Amidst Dark Satanic Mills (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 2)

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “Hello, lovelies!” cried a woman with flaming red hair and cheeks to match. “What a strapping pair you lads are! I can make you both happy for five bob, I can! Right standing at attention, you’ll be!”

  “Shove off, ya slag!” Hand growled, roughly thrusting her out of the way. “Come again, and I’ll gut you sure!”

  When the disappointed dollymop was behind them, Folkestone murmured: “I understand your feelings, Hand, but that’s hardly the way to treat a lady.”

  “That was no lady, sir,” Hand replied.

  “Certainly not respectable, but not…”

  “No, sir,” Hand interrupted. “That was no lady.”

  “Oh.” Then his eyes went wide, he shot a quick glance back, and when he looked forward his face was nearly the color of her hair. “Oh! You mean…”

  “Right, sir,” Hand confirmed with a grin. “No lady.”

  As soon as they abandoned the main street of Dust Town, the darkness closed about them like a fist. The alley they sought was so narrow a resident emerging from a doorway nearly stepped on the porch of the hovel opposite. No lights shown from the windows of the flats, the few that had windows, because they were covered over with tarred paper.

  By the time they neared the building described by Baphor-Ta, they could hear the lapping of oily water in the canal. Hand pulled a dry-cell torch from his pocket and flashed it upon the doorway. A wide-headed caloth was chained beside the door. It opened one eye to the glare and yawned, revealing teeth like scimitars. Seeing the intruders, the beast opened its other eye and shifted its pale bulk. Its chain clinked ominously.

  Folkestone motioned for Hand to follow him to the back of the structure. The caloth watched them warily as they vanished around the corner of the house, then settled back to sleep.

  “Ugly brute, that,” Folkestone remarked softly.

  “The pure-bred feral caloth is fierce but not vicious,” Hand pointed out. “That one out there, he was a hybrid.”

  “Mastiff, I’d say.”

  “Think you’d be right, sir,” Hand agreed. “The first ones were accidents, mated with some of the dogs that escaped from the Italian colony some years ago.”

  “Italians,” Folkestone sighed, shaking his head.

  “Too right, sir. ‘Course, when people saw how they turned out, everyone had to have a guard-caloth,” Hand said.

  “Not quite so popular after all the maulings,” Folkestone said.

  “One of my uncles raises them.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, sir,” Hand replied. “He don’t get no visitors.”

  “Remind me to let Baphor-Ta know about it,” Folkestone said. “I think there’s a local ordinance against keeping those beasts in any but a commercial venue.”

  Hand nodded, though he thought there were many things in Dust Town more dangerous than a chained-up caloth. However, if the creature belonged to Poulpe, it would go hungry without care.

  “Ah, all clear back here,” Folkestone said as they emerged into a small courtyard.

  Not a single light showed in the narrow two-story building. The two men moved quietly to the doorway. It was secured. While Hand worked on circumventing the lock, Folkestone looked around the courtyard. In most Martian villas, the courtyards were usually the center of social life, venues for parties and celebrations of all sorts, as opposed to the rooftop arbors, which were numinous places of rest and meditation. This courtyard was dismal and depressing, bereft of flowers and fountains, given over to thistles and weeds, and layered with dust. Its sole redeeming quality should have been the low back wall, which overlooked Dust Town’s canal, but even that was a vista of death and decay, the water clotted and sluggish under the starlight, its passage littered with various decrepit cargo craft, some obviously well past their waterlines.

  There was a soft mechanical click, and the door moved inward.

  “Got it, sir,” Hand whispered.

  By the light of Hand’s dry-cell torch, they passed through a tiny kitchen, traversed a narrow passage and into a parlor. There was not much in the room, but what little there was, was in disarray.

  “We aren’t the first,” Hand murmured in a barely audible voice.

  Folkestone looked around. Furniture had been overturned and broken apart. Cushions had been shredded and the stuffing pulled out. Drawers had been emptied and flung across the room.

  “Somebody was looking for…” Hand started to say.

  Folkestone motioned for silence, and the two men listened to the quietude infesting the old house.

  The only sounds that came to them were the wind through the eaves and the occasional clink of chains on the other side of the front door. After several minutes of listening to silence, they made their way up the narrow stairs to the floor above. There, evidence of a thorough search continued, everything pulled from the closet and thrown across the landing. In the bedroom, the mattress had been taken off the frame and slit open, the two pillows were but rags.

  The final room above seemed a den with a desk, a lamp and a bookcase. The desk lacked drawers, but the drawers were close by, all broken apart. The books had all been pulled and examined, not only stripped of their covers, but the covers themselves had been pulled apart. Since there were no windows in the room and they were now sure of being alone in the house, they lit the lamp on the desk and turned up the wick.

  “Blimey!” Hand exclaimed, looking about.

  “How remarkable,” Folkestone breathed.

  The other rooms of the house had been as mean and decayed as the rest of Dust Town, but in this den Poulpe had established a world within a world, a world very different from the dismal vista surrounding the house. It was the vision of a world long lost and now yearned for, or so one would assume from the care and time its creation had required from Poulpe. But it was not the world one would expect from a French expatriate separated from his home by millions of miles.

  “Bloody hell,” Hand murmured, turning slowly in the center of the otherwise disheveled room. “The frog’s gone native, he has!”

  “Indeed,” Folkestone said.

  The walls of the den were painted with views of ancient Mars, showing the world as it was before the fall of the Sea Kings and the rise of the modern Martian races. High-prowed glistening gossamer ships sailed upon azure oceans beneath star-swirled skies of violet and deep salmon. Upon islands and peninsulas, in sheltered bays and at river mouths, rose gravity-defying cities that were now naught but legends and stories to be told around campfires. Colossal creatures swam the deeps and soared through the airy vastness, beasts that were now known only as fossils in the wilderness. In none of the frescoes were visible any of the canals now so closely associated with Mars, the only surviving legacy of the Sea King civilization. Nor were the scenes painted upon the walls the only representation of Mars in the room.

  Respectfully, almost reverently, the two men examined the displays of Martian artifacts and relics. Some had been disturbed in the search of the place, but most were intact.

  “Didn’t leave these alone out of respect, I’d wager, sir.”

  “No, the men who searched this room and the rest of the house were looking for something in particular,” Folkestone agreed. “If it could hide it, whatever ‘it’ is, they turned it over, tore it apart; if it couldn’t, they weren’t interested in it.”

  “Baphor-Ta is going to be more interested in all this than in any mangy caloth.” Hand picked up a square of copper incised with intricate markings. “This is a copy of the Dawn Prayer in the Old Tongue. I can’t read it anymore, but I recognize it from temple classes when I was a wee lad. Any of the religious clans will pitch a fit if they see this.”

  “Poulpe could have started his own museum.”

  Hand set the copper square aside and looked at an ancient and weathered carving of a Dark Lord. “I think a lot of these things are from museums, sir.”

  “Then Baphor-Ta will be interested,” Folkestone said. “He’ll be able to close some theft cas
es, and likely his counterparts in the Courts of the other Princes will be able to do the same.”

  “You got money, you can get people to steal anything,” Hand observed. “Even if they know it’s going to eternally damn them.”

  “Where did he get the money?” Folkestone demanded. “No one said anything about him absconding with a few million francs.”

  “Well, Section 6 would not be likely to, would they?”

  “Perhaps not,” Folkestone admitted. “But, still, the French government would have, and that would hardly be filtered out by Section 6. What would be the point of doing so?”

  Hand nodded absently. “Seems odd, a human getting a bee in his bonnet about Old Mars. What could he possibly have in common with it, being so alien and such?”

  Folkestone thought of Hand’s infatuations, but held silent.

  “Whatever they were looking for…” Hand said after a moment. “Do you think they found it?”

  “I don’t know,” Folkestone replied. “Or if it was here.”

  “You think it wasn’t?”

  “I think it might not have been.” Folkestone gestured at the destruction around them. “Look how totally this place has been torn apart. The only things spared are those things that could not be a hiding place. Otherwise, everywhere that could be searched has been searched, and that does not make sense if they actually found what they were looking for.”

  “Because they would have stopped when they found it?” Hand guessed.

  “Precisely,” Folkestone said. “To account for this, the item for which they searched would have had to have been in the very last place searched. I know we often jest about that very situation, when we ourselves search for something misplaced, but that almost never happens when you are making a systemized search.”

  “I suppose so, sir,” Hand murmured, still roaming about the room, looking at the murals, handling the artifacts.

  “Something wrong, Hand?”

  After a long moment, Hand replied: “It’s not quite right.”

  Folkestone frowned. “What’s not?”

  “Some of the artifacts are not in the correct relationship with the murals,” Hand answered as he strolled from display to display. “And some are not…hmmm.”

  “Things were probably shifted about,” Folkestone suggested. “Or he may have just got it wrong, failed to understand the Martian culture.” The British officer looked around at the manifestation of Poulpe’s obsession and gave a helpless shrug. “After all, he was only human.”

  Hand shook his head. “People who get a bee up their bum such that they’re willing to commit crimes and spend a fortune to …well, to do all this, don’t get things wrong. I’d bet Poulpe knew more about life on ancient Mars than most of the temple adepts, or those who spend their lives grubbing in the sand for a fragment of…”

  “So, what’s wrong?” Folkestone demanded, knowing when it was time to preempt a rant. “Where did Poulpe go astray?”

  “Remember that tomb we found when we first met?”

  “Yes, marked ‘Cursed is He Who Defiles the Crypt of Doom’.” Folkestone chuckled. “I’m not likely to, am I?”

  “That was from the twilight of the Sea Kings, after the twilight, as it turned out,” Hand said. “By that time, all the canals had been created, though, of course, we have no idea how.”

  “Yes, ethnologists were quite disappointed not to find even any legends about the means by which the canals were dug,” Folkestone mentioned. “And our engineers, despite their best efforts to…”

  “The important thing, sir,” Hand interrupted, knowing when it was time to preempt a lecture, “is that on this section of the mural here…see.” He pointed at the portion indicated. “Do you see it?”

  “No, I…” He paused. “That’s Cydonia there, isn’t it.”

  “Yes, sir, the Old City” Hand confirmed. “And there’s no sign of New Cydonia.”

  “I wouldn’t expect there to be,” Folkestone said, “not if he was trying to show how it was on Old Mars.”

  Hand turned and pointed to another mural, the first of the series and earliest, apparently, of Poulpe’s artistic efforts. “This is the end of the Dark Lords, the rise of the Sea Kings.”

  “Demise of the crystalline cities, banishment of the Dark Lords, flight of the Prismatic Masters, and all that rot, right?”

  Hand winced at the superior officer’s vocabulary, but he was a man who did not look for offense in trifles. And usually found none.

  “Then it continues to the expansion of the Sea Kings, the raising of their cities and science centers, their visits to the other worlds, and the experimentations that contributed to their eventual downfall,” Hand continued. “Then, on to the appearance of modern races, the Meteor Storm, the Great Drought, the Rebellion of the Deep Ones…” Hand turned as he spoke, pointing to each section of the murals as he ticked off epoch after epoch. Finally he returned to where he had started. “Up to this point, Poulpe has been accurate, in accordance with Temple orthodoxy. But when we get to Cydonia, he fails to account for the area between the Fall and the Rise.”

  “After the Rise, as I recall, the Lowland Martians built New Cydonia, the first of the great…” Suddenly, Folkestone peered at the mural and tapped his forehead, annoyed at missing the obvious. “They built New Cydonia because it was across from the ancient city, but they also built it because it was on the greatest of the main canals.” He glared at his friend. “You know, Hand, you could have just told me Poulpe forgot to put in the canal that was there between the fall of the two cities.”

  “That’s just it, sir…he didn’t forget.”

  “But there is no canal shown on the…” Folkestone peered more closely at the mural. “There seems…we need to…”

  “If you could give me a boost, sir.”

  “All right then, up with you.”

  Folkestone made a stirrup with his hand, jerking up sharply when Hand slipped his boot onto the interlaced fingers. Hand flew up, then stepped adroitly onto Folkestone’s shoulders. The Captain grunted with exertion and grabbed the Martian’s ankles to give him stability and support.

  “There is something hidden here,” Hand reported. “It looks like Poulpe put it in, then painted a desert patch over it so that it…”

  “A little more alacrity, Sergeant Hand, and much less talking,” Folkestone growled. “You are as stout as you are short, and the lesser gravity is not doing much to…”

  “Got it, sir,” Hand announced. “Let me down.”

  Folkestone squatted and Hand hopped down. The Captain put his hand at the lower portion of his back and pushed as he stood, groaning a little.

  “I am not as young as I used to be,” Folkestone complained. “And you are not as light. What do we have?”

  “Looks like an envelope, sir.”

  Folkestone took the proffered object. The envelope was only a couple inches wide and not much more than that long, made of very rough-milled paper, just the kind of surface that would accept pain easily, able to blend in with the already-painted portions of the wall. Folkestone slit the gummed fold-over and pulled out several sheets of folded parchment.

  “What was worth hiding, sir?”

  “It appears to be the lease on a warehouse over by the canal,” Folkestone replied. “And there are some bills of lading here, for supplies and the such, very little specified, and the few things that are specified, are probably code for something else entirely.”

  “You think he was up to something them, sir?”

  “Of course he was up to something, Hand,” Folkestone snapped testily. “Sorry, Hand, but I don’t like subterfuges and spy games.”

  “No more than I, sir.”

  “But that’s where all this is leading,” Folkestone insisted.

  “Well, with Section…”

  “That’s odd,” Folkestone interjected, looking at the last scrap of parchment. “Deucedly odd.”

  “Sir?”

  “This receipt bears the crest
of the House of Zant.”

  “As in Phylus-Zant?”

  “One in the same, Hand.”

  “Bloody liar!”

  “Indeed,” Folkestone agreed. “We were going to question the blighter anyway; now, we’ll have some questions to ask.”

  Hand gestured toward the papers. “Think that’s what the search was all about?”

  “Whatever Poulpe was up to, it got him killed,” Folkestone said. “Obviously, he wasn’t doing anything here, except obsessing about a world long dead.” He slapped the papers against his palm. “He was killed before the murderer found out where he was working. This is what the sought—the key to his workplace.”

  “So, the warehouse or Phylus-Zant, sir?”

  “I think we’ll save the Honorable Phylus-Zant for midmorning, the busiest part of the day, when everyone can see him being visited by a human and a Highlander,” Folkestone replied, a hint of glee in his voice. “We’ll take the warehouse now, but first we’ll put the envelope back in place.”

  “Just the envelope, sir?”

  “Right you are, Hand, so up you go.”

  Hand grimaced at the thought of being again hoisted onto the shoulders of the tall human, but perhaps no more than Folkestone himself grimaced with Hand once more balanced above.

  “Do hurry, Hand.”

  “As fast as I am able, sir,” Hand assured him. “But if you want this back in place so that no one notices…”

  “I do!”

  “Then it can’t be hurried, can it?” Noting the renewed grip on his ankles and remembering how high he was, Hand added: “Sir.”

  Finally, Hand’s task accomplished, he scrambled down quick as possible. Both men looked quite relieved. Each man regarded the other for a silent moment, Hand wondering why humans had to be so blasted tall, while Folkestone pondered the mystery of how a Martian so short could be so bloody heavy.

  The turned out the lamp, then made their way down the stairs and out the back by the dim light of Hand’s dry-cell torch. Instead of returning to the street, they went over the low back wall, cutting across the barren lot toward the canal.