Nightrise

THE RIVER

Jamie was woken from a deep sleep by someone shaking him. He opened his eyes and saw Matt, fully dressed, leaning over him. Dawn still hadn’t quite broken. He could see the half-light through the gap in the tent.

“I’m sorry,” Matt said. “But I have to wake you.”

“Why? What is it?” Jamie was still groggy. He’d slept as if he were dead. There had been no dreams.

“We have to talk.”

Jamie had slept in his clothes. He was beginning to get used to it. He’d been given a blanket and a sack full of straw as a pillow. Now he peeled himself away from them, picked up his sword and followed Matt out of the tent. It was going to be a beautiful day. There was a ripple of pink in a sky that was already soft shades of blue and grey, without a cloud in sight. The feast had finally ended. People had fallen asleep where they sat. There were sleeping bodies everywhere, a strange echo of the battle that had taken place the day before.

There was no sign of Flint, Scar or Inti. Matt was wearing a loose-fitting shirt over woollen trousers and leather boots. He had left his sword behind but Jamie was holding Frost. Why had he brought it? There was no enemy, no need to be afraid any more.

“Should I leave this?” he asked.

“No,” Matt said. “Bring the sword with you.”

“Where are we going?” Jamie asked.

“It’s not far.”

They made their way through the tents, following the line of the hill where Jamie and Scar had waited before beginning their attack. They were walking towards the edge of the field, the same direction as Inti had come from. As they left the tents behind them, Jamie heard the sound of rushing water and was surprised to come upon a wide river, rushing across the field in a deep gully. The water was an icy blue and looked fresh and clean. The world was regenerating itself – and it was all happening at an incredible speed.

The two of them found a flat rock and sat down, close to the water’s edge.

“There are things I need to tell you before you go,” Matt said.

“Am I going back where I came from?” Jamie asked.

“Yes.”

“Then tell me about Nightrise. Tell me about Scott. What have they done with him?”

“I don’t know, Jamie. I’m sorry. That’s your world, not mine. But there are ways I can help you. I only wish I knew where to begin…”

Matt drew a deep breath. Then he spoke again.

“As I’m sure you realize by now, you’ve travelled from one world to another. But what you have to understand is, it’s the same world. This is the past. You live in the future. Two civilizations separated by ten thousand years.

“I can’t tell you very much about our world. It was very beautiful once, a long time ago. I think we were peaceful. By and large, people just got on with their lives without hurting anyone else.

“But then something bad happened. The Old Ones. I don’t know where they came from or how they got here, but as soon as they arrived everything changed. They had only one aim and that was to break us down. Somehow they turned humanity against itself and after that, things got worse and worse. It was obvious that they weren’t going to stop until there was nothing left. But it had to be as slow as possible. That’s the whole point, Jamie. That’s their nature. They feed on misery. It’s the whole reason for their existence.

“You’ve already seen a small part of what they’ve done here. Scathack Hill and the City of Canals. They tore apart anything that was beautiful or useful – homes and temples, gardens and terraces, villages and towns. Anyone who stood in their way was either killed or made into slaves. And even that wasn’t enough for them. You have no idea how powerful they were. They managed to change the atmosphere on the entire planet. They cut down our forests and killed all the animals that had once lived there. They poisoned the rivers and even clogged up the seas and by the end it was almost impossible to find water to drink. They melted the ice fields in the north and took away the barriers that had been put around the earth to protect us. They couldn’t destroy the sun or the stars but they covered them in cloud so that nobody would see them again.

“All of this began before I was born and continued while I was still very young. The reason why Scar and I and the others don’t know any different is that for us the world was always like this. I’m fourteen years old… I think. I’m probably the same age as you. In fact, it’s quite likely that all five of us were born at exactly the same moment. None of us ever knew our parents. And we were all special. We had powers…”

Jamie nodded. He had seen Matt sweeping the enemy aside just by waving his hand. He and Flint had been able to read each other’s minds. Inti was a healer. And what of Scar? If she had a power, she hadn’t displayed it. Jamie wanted to ask about her but Matt had already gone on.

“We were sent into the world to lead the fight against the Old Ones. But we soon realized that we wouldn’t be strong enough: not each of us on our own. It’s what I said last night. The whole point was, we had to come together. We had to find each other, and then… well, you saw for yourself. All we had to do was meet.

“But that wasn’t as easy as you might think. For a start, we were in different lands. And life was already horrible and dangerous when we were born. Scar was forced to work in the mines. Inti started telling me yesterday how his people hid him in the mountains. Because that was the other thing. The Old Ones knew about us and they were looking for us from the start. They tried to kill me many times. I spent a year as their prisoner.

“We found each other through our dreams and this is where it gets a bit complicated, Jamie. I’ve talked about the two worlds – the past and the future – but there’s a sort of third world which is a bit like a tunnel between the two. It has a great sea and an island…”

“I’ve been there!” Jamie exclaimed.

“Yes. It exists in your time and in mine.”

“I saw you in a boat made of straw. I think Inti was with you.”

“And I saw you.”

“Tell me about the dream world.”

“There’s a wilderness with a woman who lives there on her own. And there’s also a library. One day, maybe, you’ll find it. But I’m not going to tell you about that now. What you need to know is that the dream world has been created for the five of us. We can meet there and talk to each other – and it doesn’t even matter if we don’t speak the same language. It seems frightening sometimes when we travel there. But the dreams help us. Never forget that.

“And now I’m going to try to explain how you got here and why you can’t stay. This is the most difficult part of all and I’ll probably make a mess of it – but I’ll do my best.”

Matt paused for breath. There was nobody else around. The water was rushing past, sparkling in the early morning light.

“I’ve talked about the past and the future,” he began. “And when we think of time, we usually think of a straight line. A week is just seven days in a row. A century is a long line of years – one hundred of them. Your life also seems to only go one way. You’re born, you grow up, you get old and then you die.

“But suppose time wasn’t like that. Suppose time was actually circular. Think what that would mean.”

“There would be no beginning,” Jamie said. “And no end.”

“Well… the end and the beginning would be the same.” Matt raised a hand. “It would be a bit like a clock. Most clocks are circular and when you get to midnight you’ve reached the end of one day but you’ve also come to the start of the next. In other words, just for a fraction of a second, the beginning and the end of the day both exist at the same time.

“The same is true about us. The beginning and the end. They’ve sort of met in the middle and that is exactly where we were born.”

He shook his head and sighed, annoyed with himself. “This isn’t going right,” he said. “Let me start again.”

He thought for a moment, then continued.

“Yesterday, four boys and a girl finished a long war against the Old Ones.”

“That was us.”

“Yes. We beat them and managed to send them into another dimension. And that’s where we are now. If you like, you could say that we’re at twelve o’clock and a new day is about to begin. We’ve trapped the Old Ones on the other side of a gate and right now it seems there’s no way that they’ll ever be able to return.”

“So what will happen next?”

“The world will change. There’s not very much of humanity left, Jamie. It came very close to total annihilation. There are a few thousand people scattered across the planet, but what happened here – the battle and the five of us – will soon be almost completely forgotten. And as the years go by, the world will change. The ice hasn’t finished melting in the north and new continents are forming. We are entering a dark period: a time – if you like – for civilization to catch its breath. But then, slowly, the wheel of time will turn and new cities will rise, new cultures will flourish. It will all begin again.

“And then, one day, you and your brother will be born. Ten thousand years from now! Your world will look very different from ours and although a few names and places may echo faintly across the centuries, very few people will know what they really signified. The Old Ones. The Five. The building of the first gate.

“You’ll think that you live in a safe and comfortable place, but I’m afraid you’ll be wrong. Because the whole thing will begin again. The Old Ones will somehow break out of the prison we’ve made for them and what will follow will be exactly the same as what happened here. They will grow in strength and power and they will finish off what they began.”

“They’ll destroy our world,” Jamie said.

“Yes.”

“Nightrise. They’re part of it.”

“The Old Ones don’t actually show themselves for as long as they can help it. They find people who are greedy or mean or full of hate and give them power. These people think they’re going to get rich. They think they’ll be rewarded with anything they want. And it’s only at the very end that they realize that the Old Ones have lied to them and they’re doomed too. There will be no survivors. The entire planet has to die.

“So what is happening in your world is exactly the same as what happened in mine. Yesterday the cycle ended and the last battle was won. For you, the same cycle is about to begin. The Old Ones will grow in strength. The world will be torn apart. And you will have to face them a second time.”

“On my own?”

“No, Jamie. In your world, there are also four boys and one girl who have to come together. Five Gatekeepers. There’s a Matt and an Inti and a Scar just as there is in mine.”

“But are we the same or are we different?”

“We’re the same but we’re living in a different time.”

“I don’t understand!”

Matt sighed. “Don’t try to unravel it. Just think about how it actually works. That’s all that matters.

“Five Gatekeepers in the past. The same five, born again, and fighting in the future. Sometimes, we meet…”

“In the dream world.”

“Yes. Otherwise we’re separated.”

“Then how did I get here? What am I doing here now?”

Jamie didn’t understand everything Matt was saying but it was clear to him that he had somehow jumped from one world to another and that he didn’t belong here.

“This is the one thing that the Old Ones never understood,” Matt replied. “I can explain it to you now but they never realized it and that was how I was able to deceive them.

“This is how it works. Somewhere, in your world, there is a boy called Matt. And if he were killed, I would instantly replace him… so there would still be five Gatekeepers. And if I had been killed, the future Matt would have been called to replace me. Do you see? It’s as if each of us has two lives. To kill us properly, the Old Ones have to kill us twice.”

“Sapling was killed.”

“Yes.” Matt bowed his head for a moment and when he spoke, his voice was low. “There was never anything for Sapling to find at Scathack Hill. I sent him because I knew he would die there. And he knew it too. I told him. Flint blames himself but the truth is that Sapling sacrificed himself for the rest of us.

“You see, I had to let the Old Ones kill one of us. They had to think that the circle had been broken, that the Five would never meet and that they had won. That would make them careless. They saw Sapling die but they didn’t realize that you would be sent to take his place and that there would be five of us after all. And that’s exactly what happened. They allowed Inti to slip through their lines. And when you and Scar rode down into the battle – that was it. We beat them by a trick.”

“But if I’m not Sapling, how come I can speak his language?” Jamie was still aware that the words he was using would have made no sense in twenty-first-century Nevada. “How come I can ride a horse? And this…” He picked up Frost. “I feel this sword was made for me. I’d never killed anyone in my life but as soon as I had it in my hand…” He stopped, preferring not to remember the slaughter of the day before.

“One day you will fight another battle,” Matt said. “And by that time you will be equally skilled. The past learns from the future and the future learns from the past. I’ve already told you. We are always the same Five.”

“But we have different names.”

Matt nodded. “It’s true. But where do names come from? We don’t choose them. They are given to us.”

Jamie thought for a moment. He had been called Jamie because it was the name of the doctor who had examined him when he was found abandoned as a baby. Scott had been christened after a box of grass seed. Those weren’t their true names. They were just something to put on a form.

“In this world, Inti was named after the sun,” Matt went on. “But in the future he will be called Pedro. It doesn’t matter. The names make no difference to who we really are.”

“What is your real name?” Jamie asked.

Matt fell silent. “I prefer to use my name from your world,” he said. “I’m just Matt.”

Jamie had pins and needles in his leg. He wondered how long they had been sitting here. The sun was rising higher all the time. “There’s not much more to add,” Matt continued. “But you might like to know where you are. Ten thousand years from now, this country will look very different. It will have formed into a small island. Its name will be England. The forest will have been replanted and there will be a village about a mile from where we’re sitting now. The village will be called Lesser Malling, and although the people there will have forgotten all about the Old Ones and the battle that we’ve just fought and won, they will have faint memories that something important happened here. There will be a stone circle, built around the very place where you and I, Inti, Scar and Flint finally met. That circle will come to be known as Raven’s Gate.”

Matt smiled to himself and pointed down.

“You see this river where we’re sitting? One day, it will save my life. Well, not exactly mine.” He pointed upstream. “The other Matt will swim from over there and he’ll come up spluttering and half drowned right at this spot. And when he drags himself out, he won’t know anything about me. Because, you see, he belongs to the future. And I’m here in the past.”

“What happens now?” Jamie asked. “You’re going to send me back.”

“Yes. You have to find your brother. I have to warn you, Jamie, if Scott has been taken by the Old Ones, you must prepare yourself for the worst. They’ll hurt him. They may try to change him. If you do find him, he may not be the same.”

“He wasn’t at Silent Creek,” Jamie said. He suddenly felt miserable. With everything that had happened in this other world, he had forgotten how he had failed in his own. Scott had been at the prison but he had gone. The search had to begin all over again. “Where do I look for him?”

“Use your dreams. The dream world that we visit acts in a strange way. Sometimes it sends us messages in the form of pictures or symbols. Always remember what you see there. It may mean something.”

Matt stood up.

“I have to go,” he said. “There’s still a lot of work to do. And in a few days’ time I’m going to travel with Inti to his country. There’s a weak spot there and we have to construct a second gate to make sure the Old Ones can’t break back in. Inti has a brilliant idea for a sort of lock, but on a huge scale. We’re going to design it together so that it can be built into the desert floor-”

“But what’s the point?” Jamie interrupted. “You’ve already told me that the Old Ones are going to come back again.”

“Well, that’s an entirely different argument. Just because we know they’re coming back, doesn’t mean we can’t try to stop them. And the longer we keep them out, the more time the world has to restore itself.”

“Do you really have no idea where I can find Scott?”

“I’m sorry. But he must still be alive. If he’d been killed, Flint would have replaced him and he would have somehow managed to find you.”

There was a loud screeching sound and something swooped out of the sky, landing on the outstretched branch of an oak tree on the other side of the river. Jamie started up, alarmed – but it was only an eagle. He wondered where it had come from. It wasn’t moving now and seemed to be staring right at him.

Matt had noticed the bird and Jamie had the impression that it meant something to him. “There’s one more thing I can tell you that might help,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“There are two gates that exist in my world and yours. We made the first of them ourselves today. Inti and I will design the second very soon. But there’s something else that you need to know about. There are also twenty-five doorways.”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you think we’ve travelled these great distances to find each other? Inti has come from the other side of the world and I can assure you he didn’t take a boat! The doorways are short cuts. You go in one door and you come out another a thousand miles away. There are doorways in your world too.”

“Where?”

“They are all in sacred places – or places that have become sacred mainly because the doors were there. Places of worship. Buildings of one sort and another but also caves, burial chambers, even hills. They’re marked with the same five-pointed star that we carried on our banners. It’s the symbol of the power of Five. You’re going to need to find them. All of you.”

“How do we do that?”

“There’s a map. It was drawn by a man called Joseph of Cordoba. He was a monk but they made him into a saint. He was one of the very few men who knew about us and our war with the Old Ones. He put the map in his diary and it shows all twenty-five doorways. Find the diary and it will give you the secret paths around your entire world.”

“How do I get back to my world?” Jamie asked.

“That’s easy. Someone has sent a guide for you.”

Jamie looked across the river. “The eagle?”

Matt nodded.

“What do I do?”

“Follow the eagle. He’ll show you where to go.” Matt got to his feet.

The two boys stood looking at each other.

“Goodbye, Jamie,” Matt said. “You and I will meet again.”

“I’m glad I was able to fight alongside you, Matt.

Say goodbye to Inti and Scar for me. And to Flint.” Jamie unsheathed his sword one last time. He held it for a moment, not wanting to let it go, but he knew he couldn’t take it with him. He handed it over. “Look after Frost,” he said. “I only had it for a little while but it served me well.”

The two of them looked at each other one last time. Then, leaving Jamie beside the river, Matt turned round and walked back towards the camp.

Jamie glanced at the eagle, which stirred slightly, ruffling its feathers. “Which way?” he called out.

The eagle flew the short distance to the next tree, then a little further to one set back from the river. Its message was clear. Jamie was expected to swim across. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea. The river was deep and cold and the water was flowing very fast. But it seemed he wasn’t going to be given a choice.

“Whatever you say…” He climbed down the gully and waded in.

He was halfway across and well out of his depth when he realized that the current was too strong and he wasn’t going to make it. The river had him in its grip and it was carrying him downstream, sweeping him along between banks which rose up ever higher, blocking out the light. Worse still, his clothes were weighing him down, threatening to drag him beneath the surface. Jamie began to panic. He turned round, wondering if he could call out to Matt for help. But Matt was far away by now and the moment he opened his mouth he found himself swallowing water. Desperately, he thrashed around. If he couldn’t reach the bank or catch hold of something, he was going to get pulled under. It was crazy. Had he come through so much simply to drown?

The eagle was still watching him, perched in another tree. Jamie caught one glimpse of it and guessed that what had happened had been quite deliberate. He had been invited into a trap and like a fool he had walked into it. The water – freezing cold – churned and foamed all around him. He went under. Gasping, using all his strength, he broke through the surface and breathed again. Ahead of him he saw a cave, a jagged hole in the rock. The water was rushing into it and Jamie was being dragged along too.

He managed to scream once and then he was sucked into utter blackness. He was pulled under again – and this time there would be no coming back up. Water flooded into his nose and mouth. He was spinning round and round. How had he allowed this to happen? He was certain that this was death.

And then nothing.

Jamie opened his eyes.

He was lying on his side, wrapped in a blanket. He was in the Mojave Desert and it was dusk. There was a small fire in front of him and he could feel a burning pain between his shoulders. Joe Feather was leaning over him. The Intake Officer was smiling, his face filled with relief.

He was back.