Timekeepers: Number 2 in Series (26 page)

‘I’m sorry. It was… necessary.’

Seth grinned, a weak, pale grin. Sam hadn’t realised how much blood they’d both lost, or how tired they both were. ‘Tell them my last breath was something profound.’

‘Sure. It’s been a bad eternity, hasn’t it?’

And Seth died.
No fireworks, no magic
. One second a spark of life, the next second nothing. Sam’s knife was lodged in his brother’s chest. He pulled it free, hands shaking and bloody, but didn’t feel strong enough to hold it. Sam felt as weak as a child, and revolted by the thought of handling weapons ever again. He washed his hands in the water around the key, hardly aware of what he was doing, and sat, staring at the door. Waiting for whatever must happen to happen.

He knew it ought to be over, whatever ‘it’ would later be named by those who cared, but his guts still churned and his fingers tingled. His fingers. His memories. His emptiness, waiting for something to fill it. The Light stirred, eager to oblige.

A voice that was definitely his sighed inside the head that definitely belonged to him,
Oh, do shut up.
He smiled. It was nice to know there was still something inside.

The door opened. Jehovah stared down at him sadly. Tinkerbell stood behind him. ‘Hi,’ murmured Sam, just for something to say.

Without a word Jehovah stepped to the edge of the pool, glanced at the key on the pedestal, and ignored it. Tinkerbell helped Sam stagger to his feet. Sam sheathed his sword and dagger, and leant against the nearest wall as if it was all that stood between him and a collapse. ‘We won, did we?’

‘Not yet,’ murmured Jehovah, and for the first time glanced down at Seth’s small, insignificant body. One more in the masses. ‘Pandora is fading, though.’

‘Is it? I hardly noticed. Though I do hope I’ve managed to bugger things up for you.’

They said not a word as they helped him hobble through the corridors. The pain of the fight was starting to tell, but he ignored it. He felt too tired to do anything about it and, besides, what were regenerative trances for? They took him to the dome, and he looked up at the face on the ceiling. The woman’s eyes were closed, but someone had drawn in a few tears, and she definitely looked unhappy. ‘Hi. Miss me?’ he asked it.

The face didn’t move.

Jehovah gently guided Sam to the centre of the room and eased him on to his knees. He was wearing a kind, fatherly expression.

‘I won, right? We can stop now. It’s over.’

‘No. You were two inches short.’

‘Seth is dead, Odin is dying. What are two inches here or there?’

‘The catapults are going quiet. The order has been put out to cease fighting. You’ve saved thousands of lives without noticing what you did.’

‘I won.’

‘No. Two inches, Sam, two inches.’

Sam looked round the dome at the empty walls, at Jehovah standing by his side, at Tinkerbell sitting quietly by Odin’s body, and back down to the floor. ‘I just want to sleep.’

‘Soon, brother, soon.’

‘Two inches, right? The two inches I needed to kill Thor, Cronus’s last disciple?’

‘Those are the ones.’

He looked at the doorway ahead. ‘He’s in those corridors?’

‘Probably leaning over Seth’s body as we speak. He hid as we passed him. Didn’t you sense anything?’

‘No.’ Sam stared round the room once more, as though trying to familiarise himself with it again. ‘How long?’ he asked wearily.

‘I’d give him five minutes to fight through the minimal defence that stands between him and Cronus.’

‘What if it doesn’t work? What if I don’t destroy Cronus?’

Jehovah shrugged. ‘We have to hope. Cronus, you see, isn’t exactly the end of the universe. Just of
our
universe. Really, if he does win it’s nothing to be afraid of.’

Sam smiled faintly, but his voice caught in his throat. ‘Please don’t do this.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘I am.’

‘Then don’t… then… stop…’ His voice faded away, but his smile, automatic, fixed, as if he’d been caught that way when the wind changed, remained. In a whisper that seemed to take all the strength out of him he murmured, ‘I didn’t even get a last meal.’

‘You will discharge, then?’

‘You know I will. You’ve known all along, even if I haven’t.’

In this quiet,
thought Sam,
you could hear a mouse fart.
‘By the way, Seth said something profound when he died.’

‘Really? What?’

‘I can’t remember. Not on such short notice. Ask me in a few minutes, when I’ve had time to think about it.’

Silence. Then, ‘I’ve got a Mars bar, if you want it,’ said Jehovah.

‘You call that a last meal?’

‘Better than sausage, egg and chips.’

Sam hesitated. ‘Yeah, I suppose so. All right, give it here.’ Jehovah fumbled in a pocket and Sam took the slightly spongy, melted chocolate bar. His hands trembled so much as he tried to get off the wrapper that Jehovah held out his hands to help him, but Sam waved him away and with his teeth managed to tear a way in.

‘Keep the wrapper,’ said Sam. ‘If I’m lucky some occultist somewhere might preserve it as a holy artefact and mass-produce postcards of it for the especially pious.’

‘Might be a little easy to forge.’

‘You mean, as compared to forging a lump of wood from a crucifix, feather from the angel Gabriel, bone from a saint or stick from a burning bush?’

‘At least I have holy relics in variety.’

‘Really? Oh well, I can’t be outdone by my own brother. Do you have a bottle of water I can drink from or possibly a flower I can torture in a particularly religious way? The holy Evian bottle, for which knights can go questing for in years to come, perhaps? Non-biodegradable. Could be a hit.’

No answer. Sam stared at the floor, his taut, hysterical voice silenced as the thoughts that he refused to think intruded again. ‘How will we know?’

‘We’ll know.’

‘Please…’

‘No. What must happen will happen.’

‘No back-up plans?’

‘Not this time. You’re very good at ruining the best laid plans of mice, men and monsters.’

‘The plans of mice are too shallow, the plans of men are too obvious, the plans of monsters are too vulgar,’ he replied firmly, waving a finger in the air. ‘And the plans of deities suffer from arrogance.’ Silence. ‘Where’s Thor now?’

‘I don’t know. Congratulating himself on a job well done, I expect.’

‘Will he release Cronus? What if he smells a rat?’

‘He’ll release Cronus,’ said Jehovah wearily. ‘Deities are arrogant.’

‘And monsters are vulgar,’ agreed Sam.

‘And relics are easy to forge.’

‘Although carbon dating has its uses.’

‘No one can ever be bothered.’

‘True.’

Silence. ‘Brother…’ said Jehovah suddenly.

Sam raised a hand. ‘Listen,’ he whispered.

They listened. Nothing. ‘Brother, I’m sorry,’ said Jehovah. ‘For everything.’

‘You said.’

‘There is a chance,’ breathed Jehovah, so quietly that even Sam had to strain. ‘A miracle.’

‘I can’t make miracles when I’m dead,’ replied Sam, without malice or bitterness.

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

Sam glanced up at him. Then, ‘Call for Time, when it’s over. Call him into your soul, let him possess you.’

‘Why?’

‘Please.’

‘All right.’

Silence. Then, ‘Listen,’ whispered Sam. Jehovah rose to his feet, leaving Sam still kneeling, a tiny figure in a room too large for him. Sam turned his emotionless eyes up to him. ‘Tell them I said something not only profound, but corny too.’ He frowned slightly. ‘Freya…’ he began.

‘Listen,’ whispered Jehovah, raising a finger to his lips. And now they heard it. A sound like… children laughing. Like wings in an empty sky. Like thunder, heard far off. Like the clatter of a small bell falling to the floor.

‘As for my off-the-record statement,’ continued Sam, wide eyes staring towards the door. ‘I have one word.’

A cold wind, rising from everywhere, tearing at hair and clothes, making pale skin paler. Sam rose from his knees, opening his arms out as though to embrace the world. His hands shook, he could hardly support himself, there were tears in his eyes and terror in his pale, pale face. ‘Bugger,’ he explained softly, as the world filled with the roar of an awakening god.

Every torch in the dome winked out, leaving Sam in darkness. He smiled. Darkness, like a lot of things, was breakable.

T
here had only been one discharge like it ever before, when young Sam, in search of the truth about his parents, had put on a silver crown in the Room of Clocks, and become the Bearer of Light.

This time, however, the Light had purpose.

On Earth they called it atmospheric disturbance, and in a few months to come an
X-Files
episode was based on it, in which not only did the protagonists prove conclusively the existence of witches, but the cast and crew got to go to France for the filming. In Hell the demons bowed down and begged for mercy. In Heaven, Loki looked up from the corner of his dark cage, and laughed like a child as the Light poured over him.

In Tartarus, Sam searched and found the mind of Cronus. It was small, he realised, made smaller by a few billion years with only itself for company, plotting and scheming and railing against Time, all to no avail. He searched, focused, and didn’t need to do any more. The Light was already reaching, digging, searching for the right way to destroy this enemy. All Sam had to do was let it run, run out of control, pulling more and more minds into a whirlpool of power that sucked him and Cronus down into it.

No sensations, but that of thought. No smell, no taste, no touch. Just the ever-growing tide of minds, mounting like a mighty wave behind a floodgate, building up behind his mind, ready to smash the gates open and hit Cronus with all it had. Not his mind, any more. Their mind. He was just a memory left behind, one they all shared. It was the memory that held them back, not the man.

I could have offered you everything. I can still
, whispered Cronus. The voice was everywhere, filling nothingness with sound. It was as kind and as fatherly as he’d always imagined Time’s voice would sound, right up to the point where he’d heard it. It was the most musical and compassionate voice he’d ever heard. But he wasn’t in charge. Not any more. Somewhere the mind of Sam Linnfer drifted, a tiny blot. And somewhere nearby the mind of Time himself also moved, no more significant than Sam’s, no less. They spoke, and the world spoke as one with them. No individuals, just a huge personality formed of a huge number of personalities turning and fixing its full attention on the voice. On Cronus.

What could you possibly offer Us?
 

Freedom. Peace. Conclusion.
 

There is no conclusion. We are the intention and the act, the strength and the weakness, the light and the dark, the individual and the whole. We are life. You are nothing.
 

Lucifer, why do you hide?
 

The spark that was a name hears you.
 

He controls you.
 

Nothing controls Us. We are life. We are the power that finds a way, we end Greater Powers. For they are part of us. And we are everything to them.
 

If Lucifer can hear me, as I know he can, he should know that he owes no allegiance to his father. His father will see him die. His father will hurt him. His father has hurt him already. Expressions bound to Time, Time bound to him, eternity of imprisonment. Has, had, will. It is all he knows. He is afraid of change.
 

We are afraid of nothing.
 

You are afraid of me.
 

You are afraid of Us. We are life. You are not-being.
 

Time is death. He is your undoing.
 

Death is freedom. We are being. It is better that being and freedom should work together than that not-being should overrule us.
 

Where is Lucifer?
 

No names. Not any more. A spark hides inside the whole, more afraid than Us all. The spark knows. The spark knows of Us and of you and of life and of death. We do not. The spark is frightened of what it knows. If knowledge scares the spark more than ignorance, then it is rational to desire that ignorance and innocence which it has lost.
 

You are afraid.
 

Always.
 

You cannot destroy me. You are life. Life cannot destroy.
 

Life finds a way. Life overrules. You are not-being. We are everything. You will become a part of Us. A spark. Nothing more.
 

Life has not the power.
 

Life ends and creates life. Life is everything.
 

Where is Lucifer?
 

The spark has forgotten its name. It is safe, while it forgets. It is free.
 

You dare not.
 

Always.
 

You cannot.
 

Always.
 

You will not.
 

Always.
 

Where is Lucifer? He controls you. He cannot deny me!
 

The spark hides within Us. The spark knew you’d come, and was afraid. The spark hides among the Many. The spark will not listen. The spark has forgotten how to listen, rather than hear you. You are nothing. We will prove it so.
 

You are not free.
 

Nor are you. But unlike you, We will endure.
 

Life cannot kill! Only Time can! He cannot beat me!
 

We can beat you. It is arrogance to assume otherwise.
 

You dare not.
 

Always. And for ever. And together. We are everything. You are nothing. We made you what you are. We made Time. We made Love, Hate, Greed, Suspicion, War, Peace, Envy, devils and angels, gods and goddesses, hopes and dreams and futures and pasts – and more. And all. We are life.
 

Lucifer.
 

The spark is gone.
 

Lucifer.
 

The spark is hiding. It will not hear you.
 

He hears me whether he wants to or not. He is an individual.
 

Not any more. No individuals. Just Us. What was a One is now a Many. The spark is gone. We are the whole and the individual. We are One. We are Many.
 

He is at your head. He leads you. Lucifer.
 

The spark is gone.
 

Lucifer.
 

Gone.
 

Lucifer.
 

Gone!
 

Lucifer!
 

Gone! Leave me alone, gone, leave me alone, gone!
 

You cannot deny me!
 

Leavemealoneleavemealoneleavemealoneleavemealone
…
 

Lucifer. Lucifer? Lucifer!
 

Gone. Never there. We are the intention and the act, the strength and the weakness, the light and the dark, the individual and the whole. We are life. You are nothing. And there will be ‘ands’ and ‘nows’ and ‘tomorrows’. We have ordained it.
 

Lucifer.
 

Gone. We are life. And we will have conclusion.
 

Lucifer
…
 

Gone.
 

In a small hall in a small city in a small country in a small world, a small figure kneeling on a hard floor jerked as if pulled on strings, head tilting up and back. Its eyes were closed, and around it floated a still sea of burning bright light. The same burning bright light that covered the small world, and the small world a shadow’s throw from it, and the small world a shadow from that world, and everything between and beyond. It shimmered like water. The universe held its breath.

The Light faded, darkness returned. Nothing happened. But somewhere on the edge of hearing, a tiny little voice, whispering to an empty world.

We are the intention and the act, the strength and the weakness, the light and the dark, the individual and the whole, the magic and
…
and
…
the miracle
…
and
…

Leavemealoneleavemealoneleavemealoneleavemealone.
 

Lucifer
…
 

Gone
…
 

The tiny figure in a tiny world opened its white eyes and smiled a tiny, relieved smile as every strand of black hair began to turn white.

Lucifer
…
 

Gone
…
 

The jet of white light erupted out from his heart, out-shining stars, as pale and cold as moonlight, but so bright that those who looked too close were blinded by it. It shot towards the darkness of a doorway, struck more darkness which occupied, for just a second, a terribly human shape twisted into something vile. The Light was silent, focused into a beam no wider than a heart and, after an eternity blasting at nothing, winked out. Measurable eternity, seconds, minutes, hours, days, years…

Lucifer
…
 

Gone. Just like you.
 

Lucifer
…
 

Gone. It’s been a bad day, month, year, decade, century, millennium.
 

You’re slipping, Sebastian
…
 

Poisons in the blood
…
 

And me.
 

And me.
 

And me.
 

And me.
 

No escape.
 

Not even the magic
…
 

…
and the miracle
…

Poisons in the blood.
 

Lucifer.
 

Gone, slipping, drowning, darkness, poison, slipping, freedom, gone
…
 

Lucifer.
 

Gone. Only the Father, the second, minute, hour, day, year, millennium, life, being, existence, death
…
 

Lucifer.
 

…
please don’t do this
…

Lucifer.
 

…
the
…
the intention and the act, the
…
strength and
…
and the weakness, the
…
the magic
…
the miracle
…
the magic
…
the
…
the miracle
…

Somewhere, in a small patch of darkness surrounded by fire and light, a tiny figure smiled at nothing, white hair falling loosely around his white face with its white eyes, and pitched forward.

Another figure rushed forward, dark as the power that gave him life, kneeling over the fallen body, calling names. Lucifer, Satan, Luke, Sam, Sebastian, remember, I am, you are, he is, she is, you are an individual…

…
the second, minute, hour, day, year, millennium, life, being, existence, death
…

A second figure, all grace and reserve, glides out of the shadows, kneeling down next to Sam’s fallen body and gently lays a hand on the pulse. Nothing. He puts his ear above Sam’s mouth and looks down the line of his chest. Nothing. Nodding, as if he’s just been satisfied of something he already knew, he waves everyone else aside, and puts his hands over Sam’s face, as if covering it from the world.

‘You won, brother,’ he murmurs. Magic grows up around his fingers.

There is a chance. Call for Time, when it’s over. Call him into your soul.
 

Why?
 

Please.
 

Magic building, mind changing. Jehovah straightened, his eyes two translucent spheres, and looked round the room as though for the first time. Then, very slowly, face impassive, he raised his hands to his ears.

Things have reached conclusion. Rest. Freedom. Not alone, just not together. Never alone. Not any more.
 

Sam? Sam, what have you done?
 

In a tiny city on a tiny world a tiny figure leant over a tiny body, took hold of the man’s limp wrist and whispered,
I hear you.

I hear you too
…
 

Where are you?
 

Everywhere.
 

Come home.
 

How?
 

I will show you the way.
 

Gone. No more. Not alone, just not together. Never alone. Not any more, it’s been a bad day week month go away leave me alone year decade please don’t do this century poisons in the blood millennium
…
 

You’re slipping, Sebastian.
 

Not even the magic can hold me up.
 

We are the magic and the miracle.
 

I will show you the way.
 

Call him into your soul.
 

Not even magic
…
 

…
perhaps Time?

Somewhere, Jehovah smiled. ‘You clever bastard,’ he whispered, before pitching forward to the floor beside Sam and leaving the Many screaming their delight.

We are the intention and the act, the strength and the weakness, the light and the dark, the individual and the whole, the magic and the miracle.
 

Lucifer, where are you going? Why do you hide?