by K. W. Jeter
“Remain here if you wish,” I said. “But whatever Crowcroft’s ultimate intentions might be, I feel no desire to be in his proximity when he achieves his own self-destruction. I’m leaving—now.”
In the event, my own efforts at escape were rendered superfluous. No sooner had I spoken than the Colossus’ great crab-like legs stirred once again into motion. The enormous claws lifted each in turn from the jagged holes they had dug into the earth, propelling the lofty device to some further destination.
So ponderous and measured was the walking lighthouse’s progress, that I nevertheless considered it well-advised to take to my own lighter heels, the better to increase the distance between myself and its inevitable explosion. I had little cause to doubt Scape’s assurances along these lines, that the force of the blast would be immense, when it finally came. If its movement and my own were sufficient to put miles between myself and it, the undoubtedly safer I would be.
And not myself alone. I had formed a resolve to furnish what protection I could to Lord Fusible’s daughter—what better time than the present to act upon that quixotic ambition? Turning about from Scape and Miss McThane, I looked to see where the young woman had gotten to, so that I might grasp her wrist and escort her—by force, if necessary—to some further, more secure location.
As I had anticipated, Evangeline had been rendered to a state of high emotion by having glimpsed her betrothed high above, at the controls of the Colossus. No doubt it had been an upsetting moment for both of them, all their possibilities of future happiness erased by whatever vengeful ambition Crowcroft had seized upon. The lighthouse passed lumberingly away from our midst, and I spotted the poor girl gazing after it, tears coursing down her face.
So extreme was her situation, that it was only my coming to her side that prevented her collapsing in a swoon to the ground.
“We must away.” I bore her slight weight against my arm circling her shoulders. “There is likely scarce time left before—”
“No!” cried Evangeline. “There is no time left at all. Do you not see?”
“I see the necessity for removing ourselves from this place.”
“Not that—” She pushed against my chest with both her hands, as she turned her tear-wet face toward the tower clumping away from us. “You do not know his mind as I do—you cannot! But even if I had not overheard all that he spoke to my father and the others, I would still have been able to discern his intentions. It is Mrs. Fletcher he wants! He seeks to destroy her!”
“But of course . . .” I nodded, perceiving that which she wished to convey to me. “And thereby redeem himself, for the wickedness of his sins. . . .”
No opportunity provided itself for further exposition of the matter. For while we had spoken, another had spied the towering construction that had departed from us but a moment before. A great roaring, combined of cascading rubble and groaning machinery, assaulted our ears. Both Evangeline and I turned and saw, farther along the river’s course, the Iron Lady revealing even vaster dimensions of her transmogrified self, as she reared higher from the ruins of the Houses of Parliament.
Flames leapt from every furnace-like aperture of the fleshless, mechanized body; Mrs. Fletcher’s searing gaze swung about, fastening upon the slowly approaching Colossus. A bright avidity sprang up in that hideously magnified face, as though this encounter were one for which she somehow fiercely longed.
CHAPTER
24
Mr. Dower Witnesses
the Fiery End of All Things
SO numerous have been reports of that cataclysmic encounter upon the Thames bank, that I further set pen to paper with little anticipation of relating much of which the reader has not already heard. And given that a circumspect silence in regard to my own affairs, on both my part and that of others, is something to which I have long aspired, I would hope for some indulgence were I to say no more of what transpired then.
Alas, the pen scribbles on, leaving its spidery ink trail across the page, as though even such as simple device as this were somehow possessed of that appalling animation by which my father’s creations were characterized. So little do we know of ourselves and of what hidden mainsprings drive our actions! Were it to be unveiled tomorrow that all of Humanity, once flensed of skin and other softer bits, were nothing but ticking and hissing contrivances of clockwork and steam, I confess that I would not be greatly surprised. Not because the extraordinary nature of so much of my experience has rendered me incapable of astonishment, but simply because such a revelation would merely confirm my own belief, increasingly held, that we all move unheeding along iron rails and tracks not laid down by our own desires and cognition.
Which is to say no more than that much of what I did—and others as well—in those moments of fiery apocalypse, remains somewhat incomprehensible to me. Or at least unanticipated. If there is any value to my writing of them, and the reader musing over these inartful words, it would be in the explication of those actions around which so much error and rumour has circulated.
In the midst of that tumultuous night, seemingly composed of equal parts human riot and mechanical upheaval, Lord Fusible’s daughter conveyed to me what she had surmised of Captain Crowcroft’s intent. I had no reason to doubt her—only some overwhelming resolve on his part could have motivated his steering the Colossus of Blackpool toward its apparent destination. A more balanced composition of the mind might have inspired one still possessed of reasonableness to abandon the towering, ambulatory construction, the better to wrap his protecting arms around his beloved and convey her to some safer place. Leaving the latter to someone such as myself indicates a pronounced lack of consideration, particularly for one to whom he had previously avowed some degree of affection.
The inadequacy of my ability to protect Evangeline was soon made apparent. As the Colossus had rumbled away from us, with Captain Crowcroft at its elevated helm, both Evangeline and I had witnessed Mrs. Fletcher’s white-hot gaze fasten upon the lighthouse. The malice incorporated in that regard was as quickly evident; no doubt the Iron Lady, now transformed to even more hideous dimensions and efficacy, perceived that the Colossus had been altered to an explosive device capable at least of severely harming, if not completely extinguishing, her. Granted, this would be suicidal as well on the lighthouse’s commander, but we both felt certain that such was his grim state of mind.
“Prepare yourself—” I caught up Evangeline in my arms, pressing her tight against myself. My action was not so much a consequence of the above deliberations, which I might have formed into coherent words and thoughts if I had the time, but rather came from some instinctive presentiment of danger greater than that which already surrounded us. “She’s about to do something—”
No sooner had I spoken than my foresight was confirmed. The immense form of the transmogrified Mrs. Fletcher, having reared higher into the smoke-heavy night sky from the ruins of the Houses of Parliament, now lunged forward, as might some smaller predatory creature from its rocky desert lair, in order to seize upon its prey. All along the Iron Lady’s length, the open furnace doors flared with brighter and more consuming fires, as though her appetites were fuel greater than any amount of coal shoveled in by her sweat-glistening minions. Even from the distance at which we stood, we could feel the surge of heat radiating from her.
The vaulting horizontal arc of the Iron Lady fell short of its target, yet had devastating effect nonetheless. With Evangeline still in my arms, I braced for the impact of such a cumbersome mass striking the earth. Thus prepared, I managed to keep us both on our feet while the ground bucked and tilted, as might an ocean receiving an equivalent tonnage in its midst. Behind us, I could hear the last charred timbers of Featherwhite House shearing apart and toppling into the ashes at their center.
Another, larger object toppled as well, immediately before us. While in motion, transporting itself from one location to another, a walking light was self-evidently less secure in its mounting; the relatively slight elevation produced b
y the extension of the jointed claws beneath the tower’s base rendered the entire structure out of balance. Given the exaggerated height of the Colossus of Blackpool, bringing a proportionately greater weight higher above the Earth’s surface, the shock produced by Mrs. Fletcher’s mass striking the Thames riverbank toppled the lighthouse. The towering construction began to fall forward as though it were one of those bare-chested wrestlers who amuse the crowds on market days, the more skillful opponent having swept the other’s feet from beneath.
For a few moments, Evangeline and I watched aghast as the Colossus swayed back and forth, with Captain Crowcroft visible as he furiously manipulated the various levers and controls before him on the bridge, struggling to keep the tower aright. Taking no effort for his own safety, Crowcroft was unable to keep from being bodily flung toward the curved windows of the lighthouse’s bridge. The glass shattered as he struck it, the glittering fragments sparkling as they fell through the churning smoke and steam. In their midst was the captain himself, tumbling end over end as he hurtled toward the ground.
To my own relief, I saw that Crowcroft’s preceding exertions had had some effect, by which we all were spared immediate annihilation. I had anticipated, given the manner which the Colossus’ exterior relief valves had been shut down, that the resulting steam bomb would explode as soon as the tower hammered itself to the earth. As close as we were, we would doubtless have been rendered into our component atoms. When I opened my eyes, I perceived that we had been spared this fate. The Colossus leaned forward at a precarious angle, but still sat trembling upon its clawlike legs, its awkward position due to whatever adjustments that Crowcroft had so quickly and deftly made.
Evangeline tore herself from my grasp and ran toward the figure of her beloved, lying motionless upon the ground. My attention was taken from the sight of her kneeling and raising Crowcroft into her arms—from above me came the deafening shriek of the lighthouse’s relief valves as the escalating pressure within tore the brass fixtures from their mountings. The Colossus itself visibly shuddered, indicating that the cataclysm I feared was but moments away.
The temptation was strong to turn heel and flee, putting as much distance between myself and the lighthouse as was yet possible. As close as Evangeline and the fallen captain were to its base, they would likely be transported instantly and painlessly to the next world, a fate which no doubt would be the young woman’s wish, so long as it could be accomplished together with him. I would like to believe it was not mere cowardice on my part, but some tender instinct, that prompted me to think that whatever avowal I had undertaken on the young woman’s behalf was fulfilled by this much having been brought about, freeing me to preserve my own life as best I could. . . .
In the event, however, there was not time to make a definitive ethical determination. For something even yet more extraordinary occurred.
I had been frozen to the spot by the combined horrific aspects of the Iron Lady some distance away, yet so close that my hair was singed by the heat belched forth from the furnace doors of her gargantuan body, and the hissing shrieks of the explosive tower close at hand. Finally, I stirred into motion—not away from the Colossus and the scalding forces building up inside, but rather toward it.
One part of my mind shouted at the other, accusing it of having abandoned all pretensions of rationality. That might well have been; insanity could alone explain my grasping the rail of the metal ladder dangling from the base of the Colossus and hoisting myself up toward the riveted door by which I could gain access to the construction’s interior.
The sole comprehensible thought remaining to me, divorced from any consideration of my own security, was that once inside I would be able to mount the central spiraling staircase all the way to the bridge of the Colossus, from which Crowcroft had been so precipitously cast. Long before, on the coast of Cornwall, I had however briefly laid hands upon the controlling levers of such a walking light; now, a pitiable delusion had formed within me, that such brief experience would enable me to resume that operation commenced by that other man, guiding the lighthouse and its swiftly gathering explosive forces toward a desired consummation with the Iron Lady herself.
That such a self-destructive intent had formed within me, I attribute to the increasingly disordered state within my head, very likely the cumulative result of the various blows and buffeting I had received. I am not by nature greatly motivated by an altruistic love of my fellow man, so for me to undertake such an effort, seemingly for no other reason than to save Britain in general from the all encompassing ambitions of its power-maddened Prime Minister, no doubt seems uncharacteristic on my part. Perhaps, at the end of the day, I was impelled by a worthier desire than to exact a final vengeance on that person who, most correctly perceived, had been the first instigator of all these schemes that had caused so much trouble for me. I derived some wry consolation, savoured in a flash as I laid my hand upon the heated metal of the ladder’s rungs, that in doing so, I would lose no more than that life which I had already resolved to discard, back at that shabby room in Cornwall, in what now seemed ages ago.
If there were no longer any instinct of self-preservation to hinder me on this course, something else managed to intervene. No sooner had I progressed but a few hand-holds up the side of the Colossus toward its hatchway door than I was halted by the grip of a hand upon my ankle below.
Unable to move further, I looked down and saw that it was Scape who had seized hold of me. He stood upon the lowest of the ladder’s rungs, having followed me there from the same spot on the ground from which I had proceeded.
“Hold up, Dower—” Face contorted with his sudden exertions, he called up to me. “You’re not doing this—”
His presence in such immediate proximity took me by surprise. In truth, I had completely forgotten about both him and his companion, Miss McThane, no doubt due to the ferocity and alarming nature of the events that had swept across the scene. Beyond that, I had never had any reason to believe him as being impelled by other considerations than his own skin and fortunes—if my mind had turned to him at all, I would have reasonably concluded that he had long fled from the spot, as I should have done already, the better to save himself from the explosion that was now increasingly imminent.
“Leave off!” I kicked my leg, futilely attempting to free myself from the tightened clench of his grasp. “There is no way of preventing what is about to happen—so I might as well attempt to derive what good as I can from it.”
“Don’t be an idiot!” Scape struggled to keep me from escaping. “You can’t—”
“What concern is it of yours?” The mingled jets of steam, escaping from all about us, were loud enough that I needed to shout in order to make myself heard. “Save yourself, if you wish. But this is what I have set my mind to accomplish.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the problem.” Having hooked his arm around the rail of the ladder, he managed to set both hands upon my ankle, even more forcibly preventing me from climbing further. “You can do whatever the hell you want—I don’t give a rat’s ass—but not this, you moron.”
“And why not, if I so choose?”
“Because you don’t know the first thing about machines. Any kind of ’em, let alone this puppy.” One of Scape’s hands let go of me for a moment, so that it might grasp the next rung and pull him higher toward me. “You’d be a complete failure with a frickin’ can opener, for Christ’s sake. There’s no way you could do anything with this.”
Enough time had passed from my initial unthinking impulse—at least a few seconds—that some of its force had dissipated. The more rational part of my mind was reluctantly forced to agree that the man was very likely correct in what he had said. A clear memory arose in my thoughts, of standing on the bridge of that other lighthouse and being completely baffled by all the various levers and controls which Captain Crowcroft had wielded then.
Nevertheless, I persisted in my endeavour. Holding on to the ladder with one hand, I used the other to pus
h against Scape’s brow. “Be that as it may,” I said. “If with myself resides the only possibility of setting this device in motion, thereby bringing it close enough to Mrs. Fletcher that she will be destroyed in the explosion which will soon take place, then I must take that chance. There is no other alternative but to admit failure, thereby allowing her to accelerate her reign of industrial terror.”
“That’s crap.” Scape spoke through gritted teeth as he fought to evade my restraining hand. “Just because you’re incapable of doing it, that doesn’t mean I can’t run this thing.”
“You?” I peered down at him in bafflement. The roar and hiss of escaping steam, combined with the stifling smoke, caused me to wonder if I had heard him correctly. “But if you were to do so—that would mean—”
“Yeah, right. Whatever.” Scape took advantage of my passing disorientation by reaching past my hand and seizing hold of my shirtfront. With that, he was able to pull himself up directly before me. For a moment, we looked into each other’s eyes. “Let me worry about that, okay?”
The close juxtaposition of our bodies, and our precarious combined grasp upon the lighthouse’s external ladder, forced an object from where it had been tucked into Scape’s waistcoat. We both glanced down, watching the clockwork key to my father’s Vox Universalis device—that article which Scape had taken such elaborate pains to acquire—as it fell to the ground below us. It struck a rock with sufficient force to burst it into component pieces, gears and cogs flying in all directions, impelled by the sudden uncoiling of the key’s various tightly wound mainsprings. Within seconds, the coveted item was reduced to glittering debris, scattered across the ashen earth.
“Damn.” A grimace slid over Scape’s face as he regarded the wreckage, not merely physical but also embodying the demise of whatever of his ambitions had centered upon the device. “That sucks. That really sucks.”