Timelock

by David Klass

  “And that’s what the Dark Lord’s doing?” I ask. “How is he melting it?”

  “LOOK!” Kidah shouts, and extends an arm to point dramatically out at the distant depths. “There!”

  I peer in the indicated direction, but see nothing. “What is it?” I ask, dreading to hear the answer. “Is the Dark Lord coming to get us?”

  Before Kidah can answer, a bizarre shape pierces the farthest shadows—a gigantic spear, hurtling at us! Then I see that the spear has a massive cylindrical body behind it, pushing it forward. We’ve been targeted by a colossal sword-tipped torpedo! Another missile breaks out of the murk, and yet another. There must be dozens of them, bearing down on our fragile, bubble-topped boat.

  “What are they?” I ask. “I’ve never seen anything like them.”

  Gisco watches the wizard worriedly.

  My father is staring at the oncoming torpedoes, and it’s hard to read the expression on his face. “I don’t think anyone’s ever seen anything like this,” he whispers.

  Kidah’s mouth opens and he licks his lips, and then his wizened face breaks into a slight smile, and he claps his hands delightedly. “You’re right about that, Simeon,” he says. “Not in such numbers. They’re unicorns!”

  I look from my father to the wizard and try to figure out if this is one of their inside jokes. “There’s no such thing as unicorns,” I point out. “They’re just mythic creatures. Anyway, they’re supposed to be land animals.”

  “These are the unicorns of the deep,” Kidah tells me.

  The unicorns of the deep have swum much closer. They have blue skin with pale white blotches. I can now gauge their immense size—the biggest must be nearly thirty feet long, and their lancelike noses add an additional ten feet. “Are they going to pierce our bubble with their swords?” I ask.

  Gisco looks a bit calmer, as if he’s figured out a mystery. Not swords, he explains to me, tusks. Or more properly, teeth. The dog turns to the old sorcerer for confirmation. They’re narwhals, aren’t they?

  “You bet your tail they are,” Kidah agrees, smiling in childlike wonderment. “Pods and pods of them!”

  I turn to Gisco. “Narwhals? Help me out.”

  The mysterious whales of the northernmost Arctic, the oceano-graphically erudite hound explains to me. They went extinct soon after the Turning Point from a combination of warming water and whalers with high-powered rifles and harpoon guns. These must be a good percentage of the last narwhals left on earth.

  “Yes, they’ve come to welcome us,” Kidah explains, now smiling broadly. “And to guide us.” He gives them a big wave.

  The lead narwhals reach our umiak and swim around it. I can see them clearly through the bubble top. They don’t try to pierce the bubble, but they do rub their tusks back and forth across it, like violinists drawing their bows over strings. The tusks project outward from the left side of their upper jaws in a helix pattern.

  “What do they chew with teeth like that?” I ask.

  Nobody knows for sure, Gisco tells me. Some experts think they use their tusks to spear fish, or to break sea ice, or even to sword-fight rivals during mating season.

  “Nonsense,” Kidah interrupts. “You’re not even close.” The wizard lowers his voice and gives me a wink. “They’re magic wands, Jack.”

  I watch a narwhal swim right up to the umiak, peer in at me, and slowly draw its tusk over the bubble. “What kind of magic are we talking about?”

  “The kind we could use right now,” the wizard answers and his eyes gleam. “Those tusks are really supersensitive antennae, with thousands of tiny tubes that connect to their central nervous systems. They pick up temperature and salinity changes at tremendous distances.”

  I ponder Kidah’s explanation as I watch the narwhals circle our boat. “So that’s how they can help us?” I guess. “The Dark Lord is down here somewhere, speeding up global warming. And the narwhals are going to lead us to him?”

  “It’s the only way,” Kidah agrees. “This is a big ocean. And time is running out for us. But they’ll pinpoint him for us with their tusks.” He turns to the bubble and raises his arms dramatically, and I hear him sending out a telepathic call to arms: Wave your magic wands, my long-toothed friends, and sing your ancient songs. Search out the fiends for us, and let the final battle begin!

  50

  A few of the narwhals stay with our umiak. The rest of them swim off in different directions.

  “Narwhals are the most social and vocal of whales,” Kidah observes. “Listen to them gossip and chitchat! Have you ever heard anything like it in your life?”

  Gisco and my father smile. Kidah’s gaze falls on me, and I shrug. “I don’t hear anything. I’ve never been able to communicate with wild animals.”

  My dad is standing at the front of the umiak, watching the narwhals split off in pods of four or five. “Come over here, Jack,” he says.

  I walk next to him. “What’s up?”

  He puts an arm around me. I pull back—I wasn’t expecting an undersea display of paternal affection.

  His powerful arm tightens around me, and draws me closer. “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “Come,” he repeats. I stop protesting and let him pull me right next to him. Now that I’m by his side I see that he must be at least two inches taller than I am. He’s also strong—I can feel the rock-hard muscles in his arm and shoulder. He leans against me and we’re cheek to cheek, facing out at the narwhals.

  It’s strange to be this close to my father. I feel the warmth of his skin, and the softness of his white beard. “What are we looking for . . . ?”

  “Shhhh,” he hisses. “Silence.”

  So I stay quiet and wait for something to happen.

  Seconds pass, and nothing very dramatic occurs. It’s like my dad and I are standing at the bottom of a goldfish bowl, watching the fish circle the tank above us.

  Then I find myself wondering who switched on the music. It sounds like the percussion section from a haunted orchestra pit—dozens of rising and falling groans as if someone is opening and shutting rusty doors in such a way that they start to harmonize and answer each other. The weird thing is that none of the sounds are particularly pleasant by themselves, but taken together they have an otherworldly beauty that leaves me breathless.

  “Hear them now?” Dad whispers.

  “It’s lovely.” I nod.

  “Can you understand them?”

  “I don’t speak Narwhal.”

  “Close your eyes and give me your hand,” he commands.

  I shut my eyes and extend my right hand, and he lifts it to his face. He presses my palm tightly to the side of his cheek. “Now,” he whispers, “listen.”

  I listen very hard, and suddenly I’m in two places at once, standing next to my father and also floating inside his head, hearing what he hears. I can clearly understand the meaning of the narwhals’ songs. They’re calling out to each other as they rise to the surface for air and then dive back down. Family members shout playful greetings, old friends exchange narwhal small talk, and lovers tease and flirt. And all of this is going on constantly in hundreds of simultaneous conversations, as if they’re plugged into the same cetacean social networking site.

  But most of all what I hear is their determination to locate the source of the heating. And they’re already zeroing in on it! “Do you feel that?” “Yes, this way.” “I feel it, too.” “Deeper.” “Over here it’s stronger.” “Come. We’re on the trail for sure. Bring the King!”

  The narwhals who have stayed with us obediently swim off in the chosen direction, and we follow them. When members of our escort have to dart up to the surface for a fresh breath of air, new ones swim down to take their places. Narwhals may be big and odd-looking, but they’re graceful and fast in the water. Our umiak is soon booking along at high speed, but they keep throwing impatient looks back at us, as if to say, “Come on, King of Dann, get your boat in gear!”

  All of the narwhals seem acutely
aware of my dad’s presence, and they pay him respect and a kind of reverence. They sense he has a special connection with them, and that he’s championing their cause. I suppose this unique link he has with animals explains how he got the polar bear to give him the piggyback ride to the umiak. As I stand there with my hand on his grizzled cheek, I can’t help feeling proud of him. He’s part Dr. Doolittle, part Tarzan, and he cares about whales and bears just as much as they revere him. So this is what it means to be a King of Dann!

  The only time I’ve felt anything close to this was when Kidah gave me his torch during our night march in the Amazon, and I suddenly plugged into the entire living web of the rain forest. But that was a magical moment, created by a wizard on a special night. I can tell that this is the way my father thinks and feels all the time. As I stand next to him, I contemplate what agonies he must have gone through in the far future, to live on such close terms with the natural world and to feel it dying all around him.

  “We’re getting close,” Kidah says, and lifts the Star of Dann off the spar where it was hanging. Its radiance changes color, growing darker, and my connection with my father—and through him to the narwhals—is broken. “Time to arm ourselves,” the wizard announces grimly.

  The narwhals break off to either side and head back the way they came. “What’s happening to our escort?” I ask.

  “The water is getting too hot for them,” Kidah tells me. “They’ve done their work, and pointed us in the right direction. Now we have to finish the job. Hold up your weapons.”

  Feeling a little foolish, I hold up my umiak paddle. Kidah swings the Star of Dann from side to side like a pendulum. It has darkened to a purplish color. As the gem swings close to my paddle it pulses, and I feel an electric shock zap my palm and fingers. I almost drop the paddle, but manage to hang on. It’s now glowing from handle to blade with dark flames that dance and sizzle but do not consume the wood.

  Kidah swings the Star again, and my father’s paddle ignites. “Now,” Dad says grimly, “we’re ready for them.”

  Gisco is holding a small paddle in his jaws. In a second it is also glowing dark purple, but the flames don’t seem to burn the dog’s mouth. They do flicker over his large eyes, which glint with fierce determination. Yes, my lord, Gisco pledges telepathically, we are ready to spray ice on the fire. Enough damage has been done. It’s time to put a stop to it in the name of all that’s holy.

  I know what he means. I can feel the long-contained rage of the Star of Dann coursing up and down the handle of the paddle. This Arctic region of ice and snow, this austere and majestic home of brave and hardy fish and animals, has suffered blow upon blow till its very existence is imperiled as it warms degree by degree and melts drop by drop.

  Now, through us, it finally has a chance to strike back.

  I raise my paddle to my shoulder like a gun, and gaze out through the bubble top of our umiak.

  51

  It’s tense and silent as we hold our fiery paddles at the ready and gaze out at the murky depths. One last brave narwhal still swims ahead of us, enduring the warming water to keep us on course.

  My father stands next to me, scanning with his eyes from side to side, as if expecting to spot his nemesis at any second. I follow the sweep of his gaze, peering out into the purplish cone of light. My paddle is raised and ready.

  “Jack,” my father says softly, “I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you. It was not my choice, but it was my doing. I wish we had more time together now, but fate has not been kind to us. Whatever happens, I see the man you’ve become, and I’m very proud of you.”

  My throat tightens and tears well in my eyes. I answer him telepathically because I’m too choked up to speak. When I put my hand on your face and heard the narwhals, I was also getting to know you, I tell him. I hope we get the time to become real friends.

  The last intrepid narwhal turns and swims back the way he came. The water must have gotten too hot for him. I can feel it now inside our enclosed umiak.

  At first the extra warmth is pleasant—it’s nice to float beneath the Arctic sea in a toasty warm little egg. But from toasty warm it soon becomes uncomfortable, and in a few more seconds it’s almost unendurable.

  I peel off my coat, then my shirt, and soon I’ve stripped down to my underwear. Gisco pants next to me—he looks like he’s about to faint from canine heatstroke.

  “Can’t we air-condition this umiak?” I ask Kidah.

  “The Star of Dann is keeping the temperature bearable,” the wizard replies.

  This isn’t actually in the bearable range for a long-haired dog, Gisco points out.

  “The water temperature outside is more than three hundred degrees,” Kidah tells us. “Without the Star of Dann helping us, we’d be boiled like lobsters in a pot.”

  There is no good way to cook a dog, Gisco responds miserably, but better flash-boiled than slowly sautéed.

  Sweat runs through my hair, down into my eyes. “So this is how the Dark Lord is destroying the Arctic ice cap?” I ask. “He’s down here slowly cranking up the heat?”

  “No, this is a big and very cold ocean, and that would take too much time,” Kidah tells me. “They’re being far more strategic. Arctic ice varies greatly in thickness, from three meters to more than twenty meters. The Omega Box is capable of creating a concentrated beam of tremendous heat and aiming it at the thinnest and most fragile targets. They’re slicing and dicing the polar ice cap along its fault lines into smaller and smaller pieces. The more it’s segmented, the faster it melts.”

  And it is melting fast, Gisco adds, looking like he himself is also slowly liquefying. Even without the Dark Lord’s help, global warming caused by greenhouse gases was shrinking the ice cap nearly ten percent every year. With the Dark Lord and the Omega Box strategically slicing up the ice cap from below, the damage is accelerating exponentially. As the sea ice disappears and the water heats up, the Greenland Ice Sheet melts much faster.

  “We need to stop them now, today,” my dad cuts in grimly. Suddenly his voice becomes very tense. “Kidah, I feel them!”

  “Yes,” the old wizard agrees, raising the Star of Dann high over his head. “Their heat beam is right up ahead. If it so much as grazes us, we’re finished. Hold on, everyone, it’s time to take evasive action.”

  The umiak begins zigzagging at tremendous speed. I grab the wooden rail to steady myself.

  “THERE!” the wizard shouts. “Off to starboard!” His voice rises, and his tone becomes urgent: “Shoot, Simeon! Fire, Jair! Let fly, Gisco! Don’t wait! They’ve seen us!”

  52

  I see their laser beam first, a pulsing orange-red Roman candle exploding continuously upward. Shielding my eyes against its glare, I trace the beam down to its source. The Dark Lord and the Omega Box are not in anything as cool and mysterious as our bubble-topped umiak. The red beam is blasting up out of the roof of what looks like a small Soviet submarine from the nineteen-eighties. It has been painted bloodred and retrofitted with a few futuristic touches, apparently including a heat-resistant outer skin.

  Before I have time to take aim at the sub, my father “fires” and a purple comet of frothing polar energy surges from his flaming paddle. It bursts out through the transparent membrane covering our umiak—which instantly re-forms so that no puncture hole is created—and whizzes toward the mini-submarine.

  The Dark Lord must have seen the projectile coming because the mini-sub dive-rolls out of the way at the last possible second. As the sub twirls, its bolt of scorching heat—which had been focused upward at the ice cap—rakes the ocean all around us like a machine gun firing wild bursts at random.

  Our umiak whirls upside down to avoid being hit, and I am hurled off my feet. My forehead thuds against the bubble ceiling, which has now become the floor. The impact stuns me, but searing heat revives me and I find myself screaming in pain. The energy blast passed close enough to the bubble top of our umiak to make it scorching hot! Kidah is right—if an Omega Box’
s ray so much as touches us, we’ll melt like a marshmallow in a campfire.

  Our umiak keeps spinning to avoid being hit, and then flips end over end. I slide back and forth the length of the deck, and drop my paddle as I scrabble desperately for a handhold. The Inuit built this boat out of irregularly shaped pieces of driftwood and there are protruding boards and spars, but it’s hard to grab on to them. I scrape both knees and knock out a tooth, and when I try to brace myself with my right hand it feels like I fracture my wrist.

  In the topsy-turvy bedlam, my father manages to squeeze off a second shot. The pulse of his firing lights the inside of our craft for a second, and I spot Gisco wedging himself into a narrow nook between two slats. The intrepid canine turns toward the bubble top, his paddle clenched between his jaws. Every dog has his day, my old comrade trumpets ferociously, and then his paddle spits two bursts of purple ice energy at the mini-sub.

  The Dark Lord is as good a navigator as he is a martial-arts master. He jockeys the mini-sub between my father’s shot and Gisco’s twin blasts, so that one icy comet passes high and the other two miss low. Then he steers the submarine into a sudden dive, and our target vanishes beneath our umiak’s wooden deck. For several heartbeats, they’re completely out of our sight.

  Kidah tries to turn us, but there isn’t time. I know what’s coming next, but when the red bolt strikes from beneath, it feels like we’ve been thrown into a giant furnace! I scream, and I hear Gisco howling near me. Please, death, come quickly to end this pain!

  But just as the red starburst of heat and energy engulfs us, I see Kidah standing tall and holding the Star of Dann high over his head. He shouts out a few desperate words, and the blue gem comes to life and swells larger and larger. I have a momentary vision of a great blue wave washing over a roaring fire and dousing it.