The League of Sharks (27 page)

‘It might work if Garvan ever figures out how to use the box,' said Lasel. This was the final straw for Garvan. He roared his frustration and got up, kicking the table. The table disintegrated.

‘I can't do it,' he said through clenched teeth. ‘I don't understand it. I always work things like this out. I've never failed before.' His cheeks looked flushed. ‘I always understand everything I want to understand.'

‘Come on,' said Junk. ‘No one understands absolutely everything.'

‘No, of course not,' agreed Garvan. ‘Just the things I want to understand. There's plenty I don't understand, but I have no interest in those things.'

‘Why don't you go and get some fresh air or something?' suggested Junk.

‘How would fresh air help me decipher this?' asked Garvan. ‘Air isn't a factor in the map. Unless it is.' He thought about it for a moment. ‘No, it's not.'

‘It clears your head sometimes,' said Junk. ‘Gives you perspective. Maybe helps you think of something you've not tried so far.'

‘I've tried everything,' said Garvan.

‘Not everything,' said Lasel. ‘Not the right thing.'

Garvan couldn't argue with that, so he went off for a walk. He promised to breathe regularly while he was out.

When he had left, Lasel went to have a bath and Junk was left alone. He picked up the box from the remnants of the destroyed table and crossed to a smaller table by the
window. Garvan had left it opened out in its cruciform configuration. Junk traced the many interconnecting lines with the tip of his finger. He picked it up and turned it over. The hinged edges bent both ways and it all clicked together with a reassuring snap.

When he tried to open it up again he discovered, to his surprise, that the edges that had been hinged a moment before now separated and those that had been unconnected previously were now hinged. He tried to pull one of the sides free from the rest but it wouldn't budge. The six square faces that made up the cuboid could change their configuration but always needed to be connected on at least one edge.

Junk went to return the box to the formation that Garvan had left it in, when something cut him. He pulled back quickly and sucked the blood from a razor-thin line on the pad of his forefinger. At first he couldn't see what had inflicted the injury. He tilted the box slowly in all directions and then he noticed that there was another layer inside. It was made of glass fibre and was so thin that it was virtually invisible. On closer examination, he discovered that each face of the cube had a second transparent face. That meant there were twelve faces and not six.

Junk tapped one of the ‘glass' faces gently with his fingernail. Because it was so thin, he assumed it was extremely delicate. But he was wrong. It made a tinging noise as he tapped it, so he tapped it harder, and harder again. It felt solid despite its insubstantiality.

He opened out all twelve faces and then started to slot them together. Almost as if they were designed to find their mate, they snapped into place with ease until Junk had made a twelve-sided polyhedron. If he'd known anything about geometry he would have been able to identify it as a rhombic dodecahedron. However, he didn't, so he didn't identify it as anything. As the last side slotted into place, the light that had glimmered when he had depressed the corners in order to open the doorway that had taken them to the Room of Doors bloomed to life. It flooded through the grooves and fissures on the solid sides and continued along the translucent faces as black lines.

Junk held it in his hands, marvelling at what was happening. The lines of illumination crept around the twelve-sided shape until they all met up, and suddenly it pulsed and a vast multidimensional map was projected all around the room, all around Junk. It was like being in a planetarium. He revolved slowly, gazing in wonder at lines and circles that floated all around him. It was like being surrounded by a map of the London Underground, though not as colourful but with many more train lines.

He set the dodecahedron down on the floor so his hands were free and reached out, trying to touch the light projection. To his astonishment, when his finger brushed through one of the many circles it reacted to his touch. It turned green and a green beam shot out from it, seeking out another circle. The one it found was at the heart of the projection.

The door to the bathroom opened and Lasel stepped out wearing a towel. She gasped at the sight that greeted her.

‘What did you do?' she asked.

‘Think I might have figured out how the map works,' said Junk. ‘Look, you press one of these.' He touched another circle, which did the same as the first one. It turned green and connected via a beam of light to the circle in the centre. ‘I think the circles are the doors wherever they are. And this one …' He pointed to the middle of the projection. ‘… This, I think, is the Room of Doors itself. All lines go there.'

At that moment, Garvan returned. ‘I did breathing,' he announced as he entered. Then he saw the projection and stopped. His jaw bobbed slackly.

‘What did you do? You solved it!' He looked down at the dodecahedron and pointed. ‘It has more sides. Where did they come from?' His questions were all rhetorical. He stepped further into the room and stood next to Junk and Lasel so the projection enveloped him too. The three of them stared in awe, turning on the spot.

Garvan reached out and prodded the circle at the heart of the projection, the one Junk thought represented the Room of Doors. The moment he touched it, bright beams of light shot out from it and joined together to create a doorway just like the one they had passed through to reach the Room of Doors. Once it was complete, it started moving towards them, picking up speed. They had only a split second to panic, not long enough to react or move,
and then it flashed past them and suddenly they weren't in the Wotashi hotel room any more. They were in the Room of Doors itself.

They were in a different part to where they had been before. It felt as if they were in the centre of the Room now, whereas before they were out on the periphery. Everything looked much the same here: thousands of green doors shimmering in the metallic darkness. However, there was a raised platform in front of them. A feature they had not seen before. Junk looked down and nudged Lasel. The dodecahedron was sitting on the ground with them, and though it was still humming with life and illumination, the projection had vanished. Junk picked it up and tucked it under his arm protectively.

‘I'm just wearing a towel,' Lasel pointed out to the others. Junk waved her concern away. They would return to the hotel soon. He stepped up on to the platform and Garvan and then Lasel followed.

In the middle of the stage was a column about a metre and a half high. There was an impression on the top that looked like it was made for the dodecahedron. Junk felt sure he was doing the right thing when he slotted the quietly humming shape into the hole. It fitted perfectly and the moment it snapped into place the box exploded with light and the projection that had filled the hotel room returned but expanded a thousand-fold or more. It lit up the entire Room, marking each and every door that stood before them.

‘Wow,' said Junk.

‘Chul,' said Lasel, which was her equivalent.

‘If you could decipher this, Garvan,' said Junk, ‘we could go anywhere. We could go to Tremmelleer just like that.'

‘Tremmelleer,' boomed a mighty disembodied voice, making all three of them jump. It continued in English. ‘Temporal information required.'

‘Who's that?' asked Junk.

‘Temporal information required,' came the reply.

‘You speak English.'

‘I speak every language. Temporal information required.'

‘Criptik Jansian?' asked Garvan.
Do you speak Jansian?

‘Maro. Criptiktar vara criptik.'
Yes. I speak every language
. Taking this as a challenge, Garvan repeated the question in every language he spoke, and every time the disembodied voice answered him in the corresponding tongue.

‘I think we can take his word for it,' said Junk. ‘Who are you?' he called out.

‘I am the Gatekeeper,' came the reply.

‘Are you real?' shouted Junk. ‘Can we see you?'

‘I am all around you. You are looking at me.'

‘You're the Room?' said Junk.

‘I am the Gatekeeper. Temporal information required.'

‘Temporal?' Junk considered what this meant. ‘Time. You want a date?' He looked at Garvan and Lasel. ‘He's
asking for a point in history. Err …' Junk thought about it and then said, ‘Present day.'

A line in the projection flowed quickly out from where they were standing and made its way to a door seven levels up and a couple of dozen doors along. ‘Location: Tremmelleer. Present day,' boomed the voice.

‘Can I change my mind?' said Junk. Instantly the line receded to where they were. ‘Tremmelleer. One hundred years ago.' Another line shot out from their location and made its way to a different door, this time nine levels up and twenty-eight along. ‘Wait a second. How does your … dating stuff work?' Junk wasn't sure how else to term it.

‘I am aware of all calendar systems.'

‘Murroughtoohy, 23 March 2004.' Again a stream of green light shot out from the column and raced to a specific doorway.

‘What's that date?' asked Lasel.

‘The day Ambeline was born.' Junk surprised himself picking that day out of all the dates he could have picked. For years he'd thought of it as the worst day of his life, but now he realized that there was a part of him that wanted to go back and start all over again and be a better big brother this time, be a better knight. Of course that wouldn't stop scarface killing her. Maybe he should go back to that night, the night he came to their house, then lie in wait and kill him before he ever got inside. ‘How precise can I be with the time I want to go to?'

‘To the second,' came the Gatekeeper's reply.

‘That's impossible,' said Garvan. ‘You'd have to have trillions of doors to cover every second in history.'

Lasel looked around. ‘Maybe there are trillions. Haven't you noticed that no matter where we are, we never see a wall? Maybe the Room just goes on forever.'

‘Or it's more likely,' said Garvan, ‘that the Gatekeeper controls which door takes you where and when.'

‘If that's the case, why not just have one door then?' asked Lasel. Garvan furrowed his brow. He didn't have an answer. ‘And how come he wasn't here when we went through before?'

‘I don't know,' said Garvan. ‘I know as much about it as you do. Junk?'

Junk hadn't been listening. His mind was still thinking about the night Ambeline died. He didn't know why scarface did what he did. He knew the League of Sharks were mercenaries. What if he had just been hired to kill Ambeline? That sounded daft. Who would hire anyone to kill a little girl? He could always ask him then. Scarface would be on his own and Junk would have the element of surprise. It would be perfect. ‘Murroughtoohy, 14 December 2010, 2 a.m.' Ambeline had come into his bed just past midnight that night, and he was certain at least two or three hours had passed before scarface came.

Junk waited but nothing happened. ‘Murroughtoohy, 14 December 2010, two a.m.' he said again but still nothing happened. He, Lasel and Garvan exchanged puzzled looks. ‘What's wrong?' Junk called out.

‘That date is forbidden,' came the disembodied Gatekeeper's reply.

‘Why?' asked Junk, but the Gatekeeper didn't say anything else.

‘Listen,' said Lasel, ‘can we go back to the hotel now? I'm wearing a towel.'

Reluctantly Junk agreed. They asked the Gatekeeper to return them to Wotashi, and in the blink of an eye the gargantuan Room of Doors vanished and was replaced with their hotel room.

*

After Lasel dressed, she headed out to get some food to bring back to the hotel for them all. Junk paced the room. Why was going back to the time and place his sister died forbidden? Was there something larger and more sinister at play here? Was the Room of Doors part of a grander conspiracy? He knew how ridiculous such thoughts sounded, but then he was talking about a room that connected every point in history for the entire planet and perhaps beyond for all he knew. Maybe the entire universe. The whole thing was fantastical. He shook his head to clear it and focused on what needed to be done next. He had come a long way and the finishing line was within view.

‘I'm going to go to Tremmelleer first thing in the morning,' he said to Garvan. ‘If there's an army there capable of defeating the League of Sharks, then Tremmelleer is where I need to be. I'm going to go alone though.'

‘Why?' asked Garvan.

‘There's no need for you and Lasel to be exposed to any more unnecessary danger.'

Garvan snorted derisively and shook his head. ‘We've come this far with you, Junk. We'll go to Tremmelleer too.'

*

Lasel was walking back with the provisions and not paying attention to her environment. Her mind was elsewhere, thinking about the Room of Doors and what was to come next. She didn't notice that she was being watched. A shadow stepped out into her path. Rumanow.

‘I know you,' said Rumanow in H'rtu, which Lasel didn't speak. ‘I saw you with
her
.' His hand shot out and grabbed Lasel by the throat. She dropped the bag as he lifted her off the ground. ‘Who are you?'

Lasel didn't understand what he was saying. She squirmed and struggled and shouted for help but Rumanow was too strong for her.

*

Up in the hotel, Junk and Garvan heard Lasel's cries and ran to the window in time to see Rumanow carrying her away, heading in the direction of the shanty town.

‘Oh no,' said Junk. His mind was racing, trying to work out what to do. He made the decision quickly and didn't question it in case he managed to talk himself out of it. ‘Use the Room,' he said to Garvan. ‘Go to Tremmelleer, try and get help'. Junk moved to leave.