Eclipse, p.18
Eclipse, page 18
‘You’re not pretending not to know me now.’
‘No. No, I’m not. Because that was the other thing you told me. You told me that one time I’d meet you, right here in Eamer’s, on the eve of the eclipse.’
He spread out his hands and raised his eyebrows. He looked very pleased with himself. I was less impressed. This was obviously a future version of me, who therefore had knowledge of what the current version of me had done before him. Basic time travel logic, but…
There had been tens, maybe a hundred, versions of me with Lek, before I’d come back here. I’d assumed that they were all a result of aborted time loops. That they were failed Estrels who had lived out their lives on doomed timelines the moment they’d got to the end of their day and failed to kill Evie White, until Lek had rescued them and given them purpose.
Maybe it was more complicated than that. Maybe my footprints across time were messier and more significant than I’d thought. This didn’t sound like a good thing. I needed to talk to Lek. But Lek was gone. Turned out I could only talk to Fricker.
‘So what’s different now? Why aren’t you pretending not to know me now?’
‘You said this was a crossroads, a turning point. He said you have choices now, choices that you’ll lose if you don’t take this opportunity.’
‘What choices? What are you talking about?’
His words had a ring of truth to them, though. I’d had a mission to complete, without any choices available to me. There was a plan, and I had to execute it. Things had changed now. Without Lek, I had choices.
‘I can’t tell you that, but I think I can help. Well, maybe it’s help. I don’t understand it, but you said I should give you a message…’
A message from my future self? If anything, this was better than taking Lek at his word. My future self had knowledge about what was about to happen. He had to have my best interests at heart. I wasn’t sure if I could say either of those things about Lek.
‘…well, it’s not so much a message as a question. Like I said, I don’t understand it but…’
‘What is it?’ I demanded.
A question seemed less helpful than a message, or an instruction, but I wasn’t in a position to be choosy, I supposed.
‘OK, OK, calm down. What I’m supposed to ask you is this: “What is the elephant for?”’
CHAPTER 36
CANNON
‘Two pints of Reader’s, and whatever you’re having, Effie…’
Effie nodded her thanks and gave Cannon a look up and down, apparently checking his angle of presentation and to what extent he was being supported by the bar. Satisfied that he was in a fit state to continue drinking, she turned to the pump to draw the cider.
It was late in the afternoon, and not yet evening, but on a day like this, you had to be on your guard early. The entire village was out and the entire village was thirsty.
‘No, dont get mehat,’ slurred a voice from over his shoulder. ‘Wouldn’t drink that man’s piss…’
Effie paused as she finished filling the first glass.
‘That’s not actually what we’re serving here, Manda,’ she called to the unseen girl, ‘but how about I get you a glass of water to be going on with? Mr Reader’s cider is generally appreciated around here, but I understand your tastes may be a little more refined…’
Cannon grinned into his armpit. He’d offered to buy Manda a drink due to a sudden surge of magnanimous affability. He’d just finished his fourth pint and was gently soaking in a happy place where he was content to sit and watch Effie work, where chat came easy and he realised the benefits of a wide circle of friends because it suddenly seemed that he had a wide circle of friends.
Manda Charlotte was not someone Cannon would usually consider a friend. She wasn’t someone who would normally look twice at him. He didn’t think that was something that made his social life any the poorer but, for now, he was enjoying her company.
‘Is there anyone’s piss you would drink, Manda?’ he asked. ‘Out of interest?’
Manda swung around, elbowing another patron in the spine, but ignoring his grunted expression of pain. Her wild eyes gave away the afternoon she’d had, the sheen of sweat across her shoulders and décolletage speaking to undue exertion in the afternoon sun or an excretory system keen to expel toxins in whatever way it could. Probably both. She fixed Cannon with a steely stare and slowly licked her lips.
‘I’d drink yours, Cannon,’ she purred, and then cackled, swiping his fresh pint from the bar top and running off, leaving him with a large glass of lukewarm water.
Cannon once again saw the benefits of keeping his circle of friends small and turned back to the Alderman.
‘Sorry, you were saying…’ he said, as a sign that he’d finished being distracted by drunk women at the bar.
The Alderman pouted and shook his head.
‘Don’t ‘emember,’ he slurred. He was more drunk than Cannon had realised.
‘A permit,’ he prompted, ‘for the market. It shouldn’t be a problem?’
‘Don’t see why not.’ The Alderman quaffed more of his ale. ‘It’d be good to have someone selling pickles again…’
‘They’re ferments,’ Cannon corrected him, but the Alderman didn’t seem to notice.
‘That chap that used to sell the pickles, you know, erm…’
Cannon didn’t know who was being referred to, so he stayed quiet. The Alderman didn’t seem to notice that either, and appeared to fill in the blanks in the conversation himself. He nodded vigorously in agreement with something Cannon hadn’t said.
‘Exactly! Exactly! Onions that would make your bum tweak.’
Cannon wasn’t sure what it meant to have one’s bum tweak. He thought it must be quite a pickle to cause that reaction.
‘So my application would be welcome?’
The Alderman held his hand up high.
‘It would be a welcome change!’ he declared, sweeping his hand down in a demonstrative gesture, the meaning of which was lost on Cannon. ‘A pleasant distraction from all the elephant licensing…’
Cannon’s mind reeled with the questions that presented themselves. He took a moment to consider which he was going to ask first.
‘Who’s applying for an elephant license?’ Cannon asked, then immediately regretted not asking something else.
‘Circus,’ replied the Alderman.
‘The circus has elephants?’ asked Cannon.
The circus had rolled into town the previous day and, to date, had appeared to be quite small scale. Cannon hadn’t paid much attention, but if they were going to do an elephant show, that usually meant a few fireworks. That would be what the license was for.
‘Nope,’ the Alderman shook his head and leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Between you and me, there isn’t even any such thing as an elephant license. We’ve had no cause to invent one. No-one brings elephants through Bramshall…’
Cannon was confused. It seemed that the Alderman was talking about real elephants.
‘On account of them not being real?’ checked Cannon.
‘On account of them not being real. Although perhaps they didn’t mean a real one. But they applied, so we made one.’
Cannon nodded. He was learning a lot about local politics.
‘…put all kinds of conditions on it,’ continued the Alderman in a husky, hushed voice. ‘Dung disposal, maximum load for the green, water consumption levies… all sorts. Make it seem more official. Not just like something we made up on the spot. Cost a pretty penny too.’
Cannon nodded. He could imagine that it would.
‘…then they turn up yesterday and it’s seven people and a dog. Possibly a mangy-looking monkey, although that could have been another dog. One caravan which they all seem to live in and a trailer in which they keep their big top. Which should, more accurately, be called a “top” because I don’t know if you’ve seen what they’re erecting on the village green, but it’s not very big.’
Cannon hadn’t and was far less interested than he had been a few minutes ago to do so. Perhaps his first instinct had been the right one.
‘No elephant, then? Why did they want the license?’ he asked.
It seemed like the obvious question.
‘That,’ said the Alderman, stabbing a finger at Cannon with one hand while he used the other to tip up his pint mug. It was already empty and so he stared into the bottom with a combination of disappointment and confusion. ‘…is the question.’
‘That’s interesting,’ said Estrel.
‘What’s interesting?’
Cannon was confused. Confused by Estrel’s comment, confused by the story he’d told, confused how he could remember something so clearly, so vividly, when it was so obviously impossible and definitely hadn’t happened. To him, or to anyone else.
‘How it all comes back around,’ clarified Estrel. ‘To the elephant. It’s all about you and the elephant.’
‘It’s not about me. That never happened,’ insisted Cannon. ‘And it’s not about an elephant. Elephants don’t exist.’
Estrel held his hands up.
‘I’m just saying,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you try again?’
‘Manda?’
Cannon’s voice was hushed and guarded. He wasn’t even sure that this was the way she had turned as she left the beer tent. He didn’t want anyone to hear him lurching about in the dark, shouting for Manda Charlotte, because a man lurching around in the dark, shouting for Manda Charlotte, was usually on the lookout for something very specific.
‘And I’m not,’ he said under his breath. ‘I just want my pint back.’
On one level, he did want his pint back. He was running low on funds and couldn’t afford to be losing drinks or he’d have to go home. On another level, one that he wasn’t completely ready to acknowledge yet, he was looking for something.
Not something from Manda. He would have been at pains to point out, but she was a helpful excuse to leave the tent and have a look around. To check out the circus.
It was chillier in the autumn air than he’d expected, though, and he was developing second thoughts. Maybe he should just retrieve his drink and head back through the glowing portal back into the beer tent.
No, the drink was just an excuse. She’d probably drunk it by now, anyway.
‘Manda?’ he rasped again.
‘In here,’ came a voice from the bushes.
Cannon headed toward the call.
‘No, wait!’ called Manda again. ‘a’ma pissing. Give me a…’
There was a rustling and a commotion from a bush several to the right of where Cannon had thought the voice was coming from, and suddenly Manda rose from the foliage, pint glass still in hand.
She lurched forward, lunging at Cannon in a way that might have been meant to be an affectionate nuzzle, but ended up being more of a headlong dive into his chest. She seemed to have started too early, and too far away, and ended up with her forehead pressed into Cannon’s sternum in a way that wasn’t entirely comfortable for either of them.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Cannon, who was by no means sober but felt and appeared, in contrast to his companion, like he was in possession of all his faculties, and some of hers as well.
Manda just sighed and handed him her glass. Which was his glass. Which felt worryingly warm. Cannon tipped the contents on the grass.
‘Come on,’ he said, steering Manda back towards the light.
They were friends now. Friends kept an eye out for each other. He could check out the circus in the morning.
‘I’ll see if I can stretch to another drink.’
‘Lef’ t-my knickers in the bush,’ giggled Manda, lurching back towards the undergrowth. ‘I should get them ‘cos I’m not that easy…’
There was a great disturbance in the bushes and what appeared to be a snake curled down from a treetop. To Cannon’s great surprise, it was followed by an elephant’s head. Not a snake, then, he thought, whilst still trying to figure out which branch it would have to be coiled around in order to descend at that angle…
Estrel kicked the box, which was tucked under his seat. A small, muffled, squeaking trumpet sound emerged.
‘Elephant,’ he said.
‘But that never happened! It’s not possible that…’
‘We’ve talked about this. Just because it’s impossible doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.’
Cannon gritted his teeth.
‘I don’t know what that was. That wasn’t my memory. It was just a story. I must have heard it somewhere or… You heard the story. Even in the story, I didn’t believe that it was a real elephant. There wasn’t even any elephant.’
‘It’s OK, Cannon,’ said Estrel. ‘It’s OK. You’re fighting it, and it’s upsetting you. That’s understandable. I thought this might be the case, and it’s not your fault. You’re right, it isn’t your memory. You don’t have any memories. Not before the ship, anyway. All you have is stories.’
‘What do you mean, I don’t have any memories?’ asked Cannon, scared. ‘What happened to me? Why was I on the ship?’
‘Nothing happened, Cannon. For you, there was no “before the ship”. You’re no more real than any of the rest of them. The Ringmaster or the Squirrel Sisters, or Bonzo or any of the others. You’re slightly less real than the elephant in this box.’
Estrel tapped the box with his heel, again, for good measure.
‘You ran away and joined the circus because your name is Cannon,’ he said. ‘It’s a great story. But it’s not real. And I don’t think that’s really even your name.’
CHAPTER 37
LEK
There was a man on the other side of the door. He was short and scruffy, with a bushy black moustache. There were what looked like pieces of straw stuck in the thick curls on the top of his head. It was very hard to tell how old he was, but if I had to guess, he was only just out of his teens.
‘I thought I was the only one here.’
He shoved his hands into the deep pockets of the beige canvas jumpsuit he wore. I’d expected someone who would shout at me, demand to know who I was, maybe even point a weapon at me.
I definitely expected someone suspicious of me. I didn’t expect someone who, on seeing me, would weaken their own defences by tucking their hands out of action. I glanced down at my own robes and sandalled feet. Perhaps I didn’t present as a threat.
‘I… um… Where am I?’ I asked.
Given the non-confrontational nature of our introduction, I decided I had nothing to hide and that honesty was going to be the best policy. I didn’t think he was ready for my description of stepping through a portal from another place just yet, though.
‘Research, of course.’ He looked puzzled. ‘Are you OK? Why are you dressed like an olde worlde Cleric?’
I knew the word cleric, of course, from a linguistic point of view, but at the time the use of this term, with the all important capital “C”, meant little to me. It wouldn’t, pre-Dissolution. I also didn’t know what he meant by “olde worlde” - he even pronounced the “e”s. But then, I thought I was still in my time.
‘Maybe not,’ I said, deciding that maybe honesty wasn’t the best policy after all and that I should dissemble until I knew what exactly was going on.
I put my hand to my head, feigned unsteadiness. The man immediately stepped forward and took hold of my elbow.
‘Come with me, Mr Citadel. Can’t have you passing out in the corridor. Not with a pack of Hybrids rampaging about.’
I followed where he guided me, which wasn’t far. We shuffled through the next doorway, where he rolled a chair across and pushed me down into it.
I looked around. The room was filled with screens. Most of them had an image of a room, almost identical to the one I’d found myself in. The view was from above the entrance - the one I’d exited from - across the room with a full view of the other door opposite.
Each one had a similar hole torn through it.
‘You’ve lost a lot of animals today?’ I asked.
The man cast his eyes across all the screens, shaking his head.
‘The Hybrids? Don’t know what got into them,’ he said. ‘Something spooked them. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think that the doors would just give in like that. It’s not like they don’t make a habit of hurling themselves against the walls when they’re a bit riled up. I would have thought it was an explosion or something, but…’
‘An explosion?’
I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know when I was. You must remember that.
‘Yeah, there was a bomb went off in Central about twenty minutes ago. Near the White Room. I thought they were overreacting when they insisted on evacuating everyone, but it turns out that I’m the idiot. Now I’m stuck down here with no chance of getting out. Not with bits of the complex exploding and the rest filled with Hybrids.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m confused. Assume I know nothing. What’s going on?’
He looked me up and down and seemed to come to a conclusion.
‘Must have been one hell of a bender. I assume that’s why the fancy dress? You lose your Com? Because you can’t so much as unlock the screen without seeing all about how Trinity is blowing up left, right and centre.’
Trinity. I was still in Trinity. I wondered why I didn’t recognise this place. I couldn’t imagine what building it was part of - it certainly wasn’t within the Citadel. I didn’t imagine that it wasn’t part of a building. I hadn’t yet realised what the lack of windows, of natural light, really meant.
There was so much information coming in I didn’t even stop to wonder what kind of workplace culture meant that someone wandering around, hungover and in fancy dress, was an unremarkable thing to come across.
“Your world is Research”, they say in the induction. I have to come to learn that is a life sentence.
‘Someone is bombing Trinity?’
‘Closer to home than that. Someone is planting bombs. On the streets, in the buildings. It’s either an attack from within, or someone has infiltrated us. It seems to be everywhere, and they got worried that there were going to be explosions down here and so they got everyone out. And I said “no” because I thought I should stay here and monitor the Hybrids… that’s kind of my job… but also I didn’t want them to get abandoned. They need feeding pretty regularly, you see, and I didn’t know what would happen if I left, when they’d let me back in, how long they’d be on their own for. They’re only babies really…’
