The Pan had no idea who the old man was, but it was clear he had not yet divulged the true purpose of his visit. It was now obvious he’d known what had happened to the ring, and his enquiries about it were merely an excuse to introduce himself, or make his displeasure known. Then there was that neat trick with the thimble; there’d been no need to give up a secret like that unless he was going to ask The Pan for a favour in return, a big favour. His enigmatic visitor seemed harmless enough, sitting on the bed sipping his drink, but The Pan suspected he was a man of principle who was brave enough to risk getting into trouble with the authorities for his beliefs. The Pan had great admiration for brave people, but he was in enough trouble with authority as it was, without going looking for more. He took another sip of brandy and waited.
“There is something else you could do for us,” the old man said eventually.
‘Us’ The Pan noted. It seemed the old man was part of an organisation; he was afraid it would be the Resistance.
“Who’s ‘us’?” he asked. “More to the point, who are you?”
The old man paused.
“You’re really not very well-informed, are you?”
“I’ve never met you before in my life so, unsurprisingly, no.”
“Haven’t Gladys and Ada said anything?” The Pan remembered the strange conversation he’d had with them after the Grongles had visited the Parrot, all those cryptic hints about other ways to resist and that they had contacts if he was in trouble. He could imagine that the old man was one of the very few people who might conceivably be able to get The Pan out of trouble in the right situation.
“Not in so many words.”
“Perhaps I should start from the beginning.”
“It might help,” said The Pan. “I’m not an idiot, but the kind of intuition you’re expecting is beyond most people. It would be a big ask from a magician, let alone an everyday petty thief like me.”
“You’re not an everyday petty thief though, are you?” No smile, but a definite twinkle.
“Maybe not—but doing my job is a simple case of common sense.”
“Don’t sell yourself short—there’s talent involved. You’re the best getaway man in K’Barth and you’re the only man alive who has ever outrun the Interceptor. That, alone, is extraordinary. Even I know it takes more than common sense. You’ve got something, my boy, anyone can see that.”
“Thank you. You flatter me,” The Pan smiled, “I get very frightened. Perhaps that gives me an unfair advantage. After all, cowards are good at running away.”
“Are you a Nimmist?” asked the old man.
“Isn’t everyone?”
“No, and you haven’t answered my question.”
“I’ve never really thought about it but I suppose I am,” said The Pan.
“Do you remember much about the Looking?”
“The search for the new Architrave?” He shrugged, “I was—”
“No, of course you don’t,” the other interrupted him. “Before your time. You probably weren’t even born before they made it illegal.”
“I don’t know if it was legal at the time, I was only a kid, but I do remember something I think.”
The old man seemed surprised.
“Do you?”
“I believe so. I think my father was involved, although I can’t be sure, he was very cagey about his university stuff, so I never found out exactly. I was only about eight and none of us were supposed to know what was going on.”
“Did they ever interview you?”
“Not really. If they did, then not in the normal way.” The Pan remembered his chagrin when his father wouldn’t allow him to meet the holy woman who’d come to question the other kids in his year. They hadn’t been told it was the Looking, of course, although many of their parents suspected it. Officially, they were being interviewed by members of staff from Ning Dang Po University as part of a scheme to sponsor the education of gifted children from poorer backgrounds. “Dad asked me some strange questions, over the course of a week—maybe longer—and there was some odd stuff left lying around the house for a while. I kept getting told off for playing with it.”
The old man smiled.
“Did you play with it much?”
“Arnold yes! I couldn’t leave it alone. Red rag to a bull. I’d been told not to touch it and you know how it is ...” he stopped. “Looking back on it now, I reckon that was the point when things started to go wrong.”
The Pan thought of the sun-drenched carefree days of his childhood. His father had been his idol at that point, before their relationship deteriorated. He was a lecturer in Random Mathematics at the University of Hamgee. It was a distinguished post and he was an equally distinguished scholar, which may have explained why, in later years, his youngest son’s academic ineptitude and generally wayward behaviour had become such a bone of contention between them.
“Yes,” said the old man thoughtfully, “your father was involved,” he paused, “somehow.” The word hung in the air. The Pan surmised the old man knew more about his father than he did but then, that wasn’t difficult. “However,” he continued, “that is another story. What is your understanding of the Looking?”
“They talk to everyone between the ages of eight and ten until they find somebody with the right criteria who gives the right answers to their questions—it’s a secret and only the senior priests know the answers. Then they take the kid to the High Priest and the Architrave and show him a load of stuff that has always belonged to the Architraves and the clincher is whether or not he recognises any of it or knows what it’s all for.”
“That’s roughly what happens,” said the old man. “There’s a thread, an inspiration if you like, which is passed on from generation to generation. The Architraves are not the same soul, but theirs are interrelated. There are physical signs—characteristics borne by all of them—and prophecies, too.”
The Pan grinned, his courage fortified by the generous measure of Calvados settling on his empty stomach.
“I’d heard the prophecies were part of the problem,” he said, “I heard Arnold of Nim liked to cover his options and nobody ever had a clue what he meant.”
“Then you have heard wrong,” said the old man. “What do you understand by the term Reality Theory?”
The Pan stared at the old boy blankly. This conversation was entering uncharted waters and he was rapidly approaching his maximum depth.
“Er ...” he struggled, “I think it’s the idea that small actions can have consequences which spread out, like the ripples in a pool, so they get bigger and bigger, so by, say, walking to the right of a lamp post instead of the left I can cause a series of unspecified small changes in space and time which could eventually add up to something big and cataclysmic.”
“Very good,” said the old man. “So if a man made prophecies forty generations ago, which were to be accurate today, he had to account for people like you walking the wrong side of lamp posts.”
“Er, I suppose he did.”
“Indeed. So predicting anything happening as far into his future as we are now would take remarkable skill.”
“Mmm,” said The Pan, beginning to see how Arnold of Nim’s prophetic abilities might be viewed in a new light, “perhaps.”
“Most certainly. You are right in that the Holy Prophet did give us options, but only because of the nature of reality. Do you know much Reality Theory?”
The Pan cleared his throat.
“Yes,” he began before deciding that on this occasion, honesty was the best policy, “well actually, no.”
“Did you not pay any attention in school?” asked the old man, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice.
The Pan shrugged. This was like being questioned by a teacher – he was twelve, in trouble and being told off by the headmaster again. He could feel a blush rising.
“Not as much as I should have done,” he said, “but even if I had, I wouldn’t have got to study the Philosophy of Reality. I never made it as far as the sixth form.”
The old man smiled benignly.
“No,” he said, “no, of course not. I’m sorry. Talking to you, it’s easy to forget,” another sly compliment, The Pan noticed. “Well, it’s quite straightforward. Reality Theory is like this: let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you decide to walk past that lamp post on the left-hand side. Somewhere in another version of space and time another you is walking to the right.”
“What about the real one?” asked The Pan, “the one who isn’t looking where he is going and walks into the lamp post.”
“This is a metaphorical situation,” said the old man cheerfully, “let’s keep it simple shall we? What would you say if I told you that for each time we make a choice, we create another universe where another version of ourselves, in another dimension of space and time is making a different decision?”
“I’d ask you to show me the one with no Grongles in it and I’d move there.”
“This is no laughing matter.”
“Do you see me laughing?”
The old man smiled sadly.
“No,” he paused. “Well?”
The Pan held his hands up for a moment and let them drop to his sides.
“It sounds plausible enough to me,” he said slowly.
“It is. Now, if The Prophet is to predict the events of tomorrow, he must be sure of the outcome of this small act of yours. Not only must he first identify which decision will be made by the version of you living in this dimension, but he must also decide what effects your decision will cause. Ninety-nine point nine per cent of these small decisions don’t significantly alter our future, and time will continue upon its predestined framework. However, the other fraction of the percentage will sculpt a new destiny for us all. They are seemingly small things but nonetheless key factors which will shift our tomorrow. When he made his prophecies Arnold had to account for each one of those tiny events which was likely to occur between his then and our now, and identify which would affect our future and which would not.”
“Ah,” said The Pan who was beginning to appreciate how this could get complicated. “So what you’re saying is, in theory by doing something as simple as walking to the left or right of a lamp post, I could change the entire future of this planet to one which didn’t involve Grongles.”
“You can’t write them out of existence but you could cause some effect, some sea change in their make-up, which might alter the nature of their role in the world.”
“Or a terminal illness in Lord Vernon?” suggested The Pan.
“Even if it were known how to bring that about, to do so would not be ethical,” said the old man.
“Shame,” said The Pan before he could shut himself up. He shouldn’t have said that in front of someone who might well be a priest. “This hasn’t happened already has it? I mean, is that how they got to us?”
“A very pertinent question. One we have no way of answering.”
“Well, surely it’s reasonably straightforward to make things better. Wouldn’t you just find out when an important event is due to take place and make sure it causes the Grongles to want to go home?”
“Not as such. That would be too specific. We are only permitted to alter destiny for the better and in a way that will not adversely affect other realities.”
But they were still able, and allowed, to alter it. Arnold in the skies!
“There will not be an event of that nature in this dimension of space and time for some years.”
“Can’t you manufacture one artificially?” asked The Pan.
“Indeed—but it is far from easy,” said the old man. “And it can only be attempted with access to certain pieces of equipment.” He held up the bag and shook it so the objects inside chinked together. “Unfortunately, while you have inadvertently unearthed a substantial portion of the things we need, we don’t have everything.”
“You don’t?” asked The Pan, who was beginning to have a horrible idea where this conversation might be heading.
“No and it is unlikely we will ever find the things we need,” said the old man.
“So no changing space-time then?”
“Since we are unable to do so safely, no. At least, not unless we absolutely have to.”
“Is there an alternative option?”
“Oh yes. Many of the artefacts you have discovered are used in the Looking, the process of searching for a new Candidate for the position of Architrave. They may help us, since, alas, no Candidate was agreed upon when the Looking was last conducted.”
“Is that usual?”
“No.”
“I see. Well, I dunno if it’s any help but one of the few things I remember about the last search was thinking my father didn’t like the way it was being done. He didn’t mention he was involved in the Looking but he used to talk about how this country needed a Candidate to get rid of the Grongles. He used to say there had to be one, if only the people searching were able to check the right places. There was nothing concrete, nothing disloyal—Dad was good like that—just hints. The way he spoke, I always thought the problem was that they couldn’t look where they needed to, but he was never the same after that time and now I think maybe he fell out with them because they refused to look where he wanted them to.”
“Your father didn’t suffer fools gladly, or take the word ‘no’ well,” said the old man with a smile, “he could be a little abrasive with his colleagues at times if he didn’t get his way.”
“Yes, well, he was the same at home after that.”
The old man seemed thoughtful for a moment.
“He was under a great deal of strain, more than you can imagine.”
“I’m sure he was and, rest assured, he shared it generously,” said The Pan, and regretted it immediately.
“He was a man trying to do what was right for his people.” The old man’s tone was unruffled, and yet The Pan could tell he was angry. “It may not have made him a perfect parent, but he would have known that and it would have cut him to the quick.”
The Pan couldn’t meet the old man’s eyes anymore, so he bowed his head and examined the carpet around his feet.
“In your heart of hearts, my boy, I believe you understand that.”
Yes, The Pan realised, he did. “I’m sorry, ignore me, I’m bitter and twisted,” he said.
The old man smiled kindly, “And almost as hard on yourself as he was. But he may have been right about the Looking. The old Architrave was beheaded before his time, so it may be that the new Candidate was then too young to be identified; he might not even have been born at that stage. Their arrival in itself will be a significant enough event to alter our reality without damage to others. It would be a tiny shift but it would suffice to make the Grongles change or go home. However, our problem is this: even if the Candidate is of age, or alive, all the signs would be unlikely to manifest themselves until the hour at which the Architrave’s death would naturally have taken place. The Architrave was only fifty when the Grongles murdered him, and it may be another ten or fifteen years before his natural time. Even if we were able to conduct the Looking again we would simply end up with the same problem. It would be impossible to determine, with absolute certainty, whether or not our choice was the Candidate, until all the signs were present.”
“Isn’t there a shortcut? Forty generations is a long time, there must have been the odd blip with the Looking. You can’t make me believe we’ve managed hundreds of years of smooth government without some kind of contingency plan for when it goes wrong. It would have been chaos.”
“Indeed and for that exact reason there is one vital artefact which would allow us to establish the Candidate’s credentials beyond reasonable doubt. Unfortunately, despite your friends’ fine efforts locating these,” he gestured with the bag of loot again, “we don’t yet have it.”
‘Yet’ – another worrying word. He paused, and The Pan waited.
“There is a further difficulty. In situations where no Candidate exists, it is possible, with the right knowledge and equipment, to set up a fake, to make an ordinary individual able to pass enough of the physical and spiritual tests to be made Architrave, even though he is not the true Candidate. As you might imagine, it is difficult to disprove the candidacy once it has been accepted by the people, no matter who the individual might be or how strong the evidence against him. As matters stand now, the true Candidate would be no more credible than such a fake.”
“But how can you fake a Candidate? I thought there were signs. That hasn’t happened before has it?” asked The Pan. He was confused. Surely if there had been any false Candidates he’d have been taught about it in history?
“Only once, several centuries ago in a similar situation to our own; when the Architrave died young and no Candidate was found. That time, the false Candidate was on the side of good and under the authority of the elders. She was carefully chosen and she merely stepped into the role to assure continuity. Eventually, the Looking succeeded, the true Candidate was found and the succession assured. It was then that the special equipment we seek was designed; to ensure such a vacuum never occurred again and that the Looking could never be what you term ‘chaos’.”
“So why not set up an interim, a fake Candidate like that?” said The Pan.
“Because there are already two false Candidates and there is nothing like being, as the sales people put it, ‘first to market’ in situations like this. It is too late for us to catch up unless we can find the real McCoy, and while I have my own theories as to who that might be, without the artefact I refer to, it would take time and resources to confirm my view—time and resources we don’t have. The forerunner, for the Candidacy, at present, is Lord Vernon.”