Gallows at Twilight (18 page)

A gasp from Rachel did not interrupt Adam’s flow.

‘The monks threw William into a tiny cavity in the monastery’s outer wall and, brick by brick, sealed him inside. His screams could be heard for days afterwards. When they finally stopped, the monks reported a strange scratching sound coming from behind the wall. Some of them later confessed that William had begged for a book of blank vellum pages, a bottle of ink, and a quill to be buried with him, and that they had agreed to this last request.

‘Centuries passed. In the reign of Henry VIII, the monastery was dissolved and the walls were knocked down. Behind one such wall, the king’s commissioners made a grisly discovery: the skeleton of a man dressed in a tattered black habit. Lying at his feet was a great book, its pages filled with strange predictions.’ Adam laid a hand on the cracked leather cover. ‘This is the tome of William Reclusus. His
Book of Time.
His
Codex Tempus.
And the strangest part of the story is, he is
still
writing it.’

‘But he’s been dead for centuries!’

‘William lives within these pages. I believe that, through the horror of his death, his conscious mind became imprinted in the book. He still sees all of Time and those that wander in it. He tells their stories here.’

Adam flipped to the back of the
Codex.
Simon and Rachel joined Dr Holmwood and Pandora at the desk. They watched Adam’s finger move down an index of names.

‘He’s here!’ Adam’s finger trembled as it traced:

‘HARKER, Jacob Josiah—travelled to 26th August, Anno Domini 1645—arrived in the town of Cravenmouth, Englande. Entry at on 1153.’

‘That’s not right!’ Holmwood blurted. ‘The date, the place. He’s supposed to be in Hobarron’s Hollow!’

‘I told you,’ Adam snarled. ‘Time travel is dangerous, unpredictable magic. I just hope Jake’s OK, for your sake.’

Adam turned to Jake’s entry in the
Codex.
The page was blank.

‘Does that mean he didn’t make it?’ Rachel asked in a panicked voice. ‘I don’t under—’

The sound of a phantom quill scratching against parchment rustled in the air. Letters, small and neat, started to appear on the page:

‘This is the storie of a traveller in TIME.

In the yeare of our Lord 1645, Jacob Josiah Harker, as he was known to mortal men, did arrive in a place called Cravenmouth, a most godly towne on the east coast of Englande … ’

The laboratory disappeared and Jake found himself in a realm of utter darkness. With no ground beneath him, he floated through the freezing void. His skin prickled into gooseflesh and ice crystals crackled in his hair. He lifted his hands to his eyes—not even a smudge of flesh to texture the nightscape. He tried to call out. The sound left his lips and vanished, as if an unseen hand had reached out and snatched it away.

Time slipped by. Would he remain here for ever? Jake wondered. Was that the price of his muddled thoughts?

Pain returned, bright and brilliant. As the magical blue flame reignited around his body, Jake saw a tear open up in the curtain of darkness. Wind blasted his face. Light flooded his eyes. Jake stumbled forward and the opening sealed up behind him.

He saw colours, shapes, shadows: sunlight on dusty ground; horses’ hooves pawing at the earth; the panicked flight of a bird. Commotion everywhere: running feet, barking dogs, shouts and curses, oaths and prayers. Through the haze of magical fire that engulfed him, Jake saw that he was standing in the town square that he had glimpsed through the portal.

The people fled. They tore into the side streets that ran away from the heart of the square like narrow arteries. Gripped by his own sense of panic, Jake’s gaze swept around a circle of white-washed, timber-framed buildings. Tall and short, lean and dumpy, they seemed to have been stacked together like a ring of irregular dominos. A brick-built structure raised on four huge pillars dominated one whole side of the square.
SHIRE HALL
had been carved in big letters in the stone lintel above the door. The grand arched windows and the wide flight of steps that led up to the door marked the hall as a place of importance.

Rubbing shoulders with the hall was an altogether different building—a crooked, tottering pile, three-storeys high and caked in soot and grime. At every window astonished faces pressed against the glass, their eyes fixed on Jake. Above the door, a badly-painted sign creaked in the breeze:
THE GREEN MAN TAVERN
.

Literally a stone’s throw from the tavern stood the town pillory. A boy about the same age as Jake had been locked into the wooden T, leaves of rotten cabbage tangled in his long hair. Terrified, the boy turned his head away from Jake and whimpered.

Jake’s gaze switched to the small group of men and women who had remained in the square. A dozen or so in number, they had gathered around the door of a rickety wooden hut. Another sign:
Martin MONKS, sergeant-at-mace—Traders’ goods to be Weighed Here on Market Daye
. Jake heard their frightened talk over the roar of the flames.

‘What is it?’ a woman cried. ‘What horror has gathered here?’

She took another look at Jake and hid her grimy face in the folds of a bloodstained apron. A grizzled man with white dust in his hair grasped the collar of the boy standing next to him.

‘It’s a sign, Caleb, my son! An omen of the Last Days. An angel draped in vestments of fire has come to the town of Cravenmouth to proclaim to all: repent, ye wicked sinners, repent!’

The boy wiped hands down his flour-dusted shirt. Bakers, Jake thought, and that woman must be some kind of butcher.

‘An angel perhaps, father,’ the boy said. ‘But might it not be a witch come amongst us?’

‘Angel or witch, the message of the creature stands. He brings Armageddon in his wake. See, he burns ever brighter!’

Pain seared through Jake and the magical fire swelled around him. In an attempt to rid himself of it, he drew the magic inwards, focused it into his hands, and released it. Balls of light shot across the square. One crashed through the arched window of the Shire Hall; a second hit the roof of the barber’s shop and began to smoulder in the thatch; the third bowled towards the little group of onlookers. A collective scream rose up and they scattered like ninepins. A second later, the fireball smashed into the wooden hut, reducing it to charred kindling.

Jake threw back his head, opened his mouth, and bellowed. He felt the last lash of magic strike out from that hidden place deep inside. It spouted from his throat in a column of liquid fire that soared overhead, breaking apart the low-hanging clouds and piercing a path into the sky. A whirlwind erupted from the column and skirled around the square. It caught at the embers in the thatched roof of the barber’s shop and whipped them into flames. It shrieked through the window of the Shire Hall and set the fire dancing within.

At last, Jake felt the magic splutter out like an exhausted candle. His mouth snapped shut and the column collapsed. The infernos on the roof of the barber shop and inside the Shire Hall disappeared. Falling to his knees, Jake heard the Khepra Beetle click contentedly inside his head.

Slowly, the people of Cravenmouth returned to the square. At the front of the crowd were the father and son bakers, the woman with the bloody apron, and a well-dressed man in his thirties with sharp green eyes and an air of authority.

‘Is it safe?’ the woman asked. ‘No, don’t go near!’

‘Hush, Mary Dower. There is no more fire, no more hell-wind. The witch has spent all its dark magic.’

‘Do not be so sure, Caleb, such things have wiles.’

‘It has taken on the guise of a boy!’ the elder baker cried. ‘See what fair skin he has, what strange clothes.’

The well-dressed man, clad in immaculate black doublet and breeches, came forward. His intelligent green eyes examined Jake before flitting back to the crowd.

‘Keep your distance, good people,’ he said, his voice calm. ‘Witch or no, let the sergeant-at-mace and the constable go to their work. Gentlemen, see now to your charge.’

Jake looked up at the crowd that closed in around him. Fear and excitement mingled in their faces, and something else, too. Hatred. The immediate and uncomplicated loathing for something mysterious and unknown. Only the well-dressed man had any kindness in his eyes. Jake held out his hand—a gesture of reassurance.

‘He’s ready to strike again!’ Mary Dower shrieked. ‘Stay well back, friends! He will blast us all with his unholy fire!’

Jake’s words came in dry splutters:

‘No … I … w-won’t hurt you … Please … ’

‘The witch lies! Quickly, Mr Monks, silence its tongue!’

His fellow townsmen bundled the sergeant to the front of the crowd. Full of nervous bluster, Martin Monks slapped away the urging hands. He was a plump man of about forty years of age, his fleshy, clean-shaven face framed by shoulder-length white hair. Monks’s hand went to the brace of weapons belted around his stomach. He selected a rusty wheel-lock pistol.

‘NO!’ Jake shouted. ‘Wait … ’

Mr Monks did not wait. He loaded powder charge and ball, took an uncertain step forward and raised the pistol. With one piggy eye screwed shut, he sighted his target down the barrel.

Sensing the impending death of its host, the Khepra Beetle loosened its grip on Jake’s brain.

‘NO!’—not Jake’s voice this time. The well-dressed man’s.

But he was too late.

Sergeant Monks pulled the trigger and the thunder-crack of the pistol echoed around the square.

Chapter 16

Trapped in Time

Martin Monks, sergeant-at-mace, fired the pistol …

The phantom quill scratched to a stop. Ink spluttered across the page.

All eyes turned to Adam Harker.

‘What’s happened?’ Rachel asked in a stricken voice. ‘Why’s it stopped?’

Adam tore through the next twenty or so pages of the
Codex Tempus.
They were all blank. He turned back to that last sentence.

‘Does it mean … ?’ Simon had to squeeze the words from a reluctant tongue. ‘Is Jake dead?’

Guilt clutched at Simon’s heart.
His
actions had set Jake on this deadly road into the past. He should have handled the situation better; explained to Jake that he had never meant to fall in love with Rachel.

‘The
Codex
contains many ongoing stories, but it has only one author,’ Adam said. ‘It’s possible that the consciousness of William Reclusus has moved on to a different tale. If … if there is more of Jake’s story to tell, then he will return.’

‘But when?’ Rachel asked.

‘Minutes, hours, days. There’s just no telling, I’m afraid.’

Rachel buried her face against Simon’s chest. For a long time, the people in the study stayed where they were, frozen like figures in a game of musical statues. Adam stared at the empty pages of the
Codex
. Dr Holmwood made a steeple of his fingers and clicked his yellow tongue against the roof of his mouth. Pandora stood at the door whispering to Brag, filling in those parts of the story the troll had not understood.

Meanwhile, guilt continued to gnaw at Simon. He should have chased after Jake, caught him in Yaga Passage and
made
him listen. Hell, knowing the pain his friend was in, Simon should have foreseen that he was about to do something stupid. He was stronger than Jake: he could have wrestled him to the ground and dragged him back to his father. Jake would have fought him all the way, and might never have forgiven him, but at least he would now be safe. Yet again, Simon felt that he had betrayed his best friend.

From the bleakest shadows in Simon’s mind, a shapeless hand reached out …

Betray …

He looked around the study. No one else seemed to have heard the voice. Probably just his imagination. He had almost convinced himself of this when the voice called out again:

Hear me, my son. The time has come. This is the knowledge you have waited for. Now, remember the lesson I taught you …

Simon blinked. The room seemed to darken around him. Shadows stole along the walls and the hard edges of the study softened, blurred, and faded. Simon was about to say something when his mouth clamped shut and his throat tightened. The weight of Rachel’s head against his chest disappeared. The walls of the study disintegrated into wisps of smoke that billowed and swirled before reforming into a new configuration.

The bedchamber at Havlock Grange. The room that had been his prison for over a month. Simon found himself huddled in his corner behind the curtain, watching the shifting glow of candlelight play across the drape. Footsteps creaked on the rotten floorboards. They came closer, closer. Like a terrified child, Simon watched through his fingers as a gloved hand pulled back the curtain.

‘My dear boy, it is time we talked.’

The Demon Father—
his
father—crouched down and Simon saw himself reflected in the creature’s dark glasses.

‘They will be coming for you soon, my son. Jacob Harker and his friends will battle their way through many dangers to rescue you. And rescue you they shall.’ The flash of a victorious smile. ‘I have seen to it that their triumph is assured.’

‘Why?’ Simon’s voice, broken and timid.

‘Because I want to see the boy conjuror tested. I must know his strengths and weaknesses before the final battle. And there is another reason … ’

Simon flinched as the gloved hand stroked his cheek.

‘I need to have my spy in place. In every war there is a crucial moment, a turning point at which the fate of the conflict may be decided. Often this time comes long before the first bullet is fired. You are to keep your eyes and ears open, my son. When the time is right your unconscious mind will know it. And then … ’

The Demon Father removed his glasses. Simon scuttled back against the wall, tried to turn away, but could not help staring into the blood-heavy eyes of the monster.

‘Then you will answer my call. You will give me the knowledge I seek. You will betray your friends.’