“Here,” came a mechanical voice full of static and pops. The armored form of Munoz stalked into the courtyard. In his massive mechanical arms he carried a cloudy block of gray ice. There was something organic inside, something that was twisted, broken that could have once been a man, or something like a man. The mechanical giant limped along, dragging its left leg, fluid and vapor trailing behind it. The visor on the suit’s helmet was shattered in a web of cracks and fogged up on the inside. He slid the frozen mass against a pillar and took up a position behind his vanquished foe.
In Munoz’s large shadow came the black garbed form of the dimensional swordsman Tillinghast with his own victim, being drug by his left foot, the coat of Doctor Clapham-Lee draped over the fallen man’s body like a shroud. Tillinghast left the body at the base of the last column, contemptuously kicking it in the chest before wandering behind the next pillar where Jermyn was bound. Munoz’s armor hissed, a puff of steam released, and the cold ray suddenly discharged. A large chunk of ice suddenly coalesced on one of the flagstones. Munoz fumbled with the controls clumsily.
Ferenczy ignored the problems of his servant, smiled, spread his arms and then spun around in the center of the great yard. “At last,” he cheered, “the Strange Company and their magnificent strato-sphere are mine!” He strutted over to Philip St. John and pointed at the bound man “Tomb raider!” He leapt over to Danielle Thornton and declared her “Psychic detective.” Three large steps and he stood in front of Arthur Jermyn, “The Jungle Lord!” He skipped past the hidden body of Eric Clapham-Lee and pronounced him “The aging techno-pirate.” He twirled past the block of gray ice and with a flourish opened his arms “The solemn man-monster! They are all here, and they are mine!”
Ferenczy nearly danced back to the center. “Do you know why you are here? Do you know why I have spent millions, manipulated people and events for decades, all just to bring you here? Not you as individuals, but you the Strange Company? I needed you five, as a team.” He dashed over to Danielle. “Can you feel it Miss Thornton? Can you feel what this place is?” She turned away from him, but he grabbed her by the cheeks and forced her to look at him. “This place is a thin spot, from here, from this castle we can see through to other realities, alternate realities. Places where history has turned out different, sometimes just slightly, sometimes wildly different, but the five archetypes, there are versions of the five in every reality.”
He spun back to St. John. “Sometimes the five are you, a little different, but still you. In other worlds, it is just one or two of you, and others that act as surrogates. In some versions the five archetypes aren’t even you, but entirely other people, fantastic, amazing people. There’s one version, a dark monstrous world, where you St. John have been killed by the Hound of Leng. Thornton is in a madhouse. Jermyn has committed suicide. Norrys has been…well, cannibalised, and Clapham-Lee is…”
Ferenczy took an overlong pause. He was staring at the crumpled form of Clapham-Lee. St. John spoke up and called his attention back to himself, “Dead?”
The Count smiled morbidly, “Well, deadish.” He chuckled at some private joke. “But none of that matters. You five are key. You, in this place with the strato-sphere as a power source…”
“You shall conquer the world!” Jermyn sneered. “You are insane!”
“No you small-minded fool,” replied Count Ferenczy. “I shall do more than just rule the world. Once we install Tillinghast’s resonator into your strato-sphere we shall use it to travel between universes, to conquer not just this Earth, but all of them. And from there, we shall move through space, perhaps even time itself!”
“You think us mad,” lectured the funny old man, “but I know things that you do not. I have used a Tillinghast resonator before. It moved me through time, sent me back hundreds of years. I’ve seen things, done things that you people wouldn’t believe, but all of it was done for the sole purpose of bringing you here, now.”
Danielle Thornton stared at the ancient wizard, “I know you. You’re Number 118 aren’t you?”
The man ran a hand through his hair. “It has been a long time since anyone has called me that. I have been so many other people, William Gold, Simon Orne, Joseph Nadek, and even your mysterious benefactor, the enigmatic N! But yes, I was once known to you by those numbers.”
Count Ferenczy had grown impatient, “Enough! We have the sphere, the resonator is being installed. The five archetypes have been secured. All we have left to do is perform the ritual and sacrifice the five in the proscribed manner. The gate between worlds will open and our forces shall move through and we shall begin the conquest of worlds!”
Ferenczy threw his arms up in a dramatic gesture, but instead of a dramatic clap of thunder, or an ominous bar of music, there was only the laughter of Number 118, Joseph Nadek. “I’m sorry my friend.”
Ferenczy spun round. “I beg your pardon?”
Nadek shielded his eyes in shame, or perhaps amusement. “I said I’m sorry. There isn’t going to be any sacrifice. There is no ritual of archetypes, and while I am sure that the resonator will allow the strato-sphere to move through dimensions, you won’t be going with us.” A flabbergasted look overtook the Count’s face as Nadek continued. “I really need to thank you, for helping me guide this world, mold its technology, create the science behind anti-gravity and dimensional shifting. I could have done it without you, but you made it so much easier.”
The enraged Baron Ferenczy screamed “TRAITOR!”, and pulled out a large brass pistol and without a pause fired. A great bolt of electricity leapt across the space but it never reached its target. Instead, Munoz’s suit of armor rushed forward and intervened, filling the space in between and conducting the voltage into the stonework. The suit shorted out, and it collapsed in a smoking heap scattering valves, fittings, and joints in all directions. Out of the wreckage a pale pink gelatinous mass bubbled out and spread across the floor, arcs of electricity raced along the shoggoth flesh that had been hidden within the armor.
The black suited form of Tillinghast sprang into action. The sound blade unsheathed and sliced through the air behind Arthur Jermyn. His bonds fell away, and the jungle lord flew through the air toward Danielle. The swordsman tore off his mask, and revealed the aged face of Doctor Eric Clapham-Lee. He swung the blade before him, cutting through the space between him and the still stunned minions along the periphery. A black tear in the very fabric of space-time opened where the blade cut, and from it a storm of black, one dimensional crystals poured out, like malicious paper snowflakes. They swarmed around the techno-pirate, spiraling around the blade that had drawn them into this world, and then slowly fell into place, like puzzle pieces building a hideous wall of blackness that seethed with evil and hunger.
Ferenczy roared. “You aren’t the only one with secrets!” His hands moved oddly, in ways they shouldn’t be able to, at least not for a human. There was a noise, Ferenczy was chanting something unintelligible, something that caused the metallic pylons of the courtyard to vibrate and the clouds to churn and seethe. Behind the wall of darkness the resurrected moaned and then seemed to liquefy. They flowed into each other, increasing in mass and size, like some strange form of reverse mitosis, a massive gestalt creature formed. The individuals that made the thing up could still be seen, laced together in a monstrous fashion, held together by undead muscle and necromancy, but where one body ended and another began, such divisions were impossible to make. “Behold the Podujevo Construct!”
With a single motion the monstrous amalgamation of the undead smashed through Clapham-Lee’s barrier with ease and sent the man flying across the courtyard until he impacted hard against one of the metal pylons. In a superhuman leap Arthur Jermyn bounded over the thing’s dusty head and buried his fists into the monstrosity’s back. The traitorous Nadek dove behind the pile of armor, taking cover as Ferenczy continued to fire off bolt after electric bolt, torturing the injured shoggoth that lay trapped inside the armor with each charge.
Danielle was struggling to free St. John from the column. St. John was lost to the danger around them for he had started chanting his own incantation. “Philip,” there was desperation in her voice; “I don’t think you should do this!” His only response was a look of madness as the chant reached a fever pitch and he fell to the ground. There came a sound out of the man’s throat, a howling call that echoed across the rooftops and into the sky. Something answered back, something that spoke with a hundred voices that came swarming out of the night. They came in numbers, such numbers that they blotted out the moon, bats flocked into the courtyard and settled en masse onto St. John’s body. He was lost, obliterated by the black bodies that covered him, and then he rose! St. John was gone and in his place was a bestial thing part man, part wolf, with wings like those of a bat. It towered over Danielle, red eyes glowering, and then it leapt screaming into the sky, throwing itself against the undead conglomerate. Claws met essential salts and gouged out great piles of the stuff. Danielle Thornton watched her husband descend into animal madness, and all she could do was weep for the monster that he had become.
Count Ferenczy closed the gap between himself and his former colleague, his gun releasing charge after whining charge keeping the other man pinned down. In mere moments he would be on top of the damaged armor and it would no longer serve to provide any effective cover. “You were a fool to betray me Joseph. I am more powerful now than I have ever been. Have you forgotten that it was I that found your dead and broken body all those centuries ago? Did you forget that it was I who concentrated your salts and then resurrected you? Did you forget the lessons that I taught you all those years ago?”
Ferenczy’s gun fired and missed. Nadek sprang over the armor and grabbed the left gauntlet, shoving his fingers into the manual controls. A blue energy surrounded the malfunctioning armor and Ferenczy had a brief moment of realization before the weapon discharged and a mass of frozen water vapor suddenly began to coalesce. The enraged Count pulled the trigger but it was too late. An ice block had formed around the gun which sent the discharge feeding back. The gun was suddenly glowing electrically and then exploded, sending the charge up into Ferenczy’s arm and then his chest. The energy release blew the man from his feet and knocked the energy weapon from his hand.
Joseph Nadek stood up triumphantly. “No, my Count, it was I who let you believe that you had resurrected me. Reassembling my own essential salts, by sheer force of will, was one of the first lessons I ever learned. You however, have apparently forgotten one of your own lessons.” He turned and faced the monstrous undead giant. An incantation formed in his throat and then leaked out into the world. The giant stumbled and then began to claw at itself. It twisted and turned wildly. Nadek smiled maliciously, “Never call up what you cannot readily put down!”
The enraged creature swung at Jermyn and the transformed St. John, batting them away like annoying insects. The face of the thing went blank, any trace of features vanished. Its roar of agony was stifled as the creature’s mouth ceased to exist. It reared up and seemed to double and then triple in size, eclipsing the sky. Nadek reached into the armor and took hold of the gelatinous mass he found within and dragged it out and away. The towering golem of ash and dust doubled in size again. It reached some tipping point and suddenly ceased to move. It wavered there, looming above the prone form of Count Ferenczy who had but a second to scream out before the thing he had brought forth collapsed on top of him. The ash of dozens of men collapsed over the cowering Count like a morbid wave. He clawed up into the air once, twice but then was lost amongst the gray mound of dust that swallowed him whole.
Philip St. John’s bestial form, the Hound of Leng, raged in frustration, and even Arthur Jermyn shuddered and made ready to flee, the still stunned Eric Clapham-Lee held in his left arm. As the ghoul-thing turned to find someone to vent his anger on, Danielle Thornton stepped to his side and shoved the small effigy she wore around her neck against his chest. It had an instant calming effect and the beast whimpered as its components separated and flew off into the night, leaving only its core, a near catatonic St. John to crumple to the ground like a rag doll.
The shoggoth matter bubbled up and resumed the form of Captain Edward Norrys. As he did so, the Strange Company limped over to the man who claimed to be 118. There was no doubt amongst the five that the man was who he claimed to be, and as the team gathered around him each member had their own reaction to his existence, but none dared to speak. As the silence grew unbearable, it was Nadek who broke it. “My friends, mmhmm, for you it has only been a few weeks since you saw me vanish into the gate, but for me it has been centuries. In those centuries I have secretly guided the development of the world, mmhhmm, both socially and technologically, all to bring you here, to this moment, to this place. Only you could have defeated Baron Ferenczy, and mmhmm, dismantled his organization. Only you could have created the strato-sphere and become the force that I needed to…”
Whatever Nadek was going to say was lost as Clapham-Lee screamed out “NO!” and brought his sonic blade down across the man’s chest. Jermyn grabbed the man’s arm and twisted the blade away but it was already too late. Clapham-Lee pulled away from Jermyn and stared at what he had done. Dusty gray fluid was bubbling out of the wound in Nadek’s chest. “That man,” he said pointing, “that man has been manipulating all of us! Not just the five of us, but the entire world! No one should have that kind of power, and no one has the right to treat us like puppets. If he hadn’t intervened, who knows what we could have become.” He turned away. “I could have been something else, a medical doctor perhaps. I think I would have liked that. I think I would have been good at it.”
Danielle reached out, but the aging inventor pulled away. “I’m taking the strato-sphere back to Anchester as soon as she’s fully operational. You are welcome to come back with me, but once we get back to England, I’m done. I’m finished with the Strange Company!” With these final words he stalked off into the darkness of Castle Ferenczy.
The dying Nadek fumbled with his bag. Norrys bent down and found what the man had been reaching for. Nadek had left instructions and the needed tools. They used what they found for the purpose it had been created for. The ritual took only a few minutes.
It took a few hours for the four of them to dispose of the ashes scattered about the courtyard in a proper manner. While washing the stone floor down with various chemicals and then scattering the accumulated muck to various areas of the surrounding mountainside might have seemed excessive, they had no desire to see the Count or his undead minions return. They never did find Ferenczy’s body, and assumed that it too had returned to its essential salts.
The task complete, Baron Arthur Jermyn admitted that he had grown weary of the madness of the civilized world. The wilds of Africa and of his people seemed more appealing at this moment. He radioed for one of his Ophirian airships to fetch him. He wished his friends well, promised to be there if needed and then left the castle. He made his way to a distant peak and contemplated the way of the world, and the silence of the forest as he waited for his retainers to retrieve him.
Philip St. John and his wife Danielle Thornton bid Norrys farewell. There were some tears, particularly on Thornton’s part, and then the couple went to help Clapham-Lee in repairing the strato-sphere for the voyage home. It took an hour to seal the observation port, seal the breaches in hydraulics, and jury rig new sensors. It was after dawn when the great ship shuddered into the sky and limped away into the west.
The Norrys-thing stayed in the castle, but not as Norrys. He changed his features and took the name and face of Count Jakob Ferenczy. By the next spring Ferenczy International had become a humanitarian organization, bringing medicine and science to the far corners of the world. In 1930 Epoch Magazine named Baron Jakob Ferenczy Man of the Year. It is the last known photograph of the man, who disappeared in early 1931 while on an expedition into the wastelands of Antarctica. Control of the organization passed to a previously unknown cousin, a smart yo
ung man, classically educated, though somewhat eccentric, and inflicted with a strange lisping speech impediment.
In the famous last photograph, the humanitarian Jakob Ferenczy is seated at his desk. There is a touch of sadness in his face, almost mournful. Behind him, on the shelf above his right shoulder is the funeral urn that was pulled from Nadek’s bag. The photograph is of excellent quality, the background only slightly out of focus, but if one bothers to look, the engraving on the urn can be discerned, it is only three characters, cut neatly in medieval gothic script. And while the photographer and reporter did not comment, the wax seal around the urn, the urn marked with the number 118, was no longer present; indeed the lid of the ancient vessel seemed to have vanished almost as completely as Count Jakob Ferenczy himself.
Steampunk Cthulhu: Mythos Terror in the Age of Steam Page 36