Chapters and the Hourglass of Time

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you.”

  Rohan patted Billy’s shoulder.

  It didn’t take long for the night to close in, and soon total darkness covered the castle. Only a few torches here and there were throwing dancing lights on the sand and sleeping people, trying to break through the heavy coat of the Egyptian night.

  Billy didn’t know for how long he slept. He felt somebody touching his shoulder and opened his eyes.

  “Time to go,” whispered Rohan at Billy’s ear.

  Billy raised his head and looked around. Slaves were sleeping on the sand close to each other to stay warm.

  Desert, Billy thought. Hot in the day, cold at night.

  Carefully, Rohan and Billy made their way in between the huts, trying not to wake anyone.

  “Rohan,” Billy whispered, “the gates are in the opposite direction.”

  “We’re not going through the gates,” Rohan said. “There is a tunnel underneath the road that connects the two castles.”

  They kept on going like that for some time. Billy couldn’t take his eyes from the sky. Never before had he seen so many stars, so bright and so clear. Only when a huge shadow covered nearly half of the sky did he realize that they had approached the castle.

  “Watch your step,” whispered Rohan as they started climbing up the stairs.

  When they got to the castle entrance, Rohan stopped and cast a last look behind them to make sure they weren’t being followed. Then he turned to Billy. “Give me your hand.” Billy obeyed and they stepped inside.

  It was much darker in there, so it took Billy some time before his eyes adjusted and he could identify objects again. On his way, he tripped a few times. It was only thanks to Rohan’s strong grip that he didn’t fall and hurt himself.

  “You know, we could use a torch or something,” Billy suggested, getting more agitated.

  “To attract guards? Can’t afford to get caught. Not here anyway.”

  Then Rohan softened up, as if realizing that Billy was, after all, just a kid.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ve got something you might like. Just not now.”

  Rohan seemed to know what he was doing. He led the way through numerous corridors and turns without a hint of hesitation.

  “Rohan, how do you know where to go?”

  “I’ve been here before,” Rohan said.

  “Before they built it?”

  “No, after it was finished.”

  Billy walked silently for a while contemplating learning the new meaning of before and after.

  When they stepped into a wide-open veranda, Billy could finally see more clearly. There was no ceiling and stars shone brightly from above. They walked all the way to the end of the veranda and stopped there, facing a solid wall with two columns by the corners. It was a dead end.

  Oh no, Billy thought. We’re lost.

  Rohan, on the other hand, showed no sign of panic. He got close to the column on the left, slid his hand behind it, and pulled an unseen lever. They heard the clicking sound of a releasing mechanism, and a piece of the wall at the dead end moved slightly. Rohan put his shoulder against it and pressed hard. The section of wall opened wider, revealing the entrance to a tunnel.

  Rohan stepped inside, though Billy hesitated.

  “Are you coming?”

  “Sure,” Billy muttered without much enthusiasm, and sunk his body into the darkness of the tunnel.

  Rohan leaned with all his body on the door and pushed it back. The door shut closed with a heavy thud, cutting off the only source of weak light. It was pitch black.

  “Rohan,” whispered Billy.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m nervous.”

  “Don’t be.”

  Billy heard the rustle of Rohan’s clothing. Then a dim light appeared. It was coming from the little round box held by Rohan.

  “Open your hand,” said Rohan.

  Billy stretched out his right hand. Rohan spread the stuff from the box on Billy’s palm. His palm started to glow.

  “What is it?” asked Billy in amazement.

  “An organic paste made of plankton that live on the bottom of the ocean. If you keep your hand open it will give you some light, not strong though, but enough to see around. If you put your fingers together and close your palm slightly as if you were holding a tennis ball, the light will gather into a beam like a flashlight.”

  “Awesome!” Billy played with his hand, adjusting the light. When he opened his hand, the glowing light evenly lit the walls and ceiling. When he closed his hand halfway, it was dark again and only a beam of soft green light emanated from the palm into the pointed direction.

  Rohan applied the paste onto his own right hand. “I guess we’re all set. It’s time to go.”

  And they started their journey deep inside the tunnel.

  * * *

  Chapter Eighteen

  Under the Road

  At the beginning, the path seemed to be declining. The surfaces of the walls and floor were uneven, so Billy and Rohan had to watch their every step.

  “Are we underneath the road now?” Billy asked.

  “Not yet,” Rohan answered.

  After a while, the tunnel leveled out. Walking became easy. The tunnel’s interior had also changed—the walls, floor, and ceiling were almost flat. They were made of the big white stone blocks that Billy had seen during the daytime.

  “Now we’re underneath the road,” said Rohan.

  It was cool and quiet in here. Billy could hardly believe that only a few hours ago he had been working hard outside under the burning sun among the other slaves. Technically, he still was a slave. Billy shook his head trying to get rid of these thoughts. Then he pointed his light at Rohan and asked, “Rohan, who is the High Priest?”

  Rohan seemed reluctant to answer. “Knowledge could be dangerous,” he said.

  “You told me so much already.”

  “I told you just enough to get you here.” Billy noticed Rohan wince, as if he regretted saying that.

  “C’mon,” Billy insisted. “I’m a slave in Ancient Egypt. I can die at any given moment just because my bucket isn’t full enough. How much worse could it get?”

  “All right,” Rohan finally agreed. “His name is Khamunaph. He is a direct descendant of the first leaders of the clan. He built himself little empires in different chapters, mostly in ancient times.”

  “Why ancient?” asked Billy.

  “Simple, uneducated people are easy to control and manipulate. Here he is almost like a god.”

  “But why in different times—I mean, chapters?”

  “So it would be harder to track him down. There were several attempts on his life.”

  “By you?” asked Billy.

  “I don’t like violence. But there are others.”

  “And Anna-Maria? I heard her call him ‘Father.’”

  “She’s his daughter, all right.”

  “Does she travel in time too?”

  “Of course.”

  “But how could it be? I’ve known her from kindergarten. She’s always been around. I don’t remember her leaving anywhere for any time at all.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you? She could be talking to you right now and the next moment she could be at any chapter she wants and then come back to the very same moment she left. You wouldn’t even notice her absence. Except for the aging, of course,” added Rohan after a pause. “That’s why she can’t be out for too long.”

  “No wonder Anna-Maria looked a bit older,” Billy exclaimed. “But everyone kept on saying that girls grow faster. Just thinking of it drives me crazy.” Then he added, “She used to be my friend.”

  “Let’s hope she still is,” Rohan responded.

  ***

  For some time they walked silently, listening only to the echo of their own footsteps. Billy walked slightly ahead of Rohan. He obviously liked to lead the way using his hand as a flashlight. Rohan watched Billy and all of a sudd
en realized that this time he was looking at him differently. There he was—a regular boy from a regular school who had to undergo a terrible ordeal and still he was walking tall through the dark tunnel without crying or even complaining. For the first time Rohan looked at Billy with admiration and respect.

  ***

  “What are you thinking about, Billy?” asked Rohan after a while.

  “Can’t stop thinking about home. What’s happening there? My parents must be looking for me right now.” In his head, Billy saw his house and a police car with flashing lights in front of it. His dad giving Billy’s description to a police officer; his mom sitting on the couch talking to somebody, her eyes full of tears.

  “Don’t think about it,” said Rohan. “If everything goes as planned, I’ll bring you back to the moment you left, or any other time of your choice.”

  Billy tried to disregard the if. “So, basically you can bring me back to the day when I found the hourglass?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “What’s going to happen to all this then?” asked Billy.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean me being a slave here, the police looking for me there. . . . A whole new chapter of my life has been written already. What’s going to happen to it?”

  “This part is a bit complicated. You see, when you at first traveled in time, you created a kind of a fork in the road. Your normal timeline carried on the way it was. The other timeline, starting from the fork in the road, went parallel to it. Thus, you have created a parallel world. Now, if you wanted to come back to your previous life, before the fork, you would meet yourself, which would create a time paradox.

  “Therefore, unauthorized time travel is strictly prohibited. However, if you place yourself in the exact spot and the exact time where you were in your initial timeline you can calibrate the hourglass to bring you back into your own body. The parallel world that you had created would just become a time loop and cease to exist. That is,” Rohan raised his index finger, “providing you haven’t done anything significant that may change the flow of events.”

  “Well, I agree with the ‘it’s complicated’ part,” said Billy. “Are there any parallel worlds right now?”

  “There are. Whenever changes are made, a parallel world is created.”

  “Why would anyone want to make changes?” asked Billy.

  “For many reasons—to prevent wars, catastrophes; to warn people of natural disasters. You see, some members of the clan believed that God gave them the power and it was their duty to make the world better. Of course, at the beginning no one knew about parallel worlds, so no one could predict the consequences.”

  “How bad are the consequences?”

  “Well, sometimes the worlds overlap. That is when people start seeing ghosts and UFOs, when objects start moving for no reason, or when anything strange or hard to explain occurs. The world has become unstable. Besides, by fixing one problem the Librarians quite often created another that sometimes was even worse than the original one. That’s when the separation began. Half of the clan kept on believing in changes, the other half opposed them.”

  “Whatever,” Billy exhaled in resignation. “I just want my life back.”

  All this information tired him.

  “Don’t worry, Billy. You will get your life back,” Rohan assured him.

  * * *

  Chapter Nineteen

  Friend or Foe?

  They kept walking down the tunnel until their lights hit a wall.

  “This is it,” said Rohan.

  He placed his ear to the wall. It was quiet. Then he knelt down and pressed a stone on the bottom of the wall. The wall moved slightly. Rohan turned to Billy.

  “We go in together, and we stay together. Should anything go wrong, be as close to me as possible. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Billy said.

  “Close your hand up,” said Rohan, closing his own. “We don’t want the light to betray our presence.”

  Billy clenched his right hand into a fist. The darkness swallowed them that instant. Billy could hear Rohan straining to push against the wall. The scrape of stone on stone sounded and a streak of weak light peered through a crack in the wall. Rohan pushed harder. This time the wall moved enough for them to slide through.

  They entered a wide round hall. Billy noticed three exits, one directly in front of them, and one on each side of the hall. All exits had a burning torch beside their doorways.

  “Which way now?” Billy asked.

  “I am not sure.” For the first time Rohan looked confused. “I only remember one exit, not three.”

  “There was one exit!” A loud voice echoed throughout the hall.

  Billy and Rohan saw a dark figure standing on the second-story balcony. Beside him stood a servant with a torch. The light from the flame illuminated the dark figure’s face so they could see it.

  “Khamunaph,” whispered Rohan.

  “Welcome, my friend,” the High Priest Khamunaph called down. “We were expecting you so we made these little . . . renovations.”

  Rohan stepped forward to address the High Priest. “Going to all this trouble just because of me?”

  “Don’t be so humble, Rohan. Besides, one can’t be safe enough these days.”

  “There are no safe days for you, Khamunaph,” said Rohan.

  The distant sound of approaching footsteps filled the hall. The next moment, soldiers entered from both the left and right doorways and quickly took their positions by the walls, surrounding Rohan and Billy.

  “Rohan,” whispered Billy, inching closer to him.

  “Don’t worry,” said Rohan in a low voice. “It’s a holy place. They are not going to kill us here. Theoretically.”

  That’s very comforting, Billy thought with a shiver.

  “As you can see, Rohan,” continued Khamunaph in a loud voice, “you are not the only one who thinks three steps ahead. You also can be predictable.”

  “What can I say, even the sun has spots,” Rohan replied calmly.

  “I suspected you wouldn’t just leave this boy here to die,” continued the High Priest. “I knew you would come to rescue him and possibly try to get close to me. How pathetic! So, I prepared a trap and look where we are standing now.”

  “The boy was merely bait,” replied Rohan. “I used him to find you. I wanted to talk and here we are—standing and talking.”

  What? Billy’s eyes widened.

  “You’re a fool,” hissed Khamunaph. “You will never make it out of here alive.”

  “Perhaps,” agreed Rohan. “One more reason for you to hear what I have to say before you do anything irreversible. Then you can decide what to do with me and the boy.”

  The High Priest was clearly infuriated that Rohan had outsmarted him again.

  Billy observed what was happening with an aching heart. Rohan’s strategy was beyond his comprehension. If you got caught in a wild bees’ nest, the last thing you would want to do is to make them angry. The High Priest could have given one simple order and had Rohan killed, finish him once and for all. Yet, he hesitated.

  What could be going through his mind? Billy wondered. On one hand, Khamunaph knew that Rohan was dangerous—he admitted it himself in his conversation with Anna-Maria. Those were his words: Rohan does everything for a reason. On the other hand, the High Priest was controlling the situation—surrounded by guards, Rohan wasn’t much of a threat.

  Billy glanced at Rohan. To his surprise, the man was too calm for a prisoner.

  What are you up to, Rohan? Billy thought.

  Finally, curiosity got the best of the High Priest, and he made his decision.

  “Very well,” announced Khamunaph. “We shall talk.”

  He gave a command in that other language and three soldiers came behind Rohan and Billy and pushed them towards the middle exit. The rest of the troops retreated through the side doors.

  The convoy of three soldiers and two prisoners marched through the labyrin
th of narrow corridors. A soldier carrying a torch led the way. One of the corridors brought the convoy to another hall, illuminated by innumerable candles. In the middle of the hall was a small fountain. Clear water bubbled down a cascade of stone flowers, filling the place with a pleasant murmur.

  Seeing the water made Billy realize how thirsty he was. His throat felt coarse. He would’ve given anything for just a little sip. As he passed just two feet from the fountain, all he could dare was to look. If a slave drank from a fountain in the palace, such insolence would have cost him his life. Billy shrugged his shoulders, shaking off these thoughts.

  At the end of the hall was a massive door with a metal ring. Billy recognized it as the door to the High Priest’s chambers.

  A soldier lifted the ring and knocked. The door slightly opened and a priest in a yellow robe appeared. With a gesture of his hand, he invited everyone inside. Upon entering, Billy saw that the High Priest sat on a golden throne, and two other priests stood by his right side.

  Billy was surprised to see that the High Priest had made it there so fast. He must have taken a short cut, Billy thought.

  Khamunaph motioned Rohan to step closer.

  “Well,” pronounced Khamunaph, “I’m all ears.” He spoke in English. Apparently, he didn’t want the servants to understand the conversation. Yet, he couldn’t afford the risk of sending them out.

  Billy was amazed at how he reminded him of Anna-Maria at that moment. He could see her sitting on the bench at the playground pronouncing it in the same tone of voice, ‘I am all ears.’ Maybe the saying was right: the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. She was so much like her father.

  Rohan stepped forward and addressed the High Priest. “Khamunaph, I don’t expect you to like what I’m about to say. Nevertheless, we’re talking and that’s already progress.”

  He paused, gathering his thoughts, and then continued.

  “Living in a better world—who wouldn’t want it? No wars, no major accidents, being able to avoid earthquakes and tsunamis, or move just before a volcano erupts . . . What a beautiful dream . . .”

  “It is not a dream,” the High Priest objected. “We make it happen.”

  “In which world?” Rohan asked. “Which one of them? Because I’ve been to them all and it’s always the same—hurricanes, earthquakes, wars . . .”

  “That is the gods’ will. We cannot undo it. We can only adjust to it and try to make the world a better place.”