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  WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT

  TIME KNOT

  Time Knot is a fast-paced, time-slip novel, a sequel to Morison’s debut, Time Sphere.

  A most clever tale, unwrapping the notion that ‘Gods created time that mankind could be free…to choose as their minds decided,’ Time Knot is a humorous, yet thought-provoking read.

  The story opens with a prophecy:

  ‘You must go both North and South. Find the fire before you find the ice. Trust the drum, it knows the dance of time. You are the dance and the dancer.’

  And so it starts, the latest adventure of Rhory, The Red King, dodging bullets, arrows, and disbelief from his big sister, Juliette. Time-travelling to sixteenth century Sweden, where he embarks on crystal boat ride in turquoise waters, and sleigh-chases over a frozen lake, guided only by the yellow, crescent moon and the stars, Rhory leaves behind himself only footsteps in the snow.

  Simultaneously, he ‘lands’ in modern-day Alexandria, at first, unaware of those on his trail.

  “ ‘BEWARE,’ whispered the soundless voice. A voice older than Alexandria. A voice older than Egypt,” denoting a slip back to Alexandria in the year 380 CE for Rhory (and a timely move for this book aimed at the YA market) offering up for the reader a rich, poetic insight into the legend of the true Goddess Isis.

  Enriched by the scent of ancient sandalwood and the timeless Northern lights, this tale of alchemy stretches the imagination into what could be, and warns of the possible repercussions of misplaced personal possessions!

  I’m already pondering the next instalment.

  Helen Noble, author of The 49th Day

  Time Knot is an excitingly non-stop adventure story, and Mr Morison has developed a literary style that brings the reader four-square into the exploits of the teenage protagonist Rhory as he pursues, and in turn is pursued, through time and space in his efforts to save the priceless wisdom of ancient Alexandria.

  The book is a more than worthy successor to Time Sphere but it can most certainly be read alone.

  Time Knot is aimed at a Young Adult market and it strikes exactly the right balance between fantasy and historical accuracy, neither condescending to the reader nor expecting too much of her either. Rhory encounters unexpected twists and turns in a dizzying helter skelter through time and space, and so will the reader. It is a lot of fun!

  Philip Duke, author of A Terrible Unrest

  M.C. Morison’s Time Sphere left me anxious for the sequel. Time Knot is that sequel and it more than lives up to the action, mystery, and humor of the first book in the Timepathway Series. Rhory remains a lively and likeable hero and his adventures never fail to enthrall.

  Jan Krause Greene, author of I Call Myself Earth Girl

  The fast pace of this ingenious and skillfully woven story leads it’s hero, Rhory, and the reader on an emotional roller coaster through time. A tale in which, Rhory, a modern day, somewhat naive, teenager is inextricably caught up in a battle between the forces of good and sinister perpetrators of evil. The action takes place concurrently in worlds as extreme as present day England, Alexandria in BC Egypt and the snow-covered countryside of sixteenth-century Sweden.

  Time Knot is a fascinating, page-turner of an adventure aimed at the young adult, but equally enjoyable for anyone.

  Veryan Williams-Wynn, author of The Spirit Trap

  First published by Lodestone Books, 2017

  Lodestone Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach,

  Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK

  [email protected]

  www.johnhuntpublishing.com

  For distributor details and how to order please visit the ‘Ordering’ section on our website.

  Text copyright: M.C. Morison 2016

  ISBN: 978 1 78535 490 8

  978 1 78535 491 5 (ebook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016937656

  All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

  The rights of M.C. Morison as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Design: Stuart Davies

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY, UK

  We operate a distinctive and ethical publishing philosophy in all areas of our business, from our global network of authors to production and worldwide distribution.

  In honour of Hypatia,

  and the wise women of all eras who have kept the light of truth burning.

  Acknowledgements

  There are many to thank in the genesis of this story. Martha Lyn understands better than most the brilliance of the philosopher Hypatia and her grasp of the Mysteries, and shared her insights with me. The Fintry Trust made available to me a treasure trove of books, now long out of print, on the alchemist Paracelsus.

  In Chania, our Writers’ Group heard many parts of this story as we met over the last two years and their comments were invaluable. As always I am indebted to Marie Smith for her insights. Jussi Wendelin-Ottila and Riina Ilona Laamanen, who hale from snowy Scandinavia, helped me enormously with getting the snow and ice sequences in medieval Sweden believable.

  The encouragement of my good friend and fellow author Philip Duke, who read through an early version of the manuscript, was most welcome.

  Heather, my wife, patiently listened to most of this book being read as episodes were written, and her support and grasp of the intricacies of grammar are deeply appreciated.

  Arlette Start kindly offered her services as a copy editor as did Jill Marrington. I am most grateful to you both for spotting so easily those things that hid themselves from my sight. Maria Moloney, my editor at John Hunt Publishing, also made invaluable suggestions about various crucial moments in the story.

  This book rests on ideas seeded by the work of The Fintry Trust. I am grateful for all I have received from that source. I commend any who wish to explore the perennial philosophy behind this story to explore the treasure trove to be found at www.thefintrytrust.org.uk.

  For more information about the background to this trilogy and the final volume of Rhory’s adventures, please visit www.timepatheway.com

  Return to the Well

  England – about now

  Juliette stepped in front of me, her arms wide apart, blocking my path.

  “Rhory. No. You can’t expect me to believe that. It defies science and it defies common sense. I don’t know why you’re saying these things.”

  Behind her the trees of Hammerford Park writhed and rustled in the chill wind. We stood facing each other midway between the bandstand and the old oak. Juliette is my favourite sister. Correction. Juliette is my only sister. Seventeen, brighter than a super-nova and prettier than your average celeb, she remained my older sister and thus terminally irritating.

  I tried to explain for the umpteenth time: “But it’s true. I can only tell you what I experienced. I wasn’t going to share this with you because I knew you wouldn’t get it. But you insisted. ‘Tell me the truth,’ you said. ‘No, I’ll understand,’ you said. So I did. And you don’t.”

  “Would you honestly expect any sane person to believe that under our stupid old bandstand there is an ancient temple?” She pointed at the structure with the green finger of her rainbow-coloured gloves. “And if it is there, which it isn’t, but if it is there, that you’re the only one who knows about it?”

  Juliette turned to face the bandstand, as though expecting me to produce an old temple like a rabbit out of a hat. Her dark hair blew around her face and she pulled her multicoloured woolly hat low
er.

  “I never said I was the only one who knows about it. It’s marked on an old map that Natasha and I found at the Town Hall, and I think that an ancient secret society—”

  “You can stop right there.” Jules spun back and poked me in the chest. “Save me the ridiculousness of ancient secret societies. You’ve always had a vivid imagination. In many ways it’s quite cute. But now you’re going too far.”

  “Look, Jules, like it or not, there’s a tunnel running from the old well in the Wild Wood.” I pointed in the general direction beyond the swimming pool enclosure. “And it comes out into the temple. The temple then opens into the storage area under the bandstand. Jeez…” irritation buzzed through me, “…I walked it only a few weeks ago.”

  “Okay. The joke’s gone on long enough. I don’t even know why I’ve come with you.” She thrust her hands into the pockets of her coat. “Frankly, you’re making me complicit in your stupid fantasies. You’ll be a laughing stock if you tell anyone else. Do you want that?”

  “Bleeding heck, just come and look. It’ll only take us a few minutes to get to the well, then you can see.” I pulled on her arm. “It’s quite possible to spot where the tunnel sets off near the metal rungs that go down towards the water. You can even go down and try it yourself.”

  My sister snorted at that suggestion. We set off in silence under a dark-grey and somewhat threatening sky.

  Juliette looked up. “That’s all I need. To get soaked while on a wild goose chase.”

  I glanced over towards the old oak. Its shape had definitely changed since the lightning struck, the night I found the temple. I’d pretty much avoided the park since then and had pretty much avoided thinking through all the implications. I hadn’t shared that I’d travelled through time to a crucial moment in world history and prevented a human sacrifice. I hadn’t even told Juliette that bit. I’d mentioned that I’d found an old temple beneath the bandstand and how this had helped me connect with the young Egyptian priestess.

  A few minutes later we were by the fence that separated the path encircling Hammerford Park from the briars and brambles beyond. Dad had named this bit, with its years of old leaves and fallen branches, the Wild Wood. Last autumn, I’d climbed over with a mate and we’d found an old well hidden amongst the bushes.

  The metal fence came up to my chin. I cupped my hands for Juliette’s foot to help her climb over and then followed, landing with a crash on leaf-mould and old twigs. Juliette slipped off her small backpack. She extracted a powerful torch and one of Dad’s paint-stained screwdrivers.

  “So, where is it then?”

  “Just over here.”

  I led the way in, and pulled back some ferns and a spiky branch from a hawthorn bush.

  I looked in horror. The whole top of the well had changed. The wooden lid had entirely gone.

  “Ha!” said Juliette. “Ha bloody ha. Now you’re going to tell me you slipped through six inches of concrete! Just like some teenage priestess slipped through several thousand years of time.”

  “It wasn’t like this … I mean, just a few weeks ago. It had an old wooden top, held with a few rusty screws. Nat and I unscrewed it and—”

  “Spare me, Rhory, spare me. Are you seriously going to tell me that someone just happens to have come along and sealed the top of the well since you went down it? I mean look around.” She kicked at some leaves with her foot. “Can you see where a cement mixer sat? Can you see footprints from workmen? Just confess I’ve caught you in a lie and be man enough to admit it.”

  I felt sick and a little dizzy. The top of the well was completely sealed by concrete that looked like it had been there for months, if not years. I knelt down and poked around the edge of the brickwork. Something glinted. I eased it out from where it had been half buried. A long rusty screw, with its head partially sheared. The sheared part still sparkled with clean metal. This had to be the screw I’d broken when my cousin Natasha and I opened up the well-top some weeks earlier.

  “Look, Jules…” I said. Then I stopped talking; I’d caught a glimpse of a man’s face watching us through the fence, further round the path. Because I was kneeling, he hadn’t seen that I could spot him.

  “Can we help you?” I shouted. The face vanished.

  Juliette swung round to me, the screwdriver in her hand.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “Some guy’s watching us.”

  “Yeah, okay, pull the other one, Rhory. No one in their right mind would be out in the park with a sky as dark as this.” Juliette looked around, keeping tight hold of the screwdriver. “Come on, let’s go. You’ve been caught out, my dear brother, admit it.”

  “No, I won’t admit anything of the sort. You can ask Natasha. She was here, remember?”

  Juliette just shook her head, and put the screwdriver in the backpack. I strode over and took it out again.

  “Look. I’m going to prove it.”

  Vandalism

  I crunched across to the metal railings and yanked myself over.

  “Oh thanks very much,” said Juliette, from the far side of the fence.

  She went through the necessary contortions to put the backpack on. I checked up and down the path but couldn’t see anyone. Perhaps I’d imagined the face? No. A man had been staring at us.

  I ground my teeth and hunched my shoulders as I marched past the Hammerford Baths and up the slope towards the bandstand. I would show Juliette the trapdoor. It led down to the temple. In fact, if she had the courage, we would both go down and explore. I stopped and looked around. Juliette rounded the corner of the swimming pool enclosure about fifty metres behind me. The periphery of the park brooded in gloom, and if anyone was standing in the shadows I wouldn’t be able to see them in the half light. I’d a distinct sense someone was watching us. A spot of rain glistened on the sleeve of my jacket. I pulled my scarf tighter around my neck to keep out the chill and marched towards the bandstand once more.

  “Bloody hell, Rhory, you’ve vandalised it.”

  Juliette pointed at the old door to the storeroom beneath the bandstand. The wood around the lock had splintered where I’d forced it with the screwdriver.

  “Look, Jules, just look. The lock on the door is brand new. Isn’t it one coincidence too many that the door has a new lock and someone’s capped the well, all within six or seven weeks of my using them?”

  Juliette frowned: perhaps at the logic of my argument. More likely she disapproved of breaking into the storage room.

  I scraped the door across the tarmac and held out my hand.

  “Give me the torch and I’ll show you the trap door.”

  Juliette opened up her backpack once more and drew out the torch. She looked towards the council offices where most of the windows were lit up. Then she surveyed the path beyond the swings and sandpit. We were alone, as far as we could see.

  “Come on, let’s be quick, I don’t fancy coming up before a magistrate just because you can’t tell fantasy from reality.”

  I ignored that jibe, switched on the torch and flashed the beam around inside. It looked all wrong. It smelt all wrong. Once more I felt like throwing up or smashing something precious. The floor had changed and the storage room reeked of adhesive. Someone had covered the whole area in thick linoleum, with a yellow and brown pattern. The deck chairs stood in neat piles over to the right. Straight ahead, where the trapdoor had been – the trapdoor I had used – the linoleum extended unbroken. Without a sharp knife there would be no way to get to the trapdoor, and without wrecking the whole floor there would be no way to find it.

  I came out and kicked the door.

  “Ouch.”

  Juliette took the torch and looked inside.

  “We’d better get out of here before someone sees us.” Juliette pushed the door back but it stuck six inches short of closing. “God, Rhory, you’ve bent the hinges.” She giggled.

  “I don’t think so.” I held the edge of the door, pulled upwards and kicked it closed at t
he same time. It slammed home; but splintered wood around the lock remained as evidence of our visit.

  Juliette held my eyes for some moments, biting her bottom lip. She shrugged. “C’mon, Bro. We both need a cup of tea.”

  The man leaned against the wall of the office building at the corner of Suffolk Road. He’d followed the two youngsters back from the park. The kids hadn’t spotted him this time. He reached into an inside pocket of his moss-green military-style coat and took out a bulky mobile phone. Across the road three girls came out of the newsagents and their indistinct voices carried over to him. The girls shared sweets as they dodged puddles reflecting the lit windows of the library. A slight drizzle left small glistening droplets on the man’s cropped hair.

  “Your intel was spot on,” said the man into the phone. “They went to both the well and the bandstand at the time you specified.” He listened for a moment and nodded. “The sister’s a bit of all right.” A squawk came from the speaker. “Okay, just sayin’. She’s fit and I know where he lives. Do you want me to stiff the lad? It’d be easy to do now I know his house.”

  He concentrated on the answer, his forehead creased, and then closed down the phone. A car with dipped headlights approached Suffolk Road signalling to turn in. The man pulled up his collar and headed for the main road, keeping his face in the shadows.

  Hospital Visit

  “Will she die, Dad?” I asked, as we turned into the hospital car park.

  “We all die, Rhory,” my dad responded, “and she’s had a good innings. But for the moment she’s just quite ill, so we’ll have to hope for the best.”

  We paid for a parking ticket, parked eventually and located the main entrance to the hospital. The lifts, with brainless graffiti, were off to the right.

  “Aunt Bridget doesn’t have a private room, but she’s not on a big ward either. So there’ll be other women in the room. Remember not to stare.”

  “Oh, Dad!” I responded, as the lift whisked us up towards the fourth floor. “She asked to see me though?”