History Keepers: Nightship to China

by Dibben, Damian

  ‘If we don’t take the Nightship,’ Topaz replied, ‘we’ll lose days. We don’t have a choice.’

  ‘Besides,’ Yoyo chipped in mischievously, ‘you can get wonderful wigs. And that way, you could try different colours. Blond might suit you.’

  ‘There is only one colour,’ Nathan said indignantly, ‘and that is deep auburn.’ He emphasized his point by tossing his locks.

  Jake was confused. ‘I’m sorry . . . what is the Nightship?’

  ‘The Nightship allows Keepers to cross to the other side of the world almost instantly,’ Topaz explained. ‘To a degree, you’ve done it before – vaulted over to the Mediterranean – but it’s one thing to hop a few hundred miles to the Tyrrhenian Sea; to span the globe to southern China is another matter entirely, especially when you’re maintaining the same date.’

  ‘Maintaining the same date?’ Jake was struggling to understand.

  Yoyo stepped in. ‘Maybe I could explain more clearly? To vault in the first place, we must enter the time flux. Usually the greater the number of years we are travelling backwards or forwards in time, the easier it is to hop from one part of the world to another. If we’re keeping the same date – London 1612 to Canton 1612 – we essentially have to enter the time flux, go back a few hundred years, then immediately forward again – a journey that can have strange side effects. That’s the Nightship. Obviously I’m simplifying.’

  ‘It’s much more civilized to set sail and take a few leisurely hops from sea to sea,’ Nathan told Jake.

  ‘More civilized,’ Topaz pointed out, ‘but more time-consuming.’

  ‘Well, then, it has to be the Nightship,’ Jake agreed. ‘Time is what we don’t have.’ He looked around at the others. They were all diamonds, Valiants – young, powerful agents – and he suspected it would take all their focus to make this jump. An older agent would never risk it.

  ‘We set off immediately,’ Topaz said.

  ‘And what about me, Miss St Honoré?’ Yoyo asked. ‘Would you still like me to go all the way back to Point Zero?’ She looked at her rival with a twisted smile.

  ‘I think she should come with us, Topaz,’ Nathan said.

  ‘I have to agree,’ Jake added.

  Topaz sighed. ‘Miss Yuting . . .’

  ‘Please – call me Yoyo.’

  ‘I am in no doubt as to your capabilities. However, you are a loose cannon.’ Topaz took a deep breath. ‘That said, since we are going to Canton and you are an expert in that part of the world, I suppose there is some sense in taking you with us.’

  ‘You won’t regret it, I promise you,’ Yoyo vowed.

  ‘But you need to understand: I am in charge and you must obey my orders at all times. Is that clear? Yoyo?’

  ‘As a bell.’

  The two girls stared at each other. ‘I will send a Meslith to the commander and explain the situation,’ Topaz said grimly. ‘She won’t like it at all, but it can’t be helped.’ She held out her hand towards Yoyo and they shook on it. ‘And please, call me Topaz.’

  Before they set sail, the girls went to check that the Kingfisher, Galliana’s yacht, was secure (they had no choice but to leave it in Jacobean London for the time being – until it could be picked up by someone from Point Zero) and to collect the rest of Yoyo’s things. Suspecting that the mission was bound to go beyond London, Yoyo had brought quantities of money with her – Chinese currencies in particular. Topaz was so relieved to see it, she decided not to ask Yoyo whether, like the yacht, it had been stolen.

  A short time later, with Jake at the helm, they cast off and started back downstream towards the North Sea.

  Jake glanced over his shoulder at the city behind him. London, his home town; and he was leaving it once again, sailing into the unknown. As he surveyed the labyrinthine warren of streets, the million points of light that seemed to encase the city in a golden aura – so different from the London he’d grown up in – he realized it was the place that had shaped his life.

  Sudden memories surfaced, long-forgotten moments in his life: the day he had first ridden a bike . . . his father letting go of the saddle on the crest of the hill in Greenwich Park . . . the green of the trees rushing towards him; the day he had begun school . . . the smell of his new uniform . . . the uncertain faces of his classmates; the birthday when it reached a hundred degrees . . . the neighbour’s cat, panting on the pavement; and the blackest day of all – that November afternoon when his parents had told him that his brother would not be coming home.

  Jake shuddered as he recalled being asked to sit on the sofa, his mother’s face blotchy with tears, the coldness of the room, the radiator gurgling as the heating fired up. Jake had gone to bed that night in a daze, unable to take it in.

  A week later, he had come back from school early and gone to Philip’s room. The door was slightly ajar. The familiar sign declared:

  Adventurer Within!

  The room was colder than the rest of the house, and Jake could see his breath in front of him. He had inspected the shelf of medals and prizes. (Philip was a brilliant sportsman, as well as a bright pupil. Unusually for someone so talented, he was also popular. It was not just the shy kids he helped who looked up to him, but the tough ones too. Girls as well; even the loud, unruly ones became a little gentler in Philip’s presence.)

  Jake had turned and examined the rest of the room: the bedside table with its pile of books telling of fascinating places and people from history; the bed itself, usually quite messy, the duvet now smoothed down and the pillows plumped up. The sight had made him realize, for the first time, that Philip was not coming home. Suddenly the cold had seemed unbearable and Jake had left the room. In three years, he had never gone back in . . .

  Once they had cleared the Thames estuary and entered the North Sea, Topaz appeared on deck with four doses of atomium, which the agents drank swiftly. No one spoke; there was a serious atmosphere.

  ‘Nathan, we need fresh eyes at the helm – would you take over from Jake now?’ Topaz asked. ‘We’re using the north-north-east horizon point,’ she added, nodding at the map. ‘It will be less risky.’

  Jake relinquished the wheel, turning to see the last of Britain’s coast disappear behind him. There was a gust of wind from the east and he shivered with cold. China, he thought to himself. I’m going to China.

  He looked round at the Constantor. The three rings that guided them to the horizon point were inching closer together. In the centre was a metal globe with engraved lines tracing the continents. Jake found the British Isles, and then Europe, Arabia, India, Siam, and finally China – the bulging cheek of Asia.

  Keeping one hand on the wheel, Nathan reached down for the helmet he had placed at his feet and put it on. ‘It might improve my chances, hair-wise,’ he explained.

  Jake looked round at Topaz. ‘Should we be doing the same?’

  Her hand made circles in the air beside her ear to indicate that Nathan was totally mad. ‘It won’t make the slightest difference,’ she whispered to him. Then she smiled. ‘I’ve never been to China either. I’m glad we are taking the trip together.’ Her indigo gaze lingered on Jake a little longer than usual.

  ‘Thirty seconds to horizon,’ Nathan called.

  Jake glanced again at the Constantor: the rings were all but touching. The ship began to shudder and Topaz clutched Jake’s arm. Yoyo noticed and reached for his hand, squeezing it tight.

  Nathan counted down: ‘Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .’

  The ship creaked and rumbled. As usual, a whirlwind sprang up out of nowhere, encircling them. Colours flashed, and there was a sound like an explosion. Jake saw diamond shapes shooting in all directions as he flew out of his body. As his alter ego soared into the atmosphere, away from the curving earth, he wondered why the others had made such a fuss about the Nightship: it seemed like every other horizon point; in fact, it was smoother than usual. It wasn’t until he had almost reached the zenith that he noticed the difference.

  He began to spin
head over heels – faster and faster; soon the earth was flashing by every fraction of a second. He wanted to be sick and found himself closing his eyes. Blind, the sensation was just as strange, but less nauseating. Eventually the spinning stopped, and Jake wondered if he had returned to himself on the Thunder. He opened his eyes and found himself suspended in the black void of space. Panic engulfed him as he realized that the Earth was nowhere to be seen. Had he travelled so far out of his body that he had lost his own planet? Terrified, he searched the heavens for the blue ball. Finally he realized that he had been turned upside down and that the Earth was hovering below his head.

  In this topsy-turvy position, pulled by invisible forces, he began to move forward, circling the globe, slowly at first, then at an astonishing speed. ‘How?’ he found himself crying out. ‘How can I travel this fast?’ He tried to make sense of it, while knowing it was pointless to do so: it was not he himself travelling but his alter ego. He was aware of three tiny shapes ahead of him. Then they were gone.

  A second later, the apparitions began.

  The journey from a horizon point was often accompanied by visions of the past – but these ones appeared to Jake upside down too. He saw snow-capped mountains and forests of bamboo bending in the wind. There were patchworks of fields, half under water, and wide, winding rivers. There were fortresses with roofs that curved up at the edges, curious pagodas, and palaces topped with golden tiles. He saw a wall that travelled into infinity, and an army marching across the frozen tundra.

  He closed his eyes against the images, and soon felt himself falling, headfirst. He flew towards the ocean, towards a land he didn’t recognize.

  ‘China?’ he said, craning to see as the Orient took shape beneath him.

  Suddenly he spotted himself on the deck of the Thunder, standing with the others; in a flash he returned to his body. He stood there panting, his head whirling, then rushed over to the side and vomited. As he got his breath back, Nathan put his arm round him.

  ‘You all right?’

  He nodded. Nathan passed him a handkerchief, and Jake managed to croak, ‘How’s your hair?’

  Nathan had already removed his helmet. He shook out his deep auburn locks and announced, ‘We may all breathe a sigh of relief – it seems to have arrived in one piece.’

  Jake looked out across the sea, a still expanse of cornflower blue disappearing towards a golden horizon. Only now did he notice that he was sweating. ‘We’ve arrived all right?’ he asked.

  Yoyo smiled at him. ‘Welcome to the South China Sea.’

  13 CANTON TIME

  ‘HOW MUCH DO you three know about China?’ Yoyo asked, polishing the blade of her sword.

  They were eating lunch as they sailed north from the horizon point towards the port of Canton.

  ‘Shall I come straight out and admit it?’ Nathan said with a theatrical flourish. ‘Of course, I know the basics – the Great Wall and so on – but my know ledge is shamefully sketchy. Educate me!’

  Topaz grimaced; Nathan’s continual sucking up to Yoyo was starting to grate. He had been following her around like a puppy and cooing at everything she said.

  ‘I know it’s the longest continuous civilization in history.’ Jake remembered a passage from his book about the travels of Marco Polo. ‘Four thousand years and counting.’

  ‘Spot on,’ Yoyo told him. ‘In four millennia, though it’s had its ups and downs, our civilization has never fallen apart. The Romans lasted barely seven hundred years, the ancient Greeks even fewer. The Egyptians and the Mayans did better, but China wins the prize.’

  ‘Naturellement,’ Topaz commented with a tight smile.

  ‘As for your western civilizations – the Ottomans, the Habsburgs, the Romanovs’ – Yoyo looked at Topaz – ‘the so-called French civilization . . . they were all over before they began.’ She emphasized her point with a few clicks of her fingers.

  Topaz bristled. ‘Although, of course, that depends on how you define civilization,’ she pointed out.

  ‘France’s heyday was fun – with a lot of powder and gaudy dressing-up – but ultimately it was all rather hollow and short-lived. Non?’

  Nathan fell about laughing. ‘You have to admit, that does have a ring of truth!’

  Topaz was determined not to rise to the bait. ‘Carry on, Yoyo. I’m fascinated.’

  ‘So, you’re asking, how on earth have we lasted so long? How have we been so absurdly successful? How have we earned our title, the Middle Kingdom – as in, “the realm between heaven and earth”?’

  ‘Yes, yes, tell us!’ Nathan exclaimed.

  ‘Pour l’amour de Dieu,’ Topaz muttered under her breath.

  ‘The answer is: our talent for invention – and re-invention – through the ages. Since 1700 BC the country has been ruled by a series of dynasties: all-powerful families, each one seeing in a new era of change. The Shang invented the Chinese alphabet and built the world’s first navy. The Zhou followed with cast iron and mathematics. In 221 BC, the Emperor Qin – the first emperor – started on the Great Wall, the largest structure ever built: over four thousand miles long, the distance from London to Delhi.’

  ‘The Emperor Qin,’ Nathan piped up excitedly, ‘was the one who buried himself with all those stone soldiers.’

  ‘Not just soldiers,’ Yoyo replied. ‘An entire court: governors, cooks, musicians, slaves – thousands and thousands of them, all to look after him and run his empire in the afterlife.’

  ‘I’ll give them this,’ Topaz quipped, ‘they’re not afraid to be grand.’

  ‘And why should they be?’ Yoyo answered. ‘Modesty is for the rest of the world. After the Qin came the Han. Obviously, they invented paper, the compass, the seismograph – but, more importantly for all of us, they opened up the first global trade route. The Silk Road, as you probably know, wasn’t just one road, but a whole network running through Asia, connecting the east to the west. The Romans couldn’t get enough of that silk – this was the age of Julius Caesar, more or less; but even more importantly, ideas started going back and forth. It became an information superhighway.’

  ‘Fascinating . . . fascinating,’ Nathan gushed, running his hands through his hair.

  ‘And we’ve barely scratched the surface.’ Yoyo checked her reflection in her gleaming blade. ‘During the Tang dynasty – AD 800, give or take – while the rest of the world was entering a dark age, we were scaling new heights. There was an explosion of art and culture. White porcelain was created, printing, gunpowder . . . There were huge advances in science, astronomy, geography.’

  ‘What about Genghis Khan?’ Jake asked. ‘When was he?’

  ‘He came after,’ Yoyo told him. ‘In the thirteenth century he pushed the boundaries of the empire further than ever, from Europe in the west to Mongolia in the north. After Marco Polo visited the country and took his stories back, the whole world was clamouring for all things Chinese. The obsession grew and grew, and since the early 1500s, sea routes have been opening up between east and west.’

  Yoyo sheathed her sword and looked at them seriously. ‘Which brings us to now: the famous Ming dynasty. An age that is rich beyond all imaginings. The Great Wall is complete. Peking, the most populous place on earth, is filled with the golden palaces of the Forbidden City. And trade, the bringer of all this wealth – not just to China, but to all the world – is booming like never before—’

  ‘And there ends the lesson,’ Topaz couldn’t resist putting in with a smile.

  ‘Land!’ Jake suddenly shouted, leaping to his feet. ‘Land ahoy!’

  They all turned to look at the horizon ahead, hazy in the midday heat. They pressed on, merging with a stream of ships heading to and from the mainland. Jake watched the other vessels with interest. There were many galleons from the west, setting off on their long journey home, their timbers creaking, their sails charged with wind, but it was the Chinese merchant ships – the junks – that intrigued him most. They were squarer than the western ships, the bulky ste
rns rising steeply out of the water – a sheer cliff of timber – and their sails looked like the fins of giant fish.

  ‘That’s Macao there . . .’ Yoyo pointed towards a port just visible in the distance – a multitude of roofs nestling amongst undulating peaks. ‘Almost a new city. It’s a Portuguese trading post, administered by the Chinese. In just a few decades – since world trade really began to explode – it’s grown twenty-fold.’

  They forged on along the coast into the giant delta of the Pearl River. The estuary was so huge that it was hours before the banks narrowed enough for them to see land on the other side. A sequence of tributaries flowed into the river mouth, each carrying away a portion of the ships. It was not until mid-afternoon that the Thunder finally reached the harbour of Canton itself.

  The sun had got the better of Jake, and for the last hour he had been sitting under an awning, sweat dripping down his face. His discomfort was forgotten as the city came into view – like a mirage forming out of the sweltering heat. He stood up, gawping.

  As in London, there were ships everywhere; the jungle of masts seemed to disappear to infinity. But where the other port had been rich and dark, Canton was a blaze of light and colour. The sea was a vivid turquoise, and the city itself looked golden, with its layers of yellow- and orange-tiled roofs. Adding to the magic, clusters of tropical palms sprouted between the buildings, and in the distance Jake could see elegant pagodas – slim towers rising in ever-narrowing tiers.

  On one side of the river, in the grandest part of the port, the banks were teeming with people, mostly wearing conical rice hats to protect them from the sun. There was a carnival atmosphere, with people waving batons and jostling forward to get a better view of the river.

  ‘How touching.’ Nathan grinned. ‘Our very own welcoming party.’

  A cheer went up, and soon everyone was clapping and shouting. Nathan found himself waving back and tossing his glossy locks.

  From behind came a blare of horns, so earsplitting it made them all jump. They had been so busy looking ahead they hadn’t noticed the vessel on their tail – a gargantuan ship that cast a shadow over the Thunder as she glided towards the dock. The horns were soon accompanied by pounding drums: boom, boom, boom.