Tanglewreck (26 page)

Pope Gregory stepped from the shadows, unsmiling, proud, hawk-faced, dark-eyed. ‘And I would do it again,’ he said.

‘And what would it profit you?’ Abel Darkwater laughed. ‘Once made the Timekeeper can be broken, but it cannot be destroyed until the End of Time itself. That is the prophecy.’

‘I destroyed it,’ said the Pope.

‘Oh no, you did not!’ said Abel Darkwater.

It was night in the Vatican. Maria Prophetessa had been locked up. Pope Gregory had gone to hear a Te Deum in thanksgiving for the massacre of eight hundred Protestant Huguenots. The Jesuit priest Christopher Clavius opened the door to the Pope’s study with his own key. Inside, he took the pieces of the Timekeeper from the drawer and hurried away with them. He was not interested in the clock or its prophecy; he was interested in the fabulous wealth of its jewels and its lapis and gold face. There was a man he needed to bribe – an Englishman, a Catholic, a pirate, a spy. It was a useful combination
.

Clavius slipped outside and made his way to where the red-bearded man was waiting. He gave him the bag
.

‘What’s this you offer me? A broken clock?’

‘Only add the worth of the jewels to see what I offer you.’

Roger Rover tested one or two between his finger and thumb. He was satisfied. ‘I will do your spying for you.’

That night the Timekeeper left Rome
.

‘Roger Rover had the Timekeeper!’ said Silver, her fear battling against her curiosity and surprise.

‘Oh yes, and in his turn he gave it as a bribe to a very powerful man named John Dee, astronomer and alchemist to Queen Elizabeth the First. Dee knew that at last he had the Timekeeper in his hands – and he knew of the prophecy and of its power. It was John Dee who founded our society, Tempus Fugit, and he was my Master for a time.’

‘Was Roger Rover an alchemist?’

Abel Darkwater laughed out loud. ‘He was a sea-faring fool!’

‘If you’re so clever why couldn’t you mend the clock yourself, and why didn’t you keep it when you had it?’

Abel Darkwater moved forward as if to strike Silver in the face, but the Pope restrained his arm.

‘Torture, yes, violence, no,’ said the Pope.

Abel Darkwater nodded. ‘It seems that the clock is true to its own power, Silver, but when I find it, you will give me that power. I have been searching for you for centuries.’

‘I’m only eleven years old!’ said Silver.

‘You have died and been reborn many times,’ said Abel Darkwater. ‘Many times.’ And Silver, who didn’t understand this, shuddered and remembered that Micah had said this about Regalia Mason.

‘But this time, oh no, you shall not slip away. Let us prepare the alembic.’

Silver didn’t know what an alembic was, and she was regretting her angry outburst. She suddenly realised that Gabriel was nowhere to be seen. He must have hidden himself.

Abel Darkwater had lit a fire in front of the altar. He took out a thing like a glass bottle, with a narrow funnel neck and a wide bottom.

‘Now,’ said Abel Darkwater, ‘look into my eyes, Silver, and you will find yourself moving across Time to the day when your parents had arranged to bring the Timekeeper to London – to bring the Timekeeper to me.’

Silver felt herself going dizzy, but she held her mind firm. She thought of Tanglewreck, put herself inside it for safekeeping.

Abel Darkwater frowned and tried again. He took her face in his small hands and made her look at him. How round his eyes were! What faint and yellow light came from them, like a fog wrapping round her. Tanglewreck was there in the fog, she could hardly see the house now, where was it? Where was she? She suddenly saw her father’s face. His
expression, his eyes. Her mind cleared. She had nothing to say.

Abel Darkwater’s eyes were old and cold. She noticed how cold his hands were on her face.

‘Very well,’ he said.

He let her go and attached a glass tube to the alembic. He blew into the tube and the alembic began to expand like a balloon. It grew bigger and bigger until it was more than a metre across and a metre high. The narrow funnel flared open.

‘Your Holiness, please,’ said Abel Darkwater, and the Pope stepped forward, and picked Silver up from behind and pushed her into the alembic. As soon as she was inside, Abel Darkwater sealed the funnel with a lead stopper.

‘One hour is the limit for torture of any kind,’ said the Pope. ‘We must be merciful.’

‘One hour, then,’ said Abel Darkwater. ‘Is it getting hot in there, Silver?’

She watched their faces, distorted by the bubbles in the glass; faces lined with centuries of cunning and greed. She could hardly breathe.

‘You will tell me, Silver. You will.’

But she couldn’t tell him anything, because something or someone was stopping her.

Across the Sands of Time, on a dromedary, Regalia Mason was travelling to the temple of the great god Ra.

As the alembic slowly heated up towards the unendurable, Abel Darkwater told Silver more of the story.

‘Oh yes, I stole the Timekeeper from my master John Dee, and fled with it from England’s shore, taking it to the best clockmakers of Italy and France, but none could repair it. Only in time, in its own time, was the clock mended. In 1675 Robert Hooke gave it a double-face, one in the body, and one in the lid, and he replaced the pendulum with a spring mechanism. For the first time in more than a hundred years its heart began to beat again!

‘Then I thought I had it, I thought it was mine, but two of the original pictures were missing, the most important pictures of all. The pictures of the prophecy.’

Abel Darkwater came forward, his face pushed up against the glass of the alembic. ‘Do you have those pictures, Silver? Do you? Do you?’

Silver was listening through the fever of the heat. Her hand went slowly towards the jute bag – why not just give him the pictures now? She was delirious with the fire and her slow suffocation. Yes, she should give him what he wanted, then she would be free, then she would go home.

She tapped feebly on the glass. Abel Darkwater looked triumphant. Then, not knowing where she found the strength to fight him, she shook her head.

‘Burn, then!’ said Darkwater. ‘I shall melt you like a candle over a fire.’

The Pope had taken out his hourglass and was computing
the allotted hour of torture.

As he toyed with it, a strong arm slammed itself like a lever under his throat and, as he choked and fainted, Abel Darkwater turned round to see Gabriel running towards the alembic.

‘Stand still, you mongrel,’ shouted Darkwater, and Gabriel’s whole body jerked to a stop. Rooted to the spot by magic, he was unable to move his arms or legs. He turned his eyes desperately to Silver, who was now too weak with heat to make any sign.

Abel Darkwater took a rope from his pack and bound Gabriel tightly.

‘You fool! As low and stupid as your father Micah. Shall I tell you something? If she dies, it is your father Micah’s doing. He will be her murderer, not I. If he had sold me the Timekeeper in 1762, how many centuries of waiting could have been erased! How many lives might have been spared!’

He turned back to Silver. ‘You are the child of the prophecy. You are the child, you must be sacrificed. You will tell me where the Timekeeper is, and even if you do not, your blood will lead me to it. I will draw your blood and divine you, as I did the falcons of the Nile.’ Abel Darkwater pressed his face against the steaming jar. ‘You will tell me or your blood will tell me.’

‘She cannot tell you because she does not know.’

There was Regalia Mason, tall and magnificent in the entrance to the chamber. ‘I am the one who knows.’

Abel Darkwater’s face was filled with rage. ‘You! Always
you! And yet this child’s own father was bringing the watch to me. I drew it to me with centuries of patience. The Timekeeper was about to be mine!’

Regalia Mason stepped forward. ‘I could not help thinking that was a mistake.’

The Rivers had set off on the 8:05 to London. They had Abel Darkwater’s address:
Tempus Fugit, 3 Fournier Street, Spitalfields, London E1
. He had sent them tickets for the train and a fifty-pound note for expenses.

Soon after their daughter Silver was born, Roger and Ruth River had received a letter from Abel Darkwater asking them about a clock called the Timekeeper. It had come to his attention, he said, that they had recently discovered this family heirloom. Could he come and see it? Would they like to sell it?

Silver’s father had been very clear; the answer was no, and no. He knew the story of the clock, though not its power, and not the prophecy, but he was determined to keep it where it had been left for safekeeping all those years ago.

‘Not everything in this life is for sale,’ he said to his wife Ruth. ‘There are things that matter more than money. Our family was given this clock in trust. In a way, it’s not really ours.’

Every year Abel Darkwater wrote again, and every year the answer was the same – no, and no.

Then one year Abel Darkwater wrote and asked if they would simply bring the clock to London so that he could
show it to certain eminent collectors, and perhaps make some drawings of its workings, and take some photographs. He might even repair it for them; he understood it was no longer working.

He offered them the sum of £10,000.

‘Ten thousand pounds!’ Roger River said to his wife. ‘We can repair the roof, fix the gutters, and have the windows painted. That would be marvellous! Poor old house is falling to pieces.’

‘What if he doesn’t give us the clock back?’ said Ruth.

‘Of course he will give it back! He is a reputable dealer. I checked up on him. And he’s given us insurance – and I rang the insurance this morning. It’s all above board. We need the money, Ruth.’

‘I know we do. I just feel uneasy.’

‘Don’t worry. We’ll never sell him the clock. Never.’

The train was comfortable, warm and quiet. They were sitting in First Class reading the papers and drinking coffee.

The train slowed down. The train stopped. There were no announcements. Roger got up to see what was happening. Funny, but there was no one else in the carriage now. He walked on through the buffet. Empty. He walked into the Standard Class carriages. Empty. He looked out of the window. He couldn’t see anything because there was a mist.

He began to feel uneasy himself. He took out his phone. There was no signal. He walked quickly back to where he had left Ruth. She was gone. In her place was a very
beautiful, rather frightening woman who smiled at him as if she knew him.

‘I’m afraid there has been a change of plan,’ said Regalia Mason.

There is no need to boil her alive,’ said Regalia Mason.

‘She is in league with you!’ said Abel Darkwater. ‘I will not spare her.’

‘I am in league with no one,’ replied Regalia Mason. ‘The Quantum is itself.’

‘Only God is Himself,’ shouted the Pope.

‘Go back to the Vatican,’ said Regalia Mason. ‘We built it for you.’

She went to the alembic and passed her hand through the green flames that flickered beneath it. Instantly they died down. ‘I remember a few of our old tricks,’ she said, smiling her cold smile at Abel Darkwater. ‘You remained as you were, I changed; that is the difference between us.’

‘You abandoned the Way.’

‘I abandoned magic for science, yes, and for so many years you were able to achieve by magic what science could only dream of – but now, now what do you say?’

Abel Darkwater said nothing. Cold green flames were twisting round his body.

Regalia Mason continued to speak. ‘Time travel, infinite life, the secrets of the Universe, all the things that you
sought, that we sought together, through the dark material of the Arcana, have become real through the ambition of science.’

Abel Darkwater answered her in tongues of flame. ‘You cannot control Time without the Timekeeper.’

Regalia Mason laughed. ‘Shall I tell you something, Abel Darkwater? You still believe in the world as an object. Look at you, muttering over the alembic, coaxing molten metals, liquefying fixed bodies, juggling with all the pots and pans of a Universe that is solid. But the Universe is not solid. The Universe is energy and information. Solid objects are only representations and manifestations, of information and energy. Master that and you have mastered everything.’

‘I can appear and disappear as well as you can,’ said Abel Darkwater, ‘and I know how to transform one substance into another, but the prophecy is clear: only the Timekeeper can control Time.’

‘I am controlling Time already,’ said Regalia Mason, ‘and without any magical device. What are the Time Tornadoes?’

‘They are the beginning of the prophecy fulfilled,’ said Abel Darkwater. ‘They are the beginnings of the End of Time, when Time as we have known it for so many centuries will roll up like a ball, and a new god will appear. A new Lord of the Universe.’ His eyes rolled like round moons.

Regalia Mason smiled her cold smile. ‘In a way what you say is true. For the Quantum to assume complete control by the beginning of the twenty-fourth century, it is necessary to destabilise Time well in advance. It is an interesting trick,
don’t you think, to affect the past so that the future can happen?’

‘Impossible without the Timekeeper!’

‘Impossible for you without the Timekeeper.’

‘Do you tell me that it is you, Maria Prophetessa, who is causing these rips in the Universe? Do you tell me that it is you who is the Wind that blows through the End of Time?’

She smiled. ‘Your magic still has poetry, but no power. Yes, I am she who has torn the Veil. I am she who is the Wind.’

And just for a second, she changed. She was not Regalia Mason, cold and beautiful; she was Maria Prophetessa, dark and hooded, twisting and black. Gabriel looked away in fear. Abel Darkwater nodded slowly, as if he understood.

‘I will prevent you!’ he said. ‘I have prevented you before.’

‘It is too late,’ answered Regalia Mason.

‘You are not the child of the prophecy!’ said Darkwater.