Time Knot

by M. C. Morison

  The scrolls and teachings bumped along just below us. Our cart had a very large false floor. Under this sprung wood floor that held our greying straw, the precious writings had been wrapped in oiled cloths and carefully stowed. Maimonides and Hypatia had watched over that, offering advice. They’d been the ones to decide which scrolls would have to be left behind in the warehouse, for there was not quite room for all those we’d rescued. Angelos appeared to know where our priceless consignment would end up. I wondered if it might be below one of the pyramids.

  The next morning, when we’d put a few miles under our belts, Devorah stood and pointed. There, across a dusty plain, with the Nile glittering nearby, lay the pyramids. They dazzled. Pictures I’d seen at school suggested they were built of a reddish stone, but these three pyramids were white and shone on the horizon, as the sun caught their eastern slopes. We pulled into the shade of some high rocks in order to make breakfast. Angelos and Magnus went off to collect brushwood and fill water flasks. Håkan and I sat as the girls bustled around organising honey cakes and a rather tasty omelette. Anastasia threw Håkan an orange. I coughed but she didn’t seem to hear.

  “Hey, Anastasia, what about me?”

  But she paid me no heed at all. She entirely concentrated on the three men on camels who approached on the road in front of us. I elbowed Håkan and we looked behind. The two black twins sat on a rock looking down on us. One was cleaning his nails with the tip of his dagger. The other flashed us the friendliest grin and opened his arms wide.

  Entombed Alive?

  The distant Sphinx watched us with its sightless eyes. As we trundled towards it we really were captured slaves this time. Behind the bland features of whichever pharaoh had stamped his face on the stone beast, the Great Pyramid rose in stunning glory, much, much higher than I’d imagined. Knowing you’re about to be sacrificed in some grim ritual takes the edge off being a tourist. I hardly looked. My tummy rumbled, complaining about lack of breakfast.

  Our captors had bundled us quickly into the cart, not giving us time to eat. Magnus and Angelos had disappeared and were out there somewhere in the desert. At least I hoped so. Simoneas, the wavy-haired leader of the group who looked like a rather exotic Roman centurion, gave the orders. All I could pick up was ‘quickly’ and ‘pyramids’. He trotted on ahead and we were left to the tender mercies of the twins. Four swarthy soldiers on camels rode point. One had filed teeth, which he used to amuse the girls, only they didn’t seem to get the joke.

  We joggled along for quite some time in sullen silence. Once our identical drivers had lost interest in goading us for a bit, Nysa nudged me with her foot.

  ‘Are you all right?’ (Nysa)

  ‘Yes. Hungry though. We never had breakfast.’ (Me)

  ‘Sorry, Rhory, I should have shared my orange.’ (Håkan)

  ‘Can you pick up what they are saying?’ (Nysa)

  Nysa nodded towards our drivers, who were talking quietly to each other. I tuned in and realised I’d been receiving impressions all along. I formed these into ideas slowly in my mind. Nysa and Håkan watched me intently.

  ‘There’s going to be some sort of ceremony. They – the twins – want to watch but may not be allowed. It’ll be underground. It’s to call forth some great spirit, some master. They’ve waited years to see him. Someone lost in an early Dynasty. Simoneas told them the prophecy about this man. He’s a great magician … or some such thing.’

  I found it weird. As they talked, I kept getting impressions of the longhaired priest I’d come up against before. A few months earlier, the hidden sanctuary, dedicated to a Roman god and buried deep beneath the Hammerford Bandstand, had provided a portal to the past. I’d slipped back temporarily to Ancient Egypt and found myself with friends, in a foul temple. This man, with long hair and dark designs, had tried to sacrifice my Egyptian priestess friend Shoshan, by shutting her in a pen with a huge wild boar. We had escaped. Just.

  Was this the dude trapped way back when, in time? I certainly didn’t want to invite him into the here and now.

  ‘What’ll happen to us?’ (Devorah)

  I shook my head. The images that floated by as the twins spoke were too horrible to put into words, even words I wouldn’t speak. I assumed they didn’t really know what would happen to us, which is why they wanted to watch. Their imaginations were the stuff of the horror films I shouldn’t have watched, but had … with Juliette. Ugh!

  I flicked my eyes around my friends.

  ‘They need something from us. We have a power they want.’ (Me)

  Anastasia nodded. ‘If we can just see how, we have an advantage.’

  Nysa hugged her knees and shuddered. Håkan stared out at the Nile. A hawk circled lazily high above, a silhouette against the deep blue dome of the sky.

  ‘We have to try and escape. We must get our books and scrolls to wherever they need to go.’ (Me)

  ‘They have no idea why we are really here, do they?’ (Nysa)

  ‘We must look for a chance to do something really bold. I’ve not come all this way to end up as a burnt offering to some disgusting god.’ (Håkan)

  We both looked at him. He’d put into words what we’d both imagined. It didn’t help quell the sensations of panic spreading through me.

  The hawk drifted off towards the top of the pyramids.

  The Sphinx passed by on our left, its face as yet unblemished by some stupid Napoleonic gunner’s cannon ball. The setting sun bathed its worn flanks in a reddish hue. My stomach complained about lack of food once more. Condemned prisoners don’t need feeding. We rode on for another minute or so, heading in the direction of the pyramids. We stopped abruptly by an excavation in the ground.

  Even not speaking Egyptian, Greek, North African or whatever the twins were shouting at us, I understood we were meant to get out. A few metres away, at the bottom of a stone stairway, a large grave-shaped hole stared at us with a rectangular black eye. It didn’t add to my sense of longevity. One of the twins, notable by a gold tooth in his otherwise pristine pearlies, pointed to the hole and indicated we should climb in. The soldiers, whose camels had settled in the sand with a relieved rocking movement, drew their swords and approached us. Gold-tooth hissed to these ruffians:

  ‘Not to be hurt. Make them go down.’

  Well at least we weren’t going to be executed immediately. Two stout poles, planted in the sand about half a metre away, tilted over the opening. From these poles hung a fairly substantial rope ladder. It disappeared into the utter darkness below.

  A tomb with no view?

  Green Brooch Lady Returns

  Devorah, holding her head high, marched straight to the hole and looked down. She spoke and I gathered there were lights shining down below. The twin with perfect teeth descended first whilst Gold-tooth stood at the top. Devorah followed Mr Perfect Teeth down, her face full of defiance. I went next. Not for the first time I found myself going underground, and unwelcome memories came back of being trapped in the dark Hammerford well. The rectangular hole had stone sides forming a sort of chimney. This continued for at least three metres, and then my head cleared the ceiling of a large underground chamber. The roof had flaking paint decorations showing stars made of five points. The ginormous room extended into darkness in one direction. Light came from four huge torches blazing in sockets about two and a half metres up the walls of the subterranean room. Sand drifted down from the hole over my head.

  Up above me, Håkan leant over the hole holding one of the poles, his head and shoulders a dark silhouette against the evening sky. He nodded at me. The ladder swung alarmingly as I made my way down from the high ceiling. Perfect Teeth had let go of the end and stood behind Devorah. He pushed her towards a niche in the end part of the room, furthest away from where the space disappeared into total darkness. As I descended the final two or three metres I noted her hands were now tied behind her back. As I jumped down Devorah tripped and sat on the sand-strewn floor, before wiggling herself back on her feet and stepping up int
o the niche.

  Way above me Håkan began to descend, and long before Perfect Teeth had my wrists tied behind my back Håkan stood next to me. Even in the evanescent torchlight I could see the ferocity in my Swedish friend’s eyes.

  A few minutes later we were all standing in the niche. Between us and the end of the rope ladder lay a huge rectangular block of stone, twice as long as it was high or wide. A dark stain blemished the centre with streaks down one of the sides. On our left, another much shallower niche, set higher in the wall, had a large hieroglyph showing two arms held up, like a bad guy surrendering to the local sheriff, only the picture had no head, just raised arms.

  ‘The Ka sign. We believe the spirit of a man can pass through a doorway like that.’ Nysa offered me a tight smile. ‘I think that’s what this is all about. Getting back the magician through that doorway.’

  ‘That’s never going to happen.’ Håkan showed me his hands and returned them behind him. Devorah, at my back, started doing something to the rope that bit into my wrists.

  A sound suggestive of a ghost being strangled came from the darkness far beyond the rope ladder. The glow in the rectangular slot in the roof, noticeable only a few minutes earlier, had almost vanished. Night had arrived swiftly up there. Down here night remained permanent. A drum started throbbing, joined by a second. The ghost shrieks, produced by some thin reed pipes, I guessed, became more insistent. Multiple tiny lights bobbed and wove their way towards us out of the deep gloom. A procession approached.

  My hands were untied.

  ‘Keep them behind you, Rhory.’ Nysa banged her shoulder against my arm. ‘They mustn’t know we’re free.’

  Devorah wiggled her way in front of me and the sharp shard of pottery in her hands explained how we’d been liberated. She worked swiftly on Anastasia’s rope shackle.

  For some moments, Perfect Teeth had been staring transfixed towards the procession coming his way. Now, without so much as a fare-thee-well, he shinned up the rope ladder at the sort of speed that gets you into the Guinness Book of Records. Keeping his arms hidden from the approaching wailers and drummers, Håkan faced us. He outlined a plan, silently, image by image. Nysa nodded and spoke the same points softly to Anastasia and Devorah. We all nodded. It was better than nothing. Better than just allowing some zombie magician to pass through a stone wall from the distant past. I thought the chance of it working was marginally less than zilch, but as I didn’t have a better idea I kept my counsel. I only hoped Håkan’s gymnastic skills were up to it and that the girls were in good voice.

  As the lead figures in the procession came close enough to be brushed by the lamplight, the girls started crying. I know girls can turn tears on and off like a soda fountain in a café, but the display proved pretty awesome. By sympathetic magic I found myself sniffing and my legs attaining the consistency of one of those trick rubber pencils. Håkan rocked back and forth on his feet with the fervour of a Sami shaman. He stared at the approaching ghouls.

  My bowels nearly took on a life of their own when I realised the lead priestess on the left, dressed in a robe of deep green, had red hair. My nemesis. Green Brooch Lady. What on earth was she doing here?

  Next to her, looking like Miss World wearing a disguise from the local party-clothes shop on Halloween, was the blonde woman I’d last seen at Sebastian’s and Jolyon’s party in Hammerford: Victoria, their supposed aunt. She may indeed have been their aunt, but I knew she could travel to dark realms and do dark deeds. I’d seen her at it.

  Behind, other men and women followed. Maybe the light played tricks but the two leaders – the witch ladies – had fuzzy edges. I imagined I could see the others through them. The procession had been walking two by two, like primary school children; now they fanned out to form a three-quarter circle around the big stone that became more and more like a sacrificial altar. Victoria and the redheaded Green Brooch woman fully threw back their cowls letting their loose hair stream free. I didn’t doubt their reality any more, nor the sharpness of the sickle-shaped blade held by Victoria. The music, played by others further back in the gloom, crashed and bashed its discordant way, the sounds bouncing off all the walls and making thought just about impossible.

  Then total silence.

  Green Brooch Lady lowered her arm. She surveyed her guests with the diligence and care of a crocodile choosing lunch. She muttered some words under her breath, and inside my mind a huge centipede rose out of muck, with fangs of dark fire and beady eyes full of malice.

  As though on some hidden signal the celebrants turned to face the upraised arms in the stone niche. Victoria called out a name and as she did so, the longhaired priest appeared as though standing inside my mind. Unexpectedly, he had a black cigarette in his mouth. Hard to see the funny side when facing imminent and painful demise, but I think I giggled. I’d remembered once seeing the stub of a cigarette just like that outside Hammerford’s museum. Someone had been following me. He must be the man that managed to get himself stuck in the wrong time period. Well, we weren’t going to be the ones who let him back into our time.

  Håkan, Torch Bearer

  The girls, sobs extinguished, all screamed in unison – a noise so piercing and high my eardrums nearly gave up the will to live. Flapping their arms around, they jumped down spinning and dipping onto the sandy floor and ducked under the arms of the taper-carrying procession. Anastasia sprang onto the stone altar, followed by Devorah and then Nysa, at the same time as Håkan raced towards the nearest flaming torch. I leapt, shouting something that would make Mum blush, and barged through, sending Victoria into an inglorious heap on the ground, her taper falling and sputtering out, her blade clanging as it hit the paving stones. She felt about as substantial as candyfloss. Candyfloss made of sharp ice.

  Håkan reached the wall at speed and leapt up, tipping backwards at the same time and taking two paces high up the stonework. He grabbed the torch, somersaulted backward, landed on his feet and raced towards the other side, using the flaming torch as a Viking might have used a double-handed sword. In the near darkness, the flames flared into huge snake shapes, which the robed ritualists dived to the floor to avoid. Their tapers went out one by one as they waved their arms around wildly, surrounded by the girls’ glass-shattering screams. The sand that over years had fallen into this subterranean hall had gathered deepest near the edges. Snuffing out the torch there, Håkan loped to the opposite side and repeated his trick. So audacious did it appear that we all stood watching with our mouths open as he ran up the wall again, plucked the torch from its holder and span backwards to land cat-like with complete control.

  Nysa shouted at me to keep moving. I woke up and used my best soccer skills to bash into a man of some size and make it over to the rope ladder. Simoneas yelled something unpleasant at me as he tripped on his fancy robe and fell. So far the plan had worked as intended.

  The girls, whose dance skills enabled them to pivot and spin, leapt once more off the altar. Anastasia and Devorah weaved over to me, and jumped with great agility onto the ladder, climbing up towards the night sky above. Simoneas had moved with greater speed than I thought credible and held Nysa by the wrist. As Håkan dowsed the third flaming brand and reduced the room to almost complete gloom, Nysa jumped up, catching his nose with the back of her head and, sticking her legs straight out in front, descended fast, to land rump first on the feet of the slaver. He shouted in pain. Her arm now free, she rolled sideways and skittered across to me. Håkan had the final torch and shouted, “Climb, Rhory, now!”

  I did. Victoria shouted, “Catch his feet!” But I guess the Greeks and Egyptians didn’t speak English and were perhaps now spooked by the speed at which they were being entombed in the dark. No one got near my feet except Håkan. When almost level with my waist, he lit the rope ladder below us with the final torch. Flames licked up in our direction, adding to my motivation – already pretty strong – to climb. In a couple of athletic movements, Håkan overtook me and disappeared into the rectangular hole above.
The bottom third of the ladder fell away in a cascade of sparks. We were safe.

  Then I remembered the camel-riding soldiers waiting at reception level above. I paused. The smouldering end of the ladder cast a little light. Robed figures groped their way towards the utter blackness. Someone stepped onto a dropped drum, tripped and cursed. Pinpoints of taper flame gave firefly illumination.

  ‘Come on, Rhory!’ This from Nysa, above.

  I emerged into the cool night air. Angelos pulled me safely onto the sand around the hole. Of the camels there was no sign. The soldiers sat trussed and gagged at the top of the steps, lit by a huge torch Magnus held high above his head. He smiled slightly in my direction.

  ‘Angelos has explained. There’s no time to lose. We must ride on into the desert, just you, me and Håkan. We’re the only ones who can find the Hall of Records. That’s our job,’ Nysa beamed into my mind.

  ‘Why can’t they help?’ I’m not sure if inner speech can sound petulant but I fancied keeping Magnus on our team after our recent adventure.

  ‘Has to be us. They’re too old.’ Nysa pointed to Angelos and Magnus. ‘And they’re not Seeds of Life.’ She nodded towards Anastasia and Devorah.

  “I’ll drive,” said Håkan to me, in Swedish. “You and Nysa sit and watch. We’re looking for flames that will appear in the desert.”

  He flicked the reins and the horses pulled to get the cart moving. In the distance we heard a shout. A few of our recent captors had made it out to the surface. In the dark I guessed they were about the distance of a cricket ground away. They didn’t sound happy. I checked to see how Magnus had reacted, but of him, Angelos and the girls I could see nothing.

  The horses surged forward with enthusiasm, and I bumped my back against the unyielding bamboo struts of our erstwhile prison. Night had settled in, with only a smudge of a memory of pale green over on our left to suggest where the sun had set. Stars sparkled in the blackness above, with all the clarity I’d seen in the snowy wastes of a Swedish winter. We rumbled towards murky darkness across a gritty terrain. Nysa stood, holding onto one of the bamboo upright poles of the cart and leaning out to the side, grasping the final torch which flared bright as the breeze caught it. I could see nothing ahead and had no idea where Håkan was heading, nor how he’d chosen our course.