The Infinity Engines Books 1-3

by Andrew Hastie

  Putting the cards back into his locker, he remembered Darkling’s key. He’d forgotten about it when things had heated up with Caitlin.

  He studied it, but as with all academy equipment, there was no timeline to weave — nothing here had a past. Josh assumed it was some kind of anti-cheating system, to ensure that no one could jump back and crib notes off previous candidates. Whatever reason Darkling had for giving him the key, Josh wasn’t really looking forward to finding out why. No one came to collect his stuff, which everyone thought a little weird considering that his dad was supposed to be some high-ranking Draconian officer.

  The wooden lockers were all the same, except for the name card that sat in the brass frame on the door. Josh slid the key into Darkling’s lock and pulled the door open.

  At first, he saw nothing unusual: a set of spare combats, his dress boots, wash kit and all the usual crap that blokes dump without thinking. Josh flicked through some of the dodgy magazines — he could never imagine Darkling having a private porn collection, it didn’t fit with his self-righteous hero image. Then, Josh remembered Alixia’s displacement key and closed the locker, turning the key the opposite way to open the door.

  This time, the inside of the cabinet looked entirely different. There were ritual robes, a ceremonial dagger, and behind it Josh found a mask pushed right to the back. Made of beaten metal and shaped to look like a snarling demon, it reminded Josh of the faceplate the warrior had worn at the Battle of Boju.

  He pressed the mask to his face, looking through the eyes as Darkling would have done, and as the metal touched his skin, he felt its history unfold.

  The room was lit by candles, located somewhere deep inside the castle that Josh had never seen. A windowless space, the walls covered in archaic symbols and demonic images.

  He wasn’t alone: others knelt around him, each with a mask of their own. They wore long, hooded robes like monks, all black except for one in red at the front, kneeling before a stone altar, his hands held high above his head as he led the chant.

  ‘O you who guard the gates, you who keep the gates of Osiris,

  O you who guard them and who report the affairs of the two worlds to Osiris;

  I will know you and I will know your names.’

  There were at least thirty of them, a secret sect within the academy worshipping something unholy, though Josh couldn’t quite make out what it was, the priest obscuring his view of the altar piece.

  And Darkling had been a part of it.

  The minister stood and turned towards his congregation. His mask was shaped like a skull, the silvered metal covering his head and eyes but leaving his mouth free to speak. And when he did Josh knew immediately who it was.

  Dalton.

  ‘He who knows their true names knows the way,’ he intoned.

  The others repeated in unison.

  ‘By the ancient ones shall we find the path through the storm,’ he recited, drawing a blade and carving runes into his skin, the blood flowing freely down his arm and turning his hand red.

  Again they echoed his words.

  Dalton turned towards the altar and picked something up with his bloody hand. Josh saw then that it was a skull, covered in sigils like the harbinger that had trapped Caitlin.

  ‘Lead us to the Nemesis. O prophet of darkness,’ implored Dalton. ‘So that we may end him and set you free.’

  Something happened to the yellowing old relic as Dalton began to recite the mantra. It seemed to absorb his blood, feeding on his energy — a ghostly outline of a face materialised around the bone. Dalton was turning back time, summoning the spirit of the owner back to his body. Josh knew he was a powerful seer, but this was impressive even for him.

  As the face solidified, Josh saw the mouth was moving silently, as words formed and fell away from its lips unheard.

  Josh pulled the mask away from his face. He was breathing hard, and there were beads of sweat rolling down his cheeks. He was having trouble processing what he had just witnessed.

  The face had taken a while to recognise without the beard, but it was him — Josh was sure.

  Dalton was holding the head of the colonel.

  55

  Zenoscope

  The Protectorate inquisitors were arresting more people every day. The mood in the academy darkened as others received news of family members who’d been taken in for questioning. Rumours began to circulate that whoever had stolen Daedalus’ skull had summoned the Nemesis, releasing him to execute the unworthy. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the inquisition came knocking on the doors of the Academy.

  Aries226 were speculating on some of the wilder theories at lunch when Bentley arrived looking rather pleased with himself.

  ‘I’ve built a zenoscope,’ he whispered, sliding in next to Josh.

  ‘A what?’ Josh asked, pushing his tray aside to let Bentley put his down. The usual salad had been replaced by a massive bowl of pasta — Bentley was obviously celebrating.

  ‘Temporal observation device. It’s supposed to allow you to look into the maelstrom,’ Caitlin explained, scowling at Bentley, ‘and totally illegal — unless you’re a Dreadnought.’

  It transpired that every evening, while Josh and Caitlin were ‘busy’, Bentley had been secretly working in a lab he’d built for himself in one of the castle’s abandoned cellars.

  ‘It’s only a prototype… it’s not like I’m going to create an aperture.’

  Caitlin frowned. ‘You’re not seriously thinking of using it?’

  Bentley looked a little guilty. ‘I already have.’

  Josh ignored Caitlin’s indignation. ‘You’ve looked into the maelstrom?’

  Bentley beamed. ‘Yup.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, it’s mostly chaos, but I did manage to see other things.’

  ‘Did you see any Djinn?’ Caitlin asked sarcastically.

  Bentley shook his head.

  ‘What is it with this demon thing?’ asked Josh.

  ‘Daedalus wrote that the Djinn are the most powerful beings, ancient entities that can literally control time,’ explained Bentley.

  Josh turned to Caitlin. ‘And you don’t believe they exist?’

  She pulled a face. ‘They’re just stories to scare children.’

  ‘But what about the Book of Deadly Names?’ protested Bentley.

  ‘By their true names shall you own them,’ Caitlin said with air quotes, ‘ — it’s a load of bullshit.’

  ‘Not to the Daedalans,’ Bentley interrupted, ‘they take it very seriously.’

  Caitlin sighed and sat back in her chair. ‘My grandfather spent his whole life trying to convince everyone that it was all a fake. He used to say there was nothing more dangerous than a man with an obsession.’

  ‘Anyway, I wasn’t looking for the Djinn,’ Bentley protested. ‘I was trying to find out what Dalton was up to.’

  Caitlin looked intrigued. ‘You’ve been spying on Dalton? For how long?’

  Bentley blushed a little. ‘Since his stupid cult beat me up.’

  Josh was stunned, but Caitlin didn’t seem shocked at all.

  ‘So you know,’ she sighed as if a heavy burden had lifted off her shoulders. ‘Did you see who the others were?’

  Bentley shrugged. ‘Some of them. Darkling was one.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘What cult?’ Josh feigned ignorance. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to admit what he’d seen through Darkling’s mask.

  ‘We shouldn’t discuss this here,’ warned Caitlin, standing up. ‘Take me to it, right now.’

  Bentley pushed his food tray away. ‘That may be more difficult than you imagine.’

  Bentley’s zenoscope was a crude device, cobbled together from spare parts scavenged out of old storerooms. It consisted of a large mirror wired into a series of clock parts and Van De Graph generators. The whole thing was nearly three metres tall.

  ‘I kind of started it as a personal project,’ he said, tweaking one of
the many dials with no effect. ‘Vassili gives extra merits for artificers who can prototype.’

  ‘Not exactly mobile is it?’ said Caitlin, inspecting the device.

  ‘Not yet,’ Bentley said defensively, ‘but this is the Mark I. She’s going to be beautiful when I’ve made some refinements.’

  ‘She got a name?’ Josh joked.

  Bentley blushed. ‘I call her NORA. Non-Linear Observable Randomisation Array.’

  No one wanted to point out that spelt ‘NLORA’.

  ‘So why did they beat you up?’ asked Josh.

  ‘I was exploring the lower levels when I bumped into them. They were all wearing masks. Then they accused me of spying on them.’ Bentley explained, touching his cheek, a faint yellow bruise just visible below his eye.

  ‘How did you know it was Dalton?’

  ‘He called you Caitlin.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘And how do you know that’s my name?’

  ‘I heard Josh call you it once when he thought no one was listening.’

  ‘What did Dalton say exactly?’ Caitlin glared at Josh, who smiled weakly as if trying to say sorry.

  ‘That you were playing for the wrong team.’

  Bentley managed to get the machine operational with the flick of a few switches and the light tap of a hammer. The mirror’s surface shimmered as power fluxed along its edges. He made some final adjustments to the controls and the reflection resolved into a picture of swirling chaos.

  Josh stood in front of the mirror, staring directly into the maelstrom. It was just as he’d remembered; a spinning montage of scenes from random times and places, and looking at it for too long made you feel dizzy.

  ‘Wow!’ exclaimed Caitlin. ‘I can see why they call it the maelstrom.’

  ‘So, this is where I started.’ Bentley shifted a handle, and the hum of the voltaic flux condensers changed.

  The view through the zenotrope was of Vedris, sitting in her office. There wasn’t any sound, but Josh could see she was upset, Dalton stood on the other side of her desk shouting at her.

  Bentley, Caitlin and Josh all watched as Dalton took something from his pocket and held it up — it was a photograph of a woman — a Dreadnought officer.

  ‘Dalton’s blackmailing her?’

  Bentley nodded. ‘He found out about an affair she was having with another officer. I think he wanted to make sure we failed.’

  ‘That explains a lot,’ Josh said, reaching out to touch the surface of the mirror, but Caitlin grabbed his hand and pulled it back.

  ‘Not a good idea.’

  ‘Time burn, nasty things — itches for days,’ Bentley warned, subconsciously rubbing his arm.

  ‘I think you’ll find this more interesting.’ He moved another set of controls, and the image swam for a moment before refocusing on Dalton, Darkling and a bunch of masked acolytes breaking into an exhibit in the British Museum. The skull was still in pride of place its case.

  ‘They stole the skull?’ declared Caitlin, nearly touching the mirror herself.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘What’s so important about the skull?’ Josh asked, wondering how much longer he could keep up the pretence.

  ‘The Daedalans believe that it’s the key, that it can show them a path through the maelstrom — one that leads to Daedalus and the second book.’

  ‘Dalton wants to go into the maelstrom?’

  ‘He will do anything to get his hands on the book,’ answered Caitlin. ‘He’s obsessed with the idea of the Djinn and their powers of eternity.’

  ‘If they exist,’ Josh joked.

  ‘This is no joke,’ Caitlin snapped, staring into the mirror. ‘Vassili and my grandfather spent most of their lives fighting this kind of fanaticism. They hated the hysteria that surrounded the books of Daedalus. If Dalton’s got the skull, then it means he’s about to do something dangerous and people are going to get hurt.’

  The image wavered in the mirror as the power failed.

  Caitlin turned to Bentley. ‘Can you get it back? We need to find out what they’re planning to do.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ Bentley grunted, frantically adjusting the equipment.

  ‘I know some of them,’ said Josh.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Darkling left me his mask.’

  Caitlin looked confused. ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘He was trying to tell me something. I think he knew I was in danger.’

  ‘When exactly did all this happen?’

  ‘Just before the Wyrrm got him.’

  ‘And you were going to tell me…’

  Josh shifted uncomfortably under her stern gaze. ‘I could never seem to find the right moment.’

  Caitlin turned back to Bentley who was still struggling with the controls. ‘Do you know where they’ve taken the skull?’

  Bentley’s face turned pale, and he nodded.

  56

  Skull Of Daedalus

  Bentley led them down to the temple. It was just as Josh had seen through Darkling’s mask: the obsidian altar, the walls rendered with archaic symbols, the gory remains of sacrifice staining the floors. There was something unnatural about the room; the air was deathly cold, like an ancient tomb full of the ghosts of long-dead ancestors.

  The temple was well hidden, and it took them over an hour to navigate the labyrinth of passageways below the castle. Josh noticed that they had crossed at least one time border as they descended. Bentley refused to go into the chamber, making some excuse about forgetting to switch off his machine and disappeared quickly back up the stairs.

  The skull was kept inside an ornate golden case that sat on the altar. It lay inside the felt-lined box covered in runes. Caitlin warned Josh not to try and decipher them, which was pointless since he had no idea what language they were written in anyway.

  ‘I think,’ Caitlin began, taking the skull carefully out of the box and placing it on the altar, ‘we need to get this back to the museum.’

  Josh stepped past Caitlin and up to the altar. Staring into the hollow sockets of the skull, he tried not to think of how the colonel had come to this. Ever since he’d saved the old man from the strzyga, there was a part of his timeline that had always haunted Josh, a dark void filled with malevolence which he’d always assumed was his death.

  He picked up the skull. ‘Hey old man.’

  Josh felt the timelines unwind at his touch. Hundreds of fragmented events exploded in his mind, a million-piece puzzle of the colonel’s life with no sense of linearity or order.

  Yet it was still him. Josh could sense his essence — like the first notes of a favourite song. Somewhere in this chaos was his friend and the truth about what had happened to him. Josh weaved through the random flux, catching flashes of strange worlds and fearsome creatures.

  Josh tried to turn away, but the connection held him. Caught inside a nonsensical showreel of the colonel’s life, flying through scene after random scene: a girl running towards him down a hill, a battle on a bridge, a room full of maps, each one twisting around him like fireflies on a dark night.

  Waves of sound broke over him: the screams of lost souls on a sinking ship, the grinding squeals of a train crashing, explosions, cannon fire and a thousand voices talking at once in a hundred different languages. He wanted to scream, to find a way to make it stop. His eyes streamed with tears as he tried desperately to let go of the skull, but it held him.

  Frantically, he searched for some familiar thread, a place he could hide from the tirade, and like a drowning man Josh flailed around for anything that he could latch onto.

  Then he remembered what Lyra had said about the Nemesis: ‘He will not know the names of the elder gods.’

  But he knew the true name of Daedalus, and he focused his mind on it, using the intuit method.

  WESTINGHOUSE? RUFIUS WESTINGHOUSE?

  Instantly, the chaos calmed, and there was the old man, sitting at his desk in some elaborate observatory, the walls covered in drawings and notes.

>   ‘RUFIUS?’ Josh called out, but the old man ignored him.

  ‘No time,’ he muttered to himself as he bound the pages into a leather book. ‘Never enough time.’

  Josh tried to hold on to the memory, but it slipped away.

  Suddenly, the world twisted and Josh was standing in the middle of a Saharan desert. Ahead of him, across the dusty plain, the colonel stood before an army of the Djinn, each one towering over him like a thirty-story skyscraper. He was reading from a book, calling out their names and conjuring weapons from the air to throw at them. Chains flew from his hands as he chanted the strange and archaic names of the demons. As the Djinn came closer, the colonel began to walk backwards, still reciting the words from the book — like a preacher on a Sunday school outing. The ground beneath his feet began to crack and split, and huge rents appeared in the sand as the rock parted. More terrible creatures crawled out of the abyss, and Josh knew the colonel didn’t stand a chance. He seemed to realise this too and turned as if to run, but something caught him by the ankle and dragged him into a dark pit.

  ‘Josh!’ screamed Caitlin, from somewhere far away. She was in danger — he could hear the fear in her voice.

  The overwhelming urge to protect her was enough to break the connection, and he felt the smooth surface of the bone under his fingers grow cold.

  ‘Nemesis!’ hissed Vassili.

  The skull hit the stone floor and broke into pieces. Sinking to his knees, Josh heard someone curse as they hurried to gather up the scattered fragments. He turned towards Caitlin and saw that she was surrounded by a gang of masked figures — all except one.

  Dalton was holding a crescent-shaped dagger against her neck. ‘Well, isn’t this all rather cosy?’ he said, pushing the blade harder against her skin.

  ‘Ruined!’ moaned Vassili, his face was ashen as he held up the pieces of the skull. ‘All the years of planning and it’s ruined!’