they all quaffed down the sweet ale. “As soon as we’ve finished here,” Cosimo announced, “we’re off to fetch the map.”
“And then?” wondered Kit.
“Then we shall determine the best course of action from the several that are open to us,” answered Cosimo. “If my hunch is correct, we’ll be heading off to one of the nearer leys-the Cotswolds are full of them, and there are several within striking distance.”
They drank in silence for a while, then Kit said, “Tell me, is it always the past we visit? I mean, do you ever travel to the future?”
“The absolute future?” His great-grandfather shook his head of wavy white hair. “No. Never. At least I’ve never heard that it was possible. Now, the relative future-well, that’s something else altogether.”
“Come again?” said Kit.
“See here,” Cosimo said, “the relative future is what Sir Henry would visit if he were to travel to London in, say, 1920.”
“The past for us, but the future for him. It’s relative to where you started from. I get it.”
“Precisely,” agreed his great-grandfather. “But no one-not Sir Henry, myself, you, or anyone else-can go beyond the present time of the Home World. That’s the absolute future, and no one can travel there.”
“Why not?”
Cosimo glanced at Sir Henry, who frowned. “We don’t know,” he confessed. “We’ve tried, but it does not seem at all possible. We don’t know why.” He paused, then added, “It is a question that has been troubling me for years.”
“We have theories,” prompted Sir Henry.
“Yes, and the simplest explanation is that the future hasn’t happened yet.”
“Which is why they call it the future, I suppose.”
“You must think in Home World terms,” continued Cosimo, ignoring Kit’s snide comment. “Our world, the Home World, the world you grew up in-that is the Origin World. It is the centre of all creation. For the Origin World, the future exists as a field of pure potential, where every possible outcome of any particular action occupies a separate divergent path. Until something-or someone-comes along to choose a particular path, the various pathways remain in a state of indeterminate potential and therefore do not inhabit the realm of time.”
While Kit mulled over this explanation, Sir Henry added, “If those events which might imprint a ley on the landscape cannot have taken place, there can be no ley, hence no travel to the place indicated by that hypothetical ley.”
“I get it, I think,” said Kit. “You can’t travel somewhere if the road doesn’t yet exist.”
“Exactly,” agreed Cosimo. “And the simple human act of choosing a particular path forces the collapse of all possibilities-except the one chosen. One might say that human free will crystallizes raw, indeterminate potentiality into concrete reality.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Kit, struggling to take it all in. “Let’s say I wake up one morning with a choice-I can go to the football match, or do the weekly shopping. Both those things exist as potential events, right?”
“Yes, and many more besides-all the things you might do with your day exist as a cloud of pure potentiality.”
“But, I choose to go to the match-and that collapses all the other possibilities?”
“Yes. Because all the things you did not do cannot exist for you. Only the path that you chose exists as reality for you.”
“What happens to the other paths?” wondered Kit. “All the other possibilities, what happens to them? They simply vanish, or what?”
“I wasn’t going to go into this, but since you insist… try to keep up,” replied Cosimo. “There is another school of thought that argues for the continued existence of all possibilities for any given action or decision.”
“You mean-” began Kit.
Cosimo raised his hand and cut him off. “Using your example -suppose you have a choice whether to go to the match or go shopping. Well, in this other school of thought both things happened. You chose to go do the weekly shop-that was your conscious decision, and that becomes your reality. But, and this has yet to be confirmed by direct observation, there might exist a world where you went to the game instead. Both things happened, but in different worlds.”
“Wow!” breathed Kit, as the sheer magnitude of the implications went spinning beyond his feeble grasp.
“I don’t say that theory is valid, but it is an interesting thought.” Cosimo drained his cup, wiped his mouth on his cuff, and rose. “Ready, chaps? Tempus fugit!”
Leaving the Golden Cross, they walked out into the courtyard and entered Cornmarket Street. The sun was down, and though the sky still held a glimmer of light, the evening gloom cast deep shadows along the already dark streets. A few scrawny dogs stood watching them pass as they came to the crossroads where, unaccountably, Kit felt the hair on his arms prickle and rise.
“Yes,” Cosimo observed, raising an eyebrow, “we’ve passed the intersection of Oxford Leys. I got a tingle too.”
“Really? I never felt that before,” said Kit.
“Oh, you probably did,” his great-grandfather pointed out, “but I imagine you didn’t know what it was, so you ignored it.”
“This is a good sign, young Kit,” Sir Henry said with a tap of his walking stick, “inasmuch as it shows you’re growing more sensitive to your gift.”
They continued on to Christ Church a little farther down the road and presented themselves at the porter’s lodge just inside the half-closed gate. Two torches blazed in their sconces outside the booth. “Sir Henry Fayth and guests to see Bursar Cakebread, if you please,” said Cosimo by way of introduction.
The porter-a podgy man of middling age dressed in ample knee-length breeches and thick wool stockings, a long jerkin of faded red brocade, and a brimless black hat shaped like an upturned pot-took one look at the three before him, recognized the lord of Castlemain, and said, “Bless me! But of course, sir! I will take you to him straightaway.”
The man lifted one of the torches and proceeded around the corner and into the quad with its unfinished, roofless cloister to a small room at the end of the paved walk. He knocked on the door, and a voice within bade him enter. The porter stepped in, returning a few seconds later with the bursar, a short, pear-shaped man with a grey chin beard, but no moustache. His balding head was covered with a brimless round hat of soft red velvet that he whisked off as he bowed to his visitors. “Welcome, Sir Henry. It is, as always, an especial delight to see you once again. How can I be of service this fine evening?”
Sir Henry thanked the porter, took the torch, and dismissed him. Handing the torch to Cosimo, he replied, “Good evening to you, Simeon. It is good to be here again. We won’t trouble you but for the key to the crypt.”
“No trouble at all, sir. No trouble at all.” The bursar darted back inside and returned with a ring of keys. “This way, gentlemen, if you please.”
They were led to the college chapel and to a door set inside the entrance; Simeon Cakebread produced a large iron key from the ring, unlocked the door, and led them down a set of spiral stairs into the darkness below. A second door was unlocked and pushed open. As soon as Kit’s eyes adjusted, he saw that he was in a vaulted room with a narrow grate high up in one wall. The six-sided room smelled of dust and age, but was dry. Ranks of ironclad chests of assorted sizes-some no bigger than shoe boxes and others larger than tea chests-lined the perimeter wall, and in the centre of the room stood a low table with a large candle on a brass plate. “Shall I light the wick for you, my lord?”
“Thank you, Simeon, but that will not be necessary. We will fend for ourselves, if you have no objection. We intend only the briefest of visits.”
“Then I will leave you to your business, Sir Henry.” He opened the ring and removed one of the smaller keys, passed it to his lordship, then departed by the staircase.
“My friend, you do the honours,” said Sir Henry, handing the key to Cosimo. “It is your map, after all.”
Cosimo gave the torch to Kit and moved to one of the strongboxes; he bent down and fumbled with the lock for a moment. There was a chunky click and a rusty squeal as the heavy lid raised on stiff hinges. Cosimo stooped and reached down into the chest, felt around a bit, then lifted out a roll of coarse cloth. Returning to the table, he
