CHAPTER THIRTY–TWO – THE CUSTODIAN
The shot did not come: instead there was silence. Tom opened his eyes and saw Redfeld frozen in the act of pulling the trigger, his face poised in a visage of rage. Just in front of the gun, hanging motionless in the air, was a bullet emerging from the barrel that was pointing at Tom’s head.
He glanced around. Nothing was moving; nothing at all. Even the sound of the sea had stopped. Indeed, the very air seemed frozen. Stretching out his hand, Tom felt it almost cold and snow–like on his fingers. Up the path beyond Redfeld, Mary, the guards, Edward, Charlie and Septimus were also motionless. Tom walked round Redfeld and reaching out, tapped him on his head. Hard and solid like a wax doll.
“What just happened?” he said to himself, “I don’t understand ...”
“Ah, but I do. It is my job to understand. To observe – to analyse.”
The voice came from behind Tom and in this silent unmoving world, the shock made him jump. Turning slowly, he saw an old man in a grey suit. For a moment he thought it was Neoptolemas. But it was not. Now he knew who it was: it was the man in the suit; the man in the Office: the Custodian.
“Well now, we finally meet. We seem to have been dancing around each other these last few weeks and even inside each other’s minds. Do you not find it strange to meet face to face? I must confess, I do,” the Custodian said.
Tom nodded, not sure how to react. This man had arranged for him to be kidnapped by doing a deal with Septimus and later with Redfeld in planning his death and that of his parents.
“Er ... how did you do that?” Tom said, indicating the frozen Redfeld and everyone else.
The Custodian looked about intently as if studying every detail. “It is not easy. For me to stop time, to cause an unbalance between the realities I have been charged to preserve, is most disagreeable and irregular. Indeed, I can feel right now the pressure building. Temporal energy: the power of the moments – of time itself. It is gradually increasing here compared to his reality,” the Custodian pointed at Redfeld. “With each second passing there that does not pass here, tension increases. But,” he looked back at Tom and shrugged, “the situation warranted my direct intervention.”
“I still don’t understand. You wanted me dead, did you not? Redfeld was about to kill me. Why not let him do that?”
The Custodian nodded. “True, I did want you dead – or at least powerless, as he suggested,” he said, this time pointing at the wounded and unconscious Septimus. “This is because you have vast powers to Walk, as you people call it, and change history, and I do not want history to alter except when I need it to. My job is to preserve balance between the realities. Redfeld convinced me that in order to preserve that balance you had to die. He misled me; told me that he had come to your reality because he believed that one day you would destroy his reality. He said it had been predicted by his superior officer who had some powers of his own. Given your unique talents, I could see the logic in that...”
The Custodian looked at Tom’s face and must have seen surprise or disbelief showing because he shrugged almost with embarrassment. “Well, that is what he told me and I believed him. He rather tricked me with his clever words. I believed him and so I agreed to give him the power he lacked in your reality – to travel back in time and to interact with your world rather than just be a projection. Oh, he could create those brief illusions you saw of hypothetical alternatives to your world’s history, but it was only after I let him that he was able to change your world, your family’s past, on a larger scale. He promised to destroy you and then go home. He did neither. Instead he used his new powers to create a very convincing illusion you could touch and feel. You had to be convinced your parents were dead so he could force you to do his bidding.”
“He wanted me to help him in his plots ...” Tom started to say.
“Yes, to change this world into an image of his own. I heard you and him discussing it just now. I had suspected something was not right when I could still see you alive after all the signs were that your parents had died before you were born. Your Professor Neoptolemas confirmed it when he came to my office. I agreed to help him find Redfeld. And then I watched and waited until you came.”
“Intending to do what?” Tom asked anxiously.
“Ah, now then, that depended on you and him. Possibly to kill you after all, or him – or both of you ...,” the Custodian said, pointing his finger rather like a gun at Tom, who tensed as if awaiting a blow, although the Custodian had no weapon that he could see.
The old man paused and studied him for a while ... a long while. Then he lowered his hand and looked from Tom to the frozen figure of Redfeld. “You would have allowed him to kill you? You would really have allowed him to do that rather than save yourself and your family, rather than using your powers to change your world as he wanted? You would have given up the opportunity of immense power and wealth for yourself, at whatever the cost?” the Custodian asked.
“Whatever the cost,” Tom’s father’s voice echoed in his mind. Tom nodded, “Yes, all those things.”
“Then perhaps Neoptolemas was right, you are not so dangerous. No, I correct myself. You are dangerous. But perhaps, you are responsible. Again, I am not sure if even that is the right word. But perhaps for now I will let you live. But I will be watching you, Thomas Oakley. That is my job to watch and to guard the future.”
Tom let out a long breath that became a whistle.
The Custodian watched him without reaction. “Do not think I do this out of compassion, nor,” he looked pointedly at Redfeld, “for evil purposes. No, I feel neither the warmth of compassion, nor the passions of evil. What drives me is order and balance. For now, you offer the better chance of achieving that.”
Tom nodded, only half understanding.
“For now...,” the Custodian repeated with the ghost of a smile.
“So what happens now?” Tom asked with an anxious glance at his friends, at least one of whom might be dead.
“What happens now is we get Captain Redfeld and his men back to his reality.”
“Hang on a mo. What about my family?” Tom objected.
The Custodian held his hand up, “Do not interrupt me when I am explaining, boy.”
“I’m sorry. I was just trying to say that Redfeld was the man who created this illusion in which my family are dead, and he is the only one who can remove it.”
“Redfeld is maintaining this illusion by much effort on his part. When he sleeps or is tired or distracted it is harder for him to maintain it all. Imperfections in his illusion emerge – some I believe you spotted yourself?” the Custodian asked, his grey eyebrows rising in a question.
“Oh – like Andy sort of recognising me – that kind of thing?”
“That is correct. That kind of thing, as you put it. Once Redfeld returns to his world, the illusion will shatter and reality – your reality, will be restored. Your family will still be alive. It will be as it was before.”
Tom smiled, a sense of hope rising. In that case he could defeat Redfeld and not lose everything. “So then, how do I send him back?” he asked eagerly.
At that question the Custodian smiled at last, even if ever so slightly, as if his only pleasures were concerned with the complex physics of alternative realities.
“It is all a question of temporal energy and tension. As I said, the tension is increasing between the realities like water building up behind a dam. Shatter that barrier and all the excess temporal energy will surge across to his reality, taking him and his men with it. They belong there. Their presence has created some tension and like an elastic band snapping back from full stretch, that tension will pull them back to their own world in their parallel universe.”
Tom nodded, thinking how easily all this made sense to him now, when a few weeks ago it would have seemed unbelievable and quite beyond him; the stuff of science fiction.
“That all sounds simple enough; how do you do it?” he asked after a moment. The old man gas
ped. Looking up at him, Tom was surprised to see he looked aghast.
“I?” Pursing his lips, the Custodian looked down his nose at Tom, “I do not do it! Custodians do not break barriers between realities,” he said primly. “But you might,” he added, pointing at Tom.
“Eh? I have no idea how,” Tom said, suddenly anxious again. Did the Custodian expect something of him he could not do?
“No? What do you use to travel through time, boy? What mechanism or device?”
“Do you mean the clock?” Tom said, puzzled.
“Yes, the clock. You imagine the clock and see its hands turning in your mind, yes?”
“That’s right,” Tom said after a moment’s thought.
“Very well, then you must shatter the clock!”
“Do what?”
“Shatter ? destroy, eradicate it. The clock is part of the barrier between realities. Mentally destroy it and the barriers will burst and this will all be over.”
“But, if I do that will I lose the power to Walk through time?” Tom asked. He was still not sure that he wanted this power. That said; did he want to lose it? Did he have a choice?
“There are other clocks, Thomas Oakley,” replied the Custodian, who had now walked over to Redfeld and was inspecting the discharging Luger pistol.
“You didn’t answer my question, sir. How do I know this is not some type of trick to solve all your problems in one go? Get rid of Redfeld and remove my powers,” Tom demanded.
“Do you want Redfeld to stay here and destroy your world?” the Custodian asked tersely, stamping his foot.
“No, I don’t,” Tom answered straight away.
“Whatever the cost?”
Tom sighed. Why those words? But he nodded. “Whatever the cost,” he replied.
“Then shatter it. And you will just have to trust me after that,” the Custodian said and walked towards the edge of the cliff.
Just as he reached the edge he turned back. “And remember, I will be watching you,” and with that, he stepped over the edge and vanished. Not down into the sea, which was frozen as if it was part of a museum model made from resin, but just into the air.
And in that instant, so time started moving again.
Bang! The gun blast echoed.
“Wo ... ist ... er?” Tom heard Redfeld say. Tom was now standing off to one side towards the cliff edge where the Custodian had gone. Redfeld spun round, saw Tom and turned his gun towards him. Tom panicked. He had not had time to do anything and was not prepared.
“I am impressed, Master Oakley,” Redfeld sneered, “somehow you managed to Walk. But it will not avail you now.”
Then, laughing, he levelled the pistol again and pointed it at Tom’s chest.