Anachronist
Page 18
Caitlin thought for a moment. ‘Yeah, that kind of fits.’
‘Have you known him long?’
‘Uncle Rufius has looked after me since I was ten.’ Her expression hardened a little. ‘As for Bedlam, it’s been a prison and a hospital — for the insane mostly. Depending on what you have done you can get sent to a different period of its history. There are quite a few seers in residence as well as a number of radical Chaosticians.’
Josh had never heard the colonel talk of anyone other than the group that sent him messages through his almanac. ‘Are they like the Copernicans?’ he asked, trying to sound like he knew something.
‘Copernicans! No,’ she exclaimed. ‘Radical Chaosticians are those that take direct action on the past, without permission or consequence protocols. Copernicans are the opposite, most are interfering old coin flippers. Did Rufius tell you about them?’
‘A bit. He said they try to predict the future?’
She shook her hair and then wrapped it in a towel. ‘That’s the general idea. There is a joke that goes something like “How many Copernicans does it take to change a lightbulb?” ’
‘How the hell should I know?’
‘Exactly!’ she laughed.
Josh couldn’t see what was so funny, but Caitlin was too busy giggling to notice.
‘I should warn you that Sim is an Actuary. That’s what they call you when you first join the Copernicans,’ she added once she realised that he hadn’t got the joke. ‘They spend most of their time staring at statistical analyses and risk factors. It takes them forever to make a decision about anything and even when they do they talk about probability rather than actual actions.’
‘Why did he join them? He’s more of a geek.’
‘Oh, Sim loves tech — the Copernicans have some of the most amazing computers.’
‘I thought you couldn’t take technology back into the past.’
She was impressed. ‘You can’t, but I didn’t say these were like present day PCs — these things are massive, like cathedral-size mechanical analytical engines. You have to see one to believe it.’
‘So did they predict that I was coming to the Library?’
Her cheeks flushed a little. ‘There was a sixty-three-point-two per cent chance that someone like you would be there, yes.’
‘How did they know?’
‘Because of the Watzenrode hypothesis. The change you made to history was predicted hundreds of years ago. It was one of two theoretical directions for the end of the Second World War and was debated for many years. There was a Copernican Master by the name of Lucas Watzenrode who was convinced that it was the correct course, but many others disagreed, and so it was never acted upon.’
Josh couldn’t conceive how anyone would have thought of something that far ahead — he had trouble deciding what to have for dinner tomorrow.
‘So this Whatshisface predicted that I would be in the library last Saturday?’ It was then that he realised it had only been a week since he’d stolen the medal. Elapsed time was hard to keep track of when you weren’t always in the same century for more than a day.
‘No, a difference engine and a whole floor full of actuaries probably did that, but they predicted it with a high probability.’
‘Sixty-three per cent isn’t that high,’ he objected.
‘It is for a Copernican. Most of their calculations never give you better than a fifty-fifty probability.’
‘So why didn’t the colonel just put it back the way it was?’
‘Because he was told not to.’
‘By the Copernicans?
‘Probably the founder. Uncle Rufius is a Watchman — his orders can be overridden by the Council.’
Josh’s head was full of questions, and every answer seemed to lead to new ones.
‘Why did Lyra kiss me?’
‘Seers need physical contact to make the connection. She is a little wild, likes to shock — it’s nothing personal. Unless of course you want it to be?’
Josh blushed a little and shook his head. ‘She’s a bit young for me!’
Caitlin smiled. ‘Don’t be distracted by her appearance. She’s over a hundred, which is young for us, but not for you.’
‘What were those marks on her arm?’
Caitlin sucked breath through her teeth. ‘Ah. Yes, those.’
Josh realised then that Lyra’s scars and wounds were obviously from self-harming and that he’d touched on a sensitive subject.
‘Seers tend to become obsessed with trying to understand the ways of the universe. They are a bit like poets, pondering the imponderable — the total opposite of the Copernicans with their logical minds.’ She stared into the fire as she continued. ‘Anyway, some of them become very interested in what happens at the point of death, how our timelines end and what occurs after...’
Josh could see the pain on her face even though she’d turned away. She was playing with something on her necklace.
‘Lyra used to try to take herself to the edge to see for herself. It’s called Reaving, and there are quite a few seers who have died or gone completely mad chasing the reaver.’
The moment was interrupted by Phileas walking in. He sat down next to Josh with a wet thud.
‘Sorry about that, Josh. My sister is a complete tart.’
They laughed, and Caitlin poured out some more Byzantine brandy.
30
Library
‘The first order of business,’ Methuselah announced over a lavish breakfast the next day, ‘is to complete the assessment of Josh’s range.’
They would begin each morning with a mission briefing in the Library, which had been annexed to the house and was only accessible via a portal at the back of the garden shed.
‘Why the shed?’ Josh asked Phileas as they walked down the garden path.
Phileas had been late down to breakfast and was holding half a bacon sandwich in one hand and a mug of tea in the other, alternating between the two as he tottered along the brick pathway. He was a couple of years older than Josh, who was sure he caught the distinctive whiff of booze on his breath.
‘It’s not really a shed,’ Phileas said before cramming in the last of the sandwich. ‘He calls it that to make it sound normal for the neighbours.’
From the outside, it looked every bit the kind of wooden shed that could be found at the bottom of any garden in England. Someone had chalked up some cricket stumps on one side of it, and there was the rusted iron ring of a netball hoop hanging redundantly above the door.
Methuselah, Caitlin and Lyra had already disappeared inside when Phileas and Josh reached it. The musty smell of oil and old grass cuttings engulfed Josh as he entered the dimly lit clutter.
‘Smells like a shed to me,’ Josh said to himself. He’d seen quite a few in his time.
‘Keep going,’ urged Phileas as he repositioned a hoe that had fallen from its peg.
Josh soon discovered that it was more like the entrance to a warehouse, albeit a long, thin corridor with what seemed an infinite number of shelves and cupboards. Along each side were hung every kind of garden tool imaginable, carefully placed on wooden pegs. They dated back hundreds of years. Josh picked up a scythe and examined the well-oiled blade.
‘Dad can’t help himself,’ Phileas said, taking the scythe back and hanging it on the wall. ‘Everyone in the Order is a bit of a collector — they tend to have their own personal storehouses.’
‘Why not just add the library to the house as another floor?’
‘It used to be. Mum had him move it out here a few years ago. She doesn’t like guests turning up unannounced and the library is a nexus for the Order; so any entrance to it is also an exit. She likes to know who’s coming.’ He pointed ahead of them. ‘Now here’s the portal.’
The door looked as if it has once been part of a castle. It was constructed from a grid of small wooden panels, metal studs had been driven through it at the cross sections to add strength. The lock was heavy, black iron wi
th a brass key protruding from it.
‘Why does everything have to be so Gothic with you guys? And where exactly is this library?’ Josh asked when he realised the door was only leaning up against the wall rather than being part of it.
Phileas put his tea down on a bench cluttered with mugs, placed his hand on the key and grabbed Josh’s robe. ‘I think you meant when is it?’ he smirked as he turned the key and the world twisted away.
The library was an immense cathedral of knowledge.
Towering columns of ancient books disappeared into an unseen ceiling far above him. It was as if someone had taken every book that had ever existed and built a Babylonian ziggurat around them.
As Josh’s eyes adjusted to the gloom he could make out a network of metal gantries and walkways stretching across the faces of the shelves; tiny figures moved across them on wired harnesses like trapeze artists. He looked back the way they had come and saw the small shed door propped against the wall — for some reason it reassured him.
‘Please take your seats!’ Methuselah’s voice rang out from somewhere up ahead. Josh and Phileas quickened their step towards it.
A group of kids were sitting in a small auditorium, a series of benched seats that went down into the wooden floor. Each of them had been keenly preparing to write every word that Methuselah was about to say until Phileas and Josh arrived, at which point everyone turned to stare at the late arrivals. It reminded Josh of his first day at his last school, after yet another exclusion; kids always had a particular way of staring at newcomers that was meant to destroy any form of self-confidence, but Josh had grown immune — he had been through it too many times.
‘Right. I only do this particular lecture once,’ Methuselah began, his booming voice disturbing the other scholars, creating a background of tutting and grumbling at the end of each of his sentences from the floors above them. He was standing in the centre of the auditorium with a book in one hand and a piece of chalk in the other. There was a blackboard with some of the temporal symbols that Josh had seen in the colonel’s book.
‘Today you will each receive an almanac. This is for training purposes only and is not to be used for keeping notes or writing love letters to each other.’ There was a definite undertone of a drill sergeant about his delivery. ‘For the next twelve weeks this document is your bible; I will use it to set you tasks, missions and to find you when you stray off the path. Guard it with your life — you will keep it throughout your entire second year of training. Those of you who have not passed year one, please be so kind as to take yourselves to Novicius in 11.728, where Miss Cavendish is expecting you.’
Three students disappeared in quick succession.
‘Does that include me?’ Josh whispered.
Phileas shook his head.
‘The almanac is a precious artefact,’ Methuselah continued as Lyra and Caitlin appeared from behind a nearby stack and began to hand around worn-looking journals as if they were songbooks at choir practice.
‘You must treasure these with your life, they are one of your only lifelines, without this or your tachyon you’re lost to us, not even the Draconians will be able to find you.’
As Lyra walked past Josh, she handed him a book and winked, he took it and opened it to find a hastily scribbled note.
‘Fancy another swim later? L. X.’ He looked up and caught Caitlin scowling at her stepsister. Methuselah was busy drawing something on the blackboard.
‘So this term we begin with the basics of ...’ his voice sounded like every other teacher Josh had ever endured, and he began to zone out. He started to flick through the rest of his book. At first glance, it was completely blank, and then suddenly it wasn’t; words and symbols began to appear across the surface of the yellowing paper — he thought it was never going to settle, but then slowly it coalesced into a flow chart of hieroglyphic pictures and numbers.
‘Your first assignment?’ Caitlin asked, peering over his shoulder.
‘I guess so. I’ve no idea what it means!’ he replied, showing her the book.
‘I think Methuselah has assumed you have completed the basics. I can help you with that.’
She walked off into the maze of books and he duly followed. He could still hear Methuselah’s voice in the background, but it was growing weaker.
‘So how long does the training take?’ Josh asked as they walked between the stacks. Each one was filled with old leather-bound volumes with golden hieroglyphs stamped onto their spines.
‘Depends on which guild you join.’ Caitlin’s voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘Basic training is four years, after that you specialise — unless you’re a seer of course then you’re in it for life.’
Above them, the moveable metal walkways clanked and whirred as the ladder systems reconfigured. Josh watched the small figures fly from one stack to another, collecting books in baskets on their backs like bees gathering pollen.
‘So who has the shortest training?’
Caitlin turned to look at him, ‘are you serious?’
‘What? I’m just asking!’
She sighed and began to enumerate on her fingers, ‘Fifteen years for Copernican, Scriptorian is eighteen, Draconian is only eight but you need to be invited. You can’t join the seers unless you’re born into it, so that leaves the Antiquarians which is an easy ten.’
‘Ten years! To do what? Catalog art?’
‘Time is a serious business — it’s not something you can just jump into and blag it.’
‘So how long does it take to become a Watchman?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘That’s not a route many would choose to take it’s not really a guild as such. They’re kind of outcasts — most don’t tend to live very long. Uncle Rufius is a bit of an exception.’
‘Great. Sounds like my kind of job.’
She ignored him. ‘So this first symbol 百 is “Bai”. It’s Chinese for “century”. The second is “Afoset”, which I think it originated from Akkadian. Anyway, that means fifteen or twenty-five, depending on how it’s used.’
‘So it’s basically a date?’ Josh said, staring at the characters as they moved around the page.
‘Yes, kind of. You have to learn to read the context. More like a riddle. The codification of time is not a concept of absolutes.’
‘Can’t you just tell me what it says?’ he pleaded, holding out the almanac.
She shook her head. ‘That would be cheating. You’ll never learn anything that way.’
She was right, of course, but cheating had got him through school and would have done the same for college if certain people had kept their mouths shut.
Caitlin took a book down from the shelf and handed it to him. The title was in English, but it looked as if it had been printed a thousand years ago: Codex: The Principal Symbols of Time.
‘I’m not good with books.’
‘Yes, I remember. Codex is mostly pictures and numbers. The best way is to take a couple of them at a time. Methuselah told me you need to test your range anyway, so we can kill two birds with one stone.’
‘Okay, where are we going in the fifteenth century?’ asked Josh, staring blankly at the other symbols on the page.
She took a pencil out and wrote down a series of numbers on the page. As she drew a line between each symbol and number, it seemed to pin it in place — like kites tethered in the wind.
‘The first one is a kind of longitude, not the one that you will have used on Google maps, but an older system — one the ancient Sea Kings were using thousands of years before Harrison rediscovered it in 11.770. It was one of the things that drew me to the Great Library of Alexandria — there is so much you can tell about a civilisation by their maps.’
‘So what do we use?’
‘I find Mercator’s projections are quite a good start,’ she said, pointing towards a large brown globe sitting in the middle of the table. ‘He was one of our best Nautonniers.’
Josh shrugged. ‘I have no idea what that means.’
‘And how long does it take to become one of them?’ he asked, trying to lighten the mood.
She punched him hard on the arm and smiled.
Thirty minutes later, Josh had scribbled a dozen or so notes next to the symbols and had an answer; he had enjoyed decrypting it, like a puzzle. It was more than just learning a new language.
‘So we’re going to Portugal, to find a lost map?’
‘Not just any map. This one shows the Antarctic coastline,’ she said excitedly.
‘So?’
‘So, it’s been covered by layers of ice for ten thousand years. This is proof that someone surveyed it a long time ago. We can use it to find out more about them.’
‘But why 1572?’
She sighed. ‘Try to use the Holocene time format, otherwise you sound like a linear.’
‘A linear?’
‘Someone who experiences time in one direction. Not one of us.’
‘1572 would be —’
‘11.572. It’s easy — you just have to add 10,000 and then divide by a 1,000.’
Easy for you maybe, thought Josh.
‘If you had bothered to read the mission brief, you would know there was an admiral known as Piri Reis. He was supposed to have discovered it and brought it back home in 1572. Shit, now you have me doing it!’
They both laughed.
She was looking around for the nearest staircase. ‘Our best bet would be in cartography. The Portuguese had a school dedicated to navigation; we’re bound to have some of their work. I think it’s four floors up and over there somewhere,’ she pointed above his head, ‘but they may have moved it. The Scriptorians are always reindexing stuff. They can never agree on the best system.’
‘Scriptorians?’
‘The guys on the flying trapezes,’ she said, pointing straight up. ‘The guild responsible for cataloguing everything — you would call them “Librarians”, I guess. It’s actually my guild,’ she said proudly.