Cowl

  ‘I would tell you if I knew a Heliothane from a hole in the ground.’

  By now the woman’s attention was fixed upon his right arm. Abruptly she stepped forward, grasped his forearm and lifted it to inspect the device now enclosing the fragment of tor embedded in his wrist.

  ‘Fistik!’ she spat, then, dropping his wrist, grabbed his shoulder and turned and shoved him stumbling forward. He got only a couple of metres before running straight into a wall of flesh. The hands that gripped his shoulders were huge and solid enough to compress the flesh off his bones. This man was enormous, dressed much the same as the woman, and by his features probably related to her. While he held Tack immobile, he and the woman exchanged a machine-gun conversation over his head, in their distinctive staccato language, then the man shoved Tack past him and on. Tack glanced back to see them walking behind him, the male with his weapon drawn.

  The woman waved him on impatiently. ‘What is the name of heliothant with whom you travel?’

  Tack stopped and turned towards them. ‘He didn’t give me his name—said I hadn’t yet earned that privilege. He told me just to call him Traveller.’

  The man said, ‘That is believable. Now you will keep moving ahead of us and answer our questions as you proceed. If you delay again, I will burn off your legs and carry you.’

  Tack quickly turned and kept on moving. He had no doubt this would be his only warning.

  ‘Describe this Traveller,’ demanded the woman.

  After Tack did so, there ensued another of those staccato conversations. Abruptly the male and female were up on either side of him, catching him each by an arm and running with him. He found himself half running, half floating, and when he stumbled being lifted and carried forwards. In a few minutes the cramps returned to his legs and he began stumbling more frequently, terrified that the man would carry out his earlier threat. Apparently these two had no time to spare even for that. The woman released him and, still running headlong, the man hoisted Tack up and slung him over a shoulder. Then the mysterious pair accelerated away at a stupendous pace. Soon they were out of the trees and onto the grasslands again.

  ‘Deinth!’ the woman shouted a warning.

  Tack saw the huge animal suddenly bearing down on them. This close he saw how it did resemble an elephant, but with a short powerful trunk and shorter tusks protruding from its lower jaw. But it did not need to have recognizable characteristics for Tack to know that its earlier trauma had left it very pissed off indeed. It roared triumphantly as it thundered down on them in its own surrounding dust cloud, shaking its massive head from side to side. Tack expected his captors to veer away from it, but instead they ducked low and were under the red mouth and compost breath, between its forelegs then out through the side between foreleg and rear, then up and running again. Behind them the bellowing creature turned to pursue them, its two-metre legs making it a match even for these two apparent superhumans. The bizarre chase continued ever further out into the grasslands, the deinotherium neither gaining nor giving ground.

  ‘Fist mantisal-ick scabind!’ panted the the woman.

  Tack saw her whirl round and drop into a crouch, drawing a weapon that bore some resemblance to a long-barrelled Colt Peacemaker. It emitted an arc-welder flash, then a dull and actinic explosion blew to gristly fragments most of the creature’s head. It skidded down on its knees, only its trunk and lower jaw still attached by a gory bridge of flesh to the stump of its neck. Its momentum was such that it nearly somersaulted, but such was its huge weight that it flopped back and slumped onto one side. Before Tack could see more, the man came to a halt and unshouldered him ungently to the ground.

  ‘Saphothere,’ hissed the woman, as more weapon fire erupted. Tack managed to raise himself to his knees just as a mantisal appeared above them. The woman was firing out over the grasslands as the white-haired figure of Traveller wove towards them, blasting away. Something else was happening that Tack could not quite fathom: there were sheets and lines slicing through the air, against which the weapon discharges flared impotently. The man guided the mantisal lower, then gestured for Tack to climb inside. As Tack hesitated, he reached out to grasp his arm and, wrenching his shoulder, threw Tack aboard. Then the female was screaming, her right arm burning like wax caught in a gas torch. Once the man was in the mantisal, the strange thing began drifting towards the woman as she loosed a fusillade towards Traveller. Then she too was safely inside and the world just folded away.

  6

  Traveller Thote:

  The temporally active scales the beast drops, which Maxell named tors, it guards until they are taken up by a suitably vulnerable individual. Usually this person will be someone who would have died, so the beast is naturally attracted to events in recorded history where it can easily select its candidates. By this means it creates a lesser paradox to affect its own position on the probability slope. Already it has initiated three torbearers in Pompeii just before the eruption of Vesuvius, two from Nagasaki, and three hunters who had the misfortune to be in the Tunguska River valley in 1908. It is impossible for us to detect these initiations until they are made in the time-line concurrent for both Cowl and us, thereafter the torbearers become increasingly difficult to detect as they are dragged back through time. But once they are located in time, it is then only a matter of how much energy we are prepared to expend to get to them. And get to some of them we shall, for they may be our only access to Cowl.

  POLLY GAZED AT A huge house, glimpsed through the trees, with bustling activity all around it: people disembarking from carts or dismounting, grooms leading their horses away, groups of others standing chatting—colourful fabrics bright in the sunshine.

  You’ve moved in space as well as time. You earlier shifted just outside this place and it has taken some hours of travel to reach it again.

  Ignoring Nandru, she asked, ‘King Henry VIII lives here?’

  ‘Oh dear, you have not travelled much in our fair country have you?’ replied Berthold. ‘This is one of our King’s hunting lodges. He is here for the stag and boar, and for all-night drinking and tupping—as a rest from his toils in our great city of London.’

  Mellor grunted contemptuously, ‘Toils; and spat over the side of the wagon.

  Then again, it would be surprising had you not moved in space as well as time. I have to wonder how the scale puts you down so gently on the Earth’s surface, considering that not only is the planet revolving, as it hurtles around the sun, but it’s precessing and wobbling at the same time. Just thinking about the calculations involved would make my head ache. Had I a head …

  ‘Nandru, just shut up, will you?’ Polly replied subvocally, wondering if it was just her imagination that Nandru seemed to be displaying a babbling nervousness at the prospect of encountering such a famous historical figure.

  As Berthold drove the wagon out from the woodland, four guards wearing steel breastplates and helmets over padded clothing stepped out onto the track ahead. Two of them bore pikes and the other two carried crossbows. One of the latter, who wore a brocaded velvet jacket over his breastplate and a sword at his hip, held up his hand until Berthold drew the wagon to a halt. ‘Get down from there. I’ll not crick my neck to just speak to the likes of you,’ he ordered.

  Berthold leapt down, swept off his hat and bowed. ‘Good Captain, we are here at the express invitation of Thomas Cromwell, the Earl of Essex himself. Myself having entertained him in the Saracen’s Head in Chelmsford, he thought my skill sufficient to have me perform before His Majesty.’

  The captain withdrew a thick sheaf of paper from a leather wallet at his belt. ‘Name,’ he demanded.

  Watching this exchange, Polly realized that over the centuries it was only the clothing of tinpot officials that changed.

  ‘I am the amazing Berthold, premier juggler and entertainer, whose stunning verse may draw a tear or arouse laughter, and whose fame spreads far and wide!’

  The captain merely raised an eyebrow and continued checking his l
ists.

  Berthold glanced back at Mellor. ‘Some pies and bread, I think.’

  Mellor reached behind him to pull out the food sack. After groping inside he tossed a couple of meat pies to Berthold, who caught them and began juggling them so deftly they appeared to be turning a circle in the air without his hands ever touching them. Mellor then tossed a third pie, which joined the wheel of food turning before Berthold. All the other guards were now watching with evident appreciation, and one of them guffawed loudly when Berthold momentarily diverted one of the pies to take a bite out of it.

  ‘Have you ever seen such skill? But this is nothing. My lovely assistant Poliasta, who comes from the Far East, where I learnt my trade under the rigorous eyes of a great wizard, will now join me, and together we shall give you a show!’

  Polly’s stomach lurched, not at being given a name that sounded like a wall covering, but at the prospect of bringing herself into notice. However, she had not expected to be fed for free so felt she must at least make an effort. Quickly she shed her greatcoat, accepted the food bag Mellor was thrusting at her, and leapt down from the wagon. The guards, who had clearly never seen a woman so strangely dressed, nor with unmarked skin—their own was as pockmarked as Mellor’s and Berthold’s—stood and gaped at her. She noticed the gaze of one straying to the scale on her arm, and wondered if this was such a good idea.

  ‘An apple would clear the palate of the clag from so many pies,’ suggested Berthold.

  Reaching into the bag, Polly took out the required fruit.

  ‘Here is an apple for the amazing Berthold,’ she proclaimed, tossing the wizened fruit gently towards him.

  ‘Thank you, my lady Poliasta.’ The apple joined the turning circle as smoothly as the third pie had done. He took a bite out of it, then a bite out of another pie so that his cheeks were bulging and food spilling out of his mouth. This was high comedy to the guards, and even the captain was showing signs of amusement now.

  ‘Now, sir, if you would hand the Lady Poliasta your dagger?’

  The captain’s humour disappeared for a moment, till he glanced at his armed colleagues and saw little harm in such a request. Shrugging, he drew the blade, flipped it over, and held it out hilt first to Polly. Taking the weapon, Polly felt immediately doubtful, as it was very heavy.

  ‘Like the apple,’ Berthold prompted her.

  Out of the corner of her eye Polly could see several of the nobility approaching, but all her concentration was focused on throwing him the dagger. She turned it so as to reach him hilt first, but miscalculated when she threw. The dagger turned in the air and dropped low to one side of him. But, professional that he was, Berthold stooped and caught it effortlessly, and set it spinning in the midst of the never-faltering wheel, now comprised of three pies and an apple. He too, Polly noticed, had obviously spotted the approaching group, and now began to up the ante. Polly saw how the guards bowed and moved aside. The dress of the nobility looked fantastical to her: so layered in rich fabrics were the men that their bodies appeared ridiculously huge over their unpadded stockinged legs. The women’s clothing was more understated and to Polly seemed almost suited to a nunnery. But there was power here—she recognized it in the arrogance of expression and pose.

  ‘Let us test the edge of your dagger, sir.’

  Polly stared as Berthold briefly snatched the dagger and flicked out with it. The apple was now gyrating in two halves, and his hand movements were becoming ever more complicated. He juggled for a while behind his back, took another bite of pie, then stuffed one apple half into his mouth.

  ‘Mffofle gloff floggle,’ he muttered through a mouth crammed full.

  He had been feigning not to see the presence of the new arrivals as he tossed the various items ever higher. Then pretending to notice them, with a parody of startlement, the chewed food exploded from his mouth.

  ‘Your majesty!’ He bowed dramatically low. The dagger went whickering aside to stab into the ground between the captain’s feet, and one after another the three pies then the remaining half apple thumped onto the back of Berthold’s lowered head. The response from the central figure of the finely dressed crowd was a wheezy laugh followed by limp applause from his beringed fat hands. The rest of the group applauded sycophantically. Polly stared up at the huge man for a second, then quickly bowed her head. Mellor had climbed down from the wagon to make obeisance as well.

  ‘So the amazing Berthold has arrived,’ rumbled King Henry VIII. ‘I see the measure of your report does not overextend itself, Cromwell.’

  Polite laughter greeted this quip.

  ‘Let you, King, look again on the visage of one who is a king of laughter.’

  Keeping her own head bowed, Polly observed Berthold straighten up. His hair and beard were dusted with crumbs.

  ‘Well done,’ said the King, looming over Berthold.

  ‘Your Majesty is too kind,’ said Berthold, then clamped his mouth shut as Henry moved past as if the juggler hadn’t spoken.

  ‘And what is this gracious face?’

  The beringed hand caught Polly’s chin and put gentle pressure under it to bring her head up. She didn’t know who the question was directed at so, like Berthold, kept her mouth shut. The King looked her up and down, his attention mainly focusing on how amply she filled her blouse.

  Don’t lose your head over this guy,. Nandru snickered

  ‘If he calls me a “pretty little thing” I swear I’ll kick him in the nuts,’ .Polly snarled

  Finally dragging his gaze from Polly’s breasts, the monarch glanced over his shoulder. ‘Cromwell?’

  A bulky man, who, amongst all this noble finery, appeared like an obese vulture, stepped from the respectful position he had held a pace back from the King. ‘No doubt a new member of Berthold’s troupe, my prince.’ Thomas Cromwell then turned to Berthold. ‘What say you, fool?’

  ‘The Lady Poliasta has only recently joined us on our journey of entertainment and joy, my lord. She came to us from the Far East and knows many of the wiles and diversions of the Orient.’

  ‘I shall be glad to know more of them, I think,’ said Henry, his gaze once again resting on Polly’s bust.

  Well, they do say yours is the oldest profession.

  ‘One I no longer intend to pursue,’ Polly subvocalized angrily.

  The King released her chin and moved on. ‘One ryal, I should think, for this brief entertainment, Cromwell?’

  The Earl of Essex delved into his pouch and passed a coin across to Berthold. As the entertainer took it and bowed, Cromwell frowned at him briefly before moving on after the King. Soon the entire group of nobles had departed in the direction of the house.

  ‘I’ll show you where you may encamp, then where you may break your fast,’ advised the captain, who was holding his dagger and eyeing it speculatively. ‘And tonight you will be most careful with any dagger you might use, else you might find yourself juggling with the sharp end of a crossbow bolt.’

  Still gazing with reverence at the coin resting in his grubby palm, Berthold did not even hear the threat.

  HER ARM WAS CHARRED to the bone and on that side of her body the skin of her neck was severely blistered and leaking plasma. Her male comrade thrust his hands into their mantisal’s inner eyes and the creature violently shifted through colourless void. Making small whimpering sounds, the woman pulled a flat oval of metal from the pouch on her belt, and pressed the object against her neck burns. Immediately she sighed with relief and relaxed, before more closely studying her damaged arm. After a moment she abruptly thrust it outside the confines of the mantisal’s glassy structure, and from it a contrail of red cut across the colourless space. When she pulled back, the entire charred portion of her arm was gone, right up to her biceps.

  The two of them now conferred, and Tack understood none of it. All he imagined was that they were a greater danger to him than Traveller.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ he hazarded asking.

  The man glared at him. ‘Wh
at is your name, primitive?’

  ‘Tack.’

  ‘Well, Tack, I am called Coptic and my partner is Meelan. Now, with those introductions over, you will remain silent until we directly address you. Any disobedience will be punished severely.’

  Tack nodded, his mouth clamped shut.

  As Coptic and Meelan returned to their conversation, it swiftly devolved into an argument in which Coptic apparently prevailed. A moment later, reality crept back in all around them. With warm drizzle misting all the mantisal’s surfaces, thick subtropical greenery came into view below a leaden sky, forest reared to one side, and an inky lake spread on the other. In the forest some large beast issued a deep booming bark, and this seemed to decide Coptic, who was already gazing out at the damp vista with distaste. This reality jerked away as the mantisal turned back into the between space. Then, after a second, another one folded into place.

  Once again they were beside a lake, but now the sky was a clear amethyst dotted with dawn stars and the moon was ascending. There was no forest, just dense greenery covering the ground below the black skeletons of trees. This vista stretched away into shadow for as far as Tack could see, only relieved by the occasional stone outcrop. Greenery also extended across much of the lake’s surface, in the form of huge lily pads centre-nailed by blowsy yellow flowers.

  ‘Out,’ Coptic ordered.

  Tack did not hesitate, moving to a gap in the mantisal’s structure and dropping to the ground. Immediately he found himself up to his chest in vegetation, and his skin crawled when he heard an insectile scuttling near his feet. Looking towards the lake, he saw the reflected glitter of eyes from bulky shapes resting in the water, and it occurred to him that his seeker gun might now be a million years away from him.

  Coptic and Meelan disembarked together, then the mantisal floated higher like some strange and gigantic Christmas decoration, before turning itself out of that world.