The clock-hatted man took my hesitation as demand he introduce himself first. That or he grew bored with my absent stare.
“I am…” dramatic pause, swirl of cloak, “Professor Zeit-Teufel.” Rising from the bow.
I removed my own dull hat, nodded my undramatic head, reviewed my cast iron German.
“Professor Time-Devil?”
He smiled. “Time is a devil, sir. And in times to come the ticking of clocks shall harry all souls. So our name serves to warn. But only that. Names must serve; never be master.” He uttered this prohibition with solemnity fit for sermon. Then proffered a hand to shake.
I have walked enemy camps. I know the smell of disguise. This man was not who he seemed. Fair enough. Who is? How dull, to be what one seems. We leave such honesty to bricks and candles, flowers and dogs.
I considered meeting his hand with the wooden one within my pocket. He would grasp it firmly in sign of honest heart. Then he’d puzzle, realizing he held only the idea of a hand. A part of a person, not the whole. Frightening, this sudden encounter with a fragment of humanity. How the new recruits used to vomit, first seeing the battle field’s display of man parts! Perhaps Zeit-Teufel would vomit as well. Or laugh. Else curse and toss the hand aside, an unwanted wonder in his hall.
Childish thing to consider. Where was my mind? I had serious work before me. Forsake nonsense, leave this play of shadow and light, return to a man’s business. So I advised myself, then rebelled. I brought forth the hand, placing it within Zeit-Teufel’s.
The man clasped, paused, glanced down, considered the hand in his. And if he’d had the honesty of naked eyes, I’d have read what he thought of the wonder.
“Ah,” he said presently. “The fog grows thick outside.”
Chapter 7
Here we keep our Finer Monsters
Beneath the Hall of Wonder, a greater, darker hall. An Aladdin’s cave hoarding deeper magic. A basement of silent wonders, sleeping artifacts awaiting the summoning call. A trumpet blast crying awake! Arise! March forth and seize the new century! Mechanical men and arc-light angels, windup lions and flocks of bronze birds, self-propelling wagons and ghostly figures constructed of hammered light. This army of wonder would throw off dusty sheets, stretch wooden arms and bronze legs, stoke machine-fires and burst through this cavern into the daylight world…
As what? Conquerors? Rescuers? Carnival exhibits, more like. The world I knew would shrug, complain they blocked the street-traffic, tempted children into unproductive habits. The miraculous creations would be seized for parts, melted down and pushed aside, left to alleys to amuse the dogs. So declared my cynical mind. Till that final battle twixt wonder and world, they rested here in dust and dark.
I removed my tinted lenses, peered about. Illuminated by lamp, not electric angel-shine. I smelled old wood, dust, paint, mold, canvas, mice. Heard a thumping far off, a heart-like tapping, tapping.
I studied benches of disarticulated puppets. Unpleasantly reminiscent of after-battle surgery tents. All about, dusty sheets hinted what patient slept beneath. Perhaps a wind-up elephant, a magic table, a mystic mirror. A killer readying knife for my throat. That last would be no great wonder. Unless it were a windup killer. A bronze assassin… I considered. Where in the springs and gears beat the heart? No telling. Best just parry till his spring ran down.
“I assume you like dragons,” remarked Zeit-Teufel.
I considered. Did I like dragons? A dangerous question. Dragons in stories, parables, statuary and emblems went well enough. One could prefer them or not, as one wished. A sane man could like dragons fine, because he did not believe in dragons. But for those fearing madness, the question held ominous weight. The mad must always favor dragons.
“Yes. I like dragons,” I declared. “So long as they do not burn the couch, fright the maid or dig in the roses. And now I’ve bought one ticket, one pair of smoked glasses, accompanied one caped stranger to this suspiciously dark setting and answered a suitably absurd question. In return, you shall explain the boy, the hand, and the fog. Then I’m off.”
Teufel clapped hands happy. “I guessed it so. Said to myself, there is a man who can appreciate a good dragon. And that it should be the famous Seraph! We’re all quite honored. This way.” He turned and hurried down an alleyway of piled puppets, ominous boxes, sheeted wonders.
I sighed. In the hell-shine of the chamber above, this clock-hatted man had seemed sinister and worldly, the master of a hall of wonders. Here in kerosene’s sane glow he was a tall boy in a hall of toys. By voice, I judged him not yet twenty. No doubt his father, ‘Zeit-Teufel, senior’, manned a proper business desk, reckoning sums and costs. While Teufel cadet ran laughing through the family warehouse of heirloom wonders.
I followed, hand on knife, feeling absurd. From somewhere came a muffled thumping and banging. Someone wanted in; or more likely out. A heartbeat, almost. Perhaps one of the wonders hoarded here was a giant heart, pulsing, alive. Grotesque but interesting. I would not pay to see it. I have my own heart already. I stopped at a random exhibit, lifted the sheet. A chessboard. Upon the board, a mouse. It stared at me, as I at him. I pulled back more of the sheet. Behold a mechanical man, turbaned, pipe in one hand, glass eyes contemplating the board.
His free hand held still, just above a pawn. I considered the board. Ah, the Turk played a pawn attack. The mouse would counter with his queen… No, that was a trap.
“Play your knight to the center,” I advised the mouse. “That draws his forces from your queen.”
The mouse put little pink hand to chin, considered knight and queen, then nodded. I put back the sheet, walked on. Hadn’t that been a famous show years past? Not the mouse. But the Chess-playing Turk? A fraud, I’d heard. A real chess player huddled in the cabinet beneath, moved the Turk’s pieces about with magnets. But the mouse had been real. Eyes shiny as little beads of jet. Not that mice or machines actually play chess. Your world is not so made, nor mine.
I caught up to Zeit-Teufel in a clearing of shelves and sheets. In the center waited the monster of his affection. The other exhibits stood apart, not wishing to come overclose to their love. One could all but hear them whispering worries for this wonder.
Best described quick; no need for over-many words to describe a mechanical dragon. Behold a bronze contraption of pipes, wheels, hinges. Something like a furnace towards the heart. Great batwings of leather, extending overhead. Upon the back, levers and a saddle. Four crocodilian legs, ending with brass claws. Long neck leading to a horse-like head of open jaws. Steel teeth. Glittery red-glass eyes, staring dull and dead. Zeit-Teufel tapped the head with his cane.
“Rayne Gray, I present… Fulgor, the Automaton Dragon.”
I frowned in understanding of the mystery that led me here. Not assassination nor magic; but business proposition. The rumor had spread I’d become wealthy. A true rumor, if you can believe in such. I had become undeservedly rich, exactly as all the finer fortunes of the world. Combine that with my endless speechifying on the glories of the future, and I stood as a bright lamp for every moth-speculator seeking the fiery affirmation of a bank-cheque. Butcher and baker, lawyer and gun maker sidled up with plans to invest in mills and mines, in bridges and bottled lightning, in bakeries on wheels that would deliver cakes made on the journey. In under-sea ships, cable cars to the moon, coaches of balloons to ferry troops to France. That last interested me. To sail in the sky, the world spread out beneath you like a map… If only you could command the wind, you’d know to what nation you arrived before inquiring of the astonished locals.
“I do not see Fulgor as sound commercial possibility,” I declared. Best get it said.
Zeit-Teufel frowned. A how-disappointing-of-you frown. “Sir, you insult my dragon and my intent. I’d heard you were a man of new thought. Fulgor is not crass business. He is the future!”
“Mechanical dragons?”
“Exactly,” he affirmed. He patted the thing’s neck. The head nodded, either at touch of hand
or sound of praise. “Upon his back one can cross mountains, or tear them down as you prefer. Harvest forests or houses, scythe through armies or fields of wheat, as you so desire.”
“I was just talking to a mouse,” I observed, walking around Fulgor, tapping the parts as I would a horse for sale. The wings seemed ornamental. Perhaps they flapped to cool the furnace. “A mouse on a chessboard. It faced off against a machine-man. Wore a turban, smoked a pipe. The man I mean, not the mouse.”
Teufel snorted. “The Mechanical Turk. Very old school. A genius with pawns but useless with his knights. Clever wheels, Pascal gears. The mouse need only endure till end-game, then he shall decimate the poor Turk.”
Disconcerting, when someone takes your nonsense seriously. Are they mad as you pretend? Or feigning madness themselves? Else humoring you till they can lead you to sit in a nice corner of Bedlam. Or did they step beyond that circling path of words I denounced to the Joiner’s Guild? But I spoke nonsense to the guild. They knew if for nonsense. If any but a bloody Seraph had preached to them so, they would have laughed.
And here I stood chattering nonsense again. With a young enthusiast of dragon-futures and chess playing mice. No minutes of this conversation would sound sane in day’s serious light. Clearly I approached some crisis point of brain-fever. That heart-beat thumping came across the shadowed basement hall. A determined fist pounding against a door. Someone wanted out from some dusty wonder. I turned, seeking the source.
“Forget your Turks, dismiss your dragons,” I declared. “I came here chasing a boy I met in the streets. Is he here? You have his hand. Where is the rest? And what has his hand to do with today’s fog?”
Meekly, Teufel removed his hat, reached in, produced the artificial limb. He considered it for a dramatic moment. I growled, tapping foot.
“It’s simple economics,” explained Zeit-Teufel. “My nephew earns far more guiding the fog-bound in the streets than serving customers above. So he slips out on mirkish days, drat him. The greater the fog, the more sure his absence. But he dislikes giving his hand to strangers. Wise fear, I admit. But must he borrow from my exhibits?”
Zeit-Teufel showed the puppet hand to the dragon, asking it the why of nephews. The dragon said naught. I considered his words. They rang entirely… sensible. No miracle lay in today’s events at all. Just a boy skiving off from work to find profit and adventure.
I sighed. What had I expected? Better said, what had I wanted? A moment of magic, clearly. Something inexplicable, impossible, hinting at a world beyond. What I proclaimed to the joiners of the world’s thirst for wonder, had been my own thirst. So be it.
No need to endure this lumber room labyrinth doll-dungeon another minute. The mystery stood explained; a savvy child, a puppet’s hand, a logical causation of fog and commercial possibility. I turned and walked towards what I hoped was exit. Teufel picked up his lamp and followed.
I had a dead friend’s last words to hear. A friend whose head of late tumbled along behind, chattering of art. Not that I heeded it. Zeit-Teufel walked beside me, scratched at his chin with Penn’s lost hand.
“I suppose you thought you’d met some magic creature of wood and gear wandering the streets?”
“Never occurred,” I affirmed. “A mad thought, that.” The first thing one must do upon going mad, is hide the condition from all others. No doubt while all others are busy doing the same.
“Well, you are saner than most,” declared Zeit-Teufel. He stopped to hold a lamp to a rack of puppets, dissatisfied with their completion. “The mind seeks story in random events, sure as face in fog. All the oldest devices in this collection functioned on that very desire to perceive magic in mere hints of light and shadow.”
“At the moment,” I observed, “I perceive the illusion that someone is locked in that box.” I pointed my real hand towards a tall construction of lacquered panels.
Zeit-Teufel peered, lamp aloft. He had not removed his spectacles. I wondered how he could see. Perhaps he couldn’t. Whatever he beheld led him to sigh. “Ah, the fabled Oriental Box. A pendulum affair lies hidden within the construction. No more magical than the heart within your chest. Once the gears are wound it beats for hours. More proof my nephew has been playing about, I suppose.”
I eyed him, then the box, then him again. I doubted. No, the sinister box held someone trapped. A prisoner of the wonder-dungeon. Teufel smiled, reading my naked eyes. He strode to the fabled object. Grasped the handle… paused to let me appreciate the moment’s magic. I knew that when he opened, the missing snake-girl would leap out with a hiss. Impossible, wonderful. Proper conclusion to the tale.
Teufel tugged the handle with showman’s flourish. The revealed interior held shadows, cobwebs, a black painted closet void of soul or girl or wonder. Teufel closed it again.
“More amusing than magical.” He turned, stared into the dark. “Do you hear that?”
I harkened to a whirring noise in the dark distance, a clanking of metal parts.
“I wonder if I set Fulgor in motion,” worried Teufel. “Tsk. Would not do to have him run rampaging through the basement.” He set off down a puppet lined alley, called back over his shoulder. “Come see Fulgor move about. You can ride him if you wish. I promise it shall astound. As well, I admit to a small business proposition within the mechanism.”
I sighed. Cynicism affirmed. Behind all these brass wonders lay the hope of gold. Teufel would mount his mechanical beast, flapping the ornamental wings, and invite me to invest in dragons. No doubt constructed in a factory designated for the rescue of children, magdelens and orphan pit ponies. These kindly charities always held at heart a business plan dependent on an understanding of living bodies as kindred forces to wind and water; useful for turning wheels, and cheaper. I let Teufel disappear with the lamp.
I searched shadows for the exit. The lacquered box thumped louder. It pounded heartbeat distress painful to hear. It occurred to me that I heard my own heart. The world had inverted so that all within myself was suddenly around me. Not a thing a blood-stained spadassin wishes. Of a sudden I knew that someone menacing stood directly behind.
I whirled. A face grinned into mine. A Punch of horrible ugly humor, hanging from a shelf. Nose dipping down, chin curling up. A leering grin, wide mad eyes. How did this ugly obscenity ever make an audience laugh? We stared at each other, glaring.
The night I’d killed Black, I’d poisoned a judge in costume of Punch. Unless the judge had been Caesar, in which case Punch had been some Minister of War. No matter, I’d poisoned them both. A busy night. “Have some more claret, Punch,” I suggested.
Punch said naught, merely grinned to say ‘perhaps I shall’. I backed through the near dark. I have excellent night vision. I saw about me with decent sureness. The path out, that way. I’d use the thumping heart of the magic cabinet for a guide. But dammit, someone sinister stood behind me again.
No point in whirling, knife drawn to front another grinning puppet, lifeless yet menacing, mocking my impending madness. Better to ignore it. But suppose it held knife? Then I should leap forward, turn blade drawn, slash its strings. But to what point? If shadows themselves were now my enemy, all this puppet dungeon held foes. I was going mad. The magic box thumped for a frightened heart. Best face the madness. Yes, I would turn slowly... Too late. An arm wrapped about my throat, knife blade pressed to jugular.
“Let us pause to appreciate this moment,” said Alderman Black. “I’ve so longed to be just where I am now.”
Chapter 8
Of Strange Boxes, Ancient Houses
As a boy I ran free through the forests of New Jersey. Usually in the company of Day and Knight. Two mastiffs whose grins worried farmers and frighted bears. My father set no restrictions upon boy or dog. Wander where ye list, he declared. Through wood and creek and field. To the sea itself if you can find it. One command only obey: stay the hell out of the cave back of the old farm.
On my seventh birthday I set out for the cave back of the old far
m. Day and Knight ran scout before me, General Rayne Mershon. We leaped a low stone wall, waded fields of grass and stalks of degraded corn. Crickets and summer gnats rose about us. Some vagabond had struggled to keep this field productive. A scarecrow leaned defeated in the field’s center, straw bag head sunk upon straw-starved chest. A forgotten crucifixion. Beyond waited a moldering cabin. The broken bone of a stone chimney poking out the flesh of the roof. A doorway gaped open in surrender to the wild woods.
We slipped around this corpse-house, followed the creek. Dirt and grass hinted a path. Deer droppings, a raccoon print. I stopped once at the hint of a bare human foot. No natives lived about. At least, that anyone knew. But the forest was a place of mystery. Green fever-dreams in the summer, gray despair in the heart of winter. These endless trees shadowed a man’s mind, made him forget road and town and how to speak like a man. Day and Knight hung back, sniffling, staring, ears twitching. Their alarm delighted me. Adventure ahead! I rushed on.
A small hill beside the creek, showing an opening man-tall and door-wide. The Goat’s Cave, country children called it. We knew no reason for the name. The import lay in whispering the words with proper awe and fear: the Goat’s Cave. The path led within. I stared into its shadow, unable to see aught but dark. The dogs held back.
“Just a bear,” I scolded. I knew better. A bear would leave signs. Clawed trees, prints bigger than a boy’s foot. And those dogs would have grinned at the promise of a bear. They did not grin now. They bared teeth in silent growls, fur raised in lines down their backs. I tiptoed farther, to the very mouth of the cave. Day and Knight hunched forwards, eyes wide.
“Scaredy-cats,” I laughed, and stepped into the shadow of the cave mouth. The dogs rushed forwards. I wish they had not. Neither came out again, save in pieces. When my father gathered hands the next day, they marched to the old farm, guns and clubs ready. There in the field they found the scarecrow. Straw sack head replaced with a dog’s.
The Harlequin Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 6