by Becket
Tudwal, unfortunately, was too far away. Key reached for him over the edge but he fell past the Tower and went tumbling down, down, down to the Necropolis streets.
“Tudwal!” she cried out to him as he was panting and yipping happily, acting as though this was the best game he’d ever played.
“He’ll be all right, my dear,” Mr. Fuddlebee assured her. “Besides, we have other matters to attend to at the moment.”
Old Queen Crinkle’s umbracopter set her down gently on the top of the Tower, right in the middle of the five crowning points, on top of a stone casket, wherein lay the remains of Thomas à Tempus.
“Scepter,” she commanded her umbracopter. And it folded back into its usual wiry shape.
Worriedly turning away from Tudwal, and standing beside Mr. Fuddlebee, Key noticed now that the five points were not tipped with large jewels, but with sparks of fire, sparks that would not kindle, sparks that would dawdle eternally on the edge of bursting into flames.
One spark burned a blue color, another was green, another violet, another gold, and the fifth and final spark burned the color of black ink.
Old Queen Crinkle took the Eye of DIOS from her sleeve, fixed it to the tip of her scepter, and then aimed it towards the blue spark. The Eye shifted colors, from silvery starlight to blood red.
A vine of light slithered out from it next, snaked through the air, and wrapped around the blue spark. Then it slithered towards the green spark and wrapped around it, too. It did the same with the violet and the gold and the ink black sparks. The Eye’s blood red glow intensified as it began drawing all five sparks away from their points, nearer to the middle, right over the place where the Old Queen stood atop Thomas à Tempus’s stone casket.
“What is she doing?” Key asked Mr. Fuddlebee.
The elderly ghost sighed. “Well,” he began to explain professorially, “it would appear that she is attempting to use the Eye of DIOS to draw the five sparks together.”
“What are those sparks?”
“It is said that they were born simultaneously with the birth of the cosmos. They are the Sparks of Timefire.”
“Why is she drawing them together?”
“She’d like them to touch.”
“What will happen if they do?”
“I’m a bit curious about that myself,” Mr. Fuddlebee confessed. “No one’s ever tried it before. One theory is that they’ll open a Doorackle Alleyway. Another is that they’ll commence the zombie apocalypse. Either way it’ll make quite an entertaining evening.”
Old Queen Crinkle, not too far from them, easily overheard Mr. Fuddlebee’s last remark. Cackling evilly, she answered him: “You know nothing, you old fool! I have searched long and hard for a way to escape the Hand of DIOS. And now I have it! The Eye will open Thomas’s Tomb, and the Doorackle Alleyway will —”
Mr. Fuddlebee pointed the end of his umbrella at her and pressed a button just above the handle. Key waited for something magical to happen. But nothing appeared to, not at first, not until she noticed that Old Queen Crinkle’s mouth was moving, as if talking wildly, yet no sound came from her.
“That’s better,” Mr. Fuddlebee said, smiling contentedly and leaning once again on his umbrella, with a rather proud look. “As I was saying, her success is highly unlikely —”
“What did you just do?” interrupted Key, looking curiously from his umbrella to Old Queen Crinkle, who was now pointing at them and mouthing what might have been venomous death threats.
Mr. Fuddlebee held his umbrella up. Though transparent like him, it had been outfitted with many interesting buttons and switches. “Compliments of the GadgetTronic Brothers,” he said with a playful smirk. “Why, this umbrella can do much more than keep off the rain – although it doesn’t do much of that these days either, being rather ghostly like me. One of the marvelous features that the GadgetTronic Brothers outfitted it with was what you just saw, or rather didn’t see – a Sonicorb.”
Key wondered with great curiosity just what a Sonicorb might be exactly.
With the end of his umbrella, the elderly ghost gestured towards the Queen, who appeared to be mouthing something about courting pigs. Or was it snorting wigs? Key couldn’t tell. “As you can see,” explained Mr. Fuddlebee, “we can see her, but no longer hear her. The Sonicorb diminishes the sound in a particular area. Anyone inside the transparent orb can speak without being heard, and the same goes for anyone outside the orb. Unfortunately, this effect only lasts for a minute or two, so let’s use this time wisely. Did you catch who won the last Pundicle match? I had my coin on Agatha Toagslayer.”
Old Queen Crinkle stopped talking and stared at them now with a questioning expression, beginning to realize that neither was paying any attention to her. She appeared to mouth words like “Hey” and “Can you hear me,” but since neither Key nor Mr. Fuddlebee could, they resumed their conversation with a moment’s peace.
“What if the Queen’s plan succeeds?” Key asked.
“In that case,” said Mr. Fuddlebee, turning to her, “we would most likely have another Thomas à Tempus on our hands, or worse, another Ignatius Windbottom. There’s no telling what kind of havoc the Old Queen will wreak along the timeline. She will have the facility to rewrite not simply the history of the world, but worlds of histories would be lost by any revision she might make in the past. If one timeline did not suit her liking, she could simply rewrite it, and begin time all over again.”
While Key was trying to understand all that Mr. Fuddlebee explained about time travel and butterfly effects, the Eye of DIOS was continuing to draw the Sparks of Timefire closer together. Yet the closer they drew towards one another, the more they repelled each other – the way the north end of a magnet repels the north end of another magnet – and so the more the Sparks repelled each other, the more slowly they moved – and the more slowly they moved, the more gravity around the Tower Tomb increased and started to ripple the pressure of the air. Soon the Tower began shaking.
“What are the five Sparks of Timefire?” asked Key.
“They are all moments of all time,” the elderly ghost explained in a casual tone, as if he were teaching his course at All Hallows University.
“Moments of time,” Key said, trying to understand his meaning. “Are you saying that the Sparks are moments of time that happen to us? To you and to me? Like the moment I was made a vampire?”
“Not quite. They are not specific moments of your history or my future. Each spark is a general moment of time. Have you ever seen a rabbit hole, my dear?”
The question was so unexpected that Key almost failed to respond. Of course she’d seen a rabbit hole before, on her dad’s wheat farm. The rabbits would come up from somewhere underground to eat from her mom’s small vegetable garden beneath their kitchen window.
“Do you know,” Mr. Fuddlebee pursued his point, “what a rabbit hole looks like from underground?”
Key had never thought about it before. She’d only been concerned with keeping the rabbits out of the lettuce. “It must be very dark,” she guessed.
“To state it more accurately, the rabbit hole going down underground makes a tunnel,” explained the elderly ghost. “That tunnel connects with other tunnels. And those tunnels lead out to other rabbit holes.”
Key wondered how this was connected with traveling through time. “You’re saying that rabbit holes join together underground?”
The ghost nodded. “Much of the time.”
“Are the Sparks of Timefire connected to one another,” Key asked, “the way one rabbit hole is connected to another?”
“I generally refer to their interconnectivity as the Warrens of Time. It has a much more dramatic flair this way, don’t you think? One spark tunnels from the present. Another spark tunnels into the past. And another spark tunnels towards the future. Yet they are all one passageway.”
Key considered this. She considered, too, that she might have to stand there until the end of time to understand what it all m
eant.
— CHAPTER SEVENTEEN —
The Sparks of Timefire
In the meantime, the Eye of DIOS was pulling the Sparks of Timefire closer and closer together. The Tower’s shaking grew a little more intense. But Mr. Fuddlebee didn’t seem to notice as he floated serenely.
Key then realized that he had only mentioned three points of time (past, present, and future). But there were five Sparks. “What are the other two?” she now asked.
“The fourth Spark,” replied the elderly ghost, “is the fire of all possible futures.”
“And the last?”
“The inky black spark – why, that is the fire of all impossible futures.”
Key looked from the Sparks down to the Queen, and from there down to the stone casket, where the remains of Thomas à Tempus lay resting. “His casket!” she exclaimed in a sudden gasp of realization. “Thomas’s casket is the Doorackle Alleyway she hopes to open.”
The elderly ghost nodded somberly. “Indeed, the remains of Thomas à Tempus are one way to access all ways of Time. And if the Queen were to make the Sparks of Timefire touch, and if she were to go through that Doorackle Alleyway, she could go anywhere she wished. Past, present, future. Perhaps even any possible and impossible future.”
Old Queen Crinkle could now be heard cackling. “Nothing you can do will stop me!”
Mr. Fuddlebee sighed. Then he turned towards Key with a wearied expression. “It is as I explained – the effect of the Sonicorb was only temporary. I must speak with the GadgetTronic Brothers about extending it by another minute or two.”
Old Queen Crinkle’s cackling grew low and more malevolent. “I am the new wielder of the Eye of DIOS. I am the new Master of Time. You will never catch me now or ever. And I’ll never be mortal again.”
Mr. Fuddlebee leaned closer to Key. “Some people are so afraid of change that they’ll do anything to run from it, even if escaping means changing their lives to do so.”
“Can’t you stop her?” Key asked him.
“Of course I can,” he said matter-of-factly.
“So why don’t you,” Key asked, confused by his apparent nonchalance.
“He can’t,” came a voice from over the edge of the Tower. It was Miss Broomble!
Key thought for a moment that the witch had climbed up the side of the Tower Tomb, but she hadn’t. In fact, the witch had ridden all the way up on the back of a rather expressive Hobbeetle, whose mandibles were now fluttering with all sorts of happy signs at seeing Key once more.
Tudwal was also there, floating midair, carried of course by the invisible hand of Pega. The ghost maid set Tudwal down just as Miss Broomble hopped off the Hobbeetle and stood beside Mr. Fuddlebee.
The elderly ghost greeted the witch with a warm smile and a tip of his hat. “Good of you to join us, my dear Miss Broomble. I had feared briefly that you might miss the beginning of the paradox. Welcome! It’s going to be quite a show.”
The Sparks of Timefire were drawing ever closer to the Queen. The nearer they drew towards one another, the slower they moved through the air, and the brighter the Eye of DIOS shone.
For the moment, all that mattered very little to Key when she saw that Miss Broomble was safe. She ran up to the witch and gladly wrapped her arms around her. “I’m happy you’re not hurt,” she said, as tears of joy filled her eyes.
Key also happily hugged one of Penelope’s large claws and she knelt to kiss Tudwal’s nose. She would have hugged Pega gladly, too, but the ghost maid was a little too fearful of the Old Queen’s glower right then.
Key thought about something Mr. Fuddlebee had just said: A paradox was about to begin. What did he mean by that? Turning to him now with a questioning expression, she asked, “What paradox?”
“Why,” the elderly ghost said to her eagerly, “your paradox, my dear.”
“Mine?” asked Key, not quite sure what he meant.
“It’s happening right now,” he went on, “as we speak. Our present moment is both the beginning and end of a rather important event. It is the beginning of an event for you and it is the end of an event for a version of you, whom you haven’t met yet, a version of you in the future.”
“Future Key,” Miss Broomble said to Key.
Old Queen Crinkle began stamping her foot impatiently. “My plan is almost complete!” she called out from the middle of the five Sparks. She was looking a little confused as to why everyone was standing around talking and not trying to stop her. “I am about to wreak havoc throughout all space and time. Doesn’t anyone want to try stopping me?” she coaxed with a hint of hope in her voice.
“Mr. Fuddlebee,” asked Miss Broomble, “don’t you have a Sonicorb you could use on her?”
“My dear Miss Broomble,” replied the ghost, “it has already been used.”
“Only one shot?”
“Needs to recharge.”
“We must have a chat with the GadgetTronic Brothers about extending that, Mr. Fuddlebee.”
“My thoughts exactly, Miss Broomble.”
Old Queen Crinkle blinked in bewilderment. So did Key.
The Hobbeetle’s mandibles made more signs and Pega translated, “How could the Mistress be a paradox?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Key said in agreement.
Mr. Fuddlebee floated lower to her. “The Eye of DIOS does not make the five Sparks of Timefire touch,” he explained. “DIOS doesn’t make anything do what it does not choose to do. Besides, the Eye has other responsibilities in other spheres of the Structure, most of which we seldom see. I do not need to stop Crinkle because that is not my role at this time. Someone else must; and someone else will, because someone else has already done so, and she will continue to do so in her paradox, she just doesn’t know it yet.”
Is he talking about me? Key wondered to herself. Am I supposed to stop the Queen?
Old Queen Crinkle now began huffing and stamping both her feet in frustration. “You expect anyone to believe an old ghost goat like you,” she snapped at Mr. Fuddlebee. “Everything you just said is completely impossible!”
“Impossible, perhaps,” returned the elderly ghost calmly, “but not improbable.”
Tudwal barked vehemently at the Old Queen. Then he looked up at Key, to see if she was ready to attack, too. But Key was not. She picked him up and buried her nose in the soft folds of his puppy fur, unable to speak for a moment. She had to think; her world seemed to have recently turned upside down and inside out. She understood little of what Mr. Fuddlebee and Miss Broomble were saying about time paradoxes and Future Keys. Intuitively, she knew the answer to the question rising to the surface of the confusion flooding her heart right then. In the same way she operated the MotorHog and the Hobbeetle, by intuitively cooperating with DIOS, she had to do the same now: She had to trust her self. So, at length, in a voice so weak she doubted anyone heard her, she was compelled to ask, “What does unite the Sparks of Timefire?”
Mr. Fuddlebee smiled upon her warmly, for he had often said that Key was one of the bravest Mystical Creatures he’d ever known. Indeed he saw that she knew the answer to her own question, yet he knew that his role in all this was to confirm for her what she already knew by her own intuition. Leaning closer he whispered, as if confiding a grave secret, “There is only one thing that unites the Sparks of Timefire. Only one thing has ever united them, and only one thing ever will, circling over and over again, back from this moment to the past, and back around again to a future that has become our present moment. And that one thing, that which unites the past and the present, that which begins and ends the paradox, is you, my dear Miss Key.”
Tudwal, seeing how sorrowful Key now seemed, gave her a sympathetic whimper and nuzzled his cold nose affectionately into her neck.
Key looked at Mr. Fuddlebee and Miss Broomble with a helpless expression. “I am the paradox,” she said in a voice both soft and accepting.
“You,” said Miss Broomble, “are a mystery we’ve been trying to puzzle out fo
r the last two hundred and fifty years.”
Key had no idea what the witch meant. But then she recalled what happened exactly two hundred and fifty years ago. It was the night Margrave Snick turned her into a vampire – the same night she lost her mom and dad – and also the same night she first met Mr. Fuddlebee and Miss Broomble. But then Key also recalled that she had seen two others there also. One had been a massive wolf monster, covered in thick black-brown fur, and with eyes that glowed not only hauntingly, but also knowingly, as though he knew Key. Mr. Fuddlebee had said that wolf monster’s name then. Key said it now, too, studying her immortal puppy.
“Tudwal.”
Key held him up and looked into his eyes. “Were you there all those years ago?” she asked, not knowing what to believe. But her puppy only blinked at her, similarly confused. And it happened that, as she looked into his eyes, knowing that he could not have been there then – though perhaps he might be there in the future (her past, his future, it was all so confusing for her) –, she also recalled that the other one who had been there that night was a girl who looked exactly like her – a mirror reflection, she’d thought at the time.
Future Key.
“I’m the paradox,” Key said, more to herself than to anyone else, feeling more comfortable with the word paradox, along with her uncertain future. “I am to become Future Key.”
Miss Broomble put her hand on Key’s shoulder. “You are her now,” she said reassuringly, “because you are going back to the beginning.”
“Where’s that?” asked Key.
“Home.”
— CHAPTER EIGHTEEN —
Through Another Doorackle Alleyway
Key did not quite understand what Miss Broomble had meant by returning “home.” The Dungeon of Despair had been her home for the last two hundred and fifty years. In comparison, she’d only lived under her mom and dad’s roof for nine. She was more accustomed to Grimbuggle Bedbugs than she was to sleeping in her old bed. But going back there – back in time – was exactly what Mr. Fuddlebee and Miss Broomble had in mind. Yes, on this very night exactly two hundred and fifty years ago, Future Key had come into Key’s home, right before Mr. Fuddlebee ushered her to the City of the Dead. And now he was saying that Key had to be her – Future Key. Really? This idea made sense and at the same time made no sense at all. Would she really travel back in time to the night it all began? How is that possible? But then again: How are vampires, ghosts, witches, immortal puppies, Cities of the Dead, and even Dimensionally Intelligent Operating Systems possible?
