It was five years later when Edward’s attention was drawn once again to the moondial by a twist in fate. By this time Edward and Isabella had a two-year-old son, Lucas, and with his family’s future established for the next generation, Edward had turned his thoughts to the past. Trawling through the family archives, he came across a collection of handwritten notes and drawings in the inky scrawl of the eighth Lord Hardmonton. The records documented his great, great grandfather’s explorations of the ancient worlds, and Edward was finally able to piece together the history of the dial and its link to the infamous Moon Stone.
Edward’s renewed interest in the dial took on a life of its own and he started the journal to keep track of his findings. As well as his own notes, Edward included extracts from the original archives. His research proved, amongst other things, that the rumours about his predecessor had been correct. When Charles Hardmonton had been ostracized by the scientific community on suspicion of stealing a precious artefact, the evidence Edward uncovered showed that, on the face of it at least, his punishment had been deserved.
The missing item was the Moon Stone, a sacred altar which was the centrepiece of an Aztec temple in honour of the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui. Charles had already made public his disapproval of the systematic ransacking of ancient worlds and the Moon Stone proved to be the last straw. Charles secretly removed the Moon Stone from the cargo shipment that would bring his reputation into question and diverted it onto another ship.
After a lifetime committed to scientific discovery, Charles had been willing to sacrifice everything he’d worked for just to have that one treasure in his possession. Why? Because during the course of his last expedition he had not only uncovered the legend of the dial but he had come to believe in its power.
It was Charles Hardmonton who had transformed the Moon Stone into the dial. The process of engineering a mechanism that could harness the power of the full moon and bring the dial to life appeared to have taken him many years: drawings in the archives showed various incarnations of the brass cogs and claws and the orb at its centre. Once the mechanism was perfected and the power of the Moon Stone had been harnessed, he had used it to see into his own future and, with the discipline of a seasoned scientist, he had collected the evidence that would establish the extent of the moondial’s power as well as its limitations. He had used his knowledge to write the poem which would eventually be etched into paths that surrounded it.
The poem had been his way of providing a user guide to the moondial for future generations, on display in the gardens for all to see. His records, however, gave no clue as to why Charles had then left instructions for the orb he had created for the centre of the dial to be buried with him. The whereabouts of the rest of the mechanism were never recorded and so the dial fell into disrepair.
Edward’s first task, therefore, was to locate the mechanism and find a suitable replacement for the orb. The mechanism had been relatively easy to track down once Edward knew what he was looking for. The wooden box that contained the assortment of brass cogs and brackets had been stored amongst a collection of timepieces gathering dust in the Hall’s vast attic space. Whilst his forebears may have assumed it was a useful box of spare parts, the etchings carved into the surface of the box had led Edward straight to it.
Finding a replacement for the orb proved a little more difficult because raiding Charles Hardmonton’s grave was an option Edward refused to consider. His initial attempt was to use a topper from a crystal decanter, adapted to fit the claws of the dial. The dial had worked in a fashion, but the vision of the future that had been revealed to him was a ghostly impression of the world around him, a barren world with barely recognizable features. It gave Edward valuable evidence that the legend of the dial had substance, but he realized that he was going to need a more powerful device to replace the orb.
Edward developed the idea of a prism and he eventually commissioned an orb to be made to his own design. As he waited for the orb to be constructed his excitement mounted, only to be reduced to abject despair when his first use of the dial with the new orb revealed, in perfect clarity, why on his previous visit the world around him had seemed so desolate. The Hall had been razed to the ground, wiping out centuries of his family’s history. The entire estate looked as if it had just been abandoned to its fate, although to Edward’s horror, there was one particular area that looked like it was still being tended with care. The family cemetery had been cleared and there was a new grave. The headstone bore the names of his wife and his son, the dates of their death the same. It was less than one year into the future.
Consumed by fear, over the following months Edward tried desperately to discover how the fire started. His initial efforts were frustrated as, again and again the moondial returned him to an abandoned site, devoid of life, offering no clues that would allow him to avoid the tragedy. He realized that he would need help, someone who would be there in the future, waiting for him at the site of the moondial to provide a crucial link between the present and the future. Of course, he himself had survived the fire and could be there to lead the way, but Edward could not and would not face his future self. Instead, he chose as his confidante Mr Andrews, the gardener whose family had worked on the estate for generations. Mr Andrews was able to meet Edward, or at least Edward’s reflection revealed by moonlight, on his next foray into the future. Mr Andrews had survived the tragedy and could explain to Edward that the fire had been caused by an electrical fault in the Hall’s ancient wiring.
By this time Edward was well acquainted with the moondial’s rules. He knew the path on which his family were embarked would prove difficult to change, but still he tried. He took every precaution he possibly could to prevent the fire, having the entire Hall rewired and even installing fire alarms and sprinklers. He funded the work by using well placed bets on horse races, again using information provided by Mr Andrews, who continued to meet him on his moondial visits, armed with any information the loyal gardener thought might help save the Hardmontons.
Each visit into the future confirmed that all his precautions were futile. His meddling had created subtle changes to the ruins that had become a familiar backdrop to his moondial visions, evidence that the source of the fire had altered though the ruins remained the constant. To make matters worse, the fortune Edward had accumulated to fund his renovation works was wiped out by an unexpected tax bill. Future attempts to raise money also managed to be lost by some unforeseen calamity. The moondial would not allow those who used it to alter their fortunes easily, and that included financial fortunes. There was a path to be followed and the dial would not allow any deviation from that course.
Refusing to accept defeat, Edward began planning to escape with his family, fleeing to another country. The Hall was destined to burn to the ground and Edward would let it, but he and his family didn’t have to be there when it happened. Again, Edward’s attempts to save his family seemed doomed to failure. Each time he went back to the moondial, Mr Andrews would appear in his vision, telling him that some new tragedy had befallen his beloved wife and son.
The dial’s rules held fast and they haunted Edward. A life for a life was to prove the cruellest of rules. Destiny was about to take two lives from him and he only had one life to give in return. He was never going to be able to save both his wife and his son.
Edward’s growing anger consumed him and his rage was directed at the moondial for bringing him to the brink of insanity. He was determined to destroy it, smash it into pieces, but despite his loathing for the device, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he entrusted Mr Andrews with the task of deciding the dial’s own destiny. Meanwhile, Edward clung to a desperate hope that the vision was a false one.
It was only in his last entry, the day