Eschaton

by Andrew Hastie

  Geoffroy crouched over the hole, his divination rod vibrating in his hand.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ he said, staring down into the crypt.

  One of the bodyguards drew his sword and stepped onto the makeshift wooden ladder, while another lit an oil lamp on one of the torches and threw it down into the darkness.

  They watched as the small clay pot smashed on the floor below, igniting the oil as it spread out in a flaming pool across the stone floor.

  Lyra was muttering to herself and wringing her hands.

  ‘What is it?’ Caitlin asked her.

  ‘Something bad,’ was all she would say.

  Josh saw the bodies in the flickering light of the fire, like broken dolls, the Templars lay scattered across the floor of the crypt, still holding their swords. But there was no sign of what killed them.

  The guard descended cautiously and worked his way around the edge of the fire, stopping to examine each of the bodies in turn.

  ‘They’re Augurs,’ he said, ‘and they’re not dead — just concussed.’

  The other two guards went next and confirmed that it was safe before allowing the rest of them down, all except Lyra who refused to go anywhere near the hole.

  Geoffroy took out an assortment of medieval medical supplies from his pack: salves and potion bottles were uncorked and applied to deep wounds and purple bruises.

  ‘Where is your commanding officer?’ Josh heard one of the guards ask a recovering soldier.

  His reply was weak, but they all heard it.

  ‘Taken.’

  Caitlin was helping Geoffroy, so Josh took one of the unbroken oil lamps and went off to survey the rest of the tomb.

  There was a small collection of clay jars stacked at one end of the room. Each bore the runes of an ancient language written around a sealed lid. It reminded Josh of the jar that the colonel had used on the Strzyga — the one that had contained a Monad.

  ‘What are they?’ asked Josh as Caitlin came over to join him.

  ‘Canopic jars. Egyptian funeral goods, for storing the internal organs, but they should have heads on them: a falcon for the intestines, baboon for the lungs, a jackal for the stomach — these are weird — I don’t recognise the glyphs either.’

  Josh looked around the chamber. ‘And there’s no mummy.’

  ‘This wasn’t a tomb. I think it was something else.’ She pointed to the walls, which were covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions carved into the sandstone.

  The symbols meant nothing to Josh, although he thought they looked a lot like the ones in the temple Dalton had tried to sacrifice them in.

  Caitlin stood back and ran her fingers through her hair.

  ‘These are more like containment jars, like the ones the Xenos use for trapping monads, but the symbols could be Akkadian or Babylonian.’

  She went over to one of the jars that was laying on its side in the middle of the floor.

  ‘I think they opened it and let something out,’ she said, reaching inside the jar and carefully pulling out a copper tube.

  ‘Copper scroll?’ asked Josh.

  Caitlin carefully unrolled the thin foil. It was a delicate leaf of beaten copper on which someone had inscribed rows of symbols.

  ‘This is more like Mishnaic Hebrew,’ said Caitlin, a little puzzled. ‘They’re locations.’

  ‘Don’t!’ warned one of the injured men. ‘It’s cursed!’

  Caitlin ignored him. As she read the text, Josh felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as the temperature in the chamber dropped dramatically.

  Caitlin was oblivious, her lips forming silent words as she concentrated on the translation.

  A sudden wind rose in the stillness, fanning the oil fire and driving the flames up until they formed themselves into a creature.

  ‘Cat,’ whispered Josh.

  ‘There’s so much here,’ she murmured, lost in the details of the scroll, unaware of what was taking shape in the fire.

  As he watched, the beast grew several more heads and many limbs, which it used to strike out at the dumbstruck guards, cutting through their weak attempts to defend themselves.

  ‘Caitlin!’ shouted Josh, as the men fell.

  Geoffroy was bravely trying to drag the fallen out of its reach when he caught a side-swipe from one of the fiery limbs and went flying across the floor.

  ‘Abaddon!’ shouted Lyra, suddenly dropping through the ceiling and landing in a crouch like a superhero.

  The creature’s body went rigid, the flames frozen in mid-air.

  ‘Who names me?’ spoke a chorus of voices.

  ‘I do!’ replied Lyra, standing and stepping forward into the pool of light made by his fire. She had something in her hands. Josh couldn’t see clearly, but it looked like a small idol.

  The glow within Abaddon flickered and waned as if the fuel was running low. ‘I have many names,’ it answered in a harsh, rasping voice. ‘You are the first to bind me to one. What is thy wish, mistress?’

  ‘Pick up the jar,’ Caitlin whispered to Josh. ‘Lyra’s going to need it.’

  Josh took the jar and moved behind the creature.

  ‘I need you to leave,’ said Lyra, holding up the idol.

  Other forms appeared around her like an ethereal horde of guardian angels, except these were nothing like any angels Josh had ever imagined — they were terrifying.

  ‘Those are not your powers to command, girl,’ it cackled. ‘Jedidiah has lost the ring, and all the lords of terror are free.’

  ‘No more, demon,’ Lyra said, making a sign in the air and the ghosts launched themselves at the fire demon.

  The symbol hung in the air in front of Lyra, reminding Josh of what the colonel had done in the maelstrom when they were fighting the Djinn.

  ‘Put it down in front of her,’ Caitlin growled at Josh through clenched teeth. ‘She’s losing him.’

  The ghosts were tearing at the fire demon, pulling it apart as it struggled to set itself free.

  Lyra said something in a strange language and dropped the small idol into the jar. The Djinn was dragged along into it, and Caitlin stepped in quickly to seal the lid.

  ‘What exactly was that?’ asked Josh, after they’d made doubly sure the jar was sealed. The guards were helping the injured out of the chamber.

  ‘Abaddon, one of the angels of the abyss,’ Lyra said casually, helping Geoffroy to dress his wounds.

  ‘Fire Djinn,’ Caitlin said, raising an eyebrow. ‘We don’t believe in Angels.’

  ‘You don’t,’ replied Lyra under her breath.

  Caitlin ignored her. ‘I’m more interested in the weird ghosts you pulled out of the idol.’

  ‘Guardians, from the talisman.’ Lyra raised her voice on the last word to give it greater emphasis.

  Josh spoke to Lyra as if she were a five-year-old. ‘The little statue you were holding? The talisman. Where did you get it?’

  Lyra smiled. ‘It told me where to find it. Upstairs in the temple. It was calling to me — that’s what was disturbing my karma.’

  ‘And you knew what it was?’ asked Josh.

  ‘Sim told me about them. He had to find one for Eddington. They’re special, really ancient vestiges from way back — minus a million or more.’

  ‘And they give you power over the Djinn?’

  ‘The spirit guardians have fought the Djinn before, a long, long time ago. They know how to deal with them.’

  ‘So you were just channelling ancient spirits?’

  Lyra shrugged. ‘I guess so. I wasn’t really in my body at the time.’

  Caitlin gave up. Much as she loved her adopted sister, there were times when her inability to speak like a rational human being drove her insane.

  ‘So who trapped all these Djinn and left them down here?’ she asked herself, looking at the collection of jars.

  Josh scratched his head. ‘Solomon I guess — maybe that’s what your uncle saw?’

  Caitlin shook her head.

 
; ‘This has something to do with it,’ she said, waving the copper scroll in his face. ‘It’s a list of over sixty locations of temple treasure. Thousands of lost ancient artefacts — an Antiquarian’s wet dream. I think we need to trace it back to the origin.’

  ‘But what if we walk into another Djinn? That thing nearly killed Geoffroy!’

  ‘Not even close,’ quipped the medic, as Lyra helped him get to his feet.

  ‘Send a message to Sim,’ Caitlin said to her sister, ‘he’ll know what to do.’

  [Jerusalem. Date: 9.065]

  The temple of Solomon was still under construction when they appeared. Wooden scaffolding enclosed the tall columns that lined the sides of the grand hall. Each one was being intricately carved with hieroglyphics and geometric shapes.

  They hardly recognised Marcus standing at the top of the stairs, next to the empty throne. He was dressed as an Egyptian priest, with his head shaved and glyphs painted over his bald skull. Josh thought he looked younger than the last time they’d seen him.

  ‘Who dares defile the temple of the King?’ Caitlin’s uncle demanded in Coptic — something that Josh understood even though he’d never intuited it. The Infinity Engine was still helping him somehow.

  ‘Marcus?’ Caitlin replied, unsure if the man would recognise them.

  ‘Are thou servants of Hemsut?’ he asked, pulling back his sleeve to show the Ouroboros tattoo, the mark of the Order.

  Caitlin looked confused for a moment, and then her eyes widened. ‘The goddess of fate. Yes,’ she replied, showing her tattoo.

  ‘And destiny,’ Marcus corrected her and smiled.

  They heard the voices of the workman returning, and he pulled them into an alcove.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Caitlin, and we’re kind of related, or at least we will be one day.’

  His eyes narrowed as he studied her face. ‘Tom’s child? Well, you certainly have your father’s eyes, but you haven’t been born yet, and in my timeline, he’s only just met your mother. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I need to know about this mission.’

  He frowned. ‘It’s top secret. How the hell did you find out about it?’

  ‘You’ve been sent to find the talismans, haven’t you? The ones that Solomon collected?’

  There was a moment when she thought he was going to deny it, but then she saw a flicker of acquiescence in his eye.

  The carpenters and stone masons were complaining about their lunch while they collected their tools from the benches and made their way to the scaffolds. Marcus looked at them both and sighed.

  ‘You’re in way over your head, and I haven’t got time to take you back and sort this out. Solomon has gathered an extraordinary collection of artefacts, yes. Even some that I would call out-of-place. I don’t know for sure how he came by all of them, but the ones I’ve seen have very unusual powers. His subjects think he’s been gifted them by God, and from what I’ve seen they’re the nearest thing to magic. But they’re dangerous — they can manipulate time in ways I’ve never imagined. I would say they constitute the most serious threat to the continuum since the discovery of the maelstrom.’

  78

  Ninth Legion

  [Haslemere, Surrey. Date: 12.018]

  Gillian sat patiently in her car waiting for the lights to change. The engine purred quietly, and the man on the radio was waxing lyrical about the unusual period of fine weather they were having. The summer had been a long time coming, and she was anxious to get back and plant the boot full of shrubs she’d just bought from the local garden centre before the sun got too high.

  The dashboard clock read 9:59 and the streets had emptied after the usual madness of the school run.

  The traffic lights seemed to be taking forever to change. They were temporary ones, the kind that workmen put up when they’re digging the road. She could easily pull around and get on her way, but she wasn’t that kind of driver — not in seventy-three years had she ever broken the law.

  Finally, the red changed to amber and Gillian’s hand moved down to the gear stick to put it into drive when the engine made a strange whine and died.

  ‘Bugger,’ she muttered, turning the keys in the ignition and looking in her rear-view mirror to apologise to the driver behind her.

  Her hand froze on the keys as she went to restart the car.

  Standing behind her was an entire cohort of Roman soldiers — the ninth legion. She recognised the standard from the talk a local historian had given at her WI meeting only two months ago.

  The hard faces of the legionnaires looked even more menacing as they surrounded her car.

  Assuming it was a re-enactment society, she smiled politely and waited for them to pass. Which they duly did, marching on through the junction.

  The engine came back to life after they had disappeared around the bend, but Gillian thought better than to follow them. Something didn’t feel right about the way they looked at her, and her instincts were generally very good about people.

  As she took a deep breath to slow her pulse, the lights returned to red, so she took it as a sign and put the car back in park and reached for a packet of mints.

  A light tap on the window made her jump.

  A police officer was standing beside the car, signalling to her to wind down the window — which she did with the push of a button.

  ‘Good morning madam,’ he said with a smile. ‘Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle?’

  As she got out of the car, she realised he was wearing a rather antique looking uniform, as if he’d just stepped out of the nineteen-fifties.

  He pulled out a strange-looking notebook.

  ‘Your name and date of birth?’

  She told him.

  ‘Address?’

  Without thinking she rattled off her address including postcode.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said with another smile.

  She wanted to ask whether they were following the legionnaires, but before she got the chance, two other officers appeared from behind the car and joined him.

  ‘They’ve shifted again,’ one said to the other, showing him his notebook and grimacing.

  ‘Bollocks,’ the first said, turning back to Gillian.

  ‘My apologies ma’am. Would you mind looking at this for a second?’

  He held up a beautiful old watch. She loved antiques, and this one looked as if it were late seventeenth century. One curious thing about it was that the hands seemed to be moving backwards.

  ‘It’s ten o’clock and time for the news with …’ came the voice over the radio.

  The lights turned green, and Gillian put the car into drive and moved off. It was going to be another hot day, and those peonies weren’t going to plant themselves.

  79

  War rooms

  Sim was busy working on the progression of the Eschaton Cascade. The algorithm was spread out over four giant blackboards, which were covered in equations and temporal formulae.

  Grandmaster Derado had asked him to form a think-tank to analyse the information that was coming in from the various Draconians stationed out in the field.

  Sim had managed to recruit a group of statisticians and a stochastic professor who was hiding out in the twelfth century, and they’d spent the last few weeks analysing data and complaining about how much easier this would be if they had a difference engine.

  Sim had tried his best to appease them, but it was a thankless task. He quite liked doing it the old-fashioned way, with a slide rule and a blackboard — there was something quaintly satisfying about going back to basics, and after a few days they stopped moaning and got down to business.

  ‘What do we have on the thirty-third iteration?’ one of the older actuaries asked, holding up a page of calculations. ‘I’m getting coefficient deviation that’s out of range.’

  ‘That’s because you’re supposed to be working on the thirty-first,’ said one of the others, rolling up a scrap of paper and throwing it at hi
s colleague. ‘Norman’s on the thirty-third.’ They all laughed, except for Norman, who’d fallen asleep in the corner. Sim knew they were all working long hours, and the strain was beginning to tell on them.

  They were tracking reports of over twenty anomalies in the last two days. As predicted in the fourth crisis, something was happening to the fabric of space-time; it was being stressed to breaking point. Grandmaster Derado had asked Sim’s team to calculate potential weak points in the chronosphere, so he could deploy his Dreadnoughts to shore up any breaches before they escalated.

  But it was becoming too difficult to manage.

  They’d been allocated the Dreadnought ‘War Room’, which had a large map of time etched into the slate surface of the boardroom table. Without the benefit of the Infinity Engine, this had become the nearest thing they had to a continuum, and there were insignia of the various detachments placed at strategic points along its length to indicate their deployment.

  A capsule arrived down the pneumatic tube, and Astor took out the memo from inside and read it.

  Everyone had stopped their work and waited to hear the latest report. The capsules never brought good news, and they were coming more frequently with every day that passed.

  ‘Roman legion seen in Haslemere, 12.018,’ he summarised, taking a pen and scribbling ‘Ninth Legion’ on a note before sticking it on the relevant part of the timeline. ‘And reports of a fire Djinn in Jerusalem, 11.120.’

  ‘A fire Djinn? Who’s on the eleventh?’

  ‘Norman,’ said one of the others with a snigger.

  ‘Let him sleep,’ Sim ordered, ‘I’ll take this one.’ He sat down at his desk and sharpened his pencil. ‘Has anyone seen where I put my copy of Britannica 1100?’

  ‘Norman’s using it as a pillow,’ Astor replied.

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘No, he really is,’ insisted Astor.

  80