City of Time Read Free Page A

and down the stairs.
    Outside it was chilly and he was glad he'd grabbed his jacket. Everything was quiet and still and he could hear the sound his trainers made on the grass. He ran
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    lightly across the two fields that separated his house from the river and from the dark shadow of the Workhouse. Its crumbling brickwork and dark empty windows were forbidding enough to send a shiver down his spine. He remembered being inside and seeing cold ghostly shapes moving through the field as the Harsh attacked. He remembered Johnston's men attacking the Workhouse defenses.
    When he reached the riverbank he leapt lightly onto the fallen tree. He ran across and jumped down on the other side. It was darker here and hard to see where he was going. He should have brought a torch.
    "Cati?" he called out, his voice sounding a bit weak and scared in the darkness. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Cati?" In the darkness something rustled. He ran to the Workhouse door.
    "Cati," he hissed, "is that you?" There was a scrabbling sound from inside, like stones and rubble falling. In the darkness he could see the staircase, almost blocked with rocks. Then a small figure dashed around the bend in the stairs, carrying a strangely shaped magno gun in one hand.
    She slid to the ground in front of Owen. "I nearly shot your silly head off," she said, starting to brush dust off her trousers.
    "I wouldn't have put my head up if I'd known you were armed," he said. "What's going on anyway?"
    "I don't know," she said, looking troubled. "If only the Sub-Commandant was here ..."
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    But Owen knew that the Sub-Commandant, Cati's father, would never be there again. In the final battle with the Harsh, he had been sucked into the time vortex they called the Puissance and been lost, leaving Cati to inherit his role as Watcher.
    Cati turned her face aside and passed her sleeve over her eyes. "You miss him too?" she said, her voice almost pleading.
    Owen nodded. The small, stern man had believed in Owen when everyone else seemed against him.
    "Anyway," Cati said with an effort, "let's get inside somewhere where we can talk."
    "What about the Den?"
    "All right," she said. "I should be stable there. Let's go."
    They walked along the riverbank, then dived through the bushes into the Den. Inside Owen took the piece of magno from its box and placed it on the table. The blue light illuminated the room.
    Cati threw herself wearily down on the old sofa. Owen went to the little box where he kept food and took out tea bags and a packet of biscuits. He had added a camping stove to the Den and Cati watched with interest as he lit it. Owen made the tea and waited until she had drunk half of it before he spoke.
    "So what is it, Cati?" he said. "Why did you come looking for me?"
    She rubbed a hand wearily over her face and he saw
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    the dark shadows under her eyes. "I didn't know what else to do," she said slowly. Then she told him about the flight of geese she had seen and how they had turned into skeletons and then into dust.
    "That's like what happened to me!" Owen said. "A girl in school. Freya Revell. I was talking to her and for a moment she turned really old. I mean, her face looked ancient."
    "So I didn't dream it!" Cati exclaimed. "It must have happened!"
    "I think so," Owen said. "It sounds as if it's something to do with time going weird. You should wake the others. ..."
    Cati shook her head. "I tried, but I can't. There's something wrong."
    His heart went out to his tired-looking friend. "Maybe I can ...," he began. Cati looked up at him hopefully. He knew that he possessed a strange power to awake those who were in the long sleep, although he didn't understand it.
    Cati nodded. "That is why I called you. I don't know if it's wrong or not. There may be consequences. But when I couldn't wake them I didn't know what else to do."
    "You did the right thing," Owen said, hoping it was true.
    "Do you think you can wake them?" Cati asked eagerly.
    "I can try," Owen