Discoucia

by Nicholas Lovelock

  “I have been trying to find her; she is the only one who could possibly ruin my plans, mainly because she is a god and also because she seems to have taken a liking to you,” said Lilia.

  “Oh, OK, in that case you carry on but I’d give me about ten minutes before I break out of here,” said Arthur, with a confident look on his face.

  “I think I’ll put you in my newest creation, and what do I do with your girlfriend?” asked Lilia.

  “Do what you want; I don’t need her any more. I’m here and that’s all I needed her for. I needed a way into Harrha and what better way than using a dim-witted princess?” said Arthur coldly.

  At that second Jo’s whole world imploded. Everything she knew was wrong, Arthur had just been using her to get here and she meant nothing to him. She was about to cry, but pure hatred and anger did an override of the sadness and she shouted every profanity and swear word she could think of at him. She kicked out at him, and several of them actually landed, and Arthur had to bunch back on the wall.

  “You still are the master with women,” said Lilia.

  “So are you going to move me or not?” asked Arthur.

  “Oh no, since you two make such a cute couple I think you should stay together in joyful bliss,” said Lilia.

  “That’s not funny; if her hands were free she’d be clawing my eyes out,” he said.

  “And her hands will soon be free. You’re my brother so I won’t harm you at all, it’s Princess Josephine who will do that,” said Lilia. Jo was so mad that she was still trying to get Arthur, but she couldn’t reach him. Then, for both of them, everything went black.

  The Mathematical Trap

  Arthur awoke in the middle of a square which was underground, as no sunlight was streaming in and it was surrounded by marble columns. He got up, and couldn’t hear any sound or see anyone. He left the square and walked off in a northern direction, and saw that the architecture of this little town was that of Evermore, since it was made of sandstone. There were small enclosed streets and houses; however they didn’t have second floors, or roofs for that matter. Torches hung from the walls and the place was clinically clean, no signs of life anywhere.

  After a minute of looking around Arthur found Jo, who was unconscious on the floor. He was about to wake her, but then he remembered that she wanted to kill him, and then remembered the rope that was built into his dress. He unravelled it and tied her to a column. He then decided to let her cool off and went for a walk. It was ten minutes later that Jo woke up, and taking note of her surroundings she saw that she was alone. She then remembered about Arthur, and began to shout for him.

  “Arthur! Arthur! Get here now, you’re no longer my friend but you’re still one of my subjects,” she shouted.

  “Don’t get your royal knickers in a twist I’m right here,” he said, appearing from behind a column.

  “Why aren’t you tied up?” she asked.

  “Because they didn’t tie me up, I must confess that it was I who tied you up,” he replied.

  “Why?” she asked angrily.

  “Be honest, if you could run around, all your running would be after me to tear me to pieces and personally I wouldn’t dare retaliate, not because you’re a princess but because I don’t think a friend should hit another friend,” he explained.

  “Friend? I can’t believe you can even say that,” she said.

  “Look, if I told her not to tear us apart she would have, but this way I could guarantee that we would be together,” he said.

  “Why would you put me through that?” she asked.

  “Could you think of a better way?” he asked.

  “Alright, I forgive you, now please untie me,” she said. Arthur undid the rope, and Jo smacked him as hard as she could in the face.

  “Oww, what was that for?!” he shouted.

  “Now I fully forgive you,” she said, and walked off for a look around.

  “This seems like a healthy friendship,” he said, rubbing his face and smiling.

  They walked around the town, and the sound of their footprints echoed all over the place. “So, where are we?” she asked.

  “No idea, I am completely at a loss to be honest,” he said.

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  “Well, there are some things I do in these situations,” he said.

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “Firstly, we examine the positives, come back with me to the square,” he said.

  They made their way to the marble square, and sat on the marble bench on the left hand side. “First, what have we got?” he asked.

  “A rope. I suppose we could hang ourselves,” said Jo.

  “And what would that achieve? Besides how do we know this isn’t death,” he asked.

  “Nah, I think the afterlife wouldn’t be so clean and there would be other people here. And I was just trying to make light of the situation since once again it seems hopeless,” she said.

  “We have rope, I also have this,” he said, producing the notebook and pencil from his sleeve.

  “I have this,” said Jo, pulling out a bottle of champagne from beneath her dress.

  “I’m not going to ask,” he said.

  “Is this all we have?” she asked.

  “It looks like it, but we do have one thing on our side,” said Arthur.

  “And that is?” she asked.

  “We got in here, so there must be a way out of here,” he said.

  “Unless they sealed us in,” she said.

  “Archie! Archie! Help!” they both shouted. There was a puff of blue smoke, and a note fell from it.

  “’Sorry, but Lilia is monkeying with time and space here so there is nothing even I can do, but there is a way out and you just have to find the answer’…” read Arthur, just before the paper burst into blue flames. “We have about five days without food or water until we are too weak to move, and from the looks of it Lilia doesn’t care about that,” explained Arthur.

  “So we’re on our own, what do we do?” asked Jo.

  “Work it out,” said Arthur, who walked around the square, and noticed something on the floor.

  “Look, it’s a huge number five, built into the floor,” he said, pointing to the floor. Jo looked too, but had no idea why it was there; however Arthur seemed to.

  “She doesn’t care, but she has given us a chance to escape the trap,” said Arthur, now excited.

  “Why are you excited? We’re trapped here by your nutcase of a sister, and there’s no way out,” said Jo.

  “Yes there is, and I’m excited because it’s a challenge, and I like a challenge” he said. “Then carry on” she said, sitting down.

  Arthur looked down a street, and saw something that made him run. After about two minutes of being alone in the square Jo ran after Arthur, and saw him walk through a black doorway at the end of the street and disappear. She ran after him, and they both emerged in another part of the town.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “I have to admit it, when it comes to new inventions, my sister is brilliant and she’s invented a portal. You see, we go in one door and come out another, though we don’t know which one; but we shall soon,” said Arthur, who ran back to the square where he retrieved his notebook and the pencil.

  “Right, so we know that the number five is of some significance since she put it in the middle of the square,” said Arthur.

  “She may have chosen that at random,” said Jo.

  “It’s her favourite number,” said Arthur.

  “Was she good at maths?” asked Jo.

  “She was brilliant at maths so I believe that this is some kind of mathematical trap, and the only way out is for us to find a solution to the problem,” he said.

  “So where do we start?” asked Jo.

  “How many doors are there?” he asked.

  “Let’s go and find out,” said Arthur.

  They went to look at the doors, and they were all helpfully numbered. “I hav
e a ten, do you find anything higher?” shouted Arthur.

  “There’s a number zero over here, so I think it’s zero to ten,” said Jo, who appeared from behind a corner.

  Arthur spent the next couple of hours working out the maths, while Jo looked at all the paintings, again and again until she began to see different paintings. She walked back to Arthur, who seemed to have hit a block. “If the number five is a common factor, then where is it?” asked Arthur.

  “Well, if you think about it, if you take away most of those numbers from each other, then they equal five,” she said.

  “I don’t understand, write it down,” he said. Jo wrote down her calculations, and sure enough they were correct.

  “We came in through door number six, and we left door number one, and if you subtract those numbers from each other, then you get the number five” she said.

  Arthur stood up, shouted ‘Eureka’, snogged Jo and ran off to the door they left last time. Jo stood there speechless and then after a second ran after Arthur.

  “If I’m right, we should go through door number one, and we will get back to door number six, in the same sense as we started, we just have to reverse it,” he said.

  Jo was still quiet, as she was still reeling from Arthur’s kiss. He took her hand and pulled her into the portal. They ran out into door number six. Hand in hand they ran through door one, and came out again in six. They then made for door number two, and emerged from door number seven. They then ran for door number three, and ran out of door eight.

  “We’re nearly there, through door four, and out through door nine,” said Arthur. They did exactly as Arthur predicted, and then made for door number five, which led them to door number ten.

  “Final door; the one that we haven’t used yet, it’s the door that doesn’t make any sense,” said Arthur.

  “Door zero?” asked Jo.

  “That’s the one,” said Arthur.

  They ran through door zero, and around them everything went black. Jo held on to Arthur, who watched as blackness surrounded them, and then there was a white light, and they saw that they were in a small room, with a portal on one side, and a door on the other.

  “We’re out, so let’s find out what’s happened in our absence,” said Arthur.

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be good.” said Jo.

  Arthur opened the door, and saw that they were still in the Obsidian Castle. “There seems to be no one around,” said Arthur.

  “Look, it’s daylight outside,” said Jo.

  “Then they must have already left,” said Arthur. Arthur ran out across the courtyard and down the stairs to the main square. The place was completely clean, like an army of servants had been through and stripped the place bare. He then ran to the huge hangars and looked for any sign of life, but all of Lilia’s fleet had disappeared. “This is not good, this is not good at all” said Arthur. He then ran back to the Obsidian Castle and looked for Jo. She ran down the wide corridor from the Sky Port to meet him.

  “All of the ships have gone, even the Nostradamus” said Jo.

  “I would hope so, I told Corky that if we didn’t return by 3.00 he was to fly as fast as he could back to Cesta and wait for us,” said Arthur.

  “That’s a bit of good news, I suppose,” she said.

  “There must be something we can do,” said Arthur.

  “Let’s get back to the castle, at least from there we can think about what to do,” said Jo. They both ran up the stairs and across the courtyard. They then entered the castle to look around more, without the threat of guards.

  “There’s nothing here,” said Jo.

  “I’ll check upstairs,” said Arthur.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Jo. They both ran up the spiral staircase at the end of the long corridor and then to the end of the second floor corridor. They climbed the second staircase and saw that the third floor didn’t have as many rooms, or they were much larger.

  “I’ll look in here, you look over there,” said Arthur. He went in one door and she went in another. They continued in this fashion until Jo shouted that she had found something. Arthur ran into the room and a wondrous sight met his eyes.

  Inside the room was the largest and most complicated machine he had ever seen. It was so colourful that it hurt his eyes to look at it. In the centre was a control panel, and from out of this were hundreds of brass pipes that ran to blocks of pure diamond, which were so large that they looked like they would be impossible to lift.

  “Is this another fog machine?” asked Jo.

  “It seems way too complicated, personally I think it’s something to do with time, look at the dials in the centre control panel,” he said. Jo looked and there was a four dial box which read 0003, and another that read;

  YYYYYY-MM-WW-DD-HH-MM-SS-MS

  And below these letters were all zeros. “This is a time machine, but I guess that it stops time, but doesn’t rewind or fast forward it,” said Arthur.

  “How can you tell?” asked Jo. Arthur pressed the big red button on the control panel, and he felt a ripple resonate through the room. He looked outside and saw that a starling was suspended in mid air, being chased by an impressive but cruel looking hawk. He opened the window and turned the hawk around so it faced the window. He then walked over to Jo, and saw that she had indeed frozen, and he picked her up and sat her on a chair.

  He decided to look outside, and walked up the stairs to the roof. Out on the battlements the weather was still, it was neither cold nor hot, but instead it was in the middle, mild and pleasant. He then walked back in and pressed the big button and the same ripple was felt through the room. At that moment time caught up with itself and several things happened; a starling flew away safely, a hawk hit a window, and Jo looked astonished at Arthur, who had managed to move from one side of the machine to the other in a split second. Arthur looked over at the zeros beneath the letters, and they had changed too. They now read:

  000000-00-00-00-00-05-17-32

  “What happened?” asked Jo.

  “Well you see Jo, this is a time machine and it does indeed stop time, I’ve been gone for five minutes,” he said.

  “That’s unbelievable, how do you think she was able to create something like this?” asked Jo.

  “I don’t know but if you look at the first dial, it’s gone down from 0003 to 0002 which means that this machine has the chance to stop time only two more times,” said Arthur.

  “Why would Lilia leave this here? It seems a little odd to have left a time machine here when you’ve just gone to war,” said Jo.

  “Yes, maybe she thought that we wouldn’t get out in time,” said Arthur.

  “So what are we going to do?” asked Jo.

  “No, not we, Josephine, me. If this has the capacity to stop time then I’m going to use it,” said Arthur.

  “To do what?” she asked, now worried. Arthur went for the button and Jo shouted for Arthur to “STOOO…” but she was stopped by the ripple.

  “…OOPPP,” shouted Jo, who expected to see Arthur standing by the machine but this was someone different. They were wearing a burgundy suit instead of a blue dress, and when they turned around, Jo cried at what she saw.

  “Hello, Josephine, I’ve missed you terribly,” said the figure, which had a long beard and long scraggly hair. Jo looked first at the small dial which read 0001, and then she stared in horror at the second larger dial at the bottom. She ran at the figure and held on to him, for this was her Artie she held…

  0117-06-09-12-16-34-27-14

  Discoucia

  PART II

  The dreamer, the unwoken fool,

  In dreams, no pain will kiss the brow.

  The love of ages fills the head.

  The days that linger there in prey of emptiness,

  Of burnt out dreams.

  The minutes calling through the years.

  The universal dreamer rises up above his earthly burden.

  Journey to the dead of night.

&nbs
p; High on a hill in Eldorado.’

  Eldorado Overture

  Forever is a long way

  “Why did you press the button?” asked Jo, still with tears in her eyes.

  “I had to, it was the only way,” he said, smiling.

  “Why are you smiling?” she asked, while Arthur used a handkerchief to wipe away her tears.

  “Because I’m back here and I missed you so much,” he replied.

  “Oh I would have gone with you,” she said.

  “I know you would have, but I didn’t want you to spend over a hundred years without any contact from anyone else. I mean forgive me for saying so but after our little episode in the math trap I didn’t want you going mad,” he said.

  “You’ve been gone how long!?” she asked, shocked.

  Jo walked over to the machine and read the dials, and she saw how long Arthur had been gone for. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “For what?” he asked.

  “That you had to do this, my father owes you everything,” she said.

  “Well you see, I had a long time to think, and I came up with the one thing that I want in this world, but I’m afraid this is something that is between him and me,” said Arthur.

  “Over a hundred years and you didn’t change, what has happened to your sister?” asked Jo.

  “I’m so glad you asked, follow me,” he said.

  “Did you lose your sanity at all?” asked Jo.

  “A couple of times I thought I was a tree, but normally I was fine. Archie didn’t talk to me at all and that might be because of the time thing,” he replied.

  Arthur led Jo out of the room, and she saw that his suit was ripped and frayed at the bottom and at the collars, and was speckled with oil. “So tell me, what exactly did Lilia have planned?” she asked.

  “When I caught up with the fleet she was mobilised around Evermore, and there were a lot of craft and she had about 200 black robots on the ground. Then when they were all deactivated I went to Chene, and she had a load of them dressed as tin soldiers which were smashing through windows just as I came there” he said.