Strangeness and Charm cotf-3

by Mike Shevdon

  "How do they know where to go?" Asked Alex.

  "How does a key know which way to turn?" said Eve.

  "But a key has someone turning it," said Sparky. He reached out a finger and touched the arrow, which slowly rotated before finding its position again pointing towards the orb.

  "I told you," said Eve. "It's not six things, but a single key with six components. They will turn when they are ready."

  At her words, the objects stirred into life and began slowly turning around the orb, each in position relative to the others. The hole in the sky above them dilated further.

  Alex shivered. "I should have brought a cardie," she said. "It's getting chilly up here."

  "It will get colder," said Eve. "Always colder."

  Alex wrapped her arms around her body. "When's it going to do its thing?" she asked. "I'm freezing my arse off."

  "This is its thing," said Eve staring at the rotating objects. "We have set in place the key to the universe. The lock is turning. Now everything will change."

  The orb rotated with the items, the patterns on its surface falling into step with the objects that rotated around it, and then slipping out again as the pattern formed and reformed.

  "Well how long's it going to take?" said Alex, her lips trembling. The others looked as cold as she felt.

  Eve turned back towards them, smiling. "Until the end of the universe."

  "The end of the universe? We'll all be dead long before then."

  "No," said Eve, shaking her head. "The end of time is mere hours away. All the chaos, all the fuss and nonsense of stars and galaxies, all of it will cool until the universe itself is entirely and utterly still. What you feel here is happening everywhere, and every-when. In mere hours, time itself will cease to have any meaning and there will be no more hours. They will be no future and no past. Everything will be wiped clean."

  "But you said we were changing the world," said Alex.

  "And so we are," she said. "Not just the world, but the entire pattern of existence. We will erase everything that ever was, or ever will be. It'll be like we never were."

  "But you said we'd have dragons," said Sparky.

  "And manticores," said Alex, "whatever they are."

  Alex glanced at Chipper, and saw the strangest expression. It was as if light had dawned for him. His smiled matched Eve's.

  "What the fuck have you done?" said Alex.

  Eve turned back to the slow ballet of spinning objects. "Sacrifices must be made. There can be no life without death, no renewal without decay. Something must be given up in order for something to be gained."

  "But you said we were bringing back unicorns," said Alex. "How can you lie? Why can't I hear you lying?"

  She turned back to Alex, that same quiet smile playing on her lips. "Patience, child. From the stillness that comes, another universe will be born. You won't have to wait — time will not exist. You only wait when there's time. There will be no time." Her expression darkened for a second. "No one will ever make me wait, ever again."

  For a moment Alex saw something in her eyes that was beyond pain. Then it cleared and the smile returned. "No more waiting. It is happening now, and tomorrow and yesterday, but we made it happen. She looked back to the turning objects. "I made it happen."

  "You're fucking nuts!" screamed Alex.

  She never saw the blow. Chipper back-handed her across the mouth and she sprawled backwards across the grass. "Watch your mouth," said Chipper. "You don't speak to her like that."

  It was the first time Alex could remember Chipper speaking. His voice was broken and rough, as if he used it so little he had forgotten how to form words. From behind him, Sparky watched open-mouthed as he loomed menacingly over Alex.

  Alex pressed her finger to her swollen lips, all the while feeling the temperature drop still further.

  "You stupid sod," said Alex. "You're going to die. She's going to kill all of us. Don't you get it?"

  Chipper smiled. "It's you that doesn't get it. What do you think we're here for? This is it. This is everything. We'll be more famous than anyone who ever lived. We'll be the people who brought it all down."

  "You dolt," said Alex. "You won't be famous because there won't be anyone left."

  He smiled and looked at Eve. "That doesn't matter."

  "Fashionably late as always," said Blackbird.

  Moving fast up the path from the base of the hill came a group of four figures. Niall easily recognised Garvin in the lead, with Tate close behind, flanked by Amber and Fionh.

  "It's not like we couldn't use the help," I said. "We're getting nowhere fast."

  "That sort of help I can do without," said Blackbird, but we waited for them below the crest of the hill, nevertheless.

  "What's the situation?" said Garvin, not in the least out of breath as he reached us.

  "See for yourself," said Blackbird. "The end of the universe has begun and you arrive just in time to witness it."

  "How long have you known about this?" he asked me.

  "That's right," said Blackbird. "Start with the blame and work backwards. Don't worry, Niall. There won't be time for sanctions."

  "If you gave as much time to finding a way to stop this as you do to smart remarks," said Garvin to Blackbird, "we'd all be better for it."

  "Why don't the two of you go somewhere quiet and bicker while the rest of us try and find a way in," I said. "Wait! There's something happening."

  On the summit, the tallest of the lads stepped across to Alex and struck her. I winced involuntarily. "They're fighting over something," I said. It was too far away to hear the argument, but there was an obvious threat in the way he stood over her. "Stay down," I muttered, knowing she couldn't hear me. "Wait your chance."

  "Tate," said Garvin. "Check the perimeter. If there's a way in I want to know. Amber, How high does it go? Fionh, check out the tower, see if we can use it."

  Tate slipped away, testing the edge of the warding with his hand as he moved. Fionh went the opposite way, heading around the warding to the ruined tower on the summit. Amber stood for a second, lifting her cupped hands to her lips. She blew into them and a glow formed within, escaping between her fingers. She threw her hands wide and hundreds of pale butterflies erupted from her hands, circling like a flickering cloud around her. They rose and circled, fluttering out over the surface of the warding as they scattered. From the pattern of their flight we could see that the warding extended up and over forming a sphere around the orb.

  "Even if we could climb it," said Blackbird, " there's no way to get inside."

  "I wasn't thinking of getting inside," said Garvin.

  "Then what were you thinking?" I asked. It took me a moment to catch on. He was suggesting that I use my power to create a weapon and drop it inside the circle.

  "It won't work," I said. "As soon as I try and draw power the clouds open up and drop thunderbolts on me." I glanced over to the group on the hill, my daughter sprawled on the ground. "Even if I was prepared to do it."

  "It won't matter what you do to her shortly," said Garvin. "Either to you, or to her."

  "How did you know we were here?" asked Blackbird.

  "You jest," said Garvin. When Blackbird's expression didn't change he explained. "Half the power grid for the country is out, the Ways are erratic and dangerously unstable and there are landslips, floods and local tornados everywhere, all centred here. I thought's that how you'd found it."

  "No," said Blackbird, "We used our brains."

  "For all the good it did you," said Garvin.

  "Just stop it!" I told them. "I'm going to work my way round, see if I can attract someone's attention." I walked away, hoping that my exit would persuade them to stop bickering and put their heads together.

  Away from the path, the land sloped away more steeply. Here the land was formed into shallow terraces that followed the hill almost like visible contours. I stepped down as the edge of the warding forced me to drop another level. From this position I could see
less rather than more. Wondering what was going on at the top of the hill, I worked my way around until I was climbing again. I came up between the dark outline of the tower against the sky and the edge of the warding. Ahead of me were two figures, twenty feet apart. They faced each other. One was my daughter, and the other was Tate. I ran forward to speak with her, but as I did she turned her back and headed back into the circle.

  I reached Tate, finding him absorbed in watching her walk back towards the orb.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "She tried to leave, but she can't. They can't get out any more than we can get in."

  "What did she say? Why didn't she stay?"

  Tate turned to me.

  "She said, whatever happens, no matter how things turn out, however long we have left, she wanted you to know that she loves you."

  I pressed myself against the warding, watching her retreating back. "Alex!" I shouted after her. "Alex!"

  She kept walking, never looking back.

  As Chipper watched Eve, Alex scooted backwards, got to her feet and ran across the frost covered grass.

  "There's no point in running," Eve shouted after her. "Very shortly there won't be anywhere to run to."

  She kept running towards the tower until she encountered the barrier. It threw her back and she bounced back onto the grass. She got up, brushing the grass from her skirt, her dignity more hurt than the rest of her, and then realised that there was someone watching her from beyond the barrier.

  "Good evening, Miss," said Tate.

  He stood in the half light under the clouds. He might have been a stone, or the trunk from some ancient blasted oak. Except there were no stones up here, and no trees, only a broken windowless tower that looked like no one had ever used it.

  "Are you going to pretend we're out for a walk again?" she called across the grass that separated them.

  "Why," he asked. "Is there somewhere you'd rather be?"

  She laughed, "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

  "Glastonbury Tor is a beautiful spot, Miss" he said. "The Isle of Avalon. You should have seen it before it was drained."

  "Yeah," she said, gazing round at the fields below the Tor where they faded into grey in the half-light under the clouds. "I think I'd have liked that."

  "You could leave?" he suggested.

  "Can't, can I? Little Miss Mayhem over there has got the whole hill locked up tighter than a duck's arse."

  He smiled.

  "What are you smiling at?" she asked.

  "I was thinking that even ducks have to go sometime."

  "Yeah," she said again. "Except when it all goes down the toilet first."

  "Except then," he agreed.

  They watched each other across ten paces of grass. She thought she would have liked to accompany him in a walk around the hill, but that probably wasn't going to happen.

  "Are you scared, Tate?"

  "Of what, Miss?"

  She laughed again, "Of that," she said, pointing up at the sky. "That's what's happening. She's going to end the world and herself and me and everyone else with it. She's barking mad is what she is."

  Tate looked up at the black hole in the sky, then back at Alex. "People don't do things without a reason, Miss. She'll have her reasons, even if they seem strange to you."

  "You know, I've played this game before, though not for real — never for real." She looked up at the hole.

  "What game, Miss?"

  "If you had one hour before the end of the world, what would you do with it? Have you ever played that, Tate?"

  "No, Miss. I don't think I have."

  "Yeah, well. It turns out that what I'd do in the last hour before the end of the world is freeze my arse off. I wish I'd brought something warmer. Aren't you cold?"

  "I don't feel the cold, Miss. At least not yet."

  No, she thought, you probably don't. But you will.

  "What's it for, Tate?"

  "What's what for, Miss?"

  "All of it? Life? What's it all for?"

  "Does it need a reason, Miss? Does it have to justify itself? And if so, to whom?"

  "Maybe we're about to find out," said Alex, staring upwards at the wonders of the universe above her.

  "Maybe we are," he agreed.

  "It doesn't seem fair," she said. "I was just getting the hang of it and now it's all going down the tubes."

  "There is no fair, or unfair," said Tate. "There is only doing, and not doing."

  "You forgot," she said.

  "Forgot what?" asked Tate.

  "You forgot to call me Miss," she reminded him.

  He shook his head. "No, Alex. I didn't forget."

  She watched him for a long time, but he neither moved nor changed expression. He met her gaze calmly, levelly, while she thought about everything she'd done, and everything she'd not done.

  "I've fucked it up, haven't I?" She wrapped her hands tighter around her, shivering against the bone numbing chill.

  "Have you, Miss?" he said.

  "There you go again," she said, throwing her hands up and walking around in circles. "I just don't get it."

  "Yes you do," said Tate.

  She stopped suddenly. "Are you winding me up?"

  He simply inclined his head, which might have been a yes, and might have been a no.

  "You've got a nerve, haven't you? I mean, the world is about to end and you're… what are you doing, Tate?"

  "Talking," said Tate.

  She watched him. "Yeah," she said. "I 'spect you are."

  She looked back at the centre where the things they'd stolen rotated slowly around the orb. Eve and Chipper were standing together. It was clear to her now. Chipper had the hots for Eve, he would do anything for her. Sparky watched them, a little way apart.

  "I've gotta go," she said, turning back. "Do me a favour?"

  "What is your wish?" he asked her.

  "Tell my dad… whatever happens, however it turns out… never mind, just tell him I love him. Tell him I'm sorry."

  "I'll tell him you love him, Alex. Don't worry."

  She glanced to the right. She could see her father mounting the side of the hill, trying to reach her.

  "I gotta go," she said.

  "I know," he said. "I'll tell him."

  She turned and strode back towards the orb and the people stood around it. Behind her her dad's voice rang out, calling her name, but she daren't look back.

  TWENTY-ONE

  "Jeeezus! It's cold." Alex crunched across the grass, leaving footprints where the brittle strands simply snapped under the pressure of her feet. She went to where Eve and Chipper stood in the freezing air. "You've got it all wrong," she said, her teeth chattering as she spoke.

  "Finished sulking now, have we," asked Eve. "Sulk all you like, there's nothing you can do."

  Eve seemed unaffected by the cold. Perhaps she welcomed it.

  "I wasn't sulking," Alex said. "I was thinking."

  "That's a first," said Eve. Chipper grinned.

  "I was thinking that the real problem here is you," she said to Eve. "Whatever your problem is, you're determined to take it out on everyone."

  "You don't know what you're talking about," said Eve.

  "Don't I?" said Alex. "Little Evie, left all alone? Little Evie, with no one to turn to?"

  "Shut up!" screamed Eve. "I'm going to make you regret you ever opened your fat stupid mouth."

  Chipper, loomed over Alex. "You better shut up, like she says."

  "Leave her, Chipper. I can handle the likes of her," said Eve. "She doesn't understand. She's standing on a hundred thousand tons of stone and she wants to challenge me? We don't have to wait for the end of the world. We can kill her now, and bury her. Not necessarily in that order."

  Alex felt the ground soften beneath her feet.

  "You stupid little girl," said Alex. "You think you're the big thinker with your highbrow books and your pothead philosophy, but you can't see beyond your childish little nose. You accuse m
e of sulking, but isn't that what this is? One giant hissy fit to show the world once and for all that you want things your own way, or not at all?"

  "Say that from the grave, bitch," said Eve.

  Alex spread her feet keeping her balance as the ground shifted and sank beneath her. She fought the urge to struggle as she sank knee deep into the earth. She wouldn't give Eve the satisfaction or watching her try to crawl out of the hole that was forming around her.

  "We shouldn't be fighting like this," said Sparky. "We should stick together — help each other."

  Eve ignored him.

  "It's not about sticking together, is it Eve?" said Alex. "It's only about you, isn't it? Everyone else can go screw as long as you get revenge for being left. No wonder you're alone."

  Alex felt the ground shift under her when she mentioned being alone.

  "Do you know the real irony?" Eve said. "I couldn't have done it without you. I needed four elements to activate the orb, or it wouldn't work. When Gina stole my books and found out what I was planning I had to deal with her, but that left me short one element — your element, Alex."

  Alex sank to her waist so that she was forced to look up at Eve. She ignored the grit and stones trickling into her clothes and her shoes. She dismissed the sensation of the earth sucking her down. She had to wait. She knew what she had to do, but it would only work if she had support. She daren't look at Sparky. She daren't even acknowledge his existence.

  "I want you to know," Eve continued, "that it will take you a while to die. Suffocation won't happen quickly and you'll be around long enough to keep the orb stable — long enough to trigger the end of the universe."

  Alex realised then that she could save the universe. Eve had given it away. All she needed to do was end herself and it would all fall apart. Eve needed Alex for her element until the orb became self-sustaining. Without Alex, it would fail.

  "Why, Eve?" Alex asked softly, meeting her malevolent gaze calmly. "Do you even know why they left you? What happened that they would leave you like that?"

  Eve's hands were in fists, her teeth gritted and her face blotchy with rage. "They didn't leave me, you stupid bitch!" she screamed. "I killed them. I killed all of them! I buried them alive, which is exactly what I'm going to do to you!"