The Londum Omnibus Volume One (The Londum Series Book 4)

by Tony Rattigan

  ‘So … he can stop you and your plans with a click of his fingers,’ lied Cobb, clutching at straws.

  Quist laughed, ‘I’m afraid not Cobb. I’m a bit of a scholar you see and I have quite a large collection of ancient scrolls and books regarding the laws of Magick and the rules of the Universe. How do you think I found out about The Heart of Infinity? And I happen to know that the Gods or their agents cannot interfere directly in the affairs of Man. He can’t do anything to stop me. He can’t even break through this pentagram.’

  ‘He’s right you know Cobb,’ muttered Harlequin who had come to stand beside Cobb.

  ‘So,’ said Quist, ‘you’ve played your trump card but it turned out to be a Joker,’ he said sarcastically, indicating Harlequin. ‘And … if you’ll pardon me mixing my metaphors, Check … Mate!’

  Cobb moved up close to the wall of Magick emanating from the pentagram, as close as he dared, ‘There’s something else I forgot to mention.’

  Quist stepped up to face Cobb. ‘A final show of bravado, eh? Okay then, I’ll buy it. What did you forget to mention?’

  ‘This!’ said Cobb and vanished.

  Quist gasped in amazement and Harlequin smiled. That’s my boy, he thought.

  Cobb re-appeared a second later behind Quist, in the centre of the pentagram. That was why he had lured Quist to the edge of the pentagram, to give him a few extra seconds before Quist realised where he was.

  First he had to destroy that damned device that was draining all the Magick out of Adele before Quist could react. Cobb strode to the Adele’s chair and tore the glass lamp from the tripod. Throwing it to the floor he stamped on it, smashing the glass bulb. It exploded with a bright purple flash, throwing Cobb and Quist to the floor, as the room filled with the bright purplish, sparkling light and a howling wind.

  The purple storm circled the room for several seconds as if looking for direction; it went towards Cobb and then Quist but recoiled from them. Strangely it avoided Harlequin. Then, as if recognising the Magick still contained within Adele as being part of itself, it flowed directly towards Adele. It struck her and poured into her body. Adele’s Magick, once released from imprisonment in the strange device, had found its way home. It washed over her like a wall of water, blowing her hair all over and forcing her back in the chair. When it had merged with her again, she slumped forward in the chair but only for a moment. She lifted her head and her eyes were bright and clear and Magick crackled around her like electricity.

  Cobb looked around him. He could tell by the change in the air that the Magick wall had fallen as soon as the device was smashed. Quist had got to his feet and was heading for the Dark Matter. ‘Release her!’ Cobb shouted to Harlequin and pointed at Adele.

  Quist was standing by the Strong Light Generator and stretching his hand out towards the Dark Matter, a split second away from total mastery of the Multiverse. Cobb leapt forward and grabbed Quist’s arm, twisted it away and picked up the Dark Matter in his other hand.

  All of a sudden, the world just sort of bulged … a wave of disturbance spread out from the Dark Matter, like a stone dropped in a pond causes a ripple to spread out in perfect symmetry from the centre. Out through the basement it went, out through the house, spreading out through Green-Witch, subtly changing everything in its path, until it subsided a few miles away. The changes it caused were numerous but only noticed by a few botanists and insect collectors because they were so small. For example, all clovers from then on grew four-leafed. Certain butterflies internal molecular structure mutated slightly and within weeks they had grown a new set of antennae. But on large objects like humans or animals the changes were so infinitesimal, that they went unobserved.

  Cobb shook his head and said, ‘Did the world just taste Purple for a second, then?’

  ‘It’s the Dark Matter warping everything around it,’ replied Harlequin. ‘It will only get worse. If you care what happens to your planet and everyone on it, you must get it out of here, NOW!’

  Cobb looked at Adele and she stared back, with a look that said, ‘Yes, I know it would have been good between us.’ Cobb smiled at her and did the only thing that he could think of to do … he jumped dimensions, taking Quist with him.

  Cobb’s dimension shifts in the past had always occurred without any noise or disturbance. This time, perhaps because of the powerful substance he held in his hand, the very stuff of Creation, there was a bright flash and a blast of energy that threw Harlequin and Adele to the floor. When it subsided, Cobb and Quist had disappeared from the cellar.

  They ended up in another Green-Witch, but one of an earlier period. There were wooden buildings all around them but Cobb could see the great river Isis in the background. The people around them screamed in shock and fell back, shouting of “Demons!” and “Witchcraft!” leaving them in the centre of a clear space. They were in the middle of a crowd who were watching three people being tied to stakes in the middle of the town square, while others stacked bundles of wood around them.

  Cobb looked around him and saw a man standing on a cart overlooking the crowd. He looked vaguely familiar to Cobb then he remembered where he had seen him before. He was in the picture on the wall in Witchfinder Grindle’s office. The man in the cart was Thaddeus Flax, the original Witchfinder!

  Cobb knew Flax’s vicious reputation for executing people innocent of witchcraft just to enhance his grip of terror and he looked at the, probably, innocent victims about to be burnt at the stake.

  I’ll take care of you, you evil sod, thought Cobb, focussing his attention on Flax. Cobb pointed at Flax and shouted, ‘HE’S A DEMON, ONE OF US … come Brother, fly with me through the air and we will feast on these mortals!’

  While Cobb’s attention was diverted, Quist grabbed Cobb’s hand that held the Dark Matter and tried to wrest it from him. Cobb saw the crowd surge on Thaddeus Flax and drag him from the cart. Cobb grinned and then he shifted again.

  Previously, Cobb’s second jump had always brought him home again but curiously this time, it seemed to take him even further away from his starting point.

  Instead of taking him back to where they began, Cobb and Quist ended up inside a wooden fort. Soldiers in the dress of the Ancient Italian Empire looked curiously down from the battlements at them. This looks like early Londinium before it grew into a town, thought Cobb. After their initial shock at Cobb’s sudden appearance, the soldiers gathered their wits and picking up their weapons they approached the pair threateningly. Cobb jumped again.

  This time there were just a few wooden huts grouped round a bend in the river. It seemed to Cobb that they were jumping back through time, as well as between dimensions. Cobb jumped again. And again. And again. It was as if the shifts were somehow being supercharged by the Dark Matter that Cobb was holding, because each shift got quicker and quicker and seemed to travel further and further back into the past.

  Civilization wound backwards like a film in reverse until Man had disappeared and only the animals existed, and then they too vanished. Mountains fell and then rose; deserts, jungles and oceans came and went around them. The Dark Matter seared his hand but Cobb held on to it as tightly as he could.

  Cobb shifted again and again in an attempt to keep Quist off balance, to give himself time to think. He didn’t know what else to do. Faster and faster Cobb jumped between dimensions, until each new location was just a blur before they moved again. Hundreds perhaps thousands of shifts took place while Cobb and Quist grappled over the Dark Matter. Then suddenly they stopped dead! Cobb tried to shift again but couldn’t. They had reached the end of the line or more accurately … the beginning of the line.

  All around them was dark, well, darker than dark. And it was cold, colder than cold. Quist let go of Cobb and stepped back, looking around him in amazement at the total, infinite, stygian blackness. At some elemental level they both knew when and where they were. They were right back at the beginning of time and space, the beginning of everything. Suddenly everything around them went
BRILLIANT WHITE! There was a huge, ear splitting explosion.

  Somehow, everything seemed to happen in very … slow … motion. Time was still fluid here. Cobb knew where they were, at the beginning of it all, the moment of creation. If Quist were allowed to control the Dark Matter, this moment may never take place. Cobb, Esme, Adele, Thornton, even Harlequin, would never exist. Quist could shape the universe in his own image and destroy everything Cobb had ever cared about; he could not allow that to happen. Cobb understood why he was here and what he had to do.

  Before the explosion reached them, Cobb slid his free hand into his shirt and, jerking hard enough to break the chain around his neck, withdrew the pendant that Thornton had given him. He knew that now was the time to use it but he wasn’t sure exactly how. How to release the power of the amulet? What was it Thornton had said? He couldn’t remember.

  Then from somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, surfaced a vague memory from his dreams, a whisper, a suggestion …

  ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.’

  Breaking eggs! When he first saw the amulet, it had reminded him of an egg. At last he understood the message that had been placed in his subconscious.

  Cobb stretched out his arms wide, the Dark Matter in one hand, the pendant in the other. Quist saw what he was about to do and leapt forward. He grabbed Cobb but it was too late. With all the force he could muster, Cobb slammed the two objects together; hard enough he hoped to crack the stone in the pendant. It did. Whatever power was contained in the pendant flowed into the Dark Matter, igniting it and causing another ear splitting explosion.

  This second explosion caused the newly born Universe and the freshly created Space/Time Continuum that it resided in to be shattered into countless streams, almost identical. Like standing in front of a mirror and hitting it with a hammer. The result was multiple parallel Universes, each one subtly different from the next.

  Cobb and Quist were instantly vaporised but around them the Multiverse was created exactly as it had been before. Everything snapped back into place.

  As it was meant to be.

  As it had always been.

  ***

  Adele opened her eyes and looked around the room. Harlequin stood next to her, looking shocked. Somehow, Cobb had re-appeared and lay motionless on the floor, before them. It was obvious even to a cursory glance that there was no life in the body.

  Adele pulled herself groggily to her feet. ‘How did he get back?’ she said indicating Cobb. ‘I saw them disappear?’

  Harlequin ignored her question. ‘He did it,’ he said, his voice filled with awe. ‘He succeeded. He managed to set off the second Great Blast. The one that created the Multiverse. Everything is all right, I can see into the future again.’

  ‘How is Cobb?’ she asked hopefully.

  Harlequin dropped his arms and turned to look at Adele. ‘He’s dead, I’m afraid,’ he replied gently, knowing how much it would hurt her.

  Adele tried to be strong; she bit her lip and held back her tears. What Harlequin said came as no surprise, she had expected that when Cobb had disappeared, it was the last time she would see him alive. ‘And where is Quist?’ asked Adele. Harlequin just shrugged.

  Adele went to Cobb’s prone body and knelt beside him. She raised his head and resting it in her lap, she felt his neck for a pulse. There was nothing. ‘Oh Cobb, why did it have to be you?’ her voice unsteady. Cradling his head gently, she stroked his hair tenderly as if he were a sick child. Fat tears squeezed themselves out of her closed eyelids and rolled slowly down her cheeks.

  ***

  Cobb opened his eyes and looked around him. He was lying on his back. The last thing he remembered was that terrible, burning agony that had seemed to ignite every molecule of his body, and then he had woken here. The pain had gone and he felt at ease, relaxed and comfortable.

  Cobb stood up. He looked around for Quist but there was no sign of him, in fact all around him he could see nothing but a white mist, there were no walls, no horizon. It was impossible to judge how far it went in any direction. He looked down at the floor, correction, where the floor should be, but the white mist that encircled him covered that too. He stamped his foot experimentally but there was no noise and he felt no shock of his foot hitting the floor. Where was he? How did he get here? Where was the nearest pub?

  Then he remembered, something had woken him, what was it? Someone had been calling his name. There it was again, ‘Rufus … Rufus.’ Only Esme had ever called him Rufus. ‘Rufus, over here!’ the voice came again. Cobb whirled around and saw an indistinct figure approaching through the mist. As the figure got closer, he could make out the hourglass figure of a shapely young woman.

  It looked like … like … but it couldn’t be! The mist parted and Esme walked up to Cobb.

  ‘Hello Rufus,’ she said. ‘Good to see you again.’

  Cobb stood there staring at her, unable to speak, tears welling up in his eyes. She was even more beautiful than he remembered, her long golden hair flowing freely about her shoulders and those incredible blue eyes.

  Finally he managed to gasp, ‘Esme? Is it really you?’

  ‘Yes Rufus, it’s really me,’ she said and hugged him.

  They held each other without speaking for what seemed like (and given where they were, may possibly have been …) an eternity. Finally Cobb managed to squeeze some words out past the cricket ball that had somehow become inexplicably lodged in his throat. ‘Did I succeed? Did I …?’ Cobb was stuck for the right words. ‘Did I create … Creation?’

  ‘Yes Rufus, you did it. Everything is back the way it should be.’

  ‘I guess this means I’m dead then. Is this heaven?’

  Esme broke his embrace and took a step back, ‘No it’s not heaven, more a sort of halfway house. A kind of Limbo. Souls come here while they are waiting to be taken on to their final destination.’

  ‘To heaven?’

  ‘Well … not always.’

  ‘So, you’ve come to take me to heaven?’ persisted Cobb.

  ‘No, not exactly.’

  ‘You don’t mean …?’ said Cobb, alarmed, looking down at his feet.

  ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ said Esme quickly. ‘The truth is, you don’t have to be here. It’s not your time yet, you can go back.’

  ‘But I can’t go back, I’m dead aren’t I?’

  ‘I’m afraid so … but it doesn’t have to be permanent.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can still go back but you have to want to! You have the choice. The Gods will let you have your life back if you wish it, call it a reward for what you did.’

  ‘Well that’s very generous of them but why would I want to go back? What is there back on Earth, for me?’

  ‘Rufus, you have so much to live for.’

  ‘There’s nothing for me to live for. My life ended when you … when you left.’ Cobb couldn’t bring himself to say the word “died”. ‘And now we’re together again. Don’t ask me to give you up a second time. What is there to go back for?’

  ‘Adele,’ said Esme quietly.

  ‘You know about Adele?’ said Cobb, embarrassed.

  ‘Yes I know and I’m pleased for you. She’s a good woman and she loves you. I know you care about her too and I’m happy for you. It’s time you got on with your life.’

  ‘Do you think I can forget you that easily?’

  ‘I know you won’t forget me.’ She placed a hand on his heart, ‘I know I’ll always be here. But you can’t live your life on just memories. It’s eating you up inside and I don’t want that, don’t do it for me. I love you Rufus and I always will but I want you to go on and find happiness again. Don’t you know how much it hurts me to see the way you’ve become? I want to see you become that man again, that fine, upstanding, handsome, man that I married. We had our time and now it is time for you to move on.’

  ‘You want me to give you up and go back?’

  ‘I want you to go back and li
ve!’

  ***

  Adele wiped her eyes and looked at Harlequin. ‘Bring him back, bring him back now!’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘You owe him! He saved the Multiverse, he saved your Gods. If it weren’t for him, Quist would have control of everything now, including you. Now it’s time for payback.’

  ‘I can’t. It’s not my … erm … department. I don’t have the power to bring him back,’ Harlequin said uncomfortably.

  ‘You’re a GOD! Or at least you work for them. You must have the power! Save him, Damn you!’ demanded Adele.

  ‘Listen to me, I don’t have the power to bring him back, but you do. You have the power of a witch and the strength of your love for him. You could go there and bring him back.’

  ‘But I don’t have that sort of power, I’m not that strong.’

  ‘You’re wrong. You are more powerful than you realise; you’ve just never had the proper training that’s all. Believe me, you can do it.’

  ‘I can’t do it; it’s too big, what you’re asking is beyond me. I need your help.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you, I’m forbidden to. Remember, I explained that there are rules that must be obeyed? Particularly the one about not interfering?’ he said regretfully.

  ‘Please … I can’t do this on my own,’ she pleaded.

  Harlequin looked down at Cobb and then back at Adele and his expression softened, ‘You really love him don’t you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, without hesitation.

  Harlequin looked deep into Adele’s eyes for a moment. ‘All right … I shall probably be made to pay for this later but I’ll do it. I’ll do it for you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she sobbed.

  ‘Now then, I can’t bring him back but I can send you there then I will hold onto you and lead you back. That’s the best I can do.’

  ‘But for me to go there would mean I’d have to … die.’

  ‘Not exactly, you’d be sort of … frozen between heartbeats. It’s going to take our combined strength to hold you at death’s door and we won’t be able to maintain it for long, so you will have to hurry.’