Metronome

by Oliver Langmead

  Thyme simply nods, clutching weakly at his sword.

  Hesitantly, we make to leave, and it takes me far longer than it should to realise exactly why I am so hesitant. Again, I draw March’s bulky metal compass, and again I see that there are only three needles upon its surface. Thyme does not have a needle. I pause, wondering what it means. If Thyme is not dreaming, or a nightmare, then he must be a figment. But what kind of figment? And if Thyme is a figment, then just who is dreaming him?

  I turn back, just in time to see the old knight stand, ice tumbling from his back.

  Across his bloody face is his wolfish grin. He clutches at the hilt of his sword.

  ‘I saw thee!’ he cries. ‘I saw thee on the rise, whenst thou drewest my dull blade and gave it light! Thou art the spark, Manderlay the Bard, that ignites the blade! Thy faith is fire, and thy faith shall be rewarded! I promise thee, thy faith shall be rewarded a thousand-fold!’

  When Thyme draws his sword the white fires gush again around it, and too late I realise what it is for, the purpose of all his lies about it. His sword is not just a weapon.

  I try to run across, to throw myself at him and stop him from doing what he is about to do, but there is no time. I can only stumble short and watch in horror as he raises the red-hot blade, flames licking at the sky, and brings it down in a clean arc.

  The divide between the doors melts like butter. With a clink, the burning blade meets the ground, and the severance is done. Thyme’s sword was never just a weapon. It was a key.

  There is a pause, like the world is taking a great breath, before the enormous silver doors slam inwards, sending shards of ice spinning. With the sudden rushing of air, Thyme falls to his knees. Beyond the doors is a terrible blackness. I am awed and terrified by the open prison. On his knees, Thyme raises his free hand and his bloody face, still grinning that wretched grin, as if in tribute to the thick dark before him.

  There comes a terrible shape from the black.

  Titanic fingers emerge, followed by the rest of a giant human hand, all of which barely squeezes through the gaping opening. Where that horrifying appendage taps the ground, searching, it causes the earth to tremble and jump. And beyond, in the dark, I can just about make out the wrist joining the monstrous hand to something impossibly huge.

  The hand sweeps ponderously around until it finds Thyme, and it snatches him up like a rag doll in the hand of a child. The last liar is pulled into the open prison, leaving nothing behind but his manic, echoing laughter, and the burning sword, which clatters to the ground, still bright.

  Then nothing. Nothing but the darkness and my horror.

  The ancient prison has been opened.

  *

  We stand in silence for a long time. The opening of the prison remains dark and no more horrifying creatures emerge. I suppose I had been expecting the advance of an obviously evil figure, something with horns and hooves, wearing a cloak of shadows and a crown of bone. When March talked about nightmare kings, I imagined terribly warped visions of monarchs with cruelty in their eyes, and when Thyme talked about God’s own nightmares I imagined fallen angels and demonic chthonians. But there is nothing. Nothing but the horror of the empty darkness and the memory of the titanic hand.

  ‘I need to go after him,’ I say.

  Reid watches the dark beyond the open prison doorway and shakes her head. ‘You would be a fool to do so, Manderlay. I have read hints of what lies within: an unnamed beast from beyond time, an invention of madness, an aspect of something that should have remained forgotten. Whatever you owe your friend, it’s not worth confronting whatever occupies that darkness.’

  I glance at Slint, as if he will offer an answer.

  ‘I can’t just leave him.’

  ‘Return to Babel with me,’ says the Captain. She is standing tall again. Her stature is regal within her new black coat, and when she regards me, she does so soberly, as if some internal storm of madness has lifted within her. ‘Dream the rest of your dream sailing the skies. We’ll gather the crew and find new horizons to venture, free of Sleepwalkers and their quarrels.’

  The offer is very tempting.

  ‘If I’m quick, I can find Thyme and we can all leave together.’

  ‘You and I both know if you enter that prison, you won’t be leaving it.’ The fallen burning sword casts weird shadows and reflections across the ice and silver encrusting the gaping mouth of the open cage. I watch those flames flicker.

  I retrieve my old notebook from its pocket, and flick through its ear-marked pages. The songs that led us here are still all intact. ‘Here,’ I say, and I offer it out to Captain Reid. ‘All the songs you’ll need to find your way back. Just follow them in reverse order.’

  She takes the book with a nod of thanks. ‘I’ll return to the beach, then, see how much I can salvage of the Metronome. Mayhap a raft with enough of a tick to weather the storm and seas from here to the Golden Gate. But I’ll walk slow, Manderlay. I’ll take my time. Find your friend. Run quick enough and you might catch me before I’m gone.’

  ‘Thanks, Captain.’

  We shake hands. I turn to Slint. He is observing me through his pitch-black porthole. ‘It’s up to you,’ I tell him. ‘I’d be grateful for your help, but if you’d rather go with the Captain, then I won’t blame you.’

  The dark diver gives me no response, but he follows when I approach the prison entrance. I am glad that he has decided to come along.

  I stoop before the almighty dark of the prison and grab the burning sword by its hilt. Its heat is a comfort against the chill, and by its light I intend to try and navigate the interior. With a deep breath, I advance, taking one last glance back at Reid before she leaves, black coat billowing around her, head up high.

  The burning sword illuminates silver walls, casting my reflection back at me a hundred times. I can feel the cold of the ice-silver floor through my shoes.

  A few steps inside and I realise that Slint is not following. I turn to see that he is having trouble at the entrance. When he attempts to tread the silver ground of the prison a terrible wreathing of frost grips his boot. He snaps his foot back as if he has trodden on something sharp. The ice-silver is hurting him.

  ‘Go with Reid!’ I call to him. ‘And… thanks. Thanks for everything, Slint.’

  He is still for a moment. I can see the glint of the gold across the chest of his suit, where the string from my violin holds him together. He is slanted, with one leg shorter than the other.

  When he raises his single remaining arm, he folds his hand into that same universally recognisable symbol from before. Forefinger to thumb, other fingers splayed. Okay, Slint is saying, one more time. Okay.

  The Magician

  This is a strange place.

  Where I tread the crystalline passage my feet cause musical echoes, as if the walls are chimes. The cold is bitter and relentless, and my teeth are chattering despite my proximity to the burning sword. I have left the prison’s entrance long behind, and now the sword’s flames are the only light source, reflected from a thousand uneven silver surfaces back at me.

  ‘Thyme?’ I call. My voice echoes weirdly.

  The passage is gradually sloping downwards. I keep both hands around the hilt of Thyme’s sword, pointed at the dark as if I might divide it in two. I descend into the depths of the ancient prison this way, dearly wishing that I could have just left with Reid. But I need to find out what has happened to Thyme. I owe him that much.

  The passage starts to open up. The ceiling slowly lifts away, along with the walls, until they are a distant glinting, and then nothing at all. I am surrounded by the dark, with only the cold silver floor beneath me. At first the echoes of my footfalls sound scattered and strange, as if I am navigating through a dark church, and then a cathedral, but then the echoes stop altogether. When I call out, my voice sounds so small.

  ‘Thyme? Where are you?’

  I draw March’s compass and examine its face, but there are no answers there. Dozens
of needles turn and spin aimlessly, some in colours I have not seen before. As I watch them dance, a hairline fracture cracks the glass. Quickly I find a handkerchief and wrap the compass up, hoping to save it from further damage.

  I carry on, shivering in the cold.

  Hunched against the dark, I notice that the path is beginning to thin. On both sides, I can see a ragged, crystalline edge with a drop beyond, and as I continue it slowly draws in. Eventually, the path becomes barely wide enough to contain me, and I find myself sweeping the sword over the perilous emptiness to either side as if I might banish the dark. But there is nothing. Nothing but me and the thin ice-silver road, thinning into nothingness.

  Then, the road stops altogether.

  I am confronted by a profound darkness. The path stops at a knife-sharp edge, as if it is pointing into the abyss. I am humbled by that emptiness. It gnaws at my extremities, numbing me, and I realise that I am blinking frost away from my eyes. Even the burning sword’s flames crackle low across its blade.

  ‘Thyme?’ I try, but the silence swallows my call.

  As I go to turn back, defeated by the empty prison with its impossible geography, I catch sight of something below. Kneeling at the edge of the road, I hold the sword aloft and illuminate a surface down there. It looks like wrinkled cloth, spread across the ground a few feet below. A way forward, after all. I lower myself as far as I am able over the edge, and let myself drop.

  An eternity in the dark before I land. Hauling myself back up to my feet, I examine this new place by the wavering flames of Thyme’s sword, which are now blue.

  While the air is still bitterly cold, this surface is warm and uneven, and the burgundy cloth spread across it rolls off to either side of me. There is a slope, and I imagine that this is a new path through the prison. I descend along it.

  There is a faint booming that at first I mistake for my own heart beating. I stop a moment, turning to and fro to try and locate the source of the slow beat, before crouching, and feeling the ground tremble. The rhythmic thudding is coming from beneath the cloth – from the path itself. Warily, I stand.

  A deep voice rumbles from somewhere beyond.

  ‘I see you,’ it says.

  Suddenly there is a great, warm wind gushing at me. I struggle to remain standing as it gets stronger and stronger, pushing me forward. The flames of the burning sword gutter, and in one horrifying moment are extinguished, leaving nothing but a slightly glowing blade. Then complete blackness, and I am tumbling through it, driven on by that powerful warm wind, rolling down the path and crying out in confusion and fright. Somehow I manage to keep hold of Thyme’s sword, but I am unable to get a grip on the path.

  I come to a halt. The ground is warm and leathery, but no longer sloped. I spend a few moments simply catching my breath on my back and letting my eyes adjust. There is light here. It is only a small beacon, a distant orb above like a burning yellow light bulb, but it illuminates me and the strange pillars that surround me.

  Wavering, I stand, and turning on the spot, I realise with horror what those pillars are. There are five of them – fingers. The surface I am standing on is a gigantic palm, and the faint booming I can hear even clearer now is the beating of a titanic heart, forcing blood through veins like pipes. Desperately I look for a means of escape, but I am trapped here, caged in by the fingers around me. Thyme’s sword is no use; it no longer burns.

  ‘Where is Thyme?’ I cry.

  The tremendous voice rumbles again, vibrating through me. ‘Thyme never existed. He was an idea, an idle thought, a piece of me. If it’s any comfort, he’s a part of me again now. I know him inside and out. And he’s very grateful for your help. We both are.’

  There is movement beneath me, and I fall back to the ground. The giant hand is moving: ascending. Its fingers widen, allowing me a better view. I am drawn close to the burning orb, and for a moment I find myself hypnotised by it. It looks so familiar, but I only realise why when I catch sight of the dark orbs spinning around it.

  ‘I wanted to show you,’ says the voice. ‘I wanted you to see.’

  ‘Is that… Is that a solar system?’

  There is a deep rumbling that might be assent. ‘I made them a long time ago. They live on the third planet. All they do is quarrel and pray and die. There isn’t a single original thought among them. It’s like a mirror. It’s like I’ve been watching me kill myself for eternities. Endlessly dull.’ The voice pauses. I try and locate the third planet from the sun, but it is difficult to tell.

  ‘Recently,’ says the voice, ‘I’ve been plucking the stars from their sky, one by one. But all it did was make them kill each other faster.’ There is a sound that might be an avalanche, or might be laughter. ‘They’ve been blaming each other for it. Not enough prayers, not enough offerings, not enough faith. But it’s all pointless. A dull game. A predictable, boring game. This is what I’ve been reduced to. This is what you’ve saved me from.’

  I feel a terrified awe gripping me.

  Another giant hand comes into view. It encompasses the solar system hanging in the dark, and with no more than a squeeze, snuffs the whole lot out like a candle. ‘Enough of that,’ rumbles the voice. ‘I’m free now, thanks to you. No more of that nonsense.’

  My breath catches in my throat. ‘But…’ I manage.

  ‘Don’t worry about them. They were nothing but idle thoughts – idle dreams, like your friend Thyme. We can always make more if we need to.’ The hand beneath me shifts again, and I realise that even though that small sun is gone, there is still something casting light in the dark. Inevitably, I am drawn to the other source of light, which is white and flickering.

  It is an eye. A gargantuan eye, full of static light, as if it is an enormous oval television screen. I try and shuffle away from that horrifying sight, but the palm draws me closer until it is all I can see. Like a hellish snowstorm, the eye watches me scramble. ‘Please!’ I say, and there is that avalanche sound again, but so much louder. The eye squints as the giant laughs, causing the static storm to dance.

  ‘Let’s go,’ says the voice. ‘Enough of this place.’ And the whole world shifts around me.

  *

  There is a lurching sensation, then vertigo. It feels as if I am pulled apart and put back together in a single instant, or perhaps the opposite: that it is everything except me that has been torn up and repaired. Suddenly I am somewhere warm and bright.

  The sky is a blinding blue.

  Sand. I am standing in sand. I crouch and raise a handful, sifting it through my fingers, and see that there are tiny cogs mingled with the grains. Around me more parts stick up from the sands, and the bulk of the ruined Metronome flounders nearby like a beached clockwork whale. I am back on the beach. There is no sign of the giant. Instead, a familiar figure is stood nearby. I frown, standing tall again. ‘Thyme?’

  He stretches in the sunlight and his chain mail and armour reflect it brilliantly, brought to a mirror shine. His stained tabard is now a fresh creamy white and he even wears a white cloak, gushing majestically across his shoulders. Somehow, he seems taller than before, and his silvery beard and hair have been combed back, revealing a face not pointed and grinning, but encompassed by a benevolent smile so genuine that it is almost enough to make me forget my existential terror for my gladness.

  ‘I thought you’d appreciate a familiar face,’ says Thyme. Except this is not Thyme after all. This version of him has the giant’s eyes; they are each a static storm. I hold my ground, unsure how to react. Somehow, the giant has made himself small. And maybe it was my conversation with June, but I am reminded of the stories of Hanuman – the trickster monkey god who could change his size at will, and used that power for all manner of clever mischiefs.

  ‘Thyme was your figment, then?’ I ask.

  The creature who looks like Thyme stands before the brilliant blue sea and seems to be admiring it, or looking around for something. Instead of answering my question he says, ‘Ah, there it is,’ and raises
one hand, as if he is bidding the moon to rise from the horizon. A long length of twisted brass emerges from between the waves, as if tugged on invisible strings. It hangs in the air, dripping and suspended before him.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The creature wearing Thyme’s face glances back at me, still smiling with a genuine joy that defies the old knight’s pointed face. ‘There were two brothers,’ he says, and he continues talking as he raises his other hand, conjuring pieces of the fallen Metronome around in the air as if he is a conductor and they are his orchestra. ‘They each owned a modest farm, and were each married to a modest wife, and each had modest children. Every year they struggled by. But both were pious, and worshipped the Lord and His teachings unquestioningly, and in that way, they were happy.

  ‘One day, when they both mounted the hill upon which they had built for themselves a small place of worship, they saw an angel waiting there. The angel was tall, and proud, and had great white wings that seemed to encompass the whole horizon. The angel was also armoured, and battle-scarred, and in one hand he held a broken spear. The two brothers fell to their knees when they saw him, and pressed their hands together in worship.

  ‘“Behold,” said the angel. “The Lord has sent me to gift thee both with wealth, for He knows well of thy piety, and wishes to reward it.” And standing beside the angel was indeed a heavy-looking chest, which the angel opened to reveal hundreds of gold coins.

  ‘The first brother looked upon the wealth, and said, “This must be a test, surely?”

  ‘And the second brother looked upon the angel, with his battle-worn armour and broken spear, and said, “Are you a tempter, sent to tempt us?”

  ‘And the angel said, “This is no test, and no temptation. This is the generosity of the Lord.”

  ‘The first brother stood, bowed and said, “I will not accept this gift, because it must be a test, and I must prove my humility to the Lord.” And he turned away, and left the hillside, and the angel, and the chest full of gold.