor is getting ready.”
“For what?” We were both whispering.
Håkan looked at me.
“I’ll explain later. Too dangerous just now. We don’t trust the housemaid. She has ears like a cat.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to picture their feline maid, until I understood. “Oh right.”
A few minutes after Håkan’s mother, Signy, knocked at the door and let herself in. She had a pile of clothes. Moments later she returned with a tray with beer and pickled fish, some cheese and tough white bread. Breakfast Swedish-style, circa the 16th century.
“You’ll need to dress warm, Rhory,” she whispered, and slipped out again. The door squeaked closed.
Håkan grimaced and said, “Eat well. We may not get another meal for a bit.”
After washing down pickled fish and cheese with weak beer, I studied the clothes. I’d never seen anything like them. Håkan showed me how I would have to put on the leggings first. They had buttons front and back.
“In this cold you don’t want too much exposure.” Håkan grinned.
Over these went pantaloon thingies of thick corded material, held by a broad leather belt. I had two pairs of socks to put on and a leather jerkin to go over the top of several shirts and a woollen sleeveless pullover. The hat, with patterns woven in, fitted my head and snuggled over my ears. I thought that I might finally get to feel warm. Lennart’s boots became quite snug with an extra pair of socks. By the time I’d dressed I realised Mother Nature required I take swift action. Once in the freezing cold privy – too disgusting to describe in detail – I gave thanks for the back flap on my long underwear. The icicles on the door of the loo indicated it had no heating beyond my breath that hung around for ages.
The stable boy had two horses ready when we slipped out of the front door. Paracelsus sat on one and Håkan and I climbed on the other.
“Thank you, Ralf. See you tonight,” said Håkan in a loud voice.
I looked around in alarm. Up to that point everything had been whispers. At the top of the house something pale caught the moonlight. A face looking down on us from a window.
Once well beyond earshot of the house, Håkan explained that Ralf could be trusted but lying wasn’t something he did well. Håkan’s words had been for the benefit of other ears.
“Cat woman?” I asked.
“What?”
“The maid.”
“Yes her. Inge,” said Håkan. “We’ll not go back to the house again now, not for…” He trailed off, and shrugged.
“I see,” I said, not seeing anything much. I didn’t even know where we were riding.
We picked our way along a narrow track between tall trees with pale bark. The horses’ hooves crackled on the ice. A little more snow had fallen as we slept. The slight pallor of dawn showed the trees with icing sugar on their branches.
At one point Paracelsus stopped us and dismounted to pick a few blood-red berries and slipped them into a little sack at his waist.
“Never eat those,” he said to the forest in general and us in particular.
Moments later the crag of a low hill showed above the trees and we came out onto a field of pristine snow. The stone circle appeared innocent and pure.
“We will keep the horses here. The energy is only right at dawn for a venture like this. The horses could disrupt it. You will have to enter on your own, but together. You, the two of you, will be the key.”
His German accent did not help. But he made about as much sense as a rap song that you can’t quite hear. I’d no idea what he was burbling on about.
“Dismount,” Paracelsus said, “and stand here.”
He looked up at where a quarter moon hung pale and interesting just above the trees. A few brave stars still managed to shine as the sky turned from charcoal to grey. No clouds meant the frost had already given the snow a slight crust on the surface. Thankfully, no breeze sucked the little remaining heat from my extremities.
“The moment is just right. Look, the morning star.” He pointed to the side of the hill with its brooding rocks. A single bright star shone to the right of the crag. Paracelsus pulled a piece of parchment from inside his bulky coat. He read something out loud. I didn’t understand a word but guessed it might be Latin. I remembered too late to listen within and only caught the meaning “time is eternity flowing.”
“I have a teacher,” said the German. “He actually knows things worth learning. Not like the quacks at the universities. He is a true alchemist. Valentine. He foresaw this moment and told me I should come here. I’ve had confirmation from, well from…” He spread his hands around as though the woodlands that surrounded us were full of teachers. As he did so I’d a sense of a small face watching on the far side of the stone circle. Shivers went up my spine, this time not from cold.
“You must enter the circle together. You must take a gem of value to heart and spirit. That is the key to your return. Look. Learn. Much depends on you both. All the signs suggest that. All.”
We nodded. I didn’t like the idea that anything too much depended on me. But if all we had to do involved going between a few stones and coping with fairy folk peeking at us, then let’s go for it.
Paracelsus shook something out of a small leather pouch onto his gloved hand. He handed me a small brooch, set with a green stone. Håkan received a ring.
“This is my mother’s.”
“Yes, they both are. She treasures them as heirlooms. It is that treasuring that’ll bring you back safely.”
My heart started to thump. Where were we going? Only into a set of old stones. Why the big deal?
“Now,” said Paracelsus. “You need this now.” He’d undone the pommel from his sword. The pommel I recognised. The pommel from the Time Sphere that should be with Natasha. He removed his glove and shook a bright drop of liquid onto his thumb tip. It glowed in the morning light, catching moonbeams or something.
“Aqua Vitae. The alchemist’s greatest treasure.”
He muttered more Latin as he pressed his thumb tip on my forehead. The liquid should have felt icy in the sub-zero temperature, but it spread a warmth all across the front of my head. The trees glowed with a vibrant flickering luminosity. The stones had increased in weight, as though they held the knowledge of the whole world in their crystal depths. Håkan and I moved forward together. Within the circle the snow glistened, a pool of purity stained with dark shadows. As we passed between two of the biggest stones, everything reversed. The glowing white turned to darkness, the stones glowed and flared, and the trees vanished. A silent whispering crowded in on me. The ground fell away into an inky nothingness.
The Tower of Time
Håkan’s story
Håkan stumbled. The light had been sucked away and his eyes hadn’t adjusted. He didn’t feel snow beneath his fur-lined boots but something hard. He closed his eyes, so they could adjust to the gloom. He took a few deep breaths to calm his racing heart.
To his left a huge curving wall extended as far as he could see. It had no top. It had no beginning, just extending downwards into a perpetual gloom. He closed his eyes and opened them again. The sticky liquid Paracelsus had put on his brow tickled and prickled. It sparkled. To his right the English boy clung to a railing that ran as far as the eye could see, just preventing them both from toppling into the yawning abyss at their feet.
Of the Judge Stones nothing remained. Håkan now stood on a walkway that extended in a huge circle: a curving path that would take at least an hour to complete. The walkway would allow two people to move abreast. It appeared to be made of silver and glowed slightly, catching its light from within the glassy wall that rose above their heads and fell endlessly beneath their feet. He closed his eyes again and caught his breath. His left hand hurt, it gripped the railing so
hard. Once more he looked and made out filaments of illumination, with their roots far below him, extending unbroken up parts of the wall like vines. Nearby, rivulets of deeper darkness ascended in contrast like creepers. These were thicker and stronger than the strands of brightness but never completely overpowered them.
Leaving Rhory, Håkan moved to the left. Movement within the wall drew his attention. The glassy surface proved partially transparent in places. He could see as though looking through clear ice on a lake, only here the icy walls were vertical. He touched the surface, causing ripples to radiate slowly in the wall. Where his glove contacted the transparency increased.
Beyond, or within this fluid wall, a woman sat alone on a horse. At first she remained static, like an illuminated picture of a saint, pausing on the lane that connected their farmstead to the town. He took a breath and rested both hands on the wall. Light and form crystallised into his mother, riding; she reined in her horse and looked in his direction, a puzzled expression crossing her face. On either side of the horse were two panniers. She shook her head as though to clear it of something and crossed herself. Twitching the reins she rode on faster and did not look across again.
Sadness swept through Håkan, and he grasped her ring tighter in his right hand and murmured a quick prayer. He turned back and could see no sign of Rhory.
Walking swiftly he found where they’d entered this strange realm. He peered into the faint glow at the shapes beyond the wall. Several black stones stood as sentinels and he could just make out the two horses beyond the icy wall. He nearly pushed through, knowing that if he did so he would be back with Paracelsus but unable to return to this space, whatever it was.
He continued to his right and searched for where the English boy had gone. A sound pulled his attention upwards. Walkways extended in circles high above his head, as far as his eyes could see. The vast chimney in which he stood did not ascend vertically, but gradually curved so he couldn’t see to the very top. He couldn’t make out Rhory, but he thought he heard a sound. He tried to shout, but his voice immediately vanished. He pressed ahead and came to a narrow stairway going up. To its left the walkway continued so one person could progress. The stair had a high gate in front of it, and unclimbable silvery railings. The gate, ornate and solid, had a large lock and he couldn’t get it to budge. It looked like Rhory couldn’t have gone by this route.
Time Knot Page 17