Paths Not Taken (10 page)

"I would," said Tommy.

And that was when the Shadow Men found us again. Somehow they'd tracked me half-way across the Nightside in a matter of minutes, without even a trail to follow. They came slipping and sliding across the open Square, great black shapes with long reaching arms, and the few people in the Square ran screaming from them. I would have liked to do the same, but once again they'd silently surrounded me, blocking me off from every exit. They'd even been careful to get between me and the Time Tower. They moved in slowly from all sides like a creeping black tide, taking their time. They wanted to savour this. And I had nothing left with which to fight them.

Suzie Shooter had her shotgun in her hands again. She blasted the nearest Shadow with both barrels, and the darkness absorbed the blast without even a ripple. Suzie swore dispassionately.

"I have silver bullets, blessed bullets, cursed bullets, and a couple of grenades I stole from some Satanic terrorists. Any of them do any good?"

"No," I said. I was having trouble breathing, and I could feel cold beads of swe# popping out on my forehead. I didn't want to go out like this. Swallowed up by the dark, reduced to some broken, screaming thing. "Tommy?"

Give the man his due, he tried. He stepped forward and tried to reason with the Shadow Men. But his voice was uncertain, and I could feel his gift sputtering on and off. The Shadow Men oozed forward, taking their time, black lakes of evil intent. They didn't listen to Tommy. They didn't care about his logic, they didn't care about anything but dragging down the man who'd dared defy them. They had come for me, and not even Walker's orders would have turned them aside by then.

So I did the only thing left to me, and fired up my gift. I didn't want to. I blaze so very brightly in the dark when I open up my mind to find things, and my Enemies can See exactly where I am. They might send the Harrowing after me again, or worse still, the future Suzie. But I had no choice. I opened up my inner eye, my private eye, and used my gift to find the Time Tower's defences. I could See the many layers of magical protection radiating from the squat stone structure, like a dark rainbow, and it was the easiest thing in the world to reach out and grab them, and pull them to me.

I only meant to use them as a screen, to hide the three of us from the Shadow Men, but the Tower's defences had other ideas. They slammed into me, a cascade of terrible forces far beyond mortal ken, and I cried out as horrible pain racked my whole body. The defences forced their way into me, and focussed through me; then they leapt out to blast all the Shadow Men in the Square with a brilliant, incandescent, and overwhelming light that shone from me like a balefire against the night.

I screamed again and again as the power burned in and through me, and the light shone brighter, brighter, filling the whole Square. And everywhere the living Shadows fell back, shrivelling up and fading away under the onslaught of that terrible light. Suzie and Tommy had their heads turned away and their hands pressed over their eyes, but I don't think it was helping them much. They were crying out, too. The light rose up one last time, and the Shadow Men were gone, all gone, small patches of darkness blasted away by a light beyond bearing. The Tower's defences looked out through my eyes, checking that the Square was secure, then they withdrew, yanking themselves out of me with painful abruptness. I fell forward into my knees, shaking and shuddering. And all I could think was;

/ don't think I'll try that again.

Suzie knelt beside me, not touching me, but giving me what support she could through her presence.

"I didn't know you could do that," said Tommy. He was looking dazedly about him. "You destroyed the Shadow Men! All of them! I didn't think anyone could do that!"

"I'm full of surprises," I managed to say, after a while.

"I'll say," Suzie said dryly. "First the Reasonable Men, now the Shadow Men. Soon Walker won't have anyone left to send after you."

"Sounds like a plan to me," I said.

I rose shakily to my feet and wiped the sweat off my face with a handkerchief that had seen better days. Tommy actually winced at the sight of it. I put it away, and we all looked at the Time Tower. Suzie looked at me.

"Why do they call it a Tower when it manifestly isn't?"

"Because that isn't the Tower," I said. Even my brief contact with the Tower's defences had been enough to fill my head with all kinds of information I hadn't possessed before. "That building is how you access the Tower, which isn't exactly here, as such. Old Father Time brought the Tower with him from Shadows Fall, but it's only connected to the Nightside by his will. It exists ... somewhere else. Or maybe somewhen else. That stone thing only contains the Tower's defences. And trust me when I say you really don't want to know what powers them. I know, and I'm seriously considering scrubbing out my frontal lobes with steel wool."

"All right," said Tommy, in the tone of voice usually reserved for calming the demented and potentially dangerous. "How do we get to the Tower?"

"Through the door," I said. "That's what it's for."

I led the way over and tried the brass door handle. It turned easily in my hand, and the door swung open. This was a good sign. If Old Father Time didn't want to talk to you, the handle wouldn't budge. Inside the door was an elevator, with only the one button on its control panel. The three of us stepped inside, and I hit the button. The door swung shut, and the elevator started moving.

"Hold everything," said Suzie. "We're going down."

"The Tower exists at one hundred and eighty degrees to our reality," I said. "To reach the top of the Tower, we have to go all the way down."

"Am I the only one who finds that distressingly ominous?" said Tommy.

"Shut up," I said kindly.

Four mirrored walls surrounded us. As the elevator fell and fell, our reflections began changing. First a detail here and there, and then the changes accelerated, until the mirrors were showing us possible versions of ourselves, from alternate timetracks. Facing me was a female version of myself, looking very stylish in her long white trench coat. Another mirrored wall showed Suzie a male version of herself, looking like a berserker Hells Angel. A third wall showed a Punk version of Tommy, complete with a tall green Mohawk and safety pins through his face. The images changed abruptly, and suddenly all three of us were wearing masks and capes and gaudily coloured spandex. We had muscles and square chins and attitude to spare.

"Cool," said Tommy. "We're super-heroes!"

"More likely super-villains," Suzie said. "And I never had breasts that big in my life. They're bigger than my head..."

Another change, and suddenly I was wearing black leather trousers and bondage straps across my shaved chest. Suzie was wearing a scarlet basque with all the trimmings, black stockings and suspenders, and makeup by Sluts R Us. Tommy was a surprisingly convincing cross-dresser. None of us had anything to say. Another change, and we were Pierrot, Columbine, and Pantaloon. All three of us had a distinctly melancholy air, despite the bright costumes. The next change was ... disturbing. I was a vampire, Suzie was a zombie, Tommy was a mummy. All of us were dead, but still continuing. Our pale and rotting faces had a grim, resigned look.

And then all the images faded away, leaving four mirrored surfaces showing no reflections at all. We looked at each other. Tommy actually reached out a hand to touch my arm, to make sure I was still there. Suzie tapped on the nearest mirror with a knuckle, and immediately all four walls showed a single terrible figure. It was the Suzie I'd seen from the bad future. Half her face had been destroyed, blackened and crisped around a seared-shut eye. One side of her mouth was twisted up in a permanent caustic smile. Her long straggly hair was shot with grey, and her leathers were battered and torn. She looked hard-used and horribly tired, from fighting evils I couldn't even imagine. And worst of all, her right forearm and hand were gone, replaced by that awful old weapon known as the Speaking Gun, which could destroy anything, anything at all. It had been plugged directly into what was left of her elbow.

Future Suzie stared out of all four walls, madness and fury and cold, cold determination blazing from her one remaining eye.

"Stop that," I said, and I don't think my voice had ever been colder or angrier. "Stop that now."

Tommy and Suzie looked at me sharply, but the future image snapped off, and all four mirrors were reflecting us as we were. And, God willing, always would be.

"What the hell was that?" said Tommy.

"Just a possibility," I said, looking at Suzie. "Nothing more."

Suzie looked hard at me. I'd never been able to lie successfully to her.

The elevator fell and fell, descending in a direction we could only guess at. It started to get cold, and our breath steamed on the air before us. There were voices outside the elevator, drifting, inhuman voices, thankfully indistinct. I don't think any of us would have wanted to hear them clearly. But finally the elevator eased to a halt, and the door disappeared. And standing before us, in a brightly lit steel corridor, was Old Father Time himself. He seemed human enough, as long as you didn't look too closely into his eyes. He was a gaunt man in his late fifties or early sixties, dressed to the height of mid-Victorian elegance. His long black coat was of a fine but severe cut, over a dazzlingly white shirt and dark waistcoat, and apart from the gold watch chain stretched across his flat stomach, the only touch of colour in his garb was the apricot cravat at his throat. He had a fine-boned face with high cheekbones, old old eyes, and a mane of thick grey hair. He held his chin high, and looked us over with a sharp, considering gaze.

"About time you got here," he said. "I've been waiting for you."

"Interesting," I said. "Considering even I didn't know there'd be three of us until a while ago."

"Oh, I'm always expecting everyone, my boy," said Time. "Especially Kings in waiting, female bounty hunters, and dated dandies." He sniffed loudly at Tommy. "I really don't approve of you, you know. Time is complicated enough without people like you messing it about. No, no, don't bother to justify yourself. You're going with Taylor anyway. He's going to need you."

"I am?" I said.

"And he'll need you, too, my dear," Time said to Suzie. "Your presence is approved, because it is necessary. You will redeem him."

"She will?" I said.

"Follow me," said Old Father Time, and he set off down the steel corridor at a brisk pace. We had to hurry to keep up.

"What do you know about what's going to happen?" I said.

"Never enough to do any good," said Time, not looking around.

The steel corridor seemed to stretch away forever. The gleaming walls showed us blurred distortions of ourselves, but Time's image was always sharp and distinct. And only his feet made any sound on the metal floor.

"What was all that business with the changing images on the elevator walls?" Suzie said abruptly.

"Possible futures, variant timetracks," Time said airily. "I should never have given the elevator semi-sentience. It gets bored, and sometimes cranky. It's harmless. Mostly. And don't worry about the images; they don't mean anything. Usually."

"Talk to me about possible futures," I said. "How real are they? How definite? How can you tell... the likely ones?"

"You can't," said Time. "They're all equally real, and therefore equally possible." He was still striding along, not looking back. "However... That isn't as true as it used to be. There don't seem to be as many futures as there once were. As though one particular future is becoming increasingly probable. More and more powerful, replacing all the others. As though ... events are conspiring to narrow us down to the one future. Which is fascinating, if a trifle worrying."

"Only a trifle worrying?" said Tommy.

"Oh, these things usually sort themselves out," Time said vaguely. "Except for when they don't."

We were suddenly walking through a forest of large, slowly turning metal pieces. Shapes and cogs and wheels working together as we walked through and between them. It was like moving inside the mechanism of a giant clock. A slow loud ticking came from everywhere at once, and every distinct sound had something of eternity in it. Old Father Time looked back briefly.

"Whatever you're seeing, it probably isn't really there. It's only your mind interpreting something so complex as to be beyond your comprehension. Your mind supplies you with familiar symbols to help you make sense of your surroundings."

"I've always liked Disneyland," said Tommy.

"So," said Time, carefully ignoring Tommy's comment, "you want to go back into the Past, do you? All the way back to the creation of the Nightside. An ambitious plan, if somewhat lacking in self-preservation."

"How do you know where we want to go?" Suzie said sharply.

"Because it's my business to know things like that."

"If you really are the living incarnation of Time itself," I said carefully, "do you know the truth about the Past? About everything that's happened? Do you know what's going to happen when we go back to the beginnings of the Nightside?"

"I only know what I'm allowed to know, to do my job," said Time. He still didn't look round, but his voice sounded sad, resigned.

"Allowed?" said Tommy. "Allowed by who?"

"Good question," said Old Father Time. "If you should happen to find out, do let me know. Assuming you come back from this trip, of course."

"What?" said Suzie.

Time stopped abruptly, and we almost ran into him. He looked us over with his cold, crafty gaze. "Pay attention; this is important. Where you're going is much further back than most people go. And it is a very unstable moment in time, centred around a unique happening. I can send you there, but once you arrive you'll be beyond my reach. You'll be beyond anyone's reach. To put it bluntly, you'll have to find your own way back. I won't be able to help you. Knowing this, do you still wish to proceed?"

Suzie and Tommy and I looked at each other. I felt like the floor had been pulled out from under my feet. It had never occurred to me that this might be a one-way ticket.