Horatio Lyle

by Webb, Catherine

  A brass crossbow bolt slammed into the wall by Lyle’s right ear. Lyle yelped and scrambled back. Silence a second longer below, then a renewed, louder shouting and the sound of people on the stairs, running up, getting nearer in a thunder louder than the belting rain.

  He knew when they ran into the fallen needles, because that was when the screaming started.

  The door in the basement had stopped thundering. The silence was, if anything, worse than the noise. Tess held a fat coil of wire and said in a hushed voice, ‘What’s goin’ on?’

  Thomas stared up at the door. ‘We should help them.’

  ‘No! Let’s finish what Mister Lyle said we should do!’

  Thomas swallowed and nodded. ‘Wrap the wire around that beam.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s a Faraday wheel. It creates a magnetic field between two bits of wire by using the electricity from the furnace. We can make a magnetic field across the door.’

  She nodded, thinking about this, then started wrapping the wire round the metal frame of the dresser. Upstairs, she heard a sudden sound of screaming, and hoped it wasn’t Lyle.

  Feng saw the first climber before Lyle, and fired, the flash from the muzzle of the gun blinding in the darkness. The figure fell back, but another pushed into his place, green eyes flashing cat-like, fixing on Feng and Lyle. A second bronze crossbow bolt thudded into the wall by Lyle, who ducked even after it had finished quivering. Another shot from Feng; another body fell back. And another shot. Feng finished his round and, sensing that he needed time to reload, the Tseiqin rushed forward, charging up the stairs in a pile. Lyle pulled out the test tube, held it over the edge of the landing, took a deep breath, and let it go. It fell into darkness. A few seconds later, there was the faint sound of shattering glass, a clink and a whumph. Lyle covered his head with his arms as shattered wood was thrown up the stairs, jagged shards embedding themselves into the ceiling. Shouts and screams drifted upstairs, carried with a thick yellow smoke. Lyle grabbed Feng by the shoulder as the other man slipped the last bullet into the gun and started firing again, dragging him into another room containing a metal bathtub, a washing bowl, a mirror and a small window. Lyle tore a strip off his filthy shirtsleeve, dipped it in the cold water in the bowl and tied it across his nose and mouth. Outside, people were coughing and choking. Yellow smoke lapped at the gap under the door. Lyle thrust a damp cloth at Feng, who hastily tied it around his face as well. Lyle pushed the window open and peered out. Down below, the street was thronged with black-clad, green-eyed Tseiqin. There was a shout, and the crossbow bolt shattered the glass of the window as Lyle dived for cover. Feng shouted over the din of cracking wood and shouting attackers, ‘What now?’

  Wordlessly, Lyle pointed at the ceiling of the small room. There was a hatch in it.

  The door to the room shook under a sudden impact. Feng fired through it. The shaking stopped. Then started again, harder, with renewed vigour. Feng turned to Lyle. ‘Put your foot in my hand.’

  Lyle stepped into Feng’s cupped hand and was pushed up towards the ceiling. He slammed his bloody fist against the hatch, which popped back, and wormed through, pulling himself up over the edge. The door shook again. Feng fired into it, but the shaking kept up regardless. Lyle reached down with one hand. ‘Come on! Take my hand!’

  Feng glanced at Lyle in the darkness, and behind his mask, smiled. He reached into the recesses of his coat, and pulled out a long, slim steel blade. Lyle shook his head. ‘Don’t be bloody stupid! There’s hundreds of them!’

  Feng grinned, a flash of white in the gloom, turned to the door, fired three times through the worn wood, and ran at it, exploding through the wood into darkness.

  Lyle cursed, kicking the hatch shut in the ceiling, and crawled through the darkness for the ladder leading down.

  Thomas ran through the basement as the hammering against the door started again, shaking the dresser that blocked it. He thought he could hear the crunching sound of an axe, but it was hard to tell through the din. The dresser was now wide open, the internal steel frame covered with wire. He found Tess twiddling the last coil of wire into a node on the furnace. Looking along the trails of wire running out of the door, suspended a foot or so above the ground by the tension, he felt a moment’s satisfaction. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and nodded briskly at Tess. ‘All right, now . . .’

  Lyle exploded into the room, dragging off the mask around his nose and mouth. ‘Is it ready?’

  They nodded.

  ‘Right. Go on, Thomas.’

  Thomas pulled a lever. Electricity raced along the wires, and the hammering at the door suddenly stopped. Lyle rushed to the corridor and peered down towards the door into the basement. The wires almost hummed with electricity.

  Silence settled, and in it the sounds that had been previously obliterated slunk back in. They listened to the humming of the spinning magnet above the furnace, to the distant thrumming of the rain, to the rolling of the thunder far off, to each other’s breathing, to footsteps squeaking on floors high above. Thick, noisy silence.

  ‘Mister Lyle?’ Tess’s voice was shaking.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where’s Mr Feng?’

  Lyle didn’t answer. They listened to the furnace ticking busily, to Tate snuffling, to horses’ hooves stamping in the street, to the hiss-crack of a lightning strike fizzling somewhere in the distance, to the drumming of the rain, to a bell, somewhere, striking the hour. Lyle counted the strokes.

  ‘It’s midnight, ain’t it?’ said Tess quietly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mister Lyle? It is goin’ to be all right, ain’t it?’

  Somewhere else, a different clock was striking, as slowly the city reached a uniform decision about the hour. Lyle didn’t answer.

  ‘Mister Lyle?’

  ‘It’ll be all right, Tess.’

  There was the faintest sound in the furnace room. It was the sound of someone groaning. They slipped inside. The single lantern still burnt dimly on the table, dull orange light falling on to the Fuyun Plate.

  Tess walked slowly over to it, and touched its cool surface, rubbing the thin white spots on the Plate. ‘Mister Lyle?’

  ‘I think I know how to destroy the Plate, Tess.’

  She looked up sharply. ‘How?’ asked Thomas.

  ‘Electricity. Not around it - when the lightning struck the box the Plate was in, it must have changed the polarity, rendering the Plate useless to the Tseiqin. But the Plate didn’t have a current through it, just around it. When I passed a small current through it, though, it reacted.’

  There was the faintest sound of a moan again. Lyle looked towards the shape of Vellum, hunched in the darkness. The man was halfway on to his feet. He blinked. ‘Lyle?’ he whispered. Then he looked around and slowly realized where he was. ‘This is an interesting shift in events, wouldn’t you agree?’ he muttered. He straightened up, cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps you can explain what you’re doing here.’

  ‘What I’m doing here?’

  ‘Yes, Constable.’

  ‘This is my house.’

  ‘But Constable . . . why would I be in your house?’ Upstairs, there was a sudden scream. Vellum’s eyes snapped upwards. ‘Good God, what was that?’

  ‘The ill-advised consequence of rash experimentation with phosphorus and acid?’ suggested Lyle wanly.

  ‘Well, we must go and find out!’

  ‘No, sir, that really wouldn’t be wise. How much do you remember?’

  ‘Goddammit, Constable, I am the senior officer here! You, girl, what do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Erm . . . eyeballin’, sir.’

  ‘Do you think you’re being amusing, child?’

  Tess looked helplessly to Lyle for advice. Lyle sighed and walked towards Vellum in a businesslike manner. ‘Inspector, please don’t be offended by this, it’s really for your own good, in every possible sense, but . . .’ He bunched up his fingers, bent his elbow and swung a punch for all he
was worth. Vellum collapsed back on to the floor. Lyle cradled his fist and hopped from foot to foot muttering, ‘Ouch ow ouch ow!’

  Tess rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be a baby, sir.’

  There was a sudden click from the corridor outside. Lyle turned white. ‘Feng?’ he whispered.

  There was a low thud, and silence. The deepest silence of them all. Lyle grabbed Tate, put him into Thomas’s surprised arms, took Tess and Thomas by a shoulder each and started dragging them towards the wardrobe full of scrap metal. ‘In here, now.’

  ‘But Mister Lyle . . .!’

  ‘No arguments!’ He kicked the scrap metal aside and slammed a foot into the back of the wardrobe. It swung open. Beyond it, the dim light fell on sheaves of paper, scrawled with a thousand diagrams. Thomas’s eye fell on one. The pencil diagram on it resembled a form of bird, made entirely of wood and cloth. He felt his heart race, and as Lyle pushed him, Tess and Tate inside, he turned to Lyle, mouth open. Lyle shook his head. ‘Not now, lad.’

  ‘Mister Lyle . . .’ began Tess, wheedling.

  ‘Tess!’ Lyle’s face was white, his voice on edge. ‘Whatever happens, whatever you hear, whatever you think might be happening, you don’t leave this wardrobe until it’s over, you understand? Swear it!’ They didn’t move. ‘Swear it!’

  ‘I promise,’ murmured Tess.

  ‘Thomas!’

  ‘I promise.’

  Lyle swallowed, and nodded. ‘All right. Teresa?’

  ‘Yes, Mister Lyle?’

  ‘You’ve still got the compass?’

  ‘Yes, Mister Lyle.’

  ‘Good. It will tell you when it happens.’ He hesitated, wanting to say something else, but not sure what else it could be. So he smiled, a long, tired smile, and nodded once, and closed the door to the wardrobe, plunging Tess and Thomas into darkness.

  Outside, the wall at the end of the corridor swung open, and a bloody, dishevelled Feng dropped down from the ladder.

  Behind him, unfolding from the darkness, stepped Lady Lacebark.

  CHAPTER 21

  Hand

  The Tseiqin carried torches, simple sticks of wood wrapped with soaked cloths at the top, that gave off a smelly bright light. They descended from the attic ladder behind the glassy-eyed Feng, and filled the doorway, flinching from the wire. Lyle cradled the Plate close to himself and backed away towards the furnace and the spinning magnet, sheltering in its invisible field, pressing his back against the warm metal.

  The Tseiqin came no further than the doorway. Lady Lacebark pushed her way to the front, and smiled at him. Behind her came Moncorvo and Mr Dew. ‘Horatio,’ she said, in a mild, reproving voice. ‘Was it really all worth this?’

  Lyle’s fingers tightened over the Plate. ‘You can’t touch me,’ he muttered. ‘You can’t come into the magnetic field.’

  ‘You could give us the Plate, Horatio. We’re going to take it anyway.’

  Lyle swallowed and edged closer to the coil of wire running from the furnace. ‘Keep back!’

  Lacebark put on a crooked half-shrug of an expression, lips bending up and down all at once, and made a little ‘hum’ sound. ‘Well, if you’re going to be like that.’ She made a gesture. Moncorvo, Lyle noticed, was grinning. Behind him, Mr Dew levelled a bronze crossbow, taking aim at Lyle with malicious slowness.

  Lyle thrust his hand out, holding the Plate over the wire. ‘Shoot me, and I’ll drop it on to the wire. There’s a very large current going through it. I don’t know if it’s enough to destroy the Plate, but I’m prepared to find out.’

  Moncorvo immediately laid a hand on Dew’s arm. Lacebark glared at Moncorvo, who hung his head, then turned back to Lyle, presenting a dazzling smile, only slightly edged with pain to be so close to the magnetic field.

  ‘Why do you think that will intimidate us, Horatio? Do you honestly think you can destroy the Plate?’

  ‘Shoot me and find out.’

  Lacebark sighed. ‘You and your family are all the same, Horatio. Iron in the blood. Do you really think that humanity will be made happier by your twisting of the nature that spawned your kind into straight grey lines?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied simply. ‘But that’s half the adventure, isn’t it?’

  ‘This is your last chance, Horatio. Give us the Plate.’

  ‘No.’

  She sighed fractionally, and moved to one side. Feng stepped forward, glassy-eyed. From behind him, sleepwalker style, emerged the nightrobe-clad shape of Miss Mercy Chaste. Lyle started to see her there, heart sinking. Feng, gaze fixed sightlessly on Lyle, pulled out a gun and pointed it calmly, levelly, at Mercy’s left temple.

  Lacebark said quietly, ‘And now, Mister Lyle?’

  He stared into Mercy’s empty eyes, and, hating himself and the churning in his stomach, said, ‘You’ve been watching me. You know she means nothing to me. An inconvenience. Nothing more.’

  ‘Is your heart of iron too?’ asked Lacebark quietly.

  And, in a low, level voice, Feng said, jaw moving as if it was being controlled by a puppeteer, ‘Lyle is bluffing.’

  ‘I don’t have the talent to bluff,’ snapped Lyle.

  ‘But we don’t bluff,’ snapped Moncorvo. ‘Pull the trigger!’

  Feng pulled the hammer back from the gun, moving quickly, and Lyle knew he was going to do it, and knew he couldn’t let him. ‘Wait!’ He’d spoken even before his thoughts had finished racing. ‘Wait.’ Voice quieter. The fear filled him from top to toe. ‘Wait.’

  Lacebark was smiling at him. Dew was grinning. Mercy’s face was expressionless, her arms limp at her sides.

  ‘Give us the Plate, Horatio.’

  Lyle looked from Feng to Mercy to Lacebark, then to the Plate. He slowly moved it from where it hung over the wire, and held it up ponderously, staring at the plain stone surface. He looked up, and stared straight into Mercy’s vacant eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, and closed his bloody left hand over the Plate, pressing the skewer of wood deep into his palm. Lacebark started forward, shouting, ‘Shoot him!’ - too late. Blood flowed from his hand, slipping into the Plate, turning the stone deep black-red.

  The stone erupted in red sparks, leaping up from the blood-soaked plate and around the room. The magnet on the furnace screamed. Lyle couldn’t hold on to the Plate as it leapt from his fingers, trailing blood and blood-red sparks. Metal shattered, bent, flew across the room towards the Plate, which spun wildly as a whirlwind of metal formed a thick, deadly tornado in the centre of the room, focused on the Plate. The Tseiqin were screaming, clutching at their ears. Some were bleeding, white blood running down from their noses and ears, the metal slicing through the air with a scream. The fat coils of wire leapt up, dragging anything they were attached to with them, and snaked in the air like a waking dragon. Lyle heard the creak of the metal furnace behind him and half-turned. The furnace doors burst open, spurting fire, the wire around the magnet contorted and lashed, breaking into pieces and flying towards the centre of the room, the magnet buckling and twisting, the furnace warping and bending. Lyle ran for a corner, diving for cover as, with a twisted scream, the furnace ruptured, spewing hot fire across the room. He hit the floor and curled up, hands over his head, knees tucked in. With a final groan, the giant metal furnace exploded, tortured beyond all extremes by forces pushing every which way, red sparks pouring off it in a bloody flood.

  Tess felt the explosion rise up through her feet all the way to the tips of her hair, and thought that perhaps the world had ended. The noise went on so long that she began to think it wasn’t noise at all, but perfect silence, and she was deaf. The shock wave pushed her and made bile rise in her throat, made Tate curl up at her foot and whimper. When it was over, she wasn’t even sure it was over, because the after-ring in her mind went on and on, a deafening roar of shattered worlds. Over the burning sound left in her ears, she heard the clink of falling masonry, the hiss of dying flames, the clicking of cooling tortured metal, the thud of debris falling to the earth, and
ultimately, a very final silence.

  She crouched on her hands and knees and peered out through the narrow gap under the wardrobe. A hand was right in front of her, bloody and still, the fingers bent loosely in the middle to form a shallow arch, the blood pooling gently around it. She saw a torn sleeve attached to an arm and, just behind it, the top of a head of sandy hair, turned away from her, so that all she could make out was a small halo of hair beyond the arm, utterly motionless. She held her breath and kept as still as a stone while the silence dragged. Finally there was a voice, so faint and far off, she could barely hear it. Then footsteps. Then a voice.

  ‘Mr Dew’s assistant is dead,’ said a voice like black leather.

  ‘Unfortunate,’ said a silken voice, slightly shaken. ‘Feng? Take the Plate.’

  There was a click. A foot appeared in front of the bloody hand, shod in black leather. The point of a crossbow appeared in Tess’s line of view. Thomas’s breathing behind her was deafeningly loud. A voice said, ‘Wait.’ A different shoe appeared, a woman’s. ‘He can still be of use to us.’

  The crossbow tip wavered. The tip of the shoe prodded the limp arm. Tess heard the click of metal cooling, like the heartbeat of time. A black-leather-gloved hand reached down and picked up the arm, dragging the head with it. As it went up, Tess saw that blood was trickling with slow thickness down one side of Lyle’s still face, and that his eyes were closed, his face relaxed, like one in sleep. Then it disappeared out of her line of sight. Behind her, she could hear Thomas’s frantically fast breathing, and thought, Don’t give us away. Oh God I don’t want to die, please, please don’t hear . . .

  She heard footsteps across the floor, and a slow dragging sound behind them. Somewhere, thunder was rolling, rain falling. The little sounds behind the silence started to slip back in. She held her breath, and kept on holding. Hot metal cooled.

  Tick tick tick . . .