Chaos Clock (10 page)

As had become usual, David went to his room as early as he reasonably could that evening, telling his dad that he was going to revise in bed for his test tomorrow until he fell asleep.

“Don’t tell me that’s what they recommend nowadays?” said Alastair, raising an eyebrow.

“No, not exactly, but I thought maybe it’ll stick better if it’s the last thing I’m thinking about before I go to sleep.”

“Well, I suppose it’s worth a try. Don’t work too late though.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. Goodnight.”

“Sleep well.”

So that he wouldn’t have lied too blatantly, David did read over his work a couple of times before he switched off the light and readied himself to fall towards his dream …

The Lightning King was already sitting on the shore. He’d made a little tower of pebbles in front of him, balanced in defiance of gravity. As usual, he seemed quite unconscious of the fronded lightning that flowed from his hands as he reached to place another one.

Instead of putting it on top of the pile, he lifted the whole tower on one finger, and slipped the new pebble in at the base, settling the others easily back down on it.

“How do you do that?” asked David, intrigued.

“You can see how I do it. You are watching me. It is simply a matter of finding the point of balance.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“True. But I have always been here. I have learned the balance point of every stone on this shore.” It should have sounded ridiculous, but David believed him without hesitation. “This time with your mother means a great deal to you, does it not?”

“Of course it does. She died when I was five. I’ve …” He stopped himself from saying more, but found he didn’t need to.

“You’ve missed her for so long, every day, every night, and now you have her back. Of course it means a great deal … How long do you think these dreams will go on?”

David felt as though he’d been slapped in the face. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you cannot go on having the same dream every night for the rest of your life, can you? They must come to an end, but when will it be? Tonight? Next week? Next year?”

“I … I don’t know,” he stammered. He had never thought of the possibility, had never
let
himself think of it. He couldn’t lose his mother again, he just couldn’t. “But you’re making me have this dream. You can keep making me have it.”

The Lightning King raised an elegant eyebrow. “You
are mistaken. This dream is in your head, not mine. I have become a part of it, but I have no control over it.”

“David!”

He turned to see his mother walking down the beach towards him and went to meet her, troubled and confused.

“Where do you come from?”

“What?”

“Before I see you here … Where are you?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t remember being anywhere but here. Does it really matter?”

“Yes! What if you don’t come one night. How will I find you?”

She put a finger to his lips to quieten him. “Hush. I’ll come to you.”

“But what if I stop having this dream?” he persisted, his voice turning panicky.

“Then you’ll wait for it to come back and I’ll be here, waiting for you.”

“But what if it
never
comes back? I don’t want to lose you again, Mum. I can’t.”

She took his hand and pulled him down beside her and wrapped her arms around him until he stopped shaking, then she turned him to face her.

He looked at her, so solid and real, with her brown hair swinging to the shoulders of her red fleece, and her hazel eyes, with the little flecks of gold in them that he had always loved, looking steadily at him now.

“David, I am your mum
forever
; nothing can change that. I am here” – she touched his chest just over his heart – “and here,” She held his head between her
palms. “Always.
Always
. I couldn’t be with you now if that wasn’t true. Even if I’m not in your dreams, all you have to do is close your eyes and imagine me. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said, in a voice that was little more than a whisper, then drew a deep breath and, from somewhere produced a smile.

“Now, tell me about your day.”

This was how they usually began, before they branched off into whatever came to mind.

He didn’t tell her everything.

He really didn’t understand why himself, but he hadn’t spoken to her at all about the Guardians and the Lords of Chaos and the clock. He had mentioned Mr Flowerdew once or twice, but only as the old man who had been a friend of Kate’s grandma.

She accepted the truncated versions of his days without question, although to him it was terribly obvious he was leaving things out. Far stranger though was that she paid the Lightning King no heed at all, although they sometimes sat quite close to him on the shore.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t see him, for David had watched her eyes flicker onto him and then away again, and she wasn’t exactly ignoring him – you could tell when one person was ignoring another on purpose – more that after that first glance he meant no more to her than any one of the pebbles on the shore.

David couldn’t bring himself to ask her about it, afraid of anything that might disturb the dreams.

“My day? Kate and I made some cakes for the school fair on Saturday and …”

The Lightning King was out on the water the next night, idly casting ropes of lightning towards the violet horizon. “I have thought about what you said about the dreams ending,” he said.

David felt as though someone was squeezing his chest in a giant fist. “Yes?”

The King turned and walked to the edge of the lake. “I could help.”

David’s heart leapt. “But how? You said you don’t control the dreams.”

“I don’t. I am not talking about the dreams. You could have your mother back all the time; not just when you’re asleep.”

“I can’t. Don’t you understand? She’s dead.”

“I know that. And she will stay dead if you do what John Flowerdew and his allies wish. Dead forever.” He stopped, head cocked to one side, watching David’s face, waiting for him to realise the importance of what he had not said.

After an age, David spoke. “What happens if I don’t do it?”

“Then time will be freed from its constraints, and the past – all the past – will be here in the present, and your mother will be here, alive, all the time.”

David felt as though he had forgotten how to breathe as he worked to force air in and out of his lungs. He found that he was on his knees on the pebbles, but he couldn’t remember kneeling. The King watched him with detached interest, as though he was a struggling insect.

His breathing grew easier. “If you win, my mum’s alive?” he asked, fearful of the answer.

The King nodded silently and walked off out across the water again. David struggled to his feet and stared after him. He heard the crunch of pebbles under a hiking boot and turned to greet his mother.

Kate tried to wake up, but it was no good; the dream had her, and whichever way she turned Tethys stood before her, barely an arm’s length away, smiling her hungry smile, her wolves beside her. In her wet hands she held a necklace of gold and shimmering stones, whose colours shifted and rippled like the surface of the sea. “Is it not beautiful?”

“Go away! I won’t give you my necklace.”

“But Kate, it is such a small thing to ask for all that I could give in return. We could be like sisters, you and I. Join me in my power … just this one, small thing.”

“No!”

Tethys’ face hardened. “Then I shall give you a demonstration of the power you would cast aside. I will call up a piece of the past … something you will heed.”

She closed her eyes, and a wind roared out of the desert, roared out of nowhere, swirling around them. Her eyes flew open and held Kate’s own.

“Wake!”

Kate sat up with a gasp in bed, alone, of course. She had taken to sleeping with the necklace in its box under her pillow, and felt for it now, to check it was safe. As she did so, there was a soft knock on the door, and her mother’s voice.

“Kate love, are you all right?” The door opened and she saw her mother as an indistinct silhouette in the doorway. “I heard you yelling. Did you have a bad dream?”

“Sorry, I didn’t realise I’d made a noise. I’m fine.”

Her mother came a little further into the room. “Well, if you’re sure …” Without warning she was interrupted by a sound from the street: the sound of howling. Kate froze in horror, eyes wide as her mother crossed to the window and lifted a curtain to look out, apparently unconcerned. “Goodness, what a noise those dogs are making. I wonder who they belong to? I don’t recognise them. You’d almost think they were wolves – they even sound like them. Anyway, they’ve run off up the hill now.’ She twitched the curtain back into place and turned to leave. “Ugh, what’s that? The floor’s all wet.” She turned on the light, and squinting half-blinded, Kate saw a great dark patch on the carpet near the foot of the bed and felt cold with fear.

“Where did this come from?” Her mother looked up at the ceiling. “Kate?”

As she opened her mouth to say something, there was a low growling noise from somewhere outside. It grew steadily louder, until the room seemed to shake and her window rattled in its frame. In the next bedroom she heard Ben yell in fright and start to cry.

Next morning, as they set up their stall at the school fair, much of the talk was of the disturbance that had woken them all during the night. The local news had been full of it this morning –
Earth Tremor Shakes City
– but actual facts were in short supply. Everyone had their own theory.

“I bet it was a gas explosion,” said Karin Griffiths.

“No, that’s too boring,” George Marshall said decisively. “I think Arthur’s Seat’s about to erupt. This is only the beginning.”

“I bet they’ve been testing a secret weapon underground and it’s gone wrong.” George’s brother Sam had stopped on his way past to join in.

“What are you all talking about?” asked David, coming in late.

“The earth tremor, of course.”

“What earth tremor?”

“In Holyrood Park, last night. You must have felt it,” said Kate. “I did, and you live nearer to it than I do.”

“I never noticed a thing.”

“What about your dad?”

“Dunno. He was still asleep when I left.”

“Honestly, David, you’re unbelievable sometimes. You don’t even look interested.”

“I am, I am; I’m not properly awake yet, that’s all.
When did you say it happened?”

“About three o’clock this morning.”

“Have buildings collapsed and everything?”

The others looked a bit crestfallen.

“No. Just some cracked walls and broken windows.”

As they spoke they had been unrolling paper tablecloths over a couple of classroom tables to make them look hygienic.

“Right. Let’s arrange the cakes,” said Karin, ever practical.

By ten o’clock they’d discussed every possible cause of the tremor, and rearranged the cakes for the third time. They had to admit there was nothing more they could do until the fair opened at eleven, so they went back to Kate’s house for a quick snack.

In the kitchen, they fiddled with the radio until it picked up a local station, then waited for a news bulletin.

“… Scientists are urgently seeking an explanation for the series of earth tremors that shook Edinburgh during the night. The tremors were felt over a wide area of the city, but were strongest in and around Holyrood Park. Some nearby houses suffered minor structural damage and have been evacuated as a precaution.

“The Edinburgh Seismic Survey recorded the event, which measured 5.1 on the Richter Scale, making it the strongest tremor ever recorded anywhere in the United Kingdom. Although geologists have known for years that the Central Belt used to be a hot spot for
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, there has been virtually no seismic activity in the region for millions of years, and experts have admitted that this was completely unexpected …”

Kate went cold all over. Millions of years …
I will call up a piece of the past
. What if the past was leaking through, called up by Tethys?

She kicked David under the table, motioned for him to follow her out of the room, and once they were safely in the hall, she told him about the previous night’s dream. “What do you think?” she asked. “It can’t just be a coincidence, can it? I wonder if Mr Flowerdew knows?”

“Of course he will; it sounds as though I’m the only person in Edinburgh who didn’t feel it.”

“Mmmn … I still can’t understand how it could wake us down here, but not you.”

David shrugged. “I suppose I must just have been in a deep sleep.”

“Are you still having your dream? You haven’t mentioned it for a while.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t worry me like it used to. It was just like he said – I faced up to it and it stopped being frightening.”

“Hey, you two, stop whispering,” yelled George, coming out of the kitchen.

“We’d better go back now.”

Kate and David managed to lag behind on the way so that they could carry on their conversation.

“If we are right about the tremor, it must be a bad sign that so may people felt it, mustn’t it? I mean, it’s become real now. The other things that have
happened
have sort of faded away or only affected a few people.

“This must mean the Lords of Chaos are getting stronger, and that means we’ll have to do something soon. Oh David, what’s happening to us?”

They had stopped walking and stood now staring at each other, both truly frightened at last.

He looks ill
, thought Kate.
He’s so pale. Do I look like that? What’s wrong with him?

After they’d cleared up the remains of their stall, which had been stripped bare of cakes – even the really grotty ones – in just over an hour, Kate and David walked along to the newsagent’s. They had to wait while the shopkeeper hustled a teenage girl – homeless by the look of her baggy, tatty clothes – out of the shop before they could buy a copy of
The Edinburgh Evening News
.

The earth tremor was the main story.

They stood in the street heedless of other people, scanning the page, looking for clues, hoping that there would be something to explain it that would fix it firmly in the normal present day, but the article had the opposite effect.

Scientists were baffled. The seismic traces were the sort that would have been typical in the Central Region when its great chain of volcanoes had been active, millions of years before. No one could explain why this had happened now.

“Oh no,” said Kate. “It’s starting to come apart, isn’t
it?”

“Sounds like it,” said David absently, still reading.

They stopped at a call box to telephone Mr Flowerdew and arranged to meet in Luca’s café that afternoon. He was hopeful that Gordon would be there too. He sounded grim.

“Time, as we understand it, is running short. The Lords of Chaos are gathering their strength. Be on your guard.”

They sat at a purple table tucked into a corner and ordered delicious ice creams that they didn’t feel like eating. Gordon was already there when they arrived, looking ill at ease and suddenly much younger without his museum uniform. Mr Flowerdew arrived a few minutes later, looking flustered; something they had never seen before.

“I’m afraid there is no doubt,” he said, “that this tremor is what we feared: evidence of a rip in time. We have no choice but to act in the next few days, or it will be too late. I have been in contact with some of the other Guardians. They are as well prepared as they can be to draw some of the Lords away from this battleground to fight them elsewhere.

“Gordon; how soon can you get the keys that we need to get in to the Hoard?”

“I’m not on until Tuesday morning. I’ll get all the information then, and arrange to swap a night duty with someone.”

“How easy will that be?”

He gave a small smile. “That’s the one bit that will be no problem at all. What night do you want?”

“The longer we delay, the more dangerous things will become. I can be ready for Wednesday.”

“Right. I’ll see to that.”

“Kate, David …” Mr Flowerdew looked at them,
searching
for words. “The need to act has come sooner than I hoped. I am sorry, but there is no help for it. Be dressed and ready at midnight on Wednesday. Watch from a window until you see my car, then come out quickly.”

“But what if someone sees one of us waiting? They’ll never let us go out with you at that time.”

“Don’t worry about that. I can make sure that they sleep soundly throughout that night, and won’t know you’ve gone. If everything goes well, you’ll be back in your beds in a couple of hours, and they’ll never know anything has happened.”

“It’s going to be difficult to do what you need to in the Main Hall without one of the lads walking in on it,” said Gordon.

“That too is something I should be able to control. As Guardians, we have some power over time. When we are in the museum we will be in our own bubble of time, and no one should be aware of us. I wish there was another way though – any interference with the flow of time weakens it; and that makes it easier for Chaos to disrupt it completely.”

“What will happen to us,” said Kate, in a voice that sounded very small, “if things go wrong? Will we die?”

Mr Flowerdew leaned across the table and grasped
her hand briefly and sighed. “No, my dear. If Chaos wins, you can never die, for there will be no future. The flow of time will stop; there will only be the past and the present, swirling together with no end. I am glad that you cannot truly imagine it, for it is terrible beyond words.”

The past and the present, swirling together with no end
. David heard the words and a picture formed in his mind of his mum back with him and his dad again. They would always be together, and all that he had to do was …

“What exactly do we do?” he heard himself ask.

“Gordon, can you let us in at the wheelchair entrance at the rear of the building?”

Gordon nodded. “Shouldn’t be a problem. That’s the best place.”

“Once we are inside we will go together to the Main Hall, and Gordon and I will keep watch while the two of you chain the monkey. Let me see the necklace, Kate.”

She pulled the little box out of the pocket of her fleece and handed it to him.

“It’s changed,” she said.

He took it out and studied it closely.

“Yes,” he said. “Power calls to power. These signs have stayed hidden for many years, but now the chain shows its true nature.”

He showed her how to pull the fine chain back through the fastening ring at each end to make a double loop.

“Once you have it ready like this,” he said, “you must wait for the monkey to let go of the handle.”

“What?” asked David, incredulous.

“But you said it didn’t move,” protested Kate.

“And that was true. But the forces of Chaos will be focused on us, and that will bring the power to such a pitch that she will be able to free herself physically from the mechanism. That is the moment – the
only
moment – at which we can trap her.

“As soon as her paws come off the handle you must slip one of the loops over it and the other over her left paw, then force both paws onto the handle again so that the right one stops the chain slipping off. Do you see?”

They nodded.

“As soon as you have the necklace on her and return her hand to the handle the power we face should diminish. Then Gordon and I will take the hoard from its case and together we will return it to the bottom of Duddingston Loch. And then we shall see if it is enough.”

“Why can’t
you
put the necklace on?” asked Kate.

“When it was made it was
tuned
to your grandmother. Later, when you two were born, it was retuned to the pair of you. Neither one of you can use it on your own; only together can you activate its binding power. In my hands, or Gordon’s or anyone else’s, it is just a piece of jewellery; in yours it becomes a weapon.”

He pushed the box back across the table to Kate, and she put it back into her pocket in silence.

“There is little more that we can do to prepare. It is probably best if we do not meet again before Wednesday night. Gordon, telephone me once you have been to work. We need to know if there is any reason why we cannot act on Wednesday night.”

Gordon nodded.

“I know I am asking a great deal of each of you. I wish it was not necessary. Things may get worse quickly now, and the Lords will redouble their efforts to stop us. Be on your guard.”