The Forever Man (W.A.R.P. 3)

People ain’t got a notion, boy. People don’t know that among them, in their very midst, is living a man – nay, more than a man – who could wipe the stage with any of the so-called greats. Pinetti? Robert-Houdin? Amateurs, flashy hucksters. Albert Garrick could have the world in the palm of his hand. Kings, emperors, the lot.

Garrick’s promising career had been literally cut short when he had sliced his beautiful assistant in half during a performance, on account of a perceived slight, and he dared not return to the stage for fear of being recognized.

But give it another few years, he often said. And perhaps a nicely waxed set of whiskers, then I shall re-emerge from the shadows and you shall be my assistant, boy. And, oh, the wonders we shall see. No more skulking around this hellhole. And I shall have a black carriage drawn by plumed Arabian horses, with my initials in gold on each door. He would hold his hands high, imagining the scene. No fancy monikers for me. The world shall know my true name. Albert Garrick. He would close his eyes, then, seeing the gold initials: A … G.

And then Riley had it.

Of course.

But he could be wrong.

Even if he was right, though, that only gave him half a chance, for there were two sets of strings. And, even if Lady Luck smiled on him, there was still Cryer to be dispatched.

Which is a task, Riley thought, that I shall relish.

Did he have the gumption in him, he wondered, to take on such odds? To possibly unleash the bolts into himself and end his own life?

Perhaps I am immortal now, like Garrick?

But he knew that he was not, for he felt no different in himself than before.

Except about Chevie. Except in that respect.

As it turned out, Cryer made up Riley’s mind for him. First the dolt made another one of his dashes towards Riley, hoping to startle the boy with his stamping feet and zany hallooing, but when that did not produce the desired results he resorted to insults and threats.

‘You are hell spawn, boy. There is no creature on this earth lower than the familiar of a witch. Lower than a snake, you are. For at least the snake knows not its sins.’

Riley was still pondering the risk and whether he would take it when Cryer squatted before him and said, ‘I promise you this, familiar. Your witch will scream when they burn her. And I shall see the flames are kept to a low flicker so that her hellish screams will echo long into this night. Then we shall see if you are ready to confess.’

All doubt disappeared from Riley’s mind. Chevie would not be harmed by this fool’s hand, not while he drew breath.

So he flexed his fingers and, upon hearing the knuckles crack, Cryer was surprised. ‘You would attempt the Alleluia?’

‘No, Constable,’ said Riley. ‘I believe I know a shorter tune.’

Then without hesitation he plucked the right A string and left G string simultaneously.

A. G. Albert Garrick.

The world shall know my true name.

‘Hah!’ crowed Godfrey Cryer, as though his dreams had come to pass, but his celebration was short-lived as the Cat’s Collar tumblers tumbled and clicked.

‘Faith!’ he gasped, but for an officer of the law his reactions were slow and he merely watched slack-jawed as the hinges of the collar swung open, releasing Riley’s neck and hands. Hands that would, in the case of a normal prisoner, drop like heavy anchors from their positions of confinement – but these hands rested steady as those of a statue, fingers resting on the violin strings.

Which control the cross bolts, thought Cryer. Which are no longer pointed at the familiar.

‘I think I’ll try the Alleluia now,’ said Riley, and twanged a random string.

One bolt flew from its cradle like a streak of light and took Cryer high in the shoulder, driving him backwards into the front bench, which set off a domino effect of crashing pews.

Riley lifted the second bolt from its groove and jammed the head into the padlock securing his shackles, into which it fitted perfectly, as he had suspected it would. One quick turn and his feet were free, after which he replaced the second bolt in the crossbow and sent it whistling past the earhole of Thomas Cutler, giving the man such a fright that he turned and left the building, almost outpacing the arrow such was his haste.

The other guards were made of sterner stuff and hefted their cudgels, doubtless reasoning that although the familiar had perhaps some tricks up his sleeve he was still a boy and could be laid low with a knock to the bonce.

While it was true that Riley was indeed a boy, he was no ordinary boy, having endured several years of rigorous training in stage magic, escapology and martial arts – and so was more than a match for two part-time members of a rural watch with no more qualification than a willingness to take a shilling and stand on a wall. It took Riley barely a half minute to relieve the first man of his cudgel and strike them both senseless with it. He felt a touch guilty for laying low two of his own countrymen in a chapel, of all places, but they would wake up in a short while with nothing to show for their assault but the flushes of bruises and shame. And there were lives in the balance.

Chevie’s in particular.

From the tumbled pews Cryer moaned, then called, ‘Demon! Devil! There is nowhere you can run that the master will not find you.’

Riley ran down the aisle, grabbed his cape from where it was draped over a pew, and dashed out into the morning mist, thinking: For once Garrick ain’t trying to find me; I am trying to find him.

Rosa

The fens. Huntingdonshire. 1647

Albert Garrick was not too far away as it happened, for progress through the diverse thicketry, woodlands and now boggy fens was proving slow. The would-be witch-hunters were hampered not only by the East Anglian landscape but also by the dense fog, which refused to disperse with the morning sun and seemed tinged with a sickly hue that had the men mumbling it was witch-summoned. A muttering that amused Albert Garrick no end.

These fools, he thought, not without fondness, for after all they feared and adored the same Albert Garrick. These fools and dullards. Witch-summoned fog indeed.

It seemed the hounds were just as dull as their masters, for they dithered from one tree trunk to the next, sniffing and slobbering, and if Chevron Savano had followed this hound-suggested path then she was indeed witless, as was her rescuer.

No, he thought. We are being bamboozled here. Led astray by some means or other.

Garrick was mildly surprised to find that the red mist of rage did not rise behind his eyeballs; in fact, the more twists and turns this tale took, the more it delighted him.

You are amused, Alby, don’t you see? he told himself. For it had been so very long since this world had distracted him. Time had seemed to dissolve into a succession of blood-soaked trudges, with the faces of the dead blending into one.

Riley’s face.

And yet, when he ha

d Riley in his very grip, he had realized that this was no monstrous betrayer. He was a mere boy who’d had a lucky escape. And also Garrick caught a glimpse of what lay beyond Riley’s demise.

Centuries of sameness.

Nothing.

He would kill Riley. Yes, he would. No doubt of that. It had crossed his mind to rehabilitate the boy, reinstate him as his assistant. But that would be folly. He’d taken many assistants over the decades. Assistants, sidekicks, wives, servants, pages, slaves. Albert Garrick had indulged them all and always with the same result: they died. Either by his own hand or from natural causes.

So, yes, he would kill Riley and the girl Savano. They had wronged him and that could not be allowed to pass without vengeance, but he could not deny an unexpected twinge of regret that the great adventure was almost over.

What then for Albert Garrick? What great magical destiny?

Garrick almost smiled at the memory of his younger self. The naive assassin who had stumbled into the quantum elements with lofty ideas of magic and greatness. He’d even gone back on the stage for a few years but it all seemed so pointless now. Longevity was all there was. The rest was inside the wormhole, if he might call it that, and he would not allow himself to be dragged back inside.

I could not resist her again, he thought. I would be consumed entirely.

And, even though Garrick had tired of life, he did not yet crave death.

Moreover it would not be true death, for the tunnel would spread me along its velvet length until Albert Garrick was nothing more than a paste of electrons.

Garrick was pleased to have remembered the word ‘electrons’. Once upon a future time he knew much of the twenty-first century’s science, but, in truth, science bored him, beyond the trickery applied to his stage machinery, and much of his knowledge had faded. But he still held on to snatches and looked forward to aeroplanes and espresso machines.

For I have tasted future coffee and it is wonderful.