Nightrise

understand everything Matt was saying, but it was clear to him that he had somehow jumped from one world to another and that he didn't belong here.
    "This is the one thing that the Old Ones never understood," Matt replied. "I can explain it to you now but they never realized it and that was how I was able to deceive them.
    "This is how it works. Somewhere, in your world, there is a boy called Matt. And if he were killed, I would instantly replace him…so there would still be five Gatekeepers. And if I had been killed, the future Matt would have been called to replace me. Do you see? It's as if each of us has two lives. To kill us properly, the Old Ones have to kill us twice."
    "Sapling was killed."
    ''Yes." Matt bowed his head for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was low. "There was never anything for Sapling to find at Scathack Hill. I sent him because I knew he would die there. And he knew it too. I told him. Flint blames himself, but the truth is that Sapling sacrificed himself for the rest of us.
    'You see, I had to let the Old Ones kill one of us. They had to think that the circle had been broken, that the Five would never meet and that they had won. That would make them careless. They saw Sapling die but they didn't realize that you would be sent to take his place and that there would be five of us after all. And that's exactly what happened. They allowed Inti to slip through their lines. And when you and Scar rode down into the battle — that was it. We beat them by a trick."
    "But if I'm not Sapling, how come I can speak his language?" Jamie was still aware that the words he was using would have made no sense in twenty-first-century Nevada. "How come I can ride a horse?
    And this…" He picked up Frost. "I feel this sword was made for me. I'd never killed anyone in my life, but as soon as I had it in my hand…" He stopped, preferring not to remember the slaughter of the day before.
    "One day you will fight another battle," Matt said. "And by that time, you will be equally skilled. The past learns from the future and the future learns from the past. I've already told you. We are always the same Five."

    "But we have different names."
    Matt nodded. "It's true. But where do names come from? We don't choose them. They are given to us."
    Jamie thought for a moment. He had been called Jamie because it was the name of the doctor who had examined him when he was found abandoned as a baby. Scott had been christened after a box of grass seed. Those weren't their true names. They were just something to put on a form.
    "In this world, Inti was named after the sun," Matt went on. "But in the future, he will simply be called Pedro. It doesn't matter. The names make no difference to who we really are."
    "What is your real name?" Jamie asked.
    Matt fell silent. "I prefer to use my name from your world," he said. "I'm just Matt."
    Jamie had pins and needles in his leg. He wondered how long they had been sitting here. The sun was rising higher all the time. "There's not much more to add," Matt continued. "But you might like to know where you are. Ten thousand years from now, this country will look very different. It will have formed into a small island. Its name will be England. The forest will have been replanted and there will be a village about a mile from where we're sitting now. The village will be called Lesser Mailing, and although the people there will have forgotten all about the Old Ones and the battle that we've just fought and won, they will have faint memories that something important happened here. There will be a stone circle, built around the very place where you and I, Inti, Scar, and Flint finally met. That circle will come to be known as Raven's Gate."
    Matt smiled to himself and pointed down.
    'You see this river where we're sitting? One day, it will save my life. Well, not exactly mine." He pointed upstream. "The other Matt will swim from over there and he'll come up spluttering and half drowned right at this spot. And when he drags himself out, he won't know anything about me. Because, you see, he belongs to the future. And I'm here in the past."
    "What happens now?" Jamie asked. 'You're going to send me back."
    'Yes. You have to find your brother. I have to warn you, Jamie, if Scott has been taken by the Old Ones, you must prepare yourself for the worst. They'll hurt him. They may try to change him. If you do find him, he may not be the same."
    "He wasn't at Silent Creek," Jamie said. He