by Paul Meloy
STEVE CAME OVER and knelt by his daughter. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
Chloe nodded. She had regained her colour. She tilted her head and let her dad kiss her cheek. She touched his face, smiled.
“Very composed, isn’t she?” Trevena said, getting to his feet.
“Very,” said Steve.
“You think Chapel’s a Firmament Surgeon?”
“Yes,” Chloe said. “He’s being corrupted. He’s not an Autoscope yet. He hasn’t entirely fallen. Something is stopping that happening. I could feel it, his resistance.”
Trevena looked around the room seeking confirmation or denial from the others, but they all looked as perplexed by Chloe’s revelation as he felt.
“I think it’s time to see Doctor Mocking,” Trevena said.
ELIZABETH LED TREVENA up a wide staircase onto an airy landing.
“They’re in here,” she said. It had been seven years since Trevena had seen Elizabeth. Those years had been kind to her.
“You look happy,” he said.
“I have a good man.”
“I know that for sure. It’s going to be strange seeing them all again. I’m not sure how I feel. I’m not like them. I might implode or something.”
Elizabeth laughed. “I’m like you,” she said. “And I’ve been bringing them all snacks and drinks all bloody day since they arrived. If anyone’s going to implode, it’ll be me. Go on in, Phil. They’re all looking forward to seeing you.”
Not entirely mollified, Trevena opened the bedroom door and went in.
THEIR GREETING DISPELLED any fears he might have had. Bismuth lifted a hand from a huge leather armchair in the corner of the room and nodded. Alex and Eliot stepped up and shook his hand with the firm grips of boys on the edge of manhood, heartening, testing squeezes. They looked strong and fit and just a little wild. A big hug and a kiss from Anna, Lesley’s younger sister. She grabbed him by the neck and put her head on his shoulder and Trevena was transported back to a time on a benighted promenade when she held onto him like that, a little girl terrified but finally safe. Jon Index gripped his elbow as he shook and Trevena was suffused with relief that the man’s presence hadn’t brought on a stroke. Of them all, Index made him feel as weak as a kitten. John Stainwright smiled and nodded from where he stood in the recess of the bay window; Trevena knew him least, a quiet, peaceful, introspective man whom he nonetheless respected as much as he did the others.
Trevena muttered hellos and did his best to keep his dignity, but when Daniel stepped around the bed and hugged him, Trevena’s resolve broke and he felt tears well up, prickling and uncomfortable. He swiped the back of his hand across his face and sniffed. He looked at Daniel and saw, to his surprise, that he, too, was fighting back the tears. The harmony of their emotions gave Trevena back the dignity he felt he was losing.
“Thanks for coming, Phil,” Daniel said.
“Look at you,” Trevena said. “Pull yourself together, man.” He sniffed again and laughed.
“Phil.”
Trevena walked up to the side of the bed.
“Hi Doc,” he said. He took the doctor’s proffered hand. There was still strength to the grip, but Doctor Mocking looked frail and tired, propped up with the pillows against the cast iron headboard of his modest single bed.
“Sit down here beside me.”
Trevena sat on the edge of the bed.
“It’s good to see you again,” Doctor Mocking said. “Are things well?”
Trevena felt a surge of strong emotion again and willed it down, suppressing it as best he could. “I’m good,” he managed to say. “Thanks to you.”
Doctor Mocking closed his eyes and patted the back of Trevena’s hand.
“I’m pleased,” he said. Then he opened his eyes and looked around the room. “Right. Help me sit up a bit. We need to talk.”
THINK OF IT like a handover, thought Trevena. Keep it simple and be professional. He swallowed, his mouth dry. The expectant faces of the people surrounding him made him feel inadequate to the task of conveying his information. He knew something of these extraordinary beings, but he realised that it was at best patchy. There were few of them left and those that remained had been scattered, almost destroyed by the devil-in-dreams and his ruthless Autoscopes in a war over aeons for control of Dark Time. Trevena had watched them come together, rally themselves, and become the Night Clock, taking command of Dark Time and the dreams it made possible. It needed all ten of them to make it theirs, otherwise they did not have the cohesion to possess it and the Autoscopes would gain authority over the Night Clock, as sickening as that sounded, and dreams would cease. Dark Time would run down forever, evaporate, its phantasmagorical infinity obliterated. And the Quays, those cities and lands woven by the Firmament Surgeons for the purpose of safety and the principles of plenitude would be destroyed, laid waste and consumed by entropy.
If Doctor Mocking died, what of the Night Clock?
Trevena looked down at his hands. The room was hushed, deferential.
Imagine they’re all Consultants, he thought. Which, he supposed, they were.
Speaking with care, keeping to the facts, Trevena told them everything that had happened since Andrew Chapel had come for his first assessment.
DOCTOR MOCKING WAS speaking.
“We’ve spent the last seven years trying to destroy as many of the Autoscopes as we can. A task made easier because they are confused, disorganised without the influence of the devil-in-dreams. But they greatly outnumbered us so progress has been slow. We are starting to encounter more of the Higher Ones, though, which could mean one of two things. They are perhaps depleted to the point where the generals are being flushed into battle, or the containment we set up to hold the devil-in-dreams is failing. I imagine it’s probably both, based on the evidence you gave us, Phil. It confirms what I theorised.
“In anticipation of one of us dying, or being killed, we have made every effort to weaken the Autoscopes’ power, but with the threat of the devil-in-dreams breaking out it would have been for nothing. It is imperative we seal the breach and arrest whatever is causing it.
“Chloe is correct. Andrew Chapel is key to this. He’s fighting whatever is happening to him. Both by his suicide attempt and by coming to you, Phil. He is, however, incredibly conflicted and we need to find him before he is lost forever.
“What do we think about Barry Cook’s head?”
“It’s simple,” Daniel said. “We fucked up.”
Doctor Mocking nodded.
“We did,” he said. “Do you want to elaborate, Daniel?”
Daniel was sitting on a blanket box at the foot of the doctor’s bed. He ran a hand over his face.
“We left his body burning in a field. We made assumptions. We assumed that his family would conceal evidence for form’s sake. We thought they would accept it as suicide and that the police would be disinclined to investigate thoroughly because of his history. Relief for the family at last and one less sex offender for the force to worry about. But they obviously didn’t report him dead and probably told the police and probation he’d gone missing. Phil, he’d been one of your patients. Did you get an alert?”
Trevena shook his head. “He wasn’t on the books at the time. Slipped through the net. Nothing new. Maybe, because I knew what had happened, I didn’t look out for it.”
“Not your fault. This is down to us. I think the devil-in-dreams managed to reach out to Barry’s family before it was contained. They were in a hypnopompic state but I was casting it very wide, much wider than I have before, and I think it must have given the devil-in-dreams a split second to send a message or implant a beacon.”
“Both. The family heard the message. The head’s the beacon,” Jon Index said. “They kept it frozen for seven years. We sealed the devil-in-dreams in a Quay in a dead man’s dream and we thought it had burned. It didn’t. Something remains and it’s gathering its forces to break it out. Doctor Mocking’s approaching death has weakened us an
d strengthened them.”
Trevena wondered at the frankness of Index’s comments but he considered the ways of these beings and put his ethics in perspective. Doctor Mocking spoke again, and confirmed Trevena’s thoughts.
“We need to make a decision. I’m sick and I’m dying. If I die here then I will be reborn. But what use will I be to you as a baby? And you will have to track me down. Chloe might be able to do it faster than all of the rest of you put together, but that is untested. While you’re distracted looking for me, the devil-in-dreams would break out. If I go back to my Quay I’ll live on but I won’t ever be able to come back through, and without the ability to travel between times I will be a weakened component of the Night Clock and this will empower the devil-in-dreams to come after me there. If I die in my Quay I am gone forever, never to be reborn.
“So, I have a theory, and it entails a request and your faith.” He paused. Trevena looked around the room. Everyone was standing, pressed together around the bed. Anna and Lesley were by their father’s side. “I am going back to the Compartment. I might die there, but the result is unknown. It is worth the risk. There is someone there I need to find. And, because I am so weak, I will need one of you to come with me.”
EVERYONE HAD AN opinion on that and the confusion of their voices brought Elizabeth, Steve and Claire to the door. Chloe stood between her parents, holding her mother’s hand, listening intently as the discussion continued. The voices died down when Chloe spoke.
“Doctor Mocking’s right,” she said. “I’ll go with him.”
She let go of her mother’s hand and approached the bed. Doctor Mocking smiled and held out a hand. Chloe climbed up onto the bed beside him and looked into his eyes.
Daniel came over and stood next to Trevena.
“We don’t know what happens if a Firmament Surgeon dies in a Gantry. It’s something that has never happened. The Gantries take us from linear time through to the Quays and give us access to the Dark Time flux. They’re portals, but they’re neither part of this world or the world of the Quays. They’re immense, unfathomable even to us. It’s all the dimensions of God and we’re allowed narrow paths through it.”
Trevena knew some of this but the enormity of these portals had escaped him. He’d imagined them as gateways but his mind was too paltry to grasp their incalculable scope.
“Do you remember the name Robin Knox?” Daniel asked.
Trevena thought for a moment. The name was familiar. “He was one of you. He died before you could all get together.”
“He was attacked in a Gantry by Ray Cade. Cade burst through as it opened and Robin confronted him. The others got away but, as you know, Cade found a way into the Quays and snatched Anna.”
Trevena’s expression was grim. He remembered it all too clearly. The red castle, and the beast in the mirror, standing over the dying Doctor Mocking. “Cade’s dead.” He spoke it as a fact to calm himself, not as a question. He knew full well the fate of Cade, torn to shreds by the tiger, Bronze John.
“Doctor Mocking thinks Robin may still be there, trapped between the two worlds. Unable to be reborn and unable to return to the Quays. Lost.”
“How long have you known this?” Trevena was shocked, horrified to think of Robin wandering the chambers of God for the last seven years, in limbo, alone.
“It’s always been a theory. But there’s no way of knowing. Not until one of us goes back to the Compartment to find him. And that’s something we felt was best avoided.” Daniel was looking askance at Trevena as if reading his thoughts. Trevena felt abashed.
“We do have some evidence, though.”
It was Bismuth’s time to speak.
"I WAS LOST. Lost in a labyrinth of golden Looms. The paths were everlasting and the light a desert brightness. The Looms were immense, like cathedrals and they wove and wove and wove, on and on, the blistering fabric of God. He creates, and creates, and all I could hear was a thundering sound I knew was a Word. A Word that drove the shuttles and pedalled the Looms. There was clockwork, too, cogs the size of Saturn’s rings, all turning in spirals a million miles away towards a terrible, blinding rim. The rim was no end to the place. It was like the wall of a cell, and beyond it an infinity of others like it. I wandered, lost in grief. A grief that had unhinged me and sent me out into this vastness to go insane. I wanted to go insane because that thing, that devil-in-dreams, had broken me. I had been locked into a loop of Dark Time and relived the loss of my father forever. I loved my father. I had thrown myself from the path of the Gantry to thwart the devil-in-dreams and break free of the loop. But I was lost. My friend searched for me and found me. Doctor Mocking risked himself, his sanity, to walk the labyrinth and save me. Without him there would be no Night Clock. There would be nothing. We must trust him. I was not dead and my life force led Doctor Mocking to me, but if we can breach the threshold and survive then perhaps Robin has survived, too. It is pure creation energy there. How can anything truly die?”
"CHAPEL IS CAUSING ripples,” Doctor Mocking said. He was sitting up against his pillows. Lesley and Anna had helped him get dressed. He was wearing a black suit and tie, and a long black coat. His shoes were black and shiny. Everyone stood in anticipation around the bed. Chloe sat beside Doctor Mocking and held his hand. “If we can find Robin and free him from beyond the Gantry it might give us enough power to find this breach and seal it. I leave the rest of you to find Andrew Chapel and take care of the remains of Barry Cook.”
They said goodbyes then. Doctor Mocking and Chloe were kissed and held. Claire and Steve had a moment to hold Chloe but they were so distressed Lesley and Elizabeth took them from the room and away to comfort them. Chloe had gone into a semi-trance; her eyes shone but did not focus on anyone in the room.
Doctor Mocking closed his eyes. He squeezed Chloe’s hand. “Are you ready, my angel?” he said.
“We’re there,” Chloe said.
DOCTOR MOCKING OPENED his eyes.
He and Chloe were standing on a golden path. Ahead the Gantry was open, the portal to a Quay. The portal was a few steps away. It was a billion miles away.
Chloe was holding his hand. He smiled at her.
“I don’t feel dead,” he said. His voice had a quality of brightness, a belling of sound both divine and unfamiliar. He realised he had never uttered a word in transit before.
He laughed, and that sound was truly enormous, a shofar sound, haunting and booming. He moved his lips in a musician’s embouchure, tightened the muscles of his cheeks, and the sound of his laugh lengthened, bugled, and Chloe laughed beside him, and Doctor Mocking had to cover his ears because the sound was so lovely he could hardly bear it.
“I don’t think you can die here,” Chloe said. “In-between. You can get lost, but not die.” Her voice was gorgeous, the World’s songbirds’ entire twilight chorus.
Doctor Mocking pointed outwards, beyond the shimmering wall of light that was the margin of the path.
“Can we find him, do you think, Chloe?”
Chloe walked to the edge of the path. She put out a hand and the light pattered and jumped on her palm, parting in a gleaming, brazen tear where she touched it. They could hear the sound of the Gantry, the enormity of it, telling of unendurable distances beyond and forever.
“I know where he is,” Chloe said. “I can feel him.”
Doctor Mocking went to her side.
Holding hands once again, they stepped through the wall of light.
THEY LEFT DOCTOR Mocking’s house and travelled in two cars through Norfolk to a caravan park near the coast of Invidisham-next-the-Sea. John Stainwright lived there in a refurbished static caravan, and they agreed it would make a good base from which to plan their next moves. It also gave Elizabeth the space she said she wanted for Steve and Claire. They wanted to be at the house, close to where they had last seen their daughter. In case she returned there, alone, frightened, hurt; they were in shock, devastated, but allowed Elizabeth to console them. Index withdrew to Doctor Mockin
g’s study. He, too, would stay, to protect and monitor.
Trevena rode in John Stainwright’s antique white Hillman Minx. It smelt of dog and old leather. Alex and Eliot sat on the big bench back seat rattling about without the advantage of seat belts. Trevena had pulled a couple of old fabric straps across his lap and fitted them together with a hinged clip.
“Is this even legal?” he asked as they pulled away from the curb outside Doctor Mocking’s house with a lurch. He held onto the armrests.
“Not particularly,” John said.
Daniel followed in a muddy green army jeep. It suited him, with his short grey beard, creased, sun-swept face, desert boots and long khaki coat. Bismuth sat beside him looking grim and uncomfortable with Lesley and Anna in the back.
They pulled off the main road and turned down a smart, well-kept tarmac drive. The sign at the entrance read RESERVOIR END CARAVAN PARK.
They pulled up in a car park in front of a long single-storey building advertising gifts, coffee shop and reception. Ahead, broad boulevards stretched off into the park bordered by ranks of colourful static caravans. Most of them had small decking areas and bright, fluttering awnings. The grass was cut short and interspersed with tidy flowerbeds and shrubs.
“This is nice,” Trevena said, climbing stiffly from the Minx.
“We like it,” John said. “It suits us.”
Daniel swung the jeep in beside them and they all followed John along one of the boulevards. They came to one of the caravans and stopped. Trevena appraised it. It was painted an ocean blue and covered with sea-going paraphernalia. There were fishing nets, creels and lobster pots, red and white striped life buoy rings and multi-coloured floats and spinners. Portholes had been painted on the slatted wooden sides. Trevena thought it was another gift shop, but when John led them up into the cool of the interior he realised how wrong he was. He pushed through the rainbow strips of a fly blind and found himself in a small, shady clubhouse. There was a tiny bar in the corner lit up with fairy lights.