The navigator (3 page)

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slender, and her ash-blond hair hung to her waist. She was wearing a plain white dress that fell to her ankles. Her eyes were gray and ageless. Despite the heat of the kitchen, her brow was smooth and dry, and despite all the cooking and frying and battering, there wasn't a trace of a stain on her white dress.

"Hello, Wakeful," the woman said. Her voice was deep and low.

"Contessa is in charge of food and cooking and things," Cati said. "We have to live off supplies until we can plant and get hunting parties out."

"Hunting parties?" Owen said, thinking of the neat fields and little town with its harbor and housing estates. "There's nothing to hunt around here. I mean, it's the twenty-first century. You buy stuff in shops."

Cati and Contessa exchanged a look, then Cati reached out and touched Owen's sleeve. Almost casually, she pushed her finger against the cloth and it gave way, ripping silently. Contessa and Cati exchanged a look. Owen stared, wondering why she had torn his sleeve and how she had managed to do it so easily.

"I know it's all very strange," Contessa said gently, "but if you search in your heart, down deep, I think you'll find that in a way, it mightn't be so strange after all."

Before he could answer, Cati leapt to her feet. "Quick!" she shouted, spraying them both with crumbs. "They'll be raising the Nab. I nearly forgot. Come on!" Tugging at Owen's arm, she ran off.

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"Go on," Contessa said. "It's worth seeing." Owen thought there was something he should say, but his mind was blank. With a quick smile he ran after Cati. Contessa watched him go, her face kind but grave.

"Like your father before you, you will be tested," she murmured. "Like your father." With these words, sorrow seemed to fill her face. With a sigh, she turned back to the bustle of the kitchen.

When Owen emerged into the corridor he saw that Cati was almost lost in the crowds ahead. He dashed after her but the flaps of leather coming loose on his trainers made it hard to run. Cati dived through another doorway and Owen, following, found himself on yet another twisting staircase rising upward.

"Hurry up!" Cati shouted back to him. He was panting for breath when he emerged into daylight at the top. He stumbled on the top step and shot forward, landing flat on his face to find himself looking down the sheer wall of the Workhouse to the ground hundreds of meters below. A hand on his collar hauled Owen back. Cati was surprisingly strong and she practically lifted him to his feet before he pushed her hand away.

"I'm all right," he said, trying to sound gruff. "Leave me alone. I can look after myself." If she was offended by his tone, she didn't show it. She met his eyes for a few seconds and he felt that he was being judged by an older and wiser mind, but he thought he saw sympathy there as well. "What is so important, anyway?"

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She pointed behind him. Owen saw that they were standing on a flat platform in the middle of the Workhouse roof The slates on the roof were buckled and covered in mildew, and the stonework was weathered and cracked. In the middle of the platform was a large round hole.

"It's a hole," he said. "I can see that."

"Listen," she said.

At first he could hear a faint rumbling deep in the hole. Then there were deep groaning and complaining noises, as if some very old machinery was grumbling into life. There was a boom that sounded a long way away and then the rumbling got louder and Owen started to feel tremors beneath his feet. As the rumbling grew, the whole building seemed to shake and pieces of crumbling stone began to fall from the parapet.

"What is it?" He looked at Cati, but her attention was on the gaping hole in front of them. More loud groanings and creakings and protesting sounded from the hole, followed by a long, ominous shriek.

"Stand back!" Cati shouted above the noise.

Just as he did, a vast cloud of steam burst upward and then, with terrifying speed, what looked like the top of a lighthouse shot from the hole--a lighthouse that seemed to be perched on top of a column of brass, which was battered and scarred and scratched and dulled as though it was ancient. Owen realized that the thing was coming out of the hole section by section, like a telescope, the sections sliding over each other with deafening groans

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and shudders and bangs, the whole structure swaying from side to side so that he thought it would fall on top of them. Cati gripped his arm.

"Jump!" she yelled, propelling him forward. The stained brass wall reared dizzily in front of him and he saw himself rebounding off it, being flung over the parapet.

"Grab hold!" Cati shouted, just as Owen was about to hit the wall. Terrified, he glanced down and saw a brass rail coming toward him at great speed. He grabbed it with both hands and Cati pushed him over it. He landed on his back on a narrow walkway as the platform shot upward, swaying and groaning sickeningly.

After what seemed like an eternity, the platform heaved and clanged to a halt. Owen raised himself cautiously on one elbow and looked through the railing. It was a long way down. The figures on the ground below them were tiny. He turned and looked up. The little turreted point that resembled the top of a lighthouse was maybe twenty meters above him. Despite the battered look of the rest of the structure, the glass gleamed softly, as if it had just been polished.

"What is it?" he said, his voice sounding a bit more shaky than he would have liked.

"This is the Nab," Cati said.

"What's that up there?"

"That? That's the Skyward," she said, almost dreamily.

"What's it for?"

"For seeing, if it lets you. For seeing across time."

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"You could have killed us," he said, "jumping like that."

"Don't be cross," she said. "I knew you wouldn't jump on your own." Owen opened his mouth, then closed it again. There didn't seem to be anything to say. He looked around and saw that the platform they were on joined two sections of a winding staircase that led to the Skyward. He got to his feet, holding on to the rail. A sudden gust of wind caused the whole structure to sway gently. Owen took a firmer hold and looked out across the river.

Where Johnston's yard had been there were trenches and tall figures in white, although the pale mist that came and went made it difficult to get a proper look at them. But there was no mistaking the defenses that had been thrown up on his own side of the river. Earthworks topped with wooden palisades. Deep trenches. And down near the river, hidden by trees, the flicker of that blue flame. Further in the distance he saw the sun touch the horizon, an orange ball, smoldering and ominous. It reminded Owen that he should be home and his eyes turned to the house on the ridge at the other side of the river.

He blinked and looked again, thinking that he was looking in the wrong place, but he knew from the shape of the mountains in the distance that he was not. He was looking for his house. The long, low house with the slate roof and the overgrown garden that his mother had once kept. The house at the end of the narrow road with

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several other houses on it. No matter how much he blinked he could not see them. The road, the other houses, his own house where his sad mother wandered the rooms at night--they were all gone, and in their place a wood of large pine trees grew along the ridge. As if they had always grown there.

"It's gone," Owen said, his voice trembling. "The house is gone, my mother ..."

He felt Cati's arm around his shoulder.

"It's not gone," she said, "not the way you mean it. In fact, in a way it was never really there in the first place. Oh dear, that wasn't really the right thing to say..."

That was enough. Tearing himself away from her, Owen started to run, clattering down the metal stairs of the Nab, out onto the roof, and then down the stone stairs inside the Workhouse. He could hear Cati calling behind him but he didn't stop. Whatever was going on in this place, it was nothing to do with him. He was going to cross the river and get his mother. On he ran, through the busy main corridor now, elbowing people aside, shouting at them to get out of his way, so that they turned to stare after him. The corridor cleared a little as he approached the kitchen, and he was running at full tilt, Cati's cries far behind, when the sole of his right trainer came off and caught under his foot. Arms flailing, he tried to stay upright, but it was no good. With a ripping sound, the sole of the left trainer came off and Owen went crashing to the ground, his head striking the stone floor with a crunch.

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He lay there for a moment, sick and dizzy. He put his hand to his head, feeling a large bump starting to rise. He opened his eyes and saw a pair of elegant slippers. He looked up to see Contessa peering down at him with concern. Cati skidded to a halt beside them.

"I--I didn't tell him ... I mean, I said it would be explained," she stammered. Contessa held up a hand and Cati stopped talking. Owen sat up and Contessa knelt beside him.

"Our house," he said hopelessly, "my mother, they're gone ..."

"I know," Contessa said gently. "I know. Here. Drink some of this." She pulled a small bottle from the folds of her dress and put it to his lips. The liquid tasted warm and nutty.

"I have to go," he said. "She might be frightened. ..." But as he spoke, everything seemed to become very far away, even his own voice. His eyelids felt heavier and heavier. He had to fight it. He had to go home. But it seemed that his brain refused to send the order to his legs to move. Instead, strong arms enveloped him and lifted him, and as they did so, he fell asleep.

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Owen felt himself coming out of sleep as though he was swimming to the surface of a warm sea. He opened his eyes. It was dark, but it was a strangely familiar dark. Then he realized--he was in his Den. It all came flooding back to him--the Workhouse, Cati. Perhaps he had been asleep and dreamed the whole thing! He felt along the back wall for the store of candles he kept there and lit one. He pulled the sleeping bag around him and sat very still. That was it, he decided. It had all been a very real dream. He felt cold and moved to pull his sleeve down over his forearm. As he did so, the seam disintegrated and the sleeve came away in his hand. He looked down on the floor and saw his trainers, both soles half torn away. It hadn't been a dream! He remembered sitting on
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the chest in his bedroom that morning and longing for something strange and exotic. Well, what had happened was certainly strange, but he wasn't so sure if he wanted it as much.

He tried to arrange what he knew in his head. The Sub-Commandant. Cati and Contessa. The Workhouse and the Nab. But it was no good. He couldn't make any sense of it. Owen jumped to his feet, and as he did so, he felt his clothes falling away. He looked down. His trousers were hanging in rags; his jacket and T-shirt seemed to have disintegrated.

Owen looked round the walls of the Den. The posters he had hung on the wall had faded, the images indistinct and the paper yellowed. The metal objects did not seem to have suffered as badly, although he noticed that the plastic on the cassette player had faded and warped. Only the brass boat propeller he had found in Johnston's yard seemed to be the same as ever. He tugged at the rotting fabric of his T-shirt in disgust. He couldn't go out without clothes. Then he noticed a neat pile of clothes in the doorway. Owen unfolded it. It seemed to be a uniform of the same faded fabric as the Sub-Commandant had been wearing. There was a pair of boots made of some material that seemed like leather but was not, and which fastened to the knee with brass clips. He imagined what would happen if any of the town children saw him in those clothes--how they would laugh--but a sudden draft on his bare skin made him shiver. He realized that he had no choice but to put on the clothes.

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Five minutes later, Owen looked at himself in the mirror. He seemed to look much older. The uniform was a good fit, although it was frayed here and there. He thought he looked like a soldier, somebody who had been in a long war far from home. He heard a noise behind him and turned. Cati was standing in the doorway.

"It suits you," she said.

"This is my place. You have no right to come in here without asking," said Owen, suddenly defensive.

"I was only trying to help. You needed clothes."

"I don't need anything of yours!" he said angrily. "I just want to be left alone."

"Next time I will leave you alone," she snapped back. There were red spots high on her cheeks. "Next time I will leave you alone and you can go around in your bare skin."

They glared at each other for a minute. Then Owen saw a muscle twitch in Cati's face. He felt his own face begin to crease. A few seconds later they were helpless with laughter.

Owen laughed until his sides ached. He and Cati collapsed on the old bus seat, wiping their eyes. They sat for a moment in companionable silence, then Cati leapt to her feet without a word and went back outside. When she came back, she was carrying a basket. Delicious smells rose from it, and Owen stared at it hungrily.

"Contessa sent it," Cati said. She opened the basket and set out the contents neatly on the top of the dressing table. There was fresh, warm bread and sealed bowls of