Eschaton

by Andrew Hastie

  ‘In hell,’ Kelly said grimly.

  84

  Conflagrato

  ‘Where is the founder?’ demanded Caitlin as she stormed into the Armageddon gallery.

  Nostradamus was sitting in the centre of the room staring at the world beyond the tenth door, a glass of red wine in one hand and a half-empty bottle in the other.

  ‘Conflagrato,’ he slurred, raising his glass to the fiery scene.

  Caitlin looked through the arch; the whole of London was ablaze. The Thames was a ribbon of orange winding through a blackened sky.

  ‘The Great Fire,’ said Nostradamus,

  ‘And the rest of the tenth?’

  ‘They’re all in there. God help them.’

  Caitlin went to take a step into the portal.

  ‘Wait!’ ordered Nostradamus, putting the bottle down and getting up from his chair. ‘If you’re going to follow him in there you will need the correct equipment.’

  He closed the tenth door and turned the key anti-clockwise. When he opened it again, they saw a room full of strange-looking leather suits hung from the brass rails, glistening, as if they were drying from the rain.

  ‘Wet suits,’ explained Nostradamus.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fire armour. Designed to reduce the heat of the blaze. There are also breathing masks and fire-resistant gloves. Should protect you from all but the hottest parts of the inferno.’

  She walked into the changing room.

  ‘Are you going in alone?’ asked the curator.

  ‘No she’s not,’ Josh said, walking into the gallery with the colonel close behind.

  ‘I wondered when you’d get here,’ said Caitlin, pulling a suit from the rail.

  ‘You can’t go in there alone,’ the colonel agreed.

  Caitlin smiled. ‘Nice to see you back on your feet, but I’m going to have enough to deal with without having to wait for you two to keep up.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what you’re doing?’ asked Josh.

  ‘Following the founder.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because he hasn’t stopped the eighth,’ Caitlin said and pointed at the open door.

  ‘Why not?’ Josh asked Nostradamus.

  The curator looked sheepish. ‘We were instructed to keep it open.’

  ‘But we’ve proved it’s been altered, and it’s connected to four of the other crises, including the eleventh!’

  Nostradamus shrugged in a way that said it wasn’t his job to question his boss.

  ‘Then I’m coming with you,’ insisted Josh.

  ‘So am I,’ added the colonel.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Josh and Caitlin said in unison.

  The colonel ignored both of them and started putting on a suit.

  Once they’d all managed to struggle into their fire armour, Nostradamus switched the door back to the view of the inferno.

  Caitlin stared through the tenth portal. ‘Wouldn’t it be wiser to go back to before the fire started?’

  Nostradamus winced. ‘We tried that. Twice.’

  ‘And you couldn’t stop it?’

  ‘They’re not allowed to,’ interrupted the colonel. ‘The fire has to take place. The only thing they can do is try to contain it.’

  ‘And find the Djinn that started it,’ added Nostradamus.

  ‘The Djinn?’

  ‘The tenth has data that proves this event was caused by a fire demon. The founder has gone in to help them.’

  85

  Inferno

  [London. Date: Tuesday, 4th September, 11.666]

  Josh could feel the heat from the blaze through the layers of water as it steamed off his armour. It was an odd sensation as it ran inside and outside of his suit, soaking his underclothes, and moving around felt like running in wet pyjamas.

  Strong winds whipped the flames, sweeping the fire across the roofs of the old wooden tenements. Their upper stories had been built out so far as to be nearly touching their opposite number on the other side of the street. Screams echoed down the cluttered alleyways as a sea of people clutching their most precious possessions flooded through the narrow passages and out into the plaza. No one noticed the strangers as they stood in the shadows of St. Pauls Cathedral, whose wooden scaffolding was already alight.

  The area around the church was full of discarded handcarts and heaps of furniture that people had brought there for safety but abandoned when the fire reached it.

  ‘Where are we going?’ shouted Josh, touching helmets with Caitlin to help conduct the sound.

  ‘East,’ Caitlin replied, pointing towards the heart of the fire. ‘We need to get closer to the start.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Move back to Sunday.’

  They ducked as the stones from the roof exploded above them, firing shrapnel in all directions and sending glowing orange fireballs of molten metal into the ground around them.

  ‘The lead’s melting,’ the colonel said, looking up at the liquid running down the walls.

  He pulled Caitlin clear as a lump of masonry crashed into the ground where they had been standing.

  ‘We go now,’ he said, putting his face-plate to hers.

  She nodded and ran into the crowd.

  86

  Under Fire

  [Ascension Island, Atlantic. Date: 11.927]

  Sim walked into Derado’s private office and closed the door. The grandmaster was lost in the details of his latest report and hardly seemed to notice his entrance.

  ‘Grandmaster.’ Sim’s tone was formal but insistent.

  ‘Simeon now is not the best of times.’

  ‘There will never be a good time to tell you this, sir.’

  Derado looked up from his document and took off his glasses. ‘I assume you have something more important than my despatches, master De Freis?’

  Sim nodded and took a deep breath.

  ‘There are significant signs that a Djinn attack is likely to occur in the next few hours, and my best guess is that it will actualise during the Great Fire of London, 11.666.’

  ‘The fire? I’ve seen no mention of it in my reports.’

  Sim shook his head. ‘It’s not in them. My sister, Lyra, sent me a message about a fire Djinn being captured in 11.120. It made me think about the tenth crisis, the crossing of the Djinn, and the more I looked into it, the more it made sense. Fire is hard to defend against — they’re going to come under cover of the inferno.’

  87

  East India Company

  There was nothing but a human tide of hysteria and chaos facing them as they made their way through the streets. The fire crews and their equipment couldn’t navigate against the traffic and had resorted to carrying barrels of explosives by hand. Detonations shook the ground every few minutes as another house was demolished to create a firebreak.

  Their progress was slowed further by having to avoid the patrols of Coldstream guards arresting anyone who looked foreign. A paranoia gripped the city as rumours of fires being started by foreign saboteurs had made everyone suspicious.

  So they hid in burning buildings. Walking into fire went against everything Josh’s survival instinct was telling him to do, and just like learning to swim, he had to conquer the primal fear of drowning, or in this case burning, to death. While the suit did a great job of holding back the heat — Josh couldn’t help but wonder how long it would last.

  The nearer they got to their destination the more intense the inferno became; the streets were scorched, and anything flammable was vaporised to ash. Walls of stone buildings glowed amber as the heat cracked them, and there was nothing left of the wooden floors above.

  It was hard to breathe, the cooling system within the suit struggling with the intense heat. Josh followed Caitlin and the colonel as they made their way down what was left of Leadenhall Street.

  When they reached the crumbling ruin of the building, it was a relief to see each one of them touch the wall and disappear.

  [London. Date: Sun
day, 2nd September, 11.666]

  The founder was hard to recognise through the misty visor of the fire suit. Josh pulled off the helmet and sucked in a long, cool breath, coughing as his lungs cleared themselves.

  They’d gone back to the night it had started, and there was an eerie calm to the city that evening, a stillness that gave no hint of the catastrophe to come. But somewhere a few miles to the East, a baker was trying to raise the alarm about his house catching fire.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Josh asked the colonel as they watched from an alley on the other side of the street.

  ‘Waiting.’

  The founder was stood staring up at the grand wooden house like a jilted lover waiting to catch sight of his mistress.

  ‘Whose house is it?’ asked Josh. It was an impressive wooden building, with a fresco of sailing ships painted across the square gable of the upper floor and the silhouettes of a sailor and two dolphins standing along the roof against the evening sky.

  ‘It’s the headquarters of the East India Company,’ the colonel replied.

  They stayed out of sight until the founder disappeared inside and then followed him in.

  The house was dark, the occupants either asleep or away for the night. The colonel took out his tachyon and shone it along the corridor, letting the light play off the gilt frames of paintings. A proud fleet of ships lined the walls, each one bearing the company colours.

  ‘What’s he come here for?’ Josh whispered.

  A board creaked above their heads, someone’s footstep on the floor above.

  They froze, straining their ears for any sound.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the colonel said under his breath, ‘but I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the fire. By this time the East India Company had gone from state-sponsored pirates to a global trading company that rivalled the Dutch — but it was mostly spice, silks and dyes — nothing useful.’

  They moved towards the staircase as they heard the scraping of a heavy box being dragged across the floor.

  The upstairs room was just like the colonel’s cabinet of curiosities.

  The founder was kneeling beside a large trunk, rummaging through the contents and utterly oblivious to their presence.

  ‘Master?’ whispered Caitlin.

  ‘Miss Makepiece,’ he greeted her without looking up. ‘I don’t suppose you have seen any Anunnaki, small figurines about six inches high?’

  ‘No sir.’

  ‘They were a present from the Mughal Emperor Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir. Supposedly for James I, but I believe his emissary, Sir Thomas Roe, kept them for himself on the orders of the Company.’

  ‘What do they do?’ asked Josh.

  The founder looked up over the lid of the trunk. ‘Insightful as ever, Master Jones. As I’m sure you’ve worked out by now, this isn’t an Eschaton crisis. I believe this is something far more dangerous — a Nihil attack.’

  ‘The Nihil aren’t part of the Eschaton Cascade?’ asked Josh.

  ‘They are a significant threat considering the weakened state of the timeline.’

  ‘And the Anunnaki?’

  ‘A very potent defence in the right hands.’ He pulled out a mahogany casket. ‘Ahh. Now, this looks more promising.’

  ‘You really believe that a Sumerian myth can help us?’ Caitlin didn’t sound convinced.

  He opened the casket and took a tiny figurine from its velvet-lined interior. ‘These are ancient artefacts that go back further than the Sumerians. To a time when the Djinn was a constant threat.’

  ‘It’s a talisman.’

  The founder’s eyes narrowed. ‘Where did you hear about that?’

  Caitlin smiled. ‘From uncle Marcus.’

  ‘Marcus Makepiece. Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a very long time.’

  The founder took out another two figurines and placed them inside his cloak. ‘The Solomon mission was not our finest hour. I assume he told you not to trust me?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Understandable,’ the founder agreed, standing up. ‘It would’ve been hard not to blame me. Can this wait?’

  ‘No, I don’t think it can.’

  The founder sighed and sat down on a chair by the fire. Its embers were glowing faintly, and he stoked them with a metal poker.

  ‘Sit. This is going to take a while.’

  88

  Stories of Kings

  ‘Solomon was an interesting king. Although there was little historical record it was clear he had access to great wealth — his father was buried in a silver sarcophagus. The Antiquarians were adamant that he was levying taxes on the people of Upper Egypt, where the tombs of the last Pharaohs of Egypt were buried.’

  ‘The Valley of the Kings,’ said Caitlin.

  ‘Yes, there were reports of vast caches of grave goods being plundered, but the treasures were never found in any great number. It was as if they disappeared.’

  ‘Perhaps he was a collector?’

  The founder shook his head. ‘He had a Greek mercenary army to pay and a Phoenician navy, so any remaining items were probably stolen by the Babylonians when they eventually invaded Tanis in 9.400.’

  ‘Six hundred BC,’ explained Caitlin as Josh started counting on his fingers.

  ‘The Solomon mission was supposed to go back and index the treasures. Trace them back to their origin and help us map the early dynasties of the Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate Period.’

  ‘Not the second?’

  The founder winced at the name. ‘At the time we had no idea what would happen in the Early Dynastic, as there wasn’t enough data to go back that far. The plan was to use what Carter had found in the tomb of Tutankhamen as a starting point and weave our way up to Solomon.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Josh.

  The founder shifted uncomfortably. ‘There were stories, potentially apocryphal ones, that spoke of Solomon being given certain powers over demons. The Scriptorians had noted certain unusual details in some of the narratives that pointed towards a breach, but more unusual was the fact that Solomon seemed to have the power to contain them. Since he was not a member of the Order, we had to assume he had access to unusual weapons.’

  ‘What kind of weapons?’ asked Josh. He’d been losing interest up until that point; it was beginning to sound too much like a history lesson.

  The founder smiled. ‘Ancient ones. Things that had been buried for aeons. We assumed he must have found them amongst the treasures of the dead kings.’

  ‘Out-of-place objects,’ added Caitlin.

  ‘Indeed. There have been cases were items have surfaced from antediluvian times. We call them talismans. They are very rare, and the Antiquarians have documented just six in the last twelve millennia. Some of them believe they are the relics of an elder race, but they do have a tendency for the dramatic.’

  ‘And Solomon had one?’

  The founder nodded. ‘He seems to have acquired a ring. A very powerful temporal vestige. We only discovered quite how powerful after the first team disappeared.’

  ‘Uncle Marcus?’

  ‘He was part of the rescue team. They say it changed your uncle, that he had visions and what he saw sent him off the rails.’

  ‘What can this ring do?’ asked Caitlin.

  ‘It has roots in the primordial, so one can only assume it harnesses chaos fields.’

  Josh stared into the fire. ‘Dark energy.’

  The founder’s eyes widened slightly. ‘That is one theory, yes.’

  ‘What happened to the ring?’

  ‘Marcus refused to tell us. Everyone involved in the mission took voluntary redaction or the long walk.’

  Josh looked confused. ‘Long walk?’

  ‘Early retirement into pre-history,’ the colonel explained. ‘Although no one usually takes voluntary redaction.’

  ‘There are members of that particular mission who would beg to differ.’

  ‘So why does Marcus blame you?’

  The founder sig
hed. ‘I was the one who signed the order to seal the mission. Disavowing the members of the first team and essentially leaving them to their fate.’

  ‘But they were already dead?’

  ‘No, not dead, trapped. Solomon banished them into the abyss — the maelstrom.’

  ‘You abandoned them?’

  ‘The alternative was worse. They were supposed to bury the ring before certain parties became aware of it.’

  ‘Like Dalton.’

  ‘And others like him. The books of the Djinn are nothing but instruction manuals compared to a talisman.’ He held up a statuette. ‘These have the power to summon incredibly ancient forces, amongst other things.’

  Caitlin took it from him. ‘So they can help protect us?’

  ‘They possess latent energies within them that can be used to hold back the storm-kin, yes.’

  Josh thought back to the charms Sohguerin had used during the fight against the monads back in the castle at Gisors. She had called them something.

  ‘Godheads.’

  The founder looked impressed. ‘Indeed. The remnants of deities would be one way to describe them. ‘Where did you learn that master Jones?’

  ‘Something I picked up,’ Josh said, shrugging. ‘Fighting monads.’

  For once Caitlin was speechless.

  ‘Can I suggest we continue this discussion later?’ the founder asked, getting up out of the chair.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ Caitlin asked.

  ‘I think this fire is nothing but a blind for something more sinister. This is more than just the crossing of the Djinn — I believe the Nihil are coming.’

  89

  Anunnaki