Cowl

6

Traveller Thote:

The temporally active scales the beast drops, which Maxell named tors, it guards until they are taken up by a suitably vulnerable individual. Usually this person will be someone who would have died, so the beast is naturally attracted to events in recorded history where it can easily select its candidates. By this means it creates a lesser paradox to affect its own position on the probability slope. Already it has initiated three torbearers in Pompeii just before the eruption of Vesuvius, two from Nagasaki, and three hunters who had the misfortune to be in the Tunguska River valley in 1908. It is impossible for us to detect these initiations until they are made in the time-line concurrent for both Cowl and us, thereafter the torbearers become increasingly difficult to detect as they are dragged back through time. But once they are located in time, it is then only a matter of how much energy we are prepared to expend to get to them. And get to some of them we shall, for they may be our only access to Cowl.

Polly gazed at a huge house, glimpsed through the trees, with bustling activity all around it: people disembarking from carts or dismounting, grooms leading their horses away, groups of others standing chatting—colourful fabrics bright in the sunshine.

You’ve moved in space as well as time. You earlier shifted just outside this place and it has taken some hours of travel to reach it again.

Ignoring Nandru, she asked, ‘King Henry VIII lives here?’

‘Oh dear, you have not travelled much in our fair country have you?’ replied Berthold. ‘This is one of our King’s hunting lodges. He is here for the stag and boar, and for all-night drinking and tupping—as a rest from his toils in our great city of London.’

Mellor grunted contemptuously, ‘Toils,’ and spat over the side of the wagon.

Then again, it would be surprising had you not moved in space as well as time. I have to wonder how the scale puts you down so gently on the Earth’s surface, considering that not only is the planet revolving, as it hurtles around the sun, but it’s precessing and wobbling at the same time. Just thinking about the calculations involved would make my head ache. Had I a head…

‘Nandru, just shut up, will you?’ Polly replied subvocally, wondering if it was just her imagination that Nandru seemed to be displaying a babbling nervousness at the prospect of encountering such a famous historical figure.

As Berthold drove the wagon out from the woodland, four guards wearing steel breastplates and helmets over padded clothing stepped out onto the track ahead. Two of them bore pikes and the other two carried crossbows. One of the latter, who wore a brocaded velvet jacket over his breastplate and a sword at his hip, held up his hand until Berthold drew the wagon to a halt. ‘Get down from there. I’ll not crick my neck to just speak to the likes of you,’ he ordered.

Berthold leapt down, swept off his hat and bowed. ‘Good Captain, we are here at the express invitation of Thomas Cromwell, the Earl of Essex himself. Myself having entertained him in the Saracen’s Head in Chelmsford, he thought my skill sufficient to have me perform before His Majesty.’

The captain withdrew a thick sheaf of paper from a leather wallet at his belt. ‘Name,’ he demanded.

Watching this exchange, Polly realized that over the centuries it was only the clothing of tinpot officials that changed.

‘I am the amazing Berthold, premier juggler and entertainer, whose stunning verse may draw a tear or arouse laughter, and whose fame spreads far and wide!’

The captain merely raised an eyebrow and continued checking his lists.

Berthold glanced back at Mellor. ‘Some pies and bread, I think.’

Mellor reached behind him to pull out the food sack. After groping inside he tossed a couple of meat pies to Berthold, who caught them and began juggling them so deftly they appeared to be turning a circle in the air without his hands ever touching them. Mellor then tossed a third pie, which joined the wheel of food turning before Berthold. All the other guards were now watching with evident appreciation, and one of them guffawed loudly when Berthold momentarily diverted one of the pies to take a bite out of it.

‘Have you ever seen such skill? But this is nothing. My lovely assistant Poliasta, who comes from the Far East, where I learnt my trade under the rigorous eyes of a great wizard, will now join me, and together we shall give you a show!’

Polly’s stomach lurched, not at being given a name that sounded like a wall covering, but at the prospect of bringing herself into notice. However, she had not expected to be fed for free so felt she must at least make an effort. Quickly she shed her greatcoat, accepted the food bag Mellor was thrusting at her, and leapt down from the wagon. The guards, who had clearly never seen a woman so strangely dressed, nor with unmarked skin — their own was as pock-marked as Mellor’s and Berthold’s—stood and gaped at her. She noticed the gaze of one straying to the scale on her arm, and wondered if this was such a good idea.

‘An apple would clear the palate of the clag from so many pies,’ suggested Berthold.

Reaching into the bag, Polly took out the required fruit. ‘Here is an apple for the amazing Berthold,’ she proclaimed, tossing the wizened fruit gently towards him.

‘Thank you, my lady Poliasta.’ The apple joined the turning circle as smoothly as the third pie had done. He took a bite out of it, then a bite out of another pie so that his cheeks were bulging and food spilling out of his mouth. This was high comedy to the guards, and even the captain was showing signs of amusement now.

‘Now, sir, if you would hand the Lady Poliasta your dagger?’

The captain’s humour disappeared for a moment, till he glanced at his armed colleagues and saw little harm in such a request. Shrugging, he drew the blade, flipped it over, and held it out hilt first to Polly. Taking the weapon, Polly felt immediately doubtful, as it was very heavy.

‘Like the apple,’ Berthold prompted her.

Out of the corner of her eye Polly could see several of the nobility approaching, but all her concentration was focused on throwing him the dagger. She turned it so as to reach him hilt first, but miscalculated when she threw. The dagger turned in the air and dropped low to one side of him. But, professional that he was, Berthold stooped and caught it effortlessly, and set it spinning in the midst of the never-faltering wheel, now comprised of three pies and an apple. He too, Polly noticed, had obviously spotted the approaching group, and now began to up the ante. Polly saw how the guards bowed and moved aside. The dress of the nobility looked fantastical to her: so layered in rich fabrics were the men that their bodies appeared ridiculously huge over their unpadded stockinged legs. The women’s clothing was more understated and to Polly seemed almost suited to a nunnery. But there was power here—she recognized it in the arrogance of expression and pose.

‘Let us test the edge of your dagger, sir.’

Polly stared as Berthold briefly snatched the dagger and flicked out with it. The apple was now gyrating in two halves, and his hand movements were becoming ever more complicated. He juggled for a while behind his back, took another bite of pie, then stuffed one apple half into his mouth.

‘Mffofle gloff floggle,’ he muttered through a mouth crammed full.

He had been feigning not to see the presence of the new arrivals as he tossed the various items ever higher. Then pretending to notice them, with a parody of startlement, the chewed food exploded from his mouth.

‘Your majesty!’ He bowed dramatically low. The dagger went whickering aside to stab into the ground between the captain’s feet, and one after another the three pies then the remaining half apple thumped onto the back of Berthold’s lowered head. The response from the central figure of the finely dressed crowd was a wheezy laugh followed by limp applause from his beringed fat hands. The rest of the group applauded sycophantically. Polly stared up at the huge man for a second, then quickly bowed her head. Mellor had climbed down from the wagon to make obeisance as well.

‘So the amazing Berthold has arrived,’ rumbled King Henry VIII. ‘I see the measure of your report does not overextend itself, Cromwell.’

Polite laughter greeted this quip.

‘Let you, King, look again on the visage of one who is a king of laughter.’

Keeping her own head bowed, Polly observed Berthold straighten up. His hair and beard were dusted with crumbs.

‘Well done,’ said the King, looming over Berthold.

‘Your Majesty is too kind,’ said Berthold, then clamped his mouth shut as Henry moved past as if the juggler hadn’t spoken.

‘And what is this gracious face?’

The beringed hand caught Polly’s chin and put gentle pressure under it to bring her head up. She didn’t know who the question was directed at so, like Berthold, kept her mouth shut. The King looked her up and down, his attention mainly focusing on how amply she filled her blouse.

Don’t lose your head over this guy, Nandru snickered.

‘If he calls me a “pretty little thing” I swear I’ll kick him in the nuts, Polly snarled.

Finally dragging his gaze from Polly’s breasts, the monarch glanced over his shoulder. ‘Cromwell?’

A bulky man, who, amongst all this noble finery, appeared like an obese vulture, stepped from the respectful position he had held a pace back from the King. ‘No doubt a new member of Berthold’s troupe, my prince.’ Thomas Cromwell then turned to Berthold. ‘What say you, fool?’

‘The Lady Poliasta has only recently joined us on our journey of entertainment and joy, my lord. She came to us from the Far East and knows many of the wiles and diversions of the Orient.’

‘I shall be glad to know more of them, I think,’ said Henry, his gaze once again resting on Polly’s bust.

Well, they do say yours is the oldest profession.

‘One I no longer intend to pursue,’ Polly subvocalized angrily.

The King released her chin and moved on. ‘One ryal, I should think, for this brief entertainment, Cromwell?’

The Earl of Essex delved into his pouch and passed a coin across to Berthold. As the entertainer took it and bowed, Cromwell frowned at him briefly before moving on after the King. Soon the entire group of nobles had departed in the direction of the house.

‘I’ll show you where you may encamp, then where you may break your fast,’ advised the captain, who was holding his dagger and eyeing it speculatively. ‘And tonight you will be most careful with any dagger you might use, else you might find yourself juggling with the sharp end of a crossbow bolt.’

Still gazing with reverence at the coin resting in his grubby palm, Berthold did not even hear the threat.

Her arm was charred to the bone and on that side of her body the skin of her neck was severely blistered and leaking plasma. Her male comrade thrust his hands into their mantisal’s inner eyes and the creature violently shifted through colourless void. Making small whimpering sounds, the woman pulled a flat oval of metal from the pouch on her belt, and pressed the object against her neck burns. Immediately she sighed with relief and relaxed, before more closely studying her damaged arm. After a moment she abruptly thrust it outside the confines of the mantisal’s glassy structure, and from it a contrail of red cut across the colourless space. When she pulled back, the entire charred portion of her arm was gone, right up to her biceps.

The two of them now conferred, and Tack understood none of it. All he imagined was that they were a greater danger to him than Traveller.

‘Where are you taking me?’ he hazarded asking.

The man glared at him. ‘What is your name, primitive?’

‘Tack.’

‘Well, Tack, I am called Coptic and my partner is Meelan. Now, with those introductions over, you will remain silent until we directly address you. Any disobedience will be punished severely.’

Tack nodded, his mouth clamped shut.

As Coptic and Meelan returned to their conversation, it swiftly devolved into an argument in which Coptic apparently prevailed. A moment later, reality crept back in all around them. With warm drizzle misting all the mantisal’s surfaces, thick subtropical greenery came into view below a leaden sky, forest reared to one side, and an inky lake spread on the other. In the forest some large beast issued a deep booming bark, and this seemed to decide Coptic, who was already gazing out at the damp vista with distaste. This reality jerked away as the mantisal turned back into the between space. Then, after a second, another one folded into place.

Once again they were beside a lake, but now the sky was a clear amethyst dotted with dawn stars and the moon was ascending. There was no forest, just dense greenery covering the ground below the black skeletons of trees. This vista stretched away into shadow for as far as Tack could see, only relieved by the occasional stone outcrop. Greenery also extended across much of the lake’s surface, in the form of huge lily pads centre-nailed by blowsy yellow flowers.

‘Out,’ Coptic ordered.

Tack did not hesitate, moving to a gap in the mantisal’s structure and dropping to the ground. Immediately he found himself up to his chest in vegetation, and his skin crawled when he heard an insectile scuttling near his feet. Looking towards the lake, he saw the reflected glitter of eyes from bulky shapes resting in the water, and it occurred to him that his seeker gun might now be a million years away from him.

Coptic and Meelan disembarked together, then the mantisal floated higher like some strange and gigantic Christmas decoration, before turning itself out of that world.

‘You go there, ahead of us,’ Coptic told Tack, gesturing towards one of the rocky outcrops, then turning to pick up Meelan and following as Tack forged a path. Glancing back again at the water, with his eyes adjusting to the the dearth of light, Tack saw that the wallowing creatures resembled hornless rhino, and were grazing on the plentiful waterweed. That they plainly weren’t carnivorous was no comfort, since the deinotherium they had earlier encountered had been a herbivore. Obviously a vegetarian diet did not necessarily guarantee an even temper or a convivial nature.

‘Just watch where you’re going,’ said Coptic. ‘Moeritherium are only dangerous if you get between them and the water — they’ll not come out of there after you.’

Moeritherium?

Tack wanted to know how these two had so quickly acquired his language, to the extent that they could easily name varieties of prehistoric beast in it. And he wanted to know what they intended for him—and if he might survive it. Soon he reached the edge of the vegetation and climbed up onto an expanse of mossy stone. Coptic followed him, setting the incapacitated Meelan down on her feet again, then shed the pack he was wearing and opened it up. Tack noted that its contents were much the same as Traveller’s, and guessed they must derive from the same time.

Coptic removed a heat-sheet sleeping bag and unrolled it over a level area coated in a thick blanket of dark green moss. Without a word, Meelan climbed inside the bag. Once she was comfortable, Coptic keyed a control on the oval object attached to her throat. She sighed and instantly lost consciousness. Coptic now took a box from his pack and, with the various implements it contained, set to work on Meelan’s injuries. Squatting nearby, Tack watched the big man trim back her arm stump until he reached white bone and bleeding flesh. A pumping artery he closed with a small clip, before sealing the whole stump under some sort of spray-on dressing that set in a hard white nub. The other lesser-degree burns running from the arm up to her neck, he now revealed by cutting away her clothing, then he covered the area with another spray that set in a pink skin. Finally satisfied with his work, he rocked back on his heels and gazed at her intently.

It struck Tack that Coptic was contemptuous of him, for during this entire procedure the man had not looked round once. But judging by the man’s abilities, perhaps he had that right. Tack turned away and stared towards the imminent sunrise.

Abruptly Coptic swivelled, stood, and walked over to him. ‘Come with me.’

He led the way to a jut of crystalline stone rising a couple of metres high at the end of the outcrop and, gripping him by one shoulder, pulled Tack up beside him so they both stood before this glittering face. Coptic then reached out and pressed the flat of his hand against the surface, which immediately took on a strange translucence. Something like a tangle of tubes—some complex mechanism—came out from the depths of stone and seemed to bond to Coptic’s hand. Then slowly a face became visible behind this—a woman bearing characteristics similar to those of Traveller and both Tack’s kidnappers. She spoke, obviously angry as she berated Coptic in their staccato language.

Coptic turned to Tack. ‘Hold up your arm.’

Tack obeyed and observed the avidity in the woman’s expression when she saw the band around his wrist. Coptic’s riposte was brief and at the end of it he gestured to where Meelan lay. The woman in the rock dipped her head in acknowledgement, said something more, then faded. Back by the fire, Coptic stared into the flames for some time, then with a hint of suspicion glanced at the rock before speaking.

‘The one you name “Traveller” killed Brayak and Solenz, which is the inevitable result of a violent encounter between a heliothant of his status and low-breed umbrathant,’ he stated flatly.

Tack remained silent, having not yet been given permission to speak. He guessed who the two named were, for it hadn’t escaped his notice that four individuals had originally disembarked from the mantisal they had used to get here.

‘Such is natural law,’ Coptic added. ‘But we are high-breed Umbrathane and shall prevail. And when Cowl sweeps the Heliothane from the main line, we shall travel to him beyond the Nodus to be at one with the new kind.’

Who, Tack wondered, was this man really addressing his words to? It seemed to Tack that Coptic was speaking accepted doctrine because he thought the woman in the rock might still, somehow, be listening.

‘You may speak,’ said Coptic unexpectedly.

‘What do you want of me?’ Tack asked him.

Coptic nodded slowly. ‘We detected only the travel of a heliothant through interspace, so sought to sabotage whatever plans the Heliothane might have. But now we have you and the means of learning some things Cowl would not allow us.’ He gestured to the ring around Tack’s wrist. ‘No doubt the Heliothane themselves sought to assassinate Cowl. But they would not have succeeded—they are low-breed by comparison.’

‘So, like Traveller, it is only the tor you really want?’

‘Tors he allows us, when he brings us to him.’ Coptic stared at him. ‘From the one that is growing on your arm, and about which he knows nothing, we can learn a great deal.’

So, despite their doctrine, there was little trust between Cowl and the Umbrathane.

‘You say that you are an “Umbrathane”, and that Traveller is a “Heliothane”. Are these two warring factions in the future? What are you trying to achieve?’

‘You will now remain silent,’ said Coptic.

Tack nodded and turned away, watching the sun finally breach the horizon.

Using the sensor’s facility for penetrative scan, the watcher tracked the girl inside the house to its kitchens, then through boiling steamy chaos observed her sating her ravenous appetite. The travelling entertainer, Berthold, had set up camp on one of the big house’s lawns, where the staff and servants of the various nobles here were also encamped. The watcher now tracked the girl, Polly, out of the house to where she helped erect the awning that extended from one side of the wagon, and under which she had slept like a corpse the night before—though a corpse, it had to be noted, with its hand on the automatic under its greatcoat. Afterwards, at Berthold’s insistence, Polly practised his act with him.

‘Do you mind me doing this, Mellor?’ Polly asked after Berthold, satisfied with the way she threw him objects, and her ridiculous prancing around him as he juggled them, had gone off to chat to the men in a neighbouring encampment.

‘Not really.’ Mellor grinned at her with bad teeth, then held up his hands and wriggled his fingers. ‘Gettin’ stiff as dead rabbits nowadays, and someone who looks like you do should help pull in the shillings.’

‘But I won’t be around for long.’

Mellor gaped at her. ‘What you gonna do then?’

The watcher knew, and wondered just how Polly intended to explain herself. Already she must be feeling the pull from her tor, and must be preventing it from dragging her downtime at that moment.

‘It seems I have a journey to make,’ Polly replied.

‘Where?’

The girl did not know, could not know, and the watcher pitied her.

Polly said to Mellor, ‘I don’t know yet, but I do know that when I assist Berthold tonight it will be for the one and only time. Then I will be moving on.’

‘Oh.’ The old man appeared genuinely disappointed. The unseen observer supposed he had been relishing the new-found prospect of a life of ease and pheasant pies. Then scanning forward to evening, as nothing of note seemed to be happening, this watcher observed the King’s hunting party return: all those richly clad men on their richly caparisoned horses, a chaos of hounds milling about below mud-spattered hooves, and servants trotting along behind with cut larch poles bearing the blood-dripping kills. The womenfolk came out of the house to greet the returning hunters and to congratulate them shrilly on their successful venture. The scene was bright and gay and appropriate to its time, and hopefully appreciated by Polly, what with all she would suffer soon enough. Smiling then, enclosed in living glass, the watcher observed Polly giggling on seeing Berthold dressed up in his diamond-patterned suit, silver bells and ridiculous footwear with turned-up toes. It wasn’t enough, could never be enough. It was like seeing a child walk smiling into a bear pit.

After sunrise the moeritherium departed the lake to graze their way through the thick surrounding vegetation, mooing and grumbling as they went. They passed close by, but their only reaction to the three humans was to pause while they chewed and peered up with close-set eyes, before snorting and moving on. Seeing these creatures’ continual munching reminded Tack of his own hunger, and he wondered if Coptic would ever bother to feed his prisoner.

‘There is food in the pack,’ said Coptic later, but only when the sun was high. All morning the man had been sitting utterly still and silent in a lotus position, next to Meelan. ‘And I would appreciate coffee now. If there is anything there you do not know how to use, you are permitted to ask me how it functions.’

Being already familiar with the contents of Traveller’s pack, Tack found himself some food and the makings of coffee, and had only a little trouble setting up the small electric stove. Taking up a collapsible water container, he folded it open and stood dutifully waiting until Coptic looked his way.

‘Proceed.’ Coptic gestured irritably towards the lake.

From their outcrop Tack walked back along the trail crushed by the moeritherium herd. As he stooped down by the water’s edge, he became aware that if he wanted to escape now was the time, since Coptic, though possessed of superhuman speed, might not be prepared to leave Meelan’s side. But what would he be escaping to—a lonely, possibly all too brief life in a prehistoric wilderness? For he had no idea how to summon a mantisal. After filling the container, he returned to the outcrop, where Meelan was now sitting up and looking much healthier.

Ignoring the muttered conversation of the other two, Tack filled a kettle and set it on the stove, and while watching it, sought to untangle his confusion. Though Traveller had reset Tack’s loyalty, the man had left him greater free will than he had previously experienced. Working for U-gov, Tack never had the time or inclination to consider his life as a whole. He had been nothing but an organic machine, but now he had acquired a wider compass. Now he genuinely wanted to know more about the workings of his surrounding world, to participate fully, to experience and to truly feel. To fulfil this hazy aspiration he must be free; freedom from programming and the will of others must now be his ultimate goal.

The three of them drank coffee and ate some of the supplies in the pack, while cautiously observing the nearby wending progress of three large bovids. These strange creatures bore a resemblance to both oxen and deer, but could not be firmly identified as either. Tack knew that with Traveller he could have satisfied his curiosity, but not with his present companions. Their repast finished, Coptic instructed Tack to put all the implements away and take up the pack. As with Traveller before them, Tack must act the beast of burden, though he suspected Traveller regarded him as somewhat less of a beast than did Coptic and Meelan. At the lake’s shore the mantisal again folded into existence in response to some inaudible instruction. They embarked, Coptic once again piloting the bioconstruct, and instantly fell into achromatic void.

Upon entering the hot and noisy banqueting hall, Polly reeled at the wave of human stench that hit her, and gazing round decided she had never seen so much bad skin gathered in one place. This was something all the historical dramas and interactives had never been accurate about.

‘God, they’re ugly!’

Poxed, the lot of them. There’s no vaccinations in this period. What you are seeing here are the few who have survived to maturity. It’s probably why Berthold thinks you’re such an asset—you’re a rare unmarked beauty. But then Berthold doesn’t know you like I do.

‘Bring on the juggler!’ bellowed the King.

‘Let us begin,’ whispered Berthold, turning to Polly with the bells on his jester’s hat jingling. He then cartwheeled onto the empty floor between the tables, finishing upright after a somersault. The King threw a chicken leg that bounced off Berthold’s face. To a tumultuous roar, other food was hurled at him from every direction. He sinuously dodged these items, then held up his hands.

‘Enough! Enough I say, good sirs! Would you bury me in your generosity?’

To much hilarity, the rain of food finally halted. Berthold stepped to a table and gathered up a goblet, half a loaf of bread and a chicken leg.

‘Good crowd tonight,’ said Mellor from behind Polly. She turned and stared at him, wondering if he was quite mad. Suddenly she felt the overpowering urge for a cigarette—elsewhere.

‘Now, let me introduce to you my beautiful assistant: that Far Eastern Princess, the lady Poliasta!’

Polly walked out to catcalls and shouts of, ‘Get yer dumplin’s out!’—and not all of them from the men. Following Berthold’s earlier instruction, she bowed elaborately towards each table, holding out to one side a sack containing the various items Berthold would use in his act, and into which she must secrete any coins tossed onto the floor.

‘Let me begin with a simple demonstration of the juggling art!’

Berthold set the three items he already held into motion. His competence was quite evident and even caused the surrounding uproar to quieten a little.

‘But such skill is not easily acquired. I had to travel to the far realms of the East, where I found my lovely Princess here, and there I learnt this craft under my wizardly master, the Great Profundo!’

With that Berthold stepped on a stray pheasant carcass and slipped onto his backside—the chicken leg bouncing off his head, the loaf of bread rolling away, but the goblet dropping neatly into his hand. He pretended to drink from it.

‘My master, Profundo, always used to say “Watch your footing.”‘ This comment was almost drowned by the howls of laughter. A few coins tinkled on the floor and, as instructed, Polly set about collecting them. And so it went. The crowd particularly loved Berthold’s obscene juggling act with the painted wooden phalluses, especially when he caught one in his mouth. His knife act he curtailed because this crowd stopped laughing and began to watch him warily. The performance closed with him juggling seven wildly different items, including a codpiece that somehow ended up stuck over his face, before the other props rained down on his head. Finally Berthold and Polly were summoned before the King.

Henry VIII was red-faced, and obviously too pissed to see or talk straight, so it was Thomas Cromwell, leaning in close to him, who began relaying his words.

‘The King congratulates Berthold on his skilled and entertaining performance…’

The King showed signs of anger, and Polly surmised that Cromwell was not relaying the royal sentiments with any precision.

‘The King wishes Berthold to accept this purse…’

Cromwell picked one up and tossed it to Polly, who expertly caught it in her open prop bag, then curtsied.

‘The King now wishes to retire.’

Evidently that was not precisely Henry’s intention because he was still giving Polly a look that should have been censored. Then Cromwell helped King Henry to his feet, and away to his bed.

After the royal departure the party swiftly dissipated—spreading to some of the tents pitched outside for those who wanted to continue.

‘God’s blood!’ Berthold exclaimed, counting out the money collected, and eyeing the sack of leftover food Mellor had collected from the tables. ‘We could go right now and live on this for a year or more!’

‘But not yet,’ insisted Mellor.

‘Two more nights at most,’ Berthold replied. ‘By then they’ll start losing interest.’ He unstoppered a jug from a nearby table, and took a deep slug of its contents.

Between the layers of black and grey something was becoming visible; glittering like nacre and expressing rainbow hues at the edge of the visible.

‘Fistik,’ spat Meelan, now much recovered.

This word being one Tack now identified as a curse, he more closely studied what was angering her. The thing extended as a line between the two surfaces, stretching in either direction to far-off dimensions beyond where Tack could easily focus without feeling as if his brain was tearing away inside his head. Occasionally this object drew close enough to take on substance—the only apparent solidity in this place beyond the confines of the mantisal itself. As he stared at it, Tack felt a growing frustration at knowing he could not ask. But time spent gazing into this etiolated infinity took its toll as his vision blurred and weariness descended on him like a brick. He dozed off, coming half-awake later to see Meelan thrusting her remaining arm into one of the mantisal’s eyes. Meanwhile, Coptic withdrew and turned away, his eyes suddenly dead black.

Then a brightly coloured crowd was feasting nearby and throwing food at a man who was juggling clocks… while, with the insane logic of dream, Tack collected up the shattered amethysts into which the dropped timepieces had transformed. All was now colour and that colour became the smell of heated sand, then a boot inserted under Tack’s side rolled him rudely into wakefulness, falling onto that sand.

Coptic’s laugh was hollow as he too dropped down beside Tack, its humour buried in weariness. Meelan also seemed weary, her eyes turned black like her partner’s. Lying there, Tack observed the mantisal disappear, folding itself away in exactly the same manner as when viewed side-on. He stood, taking up the pack that had dropped beside him, and panted in the sudden heat.

Again they were on a shore—only this time it was a seashore. Scattered along the strand were turtle shells, mounds of fly-blown weed, and nearby the desiccated remains of a shark being pecked at by birds like raggedy miniature vultures. Behind the shore lay a coniferous forest, its trees gigantic. A constant din issued from amid the trunks, some of it identifiable but much of it utterly strange. The singing of the birds was harsher here and possessed an angry immediacy. Occasionally a mournful hooting crescendoed and somewhere a sonorous groaning bemoaned the constant racket.

‘What age is this?’ Tack asked, forgetting himself.

Coptic’s huge hand caught him hard on the side of his head, knocking him to the ground, with lights flashing behind his eyes.

‘Did I permit you to speak?’ the big man asked.

Tack said nothing more, waiting for the inevitable beating, but Coptic was disinclined to take things further and turned to Meelan, who was studying a device she held. After a moment she gabbled something obscure and gestured disgustedly at the forest. Coptic spat a brief reply and pointed out to the sea, whereupon Meelan nodded. More conversation ensued as both of them inspected the instrument, then eventually Coptic turned to Tack.

‘We must rest here and recoup. You will go that way.’ He pointed along the beach. ‘In about three kilometres you will come to an estuary. Walk up it until you find fresh water.’

Coptic took the pack and squatted down to open it. After emptying it of most of its contents, he passed the collapsible water container to Tack. Tack then paused for a moment to observe the big man assembling what, futuristic as it might be, was still identifiable as a fishing rod. He saw no more than this, for Coptic glared at him and gestured him away.

When Tack came to the desiccated shark, he expected the miniature vultures to take off, but the birds ignored him and continued feeding, their pecking beaks making sounds like pencils beating against cardboard. Amid the empty turtle shells he saw the bones and beaked skulls of the armoured reptiles, and noticed that all the shells had been broken into, and bore large teeth marks. Moving closer to the forest, he nervously eyed the sea, wondering what kind of creature out there had the jaw strength to crack open living turtles like sherbet lemons. Perhaps the dinosaurs Traveller had mentioned? This seemed unlikely to Tack, as he did not see how his two captors could cover a distance through time which Traveller had said would need many separate shifts. Most likely this current era was some ten or twenty million years before that of the deinotherium, which meant perhaps forty million years preceding Tack’s own time. He shivered at the thought, despite the warmth.

As the beach curved round, Tack’s two kidnappers were soon out of sight, and he realized that he was turning into the wide mouth of an estuary, its further shore now visible to him. He estimated that he had covered just over a kilometre so far. The forest to his right now included the occasional white-barked deciduous tree, bearing autumnal leaves and translucent fruit. Below one such tree he spotted two large animals resembling cats, but which were squabbling over fallen fruit. He picked up his pace, not wanting to discover if they might turn out to be omnivores. After a few hundred paces, he heard their squabbling grow louder—then suddenly cut off. Glancing back, he witnessed a nightmare stepping out onto the beach, and understood why the cat creatures no longer wanted to attract any attention.

Fear closed its leaden claws around his guts.