The Versatiles

by Alex Duncan

  She seemed to believe every word she was saying.

  ‘This is worse than I first thought Zanga. They’re so far along. It’s as if they could know the thoughts of every single person in the country within a matter of days. We two know that these…machines…don’t work, but they are all the disguise Apollo and Olkys need. The people in the theatre believed what they were seeing tonight and so will everybody else. They mean to turn every town into a place like Hope? This is…treasonous!’

  ‘It is far worse than that Henry Versatile,’ said Zanga, grim faced. ‘It is inhuman.’

  ‘This…this is too big for us Zanga. They’re too organized, too prepared. They must have been planning this for months, maybe even years. What can we do against this?’ He dropped his head down to his chest. ‘What can we do?’

  Zanga shared his sentiments. They would be like a small wave crashing uselessly against a castle.

  ‘I do not know Henry Versatile. Mrs Belleville, thank you for bringing us to this place, but I think we have seen enough. Could you perhaps lead us to Apollo or his associates?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, gesturing her hand towards a path through the devilish machines. ‘Step this way.’

  Zanga reached out and took her hand as he made his first step into the room. As soon as he and the young lady touched he felt himself being pulled from the room and suddenly his mind was transported. He saw Mrs Belleville in front of his eyes, hours in the past. He saw her talking with men dressed in black and red uniforms. He saw her pleading on her knees and making hollow promises. He saw her accepting money from the men and being thanked for all her efforts.

  Their hands parted and Mrs Belleville’s smile faded as she saw the look in Zanga’s face.

  He leapt from the step onto the workshop floor and immediately began his retreat.

  ‘Run Henry Versatile!’ he screamed. ‘The lady is full of betrayal. We have walked into a trap. Run!’

  Henry didn’t need telling twice. He put his cane under his arm and jumped down the steps, following Zanga down the aisle of Oracles. The both headed towards the far door zig-zagging through the machines and Henry ran behind Zanga as fast as his weary legs would carry him. Not once did he look back or pause after knocking over complex spirals of machinery or heavy brass wheels and wiring.

  They reached the door and Zanga threw it open, only to stop dead in his tracks.

  A line of red and black uniformed guards stood on the other side of the door like the front line of an advancing army and at the head stood Mr Hugh Monk, chewing a gnarled finger nail down to the quick and spitting it out onto the floor. As Henry ran into the back of his friend and saw the sight of the guards he swung around, looking for escape, any escape, but at each door and from behind each machine stepped another guard, smug and rigid and triumphant.

  There was nowhere left to run.

  The old man searched the room until his gaze settled back on the young lady, Mrs Belleville, stood at the top of the far steps. The young lady who’d led them into this mess. She tried to pull her eyes away from his penetrating stare, but he held firm.

  ‘No good ever comes from such actions girl,’ he shouted across the room to her. ‘I hope you repent before the end of this farce, for they’ll not give you a crumb of what you desired. Do you hear me? They’ll not give you a crumb!’

  The young lady played with her tattered bonnet and tried as best as she could not to look in the slightest bit guilty.

  ‘Do shut up old man,’ drawled Mr Monk, wiping his muddy hands down his already filthy breeches. ‘Or I’ll be forced to stop your mouth.’

  ‘I’d like to see that. Wouldn’t you, hmm?’ came the high, horrible voice of Olkys close by.

  Feeling his legs go weak beneath him, Henry reached over and held onto Zanga’s shoulder for support.

  ‘Do you see anything now my friend?’

  ‘Only darkness Henry Versatile,’ he replied.

  Mr Monk scratched his scabby scalp and turned to the line of guards.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, casually. ‘Seize them.’

  ◆◆◆

  Sam lunged in one direction, then the other as he tried in vain to dance around the pillar-like form of the pirate, but Thump was a man well used to facing people who were trying to avoid his company and knew exactly where to put his hulking body even before Sam knew it himself.

  The man was as wide as at least three large men but was more agile than Sam could ever have expected, hopping from one spot to another with an almost feminine delicacy. Sam even feigned to go one way before throwing his weight over to the right of him only to find Thump already there, smiling and jeering at him. Sam blamed it on the man’s sea legs as he retreated into the bright room, hopelessly looking for a corner to hide in. His heart sank further when, much to Thump’s amusement, he remembered that the room was as circular as a coin. He threw the chair out onto the floor in Thump’s way and backed himself up against the wall. There was nowhere else to go.

  ‘Comin’ in my path once,’ laughed Thump, ‘well, that’s careless, but comin’ in my path twice, and in the same day at that, well that’s just plain stupid that is! You must ‘ave a death wish!’

  Thump pulled off his huge frock coat, already stretched to bursting over his wide shoulders, and revealed his forearms, as thick as hams, covered with tattoos as blue as bruises.

  ‘You must be as dense as fog to pick a fight with me boy. Don’t you know who I am?’

  Sam scratched his chin and dropped his shoulders.

  ‘‘Fraid not, but I’m sure we could…erm…discuss this like gentleman.’

  ‘My name’s Thump,’ said Thump, cracking his knuckles.

  ‘Suits you actually,’ mumbled Sam under his breath, wiping the sweat from off his brow.

  ‘Do you know why they gave me that name?’ asked Thump.

  ‘I can imagine, yes,’ Sam coughed, frantically patting the pockets of his jacket. There must be something here that can help me, he prayed.

  Finding the sharp-edged key that could open any lock, he yanked it free and threw it straight at Thump. It bounced harmlessly of his chest and clattered to the floor.

  ‘I was called Thump,’ Thump continued, hardly noticing the attack, ‘‘cos I didn’t care for the name Throttle, didn’t have the right ring to it see. I wanted everyone to know that if they cross me, they’ll be in for a right good hiddin’’

  Sam swallowed.

  ‘What’s your name boy? I like to know who I’m up against before I squash their ‘ead in my ‘ands.’

  Sam moved his hand round to the back of his jacket and felt something unmistakeable near the base of his spine. It was the comforting, solid wooden butt of the pistol. It must have crept around the band of his breeches when he was running along. He took a deep breath, gripped the pistol, puffed out his chest and said:

  ‘My name? My name’s Master Mystery.’

  Thump paused.

  There was a moment of stillness between the two men as Thump looked down as Sam’s diminutive, but perfectly crafted weapon in his hand, pointed straight at his chest. Then Thump burst out laughing, great peals of laughter, hooting and spluttering as tears rolled down his face. Sam shifted uneasily from one foot to the other as the great lump persisted in his fit of hysterics.

  ‘Master Mystery?! Ha ha! Please tell me your pullin’ my leg boy!’

  This had not been the reaction that Sam was hoping for and he felt slightly offended.

  ‘You asked me my name and I gave it to you,’ he said, pulling back the hammer of the pistol with his thumb. ‘Now raise your hands in the air or I’ll shot, and I promise you that this time I hold no stage prop in my hand.’

  ‘Ha ha! A moment please…just to catch my breath…oh, Master Mystery…that’s good that is…’ Thump wiped his eyes.

  ‘Quiet! Raise your hands or I’ll shoot.’

  The big man gathered himself and looked Sam straight in the eye.

  ‘No you wont.’

  Sam
marched forward into the room, kicking the overturned chair to one side and pointed the barrel of the pistol above Thump’s bulbous, broken nose, right between his eyes, so close that the metal pressed into the man’s skin.

  ‘I said I’ll shoot and I meant it…’

  ‘Prove it,’ said Thump, with surprising calm.

  The man didn’t falter an inch. It was as if he were being asked directions to the nearest church and not threatened with a deadly, loaded firearm. If a pistol in the face couldn’t sway him, what would?

  ‘I don’t jest sir! Desist and allow me to leave or the last thing you’ll feel is the touch of lead.’ He was trying his best to sound as mean and brave as he imagined Henry or Rosie might, though little good it was doing him.

  ‘You’re bluffin’ mate. I’ve been at enough shootouts in my time to know that if you meant it, you’d ‘ave done it already. You’re all piss and wind boy, you’re no murderer…’

  Sam pressed the pistol harder into Thump’s skull. His eyes were blurry with sweat, his mouth was dry and his teeth gnawed together as he clenched his jaw and felt his finger close onto the cool trigger. He was faintly aware through the edge of his vision that they were no longer in the room alone, but his stare never wavered from Thump’s as he prepared himself for what he had to do.

  ‘Go on!’ his adversary shouted. ‘Do it if you dare. But remember that there’s no goin’ back. Do this and every time you see your face in the lookin’ glass you’ll know that you’ve killed an unarmed man. You’ll know that you’re starin’ at a murderer.’

  Sam felt the pressure of the trigger. Such a tiny movement, he thought, just squeeze and that’s it, squeeze your finger and you’ll be free.

  But he couldn’t. Thump was right. He was no murderer. He wasn’t cut out for any of this. No one became a hero overnight.

  Lowering the pistol, he revolted at seeing Thump’s self-satisfied smile widen. The man made him sick to his stomach.

  ‘I knew you didn’t ‘ave it in you boy, you aint got that look of the devil about you.’

  Sam pushed the pistol back down into his breeches and slumped back against the wall. Letting his eyes turn from Thump’s stare and into the room he saw the man who had joined them, for the first time. Dressed from head to toe in bright and dazzling attire more akin to Justice Brash was the usually more sombrely dressed figure of Dr Styx.

  ‘Think we need to give Master Mystery here a little of your special medicine Dr Styx. What say you?’

  The doctor smiled a hateful smile and pulled out a miniature glass vial from the pocket of his waistcoat. The liquid in the vial shone a hideous, luminescent green.

  ‘That sounds like fine idea Thump,’ said the doctor. ‘Medicine will make him better. The fumes from this vial will help him see everything quite clearly.’ He cackled with excitement as he released the cork stopper with a small pop and moved slowly towards Sam, holding his nose as he did so.

  Sam, in his last moment of panic, leapt to one side of the central table and rushed back towards the door marked DELPHI. He would happily return to those wretched corridors rather than face another moment in the same room as those scoundrels. But, again, Thump was too quick for him, intercepting him before he’d managed five good paces.

  Then Thump thumped him.

  Sam felt his head spin and a million dazzling colours flash past his vision as the blighter took hold of his head and kept it still as the noxious gas from the green liquid spread over him. In his stupor he tried to hold his breath but Thump put a stop to that when he planted his fist in his stomach and Sam gasped for air.

  The fumes of the gas burnt his throat but quickly passed, leaving a peculiar and warming sensation in their wake. This spread like the dawn through his body. It was smooth and wonderful and suddenly everything was clear and he felt the load of worry lift from his shoulders like a dead weight being pulled free. He was both elated and utterly calm. The happiest moments of his life seemed nothing but drudgery next to this and for the first time in his life he knew exactly what he needed to do.

  He needed to obey.

  Dr Styx returned the vial to his waistcoat and smiled over at Thump.

  ‘That aught to do it,’ he said. ‘It will only last a few hours so we have to be hasty, but we should have him entirely under our command for the time being. No more little slip ups for us, eh?’

  ‘Gotcha,’ winked Thump, slapping Dr Styx heartily on the back. ‘Right, Master Mystery, are you goin’ be a good boy and do what you told?’

  ‘I am,’ said Sam.

  ‘Then take us to what we want. Take us to the stone.’

  Sam nodded, once.

  ‘I will.’

  ◆◆◆

  Ambrose Brash left the secret staircase and, assuring Rosie was behind him, led the way.

  ‘Please follow me, Miss Simply,’ he said in that removed voice he had assumed since Rosie had made sure that he’d drunk the concoction that was intended for her. ‘Don’t stray from the path. If you loose yourself down here, there are few who could find you.’

  Rosie stayed close behind him all the way, turning down more passageways, sloping deeper into the earth.

  ‘Where do these tunnels lead to Brash?’

  ‘Everywhere,’ he answered. ‘The passages can lead to anywhere in the whole town. If there is any basement of any house that you wish to enter you would find a route to it down here. A warren of sorts, if you will.’

  ‘And all this was built especially?’

  ‘Yes Miss Simply, just as you say.’

  ‘Why?’

  Brash stopped, his black and gold nightgown swishing open as he turned, quite mechanically, to Rosie.

  ‘I…I do not understand the question Miss Simply.’

  ‘I mean, why would anyone go to so much trouble? Why do all this?’

  Brash still had that far away expression and his eyes were still glassy but Rosie could see the slightest twitch of a struggle going on, the beginnings of a fight between the real Ambrose Brash and the drugged man who wanted nothing more than to answer Miss Lizzie Simply.

  ‘Not quite a decade ago,’ he began, stepping into her with movements as stilted as a loom, ‘I was working in a nearby city that claimed it was going to start a new revolution. They promised everyone good work and wages and food and lodgings and all the trappings the labourers could ever want. There seemed to be no stone left unturned. They wanted a revolution, and a revolution was precisely what they got. As soon as times became hard there was an immediate breakdown in order and command and respect. I saw grown men turn back into beasts, so violent they became.’

  Brash’s eyes shone with a calm, chilling menace in the torchlight.

  ‘I saw women and children killed for as little as a loaf of bread.’

  Rosie sighed. ‘I’m sure there are few things any of us wouldn’t do should we be driven to the extremes of hunger or thirst…’

  ‘No Miss Simply, it wasn’t like that. Man had become the enemy of man. Brother against brother. In their selfishness they began to hate and despise everyone and everything, all fuelled by petty jealousies…who was earning more, who got more benefits, who worked less. I saw that our future, should it stay on that path, was a godless and leaderless one where, soon enough, children would knock you down in the street and kill you for your purse and then throw it away.’

  ‘And so you turned to Apollo?’

  Expressionless, Brash nodded his head.

  Rosie shook her head. Was all this murder and lying Brash’s fault for trying to help, or Apollo’s or Olkys’? She couldn’t decide. There was a spider’s web of deceit and mistrust that she couldn’t decipher. And who was there to trust? No one. Except perhaps Brash himself…

  ‘Tell me Brash,’ she said, beckoning the man to go on. ‘In our brief time together have your intentions been…strictly honourable?’

  Brash’s face hardened as he again went through some inner struggle with himself. He grimaced as if with pain before swallowing down hard
and his face resuming its past calmness.

  ‘My intentions Miss Simply,’ he said, ‘were quite the opposite of what you asked. My intentions were as dishonourable as they could possibly get. I apologise for being so forward with you.’

  ‘Just checking,’ huffed Rosie. ‘Carry on.’

  No ally in him then, she concluded.

  They walked for another ten minutes, winding through more corridors of various lengths, sometimes passing doors or ladders hung alongside the wall but more often than not trudging through seemingly endless passages where the only light came from the burning torches hanging in brackets beside them. And this was where Sam had been spending most of the night wandering around avoiding various dangers, thought Rosie, before remembering that awful drawing she had found in the pocket of his frock coat and putting him quickly to the back of her mind.

  The ground was rough and dusty under her bare feet and she trod carefully to avoid the loose splinters or broken shards of glass spread out beneath them.

  Presently they arrived at another set of doors, which appeared to sway with the gentle breeze coming from behind them. Brash pushed them open and beyond was only darkness. At first Rosie thought that somehow Brash had opened a door leading to the world of Imagination, where so few could tread, but then the impression of the darkness was not one of familiar nothingness waiting to be filled with dreams and ideas and wishes but of a vastness of empty space. How extraordinary, she wondered, as if the very quantity of air and the weight of rock impressed itself upon her in the bowels of the strange town.

  She walked past Brash and blindly into the empty space beyond the door, turning back to him after several paces.

  ‘What is this place?’

  Her voice echoed around her.

  ‘This Miss Simply,’ said Brash, matter-of-factly, ‘is where it all began. Everything. This is where our plans were first hatched and plots were laid.’

  Rosie turned around on the spot, feeling the coolness of the air on her skin.

  ‘Is there any way to see it?’

  ‘You wish for light Miss Simply?’