Anachronist

by Andrew Hastie

  ‘What about my mum?’ Josh asked as his memory of the events returned.

  ‘She’s fine. They’ve taken her back in time to the neuro ward at Barts. It’s like she never left.’

  Then Josh remembered that Gossy had died before he could rewind again.

  ‘The Protectorate — did they actually stop time?’

  ‘More like slowed it right down,’ Sim muttered. ‘The armour they wear has tachyon tech built into it — they call them “stillsuits”.’

  ‘I thought I saw Lyra and Phileas.’

  ‘Methuselah insisted they went along as witnesses. They do that when there’s going to be an inquest.’

  ‘An inquest?’ Josh groaned.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she sighed, ‘the court of inquiry has already been invoked. Officially we’re all under arrest.’

  ‘Thanks to Dalton’s mother,’ added Sim, swearing and prodding the fire with a metal poker.

  Caitlin shook her head. ‘I think it’s bigger than that. This is political — the Determinists will use this to directly challenge the Founder’s authority. They will use every trick in the book.’

  ‘Looks like you’re going to meet the man himself,’ Sim said to Josh with a smile.

  ‘The Founder?’

  ‘Lord Dee. The founder of the Order.’

  ‘And what’s he going to do to me?’

  ‘If you are found guilty, it could mean excision,’ Caitlin said quietly.

  Josh stared at her blankly.

  ‘They go back and remove you from history. Everything you’ve ever done, who you were, just disappears as if you were never here.’

  ‘Shit!’

  He sat in silence for a while and tried to contemplate what that would be like.

  ‘No matter what I did I couldn’t save everyone,’ Josh said to Caitlin. ‘It was a choice between my mum, you or Gossy. I couldn’t see a way to make it end well — and then they turned up.’

  ‘Interdiction,’ Sim interjected. ‘There are only so many times you can rewind before the Copernicans will pick it up and send the Protectorate to investigate.’

  ‘Something catastrophic must have been about to happen,’ Caitlin added glumly.

  ‘I was inside Gossy’s timeline when he was dying. I saw something in the darkness.’

  ‘You were reaving?’ exclaimed Caitlin. ‘I warned you about that!’

  ‘There was a kind of presence, like something was watching me.’

  ‘The dying are in a state of flux. Only very experienced seers are able to deal with the unravelling timeline of the dying. You were lucky you didn’t end up scrambling your brain.’ Caitlin tapped the side of his head.

  ‘You could have ended up in here for good’ said Sim solemnly, pointing at the walls.

  ‘I saw other versions of his life, what it could have been. Is that what Lyra sees when she —’

  ‘It’s why most seers end up going crazy, those that didn’t start off that way. It’s an overload, too many choices, too many possible futures.’

  ‘And they just lock them up in here?’

  ‘It’s for their own good,’ she said, getting up and walking over to Sim. ‘Many reavers get obsessed with the idea that there is something beyond the continuum. They have to be restrained to stop them from killing themselves.’

  ‘Religious nutters,’ added Sim. ‘They believe they can commune with elder gods.’

  Josh thought back to the dark things he had sensed waiting in the void and a shiver ran down his spine.

  There was a knock at the door, and Phileas came in. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for a week.

  ‘Good, you’re awake. The court is ready for you now.’

  66

  Star Chamber

  It was unlike any courtroom that Josh had ever seen: a vast circular auditorium with tiers of benches, stepped in concentric rings that went up into the dark ceiling hundreds of metres above him. He stood in the centre of a golden, six-pointed star that had been laid in to the chequered marble floor. Round him, sitting behind a raised desk, were the members of the High Council — made up of a single representative from each one of the guilds. Josh studied every one of the six in turn: there were four men and two women, each dressed in the ceremonial robes of their particular guild.

  The audience was made up of the most eccentric collection of people, dressed in clothes from their respective periods. It looked like the annual gathering of the costume department of the V&A. Josh had spotted Caitlin and Sim sitting in one of the front rows with Methuselah, the colonel and Eddy. They were all in deep conversation, he assumed about him. Caitlin caught his eye and tried to smile reassuringly, but failed to pull it off and went back to the discussion. The colonel kept pointing at someone as he spoke and when Josh followed the line of his finger he found Dalton and his mother, the chief inquisitor, sitting on the opposite side of the round. Dalton looked very smug. The smile thinned a little as he caught Josh’s eye.

  The spectacle of a ‘Grand Trial’ had drawn a large crowd, and the chamber was buzzing with the sound of a hundred different voices all talking at once. Caitlin had warned Josh that these were rare events and would probably pack the house. There were Scriptorians in their dark purple robes and ridiculously thick glasses; Copernicans with their complex abacuses, calculating the probabilities of the outcome while making side bets with the Draconians; Antiquarians sitting awkwardly as far away from others as they could; and a whole host of minor guilds that he had never met.

  It was the first time Josh had seen so many of the Order in one place. It was much larger than he’d imagined; Sim had said there was no official census on how many there were, but Josh had always assumed there were more chapters, like the one that Methuselah managed, spread out through time. Seeing everyone brought together in one place somehow made it more real. There were literally thousands of them, a well-organised gang with their own traditions and laws — ones that he had just violated.

  A sudden hush swept around the chamber as a hooded figure appeared from the shadows and walked slowly out on to the floor, leaning heavily on a cane, which marked each step with metallic tap.

  The whole court stood up in unison.

  ‘Apologies for my tardiness,’ the Founder spoke from beneath his cowl. His voice was deep but old and tired. He bowed to the council of six and took his seat on the far side of the circle.

  ‘Proceed.’

  So this was the Founder, thought Josh, the man who has the final say over my existence.

  Dalton’s mother stood up and walked into the circle. Her features were thrown into sharp relief by the harsh light. Like a circling bird of prey, she paced around the marble floor. The gold thread of her lawyer’s robes shimmered as she addressed the gathering.

  ‘Founder, honourable members of the council, delegates of the guilds of Copernicus, Scriptoria, Antiquaria, Draconii, men of the watch . . .’ Josh tried not to zone out, but the list of names was extensive and apparently a legal requirement.

  ‘. . . we have been assembled on this occasion to hear the case of the Order versus Master Joshua Jones, initiate and lately apprenticed to Rufius Westinghouse. He stands accused of temporal malpractice on three counts: the first, that he did willingly and with malice aforethought, endanger life in going beyond the temporal limitation; that on a second separate occasion did change the continuum without proper authority causing the continuation of war or wars beyond their original course; and, lastly, that he was found to have maliciously altered the outcome of an event to his own personal benefit, requiring the need for an interdiction. He stands before the court for judgment.’

  One of the council of six stood up.

  ‘Call the first witness for the defence!’

  The colonel stood up and made his way down the steps and on to the floor. Josh could see that he’d attempted to comb his hair and had dressed in his most formal robes, on to which he’d pinned a set of medals.

  He came and stood next to Josh without acknowledging him.
<
br />   ‘For the record, please state your name,’ ordered another of the six.

  ‘Rufius Vainglorious Westinghouse,’ the colonel repeated in a flat tone.

  ‘Rank?’

  ‘Guardian of the Twelfth, Master of the Initiates, Seventh brother of the Watch — you know the rest, Paelor Batrass.’

  The man who was scribbling furiously on to a large piece of parchment looked up from his notes and waved the quill as if to say: ‘carry on’ and the colonel sighed and relaxed his shoulders.

  ‘Master Westinghouse,’ asked the inquisitor, ‘for the records of the court, can you formally identify the accused standing before us today as one Joshua Jones.’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘And can you tell us how you came to meet the accused?’

  ‘He broke into my house.’

  There was a collective gasp from the crowd.

  ‘And yet you chose to take him on as your apprentice?’ the inquisitor continued.

  ‘I did. He isn’t a bad lad, and he showed incredible potential.’

  ‘Yes. I believe you are referring to the second charge, that of changing the outcome of the Second World War.’

  ‘It was an accident. He was not aware of his abilities at that time.’

  ‘So the deaths of a million souls was nothing more than a mere accident.’

  ‘That isn’t what I said. The outcome of that particular war has been hotly debated by many of us.’ He turned to the Founder. ‘Even my lord has been known to favour this particular scenario over the alternatives.’

  There was a muttering from the crowd, mostly over the presumptuousness of declaring the founder’s views in open court.

  ‘The opinions of the founder are not under scrutiny here,’ the inquisitor reminded him. ‘Let us turn to the first charge, that he did endanger life in direct breach of the limitations placed upon him — by removing himself and Miss Makepiece to a time beyond the datum.’

  The colonel drew a large breath and let it out slowly. ‘I cannot answer for that one. I wasn’t in charge of him at that point.’

  ‘No? Then can you call on another to support his defence?’

  The colonel turned solemnly towards Caitlin and said: ‘I secede the defence to Miss Caitlin Makepiece.’

  There was a ripple of whispers as Caitlin stood up and walked out on to the floor. The colonel walked off with his head down and slumped into his seat like a defeated man.

  ‘Ms Makepiece, for the record, please state your name and rank,’ Batrass the Scribe said without looking up from his parchment.

  ‘Caitlin Verity Indomitable Makepiece, Scriptorian of the fourteenth,’ she spoke clearly and confidently, looking directly at the council.

  Ravana Eckhart stepped in front of her. ‘Caitlin — may I call you Caitlin? Yes? Good. I believe you were left to tutor the accused. Is that correct?’

  ‘No. He was placed in the care of the House of the Hundred. Methuselah de Freis was charged with his mentorship,’ she corrected Dalton’s mother, whose arrogance dissolved as Caitlin spoke.

  She coughed and rephrased the question. ‘How would you describe your relationship with the accused?’

  ‘He’s a friend.’

  ‘And yet he endangered both of your lives?’

  ‘There was no real danger.’

  ‘According to the Draconian team that found you —’ she made a dramatic point of waving at a stack of papers — ‘you had gone back into the Mesolithic, over two thousand years beyond the limitation. Can you explain how that happened?’

  ‘We were testing his range.’

  ‘I believe that the standard tests are usually no more than a millennium? Can you explain how you came to be so far beyond the normal procedure?’

  It was evident Caitlin was becoming uncomfortable with the inquisitor’s line of questioning. Josh could see her confidence was beginning to evaporate.

  ‘I used an ancient artefact to rescue her from a bad situation,’ Josh intervened.

  ‘Silence!’ shouted the council in unison.

  ‘The accused will be advised to remain silent until his time,’ said the Founder in a monotone.

  ‘Ms Makepiece please continue.’

  ‘We were playing a game, Captain’s Table, and we’d gone back to collect something from Vlad Dracul II when we encountered a monad.’ She stared directly at Dalton. ‘Which I now believe had been released by another team. Josh grabbed the first thing that came to hand and used it to escape. I know it sounds unlikely, but —’

  ‘Indeed it does, Ms Makepiece. I believe that it took forty years before they found you.’

  ‘But, we survived, we raised a family, a tribe in fact — we survived long enough to be located. He was the one that did all of that,’ Caitlin shouted as she pointed directly at Josh. ‘If it had been down to me, we would be dead in some cave!’

  Josh watched her in awe. The passion in her voice set his heart alight. The Draconians had refused to tell him what had happened after they’d rescued them; he knew they must have survived long enough to have been picked up. It was odd to think that in some other timeline they’d been together — part of him was beginning to wish he could have stayed there. It would have been a lot less complicated.

  ‘Thank you, Ms Makepiece. You may step down,’ said one of the council.

  Caitlin turned and went back to her seat without looking at Josh. He could see there were tears running down her burning cheeks.

  ‘Turning now to the matter of the interdiction,’ continued the chief inquisitor, raising her voice above the chatter of the crowd.

  ‘The prosecution calls upon Stochastic Professor Eddington to bear expert witness to this most serious of crimes.’

  Professor Eddington rose from his seat and walked slowly out on to the floor.

  ‘Professor, would you please be so kind as to enlighten us to the actions of the accused.’

  Eddington looked round the circle at each of the council members and then folded his arms behind his back, cleared his throat and spoke: ‘I have studied all aspects of the recent altercation and it is my considered opinion that the accused was in a Nyman Paradox, meaning that his options were so limited that any action would have caused the demise of one, if not more of his party.’

  Josh could see that the inquisitor was less than happy with this answer.

  ‘But is it not true to say that the accused abused his powers by taking direct restorative action? Are you condoning the personal motivation behind the outcomes? Were any of them for the greater good of the continuum?’

  There were shouts from the gallery of ‘No!’ and ‘Bad judgement!’ as the inquisitor appealed to them directly.

  Eddington remained calm and spoke quietly. ‘Yes, the accused was acting in his own interest, I concur, but the possible outcomes were, as I say, limited.’

  ‘And, further to that point, you confirm he actually chose to allow the death of a boy he’d saved from a terrible end only a few days before?’

  Josh looked at Caitlin, who had her head buried in her hands. Alixia was stroking her shoulders. Sim looked grey and ashen.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.’

  ‘Were you not aware that the accused had been involved in changing his own timeline no more than thirty-six hours before the interdiction? A crime that is still being investigated and I believe involves other members of the defence?’

  Eddington’s eyes narrowed. He was being out-manoeuvred. Josh couldn’t understand how the prosecution could know something that a senior member of the Copernicans didn’t. That was until he looked back towards Dalton and then it became clear; there was a smug grin plastered across his face. He put his arm round the girl sitting next to him, Josh hardly recognised Elena without all the make-up and piercings. She smiled wickedly at Josh when their eyes met.

  ‘No, I did not,’ muttered Eddington, staring at his shoes. ‘My department is overworked and understaffed as you well know!’

  ‘Thank you, Profe
ssor, that will be all,’ said the founder in a tone that was not one to be challenged.

  The professor walked slowly back to his seat, his face set in stone.

  ‘The prosecution calls their first and only witness, the accused himself.’

  The eyes of the entire chamber fell on Josh. He felt the weight of a thousand accusing stares press down on him and knew that there was no talking his way out of this one. He thought about his mother, how she would be without him in her life. He wondered if she would be happier. Would she still get ill? What kind of life would she have without the pressure of raising a kid on her own? Josh had made her life so difficult, he knew that. He was the one who’d done everything his own way, no matter what the cost to her. She was the one who’d waited patiently every night worrying about whether he was safe — if nothing else, he would save her that pain.

  ‘Joshua Jones, you stand accused on three counts, each of which comes with the severest of sentences. Do you have anything to say in your defence?’ the shrill voice of the chief inquisitor echoed around the silent chamber.

  As Josh heard the words ‘in your defence’, it triggered something deep in his memory. A fragment of a forgotten thought awoke in his mind — like a whale surfacing from the depths.

  It was from the incident in the baths with Lyra when she’d kissed him, a forgotten moment triggered by those three words. Her voice was inside his head saying: ‘When you hear the phrase “in your defence”, you reply: “I claim the Rite of Scrying.”’

  Josh had no idea what the Rite of Scrying was, but he had little choice. He could see from the stern expressions on the faces of the Council that none of the defence witnesses had made an ounce of difference to his case.

  ‘Do you have anything to add?’ asked the inquisitor again as if Josh were a little slow.

  Josh took a deep breath and said, ‘I claim the Rite of Scrying,’ as confidently as he could.

  There was a collective intake of breath from the audience followed by an outburst of outrage on all sides. The inquisitor lost all the colour from her face and shrank back. The council turned to one another in confusion. Whatever the Rite of Scrying was, Josh liked it just for the uproar it caused.