“You’ve met James Hart?” Morrison looked at her with new interest. “What’s he like?”
“Surprisingly average. The way Time talked about him, I thought he’d have two heads and be carrying a personal thermonuclear device under his arm. As it was, I thought he was a bit of wimp. Until Jack Fetch knelt and bowed to him.”
“You actually saw that? I couldn’t believe it when I heard.”
“I was there, and I have trouble believing it. Scared the shit out of me at the time. I mean, if you can’t rely on Jack Fetch to be consistent, who can you trust? I suppose I should have known that if Fetch had gone crazy, Old Father Time couldn’t be far behind. I can’t get you in to see him, Sean. He won’t even talk to me. After everything I’ve done for him… the ungrateful bastard. He could trust me. He could trust me with anything. Something’s wrong. Something apart from all the crazy things that have been happening in the town just recently. I could be wrong, but… I think Time’s scared.”
“Scared? He’s immortal, unkillable, all-knowing and supposedly all-powerful. What the hell could there be that could scare him?”
“I don’t know. Don’t think I want to know. I just wish this was all over, and we could get back to what passes for normality around here. In the meantime, you can bog off and stop bothering me or I’ll carve my initials in your forehead.”
“How can you say that, Mad, after everything we’ve meant to each other?”
“We have never meant anything to each other. I have about as much feeling for you as I have for what I scrape off my boots in the morning. Now, you are not going to see Time, so you might as well leave, while your body is still reasonably intact and functioning.”
Morrison had a strong feeling that charm was largely wasted on Mad, but he persevered anyway. It wasn’t as if he had anything else to do. He smiled winningly at her, and then both of them looked round sharply as they heard footsteps approaching from out in the corridor. A dozen of Time’s automatons filed into the inner sanctum, one after the other, in perfect step. They fanned out to block off the door, and Morrison backed slowly away from them, glancing warily from one clockwork figure to another. Their blank painted faces showed no trace of emotion, but there was a cold, casual menace in their deliberate, unhurried movements that chilled Morrison’s blood.
“It’s all right,” said Mad. “He’s just leaving. Back off, and he’ll go. Right, Morrison?”
“I’m definitely considering it.”
“You’re not helping, Morrison.” She looked warily from one automaton to another, but none of them seemed to be paying her any attention. “I said, I’m handling this. Now bog off back to wherever you came from, and let me get on with it. Right?”
“I don’t think they’re listening to you,” said Morrison. “I think they’re here to make sure I leave. Unfortunately for them, I’m not ready to go yet.”
His guitar was suddenly in his hands, as though it had always been there. He strummed a few chords, grinned unpleasantly at the automatons, and launched into one of his old songs. One of the songs he used to sing in the sixties, before he came to Shadows Fall, when his voice and music had been known across the world. He hadn’t sung it for years. It reminded him too much of when he’d been real. But he sang it now, and his voice filled the chamber.
All the old power was there, roaring in his song and in his voice, a force and energy that would not be denied. It was a kind of magic; the all-encompassing, overwhelming rush that can fill a concert hall and bring the audience surging to its feet, when the band is in the groove and you can feel the beat of the music pulsing in your veins. The song washed over the automatons and drove them back, their unliving forms unable to comprehend or deal with the wild emotions that were howling around them.
They fell back, one by one, step by step, until their backs were pressed against the walls and there was nowhere left to go. Except back through the door. They filed out, backwards, their painted faces unable to reflect the power that was driving them from the sanctum, the power in that music, and in that voice. And then the last of them was gone, and the door shut behind them, and the song broke off, its unfinished chorus still ringing on the air. Mad looked at Morrison with something very like respect.
“Not bad,” she said finally, trying desperately to sound nonchalant. “Bit before my time, but not too shabby. Know any Stranglers?”
“Don’t blaspheme,” said Morrison. He looked down at his guitar and grinned cheerfully. “Good to know I can still light a fire when I have to.”
And then he broke off and looked back at the door, and Mad looked too. There was the sound of rustling cloth and the brushing of twigs on the floor, and Jack Fetch strode into the sanctum, a fixed smile carved on his turnip face, and only holes where his eyes should have been. The scarecrow Jack Fetch, come to do what the automatons could not. He stopped just inside the doorway, his empty gaze fixed on Morrison.
“Oh shit,” said Mad. Her flick knife was quickly in her hand, the long blade snapping out with brisk efficiency. She glared at the scarecrow, remembering the last time she’d tried to use the knife on him, and looked uncertainly at Morrison. “Sean; maybe you could come back some other day.”
“No,” said Morrison. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Sean, don’t fuck about. Jack Fetch is a mile and a half of bad news. You haven’t seen what he can do. He’s dangerous, he’s vicious, and Time isn’t here to restrain him.”
“Maybe he’s come to bow to me.”
“I wouldn’t put money on it. Sean; get the hell out of here. Please.”
The scarecrow was suddenly moving again, heading for Morrison with new purpose. Morrison strummed his guitar and raised his voice again. Emotion filled the room; warm and fine, like a hot drink on a cold day. Mad swayed unconsciously, caught up in the flow. Life and love and all it meant cascaded over Jack Fetch, but it didn’t stop him. The music crashed against the walls, and Morrison’s voice rose and fell like the ocean at high tide, powerful and unstoppable, and still the scarecrow advanced on him. A gloved hand shot out and plucked the guitar from Morrison’s hands. Jack Fetch looked at it for a moment, as though unsure what it was, and then he ripped the guitar apart as though it was made of paper. The unfinished song still echoed on the air as the broken pieces fell to the floor, and Morrison licked his dry lips. He fixed the scarecrow with a glare that held all his old arrogance, and sang again, unaccompanied. His voice filled the room like an unstoppable presence, resonant with all the old power that had stunned his audiences and left them gasping. And then Jack Fetch was upon him, cold and implacable. A gloved hand shot out and grasped Morrison’s shirt front, pulling him close. Morrison stopped singing, and in one last defiant gesture, grabbed the turnip head with both hands and kissed it square on the carved lips.
“All right; that’s enough of that.”
Jack Fetch released Morrison immediately, in response to the tired, flat voice, then stepped back and stood still, his arms at his sides, waiting for new orders. Morrison took a long shuddering breath as relief flooded through him, and then turned to look at the figure who had appeared in the opposite doorway. Old Father Time looked back at him with a mixture of affection and exasperation. He was dressed in a long flowing kaftan, complete with sandals, beads and a headband. His grey hair fell to his shoulders, and his long beard had been neatly braided. He looked like an archetypal sixties guru, a sort of low market Gandalf. Which was how Morrison always saw him. Except this time he looked older, frailer, as though his years were catching up with him. Morrison was shocked at the extent of the change, and a quick glance at Mad revealed she was too.
“Most people can take a hint,” Time said sternly. “I can’t stop to talk to you, Sean. Something bad is coming, and I must prepare to meet it. I know about the murders, and the Wild Childe. They’ll have to wait. I’m not sure I could do anything about them anyway. There are forces in the universe that will not be denied. I’m sorry, Sean. Go home. There’s nothing you can do
here, and I’m doing everything I can. And yes, I know about the Faerie too. I don’t think you really understand what you’ve let loose there. But you will. Goodbye, Sean. If we both survive what’s coming, we can talk then.”
And then he was gone, disappearing with the abrupt finality of a burst soap bubble. Jack Fetch turned silently and left the sanctum. Morrison and Mad looked at each other.
“I think he means it,” said Mad.
“I think you might be right.” Morrison knelt down and gathered up the remains of his guitar. It was clearly shattered beyond mending, and he nursed it for a moment like a dead child. He finally shook his head, and the guitar vanished. He rose to his feet, looked at Mad, and shrugged. “It seems my journey was a waste of time. He already knew everything I was coming to tell him. His answers weren’t exactly comforting, but then that’s Time for you. I suppose I could hang around and clutter up his sanctum, just to annoy him, but I don’t really see the point. He’s obviously said all he’s going to, and I can’t just hang around doing nothing. Unless you’d like me to stay and keep you company, Mad.”
She smiled sweetly. “That’ll be the day.”
Morrison laughed briefly, blew her a kiss, and started towards the door. Mad watched until he was almost gone, and then cleared her throat. He stopped and looked back. Mad looked at him thoughtfully.
“Your name wasn’t always Sean, was it?”
“No,” said Morrison, “It wasn’t.” He grinned at her, turned, and left the sanctum. A little of his voice lingered on the air behind him, like the echo of a softly-whispered name.
—
One moment James Hart was walking down the street, with his shadow Friend darting back and forth around his feet like an over-eager puppy, and the next he was at the beach. He stopped and blinked a few times, to give the world a chance to go back to what it should be, but the scene remained obstinately the same. He was standing on a pebbled beach that stretched away to the left and to the right for as far as he could see. Before him, the ocean lay spread out beneath the midday sun like a smooth grey blanket. There were no waves, no wind to disturb the surface of the sea, only the gentle swelling of the tide, sweeping in and out with slow, languorous tranquillity. The air was sharp, and just a little on the cool side, suggesting the end of Summer. High above, a gull hung on the sky like a drifting shadow, calling out its plaintive cry. Hart thought it was the saddest sound he’d ever heard. He frowned slightly. There was something almost familiar about that thought, as though it was something he’d thought before.
His frown deepened. He didn’t recognize the beach at all, but he had a strong feeling he knew it from somewhere. That he’d been here before in the time that was lost to him; the first ten years of his childhood. Maybe his parents had brought him here, on some Summer vacation. The beach seemed more familiar the more he looked at it. He walked slowly along the beach, pebbles sliding and crunching under his feet. It occurred to him that he was taking it all surprisingly calmly, but that was Shadows Fall for you. After a while, it was hard to be startled by anything. He came across a rock pool, lying just out of reach of the advancing tide, and he knelt down beside it, nudged again by deja vu. A bright orange starfish was lying at the bottom of the pool, pretending to be dead. A crab that had to be all of an inch in width waved its claws threateningly, poised to run at any sudden movement.
“I’ve been here before,” Hart said quietly.
“Of course you have,” said Friend briskly, running up Hart’s back to peer over his shoulder at the pool. “Your parents used to bring us here every Summer. You used to sit there at the edge of the water and throw pebbles out into the sea. I never could see the point in that. I mean, it’s not as if the ocean was difficult to hit…”
“What’s this place called?” said Hart, picking up a pebble and hefting it thoughtfully.
“Now there you’ve got me. I never was very good at names, and it was a long time ago.”
“All right, try this one on for size. What the hell are we doing here?”
“I summoned you,” said a slow, familiar voice. “There are things that must be said. Things that must be discussed. And, though I hate to say it, we’re running out of time.”
Hart looked sharply back the way he’d come, and reclining in a deckchair that hadn’t been there a few moments before was Old Father Time. He was dressed in the same Victorian outfit as previously, but his socks and shoes were lying neatly piled to one side, and his trousers were pulled up to the knee, as though he intended to go paddling at some point. He looked older and very tired, but he still had a smile for Hart.
“I see you’ve found your Friend. I was hoping you would. You were inseparable as children.” He looked unhurriedly about him, taking in the scene with quiet pride, as though he’d personally arranged it. “I always liked this beach. I would have liked to come here with you and your parents, but it wasn’t possible. Sometimes I’d come here on my own, after you and your family had left, so I could feel near you. Take off your shoes, James. Pebbled beaches are best enjoyed in bare feet.” He stirred the pebbles with his toes, and smiled again.
“Hold on a minute,” said Hart. “Run that by me again. You know about Friend?”
“Of course. I know about everything. It’s my job.”
“Then perhaps you’d be so kind as to tell me why I’ve been brought here.”
Time raised an eyebrow. “Do I detect a note of anger in your voice, James? If this is a bad time, I do apologize, but we must talk. Events are coming to a head despite all my best efforts, and you must be prepared to meet them. There are things I need to tell you; important things that I couldn’t mention the last time we met.”
“Why not?”
“Too many ears.” Time gestured, and a second deckchair appeared beside him. “Take a seat. You’re going to need to be sitting down for some of the things I have to tell you.”
Hart studied the deckchair dubiously, and then sank cautiously down into it. Contrary to his expectations, it didn’t immediately collapse under him. In fact, it was surprisingly comfortable. Only in Shadows Fall, he thought wryly. He looked across at Old Father Time, who was staring out to sea.
“All right,” Hart said impatiently. “I’m here, I’m ready, I’m prepared. Talk to me.”
“Your father was Jonathon Hart,” said Time. “But you never knew your grandfather.”
“No. I never knew any of my grandparents. My parents would never talk about them. There weren’t even any photos. There weren’t any aunts or uncles, either; just us. When I was a kid, I used to wonder if perhaps we were the black sheep of the family, thrown out of the clan for something too dreadful even to discuss. When I found my grandfather’s map and letter among my father’s papers after the funeral, I didn’t know what to think. I suppose that’s one of the reasons why I finally decided to come here. I was looking for answers. Instead, all I ended up with were more questions, about things I never even dreamed of before.” He broke off suddenly as a thought occurred to him. “Did you know my grandparents? Is that what this is all about?”
“Yes. Your parents didn’t want you to know about Shadows Fall. They were worried you might want to come back here, searching for the rest of your family. And the prophecy made that far too dangerous. They wanted you to lead a normal life. But there were some things they never told you, about the prophecy and your family, that you need to know, so it falls to me to tell you now. It all begins with the prophecy, long before you were born.”
“Wait a minute,” said Hart, sitting up sharply in the deckchair. “The prophecy was made when I was ten years old. That’s why we had to leave Shadows Fall in such a hurry.”
“No,” said Time. “Your grandmother made the prophecy, not long after giving birth to your father, Jonathon Hart. And shortly after that, she died. The prophecy was kept secret. Even then, it was clear what a bombshell it would be. They wanted time to study the prophecy, and make sure of what it really meant. So, the only ones to know were your grand
father, and later your father, after you were born. He didn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it. But it’s hard to keep secrets in a town like this, and eventually it got out. When you were ten.”
Hart lay back in his deckchair, frowning fiercely as he tried to fit all the new information together. Friend pooled across his lap like a throw rug, trying to provide comfort by his presence. Hart sighed, looking out over the still expanse of the sea. What he’d heard explained a lot, but it raised as many questions as it answered.
“So,” he said finally. “Who was my grandfather; Jonathan’s father?”
“I am,” said Old Father Time.
The words seemed to hang on the air as Hart looked incredulously at Time. “But… that’s not possible! I thought you couldn’t have children!”
“I thought so too. And for centuries upon centuries, I was right. But then I met your grandmother, and for the first time in my long lives, I fell in love. She was no one particularly special or important, except to me. She was a warrior woman from some old television future that no one remembers any more. No one was more surprised than us when she became pregnant. I almost left her, convinced the baby had to be someone else’s, but it didn’t take long for me to discover that vast latent potential of the foetus, or recognize the power the child might be able to wield. It was my power; Time’s power. We kept the knowledge to ourselves at first. We had no idea what it meant. The pregnancy turned out to be long and hard, and in the end it killed her. And I was left with nothing but a dead love, a baby who showed no signs of any power, and a prophecy that made no sense.