The Great Game: The Bookman Histories, Book 3

by Lavie Tidhar

  Smith shook his head. He thought of the bee keeper. He had gone to see Adler, Smith realised. The bee keeper had once been romantically linked with her… and, before he tended to bees, he was known as the greatest detective who had ever lived. Smith sent a silent thank-you his way.

  Then: "You shouldn't have gotten involved," he said. "This is too dangerous."

  "More dangerous than retirement?" the colonel said. "Pfah, old man! This is the most fun I've had in ages!"

  "They will come after you–"

  "In the village? Let them try."

  Beside him, the baroness smiled. "This is a shadow war," she said, softly. "They will not attempt a public attack. No, we'll be fine, Smith. But you…"

  "I have to leave England. I have to disappear."

  No one replied. Smith watched the road. They were following the course of the river, he realised. Heading to Limehouse… heading to the docks. "What about the boy?" he said.

  "He will be looked after," the baroness said.

  "Twist?" Smith said, turning to him.

  "Sir? Yes, sir?"

  "Thank you," Smith said, and the boy smiled, the simple, innocent expression transforming his face. Smith turned back, rested his head against the seat, and closed his eyes.

  Limehouse, at night. A silver moon hung in a dark sky. Gulls cried over the docks. Smith, dropped in a darkened street, one shadow amongst many – the baruch-landau, with a belch of steam and M.'s final, deranged cackle, disappeared, leaving him alone.

  A narrow street, Smith standing still. The night air full of tar and salt and incense, roast pork, wood smoke, soy and garlic – in the distance, the smell of sheesha pipes.

  The sound of light footsteps – he turned, a small white figure, moving, jerkily, towards him. A child, coming closer – pale skin, dark hair, large eyes, dressed in a boy's clothes–

  The boy stopped before Smith. Something made Smith shiver. There was something unnatural about the boy, but he could not, for a moment, say what it was. Merely a sense of alienness, a wrongness that made every aspect of Smith tense, and want to reach for a weapon.

  They boy looked up at him with pale, colourless eyes. "Do you believe in God?" he said. He had a strange, lilting, highpitched voice. "Do you believe in second chances, Smith?"

  Smith stood very still. He looked at the boy, and gradually details revealed themselves: the pale white skin was not skin at all, but ivory, and the black hair did not grow naturally, it had been planted, into a scalp that wasn't at all human.

  The boy was an automaton.

  A rare, expensive automaton, of a craftsmanship he had never seen before. There was the faint sound of clockwork, whirring. He did not know how to answer the boy's question.

  "We used to come here," he said, surprising himself. The automaton stared at him with unseeing eyes. "We had a preagreed rendezvous point, in case of trouble. We would meet here, in Limehouse, where we could get a boat, out of the country. We never did run away… but we'd meet here, sometimes, in between foreign wars and assassinations and intrigue, and share a night together, seldom more than that. It was enough. We completed each other. You wouldn't–"

  But the automaton-boy merely stared at him and repeated the words, like a recording, about God and second chances, and then reached a pale ivory hand to Smith and took his hand and said, "Come with me."

  "Who sent you?" Smith said, but it was with a kind of hopeless impossibility in his voice: he felt as if reality itself was slipping away from him, and the night had suddenly contracted about him like a bubble, and he could not get out.

  The boy didn't answer. He led, and Smith followed. They went down narrow streets and alleyways, hugging the shadows, until they came to a sewer hole in the ground. The boy, letting go of Smith's hand, briefly turned his head and looked at him, his vacant eyes never blinking. Was it sorrow in those eyes? What was it that the diminutive machine was trying to tell him? Not speaking, the boy stepped lightly over the sewer hole and fell down, noiselessly.

  "Down the rabbit hole…" Smith murmured. He knew this was insane. And yet… he had been a professional long enough to recognise what was happening. He did not follow blindly. A player had made contact with him. The boy's approaching him had been, in the code of the Great Game, that player asking for a rendezvous.

  Moreover. The same player had given him plenty of information. Sending out the curious little automaton had been enough, and now the hole…

  Smith was curious. For all the clues added up to something fantastical, and to a player he had thought eliminated. "Curiouser and curiouser," he said, smiling faintly, and then jumped down the hole, following the strange little automaton.

  His fall was broken by a mattress that had been laid down there, probably long ago. Smith found himself in a disused sewer of some sort, space opening around him – there were bottles down there and mattresses and clothes and shoes, driftwood and bleached rodent skeletons, and it smelled of the sea. He could not see the boy. Something moved, in the corner of his eye. He turned.

  Something vast and alien, sluggishly moving, an insectoid body, like a giant centipede, feelers extended–

  A being like nothing of the Earth–

  And yet it did not feel alive, organic–

  He could only see its shadow, moving–

  "I thought you were dead," he said.

  "Retired," a voice said, and then laughed, and Smith found himself shivering: it was the laughter of something insane. "For a while, Mr Smith."

  The automaton, the underground lair, the question the boy had echoed to Smith, on behalf of its master. Hints and clues adding up…

  "The Bookman," Smith said, and that giant, alien body moved, slithering close, and cold, metal feelers touched his forehead, lightly, like a benediction or a kiss.

  "I can bring her back," the Bookman said.

  PART II

  On Her Majesty's Secret Service

  EIGHTEEN

  Aksum, Abyssinia.

  The black airship glided silently over the mountainous terrain, all but invisible.

  They had come by steam ship, through Suez into the Red Sea. The steam ship waited for them. The British government would deny all knowledge in the event of their capture.

  But Lucy Westenra did not intend to be captured.

  She stood on the deck of the airship, the cold air running through her short hair. Looking down, she saw few lights. They would not be expecting an attack.

  The city of Aksum, ancient, weathered, silent now, in the depth of night.

  Lucy signalled to her team. They wore dark clothing, and the two Europeans had blackened their faces. She had assembled the team herself, each one hand-picked. Two Gurkhas; a Zulu warrior whose father had fought with Shaka as a young man, but who had chosen a different path for himself; a Scot; young Bosie, Lord Alfred Douglas to the society papers back home: they were her core team. The others were regular army. She knew only half of them by name. All men. Lucy Westenra the only woman amongst them, and their commander.

  Their objective: capture the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. Retrieve the item, at all costs.

  Mycroft's words still echoing in her ears: We are on the cusp of war. Ancient artefacts are awakening. Do not come back without the item.

  Lucy Westenra. Preferred weapon: the twin guns usually on her hips. Age: in her mid-twenties. Rank: major in the British Army. Hair: black and short. Eyes: blue. Training: the best the Bureau had to offer. Licence to kill? You've got to be kidding.

  Two fingers up. Giving a silent command.

  Descend.

  They followed her, would follow her anywhere. The airship hovered above the building. All was silent down below. Almost too quiet, she thought, uneasily.

  They rappelled.

  Like ghosts they floated down onto the church. A square boxy building, a tall fence around it. They landed on the roof and kept going.

  What is the nature of the object, sir? She had asked.

  We do not know, exactly.

/>   Which was no answer at all.

  A box, Mycroft had told her, unwillingly, it seemed. An… An ark, of sorts. It may have once been plated with gold, and may be still. Retrieve it, Westenra. Or die trying.

  And she had said, Sir, yes, sir.

  Signal again, and the windows to the church burst inwards as her men broke through. A shower of painted glass, a scream in the distance. She followed, landing on her feet at a crouch; rose with a gun in her hand.

  "Light," she whispered.

  Bangizwe, beside her. The chemical stench of an artificial flame, burning, lighting up the place. He grinned at her.

  "Through there!"

  Behind the dais, hidden…

  A metal door, locked shut. Shouts outside. Suddenly, breaking the night like glass: the sound of gunfire.

  "Cover me!"

  Her men were already surrounding the altar, a protective shield. Lucy took out the device Mycroft had given her. Aimed it at the door. It emitted a high-pitched scream, flashed. It is a frequency scanner, he had told her, and she had said, Sir?

  Mycroft had shaken his head and said, Never mind that. Just… bring it back.

  Footsteps outside the church, the sound of running. In the chemical light her men's faces looked haunted, tense. The sound of rifle shots. Bangizwe and Bosie, at her signal, moved silently towards the entrance, covering it. The device hummed and beeped one last time. The metal door made a sound, as if a vast lock was slowly moving, opening itself.

  "Move!"

  She kicked the door. It opened. She went through–

  And dropped. There was no floor under her feet.

  Total darkness, a rush of hot air, motion… She was falling, falling down a wide shaft.

  A moment of panic…

  Then she raised her hand and fired the grapple gun–

  Rope shooting upwards, the hook catching–

  She felt the pull, held on as it broke her fall, hard.

  "Light!"

  A flare, dropping. The sounds of a gunfight above. The church was heavily defended. She hoped her men would be all right. Had to count on them to be. The flare fell, illuminating a long metal tube. It fell past her and continued to drop. She pressed the lever on the gun, going down, following the light–

  Down into a sunless sea.

  Or so it seemed. She landed, left the rope hanging. She was standing on a vast dark metal disc, she realised. The flare, at her feet, was consuming itself. A dark mirror, her thousand identical images stared back at her all around. She took a step forward–

  The disc tilted. She slid, cursed – turned and fired, twice, ropes going off until they found walls, too far apart, but it held her, pulled her up – the disc balanced again, below.

  Cursing Mycroft now, she remained there, suspended. Another flare falling down – a doorway in the distance, illuminated, gold and silver images of flying discs, giant lizards, things that looked like rays of light, destroying buildings. She commanded herself to let go…

  The disc was tilting again as soon as she hit it but this time she was ready, running – circling for a moment the centre of gravity so it balanced and then she sprinted towards the distant doorway, the disc tilting, threatening to drop her into – what, exactly, she didn't want to know.

  Gunfire above, someone, possibly the Scot, screaming in pain. The sound tore through the air and her concentration. She almost slipped–

  But made it – the doorway too high up now but she jumped–

  I want you to train with someone, Mycroft had told her. It was a year after she had been recruited.

  Who? She had said.

  His name is Ebenezer. Ebenezer Long.

  She knew him as Master Long. He had taught her Qinggong: the Ability of Lightness.

  Or tried to.

  Fired again, the hook catching, the rope pulling her – it was impossible to achieve true Qinggong any more, she had found out, not without the strange, lizard-made artefact that had granted its strange powers…

  So one had to fake it.

  She made it to the doorway and crashed into metal that opened and she rolled, safe inside–

  And stopped on the edge of a pool of dark water.

  There!

  It stood in a small rise above the water, in the middle of that perfect pool. The water was dark, still. She raised a foot to step into it–

  Then changed her mind, pulled out a penny coin. The portrait of the Queen stared back at her mournfully from lizardine eyes. Lucy dropped it into the water–

  Which hissed, like an angry living thing. Bubbles rose, and foam, and Lucy knew the coin was gone, digested by the acid.

  She cursed Mycroft again. Stared at the device, just sitting there: a dark dull ark; it didn't look like much.

  Too far to reach. She pulled the small device out again. The scanner, whatever it was it scanned for. Pressed a button.

  The thing hummed, beeped, sounding peeved. Lights began to glow across the room, like a storm of electrical charges. The colour of the water changed, reacting in turn to the light. A small lightning storm formed on the water, moving. Gradually growing.

  That didn't look good.

  And the ark was humming now, and images were coming out of it, like a projection out of a camera obscura, though more real, and detailed, three-dimensional and frightening

  Images of spindly towers, cities vast beyond compare, of discs shooting through a sky filled with more stars than she had ever seen, a vast dark ship, its belly opening – then she saw things like vast spiders, dropping down, landing on a landscape that was dark and mountainous and… familiar–

  The gunfire outside was very faint now. The device in her hand hummed, shrieked, and exploded. She threw it away a moment before it did but still felt the hot shards, stinging her arm, and cried out–

  And voices came pouring out of the ark, strange and alien and silent – they were voices of the mind. A babble of cries and terse commands, translating themselves into her own language, somehow, though they made no sense:

  Coordinates established–

  Contact made. Biological signature consistent with previous manifestations–

  Initiate absorption protocols yes no?

  Quarantine recommended–

  Data-gathering agent in place–

  It sounded to her like an argument, or a meeting of some sort, in which two or more sides were debating a course of action.

  "Data-gathering agent in place"? That, somehow, did not sound good.

  The electrical storm was growing stronger, wilder. The acid, too, was reacting to it, hissing. And there was gunfire above. She had to get out. Had to leave–

  She aimed the grapple gun, fired. It hit the ark. With no time to change her mind she jerked it, violently, towards her.

  The ark fell into the acid. Lucy pulled. The voices silenced, then–

  Send expeditionary force yes no?

  Temporary engagement authorised.

  She pulled. The ark seemed to fall apart as she did–

  It came and landed at her feet, its sides dropping away–

  She cursed, knelt to look–

  Inside the box, a strange device, metal-like yet light – a statue, in the shape of a royal lizard. She lifted it up – it was warm. She turned from that room. Ran back – out through the doorway, jumped over the disc, ran as it tilted, found the rope, began to pull herself, one-handed, up the chute–

  Sweating, her body shaking with adrenaline – a burn on her hand, she hadn't even noticed – from the acid. Cursing Mycroft, the strange lizardine statue in her hand, seeming to whisper alien words directly in her mind…

  She reached the top. Hands pulled her up.

  "Major, we can't hold them much longer!"

  "Take this!"

  She handed the device to Bangizwe.

  "Major, is that a–?"

  "Not now!"

  She scanned the situation.

  The church, the space no longer dark, flares and tracer bullets casting manic, fr
ightening twilight over the sacred area–

  And her team were outnumbered.

  Where had they come from?

  Warriors everywhere, with guns and blades. Surrounding them. Blocking the way.

  "You will never get out alive!"

  An elderly voice, carrying authority. She looked over to the others–