look below, to the top of the British museum. Where? The roof? An airship hovering over it?
Excitedly, he pressed the lever in his knee joint to its walking gear, and the clickety-click signalled it was ready. He limped to the edge of the balcony and gazed down, instantly finding the large white-grey building he sought. He twisted the tiny wheels on the sides of his goggles, cycling through the different lenses until he had binocular vision. He adjusted the focus knob minutely, soon gaining a clear view of the museum roof. But there was no airship hovering overhead, and no sign of anyone or anything out of the ordinary atop the structure.
Frustrated, he fetched the telegram and studied it again.
Lunchtime game? It was yet a little after ten in the morning, a couple of hours shy of twelve noon.
He paced about the balcony impatiently, observing the museum roof every few minutes. The two hours seemed to last for days, but during that time he resolved that the handwritten silver name, Ebony Eyes Bookstore, had to be significant. The telegram code had been too intricate, too clever to leave any extraneous information, and the silver lettering stood out on the dark green cardboard backing like moonbeams on a duck pond.
Ebony eyes-dark eyes-sunglasses? Tinted spectrometer goggles?
If they were to send some sort of Morse Code message using flashes of light, one way to disguise it from prying eyes would be to emit light from a different spectrum, one undetectable by human vision. Infrared perhaps? Ultraviolet? He would try every lens in the goggles’ cycle.
Twelve o’clock arrived and his nerves were already shredded with anticipation. He gazed down at the museum roof, fully expecting to see someone crouched atop it.
No one. Nothing. Had he misinterpreted the message?
Directly above the brown snake. He lifted his gaze higher and higher until he spied a small dirigible floating there, its propellers motionless. Several figures manned the deck, two of whom stood facing him against the port bulwark. They were too far away for him to recognise but he swore one of them was dark-skinned. Tangeni?
He carefully cycled through his spectrometer lenses, cursing his luck whenever one failed to produce the result he pined for. He was ready to rush inside his quarters and retrieve an oil lamp, start waving that to at least let his friends know he’d understood the telegram when, through his penultimate lens, the ocular Cavendish, he caught a blinding flash.
“Oh my God, of course! They’re speaking the language of my machine-psammeticum refraction!”
It was indeed Morse Code, emitted with clarity and precision. They repeated the entire message twice more.
Professor, all is well. Hope you like your new leg. Billy, Tangeni and friends are safe with me. Have made tremendous progress with your temporal differentiator. Working on plan to rescue you. Difficult though. Spies are everywhere. Will return here at same time once a week. Hold tight. Wave if you understand. Sorensen.
He didn’t wave right away. He wanted to prolong this wonderful moment-an illicit communication for his eyes only, from friends willing to brave the wrath of the Council itself. True friends. When he finally did wave, the two figures standing against the bulwark responded in kind.
As he watched the ship leave, a rousing warmth in the pit of his stomach rose to his throat and his eyes and ears, drawing glad tears. His heart lifted and remained afloat for hours. He barely ate that day and all the next. And despite the enormous responsibilities and the world-altering disclosures heaped upon him by the Council, the only thing he truly cared about that week was obtaining two coloured counters and a single die.
He and Billy had a game to play. Snakes and Ladders. As when he’d waited indefinitely atop the rickety walkway above his great machine, Cecil was back to rolling his figurative die, hoping for an intervention. This time, it was not only Lisa and Edmond he must save but Verity and Embrey too.
He opened the board and set the pieces onto square one. The ups and downs were all ahead of him once more, but at least during this wait, he was not alone.
A small house spider scurried across the board, raising a smirk on Cecil’s lips. So miracles do happen.
He considered how the game might end, if indeed it could ever end once it had begun. “Well, here goes.” He slid the red counter forward.
He checked the telegram. The lad had just rolled a five…
Chapter 21
To whomever braves time to find this,
Come and seek us out! At the attached coordinates, you will discover the ruins of the only land-based Leviacrum tower left standing on this continent. We explore constantly, but that edifice is the closest we have to a home in prehistory. Yet it is not sufficient to keep us safe. The deadly creatures that reign over the outside world have made it imperative for us to delve underground, into the stupendous network of manmade tunnels fanning out from those coordinates. There is evidence of a technologically advanced civilization we believe may still exist deep within the bowels of this prehistoric realm. Might it hold the key to our salvation, to our return through time? Though we have unearthed a few of its secrets, we know not how or why it came to exist so far back in time. Even as I write this letter, the great towers rust and crumble. They will one day pass out of all human knowledge unless time is breached again and the breacher returns home. I therefore bequeath this mystery to you, dear traveller, in the event of our death. For we are captives here, driven beneath this vast, unconquered wilderness red in tooth and claw.
I am Lord Garrett Embrey, exile from the year 1908. Two years have passed since Professor Cecil Reardon, inventor of time travel, disappeared through time with two dozen others. We know nothing of their fates. Of the original survivors of our freak time jump, only I and one other remain. She is Verity Champlain, Captain of the Gannet airship, Empress Matilda, and I love her with all my heart. That she returns those feelings is the solace that sustains me.
I am securing this letter to the base of Big Ben in hope rather than expectation. We shall not return. Verity and I left these ruins because the area is too dangerous, but I suspect an errant time traveller would not happen upon this specific age by chance, and would therefore already know of the disappearance of Westminster. Let this be the start of your quest, then, dear traveller, and may we meet soon.
Be wary of the sound of thunder: the giant baryonyx roam these coasts; of sudden shadows: look up to the Hatzegopteryx, cruel kings of the skies; and venture across the lakes at your peril. As the decrepit Leviacrum towers illustrate, dinosaurs and man can never co-exist. Perhaps our erstwhile enemy, Agnes Polperro, was right and Nature only suffers interlopers-in time, in fate, in the food chain-temporarily before expelling them in its own subtle ways. Sooner or later, if Nature is governed by balance, the ebb and flow of time may swallow all man’s attempts to change its course.
Our airship’s next flight will be its last, as we have almost exhausted the hydrogen reserves. Verity and I will soon begin our next great adventure. For today, as the sun reached its zenith, we joined hands at the foot of Big Ben, a hallowed place where twentieth century grass still grows and time no longer chimes. While the sun’s corona haloed the clock, we turned our faces toward heaven and plighted our troth beneath the eyes of God.
We live during the infancy of flowers, and she is my rose, the first and only one I shall ever love. We are without flag, without country, without sure means of survival. But we have each other, and that is more than enough.
What lies in store for us, I wonder.
Hopefully,
Garrett R. J. Embrey
Verity M. Embrey
Epilogue
