Steampunk Cthulhu: Mythos Terror in the Age of Steam

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Steampunk Cthulhu: Mythos Terror in the Age of Steam Page 21

by Jeffrey Thomas


  “Why are the generals doing this?” Stahl asked, his voice barely more than a whimper.

  “We’ve never got close enough to a general to ask.” LaSarre said. “But I reckon this war would’ve only lasted a few years if the troops hadn’t been controlled by these.” She flung the cap away. “Those bodies without caps were part of our Resistance – a lucky few from both sides who’d lost their caps and realized what was going on. This place was our base, where we were getting stronger until…”

  “Until someone betrayed us, day before yesterday and led those Yankee mind-slaves against us,” Tyrell drawled.

  “Now there’s only Tyrell and me left to carry out our plan,” LaSarre told Stahl. “And you.”

  Inside the rickety slave bunkhouse, LaSarre and Tyrell uncovered their plan: at first sight it looked like a bullet-shaped locomotive about twenty-eight feet long, with a vast cone at the front, pointing forwards. As Stahl examined it, he saw the conical front was a huge metal shield with a circular porthole, poking through which was a three-barreled cannon interlinked by a web of pipes and valves to a steam engine with a furnace and a gigantic funnel. A mountain of coal was heaped against the nearest wall of the bunkhouse.

  “Some kinda experimental gun,” LaSarre said. “I heard something like this was used in a riot in Baltimore right at the start of the war. Reckon the Union appropriated that one and have been developing this.”

  “But it’s ours now,” Tyrell added with a smirk.

  “We blew up a railroad train over there,” LaSarre said, “and killed all the Yankee mind-slaves on board. Course, this was when there were thirty-six of us in the Resistance. It took all of us to tow this contraption off the tracks, hide it here and plunder enough coal in the weeks that followed.”

  “You could flatten hordes of soldiers with this!” Stahl exclaimed.

  “Yeah,” said LaSarre, “but there’d always be more and it ain’t soldiers I wanna kill.”

  Tyrell chuckled behind her, as if he knew what was coming. “And it ain’t mechanical men either,” he added.

  LaSarre climbed onto the device’s wheeled platform and opened a large wooden crate, full of long, torpedo-like shells. “We’re gonna bring down a general’s tripod with this.”

  Stahl gawped. “You know how it works then?”

  LaSarre shrugged. “The leader of our Resistance was a college professor before the war.” She pointed to the ruined plantation house. “Someday we’ll fill in the pit and he’ll get a decent burial with the rest of them.”

  Tyrell smirked.

  “Anyway,” LaSarre continued, “it took the professor some time, but he figured it out and showed the rest of us. Only problem now is: we can’t move the thing anywhere.”

  Tyrell licked his lips as if he knew what was coming next. Stahl felt a bad feeling forming in the pit of his stomach.

  “But now we’ve got you,” LaSarre said, “that doesn’t matter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just lost your cap. Your Union general is gonna come looking for you.”

  It all fell into place. So that’s why the general fired on his own men, Stahl realized. He was trying to kill me, just because my cap had come off.

  “All those soldiers died because of me?” Stahl mumbled.

  “Forget about your comrades,” Tyrell said. “They was doomed anyway.”

  “I don’t know how they do it,” LaSarre said, “but the generals know when someone loses their cap. For a while at least, they can track you like a hunter, until whatever it is they put inside your head fades away. So while it’s still active, we don’t need to take this contraption anywhere – the general will come to us, looking for you.”

  Tyrell sniggered. “That means you’re the bait, Billy Yank.”

  They hid out in the slave bunkhouse, away from the putrefying corpses, listening to the distant sounds of battle. They took it in turns outside on watch, waiting for – even hoping for – the enemy to come their way, preferably in a Union tripod. Inside, they primed the steam-powered cannon, loading it with the long shells and keeping a low fire in the furnace, ready to add more coal when the enemy came near.

  “Once this thing’s warmed up,” LaSarre said, wiping at a smear of oil on her brow, “I reckon it’ll fire four of these shells per second. If we aim for the tripod’s legs, it’ll soon bring down the general.”

  The daytime gloom turned into night-time darkness, but still the fires of explosions could be seen in the distance and the rattle of gunfire carried on the dusty wind. Stahl stood on watch in the blackness, listening for anything approaching, feeling the heat from the contraption through the bunkhouse wall. The hours crawled by; the sinister shaking of a rattlesnake’s tail was all that sounded nearby. Lighting a candle, he peered into the shadows, but couldn’t see the snake. Five minutes passed and he didn’t hear it again, so he snuffed out the candle.

  Stahl’s tired thoughts wandered to the city he’d lived in, with its domes and spires looming over his studio, from where he’d sold his pictures to the nostalgic and rich. Green landscapes he’d never seen, blossoming trees and cool, flowing rivers from his imagination. His conscription had ended all that and the four years since were a blur of indiscriminate battles. He could barely even remember the last time he’d put brush to canvas. Up-ending his repeater rifle, he used his bayonet to scratch the shape of a flower into the gray earth at his feet: a long stem, spreading out into six pointed petals.

  He froze, leaving the sixth petal unfinished. Out there in the darkness, he could hear the rhythmic thump of massive metal legs and the hiss of steam escaping from valves.

  “It’s here,” he whispered, but no one answered. He turned the repeater rifle in his hands and backed up to the bunkhouse. Pushing open the large wooden doors, he looked inside. “It’s here,” he said, louder.

  “Get back outside,” LaSarre hissed. “Once it finds you and comes closer, leave the rest to us.” Stahl heard coal being shoveled into the furnace.

  He moved away from the bunkhouse. Slowly, he reached down for the candle and relit it. Come on, general, he thought, let’s get this over with. The creaking of metal was definitely getting closer. He could picture the tripod’s bulbous body, swiveling, searching for him, spying the candle, training its guns on him—

  —I’m disposable, he realized. I might be free, but I’m still being used! LaSarre and Tyrell don’t care if I live or die, as long as they bring down the tripod.

  He snuffed out the candle, dropped it to the floor; heard a whine of steam from inside the bunkhouse. The crunches of the tripod’s feet on the ground drew closer. It was right above him. Stahl turned and started to run – away from the bunkhouse, away from the tripod. If he kept on running, surely, sometime, he’d get away from this never-ending battlefield? He’d gone about thirty feet, when a cacophony of blasts erupted from the bunkhouse behind him. Spinning, he saw shells hurtling from the bunkhouse door, one after another, trailing brief streaks of white steam across the night sky; then the bright explosions as the shells ploughed into the tripod’s legs, illuminated by fire. Metal cracked and clanged as the relentless stream of shells smashed into the towering machine: thud, thud, thud, again and again, until finally, with a screech of twisting metal, the legs ripped away and the tripod plunged towards the ground in front of the bunkhouse. The bulbous body hit the earth with a crash, sending up a cloud of dust which caught in Stahl’s throat and stung his eyes.

  He walked slowly, like a machine, towards the smashed hulk of the tripod. Smoke hissed from the tears in its shielding and the Union flag was crumpled on a twisted plate of brass. Above it, the metal had sheared up like a wave, creating a great rip from the view-slit backwards. Inside the tripod’s cockpit, the dazed general was sprawled across a padded seat, surrounded by levers and gauges. He was a large man in a uniform of dark blue, ripped in many places, exposing deep lacerations. His breath was accompanied with a liquid gurgle and a trickle of crimson blood ran from his nose, acro
ss his tilted fleshy face and into his bushy sideburns. The general’s lips moved as he talked in a delirium. “For the…eternal…glory of Yig…and the citadel…of Yanyoga,” he muttered, eyes closed.

  Anger rippled through Stahl; he clambered into the wreckage and seized hold of the general. “You killed your own regiment,” he spat, shaking him. “And you turned us into slaves – destroyed our minds.” Stahl brought the general’s face up close to his. “Why?”

  The general’s eyes snapped open: two yellow-green orbs, bisected by narrow vertical black pupils. An unearthly hiss escaped from the general’s lips and a forked tongue flicked between his sharp teeth. Stahl fell backwards, clutching at the wreckage to steady himself. The general’s face twitched and the human visage seemed to melt away like mist, leaving the swollen head of a serpent in its place: the inhuman face Stahl had glimpsed in the tripod’s view-slit, but not dared to believe.

  “Human vermin,” the general said in a whispering voice. Its whole body was ophidian now, but with scaly arms and legs too. “Who are you to question us? This world was ours…for millions of years before your pitiful kind walked upon it.”

  A sickening feeling rose in Stahl’s chest; but even as he clenched his fists and grimaced with fear, he was unable to tear his gaze from the hideous creature.

  “We have waited longer than your inferior intelligence can comprehend – since the fall of Valusia and the destruction of Yanyoga by your primitive ancestors, but now our world is within our grasp… once more. Even as I die, my people will soon be victorious.” The creature’s sinuous body lurched with spasms, its tail whipping against the levers. For a moment, the general’s human face reformed. Then the creature lunged forward and grabbed Stahl with its reptilian talons; the creature’s fangs were only inches from Stahl’s face.

  A burst of gunfire sent the monster reeling into the cockpit seat. Stahl glanced back and saw Tyrell and LaSarre outside the bunkhouse, both with six-barreled repeater-rifles.

  “You see beneath their illusion, at last?” LaSarre called.

  “You didn’t tell me…the generals…blue, gray – they’re all like this?” Stahl said, leaning against the general’s chair for support.

  LaSarre nodded; Tyrell just laughed.

  “So why do they fight each other?” Stahl asked, already dreading the answer. He spun back to the general when he heard it hiss.

  The serpent-man convulsed and turned its head to look up at Stahl, then down at the two Confederates. “Ancient enemies,” it gasped. “Blasphemers…rebels…fools who worship Tsathoggua. Mighty Yig destroyed them long ago!” A gurgle like a laugh came from the creature’s throat. “And still they come out of hiding. But only a few remain for us to wipe out.” With a final croak, the general sagged, its scaly body going limp.

  “Civil war, in other words,” said LaSarre, behind Stahl.

  He heard Tyrell laughing again.

  “But it’s not over yet,” LaSarre added. “Not until the last of humanity has fought and died for us and we retake what is rightfully ours!”

  Panic washed over Stahl; he spun around to face the two Confederates. But all he saw was two upright serpent people in gray-uniforms, repeater-rifles grasped in their reptilian talons.

  “Hail Tsathoggua, great power of N’Kai!” LaSarre exclaimed.

  A volley of gunfire tore into Stahl’s body. He lurched and toppled from the wreckage to the ground. The last thing he saw was his own lifeblood oozing out of his body, obliterating the unfinished flower he’d scratched into the dead earth.

  Tentacular Spectacular

  By Thana Niveau

  SENSATIONAL! The WONDER of the Century! A DREAM of Figure Perfection!

  Lucy found the shop on the south bank of the Piccadilly River on her way to Leicester Square. Ever since the Great Quake of ’71, shops had been springing up along the banks of the newly formed Thames tributaries and Madame Hadal’s was one she had not seen before.

  Lucy found the shop on the south bank of the Piccadilly River on her way to Leicester Square. Ever since the Great Quake of ’71, shops had been springing up along the banks of the newly formed Thames tributaries and Madame Hadal’s was one she had not seen before.

  She peered at the corset on display in the window. An exquisite garment of green silk trimmed with lace, it was gradually constricting the mannequin’s waist as she watched. The laces trailed out to either side in back, where a pair of mechanical arms wound them round and round by means of an automated crank, drawing the corset tighter with each turn. When the gears finally stopped Lucy noted the measurement on the tape looped around the corset. Eleven inches. Impossible! But the tape couldn’t lie. She stood admiring the result for several minutes before deciding to venture inside.

  As the door closed behind her she became aware of a dank and pervasive smell. The interior of the shop was entirely at odds with the beautiful corsetry on display. The surfaces were furred with dust and the walls were spotted with ichorous yellow stains and tufts of fungus. Lucy pressed a lace handkerchief to her face and she was just turning to leave when she saw the book.

  On a battered lectern in one corner, a large volume lay open. Curious, Lucy inched closer, realizing as she did so that the book was the source of the stench. Its crumbling pages were warped and stained and the stand beneath it dripped with foul water. But although she was repulsed, Lucy found herself peering closer at the open pages. The spiky text was presumably some foreign language but it was the drawing that really intrigued her. A peculiar multi-legged creature hovered midway down the page, its single monstrous eye seeming to stare directly at her from the depths of some awful abyss.

  The oppressive smell was making her lightheaded and she backed away slowly, determined to get away from the book. As she watched, the creature’s legs seemed to wave like fingers. Was it levering itself up out of the page? Surely it couldn’t––

  “Welcome!”

  Lucy jumped at the sound of the voice and turned to see a woman, presumably the shop’s proprietress. She was of indeterminate age, unremarkable appearance, and her manner was both imposing and oddly alluring. Her deep-set eyes gleamed as she assessed Lucy with a jerk of her head.

  “How may I help you?”

  Lucy blinked as though emerging from a heavy sleep. She couldn’t place the woman’s accent and for a moment she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly at all. For a moment she was sure the woman had spoken in a completely unfamiliar language.

  “Madame Hadal?” she ventured. When the proprietress nodded Lucy relaxed. “Forgive me. I must be tired. For a moment I thought…”

  Her thought vanished as she saw that Madame Hadal was wearing the same type of corset she had just been admiring in the window, and that her figure was every bit as enviable as that of the wasp-waisted mannequin. Lucy was sure she could have fitted her hands all the way around the lady’s tiny waist. The garment didn’t just minimize her waist; it exaggerated dramatically the swell of her breasts and hips. But despite the daring cut of the décolletage, it was clearly not a corset to be hidden beneath one’s clothes. It was a corset to wear boldly, proudly, on its own.

  “You like, yes? It is very beautiful?”

  “Oh yes,” Lucy breathed, quite overcome. “But I fear I shall never be able to lace myself as tight as that. I am only down to sixteen inches.”

  Madame Hadal cocked her head and gave her customer a conspiratorial smile. “It is my secret, this special corset. For you I think it will be a – how do you say? – revelation. But come! You must try.”

  With that she whisked Lucy into the large fitting room at the back of the shop before she could protest. Here the dampness and the smell were less pronounced and Lucy dismissed the picture in the book as a figment of her imagination. Madame soon helped her out of her bustle dress and petticoats, laying them safely over the back of a chair. The triptych mirror showed Lucy from three angles as she stood in her plain cream corset and pantalets.

  Her sixteen-inch figure was striking, as
was the figure of every girl who danced at the Arabesque. Her legs were long and muscular, her face as fair as that of any lady. Whilst shunned by polite society, Lucy and her friends still enjoyed most of the privileges of respectable ladies when out dining or walking with their rich patrons. In fact, the dancing girls enjoyed rather more, for they were never expected to sit stiffly indoors with their embroidery, protected from all manner of stimulating things outside. They were not prisoners of the oppressive rules of etiquette which governed the wives of gentlemen, nor did they have any reputation to protect.

  However, their freedom came at a price. With the new marvels of the Steam Age their special talents were fast becoming obsolete. Music halls that were once filled with appreciative audiences were now closing their doors as rival machine arenas took over, tempting the public away with acts like Professor Peaslee’s Pistons and Petticoats, a show that featured a variety of motorized dancing dolls.

  Lucy and some of her friends had sneaked in to see it one night, expecting cheap gimmicks and amateur puppetry. But they had been properly amazed by some of the “Professor’s” creations and they were particularly struck by the finale. A stylized clockwork ballerina danced with all her gears and cogs on display, balancing en pointe in spite of the full-length pendulum swinging from her overlong neck. After executing a series of jumps so high it seemed she would take flight, she twirled in place and then one by one drew her arms and legs in to her chest. Then she curled her body into a perfect metal ball. She rolled offstage to thunderous applause.

  The girls were, quite frankly, astounded. And not a little envious.

  “If only we could do that!” Nettie had said wistfully.

  But Vesta had snorted with derision. “Ha! Those wind-up dolls can’t sell what we sell! What man in his right mind would take one of those toys to bed when he can have a warm flesh-and-blood woman?”

  The girls had murmured agreement but, although Vesta had a point, there was no denying the popularity of such shows. Even the Arabesque was preparing to add the Marvelous Mechanical Menagerie to its repertoire. The prancing steam ponies and other engine-driven animals had even seduced Albert, who had signed them to open the show the following week. He claimed it was to give the girls a break but they knew the real reason. The increasing number of empty seats each night told them their days were numbered. If only there were some way that living, breathing girls could compete…

 

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