Time Knot

by M. C. Morison

  Once more a distant sound arose at the very edge of my mind. A pounding of waves on the shore. The sound gathered and came closer.

  “You are welcome here, prince,” said the inner voice as the waves turned into words. Pink-eyes looked at me and her eyebrows rose another sliver.

  I nodded. I formed the words ‘I am not a prince. Just a schoolboy from—’

  Inside my mind and behind the three sisters at the same time, the bear we’d seen south of here, barked and showed its teeth. Håkan sucked in his breath and leaned back. He’d seen it too.

  ‘You. Boy.’ The pink-eyed woman pointed at me. ‘You are of a chain that must not be broken. The rivers of the destiny of tribes flow this way and that, but they flow true. It is to our ancestors we must be faithful. Those who forget their ancestors are destined to wander alone and friendless till they learn who they truly are.’

  ‘And you. Blood of our blood,’ said the sister on the left to Håkan, ‘you will weave the north and the south together, with sweet sound, even as you weave time past and time future with harmony. So the prophecy said. So we saw. So the drums have spoken.’

  And, although the lips of the sisters remained still whilst this odd conversation flowed from them, the men outside struck up on their drums.

  The third sister nodded. Her voice rang like a melody half remembered, gentle notes but ones that lingered on and on.

  ‘Those of us who dwell on the edges of this world also dwell on the edges of time. We three see time past, time now and time yet to come. Like the sisters in tales told of old, the threads of many destinies weave their way through our lavvu. We watch. We measure. We see where destiny’s sword cuts. Men and women seldom learn the part they play in the whole but you two will know, and will come to know much more. The dark and the light shades have already played out in your vision. We see. We see.’

  ‘All is done and all is still to be done.’

  ‘Conquer the small and the great shall be achieved.’

  ‘Bury the stories deep and the tree of light will illumine all.’

  ‘Fear not the tempest. All will appear lost but all will be saved.’

  ‘Buildings fall into the sea, and cities sink beneath lakes, but the wisdom of the tribe remains with the tribe.’

  ‘The first wisdom is the last wisdom.’

  ‘The known becomes unknown to be known truly.’

  For timeless moments the drumbeats encircled us as the sisters’ words flooded into our minds. I knew – I couldn’t say how – that Håkan heard even as I did. I couldn’t tell which sister’s words were which. The ideas danced around the lavvu, gradually filling it with light. The sisters seemed to grow, and become younger, their faces radiant. Just beyond them, outside the lavvu wall but in our full vision, the bear – a female bear I now realised – stood on her hind paws.

  The pink-eyed sister rose and in a high-pitched, crackling voice said, “Come now, boys, it is time. The stars have awoken.”

  Hilká, who had returned without my noticing, crossed the lavvu and offered her arm to the tiny woman. They led the way, as the other two moved slowly behind us.

  We came out into the fullness of night. So many stars, layer upon layer of them, sparkled in the inky darkness, hanging close but always out of reach. Someone led me to a drum, a drum with paintings. I sat on a cushion on a tree stump and played first with my gloved hands and then with my bare bands. Håkan’s bagpipes warmed up, like a few tomcats greeting each other. Then a lilting tune span and wove its way around my rhythms and those of all the other drummers. Pipe music of the small dog variety, created melodies rising far above our own. I drummed and drummed and Hilká touched my arm.

  “Look.”

  The stars simply danced. Constellations gathered, intensified, glittered still more brightly and then faded as others took their place. The names of these star families fell into my mind and I found I knew them already. Above our heads the sky slowly moved, stars chasing each other and forming new groupings. The drumming eased itself into the distance. I stood, maybe aided by Hilká. Håkan also stood, playing his pipes.

  The trees withdrew and the snow at our feet hardened and turned dark. Hilká’s touch vanished. Walls closed in and geometric shapes clarified in the hard pink ground at our feet. A wave of great warmth gathered close to us, driving out in an instant weeks and weeks of cold.

  Twang of Puke

  Alexandria – about 380 CE

  I looked around. Nobody. We stood in an entirely empty room. The dark chamber, swathed in warmth, had nothing in it except tall lamps with flames guttering and an odd structure made of wooden poles. Håkan’s bagpipes wheezed out their last few notes, like someone had just sat on several asthmatic cats. Håkan staggered backwards.

  “What’s happened? Where are we? Where have the musicians gone? My mother? Oh, Mother of God and Holy Saviour, am I dead?”

  “I don’t think so, Håkan,” I said. “I think we have slipped through—”

  “I want to go back.” He spun round wildly. “How do we get back?”

  That question hadn’t really occurred to me. The other times I’d flitted around through time I eventually just returned to the here and now, in Hammerford. It’d never occurred to me I might get stuck in one of Time’s coils.

  Håkan dropped on his knees. The cool, pink flagstones carried all sorts of lines and curves, some containing colour. Moonlight shone in through high windows. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom I thought I could discern a smudge of lighter darkness across the room.

  “I think—”

  Håkan threw up. All over the floor in front of him. Splat. Retch. The acrid smell set off something in me and I thought I might be sick too. What should we do?

  Håkan looked up, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

  “We must get out of here. The strange smell.”

  He’d just puked, hadn’t he? Did he expect it to smell like a high-class air freshener?

  “Like a Catholic Church.”

  I registered what he meant. The room had a memory of incense. I moved away from Håkan and breathed in. Definitely someone had burned incense, like in one of the Indian shops in the Lanes in Brighton. For just a moment I heard – without really hearing – music. Outside a bell sounded, and in the distance, a drumbeat. This time the sound had a reality. I moved over to the smudge of less dark darkness, where the door might be. It eased open.

  I stepped out onto a broad colonnade with a low wall. Beyond this wall, lights from a tall structure reflected on the water. At the top of the building, etched in steps against the sky, a bright beam flared out.

  A lighthouse. Not a lighthouse, The Lighthouse. Pharos. One of the Seven Wonders of the World.

  It looked just as it had in my vision – or whatever – when I arrived in Alexandria. Sometime in the future. Now here it stood, for real. To the left of the Lighthouse, points of light marked a causeway crossing the harbour and further to my left, a long wharf had little pools of lamplight and people moving about, some carrying lanterns on poles or in their hands.

  A ship moved in the distance, oars rising and falling to the beat of a drum.

  What time are we in? What on earth do we do now?

  Håkan came out into the colonnade and stared about him.

  “How come it’s so warm?”

  We were both still dressed in Sami finery, leather hats and all. His face had a glistening of sweat, but then he’d just vomited.

  The colonnade ended in a blank wall on our right. We headed left, keeping in the shadows, and crept slowly and quietly towards the harbour. We passed a double door with what looked like a sword fixed by copper clips above it. Maybe an armoury of some sort? I hoped the soldiers wouldn’t emerge as we eased our way past. At the far end of the walkway had another wall blocking our progress, but a door on our left opened onto a further room. I peeked in.

  Once more, tired braziers cast feeble light, but here the white floor reflected some of the moonlight and we could make out
more detail. We looked all around but could see no one. Apart from the distant sounds from the harbour, silence hovered around us. We went in, walking very gently over stony mosaic pictures. Two larger doors across the room stood wide-open, showing palm trees lit by moonlight in some sort of garden. Between us and those doors a table had been placed. On it two lamps cast a brighter glow, revealing tunics and sandals. Two sets. Looked like we were expected, or if not, this was truly convenient.

  “Come on,” I whispered, “we need to change.”

  Håkan followed me as though sleep walking. His eyes had a faraway look and I wondered if he might faint. The faint twang of puke still clung about him.

  We both pulled off our leather gear and dropped the embroidered clothes in a boys’ bedroom-type heap, on a picture of the head of a man wearing a lion-skin hat. The tunics fitted perfectly, and some cotton undies protected our modesty in case of high winds. They felt like gym shorts but without the elastic or logos. Each of us had a short cape, which tied somehow over our shoulders. I helped Håkan, who didn’t understand the concept of a reef knot. His vacant eyes moved around, settling here and there. He sniffed.

  We wavered at the door. Swathed in shadow we couldn’t be seen, but the equally dense shadows under the trees and bushes could hide a small army. Something hooted or piped. I assumed an Egyptian owl, if there is such a thing.

  Moving down the steps, like two reluctant visitors going to a fancy dress party, we crossed the garden and came to a gate leading to the harbour. We’d made it. Or at least I thought we had until I got that we were on a small island. The sea sloshed around at the bottom of some steps, lit by bright moonlight.

  “Shoosh,” I said, in English.

  “What?” said Håkan. “Oh. Shit!”

  Hmm, that’s what I’d avoided saying, but it sounded okay in Swedish.

  Someone cleared their throat behind us. We turned. Standing between us and the museum or whatever it was, stood a man with the dimensions of a small mountain. I heard someone cry out. And realised it was me.

  The man raised his fingers to his lips. Fingers belonging to hands the size of a large wicket keeper, wearing protective cricket gloves. That was bad enough but his appearance had my legs turning to jelly. I’d seen this man before. In Alexandria. But not the Alexandria of Greek tunics, rather Modern Alexandria. This man could be the twin of the guy who rescued me from being car-napped whom I’d last seen in Tent City. Only on his head he wore a Roman-type helmet with a short plume.

  Putting his thick fingers to his mouth he produced the owl noise once more and beckoned us. Moments after a boat appeared, coming from a jetty twenty or so metres away. Three or four minutes later, we stood on the harbour in Ancient Alexandria watching a small troop of Roman soldiers march. A military man on a black horse rode over towards us, the hooves of his horse clopping on the cobblestones. Now I came in for my second big surprise in as many minutes. The man dismounted and took off his plumed helm. His craggy face entirely matched that of Mohammed, our driver in Alexandria, the one who had picked us up at Cairo airport. Apart from his short military-style haircut, he might have been identical.

  He said something in a melodious language. I couldn’t understand a word. Perhaps he’s talking hieroglyphic? He pointed at me and spoke again, this time more slowly. His voice, a rich baritone with an intonation that suggested he found the world obeyed when he spoke, flowed round us. As it did I ‘heard’ the meaning of his words inside me.

  ‘You must go with Magnus. Trust him. You know now that you can.’ He smiled at me as though I would get his joke. ‘For a time you will be in a cage. Don’t worry, Magnus will be close by all the time and another friend will be with you. From now on you must pretend to be mute. As though your tongue had been cut out. Understand?’

  My heart thumped blood into my ears so the sounds of his words barely registered, but the meaning did. I nodded, wondering what on earth this all meant.

  ‘You will understand what is spoken, even as you understand me. But you must never speak, unless you can master Greek very rapidly.’ A pale reflection of a smile crossed his face.

  What happened next happened fast. The horse-rider, or ‘the General’ as I’d nicknamed him, glanced over towards the far side of the harbour where three figures strode towards us. That was the last thing I saw, as Magnus put a sack or something over my head. But I’d seen enough of the three figures to register that two were tall black men.

  ‘Fear not, my friend. All will be plain shortly and your service is much valued.’

  Magnus, the man mountain, half-lifted and half-walked me deeper into the harbour.

  An Old Friend

  Magnus didn’t speak and even when I tried to listen to his thoughts, all I picked up sounded like the scuffling of shoes on cobbles. After an eternity of walking and stumbling through narrow streets that climbed and echoed with our footsteps, the noise level around us picked up. Even through my musty cloth fashion-accessory, I could tell we were in a large square, with people talking in groups and a lot of torches flickering away. I smelt roast meat and my mouth, dry as a bone until a few moments before, gushed with saliva. I could eat a horse. I decided that might not be a good wish in these circumstances. Other hands, less kind than Magnus’s banana bunches, took my arms and I was pushed at the same time as the hood came off. I staggered into a cage sited at the edge of a large torch-lit square.

  The cage floor had straw strewn over it. At one corner my clever nose told me the pottery pot was a privy: a public one and very smelly. At the opposite corner, where a bunch of girls packed in together, stood another larger pot that might have water. I hoped so. My thirst proved worse than my hunger. A girl, larger than the rest, sat right by the ribbed jar, holding a ladle. I sensed she could and would use it as a weapon if any of the boys at my end approached in the wrong way. She was hunched over with her copious dark hair covering her face; one eye glinted between thick tresses, staring right at me.

  At my end, near the farmyard smells, about ten boys sat doing disconsolate impressions. One cried. I guessed they were near my age, except for a boy of maybe eight or nine with ash-blond hair and rosy cheeks. He stared into the vast square, where people congregated in groups or walked on whatever business would bring them there at night. Immediately outside the wooden struts of my new home, stood men wearing swords. One carried what looked decidedly like a whip. I would have swallowed except all the saliva had fled my mouth once more. My status had just become clear – Slave-boy. That seemed a rather steep price to pay for being able to slip through the cracks in time. I felt less of a Seed and Companion and more like a sacrifice.

  I looked around for Håkan. Panic rose through me. He wasn’t there. I tried to remember if I’d heard his footsteps along with those of the kindly giant who’d just brought me here. Standing amongst the boys in the smelly enclosure a deep, fearful loneliness rose over me like cold lake water.

  In the middle of my self-pity, words surfaced in my mind.

  ‘Don’t look at me. Just listen. Nod if you understand.’

  I stared towards the square and nodded towards an impressive statue of a bearded young man standing alone on a plinth in the middle, guarded by four stone lions.

  ‘This is just a trick. You are being watched. It must look like you truly are a slave. A mute slave. Nod if you understand.’

  I nodded slowly once more as three men walked towards the wooden pen. A combination of my knees giving way and real exhaustion brought me down to a sitting position.

  ‘Lie down, Rhory. Keep your head turned our way and put your arm over your face.’

  I adjusted myself a bit like a cat settling on a duvet, touched some boy’s leg and got a kick. I could sense the men had reached the outside of the cage. I couldn’t understand their language. It sounded coarser than the horseman at the harbour. But the ideas behind the gravelly words bumped and jostled into my mind.

  ‘Do you think he’s here?’

  ‘The prophecy says so. On the f
ifth full moon, it says, the Key-Bearer will come, a King disguised as a slave.’

  Someone hawked and spat.

  ‘But is he here? This is not the only slave pen in—’

  ‘He’s here.’ A smoother voice spoke for the first time, with words that slithered into the cage like thin snakes. ‘We just have to work out which one.’

  ‘I still don’t know how we lost the way here. After all, the giant’s not hard to follow.’

  ‘Well we did, and his trick with the flour sack didn’t help.’

  ‘What about the other boy?’

  ‘What other boy?’

  ‘There were two. And a horseman.’

  ‘Are you crazy, I saw the boat. There was one boy and the colossus.’

  ‘And the boatman.’

  ‘Of course the boatman. You say you saw a second boy.’

  ‘And a horseman—’

  The sound of a slap was followed by a muted yelp.

  ‘I’ll pickle your nuts, you curly-haired cretin! There wasn’t any horseman.’

  The voices dropped and the ideas became confused, involving birds’ eggs and pickled fish as well as whipping and branding. I decided not to follow the logic of all that. Then words reached me loud and clear, along with their instant Google translation:

  ‘I’ll buy all the boys and torture them till I know which one is this so-called king. The price we’ll get for him will more than compensate. They need him by the next New Moon.’

  After that I heard nothing. Something scuttled past my nose on the straw. I jerked my head back. The girl by the water jar raised her face, allowing her hair to part and torchlight to play on her face. I knew her. I absolutely knew her. She smiled.

  I’d seen her twice before, once on a tube train in London, and once in the Coliseum Theatre in London, when we’d gone to see the ballet, The Nutcracker. Obviously, it couldn’t be her. Shelley. Could it? Unless she could also travel through time and was now—