by G. P. Taylor
‘What did you want?’ Mariah asked.
‘Heard the water here could do me some good – that and the galvanised bathing machine and the seaweed pie.’ He sighed loudly as he puffed on the cigar once more.
‘You need your medicine, Mister Zogel. Send the boy away and get some rest,’ Lucius insisted.
‘I got the Irenzee ready just for him. Come, Mariah. Look at what I have for you to see.’ Zogel nodded as he spoke. In the corner of the room another man in a blue uniform lurched from the shadow. Mariah stepped back as the man took two torches from the side table and signalled to the ship. There was a sudden, powerful and blinding explosion of bright light as the searchlight flashed its reply. It blistered the darkness of the room, momentarily turning night to day. The frame of the window smouldered in the heat. ‘They are ready,’ Zogel said quietly as the servant stepped back. ‘Look at the ship, Mariah – what a spectacle to see.’
Mariah looked on as the Irenzee began to change colour and the sea around it began to glow. First it shone gold and then white and then turned to blue. It was as if the colours pulsed from deep within, like a heartbeat in the depths of the ship.
‘What more could you ask for on a night like this?’ Zogel asked as he smiled.
‘It’s amazing – how can it do such a thing?’ Mariah asked, as the light from the ship got brighter.
‘That’s a secret, and one that many would pay a fortune to know. But watch this,’ he said as he pointed out to sea.
It was as if he gave an unseen command. There was a blast of the ship’s siren as the foremast was raised from the deck and the funnel appeared from the roof of the cabins. Then the ship suddenly vanished and the sea was empty.
‘Imagine a whole navy that could not be seen, Mariah. What an invention that would be – they could sail up to an enemy and destroy them completely, as if they were attacked by ghosts …’
Mariah wasn’t listening. His eyes searched the sea for the Irenzee. Where there had once been a vast ship was now just an open stretch of water.
‘Where did it go?’ he asked.
‘You are the magician’s apprentice – you tell me,’ Zogel wheezed.
‘Too much excitement. You’ll have to go,’ Lucius said nervously, as if he didn’t want Zogel to answer. He took Mariah by the arm and began to drag him to the door.
‘Lucius,’ Zogel said as if to tell him to stop. ‘It’s good for me to have company and Mariah is now a powerful young man – he is in charge of this magnificent hotel.’
‘But you need to rest,’ Lucius insisted.
‘I’ll have eternity to rest and while my heart beats I will enjoy myself,’ Zogel said as he waved for Mariah to come closer. ‘It’s a trick of the light, Mariah – the ship is just where it was but we cannot see it.’
‘You could show him in the morning Mr Zogel,’ Lucius persisted as he tugged at Mariah yet again.
‘Perhaps you’re right, and Mariah will need all my help if we are to free Captain Charity,’ Zogel said reluctantly as he flicked the remains of the cigar through the window and watched the
red embers fall like a shooting star. ‘You best be going – and by the way, whatever I can do to help you, just ask.’
‘Do you think we can get him from prison?’ Mariah asked as the dwarf pulled him from the room urgently.
‘We can try, Mariah. I believe a man to be innocent until proven guilty and from what I know of Charity he is not a man who would blow up his guests,’ Zogel replied slowly as he turned and slumped back in his seat wearily.
‘Wait for a moment,’ Lucius snorted at Mariah. ‘He needs his injection.’
Lucius disappeared into the next room and quickly came back with a small leather case. Opening the case he produced a glass syringe fitted with a short needle. He rolled back the sleeve on Zogel’s arm and injected the brown liquid deep within the skin.
Zogel lolled his head back and forth and groaned as the linctus seeped through his veins.
‘Now it is time for you to go,’ Lucius insisted. ‘Mr Zogel will be well in the morning and will help you then. Now is not a good time.’
He spoke quickly; his words were as sharp as his eyes. Mariah watched Lucius take out the needle as he walked towards the door.
‘Mr Zogel wouldn’t want you to see this – he is a private man. You must tell no one,’ Lucius insisted.
As Mariah opened the door to leave he looked back for one last time. In that moment, as Lucius was talking quietly to Zogel, Mariah saw what looked like long strands of thick mist circling the chair in which Zogel now slept. In the darkness of the room, they whirled this way and that, weaving in and out of the legs of the chair. Like three long grey snakes, they swirled about Lucius, who gave them no attention. They were similar in every way to the longs strands of mist he saw when he used
the divining spectacles, and like the ghostly serpent he had seen by the fireplace. This time they seemed to be pouring from Zogel himself, as if his soul was oozing from his nose and mouth as he slept. Just before he slipped from the room, Mariah looked again, and whatever it had been had, in an instant, now completely vanished.
[ 12 ]
Grimm and Grendel
IN the long, dark passageway outside suite 237 there was a definite feeling of gloom. The guard stood silently and didn’t even speak as Mariah left the room and quietly closed the door. As he walked down the hallway, Mariah had the urge to look back to make sure he was alone. With every other step he turned his head and looked over his shoulder.
In his heart he felt a sense of foreboding. As he walked, all he could think about was finding Sacha and getting Captain Jack from prison. He felt alone and didn’t know where to start. He shrugged his shoulders and tried not to step on the lines in the carpet.
As Mariah walked towards suite 217 he began to feel his stomach twist and churn. He didn’t want to go by the door. The thought of walking to the far end of the hotel and going down the stairs filled him with dread. Mariah looked back. The passageway was empty and silent. In the distance, a small amber light illuminated the doorway to the steam elevator. It glowed warmly in the cold, dark corridor. From far behind, Mariah heard a door slam shut and then footsteps. It had to be Lucius or one of Mr Zogel’s guards – the hotel was empty and
all the guests had gone apart from Zogel and his entourage. Mariah turned to look but could see no one.
Before he knew it, he was outside suite 217. Instinctively he tried the handle just to make sure it was still locked. To his surprise it opened. He looked inside, peering in the dim light. Strangely, the room was tidy. The lettered cards that had been scattered across the floor were now in a neat pile on the coffee table. The drapes were drawn and everything was just as it should be. There was also a faint smell of perfume and tobacco. Mariah fought back a welling fear. Rooms don’t clean themselves, he thought, as he looked at the clothes that had been spread across the room now hanging neatly from the rail.
There was another waft of the perfume. It smelt of apples and roses and clung to the roof of his mouth with its sickly sweetness. It was as if it came from behind the heavy green drapes that were pulled tightly across the window.
Mariah was about to step forward and peek behind them when a sudden thought made him look down. He had caught something out of the corner of his eye, or knew instinctively that all was not well. There at the bottom of the curtains were the tips of two polished black shoes. They stuck out from the fabric as if a man hid on the other side in the bay of the window. Mariah didn’t know what to do. Everything within him told him to run.
In desperation, he grabbed a long candlestick from the sideboard near the door as he crept closer. He held his breath as he raised the weapon above his head ready to strike. He took two more steps and then with all his strength aimed a single blow at the drapes. There was a soft thud as the candlestick struck against the velvet, and then nothing …
With one hand he cautiously pulled back one side of the curtain. There on the floor was the pair of shoes
, placed in such a way as to show the place of someone hiding. It was then that the
door of a large mahogany wardrobe burst open. A figure leapt across the room. Mariah jumped back and dropped the candlestick and as he was pushed to the ground he caught a glimpse of a man running from the room.
He got to his feet and ran as fast as he could. Far ahead he heard the thudding of footsteps on the floor. In the shadows he could just make out a figure running. He chased after it, not thinking of any danger. The figure turned and pushed open the doors to the metal stairway used by the servants. They circled down and down. Mariah followed, avoiding the swinging doors, into the darkness. He could see nothing. Far below he could hear footsteps clattering against the metal treads. Whoever it was ahead of him knew their way, he thought as he followed on breathlessly.
There was a flash of light from the landing below as a door opened. Mariah ran on wanting to see the face of who had been in the room.
‘Be it anyone but Packavi …’ he said to himself as he ran.
Mariah got to the door and pushed against it. For some reason it would not move. He pushed again and heard the jangling of chains holding it fast. Quickly he ran to the landing below and, taking the steam elevator, went up one floor. He could see that the door to the stairs had been chained and bolted on the outside.
‘They know this place,’ he said as he looked along the landing but could see no one.
Mariah waited for a moment to get his breath, hiding in the doorway to a room. He listened for any sign of the man. All was silent but for the rumbling of the steam elevator and the whirring of the generator as it sucked the steam from the earth to power everything in the hotel.
On the carpet by his feet was a neatly folded handkerchief that looked as if it had been placed for him to find. Taking one
corner he held it to the light by the steam elevator. There, embroidered into the silk were the initials C.V.B. Mariah could think of no one with a name to match and, taking the divining spectacles, he tuned in the device and looked along the passageway.
As if looking into another world, Mariah could see a trail of vapour footsteps. They swirled in red and green threads of mist and from the way they danced from the carpet, he knew that they had just been made. He followed. The divining spectacles caused the whole of his sight to glow bright green. There were marks upon the floor that could not be seen by human eye but easily gave away the trail of the man.
Daring to go faster, Mariah trotted and then ran. The vapours grew brighter as if each step had just been taken. They twisted and turned along the labyrinth of corridors until they came to an open window high above the beach.
Mariah looked out, above a safety ladder that stretched far below as a way of escape. He stared down as the wind blew against him. In the dark of the night he could vaguely see a shadowy figure drop from the ladder to the promenade below.
Reluctantly he followed, fearing to look down and tightly clutching the rusted metal ladder that swayed back and forth with each step he took. His hands shook as he went as fast as he could. The vapours of the man swirled about him like a thicket of barbed stems. Again he could smell the sickly sweet fragrance of apples and roses. It hung in the air as if it clung to the bricks of the building.
Soon Mariah was on the promenade. The trail was easy to find and wound in and out of the bathing machines that stood in rows like candy-striped houses stuck on horse carts. A track of red footprints led up the steps of one machine, in through the door and then out the back and onto the beach.
Far ahead he could see the man running towards the pier.
Mariah knew he was too far behind to catch him and thought he could do nothing if the man was Packavi. He slowed his pace to a walk and watched the man disappear amongst the fish huts and oyster stands. Ahead, he could see the lights of the Golden Kipper and beyond that the harbour. It brought the memory of Sacha and Captain Jack and the nights they had spent together eating fried fish and wedges of potato and onion.
In the time since he had left the Colonial School, it had been those nights in the Golden Kipper that he had treasured the most. It was the closest he had felt to having a family. Sacha would laugh as Smutch told stories of the sea and Captain Jack would sit and shake his head in disbelief at the tales of such an old man.
Somehow all this had been lost after the Captain had taken over the Prince Regent. Mariah had seldom seen Charity smile, and laughter had become a stranger in his company. It was as if some dark thought weighed down upon him and Mariah could do nothing to help his misery. If he could shift the sands of time and go back in some machine to those nights he would. For so long at the Colonial School he was a stranger to happiness. This was something he now sought in friendships – but never found.
Now, as he strode through the sand and spray from the cold sea, friendship was all he wanted. Whatever it took he would carry on to the end. Life was not worth living unless he made things right again, he thought as the wind whipped his face. Even in this adversity, he believed that nothing would stop him. His mind was fixed on finding Sacha and seeing Charity free once more. But even in that thought he hoped that future circumstance would change what they had all become, and as he walked on he began to cry. They were tears of deep remorse, anger and helplessness. He thought of his mother and father and all he could see was their bodies covered by African sand
with vultures flying overhead. He didn’t know their true fate, but his imagination had created this as their end.
The divining spectacles continued to show him the tracks of the intruder in suite 217. Soon Mariah had crossed the sand, walked the length of the pier and passed the Golden Kipper. In the upstairs restaurant he could see a man and a woman dining by the window. They held hands in the candlelight and looked at one another. In the doorway of the ice-cream parlour a man slept, wrapped in newspaper and oblivious to the world around him. Next to him an alleyway led from the harbour into the old town.
On the corner, a Peeler stood in his cape keeping watch. He smiled at Mariah as he passed by.
‘Bit late in the night for a lad like you to be out,’ he said as he rubbed the whiskers on his face.
‘On my way home, Constable,’ Mariah said. ‘Off to Paradise.’
‘If only I could find it myself,’ the man snorted as he tapped the brim of his helmet with a gloved finger.
Mariah walked into the darkness of the alley, leaving the light of the harbour far behind. The divining spectacles led on; the vapours were stronger and more intense, as if the intruder had waited for Mariah to follow. He could see no one and walked slowly and as quietly as he could. It grew darker as the houses stacked themselves upon each other to form peculiar catacombs of yards, fish sheds and sleeping rooms. There was noise everywhere: children were crying, dogs barked and men shouted. And there was the foul stench of the cess that trickled through the streets to form small streams that led to the sea.
He walked on for five minutes until the houses grew larger and neater as the hill got steeper. The higher you lived the cleaner the air and quieter it became. On each side of the road were tall buildings with fine iron railings. Higher still was the
shadow of the old castle with its broken battlements. Set into the castle wall was a long brick house with a grey slate roof.
The street was empty. Every few yards were gas lamps that lit the road ahead. On the sidewalk were the telltale signs of the intruder that could only be seen with the divining spectacles, allowing Mariah to see clearly the footprints that he followed. From the way in which they were spaced it looked as though the man had a limp or that one of his legs was shorter than the other.
The trail led up the hill, through the churchyard, across the street and through the gates of the Towers. Mariah waited by the high wall and looked up at the dark house. The high, pointed roof was etched against the night sky. The wind blew wisps of clouds and rattled the branches of the trees like sabres ready for war.
As he waited, a light came on in the same room a
s before when Lucius had visited. A figure came to the window, looked out and then pulled down the blind against the glass. The clock in the church struck midnight. As if reminded by its calling the man came to the window and looked out yet again.
It was then that Mariah heard the rattling of the wheels of two carriages, as if summonsed by the clock. They came closer, driven quickly along the stone road. As they approached, he could see that the horses were draped in black with feather plumes upon their heads. The first carriage had glass sides that reflected the doors of the fine houses in the light of the gas lamps.
He could now clearly see that this was in fact a hearse and mourners’ cart. The driver was dressed in black with his scarf pulled across his face. The hearse turned into the driveway of the Towers and disappeared amongst the trees. The mourners’ cart followed on. Its windows were shuttered so that no one could see inside.
‘No one would be buried at this time,’ Mariah said to himself as he crouched in the shadows to get a better look.
From the long garden of the Towers in the shadow of the palm house, Mariah watched the small procession come to a halt. The door to the house opened, bathing the hearse in a golden light. It shone brightly as a servant came and stood at the threshold holding a carbide lamp. No one spoke. Three men got out of the hearse and they and the driver took a small coffin from the back and carried it through the high doorway.
Then the door to the mourners’ cart opened and out stepped two strange women. The first was small and quite rotund, the other very tall and very thin. Both were dressed in long skirts and tight jackets that squeezed them at the waist. They appeared to be quite ungainly and uncomfortable. The tall woman kept on shrugging her shoulders as if to shake the jacket from her back. The first thing that Mariah noticed was that they could hardly walk in their shoes. It was as if each one was filled with glass. The women tiptoed painfully towards the door, holding each other’s hand.
‘Stupid idea,’ the tall one grunted as her fat companion fell to the gravel drive. ‘Why do we have to do this?’