The Wraiths of War

by Mark Morris

  ‘You make it sound delightful.’

  She laughed just as one of the theatre doors opened and the doorman poked his head out. ‘Would you like to come through?’

  We followed him through the lobby, along a corridor to the left of the main auditorium and down some carpeted stairs. Though the lighting was considerably better here, and the surroundings a lot grander, I was reminded of the time in Victorian London when Hawkins, Hulse and I had rescued Clover from the clutches of Willoughby Willoughby at the Maybury Theatre. At the bottom of the stairs was a fire door, leading into a narrower corridor with water pipes running along the ceiling. We passed various doors on our left as we were led down it, then turned left into another corridor. On our right was a long dark curtain (the side or back of the stage maybe), and on our left were yet more doors, framed posters for previous shows hanging on the patches of wall in between.

  We stopped at a door about two-thirds of the way down the corridor. Like all the rest, it was painted a blue-grey colour, but this one had a yellow wooden star on it, above a sign that read ‘Dressing Room’. As though checking for woodworm, the doorman put his ear to the door and rapped on it at head height with the middle knuckle of his right forefinger.

  ‘Come in,’ someone called, and the doorman pushed the door open just wide enough to thrust his head into the gap.

  ‘Your guests are here, sir.’

  ‘Thank you. Show them in.’

  As if the voice had not been loud enough to carry, the doorman stepped back and turned to us. ‘You can go in,’ he said.

  ‘Most kind,’ said Clover in such an expressionless voice that the doorman looked unsure as to whether she was teasing him or not. She went in first, and I followed.

  The dressing room was dimly lit, illuminated only by the light bulbs around and above the mirror on the left-hand wall. Beneath the mirror, stretching the length of the wall, was a long counter or table, cluttered with make-up, used hand towels, a glass vase stuffed with flowers, the remains of a meal and various other bits and pieces. There was a wooden chair set at an angle beneath the table and a threadbare rug on the floor over wooden boards. The back wall was of grey brick, to which various posters and notices were attached. To our right was a big chunky wardrobe, a rack of costumes, and, in the far right corner, an armchair upholstered in faded red velvet. The Great Barnaby – McCallum – was sitting in the armchair, smoking a cigarette, his right foot resting on his left knee. Despite the fact that he was still wearing his stage gear – spats, long fishtail jacket, red mask and all – he looked very relaxed.

  ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Have a drink.’ He gestured towards the make-up area, where a bottle of whisky and a couple of crystal tumblers stood on a silver tray among the paraphernalia.

  I would have refused – I felt too wired to drink – but before I could say anything, Clover crossed the room and poured us a couple of generous measures. She passed one of the tumblers to me, and despite myself I took a sip, which my nerves turned into a gulp, which made me cough, which ended up causing me to double over, clutching my ribs.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Clover asked, voice breathy with concern.

  ‘Bust ribs,’ I gasped. ‘Hurts to cough and laugh.’

  ‘You’ll be fine once the nanites kick in,’ said the Great Barnaby.

  Still holding my ribs, I looked up at him. ‘What do you know about nanites?’

  Smoke was wreathing his face. When he smiled his teeth looked very white through his black beard.

  ‘You’ll enjoy this bit,’ he said, ‘when it gets to your turn.’

  Maybe if my mind hadn’t still been trying to process the revelation that Clover was my daughter, I might have understood what he meant. As it was, I frowned at him. ‘What?’

  He leaned forward in his chair, so that the light fell across his face. He peeled off his red eye mask. Then he peeled off his moustache and thick black beard.

  I gaped. I could almost hear the cogs in my head, whirring madly, as I tried to make sense of this new revelation. I imagined the electronic voice of a computer from a 1970s TV show: Does not compute, does not compute…

  My legs felt hollow. As if reading my mind, Clover grabbed the wooden chair from under the make-up table and swung it towards me.

  ‘I think you need to sit down, Dad. You look a bit pale.’

  I sat with a thump, my damaged pelvis groaning in protest.

  I stared at the Great Barnaby, unmasked. ‘This isn’t right,’ I said. ‘You – I – can’t be him. The Great Barnaby is McCallum.’

  My older self grinned back at me. He looked a few years older than I am now. ‘That’s right,’ he said.

  ‘But that doesn’t—’

  And then it hit me. I looked at Clover. And then I looked back at my older self. He was nodding.

  ‘We are McCallum,’ he said softly. ‘We’ve always been McCallum. It’s an eternal circle, Alex. I found out ten years ago, because I was in your shoes, that I was destined to become McCallum, and that years from now I was destined to die by my own hand and be the guardian of the heart forever. You see, the heart has only had one guardian. We created it, and it, in turn, created…’ he waved a hand ‘…well, who knows? But the path is a complex one, and even I don’t know if it’s always exactly the same. But I do know it’s one we have to stick to, if only because we remember it. And also because, ultimately, this life of ours is a long one and a good one – so why would we want to change it?’

  Glass chattering against my teeth, I took a gulp of whisky. It burned. My mind was a fairground ride, dipping and wheeling and spinning. I said, ‘So you’re saying that sometime in the future you’ll force me to murder you?’

  ‘Not me,’ my older self said. ‘Us. We’ll decide. And it’s not murder, it was never murder. It’s suicide. And it won’t come from a bad place. It wasn’t a mistake; it wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. It’ll only come when we’ve had enough, when we’ve lived a long life, and are too old and tired to carry on any longer.’ He took another drag on his cigarette. ‘You saw the old man you thought was McCallum about a week before he died. You remember? That day you were arrested?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You’ll see him again. And he’ll tell you what I’m about to tell you, what he told me. When you first met Kate as Clover, she told you McCallum was in his nineties.’ (He nodded at Clover as he said this.)

  ‘But that wasn’t true. He was more like a hundred and forty, a hundred and fifty. He confessed to me he didn’t know exactly, because he’d lived so many lives in so many times he’d lost count of his true age. Even now I’m living this life here and another life in “our” present day; I’m jumping between the two. We can be away for six months at a time and it doesn’t matter. Because we don’t age like normal people. The nanites keep us young and healthy. They slow the ageing process right down.’

  I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know whether to be happy at the prospect of a long – very long – and eventful life, or appalled at the thought that it was mapped out for me, that I had to stick to a pre-arranged plan.

  I’d need time to think it through, to come to terms with everything. In the meantime, I focused on the fly in the ointment, the rogue element that could theoretically undermine everything.

  ‘What about the Dark Man? Who’s he? What’s his role in all this?’

  My older self placed his hands on the arms of the chair and pushed himself to his feet.

  ‘Let’s find out, shall we?’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

  It must have been weird for Clover, being in between two versions of her father, both of whom were holding her hand, but she seemed to take it in her stride. The time transition was infinitely easier for me than it normally was, travelling as a passenger of my older self and his heart. The only disadvantage was that I had no idea where we’d ended up, not even when we arrived. One moment we were in the Great Barnaby’s dressing room, the next we were surrounded by chill
ing fog. I shivered and flapped at it, but it continued to press in, covering my face and hair with wet kisses.

  Beside me Clover released my hand and gently rubbed my older self’s back as he bent over double, hands on knees. He took a number of long, deep breaths, then slowly straightened up.

  ‘So that feeling you’re about to puke never goes away?’ I said.

  He gave me a thin smile. ‘Hasn’t done so far.’

  To be honest, I also felt queasy, but it wasn’t because of the journey. As I orientated myself, so my senses began to kick in, one after another, as if they’d taken a little time to catch up with the sudden shift from one location to another. What was making me feel sick was a stench, like rotting fish and raw sewage, which was wafting over us in waves. Accompanying the smell was a wet, surging slap, regular as breathing. As I put a hand up to cover my nose and mouth, I realised not only that it was foggy, but also that it was snowing – I might have thought it was a light rain if I hadn’t seen it settling on the shoulders and hair of my companions. The fog, the snow, the stench, the slapping of water… all these elements combined to spark a memory.

  ‘Are we back at Blyth’s Wharf?’

  My older self nodded. ‘We are. This is the night we went to the Thousand Sorrows. The night the Dark Man captured us and told us to get the heart for him.’

  ‘Is this before that happened or after?’ I asked.

  ‘Let’s get closer, shall we? See what’s going on.’

  I felt nervous, but I was guessing my older self had brought me here because he remembered his older self bringing him here when he was me. Which surely meant that everything would be okay? That whatever happened, we’d survive?

  My older self led us along the edge of the harbour, the meaty slap of water to our left, the vague, dark blocks of buildings to our right. We sought cover where we could – behind packing crates, coils of rope, covered carriages on which goods were stacked, awaiting delivery or collection.

  After a couple of minutes my older self halted and put a warning hand out behind him, encouraging Clover and me to stop too.

  ‘What is it?’ Clover hissed.

  ‘Listen.’

  I listened, but it took a few moments to adjust my hearing so that I could hear anything other than the movement of the Thames and the whispering of the snow. Eventually I managed to pick out a combination of gentle sounds – a nervous snort, the creak of wood, the tight clop of two hard surfaces scraping against one another.

  ‘Sounds like a horse,’ murmured Clover, working it out the same moment I did.

  ‘Is it attached to a cart?’ I asked.

  ‘Let’s get a bit nearer,’ my older self said.

  We sidled closer, trying to lift our feet fully clear of the snow, so they wouldn’t make a shhh sound as they dragged through it. Little by little the area in front of us emerged through the murk, the objects in the foreground suddenly acquiring a solidity that seemed to make them loom, even lurch, towards us. I jumped when a huddle of headless, pot-bellied men turned out to be a dozen or so barrels clustered together. Clover, in front of me, turned to pluck at my sleeve to get me to duck down, which I did. Next moment, from much closer than I’d expected, came another equine snort and an uneasy whinny. I peered between the curved sides of two of the barrels and saw the dark shape of a horse attached not to a cart, as I’d expected, but to some sort of carriage, possibly a brougham.

  I looked beyond Clover to my older self, intending to follow his lead, but just then he turned towards us, pressed a finger to his lips and flattened himself against the back of the barrel, trying to make himself as small as possible. Clover and I exchanged a glance, then followed suit.

  Almost as soon as we’d done so, there came a huge leathery flapping sound from above us. My first thought was that it was a tarpaulin or something similar that had broken loose from a stack of goods and been plucked upwards by the wind. But when I tilted my head to look up (as best I could in my neck brace), squinting my eyes against the falling snow, I saw the dark, blurry shape of what appeared to be a vast bird descending towards us. I tucked my head in again, clutching the barrel so tightly that my fingers made dents in the wet wood.

  The bird thing landed with a thump somewhere beyond the barrels, but close to the carriage. The horse whinnied in panic, but was quietened by what I imagined was the driver, perched on his seat behind it. Couldn’t he see the bird thing? Hadn’t he heard it? I half-expected the creature’s landing to be followed by the crunch of wood, the screams of man and horse as it went on the attack. But instead all I heard was the sound of the carriage door being opened, and then the creak of wood or springs as someone or something clambered into it. Next moment, with a muffled clattering of wheels and the clop of horse’s hooves on stony ground dusted with snow, the carriage was on the move. We listened until it had faded into the distance, though even then I might have remained where I was if I hadn’t seen my older self rise up from his hiding place.

  ‘One of the Dark Man’s little gang?’ Clover said.

  My older self nodded. ‘The shape-shifter, I’m guessing.’ He looked at me. ‘Escorting us home after our little tête-à-tête with the boss.’

  I remembered how, after my meeting with the Dark Man in his most ancient state, his withered body reliant on a huge, metal spider-like conveyance to carry him around, I’d been drugged and had woken up back at home, my body having been dumped on the doorstep of my house in Ranskill Gardens. The carriage we’d just seen had presumably been my transport on that particular occasion. Which meant that, for a few moments, there had been not two but three of us – three of me – within feet of each other.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ my older self said, and a glint of mischief came into his eye. ‘You know what we ought to do one day?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We ought to have a party with just us as the guests. Not just me and you, but loads of us, from different time zones. Imagine what that would be like.’

  ‘The ultimate ego trip,’ said Clover.

  ‘Just the thought of it gives me a headache,’ I said.

  My older self grinned and took his heart out of his pocket. Holding it up, he said, ‘Arm yourself. We’re going in.’

  He led us around the barrels and into the fog beyond, bearing left, the river at our backs. In front of us loomed the dark blocks of buildings – storage warehouses, equipment sheds, the damp, mildewed premises of various shipping or export companies. Within thirty seconds we were standing next to a docking bay, from which a ramp rose to the open front of a huge warehouse. The sight made me think of the head of some vast creature, its mouth yawning open, its tongue unrolled. Of the interior of the warehouse itself, we could see only blackness.

  ‘Ready to step into the belly of the beast?’ my older self asked.

  I frowned at him. ‘Don’t tell me you’re enjoying this?’

  ‘I’ve been here before. And as you can see, I came out of it okay.’

  Now Clover looked at him disapprovingly too. ‘That doesn’t mean you always will, Dad. Don’t be complacent.’

  My older self looked suitably chastised. ‘Sorry. I just remember how nervous I was the first time I did this.’ He gestured towards me. ‘I was only trying to keep everyone’s spirits up.’

  ‘Let’s just get on with it,’ I said.

  We ascended the stone ramp, which was wet and slippery so we had to take it slowly. There was no sound from inside the warehouse, and I wondered briefly whether the Dark Man and his army of horrors had already cleared out. But if my older self had been here ten years ago, he had presumably found evidence to the contrary, otherwise why would he bother coming back? Surely it wasn’t to preserve the timeline, because if I – and all the other mes caught in this loop – remembered this as being a dead end, then surely the timeline would never have been created in the first place?

  We reached the top of the ramp and paused on the threshold of the warehouse, looking in. The square opening was comfortab
ly wide enough to accommodate the three of us standing shoulder to shoulder, and tall enough to give us head clearance of at least thirty feet, but even now the foggy darkness ahead of us seemed impenetrable. Was it a natural darkness or something else? I shuddered as a chill swept through me, and I was glad of the overcoat that Clover had suggested I wear. My older self and I were like matching bookends, he with his heart held aloft in his right hand, me brandishing mine in my unbroken left. Clover stood between us, like a princess flanked by royal bodyguards.

  Suddenly my older self shouted, ‘Come out, Dark Man. We want to talk to you.’

  Contained within the walls of the building, his voice boomed and echoed.

  Was there a response? A stealthy shifting and rustling, as of many things that were currently motionless, readying themselves for action?

  ‘We’re coming in,’ he shouted, and then he began walking forward, heading into the darkness. I felt apprehensive, and – because of my battered, broken, aching body – particularly vulnerable, but I followed his lead, anxious not to lose him. Clover walked close beside me, her fingers reaching for and then loosely intertwining with the fingers of my right hand, which were sticking out of my cast.

  The shifting and rustling sounds were unmistakeable now. In moments they escalated into a plethora of other sounds as Tallarian’s clockwork army and whoever or whatever else the Dark Man had rallied to his cause creaked and clicked and scuttled and slithered into life to defend their lord and master.

  Clover gasped as things (it was inaccurate to refer to them as people, or even creatures) suddenly rolled and darted and scurried from the darkness around us. I caught glimpses of metal and flesh combined in hideous ways. I saw what appeared to be a flying crab trailing jellyfish-like fronds; something that looked like a jumble of human limbs sprouting from a metal box; a monstrosity that had goggling, fish-like eyes, a furry (possibly canine) body and long metal pincers.