by KW Jeter
“Tell me, then…” A degree of pity, as well as my own idle curiosity, prompted my turning toward him again. “The events which I witnessed a little while ago – the appearance of that great airborne burial ground – how did such come to be? You wished to talk to me about practical matters – surely an enterprise of such immensity was not readily achieved.”
“Much was required, indeed.” He visibly brightened to a degree, evidently relieved that I had abstained from haranguing him further. “But from small endeavours, great profits might flow, leading to exponentially larger endeavours, and even larger profits. Such was the case with the notion of setting the dead to rest in the sky, rather than in the ground. The first attempt was but with a single corpse, the tragically young daughter of a gentleman with inventive talents – much like your own father, I would imagine.”
“It would be difficult,” I said, “for me to vouch for that, as I did not know the man – my father, that is. But if there are indeed others similar to him, then God help us all.”
“Perhaps I misspoke; I meant no offence.” Rollingwood continued his exposition. “As is often the case, the inventor to whom I refer was also an entrepreneur, industrious to attract both enthusiasm and capital to his endeavours. He and his backers seized their moment – as the Bard might have described it, one of those tides in the affairs of men that leads to fortune. The great changes in our world which you have observed, and which you continually bemoan – they have had their effects on the sympathies of the general population, as you might also expect. The Right Reverend Jamford might have placed himself sufficiently beyond the pale with his outright statements of his beliefs, so that he can no longer be endured by the old and staid Church of England, but a good deal of what he espouses is shared by a great many – likely the majority, in fact. The Second Coming, the End of Days, the Apocalypse; whatever you wish to term it–” Rollingwood waved a dismissive hand. “Since those cataclysms to which you yourself were a witness, that prophesied event is much on people’s minds. Many believe that our world is changing only as a precedent to its coming to a conclusion. That being the case, a certain evangelicalism has taken flight amongst them, which welcomed this new mode for burial of the dead. The feeling seems to be that Resurrection is near at hand, just as you have heard Jamford so strenuously proclaim, then surely it’s better to have deceased loved ones up in the sky, where they are likely to experience a happier and more elevated return to living form, than down in the cold, clammy earth.”
“What nonsense,” I grumbled. “If the end of the world managed to put a stop to such delusions, then it would indeed be a blessed occurrence.”
“You are welcome to your opinion, Mr Dower. But that which you decry has been a commercial opportunity for others, and one of considerable scope.”
“By others, I take it you refer to the Gravitas Maximus Funerary Society, by which your own bread is buttered.”
“A modest share of its profits is paid to me – you are correct about that. But I would think well of its operations, regardless. As do many of our fellow citizens.” Raising a hand, Rollingwood pointed to the immense shape of the aerial cemetery, unavoidably visible through the clouds, its grave-studded bulk obscuring a large measure of the sky. “And by many, I wish to indicate not just the good folk of London, but all the regions about it – and beyond! All the way to Yorkshire, and Scotland to its northernmost Hebridean fringes. The enthusiasm for upward interment has swept the nation; it speaks a great deal for the isolation of your Cornish redoubt, that you had not been made aware of it before now. But these advances will sweep across your neighbours there as well.”
“I have little doubt of it; they are not clever enough to resist, and will embrace them as fervently as the rest.” A disapproving scowl formed on my face as I regarded the hovering monstrosity. “But do you actually mean to tell me there are more of these hideous constructions? That every district in the British Isles has one installed above it? What a gloom-inspiring prospect.”
“No, just the one; it is sufficient for the purpose. You view it at a distance, and are impressed by its size; were you to make a closer inspection, to actually go and walk about its upper surface, I am sure that you would be completely astounded. And in fact, it is continually expanding about its periphery – a great many corpses are produced on a daily basis, in this world below, and accommodation must be made for them in their elevated and permanent residence.” Smiling once more, Rollingwood gave a small nod. “I anticipate your question to follow, Mr Dower. Why one greatly centralized cemetery, rather than many lesser ones scattered about our skies? It is because the technical means providing such levitation requires this concentrating of the dead. You are familiar with those means, even though you had not seen before this awesome application of them. At your late wife’s previous funeral service – surely you recall those floating cherubim, with their mechanically beating wings?”
“How could I forget them? Though I have indeed tried.”
“There you have it,” said Rollingwood. “The gases generated within the ceramic casing of those dead infants were barely sufficient to set them aloft. With this–” He pointed once more to the airborne cemetery visible in the distance. “The process is brought to a state of perfection. We err when we believe that the Age of Steam, this Future that has hurtled upon us and become our Present, is epitomized by gigantic, clanking machines and engines, their iron gears towering above us. I assure you, Mr Dower, that such is not the case; a wiser perception will understand that Steam is the great solvent of the world’s mysteries; all that was rigidly glued, one solid mass to another, comes apart with the application of sufficient heat, releasing all manner of wonders. Organisms from other lands, invisible to the naked eye, are bred and nurtured in covered glass dishes, until they are of a dazzling potency. You know of those, I take it?”
“I do.” Even to my own ear, my words were frostily uttered. “A different clergyman told me of them.”
“Then you understand how it is done – and more; how it is accepted. Once we would have been appalled at seeming conjuror’s tricks being applied to the otherwise lifeless forms of our loved ones. But Steam has loosened Mankind’s hoary old convictions as well; now we think it marvellous.” Rollingwood’s smile was now a signal of relished triumph. “The Future is upon us, Mr Dower; if you choose not to embrace, that is but your choice.”
“Spare me your mercenary enthusiasm – but elucidate this. The dead who are entombed and buried and otherwise encysted in this hovering cemetery you find so marvellous – they are at the same time the source of its ability to stay aloft?”
“Exactly so. Their decomposition is managed in a discreet way, the gases emitted being harvested and compressed so as to produce the results you observe. Which are sufficient, as I previously indicated, for one great aerial cemetery, which is both tethered and moved about by a system of iron cables extending from the edges of the construction, and anchored at appropriate points all across Britain.” Rollingwood lifted his hand and indicated a distant point. “You can see one of them right there.”
He was correct about that; I had previously discerned the tautened line perhaps a mile or so away, visible through the mists only due to its immense cross-section. I had not realized its significance, though, as the more elevated banks of clouds had concealed the doleful construct floating above.
“By a simple expedient,” continued Rollingwood, “the cemetery is relocated from one place to another above this nation. Powerful engines drive the winches aboard the cemetery; by paying out the lines at one side, and drawing up those opposite, it travels about as needed, so that all might have their turn at enjoying the spiritual comforts it provides. Ingenious, I’m sure you’ll admit.”
“I will admit nothing of the kind–” I seethed now, words crawling through clenched teeth. “For what you have told me, when translated into honest words, is that your filthy invisible bugs feast upon the corpses that you have inveigled into your possession, and their
rotting stench sends this whole ghoulish construction up into the air, as one great putrefying mass, that you can then shift about for the sake of attracting more customers from the recently bereaved.”
“I must protest, Mr Dower. You describe these matters with the ugliest possible locutions–”
“And this,” I persisted relentless, “is what you mean to do with my late wife’s body?”
“Most people have no qualms about the arrangement. Indeed, they generally find some poetic satisfaction in the thought that their deceased elevate themselves, so to speak.”
“Sir, you disgust me.” I might well have murdered the man, if I could have endured the touch of his throat between my tightening hands – but the stink of corruption I detected about him made it impossible. “I can no longer stand your company; I will make my own way hence.”
I strode away, not glancing back at the man.
“You are placing yourself at considerable danger–” Rollingwood called after me. “These are not safe premises in which to wander alone.”
“That risk is preferable to me.” I continued on, forcing my way through the banks of mist mounting to my waist. “See to your own person, as you wish.”
* * *
Of course, I was completely lost within a matter of minutes.
I expected as much; whatever memories I might have retained of strolling about Highgate, from younger and happier days – or at least less annoyed – they were eclipsed by the transformations that had been laid over the cemetery. What had been winding, tastefully manicured paths – lined by marble angels and other memorial figures like weeping sentries – were now a jungled maze, suitable for more intrepid explorers than myself. I realized now that the route which I had taken to the gravesite prepared for Miss McThane’s casket, accompanied by Rollingwood and the protective mourners hired by the Gravitas Maximus Funerary Society, had been widened and cleared by frequent traffic and the regular application of those broad-bladed implements known as machetes, by which passage through snaking vines and choking foliage can be achieved. I had thought at the time that the environs were oppressively close and bewildering – but straying farther, I perceived that those spaces had been of cathedral-like emptiness compared to those in which I was now entangled.
To make the situation worse – as if that were necessary! – twilight was at last falling upon the surrounding hills. What illumination could penetrate the clouds and mist was tinging red, and would soon be extinguished completely. I had entertained the thought of climbing to some higher point from which the lanterns of Highgate village’s shops and homes might have been sighted, allowing me to navigate an exit from the cemetery – but those hopes were dashed by the towering height of the greenery about me. I might as well have been plunged to the bottom of some Alpine crevasse, its narrowing walls unclimbable even with rope and axe.
When total darkness ensued, an event only one or two hours distant, I would be utterly lost. At one time, before the advent of monstrous Steam, it might have been a chilly prospect – but now, I was more likely to be suffocated by the interminable heat seeping from the ground, produced by the raging of the abandoned engines that Rollingwood had described to me. Already my stifled breath caught in my throat; freed from any necessity of maintaining decorum, I tore open my shirt collar, though to little avail. My laboured panting for breath was so loud in my own ears, that a moment or two passed before I perceived a more ominous sound close at hand.
A deep growl, emitted by some beast hidden in damp foliage ahead – there was no longer any need to anticipate the long hours before dawn would break again over Highgate; my gnawed bones might be exposed to that dim light, but my living flesh would not.
The noise altered to a rasping snarl, signalling that the unseen animal was about to spring upon its prey. I stood frozen to the spot, aware that any attempt to turn and flee would only result in that crushing weight falling upon my back, pinning me face-down upon the sodden earth as those fanged jaws snapped my neck like a bundle of twigs.
With appalling suddenness, the crepuscular gloom was blotted out by the dreaded shape leaping upon me. I toppled backward, my hands futilely straining against its weight, a sharp-toothed snout only inches from my face…
Then matters became very odd, indeed.
Tiny bits of metal, glittering in a narrow shaft of moonlight that had managed to penetrate the clouds above, lay scattered all about me. Teeth I saw, but not the white crescents of a carnivore’s jaws, but rather those of brass gears, interlinked with each other – I might well have been attacked, not by a lion or some other fearsome animal, but by a pocket watch grown to enormous proportions, its gilt case sprung open, or a similar ratcheting and ticking mechanical construction.
That I was deranged, either temporarily or now permanently – this was a very real possibility. It would not have been the first time that the stress of events had resulted in the disordering of my thoughts and perceptions. That I maintained any degree of sanity at all, for any length of time, was a small tribute to my generally stolid and unimaginative nature.
Whatever my mental state, I was not bodily injured, however, or not in any manner immediately apparent. Sitting up on the ground where I had landed, I looked about me; in what rapidly decaying light was still available, there were in fact gears and springs and less identifiable metal pieces arrayed all about. Some were still connected to each other, and displayed a jittering animation, clicking and whirring before finally expending the last of their motive force.
A larger construction had toppled onto its side, a foot or so away from me. I could discern that it was roughly shaped like a lion, with forelimbs and hindquarters assembled of jointed iron, and a massive head in which one fiercely gleaming glass eye was still embedded, the other having been dislodged and rolled under some low fronds, from where it regarded me with an unblinking stare.
I rose unsteadily to my feet; bending down, I prodded the artificial carcass with a cautious fingertip. Much of the device’s innards were exposed; deep within the space where a heart would have beaten, if the thing had been a creature of flesh and blood, a mainspring as large as my doubled fists trembled and spun, its faint churr the only noise impinging on the encompassing silence. The growling snarl I had heard, when the faux beast was hidden from sight, had been emitted by the accordion-pleated structure I could see at its throat; that intimidating note would sound no more, the armature compressing the pleated leather having been dislocated from the workings behind.
The rest of the mechanism’s intricacies were concealed beneath what had first seemed to my touch as a frayed carpet, stitched about the form so as to give the impression of the tawny hide of a marauding predator. A looser, more tangled fabric portrayed its mane, coursing from the head and onto its back. All was damp and rotted; the long exposure to the cemetery’s humid mists had rendered the substance into one great patch of mildew and corruption, through which my finger could penetrate with no more resistance than that given by matted cobwebs.
My proximity to the construction disclosed further details of its operation. Its hindquarters were connected to a larger iron armature, at the point where its tail might otherwise have been; this mechanism extended back into the foliage which had previously concealed the device, and from which it had sprung upon me. The much-rusted beam had thrust the simulated beast forward, upon the release of the coiled springs mounted upon an equally corroded plate anchored to the ground. This convulsive action had been triggered by a snaring cord against which I had inadvertently stumbled in the dark.
“So this–” A wild exhilaration burst within me; I spoke aloud as I straightened up, still gazing upon the closely wrought machinery lying stilled at my feet. “This is what we fear! We tremble before junk! Nothing but scraps of metal and tattered rags!”
There were no wild animals prowling about the cemetery, hunting whatever prey their jaws could seize upon – of this surmise I was immediately convinced. Their purported existence was but a giant hoax, of whic
h Rollingwood was a fellow conspirator or a victim of others deluding him – it hardly mattered as to his exact role in the scheme. If ever living creatures had escaped from a private zoölogical garden and taken residence in the overgrown cemetery, they had likely starved to death, once the weaker had been consumed by the stronger, or sickened from the constant damp, coughing out their lungs in fatal bouts of pleurisy or some other infection – these had been, after all, beasts more accustomed to the somewhat drier veldts of Africa than to actual jungles. That general demise having occurred, no doubt some criminal-minded entrepreneur had seized upon the opportunity; in league with the sort of clever tinkerer with which England seemed to abound these days, this person – I could well imagine his sly, smirking visage – had studded Highgate with contraptions such as the one that was now greatly disintegrated before me. Incapable of actual harm, other than what would be suffered from being knocked off one’s feet, in the cemetery’s perpetual mists they would be intimidating enough that a profitable swindle could be enacted, in which confederates would feign to protect those attending funerals here – just as had those miscreants which been hired to attend the graveside service for my late wife. But in reality, no one was ever truly threatened by anything other than poorly maintained clockwork and hissing steam valves.
Shaking my head, I studied further the corroding wreckage, swaddled in its ripped and frayed pelt. I took offence at the sight – this was not a device which my father had any hand in constructing, but obviously of recent devising. As much as I regretted my filial association with the author of so many hideous machines, which had wrought so much damage upon the world that no longer existed, and been so inspiring of the wretched one we now inhabited, still I had always felt some odd pride in the products of my father’s industry. The man had been a genius, as I was not; the precision and grace of the handiwork shown in his technical legacy, incomprehensible to me, often seemed more like art than mere craftsmanship. But this mock lion was a wretched piece of work, cobbled together by rude mechanics; it was a wonder that such a clanking shambles had ever frightened anyone other the few wandering children who might have encountered it.