City of Time (4 page)

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"Just in case it burns?"

"Just in case it burns."

Across the fields someone else had noticed it was getting late. Mary White's little thatched shop was just down the road from Owen's house. Mary was a good friend and neighbor to Owen and his mother. Often when Owen did not have enough money for groceries, Mary had given him food, saying he could pay later. She was much older than anyone suspected, and much wiser, and could see things that others couldn't.

She had stood behind the counter of her shop all day, and now she locked the door and turned out the lights and went into the parlor behind the counter. It had been a long day and she moved slowly, but she knew there was something that must be done. Something that could not wait.

There was a grandfather clock in the corner of the parlor. She went over to it and opened the glass door below the clock face. A brass pendulum hung there, apparently unmoving. But if you looked deep into the case you could see that it
was in
fact swinging, making a tiny motion, almost a tremble. Not quite still, but almost.

All year Mary had watched the pendulum get slower and slower. She stood there for a long time looking at it. Looking
beyond
it, for if you gazed closely you could see that there was no back to the case; instead there was a velvet blackness studded with pinpricks of light. It was like looking into deep space, the blackness going on

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forever and ever, as though the grandfather clock contained all of eternity.

Mary closed the glass door gently and locked it, removing the long thin key. She went to the mirror on the wall beside the door and twisted a length of her gray hair around her fingers, using the key to fix it in position. It looked like an ornate hairpin, perfectly hidden.

She bolted the back door, took her coat from the peg, and went out through the shop at the front. As she reached down and opened the shop door she looked through the glass panel. She stopped and the hand that held the door key trembled. She quickly relocked the door. It was dark outside but she recognized the truck that was parked on the other side of the road. The battered and filthy scrap truck that went up and down the road every day. The truck driven by Johnston, the Resisters' mortal enemy.

Mary slipped back behind the counter and into the parlor, where she sat down heavily on the sofa. She had no idea that things were so bad. Never before would Johnston have had the nerve to post a guard on her front door. Without thinking, she put her hand to the little key that she had concealed in her hair. There was something she had to do, something she had promised herself she would do a long time ago. She hoped it wasn't too late.

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Chapter 5

Dr. Diamond came back into the room as Owen and Cati were helping themselves to cake. "Not enough time," he muttered to himself. "What did he mean? Is it too late? Is that why the Resisters won't wake?"

"What is a tempod?" Cati asked, thinking about the final odd word of her father's message.

"A tempod is a strange thing, not much understood," Dr. Diamond said. "It looks like a hollow rock, by all accounts, but it is capable of storing a large quantity of time."

"Speaking of time, what time is it?" Owen asked.

"That is an interesting question," Dr. Diamond said, turning to look at him.

"No," Owen groaned, "I meant is it morning or the middle of the night? I can't tell down here."

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"Oh," Dr. Diamond said. "About eleven o'clock p.m., I think." An idea struck him and he strode to his blackboard. He swiftly wrote out a long sum with lots of fractions, looked at it, then seized the duster and wiped it out.

"No good." He sat down, glum. "I can't figure out why he left that message in particular. 'Not enough time.' What does it mean?"

"What about ...," Owen said slowly, almost afraid to be laughed at. "What if he just meant that there wasn't enough time?"

"Precisely!" the doctor cried. "But not enough for what?"

"No," Owen said, sure now that Dr. Diamond would laugh out loud. "What if it meant that there
really
wasn't enough? I mean, not enough to go around. Say the world or universe, or whatever, is filled with time, but that it has run short or something, so that there just isn't enough of it ..." He ground lamely to a halt. Dr. Diamond was staring at him. "It's just a theory," Owen said. "Probably pretty stupid."

"A theory?" Dr. Diamond said, finding his voice. "You've hit the nail on the head, Owen! That was
exactly
what the message meant. It makes sense now. That is why the clocks are all slowing down. That was why your friend's face changed in the playground, although fortunately the change wasn't permanent. That was why the geese turned to dust. There isn't enough
time
. And that's why he told us about the City."

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"What
is
this City of Time?" Cati asked.

"It is called Hadima in the old books," Dr. Diamond said. "Years ago there was a lot of coming and going between the Workhouse and Hadima. There used to be an entrance...."

Cati noticed a strange expression on Dr. Diamond's face. His eyes fell on Owen and stayed there, as if lost in a dream.

"The City of Time, Dr. Diamond," Owen reminded him gently.

"Oh yes. Well, to cut it short, it is a trading city, you might say; a city with its roots stretching back in the past and far into the future."

"What does it trade?"

"Time," Dr. Diamond said. "It trades time itself."

"That's why my father is telling us to go there," Cati said excitedly. "To get some time. There isn't enough, so we have to get some."

"Is that right, Dr. Diamond?" Owen asked. Time, after all, wasn't something you went out to a shop and bought.

"Yes," Dr. Diamond said slowly, "I think Cati may be right."

"So, that's easy then," Owen said. "Cati's dad is telling us to go to Hadima and get a tempod containing time, and ... and ..."

"And release the time here." Cati completed his sentence.

"But you cannot," Dr. Diamond said.

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"Why?" Owen demanded.

"The entrance is sealed. The Resisters sat in Convoke--you remember the Convoke, Owen? Where we all gather together and decide things? And at this Convoke a long time ago, we decided that the entrance should be sealed and should stay sealed."

"But why?" Cati asked.

"We were afraid that the Harsh might use it to travel from the City to here. There were rumors. ..."

"But the Harsh got here anyway!" Owen said. "When they attacked last year!"

"I know, Owen," the doctor said, looking troubled, "but there was another reason. Your father was traveling between here and Hadima. The Convoke thought that he was bringing trouble with him. That he was meddling in things he did not understand."

"But now ... now we need it," Cati said. "We need to get to Hadima!"

"I'm sorry," Dr. Diamond said, "but I cannot repeal the decision of the Convoke."

They heard a faint rumble beneath their feet. The Skyward swayed gently for a moment and then was still.

"What was that?" Cati jumped up.

Dr. Diamond stood and walked over to an instrument in the corner that had started to spout out rolls of paper. He examined it. "Earth tremor," he said. "Two point three on the Richter scale. Caused by the moon, I would say."

Cati and Owen looked at each other. Cati opened

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her mouth to speak, but before she could Dr. Diamond said sternly, "The decision of the Convoke is final. The entrance to Hadima has been sealed with the sign of the fleur-de-lis and will not be reopened!"

Next morning they ate breakfast at Dr. Diamond's workbench. The scientist fried bacon and sausages, and they had them with fried potato cakes and crusty bread, all washed down with mugs of tea.

"Now," said the doctor when they had finished, "we need a plan. But first, what about your mother, Owen? Will she not wonder where you are?"

"She'll think I've gone to school already. She doesn't really notice much."

"Don't be too hard on her," Dr. Diamond said. "We never really know what is going on in someone's head."

"What shall we do first?" asked Cati.

"I think we need to wake some of the others," the doctor said. "Do you think you can try, Owen? I know it's dangerous, but we need more help. How about Rutgar and Pieta? They both have strong minds and should be able to reach out to you as you wake them."

Rutgar was the head of the Workhouse guard, solid and dependable. Pieta was the subtle and dangerous warrior who had followed Owen to the north when he had been taken by Johnston's henchmen. Owen still remembered the magno whip she had wielded with deadly force.

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Owen took a deep breath. He remembered what had happened when he had woken Dr. Diamond, and he wasn't eager to experience it again. But then he found himself saying, "Yes, of course I will."

"Start with Rutgar," Dr. Diamond said.

"Maybe I should wake Wesley," Owen said. "The Raggies are younger. They might be easier to wake."

Cati's heart lifted at the thought of seeing Wesley and the Raggies again. The Raggies were Resisters too, but slept in their own Starry in warehouses near the harbor. They were children who had been abandoned in time by a ship's captain who had been paid to look after them. The older children, like Wesley, took care of the younger ones. They dressed in rags and never wore shoes, but they were proud and resourceful, and were experts on anything to do with the sea.

Dr. Diamond frowned. "That is the problem," he said. "They are young. Rutgar is an experienced fighter."

"It has to be Wesley," Owen said stubbornly, "or I won't do it."

Cati looked at him. It wasn't like Owen to behave so childishly.

"All right," Dr. Diamond said quietly. "If you fear to risk waking Rutgar, then Wesley it is."

There was another rumble beneath their feet and the Starry swayed again. The doctor leapt up and examined the machine in the corner. "Two point four on the

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Richter scale!" he exclaimed. "We must hurry! Go and wake Wesley if you can. I must think."

"We need a magno gun," Owen said.

"Then take one," Dr. Diamond said, "but hurry!"

Fifteen minutes later, Cati and Owen found themselves walking down along the river, Owen carrying a magno gun under his arm. He glanced at the tiny glowing blue chip that was fixed in the middle of the gun and wondered for the hundredth time how the Resisters had harnessed the power of magnetism, using it the way ordinary people used electricity.

It had rained during the night and the river was in full spate, tumbling over the rocks. The leaves of the overhanging trees had turned red and brown and had started to fall, so the path was covered in them.

"Why do you want to wake Wesley so badly?" Cati asked.

"I don't," Owen said. "I just wanted to get down here."

"I don't understand. And you never asked for a gun before. What are you up to?" Cati asked suspiciously.

"I think Dr. Diamond gave it away."

"Gave what away?"

"The location of the entrance to Hadima."

"But he didn't say anything. And it doesn't matter because the entrance is sealed."

"Maybe I can unseal it," Owen said, patting the barrel of the magno gun.

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"You can't do that ... it's dangerous."

"It wasn't dangerous for my father."

"But the Convoke! The Resisters will turn against you if--"

"There won't
be
any Resisters if we don't do something," Owen said angrily. "And your own father sent us the message to go there. So are you with me or against me?"

Cati took a deep breath. "I'm with you," she said at last. "So how did Dr. Diamond give it away?"

"He said it was sealed with the sign of the fleur-de-lis."

"So?"

"Look!" Owen said, pointing to the gable of a building that backed onto the river. On the wall there was a blue neon sign. "Look at it," he said. "The shape is a fleur-de-lis!"

Cati looked. The sign did indeed seem to be a fleur-de-lis if she closed her eyes and squinted. "Come on, Owen," she said. "That's just a bit of old advertising. For a shop or something."

"There is no shop around here. Nothing else either," Owen said quietly. "Look more closely."

"I can't see anything."

"Concentrate."

Cati stared until her eyes hurt, but still could see nothing besides the glowing neon tubes of an advertising sign. Then suddenly she saw it. "The sign is made from magno," she breathed.

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