Eschaton

by Andrew Hastie

  ‘Will you take command? In his absence?’ she asked, nodding towards the founder.

  He shook his head. ‘No, I’m not a leader. Spent too long in the wild. You, on the other hand, would make a fine candidate.’

  She smiled graciously. ‘I have to admit. It’s crossed my mind.’

  ‘The Copernicans may be a little hard to convince.’

  ‘As will the Scriptorians,’ she added with a knowing look.

  ‘Yes, they’re truly trapped in the past. I don’t think they’ve ever raised a woman above the rank of a senior librarian.’

  ‘Well, if nothing else, this situation shows us we need to change — there are many things we can learn from the twenty-first century.’

  ‘Indeed. Powered flight being one of them.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  He waved a hand. ‘Never mind. How is Caitlin?’

  ‘Recovering. Lyra has helped her overcome the initial trauma, and the burns are healing rapidly, but I fear the loss of Joshua will take longer to repair.’

  ‘They’re saying it was Dalton Eckhart.’

  ‘Or some version of him. Derado believes he was working with the Djinn, controlling them somehow. The breach was sealed immediately after he took Joshua back into it.’

  ‘Which crisis does this come under? Six?’

  ‘Tenth I believe,’ Alixia said, looking thoughtfully at the founder. ‘But not as predicted.’

  Rufius stroked his beard. ‘Something I’ve grown used to over the years. We set too much store in the work of the Copernicans. If there is one thing I have come to rely on it is the ability for the universe to change the rules. That is the nature of chaos after all.’

  The founder groaned once more.

  Alixia frowned and put her hand tenderly against the founder’s cheek. ‘If there is one thing I have come to rely on, it’s the unshakeable courage and optimism of this man.’

  ‘There isn’t another like him,’ Rufius said with a sigh.

  ‘What if there was?’ the founder whispered in a dry, rasping voice.

  ‘Lord?’ Alixia said, gripping his hand.

  The founder opened his eyes and smiled. ‘My dear Alixia. You worry too much.’ He tried to sit up and failed. Alixia poured him a glass of water while Rufius rearranged the pillows and helped him to prop himself up.

  ‘I take it we managed to contain them?’ he asked weakly.

  Alixia nodded. ‘At a terrible cost.’

  ‘And the Paradox — what happened to Joshua?’

  Rufius put his hand on the founder’s shoulder. ‘Gone — taken by Dalton, or whatever he has become.’

  ‘But the others? They are safe?’

  ‘The Dreadnoughts took heavy casualties, but most of the Londoners were safely evacuated. The bridge held until the Duke of York arrived.’

  ‘Good,’ the founder said, with a weak smile.

  ‘But Joshua is lost,’ Rufius said morosely.

  ‘No. The Paradox is exactly where he’s supposed to be.’

  Alixia looked surprised. ‘You knew this was going to happen?’

  The founder took another sip of water and coughed, a rattling hollow cough that wracked his body until it passed. Alixia and Rufius exchanged a look of concern.

  ‘Shall I call Doctor Crooke?’

  ‘No,’ the founder said, holding up a hand. ‘It will pass. I inhaled too much smoke.’

  They waited while his breathing returned to normal.

  ‘I need you to do something for me,’ he said, turning to Rufius.

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Take me to the Djinn.’

  ‘And how exactly are we going to do that?’

  96

  Plan

  They were all gathered on the bridge of the Nautilus.

  Alixia, Methuselah, Lyra, Caitlin and her parents were all sat on the various old sofas as Rufius helped the founder to his feet. Da Recco had taken over the controls from Juliana, who had been teaching him how to pilot it over the last few weeks.

  The old man stood in front of the viewing port as the fleeting moments of time sped past them. They’d left the continuum a few hours ago, and everyone was wondering what the hell they were going to do in the maelstrom — except Lyra, who was fascinated by the view and really couldn’t care less about where they went next.

  ‘My friends,’ the founder began, ‘there are some things that have always bothered me about the Eschaton Cascade. For years I have puzzled over whether the crises were inevitable or something that could in some way be avoided — I have been working on a number of strategies and all of them appeared to have failed.’

  They all looked stunned; this was the first time they’d ever heard the founder confess to defeat.

  ‘Which leaves us with the Nemesis.’

  The founder took out a book from inside his long robes.

  ‘I believe Joshua’s timeline is an anathema to the Djinn. Its paradoxical nature causes them to experience accelerated time dilation, ageing them — in a similar way to Chief MacKenzie when he held the Infinity Engine.’ The founder paused for a moment, the grief weighing heavily on him. ‘But even this may not be enough to defeat the Nihil. This is the almanac of Dalton Eckhart, or rather its sympathetic twin. Rufius informs me that we can use it to locate him within the maelstrom — using his observatory.’

  Rufius nodded.

  ‘There’s a high probability that he will be surrounded by the Djinn horde, so we should be prepared for battle.’

  ‘Glad we had those cannons fitted,’ said Caitlin’s father, turning to Methuselah. ‘It’ll give us a chance to test them out.’

  ‘This is going to be a stealth mission rather than a frontal assault,’ interrupted the founder. ‘Once we have a trace on Dalton it should lead us directly to their base. Assuming that we can reach him without too much resistance, we should be able to reach master Jones.’

  ‘And how strong do you estimate the resistance to be?’ asked Caitlin’s mother.

  ‘I really have no clue.’

  97

  Dark Water

  A faint light appeared from somewhere far off in the distance, and like the dawn breaking over the ocean, the rays glistened over a dark rippling surface.

  Josh blinked, letting his eyes adjust to the brightness and realising he was surrounded by sea.

  The surface of the dark waters was calm, like the pond in Caitlin’s moon garden, and he wondered what lay beneath.

  Then something nudged the shell of his pod, rocking it slightly back and forth like a boat.

  He turned his head, trying to see what it was, but the limited view through the glass door only showed him a sliver of the sea.

  A few metres out he saw the surface distort slightly. In the dim twilight, he couldn’t be sure if it was a wave or the back of some sea creature diving below the water line.

  Josh’s breathing quickened as he counted the seconds before it happened again. This time he was sure he heard the grating of claws or teeth along the outer shell. Then the pod began to sink into the luminous green depths.

  In the murky waters, Josh could see the hulking forms of giant squid-like creatures as they turned sinuously beneath his feet. Massive monsters rose up from the depths, their tentacles reaching out towards him but failing to connect. It was as if he was protected by some kind of force field, as nothing attempted to take him.

  Slowly the pod descended into the deep, the light dimming as it moved further from the surface. The creatures kept their distance but seemed to gain their own internal illumination as he sank.

  Internal lights flickered into life inside the pod, and silent fans began to blow cool air over his face. Josh realised he was being pulled down towards the ocean floor.

  It was growing colder, and the pressure in his ears was increasing, and still, the pod sank further into the abyss.

  98

  Observatory

  Caitlin thought Rufius seemed a little distracted when they entered the observatory. He wandered
around the large circular wall, studying the notes that had been pinned there as if they were made by someone else — as if he were reading them for the first time.

  From what Josh had told her, the old man had been stuck here in a time loop that reset every twenty hours, wiping everything he learned during that time. The notes were the only way for him to keep track of what he’d discovered and by the look of the thousands of pages, there had apparently been many, many loops.

  The others were busy marvelling at his research, all except Da Recco and her mother who’d stayed on the ship to make some ‘adjustments,’ while her father had abandoned them the moment he saw the giant brass telescope.

  Methuselah and Lyra were like wide-eyed tourists wandering around with their mouths agape, staring at the sketches of the Djinn and debating whether one was more hideous than the last.

  Alixia was helping the founder into the worn armchair that sat beneath the eyepiece of the telescope. He seemed so frail now, which wasn’t surprising considering what he had been through. When Caitlin was younger, she’d always thought that he was the nearest thing to an immortal, and everyone spoke about him as if he would live forever. The idea that he too would die seemed unthinkable, but then her parents disappeared, and everything changed.

  Rufius took a monocle out of his jacket, cleaning it before handing it to the founder, who placed it in one eye.

  Alixia handed Dalton’s almanac to Rufius who opened a door in the side of the giant barrel of the telescope and carefully placed it inside. He pulled a lever and motioned to Alixia to step back. There were a series of winding sounds, as gears and flywheels began to engage beneath the platform they were standing on. The domed metal roof slid away above their heads to expose the swirling chaos outside. The founder put his eye to the lens and was gently spun around on the platform as the tracking mechanisms kicked in.

  ‘We tried to use this to find you,’ Rufius said to Caitlin as she came to join them. ‘When you were lost.’

  Caitlin shuddered at the memory of the Djinn in the ziggurat, the terrible despair she’d felt when they touched her, and tried not to think about what Josh might be going through right now.

  ‘We will find him,’ Rufius assured her. ‘My Huygens can find a needle in a thousand haystacks.’

  Multiply that by a million, thought Caitlin, and you might be closer to the truth.

  [ERD Basecamp, Maelstrom]

  Da Recco stood watch at one end of what was left of Dalton’s camp while Alixia, Caitlin and Rufius searched the bodies. The Nautilus was hovering ten metres above them, its cannons poised to fire at the first signs of trouble.

  Their base camp had been laid out in an unusual way; they observed when they came into land. Someone had created a stable perimeter that should have protected them from most storm-kin but had apparently failed.

  Dalton’s team were scattered across the ground like discarded dolls, their bodies broken and their unused weapons tossed aside as if they were toys. Da Recco had never seen mutilation like this, even when his men had been attacked by sharks.

  Lyra had refused to come off the ship, locking herself in her cabin and complaining about how there were too many ghosts through the door. Methuselah had stayed behind to calm her down.

  It was Da Recco’s first real experience of the maelstrom, and he was having trouble dealing with the spectacle that was playing out beyond the Nautilus’ stabilisation field. The landscape reformed continuously as temporal fragments collided, like a tsunami, events and moments crashing into each other, creating a tapestry of random scenes. World war battlefields merged into ancient Babylonian cities leaving soldiers scaling ziggurats and cutting down spear-wielding warriors with machine guns.

  ‘Well he was definitely here,’ said Caitlin, picking up Dalton’s sword and his almanac.

  ‘I’m afraid that means we’ve reached a dead end,’ said Rufius gravely.

  The founder was examining something in the sand. ‘Not necessarily.’ He took out a glass vial and dipped it into a dark stain in the sand.

  ‘What is it?’ Caitlin asked.

  ‘Aetherium,’ he said, holding it up to show her. ‘The lifeblood of the Nihil.’

  99

  Father

  Josh was half-submerged in water when he awoke. He was lying on his side on the floor, his face only just above the surface. There was a searing pain behind his eyes that was far worse than any hangover he could ever remember, but at least he was alive.

  ‘Joshua Jones,’ said a voice that sounded strangely familiar. ‘Did you enjoy my pets?’

  Josh lifted his head from the pool and looked up.

  It was Dalton.

  Or something that had once been him.

  His body was massive and heavily armoured, the skin now plated, like the shell of a beetle, a gleaming black carapace. His face still wore the usual arrogant expression that Josh always wanted to punch.

  But there was something different about his eyes; they were dark blue, like the professor’s, and Josh realised this wasn’t Dalton — he was possessed.

  Dalton-jinn lifted Josh from the floor with one hand, holding him like a rag doll up to his face. The talon-like fingers of his hand were rough against Josh’s neck, and he struggled to breathe as the grip tightened.

  ‘Do you like my new body,’ he rasped into Josh’s face. ‘I think it once belonged to a god.’

  ‘What are you?’ Josh gasped.

  ‘Nihil,’ replied Dalton-jinn, speaking the word in a hundred different voices at once.

  Josh could feel the power running through Dalton’s veins, the familiar patterns of Djinn timelines flowing below the fingers that gripped him, and he let his mind explore them.

  But they were different from the others, and Josh couldn’t affect them in the way that he could the Djinn; something was protecting his chronology — the talisman he still wore on his finger.

  ‘Nice try, Nemesis,’ hissed Dalton, his tongue flickering between sharpened teeth. ‘Your powers have no effect on me,’ he added, throwing him across the chamber.

  Josh hit the wet floor and skidded across it until he connected with a wall.

  Dalton rolled his head on his enormous shoulders, like a pro-wrestler getting ready for the final blow. He’s enormous, thought Josh, pumped up like one of those guys who used too many steroids.

  He pulled himself upright, his ribs aching from where he’d collided with the wall, and his throat was swollen. Ignoring the pain, he looked around for some kind of weapon.

  They were in a building under the sea. The walls were transparent, and he could see the illuminated bodies of the Djinn swimming blindly around outside. It was a grand hall in an underwater castle, one that stretched out across the seabed. As Dalton walked away, a staircase rose out of the dark water in front of him, and he climbed towards an ornate obsidian throne that formed at the top.

  ‘You’re in my domain now. The infinite worlds of chaos are mine to command!’

  He waved an arm, and two fierce-looking Djinn began to form out of a pool in front of Josh.

  Shit, thought Josh, getting to his feet and trying to remember the fighting stance Vedris had taught him.

  ‘To think all those years I wasted waiting for you, wondering how the Nemesis would deliver us, and here you are, a weak, pathetic human with nothing more than a single lifetime and no idea of the scale, the majesty, of eternity. I have seen it all — I have seen your beginning and your end.’

  Josh needed to buy some time; he had to keep Dalton talking. The creatures were shaping up to be some of the meanest looking demons he’d ever seen, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to handle both of them at once.

  ‘You’ve seen my beginning?’

  ‘The whole of your measly life,’ Dalton-jinn sneered, his mouth stretching wider than should’ve been possible.

  ‘So you know who my father is?’

  There was a moment of silence between them, and Josh wondered if the question had thrown Dalton off his guar
d. Caitlin said that Dalton had issues with his own father and wondered if there was still some part of him that resented the man.

  ‘I know who your father was,’ he whispered, his voice changing to the deeper, more resinous tone of the Nihil. ‘This ridiculous attempt he made to defeat us — The Nihil have spent an eternity hunting him down, and he sends you to defeat us!’

  Dalton saw the look of confusion on Josh’s face and laughed. ‘You have no idea what you are meant to be, do you?’

  The first of the two creatures was nearly complete, and Josh couldn’t take his eyes off the long spikes that were growing out of its skull.

  ‘I’ve had no idea my whole life,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Hasn’t seemed to have stopped me so far.’

  Josh dropped low as the first creature swung his scythe-like arm at him. The blade passed a few millimetres above his head and unbalanced the beast. Josh took advantage, driving his foot into its side and onto the body of the second beast, impaling itself on an impressive set of chest spikes.

  Dalton-jinn laughed as the second creature seemed to walk through the first as though it were still made of water. The beast spread its arms wide to reveal that the chest spikes were a group of secondary limbs all holding dark blades.

  ‘I had toyed with the idea of killing you myself, but this is so much more fun.’

  Josh stepped back too slowly as the sharpened arms of the second Djinn swept across his chest. One caught him across the abdomen, and he felt the searing pain as it cut into his skin.

  ‘A strike!’ said Dalton like a fencing tutor.

  Josh spun around and struck the second Djinn’s spindly legs, which were by far its weakest point. He felt something snap as he connected. The creature was too top heavy to support its own weight on one leg and folded.

  ‘Bad design,’ noted Dalton from his throne. ‘The next will be better.’