Extracts

Something Special

“Don’t you wish something magical could happen,” said Zoe, “just once? Something special that would make you think there’s more than just us. Don’t you wish that, Trusting Davy?” He didn’t know what he wished, but maybe that was the way, you wouldn’t know till it happened. They’d sidestepped into a quieter street. “Well, do you?”
She looked at him with pleading eyes, searching for an answer but he had none.
“Good evening, young people.”
An old woman stood behind them. Either she’d appeared out of nowhere or they’d walked straight passed her. Despite her age she was bright eyed and curious with the hint of a smile on her ancient face. Around her neck hung a tray of beautiful gemstones, too beautiful for her to be selling on the street corners of a mad, bad sin city like London.

Aelfric the Miserable

“No. My heart tells I am a slave with neither father nor mother, and with a sister that sees the world as she wishes it to be, not as it is.”
“I see the same world as you.”
“No you don’t. When a cruel lord comes to take you, you’ll see how it is. You’ll call for help but no one will hear, not father, not even me, and even if I did hear, what could I do? People will scorn us. You’ll carry your unwanted children through life, a burden, and then you’ll change your tune. The world won’t seem the same as it does now.”
“Wish good things and cast the stone, Aelfric The Miserable!” Aelfric kicked at the earth by the bank of the river, his face full of anger and resentment. “The moon is high in the sky,” said Aelfrith, “and tonight is the turning of a thousand years. Do it now!”

Warriors

“This is too much, Davy. I mean, we’d hardly met, we get spirited away to wherever we were when suddenly whoosh, we’re here and my head’s spinning. Why, Davy? What’s the point?”
Davy wasn’t sure there was a point, unless it was to change something for some reason, but they were working blind.
“We’ll just have to go with the flow for a while,” he said, “See what happens.”
“I feel so thick,” said Zoe, “not understanding a word they say, just guessing what’s happening all the time. We could be way off beam. This might be another planet, and even if it isn’t, these people look violent. They could kill us. They could already have killed us ten times over, but we can’t be killed,” she said, “if we haven’t been born yet, can we?”

Plucked from the River

Olwen turned the oyster card over, tried twisting it and smelling it, then gave it back to Math.
“It has no magic in it,” she said, “like you Math. Now stir yourself and help. We will lift him onto your horse and take him home.”
Zoe and Davy once more found themselves hoisted onto horseback, trying to remain steady and keep their nerve, even though they were the world’s worst riders. The saddles on the horses were rough and ready, nowhere as ornate as the saddles Kikva and Cunobelin had used, and they were uncomfortable. Davy’s ankle throbbed and he was still shocked from what he had seen.
“They are not riders,” said Olwen. “Have you no idea who they are?”
“They are travellers and we should make them welcome…”

Where It All Started

They emerged from the forest into an encampment set up in a cleared space. It made the other settlements they’d seen appear like large cities. This consisted of no more than twenty shaky looking constructions built from twigs and branches resembling an inverted V. A fire burnt in the middle of the camp. The whole place looked temporary. There were no enclosures nor animals. There was not even a defensive fence.
Most of the inhabitants were engaged in the practicalities of daily life. A few men were sitting carving stone objects, mainly axe and spear heads. A rabbit, or some small animal, was being roasted over the fire, tended by three women. A woman was cutting open a fish and taking out the bones whilst four children sat by and watched. The whole scene smacked of survival and immediacy, just the minimum of planning for the future.

State of the Art

Will showed them how the device was voice or touch activated, but only by his voice and his touch, bound as it was by his unique DNA, how he could tune it to a deeper conscious level, for private research in public places, how it could take on various avatars, be parent, teacher, guide or friend, how it could generate 2D or 3D and in real time or virtual time, how it could tap into anything, anywhere, provided the information was accessible and how it was tied in to all manner of automatic protection systems like a guardian angel. “Hence the name,” he said.
Davy decided that his own mobile phone, which he’d thought state of the art, was a bit naff in comparison.

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