The Princelings of the East

by Jemima Pett

  Chapter 9: Relativity

  In which George gets his lines crossed and asks a Vexed Question

  The light was whirling all around him again. He felt himself lifted off his feet and whooshed around; he felt like an autumn leaf tossed in a storm. His stomach felt all funny and he clenched it to stop it feeling quite so bad. He landed not quite on all fours on a nice earthy smelling tunnel and he rolled over a couple of times before finding his feet.

  This must be the tunnel from Castle in the Marsh to … wherever Fred went, thought George. The one I’ve fallen out of is the time tunnel one. He turned carefully and sure enough, there was a little ring of lights, glowing faintly now they had done their job with him. He wondered whether anyone would follow him from Castle Hattan. That idea alarmed him a little and he took two steps down towards the damper smell, the way home, before he realised that Fred wouldn’t be there. He still had to work out what to do about the Energy Drain, and so it would be pointless to arrive back at his home castle. He turned around and started walking briskly up the only tunnel he hadn’t been along so far.

  It was a long way.

  It was very boring.

  He imagined there was a funny echoing noise of his footsteps that seemed to be getting louder.

  It sounded more like running feet coming towards him, and they weren't his. He pressed himself against a wall. A large shape, possibly black and white although he really couldn’t tell that well in the blackness of the tunnel (even his eyes weren’t good enough for that), rushed past him and disappeared into the distance.

  George stepped back into the main corridor and continued on his way, puzzling over this event. It didn’t take him long to work out that it must be Mariusz heading back to Castle Hattan where he would arrive... when? How did the time tunnel work? What were the rules of time travel? What governed the time you arrived at the other end?

  He plodded on and on, with only a few breaks when he came to little alcoves in the wall. The lucky thing was, he found himself still holding the bag with the little trays of food from the diner, so he was able to refresh himself at these stops with leftover stuffed peppers. He still didn’t like the courgettes, but he decided to keep them in case he got desperate.

  After many hours and several rests, he could see a light ahead of him. At last, he emerged into a sunlit square with an inn in the middle that served lovely refreshing strawberry juice. He took a seat at an outside table at the Inn of the Seventh Happiness and rubbed his sore feet. It helped him take his mind off his journey here, and he thought he probably needed to empty it for a while before he had any further adventures.

  People came and went as he sat there, nursing his drink and his feet. As he revived, he started to look about him more, enjoying the sunshine and the view. He recognised the signs of a couple of castles that were made by people that greeted each other, and a couple were flicked his way, in which case he returned his own, which always produced a welcoming smile from the other person, although they were usually in a hurry to depart. Three of the tunnel exits seemed particularly popular. No one went down the one from which he had emerged.

  As the afternoon turned into sundown, he went indoors and asked at the bar whether it was possible to stay the night. The young barkeeper, who had been absent when George arrived, looked him up and down. “You wouldn’t be George, would you?” he asked.

  George was surprised, but he nodded, and the young person explained that Fred had been worried about him. Just then, a large carriage arrived at the staging post in front of the inn, and hordes of passengers poured in.

  “I’ve got a room for you,” called the barkeeper, as he became a whirl of activity serving everyone at once and allocating some of them rooms.

  George picked up the refill of juice and returned outside, but it was noisy there. Workers were arguing, transferring luggage onto smaller wagons, buyers pushing small animals into cages squawkingly, and a few traders wandering around selling items like sweets and books for the journey to come. He wandered around the market stalls and looked at the clothing and fabric, and souvenirs of far off places. He looked through postcards of beautiful castles... none of Castle in the Marsh, he noticed, not surprised at all. There were three different views of Castle Vexstein and Castle Buckmore, and two of Castles Powell, Fortune and Dimerie, and about seven others with just one view each. He thought Buckmore looked very pleasant, a nice place to live; Vexstein looked very imposing, perched high up in the mountains but with lush fields below. The others looked like variations on the same theme as Marsh, but with different types of landscape around them.

  When he got back to his starting point the rush had disappeared; there were plenty of people in the inn and some people were eating. He looked through the menu and decided on the Melange Excel, and enjoyed the crunchiness of the mixture when it arrived. Gradually the events of the last couple of days started to creep back upon him, and he decided he needed to be somewhere quiet to work out what to do next. He went back to the bar.

  “Er, please could I go to my room now?” he asked the barkeeper as he rushed past once more.

  “Yes, sir. Be right with you. Any moment,” was the response over his shoulder as he dashed in the other direction. Sure enough, it was only a few minutes before the barkeeper came back. He took him across the room and down a spiral staircase.

  “Sorry about the rush. Always a busy time.”

  He led George into a small cubbyhole saying, “Your brother stayed here. I’ll come back later - explain. Food good? Any more needed? Or drink?” and on receiving negatives to these last two, he dashed out. George lay down on the corner bed and allowed his thoughts to run free again.

  He was reasonably sure that the time tunnel was caused by the energy sink caused by the production of Diet Wozna. There was too much spare energy flying around from that process. From what Saku had said, the time tunnel had appeared not long after they went into full production of it. But how was it connected to the Energy Drain - if indeed it was? Was that the effect the time tunnel had on this end? Why? What made the big power drains? Why didn’t they happen all the time?

  He didn’t find any answers to these questions, so his mind drifted to the other events. Why had Mariusz been rushing back along the corridor? Had he had time to get here and receive news that needed instant action? What time would it be when he got back to Hattan? It seemed to be twelve years ahead of here, but exactly what day and time? Would that be before George’s arrival or after his departure? George didn’t know much about time tunnels, and they were all fictional or theoretical anyway. From what he'd read there were plenty of conflicting theories. One of the most important theories was about meeting yourself, or younger versions of yourself. Some people described it as a paradox, others that it couldn’t happen and still others said you would both explode or something, as you couldn’t be in the same place as yourself at the same time. If that was the case, then was the Mariusz who had run past him to get back to Hattan going to arrive before George arrived or just before he left?

  George thought about Mariusz, who had both left and returned to Hattan when George and Saku were in the sky courtyard after their evening out. It made sense if the Mariusz who thought he and Saku were going to halt production to test their theory was rushing back to stop them. In doing that, he had caused George’s own abrupt departure. George wondered if Mariusz’s visit here, to the east lands, had given him some special information for whatever was going to happen when he got back to Saku. Why had it been so important for him to leave at midnight instead of hearing them out, though?

  How long after George had left Hattan would Mariusz come back here?

  These were all things George did not and could not know unless he went back again. He thought about that. He then decided that going back would be the last thing he did. He did not want to face Lord Mariusz again. But how could he stop the Energy Drain without stopping the time tunnel?
If he had to stop the time tunnel working, he did not want to be on the far side of it when it stopped.

  And with that slightly uncomfortable thought, he fell asleep.