Boy Who Stole Time

by Mark Bowsher

  The physicians and magicians realised that they couldn’t keep her young for ever unless they somehow gave her more time. They hatched a plan to harvest time itself, grind it up and turn it into a draught which the Empress could swallow in one gulp.

  The physicians and magicians knocked on the door and the Empress let them out and within hours the harvest began.

  Time, of course, was not really a crop (like the ones the people of Bahrtakrit grew in woven baskets hanging over the sides of the city) so the physicians and magicians proposed to rid the city of time altogether by gathering up all time-keeping devices and grinding them into a powder.

  A battalion of the Empress Benhu’in’s most loyal guards tore through the city, seizing every clock, sundial, hourglass and egg timer they could lay their hands on. Each device was then ground into a fine powder and a quantity of the powder was left to boil in a large vat of milk and liquorice for seven whole days.

  The potion was prepared and the Empress took her finest golden goblet and drank a generous draught. Immediately after, a streak of grey ran down a second hair and the physicians and magicians found themselves locked up again, this time with only a crust of mouldy bread and a thimbleful of steam. They knew something was missing from their time potion. But what? Kalrika Mavalrh, the oldest of the physicians, spoke of a herb she knew of that only grew in the shadow of a large sundial at the highest point of the north side of the canyon.

  The physicians and magicians rapped on the door, the Empress let them out and they sped past her to the north canyon. The herb, oorarka (meaning ‘the shadow plant’), had barely survived in the unseasonably hot summer but one single specimen was left. The ancient Kalrika Mavalrh picked the herb, ran down into the city, crushed it with her bare hands, mixed it into the dust of time and dropped a quantity of the dust into a bubbling pot of milk and liquorice.

  The concoction was brewed again, this time for fourteen days, while the Empress paced her room impatiently.

  Finally, it was ready.

  The Empress Benhu’in took the potion and waited. She felt no different. And then she watched as the grey hairs faded to black, and she rubbed that accursed wrinkle for a few moments until her skin was silky smooth once more.

  The Empress Benhu’in was overjoyed, but her happiness would not last long. She immediately threw the physicians and magicians to their deaths at the bottom of the canyon (all except Mavalrh, whom she kept alive against her will, forcing the potion of time she made her brew down the ancient physician’s throat), and she cut out the tongues of any soul who breathed a word of the secret recipe so only she and Mavalrh knew it.

  But somehow there were people who knew about her concoction. Thieves appeared almost on a daily basis to try and steal the powdered time which she kept in her bedchamber at the centre of her palace. Some looked like no kind of person she or indeed anyone in Bahrtakrit had ever encountered before, with clothes and skin colours no one had seen anywhere in the whole world.

  But their ‘world’ was not our world. It was a different world and there are many more worlds out there other than the Empress Benhu’in’s and ours.

  The Harvest of Time was a unique event in all of existence and this caused holes to be ripped between worlds. People were coming from many different worlds to steal what the Empress called her ‘Myrthali’ (meaning ‘The Sands of Time’ in ancient Bahrtakri) and these ‘time thieves’ had gathered an army to force their way into the Empress’s palace.

  The Empress’s guards encircled the palace and were instructed never to lower their swords morning, noon or night. For decades the Empress and her household were trapped within the palace. Eventually the Empress grew sick of living in hiding and came out onto the battlements to goad the time thieves. The time thieves who had not been slain or died of old age grew restless and rushed towards the guards. Most were slaughtered within seconds but a handful evaded the guards and made their way into the palace.

  There was only one time thief, Evia, who had fought her way through a hundred thousand worlds to reach Bahrtakrit, who made it into the Empress’s bedchamber alive. Evia found the Empress clutching the final sack of her Myrthali. She threatened the Empress with her blade but she would not let go. Evia tore the sack from the Empress’s grasp and disappeared, never to be seen again. As for the Empress, the moment the sack left her grip she fell to the floor and breathed no more.

  In the chaos that ensued the palace was set on fire and burned to the ground. The body of the Empress was dragged from the flames by her most loyal handmaid, Viona, who had always respected her mistress, despite her cruel, spiteful nature.

  The corpse of the Empress was displayed in a glass case on a raised dais at the centre of the city of Bahrtakrit. Some saw it as a mark of respect to the city’s longest-serving ruler, others as a warning to all not to meddle with time.

  Only a handful of people in Bahrtakrit had information on the current whereabouts of the final sack of Myrthali. They called themselves ‘the Council of the Few’ and met in secret once a month, each remaining hooded throughout their discussions. The rips which had first led to their world had healed themselves but there were tales of others. Evia, it was believed, no longer had the Myrthali, which had been split and distributed to the highest bidders and transported to a multitude of worlds. The gateways between these worlds were now more complex, more difficult to locate. But still there were tales, rumours of where quantities of the Myrthali now resided, or so the leader of the Council of the Few stated. Their leader was a young woman who claimed to be the heir to the Empress’s throne and who vowed to search a thousand million worlds to claim what was rightfully hers. And soon the Council of the Few gave her enough information to start her quest. Shortly afterwards she left Bahrtakrit, never to return, and, so the tale goes, is still searching for the Empress’s Myrthali.

  As for the Empress herself, she got her wish. To this day her body lies in the glass case at the centre of the city, remaining young and beautiful for all time.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE DEVIL’S PROPOSAL

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Krish.

  ‘But yer listened to it,’ said the creature. ‘Start to finish.’

  ‘Yeah, well…’ Krish struggled to explain why he hadn’t just got up and walked away. He wasn’t sure himself. He didn’t believe it. Of course he didn’t. But he couldn’t deny that he wanted to believe it. ‘It’s just…’ He was trying to think of a nice, big, juicy word that would make him sound smart. ‘Implausible!’

  The creature turned up one side of its upper lip in semi-disgusted puzzlement. ‘What?!’

  ‘Your story. It’s utterly implausible!’ ‘Utterly’ was a fairly sizeable word as well, thought Krish. He was feeling rather pleased with himself. ‘Completely ridiculous! “On the dawn of the thousandth day” and all that rubbish! Really?! On exactly the thousandth day? And, and Evia going to like a thousand million billion worlds! It’s not possible! And the oo…whatever – that herb, plant, thing… it was the last one there? Just happened to be the only one left?’

  The creature squinted at Krish with one eye, trying to figure something out about the boy. ‘Magic worlds and Myrthali you is fine with… but it’s the silly little details that yer don’t believe…?’

  ‘Oh! I don’t believe a single thing you’ve said! But it’s the little details that just prove it’s absolute rubbish! It’s just all too convenient.’

  ‘Stories, boy! Stories! Little details aren’t important. The big things, the important things – them happened! The Harvest o’ Time and the big stuff I told yer all happened. Don’t matter how. Stories is stories. I can’t prove nuffin’. But yer can see for yerself…’

  Those nasty yellow eyes pierced him with their eagerness, their hunger. The look of a starving person outlining where the two of them might find a feast to fill their bellies to bursting point.

  ‘I hears yer,’ the creature tapped the side of its head and Krish was surprised that lumps of charred, blac
kened wood didn’t fall off of its moistureless skin. ‘Up here! Yer can’t deny it. Yer listened. Yer stayed and listened. Yer remembered the names…’

  If the creature before Krish wasn’t crawling through his subconscious anyway, he realised that he had indeed already given himself away. He’d mentioned Evia’s name, so he’d clearly listened to the story closely.

  ‘Well, it’s not even a complete story!’ Krish spat out. ‘What happened to Evia and Viola?’ He deliberately got Viona’s name wrong. ‘And – and what about the heir? The story doesn’t even give any hint about who…’

  Krish stared at the creature. That hunched bag of bones in its tattered robe. It watched, waiting for the precise moment when the realisation hit Krish. When it did, the creature nodded.

  ‘You?’ said Krish. ‘You’re the heir to the Empress’s throne?’

  The creature smiled. It took a little bow.

  ‘So, you must have found some Myrthali?’ asked Krish.

  The creature nodded. ‘Some. Not all.’

  Krish gave up pretending not to care. His head was swimming with too many questions to keep them in any more. ‘But why did the Empress leave it to you? And why did you leave if you were going to be Empress? And what happened to—?’

  ‘Thought yer weren’t interested in stories, boy? Didn’t believe ’em?’

  Krish ignored the creature’s question; something else was confusing him. Another detail about the heir returned to him from the story ‘You are… a woman?’

  ‘Not all girls is pretty dresses and flowers and such, young ’un.’

  The creature looked different now. It was still stooped, gnarled and haggard, but suddenly Krish could recognise something in those yellowy eyes set into its charcoal-like skin. It wasn’t that it looked more like a man but rather that it didn’t really look much like a human being at all. He could see her eyes clearly now. Eyes that hid something familiar.

  ‘I is what I is but they once called me “she” and “her” but I is nuffin’ to nobody now.’

  ‘Which means you’re something to somebody.’

  She winced for a moment and then hissed at him, ‘Does I look like anybody has cared or loved I in a thousand years?’

  ‘I don’t know what a thousand years feels like.’

  ‘But yer wants to, don’t yer?’

  Krish pondered the notion. It scared him. The idea of being that old. Old like her. The devil before his eyes. How could he trust that creature? That disgusting thing? He shouldn’t judge by appearances – but those eyes. Those horrible, rotten yellow eyes. The devil repulsed him. Yes. She was a devil. Not ‘The Devil’. The one with the horns and the fiery red skin you saw in films and cartoons. But something like that. Something hateful and cruel beyond belief.

  ‘You are wise to judge I for I is a devil.’ She was in his mind again. ‘But I is mendin’ my ways. I am hateful, but not cruel. Cruel I would be not to offer this gift to you. Time can be yours. Yours and whoever yer shares it with. I promises yer.’

  Krish did want it. Not all of it. He wouldn’t know what to do with all that time. But he could have some. Just a little. Just to try. And the rest his Mum could have. What she’d do with it he had no idea. He didn’t care. She could spend as much time reading and gardening and visiting old houses in the country as she wanted. Surely it would be better than hardly having any time at all. And his friends. Jess and Dawson would certainly find uses for a little more time. Maybe. Just a little. He wouldn’t allow them too much. Maybe too much time would make them lazy. Yes. Dawson (named after his Mum’s favourite TV show, apparently) would just waste it playing on his PlayStation anyway. It would make me lazy too, he thought. Maybe he could stay young and play hockey for the rest of his life but then… would he become sick of that? What would he do with all that time? He’d have time to think about what he wanted to do. All the time he could want.

  ‘You is burning time dreaming of what yer’d do with more of it!’ said the devil.

  Krish thought of something that unsettled him.

  ‘Why me? Why don’t you go and steal it yourself?’

  The devil hesitated. ‘I would.’ She scratched her bare, scarred head, flakes of skin flying off in the process. ‘But I haven’t the strength. I is too old now. A thousand years ago maybe… But I’ve settled here now. Won’t be journeyin’ to other worlds again.’

  ‘You’ve actually lived over a thousand years?’

  She spat and made that dismissive gesture with her hand again. ‘Over a thousand years?! Much older! Much! I fell asleep for three thousand years once! Is nuffin’!’

  ‘Maybe you’ve had too much time.’ There was a little quiver in his voice as the last of these words left his lips but the beast did not appear perturbed. For a moment he thought her silence suggested that she agreed (to an extent) but then she shook her head. Krish was hesitant to say another word but he felt more uncomfortable not speaking with that thing in his head. Hearing her hoarse, croaky voice saying what was on his mind made him shiver all over.

  ‘So…’ Krish felt he was clawing around in his own head, trying to stitch a few words together, words that made sense of the bizarre situation he found himself in. ‘You know how to get into these other worlds? Where the Myrthali is?’

  She nodded with a gleeful grin.

  ‘And you just…’ He didn’t want to sound stupid. ‘Step into these worlds…?’

  The devil let out a rasping groan, waving her hands about in disgust. ‘Yer not listenin’ to I! It were too easy las’ time! Is like all the worlds knows it weren’t right! It weren’t right jus’ walkin’ into a new world to steal time itself! No! This time they is hidden. Secret places with secret rituals to let yer through.’

  Krish was imagining some weird scene he’d seen in an old film his Dad had watched once, which he’d seen through the partially open door, while he sat at the bottom of the stairs when he was much younger. Silently – trying not to breathe, his parents thinking he was tucked up in bed fast asleep – he had watched fifteen minutes of that film and had seen a man get chained up by another man and have his beating heart pulled out while deranged worshippers all around chanted as if they were possessed.

  ‘Gah!’ interrupted the devil. ‘Nuffin’ like that! Stupidy stupid boy! Just simple things. But unusual things. Combinations o’ stuff that peoples never does unless they is told to. I has lived long. I has searched. I has experimented. I knows. But I is too old now. Someone else must go.’

  Suddenly it struck Krish. What this was all about.

  ‘You want me to go instead of you! To bring back Myrthali for you!’

  The devil jumped about with joy, giggling madly.

  ‘Yes! Yes! Yes! Course! Wha’s yer thinkin’ I be askin’? Is a bargain, see? Half for you, half not for you. For I!’

  ‘But my Mum—’

  ‘Yer shares yer half with her. Your half becomes your quarter and her quarter. Tha’s deal.’ A few more giggles escaped her mouth.

  He wasn’t sure he really wanted any Myrthali for himself any more. Or not much anyway.

  ‘What yer does with it’s your choice,’ the devil answered. ‘But yer’ll try some. Believe me. Yer won’t let yerself not try some.’

  ‘You…’ Krish began, cautiously, ‘have a map…?’

  A full-bellied laugh. The devil rolled back and forth, clutching her stomach. ‘Yer plots to steal it from I! H-ha! No such luck!’ She rolled back onto her feet and scurried up to Krish, shoving her face in his, closer than she’d ever been to him before. ‘Yer wants map? Take it!’ Her breath was as foul as milk left out in a hot room for days. ‘Here’s map!’ She was poking her own forehead. ‘Take it! Take it away! Jus’ yer try!’ She resumed her little routine of rolling about and laughing.

  Krish had had enough. What was he doing here? Why was he listening to this thing? It can’t be real. It can’t be! He ran. He couldn’t see the devil now. It was… it had been behind him. But it wasn’t there. He was sure that if he looked
back now it wouldn’t be there. The laughing must be the other kids in the playground.

  ‘Yer wants map?! Yer can have it! I shares it with yer! And I shares the Myrthali with yer! Half for you, half for I!’

  Those kids say the weirdest things, thought Krish, not looking back.

  CHAPTER 6

  BETWEEN THE SUN & THE MOON

  The thing with the devil, it didn’t happen.

  Krish thought about the thing that didn’t happen every day from then on. He thought about it at school, when he saw the face of the devil he’d definitely never met in the corner of the whiteboard. When he was playing hockey, its eye in the ball as he hit it as hard as he could. And over his Mum’s bed in hospital. That crooked, sinister smile; grinning with so much vile vigour over his mother’s weak, tired lips that struggled to curve upwards.

  No. It didn’t happen. And he definitely hadn’t searched ‘weird devil real’ and found lots of quite disturbing websites that would have made his Mum raise an eyebrow if she’d caught him looking at them. Absolutely not. The devil did not exist. She had never been here. He’d never spoken to her in the alley by the swimming pool and those were not her foul, yellow eyes staring at him from the shadows under his bed.

  For a day he managed to rid his head of all of thoughts of devils and Myrthali.

  His Dad dropped him at his friend Dawson’s house before driving straight back to the hospital. Krish didn’t mention his Mum to Dawson and Dawson was too preoccupied with talking about a new PlayStation game his older brother had where you stole cars and got into fights. Dawson’s Dad had said Dawson was too young to play it. Dawson was probably Krish’s best friend (and perhaps the only one who didn’t really care much about books and films and TV shows).

  They sat in silence almost the whole time as they played a Formula One racing game. They usually said very little, just a few whoops, gasps and cheers as they sped round corners of the race track on the TV, but today it was only Dawson who whooped, gasped and cheered. And he spent too much time staring over at his Dad, waiting for him to disappear for an hour and do the shopping so they could play the stealing and fighting game, but he never left so Dawson didn’t really notice how quiet his friend was. Krish just sat there feeling he was wasting time as his car made last place again.