Nightrise (31 page)

She and Jamie clasped hands. At the same time, she leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

Then she too left the table.

He and Flint were alone.

"I'm sorry," Jamie muttered. He didn't know what else to say.

"Don't be." Flint sounded worn out. "I'm glad you were here. I'm glad you were sent in Sapling's place."

"Me too." Jamie thought for a moment. He was so tired that he had to struggle to find the right words.

"Let me tell you about Scott," he said. "He's smarter than me. He's looked after me all my life. But a few weeks ago, these people came after him. He was kidnapped. I managed to get away. I can see now that it must be something to do with the Old Ones. That must be why they were looking for us. I don't know where Scott is right now. He may have been killed. I don't know. I've been trying to find him."

"Could he be here?"

"No. I don't even know where here is. But you heard what Matt said. This world hasn't got anything to do with Scott or me. I suppose I will have to go back home…"

Flint got unsteadily to his feet. All around them, the feast was still continuing. Inti had been right. It would go on until sunrise.

"I'm going to sleep," Flint said. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Good night, Flint."

"Good night, Jamie."

Jamie watched his twin walk away and disappear into one of the tents, knowing in his heart that this was more than good-bye and that the two of them would never see each other again.

NINETEEN

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 gray, 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 wool pants 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 anymore.

"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 toward the edge of the field, the same direction that 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 traveled 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 even useful — homes and temples, gardens and terraces, villages and towns. Anyone who stood in their way was either killed or made into a slave. 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; 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 clouds 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 about 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 one another, 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 one another — 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, only seems to 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 lands 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 arise, 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?