Anachronist

by Andrew Hastie

  31

  First Millenial

  Over the next few days, Josh learned the basics of using the almanac. Each morning they would go to the library, and a new challenge would appear on another page of his book. To his disappointment, other members of the De Freis family took it in turns to mentor him after Caitlin, each one helping him a little less as he became more confident with the basic symbology of time.

  He travelled back further with every mission. Phileas took him to the fourteenth century to observe the Black Death, then he went to the Crusades with Lyra in the twelfth and Madame De Freis took him back to 10.920 to the last Mayan capital. These were not sightseeing trips; there was a purpose to each mission. Most involved saving some artefact from being destroyed, or reacquiring a lost skill or piece of knowledge — every one had to be written up in triplicate when they returned.

  By Friday Josh had covered over 1,200 years of jumps and was beginning to wonder where the colonel had got to. He brought up the subject at breakfast.

  ‘Ah. Yes,’ Methuselah coughed from behind a newspaper, dated 1878. ‘He’s been put on a special assignment. Something very hush-hush apparently.’

  Sim, Caitlin and Dalton were sitting close by and overheard the conversation.

  ‘Protectorate business,’ said Dalton in an officious tone, ‘not something that goes through the book.’

  ‘How does that work?’ asked Josh without thinking.

  Dalton sneered. ‘Don’t you know anything?’

  Caitlin went to speak, but Josh caught her eye and shook his head.

  ‘Why don’t you explain to our guest?’ Sim hissed at Dalton. There was a heavy emphasis on the word ‘guest’.

  ‘Only those within the council can order a direct action; rare events where even having the Copernicans involved could change the outcome, causations that threaten the very fabric of the continuum.’

  ‘Basically he’s gone dark — like special ops,’ translated Sim for Josh’s benefit.

  ‘We’re not even supposed to discuss it,’ said Caitlin, glaring at Dalton.

  ‘No. Quite so,’ said the chastised Dalton.

  Josh liked the sound of dark missions, he missed the thrill of riding shotgun with the colonel. While he was still enjoying their company and learning a lot, it was all a bit safe, and rather dull — like going on holiday with your parents.

  ‘So, anyway, I have some other news,’ Methuselah announced.

  They all looked up from their breakfasts as he tapped the side of his teacup with a butter knife.

  ‘It has been a while since I have had the pleasure of doing this.’ He paused and nodded to his wife who was preparing something in the Viking equivalent of a kitchen. ‘Joshua has passed a key milestone yesterday: he is now a first level millennial. Congratulations, my boy! Here’s to your next thousand!’

  Caitlin and Sim clapped, Dalton sneered and Mrs De Freis came over with an impressive-looking cake with a single candle and the numerals for a millennium iced onto it.

  Josh couldn’t remember the last time anyone had made him a cake. When he was younger, birthdays were generally something he had organised for himself, usually involving a packet of Jaffa cakes and a DVD — after a while, even he had forgotten to celebrate them.

  ‘Well done,’ Alixia said, smiling warmly, and then turning Methuselah. ‘I think today we should have a break from all this tedious studying. We should treat Josh to a little game.’

  ‘Treasure Island?’ said Sim, jumping up and clapping his hands like a five-year-old.

  ‘No,’ Caitlin shouted. ‘Huntsman!’

  Others were shouting at the same time. Josh could tell it wasn’t often that they got to play, and assumed that none of the games were as normal as they sounded.

  Methuselah waved his hands to calm them all down and then paused as he thought about it.

  ‘Captain’s Table?’

  ‘Yes!’ came a resounding shout from the others. Even Dalton seemed excited about that one.

  32

  Captain's Table

  The rules of the game appeared to be quite simple: by dinnertime, they had to have found the most interesting artefact to present to the ‘captain’, who was, of course, being played by Methuselah. They would recount its history and why it was so unique. The most fascinating find would be deemed the winner and placed in the ‘collection’ — which was apparently a high honour.

  There were some forfeits and side rules around how you couldn’t steal another team’s prize nor use an existing or ‘known’ object from the collection, and that there was a limit on how long you could spend in the past: no more than forty-eight hours. Once the objects had been placed on the table, there was no going back and changing your mind after you saw what the others had brought.

  Sim was excited. This was a rare treat — played only once a year at best. He told Josh that Dalton and Caitlin had both won five times each, so this was to be a tough game, and neither would be taking any prisoners, which was also one of the side rules — Josh knew what he meant.

  Josh could see from Caitlin’s look of concentration that she was determined to beat Dalton. He began to wonder whether it would be safer to team up with Sim, but Methuselah had effectively ordered, and Caitlin had grudgingly agreed, to allow Josh to ride shotgun with her. Which Josh felt was a little unfair — he was convinced he was ready to go solo, but Methuselah wouldn’t allow it, no matter how hard both Josh and Caitlin protested.

  They were all gathered around a beautiful oval table in the middle of the curiosity collection on the second floor. A few other guests had heard about the game and joined the group. Dalton was standing at the opposite end of the table to Caitlin, flanked by a couple of his cronies — who Sim had informed Josh were going to work as ‘tails’ to report back to him with updates regarding the era in which the other teams were searching.

  Josh knew Caitlin was unhappy that she’d been saddled with him. His level-one status was like a handicap that meant she would only be able to work within the last thousand years.

  Methuselah appeared. ‘So, gentleman, ladies . . .’ He was dressed like a pirate, wearing a long velvet housecoat and a three-cornered hat.. ‘Usual rules apply. No weapons, no stealing, no rewinds. My word is final and may the best prize win. As usual, the mission time is a maximum of forty-eight hours, and back by eight this evening?’

  They set the dials on their own tachyons and then one by one disappeared, leaving Josh on his own with Methuselah.

  He stood in the room feeling like an idiot. Had he missed something? Did Sim not tell him what to do next?

  There was an awkward silence as he wondered if Caitlin had decided to dump him after all when she suddenly reappeared.

  ‘Sorry. It was quicker if I did the first bit on my own.’ She handed him a small coin. ‘Here, take this and open it.’

  He felt the timeline unfurl in his palm, and she pointed a path that led to the British Museum in 11.920.

  ‘There, meet me in anthropology after closing. I have to shake off one of Dalton’s minions.’ With that, she disappeared again.

  Josh focused on the time point until he could expand it enough to see the room where the coin had been stored, and then moved forward a few hours until the museum was closed.

  He slowed his breathing and let his mind drift inside the timeline.

  The room was dark and still, and there was a strong aroma of sandalwood and dead things. Josh realised he was in the wrong place when he saw the cabinets were full of stuffed animals and jars of pickled fish, their dead eyes staring blankly out at him through a viscous green liquid. The stillness was a strange, menacing silence that played tricks on your mind, triggering the imagination — conjuring life in the long-dead exhibits, so that they were only waiting for the right moment to jump out on him.

  There was a noise from further down the hall. Instinctively he hid behind a cabinet, and his fingers found his tachyon in case he needed to make a quick exit.

  The shadow of another
visitor flickered on the far wall as their lamp swept the next room: it was the night guard. Josh could hear the man’s keys jangling on his belt as he shuffled around muttering to himself and rattling cabinet doors — as if he too was checking they were all safely locked away.

  A few long minutes passed by. Josh tried hard not to make a sound, then he heard the footsteps recede and the lamplight fade away.

  He stepped out of the shadows to see Caitlin standing next to a cabinet full of small monkeys. The whole place was beginning to remind Josh of some kind of dead zoo.

  ‘What are you doing in Zoology?’ she asked, looking at a large, stuffed dodo that was the spitting image of Maximillian.

  ‘I didn’t want to get caught,’ Josh explained. ‘I thought the idea was not to attract attention to yourself.’

  ‘Not in museums, dummy,’ she tutted, ‘and certainly not from Albert. Anyway, I told you to go to Anthropology — stuffed animals are no use to us.’ She opened a nearby cupboard and took at a small lantern.

  ‘Albert’s one of us?’

  ‘They all are. The Antiquarians run every museum as far back as the Great Library of Alexandria.’

  ‘So what would you have done?’

  ‘Just show him the mark.’ She pulled back her sleeve to reveal the snake tattoo. ‘Or in your case, the almanac. Since you don’t have the mark yet.’

  She turned a knob on the lamp and clicked a button until it lit. ‘He’s used to bumping into novices out of hours. The Order use this place as a testing ground all the time. Now we need to find a stepping stone.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Something that can get us back further, one that doesn’t exist in the future. How do you feel about becoming a third-level millenial tonight?’

  ‘Fine by me. Where are we going?’

  She moved off between the exhibits, the beam of her lamp flicking from one side to the other until she found the sign.

  In golden capital letters were the directions to the various departments.

  ‘Anthropology is on level four,’ she sighed. ‘We’re on the wrong bloody floor.’

  33

  Dalton's Spy

  Jarius had worked for Dalton for three years, although ‘work’ was probably the wrong term; there hadn’t been any payment for what he did, only the very vague promise of a position of power once Dalton became a member of the council.

  He’d followed Caitlin unnoticed through the various diversions she’d taken in time — it was his speciality. If there had been a need for such skills within the Order he would have risen through the ranks, but there was not. Nobody needed anyone followed. The Copernicans knew where everyone was at any given time and therefore made his innate skills rather redundant. The Draconians were the only other natural choice for his abilities and even he wasn’t suicidal enough to want to join them.

  He watched the two figures, haloed in the sphere of lamplight, as they climbed the stairs to the floor above and knew that Dalton had been correct in his assumptions:

  ‘She’ll take him to the Great Library, probably via the Egyptian exhibition of 11.920,’ Dalton had told Darius during his briefing. ‘Follow her until you know for sure and then come back to me.’

  ‘So who won last time?’ Josh asked as they climbed the stairs.

  ‘Dalton,’ she answered through gritted teeth. ‘He brought back the chronometer from HMS Beagle. The ship that Darwin was on when he came up with his theory of evolution.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound that great. What’s so special about a clock?’ Josh said before realising that was probably the wrong response.

  ‘It was one of the six owned by the captain, Robert Fitzroy — without them he would never have found the Galapagos Islands.’

  Josh wasn’t entirely sure what difference that made to anything. ‘Sounds boring.’

  ‘Darwin thought it was very entertaining — Yes, he’s one of us,’ she growled. ‘I’m going to beat him this time.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me how.’

  They stepped out onto the landing and Caitlin made straight for the entrance to the ‘Exhibition of the Pharaohs’, as the banner declared — stretched between two golden sarcophagi.

  ‘He thinks I’m going to the Great Library. It’s where I usually start, but this time I’m changing it — this time we’re going to think a little bigger.’

  ‘Great! So we’re going back to the Pharaohs?’ Josh asked with wide eyes as he admired the golden objects arrayed inside the display cases.

  Caitlin didn’t look up as she kept walking ‘No, we not going there, especially not the second dynasty — it’s forbidden.’

  Before Josh could ask why, they left the opulence of Tutankhamen and walked through into the next section. This hall was dull by comparison, flanked by two massive sculptures of winged men with the bodies of lions and immense beards.

  ‘Assyrian,’ Josh read from one of the displays.

  ‘Too far back for you.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘At least five thousand years. I promised Methuselah that I wouldn’t take you beyond the tenth epoch.’

  ‘I could do that easily. I’m not a kid.’

  ‘Do you know what happens to those who go outside their range?’

  ‘No, but I guess you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘That’s the thing, nobody knows. They never return, and not even the best Draconian has ever been able to reach them.’

  Josh wondered what it was like to get lost in history. To end up somewhere with a bunch of cavemen sounded as if it would be quite a laugh.

  ‘So who are these Draconians anyway?’ he asked, changing the subject.

  They were nearly through the Assyrian collection and Josh could tell from the way she was walking that Caitlin’s patience was wearing thin.

  ‘Do you mind if we put the lessons on hold until I’ve won this stupid game?’

  The next room was full of old books, ancient manuscripts were laid open to display a beautiful illustrated panel or letterform. Josh tried to read some of the texts, but most were in German or Latin. The heavy characters of the words were so perfect he thought they could had been printed, but in places, he could still make out the pencil lines of the scribe who had prepared them.

  ‘Here it is,’ she whispered, as she opened the glass case of an ornate leather book, which was held shut with a series of iron bands.

  ‘What is that?’

  She unlocked the book, and the leather cracked as she lifted the cover to reveal the frontispiece.

  ‘It’s a Wallachian Bible. It was from the time of Vlad the Impaler.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dracula?’

  ‘No shit.’ Josh was suddenly very interested. ‘When was he?’

  ‘11.431.’

  ‘I’ve gone further back than that! I thought you were going to take me back another thousand!’

  ‘I said that in case one of Dalton’s minions was listening. Do you want to come or not?’

  Josh held up his hands in surrender, he wasn’t going to turn down a chance to meet the original Lord of the Vampires. There was a small thrill as he placed his hand on the page, he was beginning to think he might enjoy this time travel thing after all.

  Darius walked up to the Wallachian Bible, closed the cover and shut the glass case. He was glad he hadn’t left when he’d seen them enter the Egyptian section. Dalton had been wrong, and he was going to enjoy telling him so.

  34

  Dracul

  [Transylvania, Romania. Date: 11.431]

  The castle was cold, really cold. It was as if the stone were actually made from blocks of solid ice. Josh felt a shiver run down his spine as they crept down the spiral stairs of one of its towers. A storm lashed at the walls outside; the stairs were slick with the driving rain that sluiced through the arrow slits on every full turn of the staircase. Torches guttered in the icy wind that drained the heat from the flames, leaving only the faintest glimmer by which to see the ever descending step
s.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Josh as quietly as he could through chattering teeth.

  Caitlin was either ignoring him or couldn’t hear above the howl of the storm and continued down into the dark. Josh tried not to hear the distant screams of pain that were carried in on the wind or think too deeply about what the awful smell was that was rising up from somewhere below them.

  He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t realise she’d actually stopped, and he found himself flailing around for a handhold to prevent himself from knocking her down.

  They came to a landing. The walls were adorned with tapestries and a portrait of a medieval knight was hanging on the end wall.

  ‘Not much of a looker, is he?’ said Josh, unnerved by the way the eyes seemed to follow him around the hall.

  ‘That’s Vlad Dracul II,’ she whispered, ‘father of the impaler.’

  ‘Dracula had a dad? I thought he was immortal?’

  ‘Even if he was immortal, which he wasn’t, he would still have to be born, and that happened in the winter of 11.431. The father has just been invested in the Order of the Dragon, hence the epithet Dracul.’

  ‘So when did he start biting people?’

  ‘He didn’t. You do know that was just a story Bram Stoker made up in 11.897?’

  He smirked. ‘So no need for the garlic or the crucifix, then?’

  Caitlin wasn’t listening. She was distracted by something she was holding. It was a small ball made of glass.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A lensing prism. Lets you split out the various possibilities.’

  ‘You mean you don’t know where you’re going?’

  ‘Shut up. I’m trying to concentrate,’ she snapped, closing one eye and holding the prism up.