SCOTTISH BORDERS, PRESENT DAY
CHAPTER 26
“Reality” ceased to be relevant for Gaelan Erceldoune. He supposed for him, now, reality was a relative. Real compared to what? Through which lens? What perspective?
Mad or not, at the gates of hell or not, real or not. This was “it,” whether for the next hour, a year, a millennium, for eternity: trapped in a mirrored labyrinth with no escape. It occurred to him that he might simply leave the catacombs, get on a plane, and return to Chicago. What then? London? Do what? What would it prove if it were all in his mind anyway? Would it break the delusion, if, in fact, he’d broken with reality?
And to say he wasn’t intrigued by the catacombs would be a lie, and for the moment he had no better options than to accept and adapt as he had so many times in his past after each cataclysm of his life: his father’s execution, leaving the sanctuary of Dernwode, the realization that he was immortal, Caitrin’s death, and grappling with Iain’s supposed death; Eleanor and Simon. The Great War and beyond.
He concentrated on the prisms, their hum a not-unpleasant white noise now. What if their arrangement had been by design? And the glass piece not the imagined avatar of a life he’d left behind but a missing piece, intended for him, and only him, to discover. And Dernwode House—not a convenient refuge of the mind but a place to which he’d managed to drag himself all the way from the coast, the intuitive impulse of muscle memory? The magnetic pull of some indefinable . . . something . . .
The opalescent teardrop sat beside him on the floor. The way the light within glowed and sparked, reached out to him, drew him. Yet, he feared taking hold of it again. Would it return him to that LaSalle bloke and his interrogation, or some other place—or nowhere at all? He wasn’t ready. Not yet.
Gingerly and with trembling fingers, Gaelan placed the object in his pocket, ignoring the prisms, which had reverted now to a clattering chaos of discordant noise. He hurried from the room, relieved to find himself in the dark corridor—familiar territory.
The network of chambers twisted back on itself, and Gaelan noticed what he thought might be another chamber in the distance. Evidently the terminus of catacombs was not the seòmar-criostalan. Drawn toward the far chamber, he was in the dark. No sconces lined the walls as they had done through other passages. Had it not been for a diffuse, distant glow ahead, Gaelan would have believed this section of the network of little interest, likely never used.
A lit candle in his hand, he drew nearer. But the light he thought he’d seen did not originate from within a chamber; there was, in fact, no chamber at all. Only a rock face, gray-black mirror-polished basalt; its face shimmered, rippling from the center outward in concentric circles.
Gaelan touched his hand to the smooth surface, surprised when the wall gently gave beneath his hand, emitting an odd sensation, which pulsed through his fingers, neither hot nor cold, the waves infinitesimal and constant. As Gaelan withdrew his hand from it, the wall retracted, or seemed to. An optical illusion caused by the candlelight, or . . . ?
Curious, Gaelan removed the teardrop from his pocket, holding it to the peculiar surface, observing as the glass reacted, absorbing and then reflecting the light. Another illusion? He extinguished the candle, setting it on the ground, appreciating the honeyed aroma of melted beeswax.
The absence of flame did not affect the glass piece or its light as it continued to react with the wall. He placed both hands flat against the undulating surface this time. Would the current would move around them or between, disrupting the concentric pattern? Or gravitate toward the glass piece, like iron filings to a magnet?
A subtle vibration, stronger, yet still pleasurable, pulsed through Gaelan’s hands and up through his arms, drawing him in until his face met the smooth, glossy surface, which now seemed almost, but not quite, liquid, like glass before it is entirely cooled. Closer and closer, almost as if the wall had enveloped him completely, enfolding him, pressing him forward, eyes closed against a gentle pressure that . . .
Gaelan now stood at the end of a wavering dock, no longer in the catacombs. He knew without glancing over his shoulder that the wall would no longer be there. Water sloshed over a pitted asphalt surface, which overlaid exposed rotting wood. The sky was deep lavender-indigo as the merest glint of red-orange sun bled over the horizon, igniting the water.
He knew this spot. Imprinted, indelible. Crowded afternoons, lonely mornings when the place he now stood was enshrouded in fog. Long after midnight, when the light pollution from office towers and malls, party boats, and sightseeing ships had extinguished, leaving the sky pockmarked with the stars. His favorite time to speed down an empty Lake Shore Drive on his motorbike. Dawn, especially one like this—clear and brilliant—ran a close second. But how was he here?
He closed his eyes, listening for the familiar sounds of morning: the screech of red-tailed hawks on the prowl, the great blue herons shrieking high above as they circled for prey, squawking gulls ornamenting every wood piling and buoy, scanning the water’s surface for fresh catch. The gentler clucking of mourning doves and pigeons picking through the leavings from the previous evening.
There was no sound but for the gentle lapping of gray-green waves. Not a bird to be seen. The very air was different too, devoid of the familiar sour pungency of alewives and algae.
Gaelan turned, expecting to be at least somewhat comforted by the sight of the giant Ferris wheel, which dominated the west end of Navy Pier, keeping watch over the pier, the promenade, and the park. Instead, before him lay a city in ruins. As if he’d been transported into a virtual reality disaster movie. He would have screamed if his voice hadn’t been tangled up in his throat.
He jammed his fists into his eye sockets, trying to will away the image, knowing somehow it would do no good. Mouth parched, heart throbbing in his chest, he slowly slid his hands from his eyes, steeling himself to be shocked anew, never mind the question of how he found himself incongruously in some surreal version of Chicago, when a moment before he’d been in Scotland. No fucking way this was un-augmented reality. His thoughts shifted back to the poison, trying to parse its possible hallucinogenic effects. What the fuck had he done to himself?
A fucking 3-D disaster movie in every direction but east—the lake itself. He pivoted, turning back toward the open water. At once light-headed, he lost his footing, staggering too close to the edge. He was grateful for the decaying wood bench that caught his fall. He sat, head in his hands, shaking in disbelief. Let me out of here! Out of this madness! Out of this nightmare!
The teardrop.
Of course. His escape route. All he needed to do was let it go, and he would return to the catacombs, their blessed, lonely darkness.
From which horrors in Gaelan’s past had his mind culled and subverted this terrifying vision? Better to confront it, understand what it represented. Accept it and move on.
First, focus. He concentrated on the single blaze of sunlight that split the mirror calm of the water in two. He counted, first primes, then the Fibonacci numbers and their primes, then again in base two, and then base three. Well, at least the mathematical side of his brain seemed operational. The logical, rational part. Well, maybe not so much. His breathing settled, even as his mind struggled to make sense of the disaster just over his shoulder.
Breathing deeply—once, twice, three times—he stood shakily, too look again, ready to come to terms with what he’d seen. Was it only weeks ago he’d been here, this very bench, a quiet late winter day, snow falling in enormous flakes as he sucked in the pleasures of the most excellent weed for which he’d ever paid?
Opening his eyes, still trembling, Gaelan turned back toward the west, prepared best he could be. He knew the skyline from this vantage so well. The way the morning sun glinted off the glass and steel of Lake Point Tower, hundreds of feet above the shoreline, now deteriorated into a gargantuan birdcage of rusting beams and broken window glass, blinds flapping, silent wings in the whipping wind.
In t
he far distance, the crumbling, burned-out buildings of downtown Chicago stooped like enormous broken chess pieces. Disintegrating sand castles that had once been the neo-Gothic Tribune Tower and the Wrigley Buildings set against the broken black basalt angles of the John Hancock Tower. Wilson Tower leaned precariously like the Titanic just before it sank.
The pier wobbled and bobbed below Gaelan’s feet. No doubt the supporting pylons would be in terrible disrepair: he needed to get off it, get inside. But what would be the state of the mile-long indoor promenade? Was that, too, a ruin? Its glass domes seemed oddly intact and out of sync with everything else around him.
Gaelan noticed now, for the first time, the Ferris wheel, now a mass of bent and twisted metal, its fuchsia and chartreuse spokes wobbling at treacherous angles as if it would at any moment give way. That was it. That’s what had seemed familiar, distracted him during LaSalle’s interrogation. The Ferris wheel spokes, but out of context. And here, again. Why? Why were they important?
Gaelan made his way along the asphalt, minding the deep ruts every few feet; the ground seemed steadier as he progressed away from the edge and toward the ruined wheel. Sand and soot swirled about his feet, denser as he moved further from the far edge of the pier, gathering into small dunes and drifts as he crossed into the park. Beyond that, what had once been lavish residences and opulent hotels of the Gold Coast was now an avenue of broken, rusted-out cars, charred buildings, trees emptied of their leaves, stripped of their bark.
The sand pooled about his ankles, glittering ashen white in the morning sun. He scooped up a handful. The same material he’d seen in that first vision, recognizing it now as a mélange of beach sand, ground window glass, grains of alabaster, quartz, and marble. The distant hills of that first vision, then obscured by a dust storm, he now realized were Michigan Avenue skyscrapers, long neglected.
No dogs, no birds. As far as Gaelan could determine, he was utterly alone in this eerily familiar wasteland. Nothing at all but a line of kiosks, empty, closed. The placards seemed new, at least, compared to everything else. “Dr. Death’s Super Elixir—a bottle away from heaven’s gate!” “Club Guillotine—go out in style. Quick and painless. Better—and cheaper—than a bullet to the brain. Reservations only!”
What the fuck?
He turned back toward the long building, ignoring the unnerving advertising signs, unsure he was ready to face whatever awaited inside.
“Hey, you!”
Gaelan whirled toward the sound. A youngish man shuffled through the sand, stopping a couple of feet away. He was joined by several others who emerged from nowhere to surround Gaelan, all dressed in the same uniform: gray hooded tee shirts and sweatpants.
“He looks like one of ‘em,” another said, edging closer, a broken whisky bottle in one hand and a long, jagged shard of glass in the other. As the man drew near, Gaelan saw the mass of white-gray blistery lesions of differing sizes everywhere his skin was exposed. The first man, who had now backed away to join his friends in the circle, had them, too.
“Do you notice? He’s all pure and clean. No tumors,” called out a third. “Doc Morely’ll pay a lot for one of ‘em if can bring him proof.”
Proof of what? One of . . . what? He scanned the group, each covered with the lesions. Gaelan barely noticed as one of the men nodded toward another—the one with the broken glass. Too late. Searing pain sliced into Gaelan’s right arm, knocking him off his feet.
The teardrop slipped from his grip.
Gaelan welcomed the dark of the catacombs; he was sprawled facedown on the cool floor of the prism room. His arm throbbed, pulsing to the rhythm of his too-fast heartbeat. A familiar cold clamminess began its descent, starting at his forehead and working its way down. He struggled not to lose consciousness before he managed to . . .
Instinct took over, and biting his lower lip hard, Gaelan extracted a long, jagged shard of glass from his upper arm, ignoring as best he could the ripping of tendons, the slicing of muscle and vein. Panting, cold sweat pouring off his head, he removed his shirt, wrapping his arm as best he could.
Disbelief merged into the knowledge of what had just happened. Comprehension would have to bloody wait in line.
Gaelan managed to stand, just barely, and he groped his way along the corridor until he returned to the chamber with the cot. Shivering, he fell into his bed beneath his jacket, giving in to the darkness.
Gaelan woke thinking of Nicola Tesla. Tesla! The teardrop had gone missing from the stained-glass panels only a day after they’d met, when Tesla had spoken so passionately of his ideas about travel in time and space. He’d never located the piece for all his searching the grounds. Yet, impossibly, that same missing piece now was tucked securely into his trouser pocket. Somehow altered.
Had that been Tesla? Had he somehow succeeded in mastering travel between worlds, between times, as he’d aspired? Wouldn’t a discovery of that magnitude have been a scientific earthquake with reverberations worldwide? Famous and acclaimed?
Had Tesla died never knowing he’d done it? Gaelan had the proof. Of course, the possibility—a strong possibility—still existed all this was a surreal fabrication of a broken psyche.
Travel through time—and space. An epochal discovery. Like immortality.
Maybe Tesla had known of his success, and, considering the consequences, took a breathtaking secret to his grave. Is that not what Gaelan had intended to do with his own monumental secret?
The enormity of the discovery Gaelan could barely comprehend. Travel to another world, another time. Another time, different circumstances, Gaelan would have rejoiced in the brilliance of it. But he was only weary. Of life, of the world, of hiding. He was ready to let go. To die. Little appetite to go round for another ride. And certainly not in the ruined, desolate world to which he’d apparently traversed.
He was frustrated he was not dead. There had to be a way to rectify that. If not the poison, something else, and he would not stop searching until he’d managed it. Did he have the nerve to slice that jagged glass shard through his carotid? His hand might slip; the edge was sharp enough but would not cleanly cut through. Death, if it came at all, would take many painful hours. Too much time; his bloody genetics would foil the effort.
A bullet to the brain? That, too, carried risks. Besides, he did not want his dead body picked over and probed—and exploited. That was the bloody point of the entire enterprise. Something would turn up.
Minding his injured arm, Gaelan rose from the cot, surprised to discover blood continuing to trickle from the wound. By now, the gash should have begun to close, but it had not. Perhaps it was more serious than he’d imagined. He rewrapped it and, grabbing his old shirt and the glass piece, ventured back into the corridor, lantern in hand.
Club Guillotine, now there’s an idea!
LONDON, 1826
CHAPTER 27
Eureka!
Gaelan’s thoughts rushed headlong one into the other as he stood at his laboratory workbench. Of course, of course.
“Are you all right, Mr. Erceldoune?”
Caitrin stood beside him, appearing baffled.
“Forgive me. Something you said sparked a rather splendid idea.” Whether it had been her or just the random pieces fitting into place of their own accord did not, just at the moment, much matter.
And if it was the sweating sickness that took poor Mr. Barlow’s family and afflicted Bell’s patient, Gaelan would be prepared for it with shield and dragon-ready lance.
Dragon into dragonfly. Fire and metal. The fragile airiness of a dragonfly’s prismatic wings. The water, cool and transformative, strong enough to douse a dragon’s fiery breath. Elements all present in the image, that page in the ouroboros book, its careful, incomprehensible design—the alchemist’s tools: earth, fire, air, water. He didn’t understand it, not the way of it, but he trusted it would work.
But for propriety’s sake, Gaelan would have danced her about the laboratory, elated at the discovery.
“My lady . . . Caitrin . . . you must excuse me. I’ve work to do . . . a direction for . . . I would ask for you to return to the flat. There should yet be sufficient bread and wine, meats as well in the larder.”
She startled. “I do not understand. What have I done to—?”
“I’ve no time to explain, but you, my dear . . . my lady . . . you have shown me the key, and without knowing it, I daresay. But you must let me work!”
Caitrin worried the fabric of her sleeve, visibly distraught. “Allow me to be of assistance. I beg of you. I am quite able, and chemistry, its magic, has always held for me much fascination.”
He considered the proposal a brief moment. There was much to do with gathering ingredients, preparing the apparatus, cleaning the glassware; the instructions had to be assembled . . . and all with no apprentice.
Even a fool would be better than nothing, and Lady Caitrin was no fool. The very worst of ideas. Simply not done. Damnation! “Indeed, I’ve work aplenty, and more befitting a scullery maid than a lady, much less the daughter of an earl. Yet, if you insist—”
“I do. I promise I can demonstrate my value. I am no dainty flower, and I am not without skill and education. Indeed, I shall prove myself clever as any apprentice you might take on—”
“Very well,” he said with resignation. “And at the end of it, you may craft your own Rupert’s drop as payment. I would admonish you, should you feel at any time fatigued, or wont to swoon, you must tell me without hesitation. You are barely recovered, and it will do me little good if you were to once again fall ill.”
Her smile lit the room.
“Here. Watch what I do.” He spooned a small amount of an orange powder onto a small tin and covered it with an etched clear globe. A soft circle of light spilled onto the workbench around it.
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