Timekeepers: Number 2 in Series

by Catherine Webb

  Yes.

  You fear losing your mind in the process.

  It was a choice, he realised, and felt relieved that something so big could be boiled down to a simple option. Let his siblings summon Darkness, in which case he, the Bearer of Light, might have to tap the minds of thousands and thousands to dispel her. Or seal the Way of Eden for ever, a process that would require far less power and therefore ran less risk of turning his mind to jelly.

  Put like that, there was only one way forward.

  FIFTEEN

  Asgard

  Y

  ou must have seen I’d close the Way of Eden.   I saw it. But I did not think you had the strength.

  Sitting in the cinema, Sam opened his eyes and looked across at Tinkerbell, chomping on his popcorn with a determined grimace, as if to make as much noise as possible.

  I will give you protection in Eden. Because you tried.

  Protection.

  He remembered.

  To close the Way of Eden for good, certain provisions were necessary. One major ward, to prevent anyone sneaking up on him while he was, well, engaged. One minor shield, to hinder anyone from scrying his intent. One bottle of the most alcoholic substance he could find on Earth at that time, in the event of failure or success alike. Either way, he thought he’d probably need a good drink. One sword and dagger, just in case someone decided to break his wards and stop him by more violent means. He didn’t put it past many of his brothers. One set of clean clothes and a towel, in case the shock was enough once more to bowl him over into the stream. Assuming, that is, he’d be in a fit state to change.

  His provisions assembled, he opened the Eden Portal for the very last time. The thing was to push fear to the back of his mind. If he focused on his fear, that fear would be drawn to the forefront of every mind the Light touched, and the wards that he’d draw would be of fear, rather than shadow. Think shadow. Think… think careful. Don’t rush.

  He raised his hands, but still didn’t touch the Light. His fingers met, weaving themselves around a hollow between his palms. He closed his eyes. Still he didn’t touch the Light. No fear. No emotion, no nothing. To feel something is to give that feeling strength, amplified through the Light. Shadow feels nothing, Shadow has no strong opinions, Shadow does not love and hate, it is the ultimate non-extreme, yet it encompasses everything that might be.

  Nothing can breach wards drawn in Shadow.

  And there it was. He hadn’t even noticed. It had slipped into his fingers without burning, without the usual roaring in his skull, without the usual baying for blood. No feelings this time. Just shadow. The Light filled his cupped hands and hung there. He looked at it with a strange expression on his face, wondering what he should be feeling.

  No feelings. The Light wouldn’t permit it. It knew what he wanted to achieve, and wasn’t going to let a simple thing like personality or free will mess it up.

  He closed his eyes against the brightness of it, and opened his fingers. The Light spread outwards in total silence. He felt the first mind a second later, felt its surprise at seeing a wall of burning bright whiteness, too bright to look at, racing across the land at waist-height. It was a beehive. Only one mind, he noted with surprise. Bees thought with just one thought, Many in One, and only One of the Many.

  Then more minds, bringing with them more complicated thoughts. Angels, turning as the Light passed, running their fingers through the bright wave, marvelling at it. Avatars joining the throng, voices beginning to lose identity as the quantity increased tenfold in just a second, when the Light touched the city of Arcadia.

  Somewhere in the roaring mass of thoughts, a tiny Sam slapped his fingers together, closing them tight. The Light froze, retracted, raced back across the land towards Sam, slammed into him like an express train and then past, into the waiting maw of the Eden Portal.

  The voices in Sam’s head fell quiet. At least, they were quieter. They still roared, still howled, and drowned out everything that made Sam what he was, screaming their individuality so loud that no one had an identity. All those voices melding into one cacophony. But this time there were no strong emotions – no fire, no light, no dark, no anger, no hate, no love, no fear. Just the quiet roar of a thousand minds thinking thoughts that were neither good nor bad. Trivial things, mostly. Where was the paperwork? Where is the pen? No ‘me’ or ‘I’ or ‘we’ or anything to give anything a personality. Just flat, impersonal nouns, filling Sam’s mind.

  The sidhe, faerie of legendary power, so Sam had once been told, had a skill that few other races possessed. They could step sideways through reality, into the world of shadow. And the deeper they went, the more distant the real world seemed, until past and present merged into one and they could walk through walls, so insubstantial was this world they inhabited. Sam now understood how it felt. Everything seemed a thousand miles away, and though he faintly registered the fact that he was drowning, falling into a whirlpool of voices from which he couldn’t escape, he didn’t care. There was just no point. It seemed so irrelevant. Why bother?

  Wards. Write the wards, whispered a tiny, tiny voice that might just have been his.

  Write them now! A jolt across his mind, like electricity. Extreme emotion, one voice in the many, panic-filled. His voice, in the Many the only voice aware of what was going on, desperately clinging to a huge cliff, while below the seas of minds boiled. Screaming useless instructions. Sam to the Bearer of Light, come in please. Bearer of Light, can you hear me?

  Somewhere, a small, dark man standing before an open Portal raised his hands and began to move them through the air. They trailed white sparks as he drew, so that soon the air around him was on fire with swirling patterns and shapes. He tied a knot here, a knot there, looped one line of fire under another, until before him a lattice of burning fire stood in all its complex glory. With a gesture, he pushed it, white eyes not seeing, towards the Portal. It drifted inside.

  There was a long silence in which the white-eyed man stood there, hands limp by his side. Then the light in the Portal suddenly dimmed. Silver mist turned grey, darkened almost to black, and lightened again abruptly. Something hard and fast and dark exploded out of the Portal and rammed into the man, sending him flying backwards until he slammed up against his own major ward. He struck it in a shower of blue sparks and fell to the ground.

  The dark thing picked itself up – and up and up – and went on expanding upwards until Sam had to crane his head to see it. The Incarnate of Shadow stared emotionlessly down at the man who’d created such a perfect replica of itself in the minds of men. Then it, and the Portal that it had come through, winked out, and Sam was alone.

  Almost alone.

  So many voices filling my ears, yet they speak as One, and they say the same…

  He staggered to his feet, got a few paces and crumpled again. We are the intention and the act, the strength and the weakness, the light and the dark.

  And yes, we are shadow too. All that life, when melded together – everything is contained in it. Light, dark, shadow, individuals, collectives…

  He could hear voices screaming louder in his head, emotions creeping back up through the layer of shadow he’d written across their minds, growing indignant, growing powerful, growing loud.

  The Way of Eden, said a mind that might have been Jehovah’s.

  It’s sealed! wailed a mind that could well have been Odin’s.

  And somewhere behind it all, another mind, just on the edge of hearing. My son did it. I made him too well…

  And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t quite hear his own mind. Where am I? Am I you? Am I you?

  And me?

  And me?

  And me?

  And me?

  And me?

  Go away, leave me alone, go away, go away, go away!

  Somewhere by a small stream in Heaven a small figure ran into the forest, where the shadows ate him up.

  In the cinema, Sam opened his eyes, which glowed. ‘Tinkerbell,’
he said quietly.

  ‘Uhuh?’

  ‘I’ve got it.’ He rose to his feet.

  ‘Hey, the film! She’s about to tell him that she —’

  ‘Another time, Tinkerbell.’

  ‘Ah, hell.’ They elbowed their way into the light.

  Out in Leicester Square, Sam looked around, blinking in the sun. A group of Japanese tourists were posing in front of a theatre that advertised ‘a glittering, exciting play – I laughed myself silly’, a man in a ragged army coat was walking his pet ferret while a pair of girls pointed at him and giggled, and the rest of the mass of humanity likewise moved back and forth with no understanding of what was at stake.

  ‘Where’s the nearest Heaven Portal?’ he asked Tinkerbell.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I haven’t been to Heaven for over two thousand years.’

  Tinkerbell frowned, turning this way and that. Finally he pointed. ‘That way. Up Long Acre. Why are we going to Heaven?’

  ‘Because there’s someone really influential who owes me a favour.’

  ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘And you ain’t going to tell me?’

  ‘And spoil the surprise? Why on Earth, or any other world for that matter, should I do that? Besides, what I have in mind might piss people off.’

  Tinkerbell sighed. ‘It’s been a bad century, right?’

  ‘You’re getting the hang of it.’

  The Portal was where Sam had least expected it. ‘In there?’ he asked, looking up at the huge building.

  ‘Uhuh. The Masons built their castle bang smack on top of a Heaven Portal.’

  ‘Exactly why?’

  ‘I don’t think they realised they were doing it. They were probably looking for somewhere central, but with a feeling of mystery about it.’

  Sam looked up again at the huge white building with its central tower that dominated the skyline. ‘And they built it on a Heaven Portal.’

  ‘Sure did.’

  ‘But I’m not a Mason.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘So…?’

  ‘Generally, I find that what gets the best response is barging in there, walking straight up to the Portal and going through as though there was nothing wrong.’

  Sam stared at him with wide eyes. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Who are the Masons going to tell? The police? Who’s gonna believe them, anyway? They’d think it was some hoax by the Masons to get free publicity.’

  ‘A secret society wants free publicity?’

  ‘Look up at the building, pal.’

  Sam looked again. Situated at the end of Long Acre, in the heart of London, it did make a dramatic impression. ‘Okay, I get your point, but I want you to know that in principle I’m utterly opposed to it.’

  ‘The universe is going to end in three days’ time. Take a risk, okay?’

  So Sam did. He walked straight up to the doors of the Masons’ building, pushed them open, strode confidently across the foyer as if he knew exactly what he was doing, felt the Portal directly ahead, reached out to touch Tinkerbell’s arm and opened the Portal. By the time the man in the dark suit by the stairs had turned and said ‘Excuse me’, they were already stepping through the silver doorway and into the Way of Heaven.

  It was for the best, thought Sam, to make a speedy entrance to the Way of Heaven. All those memories of Heaven, and over two thousand years hadn’t eroded them. Perhaps if he’d waited, thought about returning to Heaven, he wouldn’t have done it. Maybe he was afraid of what might happen, of what he might remember that he’d tried so hard to forget. By charging straight through the Portal, however, he’d left himself no time to consider.

  It was like any old Waywalk. The image was clear in his mind, not dulled by the years spent away. Yet, though it was clear, the journey was hard, the Portal at the other end reluctant to open, the distance seemingly too long. What had changed the Halls of Asgard, that the Way of Heaven now had difficulty recognising the images he was feeding it?

  He could feel Tinkerbell’s fear rising as the Waywalk grew long, hear him struggling to breathe as the air began to run out. Still Sam kept walking, focusing, keeping the image in the front of his mind. A Portal opened ahead, and he almost ran for it, breaking from the Way of Heaven and gasping down lungfuls of air.

  He’d chosen this place because here, in the caves of Asgard, deep beneath Valhalla, there were numerous Portals and few people to watch them. Asgard was a place of shadows, spirits and sharp knives.

  Or had been.

  ‘Shit.’ Sam looked round the dark passages at fallen timber, piles of stones smashed from the walls, torches burnt out, swords stained with blood left lying on the ground, smelled the death, heard the cold wind, felt the emptiness.

  ‘Holy Hells,’ muttered Tinkerbell, looking round. ‘What happened here?’

  ‘I expect someone tried to put up a fight against Seth, Odin and Jehovah. And got screwed for their pains.’

  ‘Are they… all dead?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Who lived here?’

  ‘Valkyries, mostly. Asgard was like a prison, but it was riddled with Portals. They were the only way in and out, you see. You had to be a Waywalker to get in. It was a way of ensuring that Feywalker prisoners or faerie or even mortals who’d used just a bit too much magic in the wrong way didn’t escape.’

  ‘This?’ asked Tinkerbell, nodding at the ruined passages. ‘Asgard?’

  ‘Uhuh. Valhalla is directly above.’

  ‘Why’ve we come here?’

  ‘Because it is so riddled with Portals. Of every kind.’

  Tinkerbell gave Sam a shrewd look out of the corner of his eye, while picking his way over a pile of rubble. ‘But there are two kinds of Portal in Heaven – Eden, as well as Earth.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Sam sniffed the air, trying to sense the nearest Eden Portal.

  ‘Why do you need both? You sealed the Way of Eden.’

  ‘I know that too.’ Sam pointed down a dark corridor. ‘This way.’

  ‘Am I just being thick, or don’t I get it?’

  ‘That’s a silly question and you know it. You might be thick and not get it, or you might not get it yet not be thick, or you might be thick yet get it. There is no one answer.’

  ‘What do you want with the Way of Eden?’

  ‘I’m owed a favour, didn’t I mention?’

  ‘I don’t like here. Couldn’t you have chosen somewhere else?’

  ‘Asgard has a higher proportion of Portals per square kilometre than any other area in Heaven,’ recited Sam from a long, long time ago. ‘There’s at least one Eden Portal every seven hundred yards. The difficulty is in pinpointing which seven hundred yards.’

  He turned a corner, saw a rockfall that blocked the passage and sighed. ‘Do you ever get the desire for a golden ball of thread?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ever meet Theseus?’

  ‘Before my time. I’m only a few hundred years old, you know.’

  ‘Ah, the innocence of the young,’ sighed Sam, stepping carefully round a door that had been smashed off its hinges by some unknown force. ‘Anyway, you know how Theseus really beat the monster in its labyrinth?’

  ‘Do tell.’

  ‘He was a Feywalker. He hung around the Way of Fey, lured the monster in and left it there to get lost and die. He then snuck out through the Fey Portal and presented himself before the king with a dirty great big sword and a smug attitude.’

  ‘Let me guess. You didn’t like him?’

  ‘We did meet once. He was arrogant. He told me I was a demon of the nether pit and would roast in damnation for ever, and that he, the divine, couldn’t be touched by me.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Set his pants on fire.’

  Tinkerbell thought about this. ‘You have a nasty streak, don’t you?’

  ‘Pal, I’m the Devil Incarnate!’

  ‘I thought y
ou didn’t believe in conforming to expectations.’

  ‘Sometimes I make an exception. Ah.’

  He stopped and beamed at what he saw. Another corridor. Tinkerbell peered down it. ‘It’s a dead end.’

  ‘It’s the answer to a lot of problems.’

  ‘Do you mind me asking, but who are you trying to double-cross this time?’

  ‘I asked you the same question, and you wouldn’t answer. So why should I?’