Horatio Lyle

by Webb, Catherine

  The magnet above the furnace, spinning in the fat coil of wire, suddenly accelerated, humming inside its bracket. Lyle looked down at the Plate. Where his bloody hand had touched the stone, red sparks were pooling, rushing back and forth across the Plate. Lyle stood up, holding the Plate. Sparks were flying off the metal furnace. And leaping out of Feng’s pocket, where the gun sat. Feng took it out slowly, a look of surprise on his face, as red sparks also leapt off the metal of the gun. Lyle could feel the Plate pulling in his hand, tugging towards the large bulk of the furnace. He tightened his grip on it, and tried to drag it away from the iron. As it moved through the air in his grasp, it trailed more red sparks, which flew towards the furnace and bounced noisily off the iron, before sinking leisurely down to earth.

  Around the room, cupboards were shaking, anything metal was giving off red sparks, screws screaming as they tried to get out, the metallic compounds in their glass tubes bubbling and bouncing, the central table shaking from its internal iron rivets, the large wardrobe full of bits of scrap metal in one corner flying open and the metal crawling across the floor towards the Plate and Lyle. The metal trigger of Feng’s gun, drawn towards the magnet, compressed and fired. The shot bounced away, but didn’t reach the ceiling. Lyle threw the Plate to one side hastily and dived for cover under the table as the bullet headed straight for the Plate and clung to it like a flea to blood. Feng tossed the gun aside and ducked as a metal tripod flew across the room. Lyle grabbed the whimpering Tate and pulled him into safety under the table.

  At the door to the room, Tess and Thomas appeared. Tess took one look at the whirlwind of metal and grabbed Thomas by the scruff of the neck, dragging him back behind the door and slamming it firmly shut. In the room, the giant electric bulbs guttered and exploded, showering glass and hot metal. The flames of the candles stretched, always bending the same way, always towards the Plate, then the metal candlesticks they sat on lifted up and joined the funnel of spiralling metal, spewing hot wax everywhere. Lights went out, except for the red sparks still flying around the Plate. Lyle felt the table above him wobbling, and clung to the table leg. Outside, there was a dull thud as something large slammed into the shut wooden door, which was straining on its hinges. The spinning magnet above the furnace was rocking back and forth, one side inexorably drawn towards the Plate, while the gears that drove it screamed in indignant pain. Lyle heard something go thunk and winced. The pipes in the ceiling strained and started to bend as they were drawn downwards, the furnace doors flew open, spewing out gushing flame, the wires screamed and . . .

  It stopped. There was a clatter as bits of metal quickly fell to the ground and lay still. There was a slow whir as the magnet above the furnace started spinning again, slowly and stately, as if nothing had happened. The only light came from the flames still flickering out of the open furnace doors. At the end of the room, the other door opened. A frying pan had embedded itself in the wood. From under it, Tess peered, pale-faced. By the light of the furnace, she looked round the room, and finally saw Lyle, huddled with Tate in his arms, under the table. Somewhere, overhead and far outside the house, thunder rolled.

  ‘Jesus,’ she breathed. ‘What the hell did you people do?’

  CHAPTER 19

  Blood

  ‘This is going to sound unscientific . . .’ began Lyle.

  ‘But . . .’ prompted Tess.

  ‘Human blood.’

  Thomas shut the furnace door while Lyle held his last match to a slightly bent-looking lantern, and set it on the table. Tate picked his way across a floor strewn with debris. Feng slowly and carefully reloaded his gun in the shadows just beyond the orange lantern light. The Fuyun Plate rested innocently on the table. Lyle kept his bloody left hand, the sliver of wood still lodged beneath the skin, as far from the Plate as he could. ‘Perhaps it’s something to do with the iron content in the blood?’ he suggested hopefully. Feng sighed. Lyle started turning red. ‘Or it might just be that it’s human blood, the essence of our lives and souls and . . . other spiritual . . . matters . . .’ he hazarded unevenly.

  ‘You mean . . . you get blood on that, an’ it goes mad?’ suggested Tess cautiously.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You sure? You don’t want to try and . . .’

  ‘No!’

  Thomas picked his way over to the desk, gathering up bits and pieces automatically as he went, and putting them on the side carefully, not sure what they did, but impressed anyway.

  Lyle was watching Feng. He said in an almost fatherly voice, ‘You don’t know how to destroy it, do you?’

  Feng stopped reloading his gun, glanced up once, saw Lyle’s face, looked away again and went right on slotting bullets into the cylinder. Somewhere, thunder rumbled again, crawling up through the feet and down through the house. In the silence after it died away, Thomas said, ‘I didn’t know that there was going to be thunder tonight.’

  Lyle looked up at the ceiling, as if he could see straight through it. ‘There wasn’t. The clouds weren’t right, the pressure was too high.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Tess finally.

  Thomas swallowed. ‘Thunderstorms are magnetic, aren’t they, Mister Lyle?’

  Lyle nodded slowly, each nod turning his head until he looked at Feng again. He said quietly, ‘The priests put it in an iron box. The iron box was hit by lightning, wasn’t it? A thunderstorm.’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘Is there any mention of why there’s a thunderstorm?’

  Silence. ‘Thomas?’

  ‘Yes, Mister Lyle?’

  ‘There’s a small box of magnets somewhere. Painted red at one end.’

  Thomas nodded quickly and started scouring the floor. Lyle began opening drawers in the desk around one side of the wall, until he found something small and shiny that fitted easily into the palm of the hand. ‘Teresa?’

  Tess darted over. He handed it to her. She frowned at it. On the cover were the initials HL, engraved in flowery lettering. She opened it up. It was a compass, the internal dial swinging so that the North marker always pointed the same way no matter which way she spun it. She glanced up towards Lyle, eyebrows raised. He knelt down until his face was level with hers and said quietly, ‘If it happens, when it happens, go to Lincoln. Tell him everything. If it happens, and it happens badly, follow the compass. It will be drawn towards the nearest strong magnetic pole. Follow it to the Plate. Don’t try and help. You’ve got to get to Lincoln, you’ve got to tell him what’s happening. Don’t let Thomas do anything stupid.’

  She nodded once, and slipped the compass into her pocket. ‘I promise, Mister Lyle.’

  He smiled, and briefly laid his hand on her shoulder, resting it there for just a second, before he stood up and without a word turned back to the table.

  There was a knock on the door upstairs. Every pair of eyes immediately tried to read every other pair of eyes. Tate started to whimper. Lyle said quietly, ‘That was quick.’

  ‘Could we pretend we ain’t here?’

  There was another thunderous knocking, and a voice, very faint. ‘Constable Lyle, I know you’re in there!’

  ‘Oh no,’ whimpered Lyle, putting his head in his hands.

  ‘You know this voice?’ asked Feng sharply.

  ‘Inspector Vellum,’ muttered Thomas.

  The knocking went on. Lyle sighed, straightened up, brushed himself down self-consciously to no effect, and said in a falsely determined voice, ‘Right.’

  Upstairs, the more formal appearance of the house was made larger and darker by the dim lamplight. Lyle opened the door with the chain still on and frowned out at Vellum, standing in the street, swathed in a coat. ‘Yes?’ A cold wind was blowing from the black sky, smelling of thick static and heavy clouds.

  ‘Constable Lyle,’ said Vellum in a voice surprisingly neutral for his usual disposition. ‘I have a warrant to search your house.’ He held up a piece of paper.

  Lyle stared at it in surprise. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Be
so kind as to admit me, Constable Lyle.’

  Lyle slid the chain off the door suspiciously, and immediately Vellum’s foot stuck across the threshold. He pushed his way through the door and looked slowly round. ‘The light of illumination, ’ he murmured, eyes falling on Tess, holding the lantern. ‘“What light through yonder window breaks?”’ He blinked icily at Tess. ‘Are you familiar with Shakespeare?’

  Lyle glanced out of the door behind him, and frowned, slipping it shut and drawing the chain back across it. ‘Inspector, where’s your support?’

  ‘Do we need support, Constable?’ asked Vellum. Lyle took another look at the warrant in his hand, and his frown deepened. He slowly scrutinized Vellum again.

  ‘Inspector?’

  ‘We might as well save ourselves difficulty, Constable Lyle,’ continued Vellum, seemingly oblivious. ‘Lord Lincoln has sent me to take the Plate back to him.’

  Lyle blinked. ‘Excuse me?’ He felt cold. His stomach was turning. There was something almost obsidian in Vellum’s unblinking stare.

  ‘The Plate, Constable Lyle. For Lord Lincoln.’

  Vellum’s hand was resting lightly in his coat pocket. Lyle found his eyes drawn inexorably towards it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said politely, his voice acquiring an edge. ‘I destroyed it.’

  Vellum’s eyes flickered. ‘I hardly see how, Constable Lyle.’

  ‘Oh, it was really very easy, Inspector Vellum. Exposure to a massive magnetic field - have you ever been in a large magnetic field, Inspector - passage of an electric current, a little blood, a few sparks, a little lightning - have you ever been hit by lightning, Inspector? - nothing that someone who lives and breathes iron, breathes it, Inspector, can’t do.’

  Vellum’s hand was halfway out of his pocket, the gun gleaming in it, when Feng rose up behind him, said, ‘Excuse me, Inspector?’ and swung a large, meaty fist into the Inspector’s expression of grim hatred. Vellum crumpled with a little sigh, the gun falling from his hand. Feng kicked it casually to one side, and peered down at the unconscious form of the inspector.

  ‘What is this?’ he asked politely.

  Lyle sighed. ‘They found Vellum.’ There was a thunderous knocking at the door. ‘Or possibly they just offered to read his poetry.’

  The knocking suddenly stopped. A soft, female voice drifted through, like silk. ‘Horatio?’ Lyle glanced at Feng. No one moved. ‘Horatio, where will you go? Who can help you? All you need to do is give us the Plate, and we’ll leave. We’ll let you go, Horatio. If you give it to us now, we may even let you survive the storm, our coming storm, let you share in the wonder of the new world. You and your friends. Think of the children, Horatio. Think of the screams of your friends.’

  Feng thoughtfully picked up Vellum’s fallen gun, and slipped it into his pocket. Lyle said, ‘Help me carry Vellum downstairs.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘He’ll be killed if we leave him up here. Come on.’

  ‘Horatio?’ Lady Lacebark’s voice drifted down the stairs after them, like a living thing seeking them out. ‘We can bring you happiness. A new, clear world, free from the black smoke of choking machines. A cleaner, purer world, Horatio. Just give us the Plate.’

  Lyle and Feng laid the unconscious Vellum in the corner of the furnace room. Thomas was holding a small box of magnets. Lyle took it quickly from him, laying it down on the table, next to the Plate. Feng’s eyes were fixed icily on the Plate, his expression grim.

  ‘Thomas, help Feng move furniture across the door here.’

  Thomas nodded quickly, hesitated in front of the frozen Feng, glanced at Tess, then grabbed Feng’s sleeve, pulled on it sharply and said, ‘Come on!’ Feng snapped back to awareness, glanced at Thomas, seemed to see him for the first time, then nodded. The two disappeared into the corridor outside the furnace room.

  Lyle was frantically tipping magnets on to the table. He grabbed one and held it up next to the Plate. It trembled in his fingers. He let it go. It stuck to the Plate. He pulled out another and held it on the other side of the Plate. It also stuck. Lyle grimaced. ‘What’s it mean?’ asked Tess, her hand white where she clung to the compass.

  ‘It means that this plate is polarized. Pass me that wire, will you?’

  She passed it. Lyle dropped two ends of the wire into the bowl, placing the other two ends in a large glass beaker, selected a bottle from a shelf and poured the contents into the beaker. It hissed, like acid, as it sloshed into the glass. Sparks flashed up from the Plate where the wires touched. And the plain grey stone started, very faintly, to whiten. Lyle grinned.

  Upstairs, the door thundered under a sudden shocked impact. Tess watched as the faint pinpricks of whiteness spread through the stone.

  ‘What’s it mean?’

  ‘I’m beginning to understand, Tess.’ Lyle tossed the wires to one side, and looked up sharply as, somewhere, a bell rang.

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘Someone’s just smashed a window.’ He handed her a magnet. ‘Don’t let go of this for anything.’ He opened a cupboard full of test tubes, chose three and passed them to her. ‘Don’t mix the red and the blue unless you’re standing at least five feet away,’ he said quickly. ‘The grey will smoke and spark, but it won’t hurt you. Use them in an emergency.’

  She nodded, swallowing down her fear. Upstairs, there was a short, sharp scream. She flinched. ‘What’s that?’ Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  ‘Someone’s just tried to force a lock.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  Feng and Thomas reappeared in the corridor. Thomas was carrying an iron poker in one hand. Lyle pushed magnets at both of them, without a word. Upstairs, the floor sang as someone walked across it. Lyle ran to the furnace, and started turning dials. The magnet spinning in its coil started to scream, spinning round in a blur. ‘Thomas, get that wire!’ he snapped, pointing at a fat coil. ‘Tess, the steps.’

  Tess dragged a short set of wooden steps over to the side of the furnace. Lyle grabbed the thick industrial wire, climbed up the steps and started wrapping the wire round metal nodes sticking out of the generator. When he was happy with this, he dragged a heavy brass lever down, and for a second the magnet stopped spinning. Then something clicked. The magnet started spinning again, blurring with speed. Lyle jumped down from the steps as another bell started ringing in the corridor.

  ‘They’re on the stairs.’

  They peered out into the dark corridor beyond the furnace room at the dresser Thomas and Feng had dragged across the door. It started to shake as a new, nearer knocking began. Lyle put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder. ‘Lad? You know about the principle of a Faraday wheel?’

  ‘I think so. Induction by an alternating current . . .’

  ‘That dresser has a steel frame inside it.’

  Thomas glanced from Lyle’s face to the thick coil of wire running down uselessly from the furnace, then back again. He nodded. ‘Yes, sir!’

  Lyle glanced at Feng. He had his gun out, and was poised like a tiger. ‘Come on, you.’

  The door thundered once again.

  CHAPTER 20

  Siege

  Lyle led Feng to the far end of the corridor, and stopped in front of a plain bit of wall. He kicked it on a scuffed area of wallpaper, and the whole end of the corridor swung out. Beyond it was a ladder, steep and in darkness. They started climbing up the passage full of warm, stagnant air, while somewhere above the house, thunder rumbled again, the sound bouncing down the passageway. Behind them, the section of opening wall slid shut, plunging the ladder into darkness. They kept climbing, feeling their way up the tight corridor, until the ladder abruptly stopped. There was a dull thunk as Lyle drove his elbow into a loose wood panel to one side. It gave way stiffly, falling away to let in the pale grey light of evening. Lyle crawled through it on hands and knees. Feng followed.

  They were in an attic, heavy rain hammering down on the sloped, low triangular roof, which was too shallow
to let anyone stand. A dim light seeped through a window at the far end. Lyle crawled through a maze of trunks and bags, dusty with age and neglect, until he reached a trapdoor. He opened it very carefully and peered down at the corridor below. It was empty. Voices drifted up the stairs, shouting orders. Feng quietly cocked his pistol. Lyle swung round so that he was half-sitting on the edge of the trapdoor, then dropped down heavily on to the corridor below. Feng followed, landing in cat-like silence. Lyle crept to the edge of the corridor, motioning at Feng to avoid certain floorboards, and peered down at the stairs below.

  In the darkness, he could hear Feng’s low breathing, and feel him as a hot presence to his side. He whispered, ‘We’ ve got to draw them away.’

  Feng nodded wordlessly. Lyle reached into his tattered pockets and pulled out the small bundle of needles. Unwrapping them, he tossed the whole lot down on to the stairs below the landing where they stood, hearing them clatter faintly as they fell. It was going to be difficult to clear up, he reasoned, but it had to be done. He then pulled out one last test tube. It was larger than the others, and full to the brim of a compacted yellow powder.

  ‘When this is exposed to air,’ said Lyle quietly, ‘it will smoke and burn. Whatever you do, don’t breathe the fumes.’

  Feng nodded soundlessly. Lyle took a deep breath and shouted, ‘Coo-eeee!’ There was a sudden silence from a long way below. ‘Erm . . . yes . . .’ mumbled Lyle, then, ‘Hello! Can we talk about this at all? I mean, insurance alone is . . .’