Steampunk Cthulhu: Mythos Terror in the Age of Steam

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Steampunk Cthulhu: Mythos Terror in the Age of Steam Page 27

by Jeffrey Thomas


  The deeper they descended, the worse the strain became of having one’s normal expectations confounded, of having to operate in a region in which none of one’s normal reactions could be relied upon. Worse, Tesla had reason to believe their bodies were affected by these distortions of fundamental reality at least as much as their minds. Why else should they experience of pangs of hunger and thirst that vanished as quickly as they came, or sudden waves of nausea with no apparent source of disgust?

  Even as he was searching for the words to communicate his concerns, the group turned a corner to find the street ahead of them flooded. The three bully-boys ran forward, crying out with delight.

  The first one to reach the edge dropped to his knees and thrust his cupped hands into the water to drink. Or maybe not – the shimmery substance did not pour from his hands as water would, instead dripping and oozing in thick, gelatinous globs.

  In the instant he realized his error, the man let out a cry of anguish. But only for that moment before the false water mounded up in the middle like a living thing to pour forward onto him. Tesla was only half-aware of crossing himself in the Orthodox fashion, a remnant of his childhood as the son of a priest.

  “Castellano.” Edison’s voice rose in alarm. “Get out of there, man. Sandoval, Montini, get him out, now.”

  One of the bully-boys got hold of his buddy’s jacket sleeve, but it was already too late. The wave of transparent jelly poured over the man and engulfed him, pulling him downward in a smooth, liquid movement that left the impression that his body had been turned to India-rubber and had stretched and flowed. All the time he screamed and gibbered in a corrupt dialect of Italian that they were eating him, devouring his soul.

  And then there was nothing but that deceptively still surface that looked like nothing more than a pool of water upon the paving bricks. Castellano’s would-be rescuer had survived only because the third of their number had grabbed him before that vile eldritch jelly could get a firm grip on him.

  But he had not escaped unscathed. Without a reliable source of water they’d had no way to wash the burns that had charred his flesh to the bone, so they’d had to settle for bandaging the man’s hand as best they could with rags and making a sling from a handkerchief. Sandoval would be lucky if he didn’t lose that hand when they got back to civilization, and there could be no doubt he would regain little use of it. Not a good situation for someone who made his living as a strong-arm man.

  Still, he was not entirely shattered by his experience as a more cerebral man might have been. “What was that stuff? Did you see what it did to Castellano?”

  If Tesla had thought it difficult to explain the concept of the curvature of space to Edison, this question posed an even worse challenge. Yet he dared not condescend, not with their success depending upon all of them working together. “I believe it is something which belongs to the other place which has intruded into our world.” There would be no use trying to discuss higher order dimensions or alternative chemistries of life. “It appears to be something so alien in nature to our sort of life that the merest contact can kill in a slow and horrific manner.”

  Sandoval stared at his bandaged hand, whispered an oath in some Italian dialect. “So Castellano’s dead. Then why do I keep hearing him screaming, like he’s inside my head?”

  Tesla eyed the deceptively placid surface of that puddle that was not water. “We can only hope that he is indeed dead, and not in some state between life and death, something possible only here where the laws of nature itself have become warped and distorted.”

  It was a very subdued group that continued their journey by another way. The further they went, the more of that eldritch jelly they encountered. They knew now to distrust anything that appeared to be water on a surface, but the thick globs, like masses of honeycomb which hung from the ironwork of a railroad bridge, caught them quite by surprise.

  It took Sandoval first, as if it were looking for him, and then lapped onto Montini as he reached to save his buddy. This time there could be no pulling him free, for it moved so quickly that it covered him within a heartbeat.

  Tesla had only a moment to grab Edison by his coat and pull him clear before a third glob could fall upon them. The anguished screams of Sandoval and Montini echoed off the walls as they struggled against the stuff consuming them from within.

  “We’ve got to get out of here.” Edison indicated a cross street.

  Tesla would’ve counseled a more considered approach, now that they knew the damnable stuff could climb and fall upon its victims from above. But that terrible howling was beginning again, echoing within his head until he thought it would burst. He was aware of a crushing presence, a terrible hunger.

  “Oh God, it’s here.” He knew not what language he spoke, whether the Serbian of his cradle or the German he’d learned in the Imperial capital of Vienna. “It wants, it wants, it wants.”

  Now it was Edison’s turn to pull him free. Under those firm hands Tesla staggered forth, away from the nightmarish stuff that seemed to be oozing down from every wall, every cornice, every lintel. It had to be an illusion, for there couldn’t be that much of the stuff.

  Unless it were only a portion of the actuality of something that existed in a space of higher dimensions, like the Sphere forcing itself into Mr. A Square’s world in the geometric fable. But there was no time to try to correlate the theories of angular space and higher order dimensions, not when they were on the run.

  And then they could run no more. There before them stood a pillar, no, an obelisk, but not made of granite in the manner of the Egyptians. Rather it had been constructed of a shiny metal in the manner of the ironwork one might use in a bridge.

  Or in a receiving antenna. He recalled the three antennas he had erected to correspond to the transmitting antenna at Wardenclyffe. But they had been curved, built on a pattern reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

  This one was all angles, and while the angles seemed normal enough at first glance, the longer Tesla looked, the more certain he became that those angles would prove impossible to rationalize by Euclidean geometry. Angles that looked obtuse might well prove capable of rending as if they were acute, and he was no longer confident that a full circle of them would add up to precisely 360 degrees, but might well prove to have more or fewer, depending upon its placement in that thing. Or that what he was able to see was even the entirety of its construction, or if like one of Escher’s drawings, it might have impossibly connected surfaces within it.

  By force of will Tesla recovered his English, shouted to Edison. “Whatever you do, don’t look at it.”

  Although Edison didn’t take well to being pushed backwards until a crumbling building blocked his line of sight, he did not fight. “What is that thing?”

  “It is none of my doing.” Tesla didn’t like hearing such desperation in his voice, but he couldn’t beat it down. “But I think it has a similar purpose. Remember how I said that the effect seemed less like knocking a hole between the worlds than bridging the gap between two conductors? I think we are seeing the other one.”

  Edison’s forehead furrowed. “Then who did make it?”

  “I cannot say that we will ever be able to understand in full, but I believe that angular space is inhabited by beings capable of building and using technology of considerable advancement. An earlier stage of civilization might have called them evil, but I do not believe they intend us malice. Rather, they are so alien that they cannot help but do us harm, just by being what they are. But they are also beings of well-night insatiable curiosity, and in that moment in which my attempts at wireless transmission of power bridged the gap with their system, they became aware of our existence.”

  “Then you think that stuff, that witches’ jelly, is them trying to communicate with us?”

  “Perhaps, or a device they have constructed to contact us. But that would be assuming that their minds work like ours.” Tesla peered around the corner, seeking any evidence that the creators
of the obelisk had become aware of their presence here. “They may not even realize we are intelligent beings, or they may not even think in ways that require communication with one another. But I do believe they are attempting to learn more about us, and do not realize that they are doing us harm. If their nature is sufficiently different from ours, they might not even have the concept of mortality.”

  “Then what are you proposing to do about it? We’re supposed to be putting a stop to this, not standing here speculating about the possibility of communicating with something that may or may not even be able to care that it’s killing us just by their equivalent of looking at us.” Edison’s frustration was turning to anger, which did not bode well.

  “We have been operating on the assumption that it was my effort to transmit electrical power wirelessly which opened the gap between curved and angular space. I believe that assumption may be mistaken, that instead they responded to an initial contact of unknown energy on their receiver by tracing it back to its source and opening a portal in order to better understand the nature of the entities transmitting it. However, to this point I believe their efforts have resulted only in contact with persons quite unable to understand or elucidate the concepts they seek to comprehend.”

  “Then are you proposing—”

  “To approach them in hopes of making contact and satisfying their curiosity such that they will be willing to close the portal between curved and angular space, before the interactions between the two worlds destroys both.”

  Edison opened his mouth to make yet another objection, then closed it. Tesla turned and strode forth, knowing that if he hesitated any longer, he would never be able to regather the courage to do what must be done.

  As Tesla crossed the distance to the obelisk, space itself shuddered around him. Here was the end of the boundary layer in which curved and angular space interpenetrated. Beyond it would be only angular space, and its inhabitants. He might have only seconds to present his mind to these mysterious Hounds before his body would fail, unable to continue functioning in a space in which the laws of physics upon which it depended did not work. He had to make the most of it.

  ***

  Edison had never been much for theory – he preferred what he could see and touch. But he knew that in that moment something happened, something beyond the ability of his senses to apprehend.

  Although he stood in a ruined city, it was once more one in which the laws of nature ran as they ought, in a sane fashion. Yet he was left wondering – had Tesla been able to succeed because he had no sanity to lose?

  Yet in the end, whatever his state of mind, one could not doubt that he had succeeded. All that remained as evidence of the late disturbances was an odd dimple in the ground, reminiscent of the puckered skin where a doctor had removed a growth. Edison pulled the cap from his head in honor of the rival he’d formerly despised.

  From behind him came voices calling his name. Edison turned to find several members of the airship’s crew, scrambling over the rubble in search of him.

  “It’s over, boys. Now it’s time to find our way home.”

  Mr. Brass & The City of Devils

  By Josh Reynolds

  It was 1894 and the desert sun caught on the polished surface of Mr. Brass’ hand as he drew his revolver. The Bedouin in front of him yelped as the reflected light snagged his eyes and blinded him. The revolver cleared its holster smoothly and a palm composed of brass scales stroked the hammer as Brass swept the barrel in a tight arc. Three men writhed in the sudden storm of lead, swords and rifles falling from their hands.

  A fourth uttered a wolf-yell as he brought a curved blade down on Brass’ shoulder from behind. The blade sheared through the bisht and cut into the wool suit below the loose robe before coming to a shivering halt as it connected with Brass’ shoulder-joint. Brass pivoted and fired without hesitation. The Bedouin stumbled back and fell, toppling backwards into the mud at the edge of the oasis pool.

  Brass stood as still as a statue as the desert swallowed the echoes of the shots. The fourth Bedouin, lying in the mud, moaned and rolled onto his belly. Brass flicked his wrist, popping open the revolver’s cylinder. Metal fingers pried spent shells from the cylinder with brisk, mechanical efficiency as he strode unhurriedly towards the wounded man.

  He stopped when he stood over the Bedouin. In the murky waters of the oasis, he saw his reflection and a vague sense of disquiet rippled through him. The charred bisht and keffiyeh he wore over his suit did little to hide his appearance, despite his intentions to the contrary. His face, though human in design, was inhuman in construction, being composed of brass, steel and glass. At a distance, he could pass for a dark-skinned man, but up close, his artificial nature was obvious.

  Thus, he did not blame the Bedouin when the latter looked up blearily, his face twisted in pain, and made a terrified sound. “You have been shot in the stomach,” Brass said. His voice sounded like steel filings in a tin can. Gears ground against the particles of sand that inundated them as he sank to his haunches. No matter what precautions he took, the sand always got in. It was little more than an annoyance to Brass, and one he relished. Annoyance, frustration, eagerness were all bright, brief flashes of emotion that set off striations of pleasure through his pickled lobes. To illustrate his point, he gently prodded the wounded man’s belly.

  The Bedouin screamed.

  “Has Bowen reached the city yet?” Brass said. The Bedouin writhed and tried to crawl away, into the water. Brass grabbed his ankle and dragged him bodily away from the opaque waters of the oasis. He released the man and pinned him in place with his foot as he began to reload the revolver. “I assume you shot down my aeroship on his order,” Brass continued, jerking his head towards the burning wreckage of the lighter-than-air craft that the Bedouins had shot down with the now-discarded Turkish bombard lying nearby. “Though I could be wrong,” Brass continued. He slapped the re-loaded cylinder back into place and aimed the revolver at the Bedouin. “Am I wrong?”

  The Bedouin said nothing. His eyes had gone cloudy and his body stiffened almost imperceptibly as life escaped him. Brass paused, watching the man’s final moments through the shifting kaleidoscope of dozens of curved mirror lenses that served him for eyes. He looked away, the mirrors rotating in his eye-sockets to keep them free of grit and grime. They were connected to the only organic piece of him that remained via thin strands of metal wire. His brain, pickled in an alien solution, floated suspended in a web of such wires within a sphere of unnatural design that rested within his artificial skull.

  He had been a man once, and a Pinkerton detective. He was no longer a man, but he was still a Pinkerton; he still served at the pleasure of Allan Pinkerton and the President of these United States. Wise men, Brainerd, Edison and others, assured him that he would do so for some time, forever, perhaps, if no one ended the world between now and then.

  Of course, that was just what Enoch Bowen was after, wasn’t it? He wanted the end of the world and of everything in it. That was why Brass had tracked him from Arkham, to Chicago to Bradford, in West Yorkshire. Wherever Enoch Bowen had run these past few months, Mr. Brass had followed after, no matter the obstacles or distance. The Bedouin were simply the latest in an unceasing barrage of assassins that Bowen had seen fit to hurl at his pursuer in a vain attempt to stall him. The Pinkerton motto was ‘We Never Sleep’. Brass exemplified that statement. He never slept and never stopped. Not until the job was done.

  A camel groaned. Brass turned, the revolver swinging up. The Bedouins’ mounts clustered together near the few scraggly trees that clung like barnacles to the muddy circumference of the oasis. They were agitated by the smell of blood and the stink of the burning aero-ship. He’d borrowed the craft in Baghdad, even as the Ottomans tried their best to detain him. Bowen had friends in high places even now. In low places as well, it seemed.

  Brass squatted and jerked aside the dead man’s robe. The mark of the Starry Wisdom had been branded into the flesh of his chest; h
e was a dedicant or a recent convert. There were more of them every year since the first Mi-Go had slithered from its aether-canister into the sands of Horsell Common. Armchair occultists like Warren or Carnacki swore that the recently uncovered Bronze Age barrows on the site were an ancient landing strip, and surreptitious gatherings by banned groups and outlaw fanatics like the one Bowen headed up were now depressingly common.

  Though the erroneously named Martian War of 1888 had ended in victory for Earth, Yuggoth still hung in the void, distant and gloating. Mars was the new frontier, and the servants of the Mi-Go vied with the agents of the Tsar, the Grand Turk and the monarchies of Europe in a Great Game for the coming century. Crustaceans or Cossacks, it was all the same to Brass.

  Brass stood and holstered his pistol. He snatched up a rifle and a bandolier of bullets from one of the corpses and went to the camels and grabbed one, hauling himself onto it. He was heavier than a man, but the camel didn’t seem to notice. It bawled and grumbled and spat and then started forward as, with a dig of his heels, he set the beast in motion.

  He paid the burning aeroship no heed as it dwindled in the distance. Ancient tomes, crusty with the stuff of ages, caught fire and pages slipped out and looped on the hot wind, turning to ash even as they tried to flee. The books had survived the destruction of Pnakotus and Alexandria, but Brass felt no urge to preserve them. He knew what he needed to know. The location of the nameless city was emblazoned on the surface of his tintype thoughts, and some part of him felt that the books in question were merely having their destined appointment in Samara.

  Some things needed burning. Some things should forever lie.

  Bowen might have taken offense, if he’d been there. Fort certainly would have. Brass could care less what either man thought, despite the latter being his assigned biographer. To Brass, Charles Fort was no better than Ned Buntline, though he embellished less. But Brass knew from hard experience that dead or sleeping, some things needed to be left to lie.

 

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