Quest Beyond Time (2 page)

The place was the size of the new gymnasium at school, but much darker. It was lit, partly by windows high up in its walls, and partly by lamps, whose flickering wicks indicated the poor quality of the fuel which they burned. Above Mike’s head the wooden ceiling beams disappeared into darkness. The hall smelled strange to Mike. It smelled of woodsmoke and dogs and people who did not wash very often. Mike did not find the smell to be unpleasant. It was something like the way people smelled when they had been camping out for a week. Mixed into the smell were odours of cooking, and Mike noticed that pots stood on the fire in the big fireplace at the end of the hall.

All this he took in as he entered, but then his eyes were drawn immediately to a raised platform at the end of the hall. On the platform was a big wooden chair, and in the chair sprawled a gaunt man, the hood of his cloak thrown back. His eyes stared toward the door at Mike and his captor.

The girl urged him forward, staying close behind him. ‘When you get close to The Murray, you bow,’ she whispered.

‘Bow?’ He could not believe it. ‘You mean . . . as if he was a king or something ?’

‘We are free here. We don’t have
kings
!’ She said the word with a terrible venom. ‘But my father is The Murray. He’s clan chieftain. And strangers bow.’ She touched his back with the tip of her arrow. He felt the sharp point through his shirt.

Mike did not need further persuasion. He realized that he was in the hands of a dangerous lunatic. He would play this very cool. He would bow. He would knock his head on the floor. He would bow as much as they liked. Until he had a chance to run.

As they neared the seated man, another figure came through a side door. Mike nearly ran at that moment, arrows or not. For the man who had entered the hall was the nearest thing he had ever seen to a giant. He wore trousers and shirt made of the same rough cloth that the girl wore, and his waist also was cinched by a leather belt. But there the resemblance ended. This man stood a full two metres high. His broad shoulders sloped into heavily muscled arms. From his belt hung a sword which, by the look of it, Mike would have difficulty even lifting.

Yet the giant strode with a light foot. The grace was eerie. Mike would have felt more comfortable in his presence had the man lumbered. But this man was built like a wrestler and walked like a dancer.

Even more disconcerting were the scars. There was one on his right cheek, and one on his right arm. Somebody had got close enough to this man to scar him. Mike found himself wondering whether that person was still alive to talk about it.

Now they were at the foot of the platform, and Mike was looking up at them: at the gaunt man sprawled in the chair, and at the giant. As he made an awkward attempt at a bow, they looked beyond him, to the girl who had captured him.

‘He came from the sky,’ she said. ‘On a kite.’

The gaunt man looked up at the giant. Then he stood. They were the same height, but the gaunt man, the one she had called The Murray, was very thin. He swayed as he stood, and the giant supported him with one arm. When the gaunt man spoke, the voice was resonant, deep, but weakened by some physical malady.

‘We have sacrificed to the gods … for the One who could fly,’ he said.

Mike looked at him, then at the giant, and then around at the hall, and at the girl standing behind him. Then he laughed. ‘You’re making a movie, right?’

They looked at him, their eyes blank of understanding. Mike dug some change from his pocket. ‘Look, could I make a phone call? Get a taxi?’

The giant’s movement was so fast that Mike was not aware of it until the huge hand clamped round his left wrist. With his other hand the giant took the coins from Mike’s hand and showed them to the man they called their chieftain. He sat and examined the coins. He turned them over, reading the writing on them. Then he looked at Mike with a puzzled interest, much as a scientist might on encountering something which, although possible, is very unlikely.

‘These coins are new!’ he said. Then he looked at the giant. ‘The gods have sent this man from Before. Like the other.’ The giant nodded, and his chieftain resumed his inspection of the coins. Then he looked up at Mike. ‘You are from . . . the year 1980?’

It was such an odd way of saying it. Mike shook his head. ‘No. 1985. I mean . . . it’s 1985 now.’

The chieftain looked at him for a long moment as if unsure of how to say what had to be said. ‘Here. Now. The year is 2457.’ He said it ‘twenty-four fifty-seven’.

Mike now knew for certain that he was surrounded by people who had lost their senses. Or ‘raving loonies’ as he thought of them. He smiled, feeling as if he were showing every tooth in his head. ‘Sure. Look, I’ll just, ah . . . won’t bother about the phone call. . . pick up a taxi on the street. . . hitch a lift, whatever . . . nice knowing you . . .’ He was moving for the door, congratulating himself on how well he was doing.

‘You’ve been sent to help us!’ the chieftain shouted.

‘Sure thing, and I’ll be right back after I’ve checked on my hang-glider and phoned home and so on !’ He was nearly to the door.

The chieftain turned to the girl. ‘Protect him. We need him.’ She nodded and followed Mike.

The chieftain looked at the giant and his look was a question. The giant paused before he spoke. ‘It is many years, but the face is the face of the Promised. And yet … if he were from the gods … he would know.’

‘Perhaps. Katrin says he can fly.’

‘The messengers of the Dark Ones can fly.’ The giant’s right hand was on the hilt of his great double-handed sword.

‘We can’t afford to kill him, Fergus! What if he really is from the gods?’

The giant shrugged. ‘Better safe than sorry. If he’s from the Dark Ones he’ll betray us while we’re weak.’

‘And if from the gods?’

‘They can send us another who knows what he’s here for.’

‘You don’t play games with the gods, Fergus!’

‘They play games with us!’

There was silence in the hall. Then Simon the chieftain spoke. ‘If he helps us … he is from the gods.’

‘And if not?’

‘The Dark Ones.’

‘And if he has come from the Dark Ones?’

Simon looked at his war leader, at this giant who was both brother and chief counsellor to him, and regretted once again the fierce bloodlust that burned in him. ‘If he is from the Dark Ones, the Law must be fulfilled.’ He made a stabbing gesture at his own chest. ‘With the stake and the fire and cold iron.’

Mike walked toward his hang-glider. If he just moved quietly and did not make a fuss, maybe the loonies would forget about him and let him get away. It could not be far to a main road from here. For the moment, the memory of the lions was lost in his desire to get out of wherever it was he had landed.

He reached the glider, and began to dismantle it for carrying. He was not going to leave it behind if he could help it. As he stooped over the glider he took a careful look back toward the house.

The girl was following him. Indeed she was within ten metres of him. He was suddenly filled with a surge of irritation. Why was she playing childish creeping-up games with him? He turned and stared at her, hoping to embarrass her into going away. She simply stared back. He returned to what he was doing.

She watched as a dog or a cat might watch. He could not read her face.

Finally the silence grew unbearable. ‘What’s your name again?’ he said.

‘Katrin.’

‘Mike.’

She nodded, and showed him the palm of her right hand. It looked like a signal of some kind, and he looked behind him. When he turned back, he found she was smiling. ‘Do you not show the right hand of friendship in Before?’

‘We . . . we shake hands.’ He put out his hand. She looked at it. He took his right hand in his left and demonstrated shaking it. She watched him do it. Then imitated the action, shaking her right hand with her left. He grinned. ‘No . . . ’ he stepped forward, and took her right hand in his.

He was not prepared for what happened next. Suddenly her hand grasped his with a strength which surprised him. She stepped back, pulling him with her. Off balance, he found himself tripping over a foot she placed in his path, and he fell. As he rolled over onto his back, she was on him, with her hunting knife at his throat. Her brown eyes were locked on his and he knew he was in deadly danger. He decided to humour her. ‘Hey! In Before we shake hands to be friends!’

‘Oh.’ Suddenly she was off him, and sheathing her knife. ‘Friends.’ She put out her right hand. He got to his feet and took it. They shook hands. As they did so he thought how easy it would be to pull her toward him and trip her on his foot. As if reading his mind, she solemnly shook her head. He grinned, let go of her hand, and finished dismantling his glider.

As he strapped it, the giant arrived. Fergus looked doubtfully at the swag of aluminium struts and red nylon.

‘He can fly on that?’ Fergus did not speak so much as rumble.

‘I saw him.’ Katrin pointed to the sky. ‘He came out of a hole in the sky there, and flew like a hawk round there, came over the trees . . . and landed here.’

‘Then he could fly to the Island.’

Mike did not like the sound of that. He was not flying to any island. He finished strapping his kite, and put it on his shoulder. ‘Which way to the freeway?’

He spoke to Katrin, who looked puzzled. She turned to Fergus. ‘He uses the olden word,’ Fergus said. ‘He means the Giants’ Road. Take him there. Prove to him that The Murray does not lie.’

‘Listen, I never said anyone was lying, I just . . .’

‘Doubt,’ Fergus said. ‘You doubt that The Murray speaks truth. If you were not a stranger . . . and perhaps from the gods . . . I would kill you for that doubt.’ He turned to Katrin. ‘Take the fool to the Giants’ Road. Prove it to him.’

Mike had had about enough. ‘I’m a fool?’

The giant observed him solemnly. ‘Yes.’

Mike looked from the scarred face to the sword hilt and back. Looking at Fergus’s face was giving him a strained neck. He decided not to debate the matter. ‘Could be you’re right,’ he muttered.

Katrin beckoned, and he followed. Immediately he felt a surge of irritation at being led around by a girl, and he walked on ahead of her. He had walked twenty metres before he heard a whistle. He turned. She was indicating another direction. He was walking the wrong way. He turned and followed.

When he caught up with her, they walked in silence for some time. Then she spoke. ‘You should not make my Uncle Fergus angry.’

‘He seems to get angry very easily.’

‘You don’t fight in Before?’

‘Sure we fight. There’s always wars on television . . .’ He stopped himself. He was beginning to talk as if what the loonies were saying was true. ‘You know we fight!’

‘I don’t mean wars. I mean you don’t fight over insults.’ He found the way she looked at him very disconcerting. It was as if she could see past the various masks he was so adept at wearing. ‘Otherwise you would be more polite.’

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Now I’m getting politeness lessons.’

‘While you are among us, it would be better to be polite. Not all men are as gentle as Uncle Fergus.’

‘Gentle? Your Uncle Fergus is one of the gentler types around, is he?’

She nodded. He was beginning to understand that sarcasm was lost on her.

They walked on in silence. They had come past the rough grass surrounding the house and were now moving through open bushland. He noticed with curiosity that this part of the bush had been gardened at one time. Among the gum trees there were stands of European and North American trees, giant oaks, and beeches, and pines, specimens bigger than he had ever seen even on excursions to botanical gardens.

As they walked, he began to relax. ‘You people are . . . what?’, he asked, ‘second generation hippies or something?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well I’ve heard of people dropping out in the 1960s, setting up communes, buying up whole valleys and going into business with their own lifestyles. Just wondering if your parents were people like that?’

‘We are the Clan Murray,’ she said. She said it with pride, as if being one of the Clan Murray really meant something. ‘We were three thousand.’ She paused, and he felt the sadness in her. ‘Now two thousand. Since the Sickness came.’

‘Sickness?’

‘We took in a runaway slave from south of the Great River. He had the Sickness.’

‘Will you cut that out?’ His irritation had returned in a rush.

She looked at him with a question in her eyes.

‘That stuff about the Great River and runaway slaves! You sound like . . . like a Red Indian or something! It’s not real !’

‘The Sickness is real. It has taken my brothers. My father’s sons by his first wife.’

He felt the clamp of fear. These people were diseased. ‘What is it? This Sickness?’

‘It’s new,’ she said. ‘It begins with weakness, pain in the legs, then the mind leaves the body, and the sleep comes. Then death.’

‘But what’s it called?’

‘It’s called the Sickness.’

She was exasperating. ‘If you’ve got an epidemic, you should go to the medical authorities.’ He looked into her uncomprehending face. ‘Get a doctor.’

‘Our doctor died.’

‘So get another one!’

‘From another Clan?’ Her face brightened. ‘Raid another Clan and steal their doctor?’ She seemed delighted with the idea.

‘I’m not going to continue this conversation. I’ll end up as loony as you are.’

‘You think you are still in Before.’

‘I’m damn sure I’m still in Before!’

‘Don’t shout in the bush.’ She spoke in quiet reprimand, as if to a child.

‘I’m not shouting!’ he shouted. He took a deep breath. ‘Look, you obviously believe you live in the future. I guess you were brought up believing that. But it’s not true, Katrin. It is 1985. Right? That’s what year it is.’

She shook her head.

‘Pretty soon,’ he said, ‘we’ll be at the freeway. See that cliff face?’ He was pointing inland at a prominent cliff face, shadowed by the afternoon sun. It was with a great sense of relief that he saw it. Because he now knew where he was. Within moments they would be at the edge of the freeway and he would be on his way home. ‘We should be hearing the traffic any moment.’

But when they got to the freeway, it was not there any more.

Mike had had dreams like this. Dreams where he had walked and walked and never got where he was going. Dreams where nothing could ever be completed.

But in this dream, they had completed their walk to the freeway and it was not there.

At least, now that he looked more closely, parts of it were there. For where they stood, surrounded by gum trees, looking toward the cliff which marked where the freeway should be, there were areas of broken concrete, great overgrown slabs, jutting at odd angles. Wallabies cropped at the grass growing up between the broken slabs. A pair of parrots was foraging for grass seed where the trucks should have been roaring along, and in a thirty metre high pine tree growing from the middle of what should have been the freeway there was a gang of black cockatoos screaming and shredding green pine cones for the nuts.

Mike looked at the scene in disbelief. Then he knew what had happened. They had come across an old factory site, or an old road which the freeway had replaced. The cliff face stared at him, contradicting his theory, but the alternative to his theory was believing the loonies. Like many greater minds than his had done before him, he rejected the evidence and stuck to his theory.

‘This is an old part of the road, is it? The freeway bypasses it, or . . .’

‘It is where you asked to come. The Giants’ Road. What you call the Free Way.’ She pointed to the south. ‘It runs all the way to the Great River and beyond into Vickham.’

He despaired of ever getting any sense out of her. He looked around, hoping to see some landmark which would lead him to the freeway and home.

What he saw was not a landmark.

It was a grotesque caricature of a human being. It was big, with a large oval face. The face was not symmetrical but had lumps and growths on it like the bottom of an unscraped boat. The thing’s body was covered with loose clothing made of animal skins, but the clothes were sleeveless, and one arm appeared to have an extra hand growing from its shoulder.

It was staring at them.

Mike was frozen. He could not move. Katrin read his face, and turned to see what he was looking at. ‘It’s a Wanderer,’ she murmured, slipping her sword from its sheath. She handed Mike the sword, hilt first. ‘Sometimes they’re harmless.’

He hastily handed the weapon back to her. ‘I’m not sticking anyone with a sword. I’m not getting involved.’

‘But you’re here.’

‘Ah. Ah. I’m going home.’ He moved at a tangent to where the Wanderer was standing. The creature began capering, making signs and noises to them.

Then, behind them, a twig snapped. Katrin turned. Her bow was off her shoulder, and an arrow on the bowstring, before she saw what was there.

Running at them, with a branch lifted high above its head, was a second Wanderer, his face masked by a strip of cloth. His roaring almost drowned out Mike’s single wild yell of terror. He turned to run, but his bundled glider caught in a branch and he fell headlong. As he rolled, he caught a glimpse of a hideously distorted face rushing toward him, the cloth mask loosening and streaming back from it, revealing the horror beneath.

Then Katrin’s bowstring hummed, and the Wanderer howled with pain as an arrow suddenly sprouted in the arm which held the club. He dropped the club, and retreated. Katrin spun, twirling another arrow onto her bowstring, ready for the second Wanderer’s attack, but he was already blundering off through the bush.

Katrin looked down at Mike. ‘Come on!’ she said, ‘there might be more!’

Mike could not think of any convincing reason for sticking around. He got to his feet, grabbed up his glider, and followed Katrin back toward the house.