by K. E. Mills
Halting, the other Gerald looked at him. “Let go.”
With a yelp he snatched his fingers free and leaped aside. Soundlessly, no hint at all, his counterpart had surged something sharp through his etheretic aura. He shook his hand, fingers stinging. “Answer the question. Is there trouble? Is Ottosland at war?”
“Blimey, was I really this much of an alarmist?” the other Gerald mused. “I didn’t think so—but how embarrassing if I was. No, Professor, Ottosland isn’t at war. I’m just a big believer in an orderly society.”
You mean a terrified society. But with Melissande hostage to his good behavior he didn’t say it, just in case. “Oh,” he said instead. “Well. That’s good to know.”
“Isn’t it?” said his counterpart, showing his teeth in a smile, and slid an arm around Bibbie’s shoulders. “Because there’s nothing like sleeping safely at night.” He kissed Bibbie’s cheek. “Is there, Bibs?”
She shook her head fervently. “Nothing.”
“And believe me, Professor,” the other Gerald added, “there’s nothing I won’t do to make sure things stay that way.”
“Oh, I believe you, Gerald,” he said. “I mean, I have to, don’t I? If I can’t tell when I’m being sincere, who can?”
“Exactly,” said his counterpart, and laughed. “On we go, then—and let’s not have any more interruptions or you’ll miss out on some of the best exhibits. And you wouldn’t want that, Professor.Would you?”
Are you kidding? I’d love it. “No, Gerald,” he said obediently. “I wouldn’t at all.”
Far too soon they reached the next opaque dome.
“Now,” said the other Gerald, “here’s another really useful object lesson.” He snapped his fingers, and the obscuring mist before them began to dissolve. “I like to call this one You Do Have A Choice. Because he did. He really did. Didn’t he, Bibbie?”
Bibbie smoothed down her short, sleek hair. “Yes, he did, Gerald. And he made the wrong one.”
“And d’you know, I was pretty bloody reasonable,” said the other Gerald, sounding aggrieved. “I gave him three chances to join me. It was a damned nuisance he’d been shadbolt-proofed, I can tell you.”
With an effort he kept his face blank. A nuisance. Yes. I mean, Saint Snodgrass forbid you should ever be inconvenienced. Then, as he opened his mouth to say something that could be interpreted as supportive, the last of the obscuring mist melted… and he saw who the other Gerald was whining about. He saw, he heard, he smelled… and his mind and body rebelled, recoiling in horror.
Oh. Oh—good lord. No. No—no—no—
He heaved up his half-digested fried eggs and bacon in a splattering mess, all over the parade ground’s pristine flagstones.
“What?” said the other Gerald, surprised, his voice raised above the steady crackling and the terrible screams. “Do you know him? Really? That’s… unexpected.”
Gerald dragged his sleeve across his foul-tasting mouth. Don’t look again. Don’t look. Turn away. But he couldn’t. He owed it to Sir Alec—even a Sir Alec who’d never met him, or fought for him—to bear witness to this most despicable act.
The other Gerald muted the awful sounds. “It’s a pretty ingenious incant, even if I do say so myself,” he said. “I wish I could take full credit for it, but I can’t. It’s what you might call a joint effort. I dreamed it up, but Monk’s the one who made it work. Y’know, I might be the world’s most powerful wizard but Saint Snodgrass’s bunions—he’s its greatest inventor and thaumaturgical technician. What I wouldn’t give to have his kink in the brain.”
He could taste blood in his mouth, he was biting his lip so hard. And what I wouldn’t give to be completely blind and deaf and senseless right now. For a moment he thought he’d be sick again, but somehow he managed to keep his stomach where it belonged.
“It is a bit gruesome, though,” said Bibbie, sounding petulant. “I do wish you wouldn’t keep making me come back to see it.”
“Well, of course it’s gruesome, Bibbie,” said the other Gerald. He sounded miffed. “It’s supposed to be gruesome. What kind of an object lesson would it be if it didn’t make you want to claw out your eyes, stuff corks in your ears and shove cotton plugs up your nose?”
“Well… yes,” said Bibbie, unconvinced. “I know. You’re right. I suppose.”
“And I thought you were proud of me for thinking this one up,” the other Gerald added. “You said you were proud. You said you thought it was fantastic.”
“I do, I do think it’s fantastic,” Bibbie protested. “Only a genius could’ve dreamed this up. But I’m sensitive, Gerald, and this must be the fiftieth time I’ve seen it. Fifty times. Isn’t that enough?”
As his counterpart and Bibbie launched into a bitter bickering match, he made himself face what they’d done to Sir Alec. Looking at him not only with his one good eye, but with his sharply honed thaumaturgic senses, too.
If I can see how the incant’s put together maybe I can break it. Maybe I can set the poor bastard free.
Because what this world’s Gerald and Monk had done, between them, was imprison their Sir Alec within an infinite temporal loop. Chained to a stake, surrounded by ignited oil-soaked wood, enigmatic, mysterious and oddly compassionate Sir Alec was burning alive. Worse, he was trapped in the last hideous heartbeats before death that now, thanks to Monk’s genius, stretched on and on to infinity. A death without end. A death lasting forever.
They show this to children. They make children see this. How can I help him? I can’t help him. I don’t want to. I want him to die.
Through blinding tears he battled to understand the construction of the incant. He’d never encountered anything like it, a combination of the darkest magic he’d ever tasted and his own potentia warped almost beyond recognition, shot through with Monk’s inimitable, irrepressible thaumic signature.
How could you, Monk? How could you do this?
And then he felt a rough hand on his shoulder, shaking him. “Oh, for pity’s sake, Professor! Now you’re crying? What are you, a girl? Even Bibbie’s not boo-hooing. Who is this Sir Alec to you, that you’d give a toss that he’s dead?”
It was no good. He couldn’t begin to break this incant. Not here and now, anyway. Probably not ever. Pulling away from the other Gerald, he dried his face on his sleeve.
“But he’s not dead, is he? Gerald—”
“He tried to kill me!” the other Gerald shouted. “All right? This isn’t murder. It’s self-defense. It’s justice. When someone tries to kill you—”
“You have them arrested!” he cried. “You don’t—you don’t—”
“What, like you had Lional arrested?” retorted his counterpart. “Really? You’re going to stand there on your high horse and lecture me with your Lional’s blood all over your hands?”
He shook his head. “That was—”
“If you say different, sunshine, I’ll bloody knock you on your ass!” said the other Gerald. “Besides, I told you, I gave Sir Alec three chances. I was prepared to forgive him for trying to kill me—if he’d join me. But he wouldn’t. And like I said, I couldn’t shadbolt him. So Gerald, I’m telling you, he brought this on himself. And now I’m tired of discussing it.” A savage fingersnap, and the dreadful sight of endlessly dying Sir Alec disappeared inside a smoky dome. “Now if you don’t mind we’ve a few more exhibits to look at, and then we’ve somewhere else to be. So do yourself a favor and just look where I point and no more wringing your lily-white hands. Or I’ll bloody forget how much I need you and I will do you a mischief. Understood?”
Numbly, he nodded. “Yes, Gerald. Understood.”
“Fine,” snapped his counterpart. “Then come on. We’re running late.”
Their nightmare visit to the parade ground took nearly three excruciating hours. By the time it was over, every single monstrous exhibit examined, its history lovingly detailed, Gerald wanted to crawl into a hole and never crawl back out again. Depravity would no longer be an abstract wo
rd.
“Do cheer up, Professor,” said the other Gerald briskly, as they made their way back to the car. “Nothing you’ve seen here will happen to you. Well. You know. Probably.”
They piled into the glamorous Kingsmark and drove next to Government House. And if the rest of the exhibits on the parade ground had been appalling, what had been done to Lord Attaby—no, make that Prime Minister, he was wearing the official chain of office—and his colleagues was unspeakable.
Standing in the lavish blue and gilt Cabinet room, with Bibbie’s arm once more threaded possessively—controllingly—through his and the other Gerald standing to one side, gloating, Gerald looked at Ottosland’s vanquished leadership and its senior civil servants, shadbolted to a man—and felt the enormity of the situation threaten to crush him like an avalanche.
I can’t fix this. How am I supposed to fix this? If I had an army of janitors behind me I don’t think I could fix this.
One of the shadbolted officials was Monk’s Uncle Ralph. The change in him was dreadful. The Sir Ralph Markham of his world was a wily and powerful First Grade wizard. Forthright, no nonsense—but a man with hidden depths and inconspicuous influence. Fierce in his defense of both family and country. This Sir Ralph was a defeated man, with fearful, haunted eyes and a tic in his cheek that leaped and leaped without ceasing.
Sir Alec was his friend. Was he made to watch what was done to him? Does he spend every waking minute wondering if he’ll be next?
Knowing the answer, sickened, he looked at the rest of the Cabinet and its servants. All in all some thirty men, crowded into the Cabinet room like bullocks in a butcher’s yard. As a janitor he was vigorously encouraged to stay well out of politics, a stricture which didn’t bother him in the least. But even so, some three-quarters of the group before him looked familiar, echoes of portfolio and junior ministers back home. Thanks to his short-lived career as a probationary Department of Thaumaturgy compliance officer he even recognized some of the permanent Secretaries and Under-Secretaries—the men whose busy paddling kept their nation afloat.
But look at them now. They’re as paralyzed by fear as they are by those shadbolts. Even if I could reach them, I doubt they’d be any help. They’re too far gone. I think their minds are close to breaking.
And of course he could never blame them for that. Not when he still visited his own breaking in bad dreams.
Who knows about this? Have the ordinary, everyday people noticed there’s something terribly wrong with their government? What about the Times? Its journalists always sticking their noses into things. I can’t believe they’ve not sniffed this out. I can’t believe they aren’t shouting protests from the rooftops.
A flicker of shadow. A vibration of glass. A deep, almost subliminal thrumming in his bones. Through the vast, uncurtained Cabinet room window he watched an airship sail majestically past the building. Up this close its guns looked particularly lethal.
Yes. Right. Next stupid question, Dunnywood?
As Bibbie continued to cling like a barnacle, the other Gerald regarded the assembled Cabinet as though they were exotic exhibits in a zoo. “Politicians, Professor, should be seen and not heard. Father used to say that all the time. D’you remember? I did this for him, you know. Well. Mainly for me, but it’s a hat tip to him too. I like to think that wherever he is, he knows I still think of him.”
From what he could tell without getting any closer, these particular shadbolts turned people into compliant puppets. The convoluted incants woven into them were composed of various compulsion and direction hexes. Not a single, simple hex to prevent the answering of inconvenient questions, or a choke-chain kind of shadbolt, like the one inflicted on Melissande, but a cobwebbery of thaumaturgics designed to control what its victim said and did. Brilliant… and diabolical.
Prime Minister Attaby, his Cabinet and his civil servants were staring at him in shocked silence. Not only because they were shadbolted, but because the sight of him was surely unexpected and probably terrifying. Look, gentlemen! It’s your lucky day. Two torturers for the price of one! He wanted to reassure them, to tell them, No, no, don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt you. But the other Gerald wouldn’t take kindly to that, so he had to content himself with throwing the occasional loathing glance at their tormentor when their tormentor wasn’t looking.
“It turns out they’re proving wonderfully useful,” the other Gerald added. “Which is hard to believe, I know, seeing as how they’re politicians and pencil-pushers. But it’s true. They’re making sure Ottosland creaks along until everything else is in place. Ensuring the general populace isn’t too alarmed by the changes. And of course keeping up appearances in front of various international heads of state. Because that’s a situation still in flux, Professor. Which of course is why I brought you here. To help me de-flux things, as it were.”
Bloody hell, he really has fallen in love with the sound of his own voice, hasn’t he? When I get home I’m going to give Reg strict instructions to poke me in the unmentionables if I ever turn into a tosser like him.
Oh, lord. Reg. Traipsing around that appalling parade ground, being confronted by atrocity after atrocity, he’d been convinced that at any moment he’d be brought face to face with Reg. Dead or worse than dead, like poor Sir Alec. But she wasn’t there. It was the only good thing that had happened since he’d opened his eyes at the house.
“Professor, are you listening?” said the other Gerald, sharply. “Because you’ve got that look on your face again. The one that says your mind’s wandered off. Don’t do that. It’s rude.”
Ignoring Bibbie’s scolding little shake of his arm, he swallowed. “Sorry. I was only wondering when I’d get to see—”
“I told you. Later,” said his counterpart. “But if you don’t shut up about it you won’t see her at all.”
Before he could think up a suitably groveling answer the large crystal ball at the center of the Cabinet room’s conference table hummed, then started flashing bright green.
“Hmm,” said the other Gerald, his frown deepening. “Y’know, if that’s not President Damooj calling to accept my terms I’m going to be bloody pissy. Attaby! Answer it! You know what to say.”
Moving jerkily, like an animated marionette, shadbolted Prime Minister Attaby stepped forward to the conference table and accepted the incoming communication. The green light stopped flashing, the crystal turned cloudy, then cleared a moment later to reveal a man with robust silver muttonchop whiskers and a thin face, dark as ebony and set into an expression of grim intractability.
“Bugger,” said the other Gerald, standing well out of vibration range. He was scowling. “Not President Damooj.”
Attaby tugged at his tie. “Viceroy Gonegal.”
“Prime Minister,” said Gonegal. “On behalf of the Directorate of the United Magical Nations, I wanted to see if you’d made any progress regarding our list of demands. As you’re surely aware, your deadline expires soon.”
“Ha!” muttered the other Gerald, and grinned. “See, Bibbie? I told you. I’ve got the cowards running scared. They don’t have the guts to attack me. They know if they try I’ll wipe them out of existence.”
Bibbie went to him and stroked his arm. “They’re fools.”
“I regret, Viceroy, that our answer remains unchanged,” said Attaby. He was sweating, fat drops rolling down his cheek and off his chin. “You have no right to threaten this nation, or dictate our friendships and political alliances. We stand firm in our commitment to Ottosland’s territorial sovereignty and repeat our warning to the UMN: attempt to set foot on Ottosland’s home soil or breach her airspace or indeed harm any nation who supports us and you will face our fierce and merciless retribution.”
Gonegal’s pale blue eyes blazed with sudden anger. “Prime Minister, I do assure you—any merciless retribution will be faced by you and your innocent population. Ottosland is a founding signatory member of the UMN Charter. If you flout our authority, if you presume to—”
> “Oh, shut up, Gonegal,” said the other Gerald, and shoved Attaby aside. “You can’t honestly think I’m actually scared of you and your little box of tricks? Your charter and your rules mean bugger all to me. So why don’t you stop huffing and puffing and making threats we both know you can’t keep and get your nose out of my private business!”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Gonegal, after a long and frigid silence. “But I don’t believe you and I have been formally introduced.”
“We haven’t been formally anythinged,” said the other Gerald. “But who cares? It doesn’t matter who I am. All that matters is what I want. And what I want, Viceroy, is for you to bugger off. I’m expecting an important communication and you’re getting in the way. Don’t call again unless it’s to discuss how you and the rest of the UMN are going to serve Ottosland’s interests.”
Gerald, trying hard not to swallow his tongue, watched his counterpart disconnect from Viceroy Gonegal with a snap of his fingers, then sweep Bibbie into his embrace for an extravagant kiss. Far from being embarrassed by such intimacy in front of practically an entire government, and only one of them family, Bibbie laughed and wound her arms enthusiastically around his neck.
Attaby closed his eyes and waited, like a brutally trained dog.
Turning away, because while he did want Bibbie he did not want that, Gerald thrust his fisted hands into his pockets and crossed to the window. He could feel the shadbolted men’s hungry, disbelieving gazes follow him.
For pity’s sake, don’t look at me like that. I can’t help you. I’m sorry.
Letting his sweat-damp forehead come to rest against the window’s cool glass, he stared down into Government Street many stories below. He knew it was Government Street because he could see the Treasury Building, with its distinctive red and blue sandstone bricks and enormous, imposing brass-bound front door. If not for that, though, he’d have been hard-pressed to name it. Government Street was one of Ott’s main thoroughfares; he was used to seeing it chockful of cars and carriages and businessmen and civil servants and government officials and messenger-boys racing up and down on foot and pushbike, tending to weighty matters of state. Even on working days the foot paths were clogged with sightseers ooohing and aaaahing and pointing excited fingers. But this Ott’s Government Street was eerily empty. Three carriages, one black car, a handful of scuttling pedestrians—and no sightseers. Was it his imagination or even so high up, and inside this impotent Cabinet room, could he feel the city’s ambient fear? He thought he could. He thought that if he closed his eyes and listened hard he’d be able to hear the weeping and the stifled gasps of terror.