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.’
‘Means navigator or pathfinder. They’re a specialist part of the Draconians. They chart the blank spaces in time, the forgotten eras. Temporal cartographers, if you like.’ She became introspective and started to fiddle with her necklace.
‘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.
31
First Millenial
Over the next few days, Josh learned the basics of using the almanac. Each morning they would go to the library, and a new challenge would appear on another page of his book. To his disappointment, other members of the De Freis family took it in turns to mentor him after Caitlin, each one helping him a little less as he became more confident with the basic symbology of time.
He travelled back further with every mission. Phileas took him to the fourteenth century to observe the Black Death, then he went to the Crusades with Lyra in the twelfth and Madame De Freis took him back to 10.920 to the last Mayan capital. These were not sightseeing trips; there was a purpose to each mission. Most involved saving some artefact from being destroyed, or reacquiring a lost skill or piece of knowledge — every one had to be written up in triplicate when they returned.
By Friday Josh had covered over 1,200 years of jumps and was beginning to wonder where the colonel had got to. He brought up the subject at breakfast.
‘Ah. Yes,’ Methuselah coughed from behind a newspaper, dated 1878. ‘He’s been put on a special assignment. Something very hush-hush apparently.’
Sim, Caitlin and Dalton were sitting close by and overheard the conversation.
‘Protectorate business,’ said Dalton in an officious tone, ‘not something that goes through the book.’
‘How does that work?’ asked Josh without thinking.
Dalton sneered. ‘Don’t you know anything?’
Caitlin went to speak, but Josh caught her eye and shook his head.
‘Why don’t you explain to our guest?’ Sim hissed at Dalton. There was a heavy emphasis on the word ‘guest’.
‘Only those within the council can order a direct action; rare events where even having the Copernicans involved could change the outcome, causations that threaten the very fabric of the continuum.’
‘Basically he’s gone dark — like special ops,’ translated Sim for Josh’s benefit.
‘We’re not even supposed to discuss it,’ said Caitlin, glaring at Dalton.
‘No. Quite so,’ said the chastised Dalton.
Josh liked the sound of dark missions, he missed the thrill of riding shotgun with the colonel. While he was still enjoying their company and learning a lot, it was all a bit safe, and rather dull — like going on holiday with your parents.
‘So, anyway, I have some other news,’ Methuselah announced.
They all looked up from their breakfasts as he tapped the side of his teacup with a butter knife.
‘It has been a while since I have had the pleasure of doing this.’ He paused and nodded to his wife who was preparing something in the Viking equivalent of a kitchen. ‘Joshua has passed a key milestone yesterday: he is now a first level millennial. Congratulations, my boy! Here’s to your next thousand!’
Caitlin and Sim clapped, Dalton sneered and Mrs De Freis came over with an impressive-looking cake with a single candle and the numerals for a millennium iced onto it.
Josh couldn’t remember the last time anyone had made him a cake. When he was younger, birthdays were generally something he had organised for himself, usually involving a packet of Jaffa cakes and a DVD — after a while, even he had forgotten to celebrate them.
‘Well done,’ Alixia said, smiling warmly, and then turning Methuselah. ‘I think today we should have a break from all this tedious studying. We should treat Josh to a little game.’
‘Treasure Island?’ said Sim, jumping up and clapping his hands like a five-year-old.
‘No,’ Caitlin shouted. ‘Huntsman!’
Others were shouting at the same time. Josh could tell it wasn’t often that they got to play, and assumed that none of the games were as normal as they sounded.
Methuselah waved his hands to calm them all down and then paused as he thought about it.
‘Captain’s Table?’
‘Yes!’ came a resounding shout from the others. Even Dalton seemed excited about that one.
32
Captain's Table
The rules of the game appeared to be quite simple: by dinnertime, they had to have found the most interesting artefact to present to the ‘captain’, who was, of course, being played by Methuselah. They would recount its history and why it was so unique. The most fascinating find would be deemed the winner and placed in the ‘collection’ — which was apparently a high honour.
There were some forfeits and side rules around how you couldn’t steal another team’s prize nor use an existing or ‘known’ object from the collection, and that there was a limit on how long you could spend in the past: no more than forty-eight hours. Once the objects had been placed on the table, there was no going back and changing your mind after you saw what the others had brought.
Sim was excited. This was a rare treat — played only once a year at best. He told Josh that Dalton and Caitlin had both won five times each, so this was to be a tough game, and neither would be taking any prisoners, which was also one of the side rules — Josh knew what he meant.
Josh could see from Caitlin’s look of concentration that she was determined to beat Dalton. He began to wonder whether it would be safer to team up with Sim, but Methuselah had effectively ordered, and Caitlin had grudgingly agreed, to allow Josh to ride shotgun with her. Which Josh felt was a little unfair — he was convinced he was ready to go solo, but Methuselah wouldn’t allow it, no matter how hard both Josh and Caitlin protested.
They were all gathered around a beautiful oval table in the middle of the curiosity collection on the second floor. A few other guests had heard about the game and joined the group. Dalton was standing at the opposite end of the table to Caitlin, flanked by a couple of his cronies — who Sim had informed Josh were going to work as ‘tails’ to report back to him with updates regarding the era in which the other teams were searching.
Josh knew Caitlin was unhappy that she’d been saddled with him. His level-one status was like a handicap that meant she would only be able to work within the last thousand years.
Methuselah appeared. ‘So, gentleman, ladies . . .’ He was dressed like a pirate, wearing a long velvet housecoat and a three-cornered hat.. ‘Usual rules apply. No weapons, no stealing, no rewinds. My word is final and may the best prize win. As usual, the mission time is a maximum of forty-eight hours, and back by eight this evening?’
They set the dials on their own tachyons and then one by one disappeared, leaving Josh on his own with Methuselah.
He stood in the room feeling like an idiot. Had he missed something? Did Sim not tell him what to do next?
There was an awkward silence as he wondered if Caitlin had decided to dump him after all when she suddenly reappeared.
‘Sorry. It was quicker if I did the first bit on my own.’ She handed him a small coin. ‘Here, take this and open it.’
He felt the timeline unfurl in his palm, and she pointed a path that led to the British Museum in 11.920.
<
br /> ‘There, meet me in anthropology after closing. I have to shake off one of Dalton’s minions.’ With that, she disappeared again.
Josh focused on the time point until he could expand it enough to see the room where the coin had been stored, and then moved forward a few hours until the museum was closed.
He slowed his breathing and let his mind drift inside the timeline.
The room was dark and still, and there was a strong aroma of sandalwood and dead things. Josh realised he was in the wrong place when he saw the cabinets were full of stuffed animals and jars of pickled fish, their dead eyes staring blankly out at him through a viscous green liquid. The stillness was a strange, menacing silence that played tricks on your mind, triggering the imagination — conjuring life in the long-dead exhibits, so that they were only waiting for the right moment to jump out on him.
There was a noise from further down the hall. Instinctively he hid behind a cabinet, and his fingers found his tachyon in case he needed to make a quick exit.
The shadow of another visitor flickered on the far wall as their lamp swept the next room: it was the night guard. Josh could hear the man’s keys jangling on his belt as he shuffled around muttering to himself and rattling cabinet doors — as if he too was checking they were all safely locked away.
A few long minutes passed by. Josh tried hard not to make a sound, then he heard the footsteps recede and the lamplight fade away.
He stepped out of the shadows to see Caitlin standing next to a cabinet full of small monkeys. The whole place was beginning to remind Josh of some kind of dead zoo.
‘What are you doing in Zoology?’ she asked, looking at a large, stuffed dodo that was the spitting image of Maximillian.
‘I didn’t want to get caught,’ Josh explained. ‘I thought the idea was not to attract attention to yourself.’
‘Not in museums, dummy,’ she tutted, ‘and certainly not from Albert. Anyway, I told you to go to Anthropology — stuffed animals are no use to us.’ She opened a nearby cupboard and took at a small lantern.
The Infinity Engines Books 1-3 Page 19
