The Curse of the Silver Pharaoh

by Pip Ballantine

  “Verity,” Henry was just audible over the angry clamour in her head. “They’re still coming!”

  “Protocol Faculty Override,” another voice spoke behind them, stopping the automatons in their tracks. “Vidmar-One-Zero-One-Four.”

  The menacing implements stopped, then retracted back into their respective spheres. Red eyes pivoted towards the door with a soft hissing noise before the machines silently took their leave.

  Professor Vidmar shut the door behind them before slumping against it. Where had he come from?

  The relentless clicking in Verity’s head was still reaching a crescendo even as the automatons withdrew. All she could do was stare at her teacher, and that was when she noticed his current state.

  He was wearing only a shirt and tight trousers. No jacket. No ascot. He did not appear to have been roused from sleep. In fact, he seemed to have been awake for some time. Rather than being able to enjoy the sight of Vidmar in dishabille, Verity clutched her head as the slicing pain returned. She doubled over, fingers locked around her skull, and only just managed to hold in a scream of agony. She took in a deep breath, and noted a delightful scent coming from Vidmar. A medley of cinnamon, musk, and cedar. The smell of his cologne, oddly enough, helped soothe the pain in her head.

  “Il Suono,” Vidmar said, taking a step back, and examining Verity as if she were a device on his laboratory table. “The Sound, you have it, I see.”

  Verity and Henry both blinked at him. She for one was surprised by the professor’s disinterest in a boy and a girl occupying his workshop in the middle of the night. Instead, improbable as it was, this professor recognised her symptoms. A tiny weight lifted from her many concerns. Verity had wondered if she were going mad, perhaps from a familial disease.

  Now, Vidmar was staring at her in delight, rather than horror. Henry just looked annoyed, but then he never liked it when someone had more information than he did.

  Verity had no time to worry about her fellow orphan. “You...you know what this is?” she finally managed. She was trying desperately not to vomit. “This ticking in my brain?”

  “It is not something everyone believes in; I can assure you. So I would suggest against seeing a doctor about it.” Vidmar smiled, and her stomach did summersaults but of a different nature than the sickness the ticking in her head occasionally brought on. He looked over to Henry. “Be a good lad and fetch from my room the water on my bed stand.”

  “From your room?” Henry asked.

  He motioned to the far end of the laboratory, and Verity made out a door which was half-open. She could just see on the other side a small dormitory. “If you please?”

  As Henry crossed over to the professor’s room, Vidmar went to the bookshelf that occupied more than half of the wall behind his desk. Verity heartily approved of anyone who had so many books, especially a collection its owner knew intimately. He ran his fingers across the leather bound subjects before him, plucked out a thin volume, and placed it in Verity’s hands.

  She found its title embossed in gold on the spine. “The Mind and Delights of the Clankerton?” She glanced up at Vidmar. “I’ve never heard of this title before.”

  “It has just been published as a translation from Italian.” The professor shrugged while pouring a glass of water from the pitcher Henry handed him. “I was lucky enough to be asked to do the work, so I have an advanced copy.”

  At her side, Verity heard Henry make a tiny grunt of annoyance. Her fellow urchin held very little regard for book learning.

  Whispering “Thank you” as she took the glass from him, Verity looked at Henry and noticed the glare he was unleashing upon Vidmar. It was a bit ridiculous. Vidmar should have been nothing less than a mentor to Henry considering their shared love of tinkering with machines.

  The professor took the volume from Verity’s hands, flicked to a chapter mid-way through the book, and turned it to her. “This is all unverified scientifically of course, but the author has gathered some remarkable first-hand accounts of this phenomena he calls The Sound.”

  With her head now quiet and her wits about her, Verity put down the glass and examined the text. She had always been a fast reader, but somehow the words she snatched up from this book took a moment to sink in.

  I hear the movements of the clock, and I know when something is amiss within it. I do not even need to examine it to tell the owner what is wrong with it. I can do this from some distance, even on simply passing a house with a mistimed clock in it.

  Since a baby, the noise has filled my head. I did not attend school as a child, so I just thought everyone heard it. I spent seven years in an asylum just because I told a friend about it. Turned out he was not such a friend. I need to touch machines though, and being here I can’t. I think that is really driving me mad.

  Verity’s eyes grew suddenly hot, and she was afraid to cry right there in front of Henry and the professor. Closing the book with a snap, she squeezed it between her fingertips, as if she were at sea and this was the only thing about to cling to.

  “Seems like it just might be madness,” she said, keeping her voice as steady as she could.

  “Non fare lo sciocco,” Vidmar said, gently tapping on the back cover of the book. “One uneducated might think such a thing. Read further, and you will find abilities from the Sound which cannot be explained. Perhaps there could be some more scientific conclusion to be discovered in the future.”

  “Look,” Henry said, leaning in between Verity and Vidmar, “she ain’t no nutter, and she ain’t a science experiment.” He jabbed his finger in the direction of the door. “But sure as shit, the person who created that is…” He narrowed his glare on the professor. “Mister Vidmar-One-Zero-One-Four.”

  Henry’s attempt to divert the conversation and ease her disposition was sweet, very noble, but since Verity had never really talked with anyone about the Sound before, she grew a little miffed with him.

  “I am afraid our headmistress has become a little over zealous.”

  “You’re telling me Miss Delancy made those brass beasties?”

  “In the past, the Delancy Academy encountered disciplinary obstacles with some of the more gifted students. This led to the invention of the Guardsman.”

  “It did not recognise your key,” Verity said.

  “Considering the fate of the dearly departed Von St James, she must have changed the routine.” Vidmar strode over to his desk, unlocked a drawer, and withdrew a brass box about five inches in length from it. “This should do the trick.”

  “A music box?” she asked.

  “Planning on playing us a tune?” Henry said, giving a short little laugh.

  Vidmar’s expression immediately hardened. His next words were less cordial. “I am planning on getting you back to your dormitories where you belong.” It was a teacher’s voice he was using, and on most children it would have worked. Henry was just a little too old and a little too stubborn though.

  His hands clenched, and now it was Verity who stepped between them. “Thank you, Professor, that would be most kind.”

  Vidmar’s sharp gaze remained fixed on Henry. “I will have to report your excursion to Miss Lobelia. My courtesy was extended to you, Miss Simmons. Only you. I hope this…”—and he motioned to Henry— ”…was all worth it. I expected more from you.”

  The way he glanced between Henry and herself made Verity abruptly aware how this must look. Her face flushed bright red. “Henry is quite skilled in the ways of mechanics,” she insisted. “I needed his perspective on Mickey as I sometimes get too close to a project.”

  Henry was grinning from ear to ear, totally enjoying her distress, so she tried to stare a hole in the floor. Preferably one big enough for Henry to fall through. You pompous twit, Verity seethed.

  “Maybe you are spending too much time with that McTighe girl.” Vidmar shook his head, opened the lab door, and checked both ends of the corridor outside. Dimly in the distance they could hear the whirl of a Guardsman, but the prof
essor showed no fear. “Boys’ rooms first I think,” he muttered, motioning for them to follow.

  Henry stepped in front of her. “How about we see Verity back first, sir?” The last word had absolutely no deference in it, and she winced.

  While the two males were having a stand-off, the signature ticking of a Guardsman struck up in her head once more. This one was closing on them very fast, faster than the other two models which had borne down on them earlier.

  That was until Professor Vidmar spun on his heel, held the music box out, and flipped the catch on its key. The eerie strains of “Greensleeves” echoed down the corridor, and for a moment Verity wondered if all the adults at the academy were quite mad.

  With a clicking and whirring, the automaton paused to listen to the tune, and then turned and went in the opposite direction. As simple as that.

  Vidmar smiled, his eyebrow crooked at the two young people. “See, the old have their uses from time to time.”

  He was only five or six years older than her at the most—Verity almost blurted it out, but it didn’t really seem the right time to say such things. Especially in front of Henry.

  “See, our headmistress is not totally without some measure of mercy.” The professor shooed them in front of him towards the stairs and the dormitories. “Now then?”

  “Right, a patrolling automaton with blades of death in a school with gifted, randy kids is entirely reasonable,” Henry whispered under his breath as an aside to Verity.

  Reaching the stairs just ahead of the professor and Henry, Verity frowned at a huddle of shadow at the base of the stairs. At first she thought some very rude person had thrown their laundry down the stairs, but then realizing what it actually was, she stopped stock still. Henry almost ran into her, probably too busy keeping an eye on the professor.

  “Verity, I know you don’t want to go to bed but—” His words ended abruptly in his throat, before asking “Is that...”

  Vidmar dashed forward to the dark bundle, which was most definitely not shadows, while Verity raced to the wall and turned up the gaslight. The illumination revealed the bundle was a body, but the professor rolling the lifeless form on to its back showed much more.

  It was Mrs Pyke, her face was drained to a strange colour of grey, her eyes wide and staring. Her mouth was stretched in a scream with no sound to it. No blood marred the carpet on the stairs, but there were vivid red marks on her face which looked exactly like burning fingers had been placed there. Her corpse was very similar to that of Heather von St James with the skin drawn tight against her skeletal frame, and drained completely dry.

  Professor Vidmar, crouching down over her, turned to look back at the students. “Henry, I think you should go and knock on Miss Lobelia’s door. Immediately.”

  As Henry ran to the far wing of Delancy Academy, Verity wondered for just a moment if this latest murder would put yet another kink in tomorrow’s class schedule at all.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Interview with a Headmistress

  “Another body? Really?” Julia slid closer to Verity, and gave her a nudge. The cafeteria was so quiet her voice echoed eerily. Several of the students nearby shot her a look, but then turned back to their porridge with fixed expressions. Usually Mrs Pyke would have to shout at the students to eat silently, but this morning she caused the quiet in quite a different way. Henry was nowhere to be seen, and Verity couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.

  She’d already found herself isolated. Apparently bearing witness to not one but two corpses made one a bit of outcast at the breakfast table. She eased out a small sigh and corrected her roommate. “Yes, Henry, Professor Vidmar, and I found her. That was my early morning adventure, but there really isn’t much to tell...”

  She trailed off as she realized her mistake.

  “So…Professor Vidmar…awake and cordial in the wee hours of the mornin’. Did he look…pale…to you?”

  Verity took another spoonful of porridge. Julia was a delightful, if not eccentric girl, but she was not helping the situation.

  Julia took a gentle hold of Verity’s arm. “Did he look different in the moonlight? I mean, ya’ eva’ notice tha’ he prefers classes later in the day.”

  Verity raised one eyebrow, and gave her a hard stare.

  “Oh yes,” Julia said giving a weak smile, “poor Mrs Pyke—but it seems the headmistress is not bringin’ in the kindly doctor from the asylum?”

  Taking a large spoonful of porridge, Verity replied, “It’s easy to hide one dead student body, but a little harder to cover up the matron’s death. It will be all the talk by lunchtime.” She shook her head. “Her expression, those fingerprints on her face. No, most definitely murder...”

  “Fingerprints on her face? No bite marks? Ya’ certain?”

  “Julia, this was not a vampire attack.”

  Julia put down her spoon down carefully, before asking, “How can ya be sure?”

  “Well, for starters,” Verity said, fighting to keep her wits about her, “vampires do not exist in anything other than penny dreadfuls and mythology.”

  The light in Julia’s eyes did not provide any comfort to Verity. There was a sinister glimmer in them as she cast her gaze slowly across the dining hall. As she had surmised, hushed conversations were happening in the corners where teachers could not hear. Gossip was afoot and there was no stopping it.

  “So, if not vampires, who do we think did it?” Julia leaned in closer, “Werewolves maybe?”

  Verity nearly choked on her own breakfast. “Julia!”

  “I’m jus’ tryin’ ta’ rule out the impossible!”

  “If I rule out lycanthropes, what next? Moon Men, perhaps?”

  “Ach, now ya’ talkin’ nonsense!” Julia shook her head, seemingly disappointed in Verity. “Only Mars has alien life.”

  Thinking on it, the words just popped out. “It wasn’t a machine either,” she said, more to herself than to Julia. “The automatons here don’t have fingers like that.”

  “So, ya’ rulin’ out the Guardsmen?”

  “Yes, the Guardsmen would hav—how do you know about the Guardsmen?”

  Her question carried across the cafeteria, and now every student was fixing her and Julia with a stare. Her roommate pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head slowly. Verity swore she heard Julia whisper, “Bloody English. Canna control themselves.”

  Verity leaned in and whispered tersely, “How do you know about the Guardsmen?”

  Julia bit her bottom lip. “Ya’ notice I don’t sleep very soundly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, in the first week, apparently I went for a wee stroll, and the Guardsmen found me.”

  “They found you.”

  “Apparently, they guided me back to our room. An’ on that night, I managed ta’ wake outside the room. I watched them creepin’ away. Absolutely beautiful, they are!”

  “Beautiful?”

  “Aye.”

  “Four legs, red scope, all attached to a steel ball of death?”

  “And an absolute delight to watch. Whoever made them should be—”

  “Committed,” Verity blurted.

  “Commended,” Julia insisted.

  Verity shook her head. “It wasn’t the Guardsmen. Professor Vidmar found a key just like the one he had given me in Mrs Pyke’s hand. She was well aware of the automatons.”

  “Could they have ignored it as they did with yours?”

  “The idea someone tinkered with the automaton’s routines was a possibility, certainly, but the weapons in the Guardsmen are of bladed varieties. There were no cut marks on Mrs Pyke from what I could see.” She shuddered. “Besides, what machine could engrave such a terrifying scream on her face?”

  Julia, once again, stared at her fellow students in the dining hall, the sparkle of delight notably gone. “So ya’ think the killer might be...someone here? Someone Miss Delancy has locked up here with us all?”

  Verity could see it on her face, the dawnin
g understanding this had happened here, right where she lived. Julia was a child of privilege. A slightly strange one to be sure, but one nonetheless. It would take her a few minutes to align to a new reality.

  Despite all that, Verity felt a twinge of empathy for the girl. Her own indoctrination into the harshness of the world had happened much younger, and struck much closer. She could still recall standing outside the burning manor house and coming to terms with the fact her parents were dead inside. That the life she knew was over and done, and she needed to hide in the streets of London. Alone. Terrified…

  “Verity?”

  She jumped in her seat. Julia gently took her hand, her face twisted in concern.

  “Ya’ alright there?”

  “I am, yes,” she said. She squeezed Julia’s hand. “If the killer is a student, it’s one of the returning students. Heather Von St James was missing before we arrived.”

  “Maybe a lover’s tiff gone wrong?” Julia said, squeaking almost. “The student was in love with a teacher? Vidmar, maybe? Or better yet, Monsieur DuValle.”

  “The French teacher? He’s ancient!”

  “Aye! An’ in their younger days, he an’ Mrs Pyke could have been lovers...Pyke takes revenge on student, and DuValle lashes out...”

  Now she was getting into the realm of overly-romantic novels. With Julia spinning a yarn which would make Jane Austen green with envy, Verity gulped down the last of her porridge and nodded encouragingly.

  “Verity.”

  Both Julia and she started at the sound of Henry’s voice. He looked exhausted and in desperate need of sleep.

  “Henry!” Verity leapt to her feet and embraced him, forgetting for a moment the observers all around them. “Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been…” and his voice trailed off as he pointed back towards the centre of the academy. “I’m…a bit sleepy.”

  Verity went to ask why he had not just gone to bed when she felt a boot connect with her heel. She looked back and saw Julia giving her best smile.

  “Henry,” she began, not sure where this was headed, “would you like to join Julia and me?”