by Tim Pratt
“See that you do,” the man in the cage called.
“Your Majesty,” Freddy said, dropping a curtsy as she removed the lockpicks from her hair. “If my Lord husband will be good enough to lend me his portable light, I will endeavor to free you.”
Pimm passed over his pocketwatch-sized alchemical light, then looked at Ellie, and followed her gaze up the stairs to the office. “You want to go through Oswald’s papers, don’t you?” Pimm said.
“It is my heart’s most fervent desire,” she said.
That’s what a man likes to hear, Pimm thought wryly, but said, “I was hoping to find some true evidence of his perfidy myself.” He gestured for Ellie to go up the stairs, then followed, watching Ellie lift her skirts and rush with girlish enthusiasm up the steps and through the door.
The office, when Pimm reached it, was nothing particularly exciting: a desk with neatly stacked papers arrayed upon it, shelves crammed with binders and books, and a wall of pigeonholes filled with rolled papers. While Ellie methodically sorted through the contents of the pigeonholes, Pimm sat down at the desk and opened up the bottom drawer. A small bottle of brandy, half-full, rested inside, along with a single glass, and he smiled. Ah, there was his heart’s most fervent desire. Or second most fervent, anyway. He poured himself a glass—Ellie looked over and frowned, but didn’t say anything, so he chose to construe that as permission, if not approval—and drank it down fast. The cresting wave of an approaching headache receded, and he poured another measure of brandy to sip more slowly.
“There is ample evidence here tying Oswald to the clockwork courtesans,” Ellie said. “Bills of lading, invoices, work orders, all with his signature. But there’s no crime there, and certainly no treason. I’m sure the Queen in the cage will be happy to see justice done… assuming anyone believes she is who she claims. I’m not entirely sure I believe it, but that may just be my native skepticism.”
“The man down there hardly looks like the Queen,” Pimm said, “and I’m sure Bedlam has a patient or two who claim to be some monarch or another, with little evidence to support the assertion.”
“Surely there are ways, scientifically, to prove or disprove that she is who she claims…” Ellie said doubtfully.
“There are indeed,” Pimm said. “Getting anyone to bother to do the tests may be a different matter. Incontrovertible documentary evidence of Oswald’s wrongdoing would be helpful.” Pimm sorted through the drawers in the desk, but didn’t find much of interest… until he noticed that the bottom of one drawer seemed perhaps two inches higher than it should have been.
“Something hidden here,” he said. “People think they’re being so clever with hiding places like this, and I suppose it is clever in a way, but everyone is clever in the same way, which makes it predictable, and predictable is sometimes functionally identical to stupid.” Pimm rummaged in the desk’s top drawer until he found a metal letter opener. Ellie watched as he jammed the edge of the letter opener into the crack around the false bottom and levered it up, revealing a small space beneath. A long book bound in red leather rested inside. Pimm lifted out the ledger and flipped it open to a random point, revealing lines of cramped writing in brown ink.
“A cipher,” Pimm said after a moment.
“Sort of,” Ellie said. She ran her finger along a line of prose from right to left. “It’s mirror writing, you see? Every letter is backwards, and every word and sentence written back-to-front. It’s how Leonardo da Vinci wrote in his own journals.”
“I’m sure the comparison to Leonardo was not lost on our Sir Bertram,” Pimm said. “He tends to place himself in the company of geniuses. Indeed, one gets the sense he considers Newton and Galileo tiresome amateurs.”
“This would be easier to read if we had a mirror,” Ellie said, “but this section seems to be about the disaster in Whitechapel, do you see? And the date, here, it fits, and more prattling about purple crystals.”
They flipped farther along in the journal, and this time it was Pimm who stabbed the journal with his finger. “Here, the ‘Great Transformer,’ that’s the Constantine Affliction. Look, he writes all about it, here’s Mabel Worth’s name—” He rubbed his eyes. “My eyes are not made to read backwards. Reading forwards is quite enough of an effort for me most of the time.”
“This is proof positive of his criminality,” Ellie said. “With luck, he’s written something about his plans to poison and replace the Queen…”
Pimm nodded. “I hope so. That would help see the prisoner downstairs recognized as the monarch again. Assuming we can keep her from striding into the palace and demanding her full honors immediately…”
“We are not foolish, Lord Pembroke,” the Queen said sternly, standing in the doorway of the office. “We realize there will be some resistance, but we have trusted friends at court who will not be fooled by a mere change in our appearance—and there are things only the monarch and a few others in the realm know, by which we may prove our claim. We are confident that our position will be restored… if we can reach those who need to be convinced.”
“The prime minister and the rest of the cabinet will likely be at the Exposition tonight,” Freddy said from behind the monarch. “Along with whomever Oswald has standing in for the Queen. Sir Bertram—forgive me, Your Majesty, Mister Oswald—will be there too. We should pay the Exposition a visit, don’t you think?”
“Oh, yes,” Pimm said. “But first, let us speak with Mr. Carrington, and see what he can tell us about Mr. Oswald’s plans.”
A Mouthful of Blood
They bound Carrington to his own chair in front of the cage where they’d been imprisoned, next to the alchemical lamp. Ellie had no desire to see anyone tortured, but if she had to see awful things happen to someone, Carrington was an acceptable choice.
Pimm sat down on another chair they’d brought from the office, in front of the prisoner, but some distance away. He nodded at Ben, who dumped a bucket of water on Carrington’s head.
Carrington gasped, staring around him, then sighed as the water trickled down his face. “Good heavens. Did my master just walk off and leave you lot unguarded? I suppose he sent Crippen away, too, or took him along to the Exposition. The man is brilliant, of course, but he just isn’t practical. He knew he wouldn’t be able to escape from the cage, so he assumed you wouldn’t either.”
“I was just remarking on that fact,” Ben said. “Seems a shame for all your plans to be undone over something so foolish.”
Carrington chuckled. “My dear huge brute, you have no idea about our plans. They are not so easily disrupted.”
“Speaking of those plans,” Pimm said. “I find I have a few questions on the subject.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do. Oswald was so coy, wasn’t he, about his ultimate goals? How maddening it must be, to be so ignorant, so eternally under-informed!” He noticed the Queen for the first time. “Oh, you let our friend Victor—it’s Victor now, isn’t it? What else could it be?—out of his cage. He’s a bit bossy, but it’s just his little way.”
“Please pay attention to me,” Pimm said. “I have questions. You will answer them.”
“I can’t see why I should,” Carrington said. “You hardly seem like the torturing type, Lord Pembroke, you’ll forgive me for saying so. You’re entirely too good-hearted. Why, I doubt you’d even set your great ox of a bodyguard there on me—”
“Oh, he won’t torture you,” Freddy said, from behind Carrington, bending down to speak right in his ear. Ellie was gratified to see the secretary’s smirk slip a fraction. “Pimm will take Her Majesty, and Miss Skye, and even Big Ben there, and they’ll go for a little stroll around the property. That way, the two of us will have some private time together. The peculiar thing is, I don’t even care what you have to say, and even a torrent of true confessions wouldn’t induce me to stop what I plan to do with you. Really, the only way to avoid such a tête-à-tête with me would be—”
“All right!” Carrington said. “I was only w
inding you lot up, anyway. I don’t mind telling you what my master has planned. Why should it matter? You could tell a cow in the stockyards it was about to be slaughtered, but the foreknowledge wouldn’t change its fate.”
“Then tell us,” Pimm said. “And quickly, please.”
“A drink of water wouldn’t go amiss. I gave you lot that courtesy, when you were caged, and confessing one’s sins is such thirsty work—”
Ellie brought Pimm a cup, and he held it to Carrington’s lips, while the man sipped. Carrington smacked his lips appreciatively. “Ah, glorious, glorious. All right. Tell you quickly, you say, but there is some necessary context, of course, isn’t there always? You recall the Crystal Palace, I’m sure, erected for the Great Exhibition?”
“Of course,” Ellie said.
“There you have it. The great glass enclosure made quite an impression on my master—nearly a million square feet, covered in a great construction of cast-iron and glass, simply tons of material, but the whole effect lighter than air! My master was born in a hut made of mud, much longer ago than you would credit or he likes to admit, and seeing construction on such a scale always has a powerful effect on him—”
“Quickly,” Pimm reminded him.
“Your soul lacks poetry,” Carrington said. “But, briefly then: Oswald wishes to enclose all of London, and much of the outlying agricultural areas, in a construction similar to that of the Crystal Palace, though made with more advanced materials. His aim is to make the entire city a sort of greenhouse. Or, more properly, an experimental chamber, one where Sir Bertram himself controls all entries and exits. He envisions an entirely closed system—except when it suits him to open it, to allow imports of food and such, I suppose. The city would become a test site where my master could finally control all the variables, including the climate, the weather, and all other factors he can possibly influence. And, oh, the things he plans to do in that chamber. Introducing transformative potions into the water supply. Chemically castrating criminals. Improving—or dampening—the minds of certain… elements of society. He has toyed with the notion of creating a plague that would transform everyone into true hermaphrodites, partly to finally erase what he perceives as a foolish belief in the difference between the sexes, and partly to create a test population that was more biologically uniform, yet still be capable of breeding. I don’t like that idea—making us all partly female would just make us all partly weak—but I know Sir Bertram won’t believe in the folly of such measures until he has experimental proof. My master would, of course, institute selective breeding programs as well, and why not? If a prize pig can be bred, why not a prize human? That’s why he wants you lot alive—he thinks you’re fine specimens, intelligent and young and fertile, and he hates to waste decent breeding stock. I daresay Sir Bertram’s scientific approach to creating perfect humans would be more successful than the similar ad hoc attempts made by, say, royal families.” He bared his teeth at the Queen. “We’ll have rather less in the way of bulging eyes, vanishing chins, and anemia, I daresay, under his breeding program. Fewer marriages between first cousins, too.”
The Queen drew herself up, but Freddy murmured in her ear, and Her Majesty settled down, though her glare was poisonous.
“That’s madness,” Ellie said. “Who would stand for such a construction, even with a puppet impostor of the Queen lending her support? Even if Oswald managed to replace the entire cabinet with automatons, or all of Parliament, the people would rise up in the face of such madness!”
“At the very least, the people would pilfer all the building materials in the night,” Winnie said, “and nothing would ever be successfully constructed.”
“Ah, but the dome will be beloved by the people,” Carrington said. “And why not? It will be their only protection against the horrible monsters from the void.”
The others frowned, but Ellie understood immediately. “Oswald plans to manufacture a threat, doesn’t he? Some sort of terrible outside peril to frighten the populace into accepting drastic actions in the name of protection?”
“Precisely,” Carrington said. “You’ve heard of the terrible tentacled things that dwell now in the river? They are… escapees… from his early experiments along those lines. And they are only babies. When he unleashes the full-sized creatures on the city, and proves himself the only man capable of protecting us from their ravenous man-eating intentions? With the false Queen supporting him wholeheartedly, crying out for swift action? Of course the people will support a vast building project to keep us safe, and Parliament will pass the New Enclosure Act with all due haste. The legislation has already been drawn up, and awaits only the right moment for introduction. Oswald means to employ nearly every able-bodied man in London to help construct the enclosure, at amazingly generous wages, which will also ensure the project’s popularity. Such payments will exhaust Oswald’s personal fortune and perhaps even the royal treasury, too, but what of it? One of his first acts once the enclosure is sealed will be to abolish money and personal property.” Carrington leaned forward, straining against his ropes. His eyes glimmered with the passion of the true fanatic. “And the marvelous part is, the people still won’t rebel, because they will see the tentacles appearing in the sky, lashing against the newly-built dome, the monsters terrorizing the countryside, and they will hear tales of the beasts laying waste to the remainder of the British Isles… and, perhaps, even the world beyond. They will learn to love the dome.”
“These monsters are more clockwork, I suppose?” Pimm said. “Controlled remotely, like this automaton of the Queen?”
Carrington began to laugh—to giggle, really. “Oh, no. They are real. Very real. Have you ever peered through a microscope at a bit of slimy pond water, Lord Pembroke?”
“I have not had that pleasure.”
“I have,” Freddy said. “The water teems with life—strange creatures, with limbs like hairs, flailing flagella, tiny beasts that devour one another.”
“Oh, yes,” Carrington said. “Sir Bertram made similar observations, and he began to wonder, if there is such a micro world, a place of whirling ferocity beneath our notice, its denizens ignorant of our very existence—was it possible that there was a larger world, inhabited by creatures so much vaster than ourselves that they, too, were effectively invisible to us? Creatures who would view us much as we view amoebae through a magnifying lens? He began to investigate the idea, building exploratory apparatus that, frankly, far exceed my technical understanding. And he found them, out there beyond the stars—in the same way we are beyond a drop of pond water under a microscope. The next step was to call the attention of those creatures. His first experiment… did not go well, and its aftereffects are still visible to any who care to look, though none recognize their import.”
“The aurora anglais,” Ellie said.
“He broke the sky,” Carrington said, almost dreamily. “That setback only energized him, though, and he later learned the secret to opening portals to that distant realm, and observing the creatures therein. Apparently just as all matter is an illusion composed mostly of empty space, all scale is just a matter of perception too, and those vast creatures can be brought down to a… more manageable size. Small enough to enter our world, in fact.”
“And these creatures are monsters?” Ellie said.
“Oh, they might seem so to our eyes. They are inhuman, certainly. Vast, in their own world. Sir Bertram says we can perceive only a small part of their bodies, that portion which intrudes into our gross physical world. He thinks all the manifestations he’s witnessed of these creatures may be segments of a single vast entity, and that the individual ‘creatures’ only appear to have independence because we cannot comprehend the connections between them—much as an ant might think a man’s middle toe and the same man’s eyeball were unrelated objects. These creatures inhabit other dimensions, ones we cannot perceive, he says…” Carrington sighed. “He says a great many things, restating wisdom long known to adherents of certain secret reli
gions, transforming the poetry of faith into terribly dry scientific terminology. I confess, it took some effort to guide Sir Bertram toward the desired outcome. He was reluctant, at first, despite my urgings. He was afraid he would be unable to control the creatures if he allowed them entry to our world. But I convinced him nothing was beyond his power.”
Ellie’s stomach roiled. “Speak plainly, sir. Why did you try to influence Oswald to undertake this course of action?”
“Some people have known of the existence of these creatures for years. For centuries. My own family belongs to a sect devoted to bringing about the coming of these creatures, and we have been about our work for generations. Oswald is not the first to discover their existence. Certain standing stones in the countryside were erected in order to open passageways for them, brief portals that appear only during rare astronomical alignments. Sometimes the portals open in the deep sea, and a few of these old gods—for, understand me, they are as gods to us—slip through, and dwell for years in the deeps. They are the source of most tales of sea serpents, you see, though they cannot live long in our world. Not as our world is now, that is—but they could make certain changes, and transform our Earth into a habitation more hospitable to them… if rather less so for us. But Sir Bertram truly is a genius, at least by human standards, and he has developed the means to create more stable portals, which may be opened at will, and which can allow larger intrusions. Once the old gods can reach into our world whenever they wish, they can send in a few of their numbers—or their fingers—to subdue mankind, and then alter our world to suit their own purposes. After that they can arrive en masse, having cleared their new home of vermin—much as a human might level a forest and burn out a mound of ants and exterminate a colony of rats in order to build a new house on clean ground. Their world is full, you see, they are crammed together there like lengths of firewood stacked for the winter, and they wish to come here, where they may stretch their terrible limbs.”