Mr. Brush sighs and shakes his head, the candle reflecting in his glasses. “The damage adds up like bad credit. Portal travel is supposed to be a localized phenomenon. A protected field. You go through, do your business, come back; then you close it off until it’s used again. That way your temporal footprint is limited and the time travel paradox doesn’t destroy every darn thing in creation.”
“Time travel paradox?” Daniel asks.
“Yes,” Mr. Brush says. “You know, the old wives’ tale about how if you travel in time and change something, it messes up all of reality because you fooled around with causality. Like if you went back and murdered your own parents, and then you were never born because you didn’t have parents. Things like that.”
Daniel’s face darkens.
“I’m afraid that wasn’t the best example,” Mr. Brush says, knowing that Daniel never knew his parents. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Daniel says.
“Unfortunately,” Mr. Brush says, “this particular set of maps comes to an abrupt end.” He lifts up the newest of the volumes and flips it open. “The first few pages are filled up, but the rest of the book remains blank. No one has been updating it. Whoever sent us these maps had their work stopped abruptly. Perhaps they got into trouble and didn’t want these maps falling into the wrong hands.”
Mr. Brush pries out the black stone from the Index volume with his finger and holds it up. “This strange little item here, this is a time stone. Take a look.”
Daniel leans forward and squints, since the candle offers only dim, flickering light. At first the stone looks just like a typical piece of black rock. But it also has a kind of blinking quality. Is that the candle flame creating the effect? No…
“Woa,” Daniel says, taking the stone and holding it the way his uncle did. Smooth indentations on the top and bottom fit his fingers perfectly. The rest of the stone is covered with tiny square facets, and every few seconds a facet pulses in or out. The pattern seems random, but the effect is hypnotic. Daniel watches it go. One facet moves here, another one there. Constantly changing. In, out. It is as if the stone breathes.
“That is the time stone for this particular map set,” Mr. Brush says. “Each time a portal opens or closes, you’ll see it move on this stone. The stone reacts to time and space disturbances. That’s how the Watchmaker would know to make a repair or write down a new entry in the map.”
“That’s amazing,” Daniel says. The facets continue their dance, in and out. “So according to this thing, there are disturbances going on right now.”
“Oh, yes, all the time. People, Tromindox, portals opening, others closing, all over the place,” Mr. Brush says. “An experienced Watchmaker can spot a rift in the real world, even without this stone. A door that opens and closes, objects that just won’t stay in one place, locks that won’t stay locked, things like that. The stone makes it a whole lot easier; it reacts whenever there are openings and closings. But nobody is documenting these.”
Daniel watches the stone pulse in and out while yellow candlelight flicks off of the moving facets. Outside the clouds take on a glow around the edges, as they do when the moon is full. There is, however, no moon.
“This whole mess isn’t much use without the viewer, though,” Mr. Brush says, leaning over and reaching into the wooden box. “There’s one more piece to the puzzle—ah, here we go.” He lifts out a contraption that resembles a very odd ornate brass table lamp, with a curved bracket on top holding a glass chamber at the center. It rattles as Mr. Brush places it on the floor between them.
Daniel turns the stone over in his hands. He touches the facets, one by one.
“Now, be careful with that,” Mr. Brush says. “Even without the viewer, the stone is very powerful. Only hold it the correct way. I don’t want you falling into any portals by accident.”
“Okay, maybe I’ll just put it down then,” Daniel says, tucking the stone back into its box. Instead he picks up the last of the volumes and pages through, finding the last entry.
“This is weird,” Daniel says, “these later pages look really different from the other ones.”
“Let me take a gander,” Mr. Brush says, taking the book. He eyes the pages, flipping them back and forth. “My boy, you’re right. These notations have little to nothing in common with the ones before. In fact, I’d say these aren’t even the standard maps.”
“What are they, then?” Daniel asks. Bertrand the cat stands, stretches, turns and lies down again.
“Well, I’m a bit rusty on this, mind you,” Mr. Brush says, “but I’d have to say these newer bits look like maps of space-time inside of portals. As if someone took a portal, opened it, and then made notes on what they found. Take a look. See? Here,” he points at an intersection of a circle and two lines with notations on it and a square symbol in one book, “and then, here.” He lays out the newer drawing next to it. In that one, the square symbol has been copied into the corner, and then blown up much bigger, with an entire page of additional markings and notations around it.
“It’s as if someone was documenting rifts rather than repairing them or closing the portals,” Mr. Brush says.
“You mean, to map how things were getting tangled up from either side?” Daniel asks.
“That’s what it looks like,” Mr. Brush says. “Looking to use the insides of the portals or the space-time between them for some purpose, instead of fixing them. My, that’s…that’s very clever.”
“That could be very powerful,” Daniel says. “If what you say is true, and things on either side of a portal can get tangled up together, if you could control it, it’s like you could be two places at once. Or do things in one place and time that affect something else in another place and time.”
“Right you are, my boy,” Mr. Brush says. “It could also be dangerous. It’s a terrible idea to mess with a rift. You need an anchor to keep you in time. You can’t just jump in there and do what you want. And you certainly can’t stay in there. Although we did try that, once, as a method to imprison someone. And it worked pretty well. It was another of those decisions made in haste.”
Mr. Brush looks thoughtful, and Daniel imagines gears turning behind his uncle’s pale forehead.
Outside, the clouds split into two, white and blue lightning jumping between them.
Mr. Brush rouses himself from his thoughts. “That’s enough about that; let’s pop this thing into the viewer and see what we get.” He grabs the table-lamp contraption and places it between them. Lifting the time stone from its box, he sets it carefully into the glass chamber.
Nothing happens.
“I suppose this might need some repairs after rattling around in that box,” Mr. Brush says, frowning. “Hold the stone while I take a look. And mind, be careful. Only hold it by the smooth parts like I showed you.”
Mr. Brush pulls a miniscule screwdriver from his pocket and adjusts several components on the viewer. He yanks out and reattaches a threadlike wire, making an adjustment to the glass chamber. Satisfied, he sets the contraption back down.
“Let’s give it another try.”
Daniel sets the stone into the chamber; Mr. Brush lifts the candle and brings it close.
The candlelight bounces off of the stone and cascades onto the floor. Tiny shapes scatter everywhere, like bits of sunlight making their way through the leaves of a tree.
“Wait!” Mr. Brush says. He grabs the last volume, opens it to a blank page, and slides it underneath the viewer. “Now we can see better.”
Through the viewer, the stone projects markings like those found in the maps. Circles intersect with lines, and at the intersections strange symbols appear.
“See? That’s how it works,” Mr. Brush grins. “The Watchmaker’s job is to document changes in time and space as they are happening. It’s tricky to translate, mind you. You sure have to know what you are doing.”
Together Daniel and his uncle watch the lines and intersections move and fluctuate in beautiful patte
rns on the paper. Hundreds of shapes turn and shift together, forming a lacy pattern.
“Of course, there’s no way to keep up with all this anymore; there’s too much going on,” Mr. Brush says. “So many undocumented rifts, things jumping all over the place. What a mess.” He shakes his head.
“So,” Daniel says, “if I am understanding this right, it would appear that someone out there was documenting the insides of time and space rifts and then got interrupted and then somehow packed up their work and sent the whole thing to you in a big box? Why would they do that?”
“The answer to that, my boy, lies in determining who sent it,” Mr. Brush says. “Every Watchmaker has a personal seal. If we can just find it…” He digs around amongst the volumes, looking on the back pages of each. “Ah! Here we are.” He leans toward the candlelight to get a better look.
It’s a circular seal with symmetrical leaf designs in dark red ink, and the word “WATCHWORKS” curving over the top. The top part of the seal is intact but the lower portion is smeared, as if the seal was added in a hurry. There are several partial letters that might spell out a sort of name at the bottom.
Daniel attempts to read it. “Ee-gal-a-kev? There are far more consonants than vowels in this name.”
“Oh,” Mr. Brush says, nodding his head slowly. “I know who that is; let’s not bother with the pronunciation,” Mr. Brush says. “This fellow had a name nobody could ever say correctly. So we dispensed with it and just called him the Chairman. He is, after all, Chairman of the Council of Portals, last I knew.”
Lightning flashes in the front windows of the store. Two, three seconds, then thunder that sounds like it came from the roof.
Mr. Brush looks up and notices the disturbance outside for the first time. “I don’t like that,” he says. “Let’s get this stuff packed up.”
“What? It’s just weather,” Daniel says.’
“That’s not natural weather,” Mr. Brush says, suddenly jumpy. “Today’s sky was clear. I don’t like this at all.”
They place the viewer back in the box along with the leather volumes in order.
A gust of wind hits the front windows, causing them to rattle back and forth.
“Hurry,” Mr. Brush says. “Oh, we’ve messed about, haven’t we? This is exactly the sort of thing I try so hard to avoid. I mean, those Tromindox coming in here and making a mess, that was bad enough…but this? Oh dear…”
“What’s going on?” Daniel asks, picking up the last volume and the Index book containing the stone.
There’s another crash of thunder and the front door of the bookstore flies open.
“Damn!” Mr. Brush says. Daniel can’t remember having ever heard his uncle swear before.
Mr. Brush turns to Daniel. “I’m going to ask you to do something. Remember how I said never to hang out inside the portals? And how they are dangerous? And how to hold the stone correctly?” He’s grabbing Daniel’s wrists, holding out his hands with the stone and the book.
“Yeah,” Daniel says.
“Well, forget all of that,” Mr. Brush says, pushing Daniel toward the back of the store. “I need to stick you in somewhere out of the way for a minute. We’ve got to hide the stone. Without the stone the maps are useless. So just do what I ask. Okay?”
“Uh, okay,” Daniel says, walking backward, still holding the final map volume in one hand and the stone in the other.
Mr. Brush rummages in his pocket. Wind howls through the door now, upsetting books and sending Bertrand scurrying under a bookshelf. There’s hail hitting the front windows. Or is that hail? No, it’s something else.
“We have company,” Mr. Brush says. “Someone out there knows these maps were sent to us and wants to get a hold of them. I wonder what happened to the Chairman that would cause him to abandon his work like this. I don’t like it.”
Another crash of thunder. “Damn,” Mr. Brush says again. He pulls a portal coin from his pocket and presses it into Daniel’s palm, nearly causing Daniel to drop the map. “This portal is on a timer. You will go…somewhere…then you will come back. Don’t do anything. I just need you out of here for a little bit. Understand? If things work right, you’ll land right back in this spot.”
“But Uncle, I can help you! What is going on?”
“No time!” Mr. Brush shouts over the noise. Screeching, winged scorpion-like creatures pour through the door, filling the front of the store and crashing into the shelves. “Let me handle this. You keep that stone safe.” He grabs Daniel’s other hand and curls it around the stone, touching his fingers to several of the moving facets at the same time.
Daniel’s vision goes blurry. He can see his uncle turn to run back toward the front of the store, grabbing a broom and wielding it over his head. He sees Bertrand, or maybe that’s not Bertrand; it’s a cat-like shape morphing into something else—that’s all he can make out. Daniel tries to call to his uncle, but he can’t make any sound. And then he can’t see either.
Silence.
Daniel stands in a clearing, surrounded by woods. There’s grass and weeds up to his knees. A full moon glows and everything looks nighttime blue.
A hundred yards or so away he can see a hulking, four-story stone building, maybe an old hospital. It appears abandoned, its windows dark. A good setting for a horror movie, he notes to himself.
Moving closer, crunching through the dry weeds, Daniel notices a chain-link fence encircling the building. Even the fence is old, uneven and falling over in places. Overgrown hedges obscure most of the bottom floor. Whatever this place is, it hasn’t been in use in a long time, and stern signs posted on the fence warn that people are not supposed to go in there.
This place does not feel normal. Is it possible that Daniel’s uncle dropped him through a portal, or into a rift? If so, this is not what Daniel would have expected at all. Everything is so…quiet. There’s nothing going on. There’s an abandoned building and some weeds.
What did he think he would find? Flying saucers and cave men? Maybe.
A light flicks on in one of the windows on an upper floor of the building.
Daniel blinks to check if his eyes are working right. The window stands out bright yellow-white in the dark blue. He moves toward it, never taking his eyes off the light. The window looks to be on the second story, but this old building can’t possibly have electricity; it’s about to crumble at any moment.
There’s no denying it; someone is home.
Daniel squeezes between two separated sections of the chain-link fence and works his way into the overgrown bushes, keeping one eye on the yellow glow of the window. If he can just locate a foothold, he can hoist himself up and get a look in. Could it be there’s a different time going on inside, a time when the building was in use? Maybe this is how the rifts work?
Daniel grabs onto the stone facade and swings one foot up. The stone is thick and full of indentations, easy to climb, especially for someone who has spent so much time on the rocks in the wilderness around Brokeneck. Soon Daniel stands up against the wall just next to the lit window. He inches sideways, careful not to give himself away. There’s no telling what— or who—might be in there.
Peeking around with one eye, he sees nothing at first. But then he looks down toward the floor.
There’s a boy sitting there. Now he’s crawling around. He looks like he’s wearing pajamas. And he’s drawing with a marker pen all over the place.
Daniel can’t see the boy’s face, but it’s the drawings that catch his attention. They look exactly like the maps that he and his uncle just received. Circles, lines, intersections, symbols with squares and tiny markings in and around them. Notations everywhere. Is this kid a Watchmaker? Is it Mr. Brush at a young age? Is this some sort of flashback?
The boy stops drawing and sits up on his knees, seemingly taking a break. He wipes his nose with his sleeve and looks up.
It’s Henry Silverwood.
“Henry! Henry, it’s me, Daniel! From the bookstore!” Daniel yells,
but his voice comes out weirdly muffled. He tries to bang with his palms on the window, but his hand stops just short of the glass, as if he is underwater and can’t quite move with enough force to hit anything. What is Henry doing in there? Is that really him, or an image? Maybe a vision from the future? Why would Henry hang out all alone in some abandoned building, drawing on the floor? Daniel’s head floods with questions. He tries again to call out and hit the window, but he can’t make contact.
Henry goes back to drawing, oblivious to Daniel’s presence.
Daniel feels his body being pulled away. “No!” he yells, but the building slides out from under him. The glowing window now looks like a lonely yellow square in a sea of midnight blue.
He stumbles backward and into a wall of books. Several volumes crash to the floor.
“What the— Uncle? Are you here? Am I back?” Daniel calls.
Then his eyes adjust and he looks around.
The store is a smoking, charred mess. Blackened books lie everywhere. The tables and counter lie smashed into splinters. The windows and door are shattered.
“Uncle?”
There’s movement in the rubble nearest the cash register. “Daniel?”
“Oh, my god,” Daniel says, wading over to the lump that he suspects is his uncle. He clears away a table leg and a pile of books to find Mr. Brush, lying on his back, grinning.
“Uncle?”
“I made them go away,” Mr. Brush says. “Bertrand helped. They didn’t get or Regrets. So there.” He puts up a finger in a weak gesture of victory.
Daniel helps his uncle sit up. “Are you okay? You’ve taken a hit on the head. There’s some blood.” There’s a lot of blood, actually, but Daniel doesn’t want to alarm Mr. Brush.
Silver Shard Page 13
