The House of Storms

by Ian R. MacLeod

  ‘Think of these two armies, Marion, facing each other. My forces, I admit to you in all honesty, are stretched. If we are to attack, we must do so soon, and before the West’s numbers further entrench and increase. The West, on the other hand, knows that it must cauterise this advance. In either event, both sides must attack. Of course, such a large counterbalancing movement as the West has performed will have weakened their reserves on other fronts. My so-called masters may not yet thank me for it, but I have given them the opportunity to push towards Bristol from the north. One way or another, and most likely tomorrow, the cannons will roar across this entire theatre of war. Endless blood will be spilt, much though both sides might protest that further slaughter is the last thing they desire.

  ‘But consider this. Consider what would happen if all telephone lines in England were corrupted by the surge of a single spell. The main reckoning engines would instantly crash. Moments later, the power supply across all of England would also freeze. The trams would cease running, the trains would have to stop. In the great buildings, the lifts would jam. Everywhere, cold and lightless dark would soon reign. Pumps would cease working. Soon, there would be little fuel or water or gas. But more than that. My artillery-aimers, for example, who download their target information into numberbeads, would be entirely lost. The whole flow of data and electricity and information which lubricates a modern army would grind to a halt. I’m not saying that the guns wouldn’t still fire, Marion. But, soldiers being the guildsmen that they are, there would be few enough of them once the flow of orders came to a halt. Do you see my point?’

  ‘You’re entirely wrong,’ Marion said, ‘about people not dying. My—the hospitals, so many systems which rely on power and information and order… Sewerage would back up. There would be chaos.’

  ‘Ah—chaos!’ Alice gave a merry laugh. ‘So unlike this world we currently find ourselves in, eh? But I’m pleased that you believe me when I say that this thing is possible. Now let me tell you something else. You and I are not the only people heartily sick of this war. Think of poor Ralph. Think of the ordinary soldier and citizen. Think, even, of the people who followed you to Invercombe. They’re all looking for new leadership, Marion, and for some other way. Why, otherwise, do they all chant your name? That disillusion isn’t just something which the greatgrandmasters in their halls in London and Bristol are aware of—it’s something they fear, and share. They, too, have lost loved ones and investments. Their guilds have weakened. Their authority has been compromised. This spell, the small destructive act which I am proposing, would give them the excuse they crave to change the course down which they are careering. In the shifterms when no proper war could be waged, and whilst the grids and systems are reconstructed, their only option would be to talk of peace.’

  Peace—such a strange word to hear from the shapely lips of this creature. But she was persuasive, and the one thing Marion didn’t doubt about Alice Meynell was that she, if anyone, could do these things. But there were obvious questions. ‘Tell me, greatgrandmistress. If this thing were to happen, what would you stand to gain from it?’

  Alice smiled again. It was an acknowledgement, a sharing. We two can speak frankly to each other. Out there—yes, Marion, I know you feel the same—we find nothing but dullards, followers and fools. ‘My guild, Marion, has been at least as ravaged by this war as any other. All this picking and unpicking, we might as well be done with it and reconstruct a new national grid. But that’s incidental. I’m not the person I once was, Marion. I’ve come to accept that I, too, must change. And, being who I am, the world, as well, must change about me. For me, this advance is the last throw of the dice. I can’t return to London as I was. The West may win eventually, but those who once urged prosecution of this war will only face recrimination. There will be trials, inquiries. Stones better left as they are will be upturned. And look at me. Look at me now. See who I am …’

  The figure in the mirror seemed to thin before Marion’s eyes. Alice Meynell was silvered glass, a trick of light and darkness. She was scarcely anything at all. ‘I cannot go on as I am, Marion. I must change.’

  ‘I presume you want to enter Invercombe. Why should—’

  ‘Far from it. All of this can be accomplished by my staying here at Einfell and you remaining there at Invercombe. This is, after all, a technological Age. The spell itself can be transmitted easily enough. I imagine that Ralph, ill as he is, would be more than capable of overseeing such a thing. As I say, the link to the Eastern telephone system should be running very soon. In fact, I believe I can feel it now.’ Alice gave a smile. She, the glass she was in, shivered. All that remains now is for you to link Invercombe back into the Western system by reactivating the transmission house which lies at the borders of your estate. I could tell you exactly what to do, but I’m sure Ralph could do so just as well. Of course, it’s Telegrapher’s work, and he’d have to reveal a few secrets, but, in a situation such as this, I hardly think that’s a matter for concern.’

  ‘So—we reconnect Invercombe to the Western telephone system, which will then be wrecked. And meanwhile I’m supposed to trust that you will allow the East to suffer the same fate?’

  ‘Ah. Yes.’ You think exactly as I would … ‘As if this were all a ploy for me to hasten the East’s victory! And why should you trust me, eh? But perhaps you trust Ralph—or at least trust him not to turn this into an act of military sabotage? As a Telegrapher, he will be able to tell just how much of England’s telephone network is connected. If I were to attempt a clumsy feint, he would simply withhold the spell. In any case, Marion, that isn’t what I want. What I want is an end to this war …’

  Somewhere, the wind was blowing. Somewhere, Invercombe’s clocks were chiming. But, for all that Alice Meynell had spoken of its shortage, time here balanced effortlessly on a single instant. There was much—above all, the purity of the greatgrandmistress’s motives—that Marion doubted. But at the end of the day, it was down to this. She could either say yes. Or she could say no.

  ‘One last thing, Marion. I’m not going to talk about the consequences of our not taking this course of action. You can make your own calculations. But for this spell to work—and I don’t mean in some technical or guilded or political sense—it has to seem to be more than just some vast power cut. After all, the people of England have already had their lives disrupted by failure. The spell must appear to have meaning. It must, indeed, be more than what it is. I won’t bore you with the detailed phrasing the spells requires, but, to the onlookers, which will of course be us all, it will come in three quick beats. Syllables. A single phrase …

  Ma-ri-on.

  ‘Across all of England, Marion. From every cable and device and machine, your name will be heard. Me, I’m just a greatgrandmistress. But you—you are legend. If this is to be done, and if it is to work, it must be done in your name, Marion Price, or not at all.’

  Why…

  But…

  So many questions, but they were falling from her now. just as Marion Price herself was falling. The greatgrandmistress’s logic was persuasive. It was near-seamless. And this damn thing that she had carried with her all the way to Invercombe, and which had grown and grown—by doing this, she could turn all the scrawled walls and the songs and the triple-beating guns and the pleading hands into something useful. In the process, she might even find out who she really was.

  Marion heard something. A creaking, a ticking. She realised that it came from the ferocious pressure of her own hand as it gripped the dialling handle. ‘How much time do we have?’

  ‘Very little—hours. By morning, battle will begin in full. But you must get to that transmission house. I cannot do these things for you, Marion. I cannot arouse further suspicions by doing more than I have already done. But you need to speak to Ralph, Marion. He, too, has his role in this. Send him back here to this booth as soon as you can.’

  ‘He’s very ill.’

  ‘But he’s a fighter, isn’t he? He’s the s
on of his mother…’

  ‘And what should I tell him?’

  ‘Tell him…’ Alice Meynell paused. Her expression changed. ‘Tell him, we’ll soon find out.’

  Then the mirror hung blank. All Marion saw before her was herself.

  There were already stirrings, for by now the near-presence of these two armies had been observed by others as well, but Marion found Ralph sitting at the long white table in the west parlour with the first course of soup cooling before him. He looked even paler now. Almost like Alice Meynell in the moment when the mirror had seemed to fail her.

  ‘I’ve just been on the telephone,’ Marion said, ‘speaking to your mother.’

  This was surely some joke, and Ralph attempted a smile.

  Carefully, slowly, her heart once again racing, Marion sat down. The soup, sloppily ladled, remained uncollected, and voices grew louder in the inner hall as she explained. Even without these things she was telling Ralph, Invercombe was falling towards panic and disorder.

  Ralph, to his credit, listened. The only times she had to pause were for his coughing spasms. There was nothing he didn’t seem to understand.

  ‘Do you trust her?’ he said eventually.

  Marion shook her head. ‘I believe she’s done terrible things. It’s unnatural—no one is as well preserved as she is—everything about her is entirely wrong. I even think that she’s more responsible than anyone else for this bloody war.’

  Ralph’s sunken eyes gazed at, and then through, her. He knew far more about Alice Meynell than he could admit to himself, let alone to her. And breath by breath, pulse by pulse, he was diminishing. Marion couldn’t help selfishly wondering if he was up to this thing.

  ‘Ralph, there was something she wanted me to say to you. Just a phrase—We’ll soon find out.’

  Ralph smiled. Slowly, he nodded. ‘It was what we used to say to each other when we were travelling, wondering what the next place we came to would be like …’ Hands slipping on the tablecloth, cutlery jingling, he climbed up from his chair. There were red spillages, Marion noticed, on the tablecloth, although the wine they had left untouched was white. ‘We must get started …’

  These were the things, he whispered—hands too weak to tremble, too frail to feel cold, laid on hers—that she must do to re-energise the transmission house on Invercombe’s borders and open the way to the West.

  ‘Funny,’ she said to him. ‘That folly—it always looked so appealing in the distance. Yet we never went there.’

  The hands still kept their hold. ‘You can’t go alone.’

  ‘Why draw attention to—’

  ‘You don’t understand, Marion. The two armies will be making reconnaissance, finding out resistances and the lie of the land.’

  ‘We can’t fight—that’s the whole point.’

  ‘They won’t be looking to engage. If you come across a Western scout party in the darkness, all you need do is fire a few shots. They’ll retreat, and report back. That’s how it works.’

  Ralph’s flesh was heat now. Fierce and remote as the sun. All this talk of the chaos of battle, and suddenly he was explaining the whole thing as some courtly dance.

  ‘Take some of the deserters with you, Marion. They’ve been soldiers, and they’ll follow you anywhere.’

  ‘But where’s Klade … ?’

  Guns were shouldered, bullets were counted, and the deserters passed along the lit terrace beside Invercombe’s tall and beautiful windows as a shine of faces and metals, with the bale-hound trotting ahead and the ravener, the hackles of its huge and mangy pelt raised, loping warily behind. The other followers had gathered on the terrace to watch, and they chanted and cheered. Pipes gave their familiar discordant toot. A space formed around Marion and Ralph.

  ‘How will you know when I’ve reached to the place?’ she asked.

  Lightning flickered. Ralph raised himself more upright. ‘I’ll know as soon as the connection is made.’

  ‘And if nothing happens?’

  He smiled. ‘Then we’ll be no worse off than we are.’ Thunder boomed.

  ‘So—’

  In a whistling rush, a shell came to split the parterre gardens with light. The air grew solid in their faces and then fell away in a hissing suck as scraps of shrapnel, still writhing and aether-energised, tinkled down.

  ‘That was bound to happen,’ Ralph said calmly as vegetation sparked and burned. ‘It could be the East, or more probably the West. The gunners are testing their aim,. making themselves known. It won’t damage the telephone lines—they’re buried underground. Now go. Go … !’

  Marion turned. She and the deserters headed off into the night, and then Ralph, who had sent many such groups into dark uncertainties, limped back inside the house with the other followers. Clearing the blockage in his throat, he issued instructions that everyone should move down into the servants’ halls, where they would be safe from any stray shell. Not that he expected any significant bombardment, but he needed to be alone.

  His feet dragged as he crossed the floor of the west parlour, where the candles which had been lit for their meal had long guttered out. The inner hall was emptier and brighter, blazing under the electric chandelier, and he was glad that he had to haul himself no further, and especially not ascend those stairs. His breath was loud in his head now. His heart was pounding. If anything, he felt yet more dreamily remote from this house than he had when he’d first entered it inside the fishtank of that helmet. In a few moments, he would speak again to his mother. It seemed quite impossible, yet he didn’t feel a fraction of doubt. This was the work he had started that snowy day outside Hereford, and tonight, one way or another, he and it and the war would be ended for good.

  Just a few more steps to reach the booth now. Then he could rest his body, exercise his mind. At least there were no more shells. Not yet, anyway. He wondered, indeed, if he’d lied to Marion about the intentions of these armies, and if it mattered, and just how much he really loved her, and what had happened to poor Klade, and how little any of them had left to lose. Then, vaguely, happily, he thought of Helen back in London, and how Flora and Augustus—Gussie—would probably sleep through all of this as London fell darkly quiet. And in the morning. Well, in the morning …

  Ralph paused, swaying. He realised he wasn’t alone. The changed figures Klade called the Shadow Ones had emerged from Invercombe’s hidden spaces. Silvery-light as stirred fragments of dust, scented with sea and stone and Age-old wood, crossing the carpet in shifts and sighs, they struck him no longer as sad or terrible, but queerly beautiful. Ralph left the door of the telephone booth open, and their presence was around him as he dialled. All the pain passed from him as he made the connection to Einfell, and his head was filled with inexpressible song.

  XVIII

  KLADE SCURRIED ACROSS THE FLICKERING NIGHT landscapes of Invercombe’s grounds in the wake of Marion Price and the other Outsiders. A thunderous rushing came out of the sky. Trees, madly ragged with endless autumn, flared. Rages of wind battered his face. But he was Klade and he was the Bonny Boy and this was the scene of battle. He was not deterred.

  The sky split again in a white gash. Shadows splayed across the dying ground. The earth erupted into light, then smoke, then falling cascades of stones. Klade glanced back towards Inver-something. Joined by pillars of light and dark, it was now the fulcrum of earth and sky. The house was the war and it was the storm, and the earth was turning beneath his feet and the air hung solid as he ran. More light came, further off this time; a glowing rush. He found the other Outsiders as they cowered amongst the bushes amid curses and the click of guns.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ Marion Price’s voice. ‘Klade …’ Her face was paler now amid the deep silence between the thunder-guns. A heart. A mask. ‘You must go back.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘This isn’t safe.’ Her hand on his cheek. This time, he didn’t flinch.

  ‘Where is safe?’ he said.

  Some of the other Outsiders chuckle
d. He saw Marion Price smile. ‘Then stay by me. We must move on.’

  Klade had no idea where they were heading, although he knew that something vital must be accomplished with as much speed and stealth as was possible—something which would extinguish this war. Knew also, as if it needed knowing as the guns thundered their deep Ma-ri-on songs all around them, that they must do all that was necessary to protect Marion Price. And here ahead, on a slight rise, gloriously crystalline, rainbowed turrets raised like a beckoning hand.

  This strange edifice of glassy stone seemed to move towards them across the wrecked ground. Almost there. The other Outsiders scanned the falling silence with the cold black eyes of their guns. For all its glinting strangeness, this building was no ghost, for a path led to its mock turrets. There was a door, even, towards which Marion Price, breaking from the protective corral of Outsiders, began to run. Klade ran with her as well, and it was in that moment that the darkness emptied in the flare of bullets.

  Alice Meynell reached deep inside her portmanteau as, breathing its lost glamours, little more than a breath herself, she scooped up the wyreblack pages in her translucent hands. The ideographs, white swirls of aethered ink, comets, turning planets, circling stars, sang out to her. It was the same with the commonest spell a knife-grinder might cast as he honed a steel—that sense that what you were making had always waited, and you were simply drawing its perfection through the small wound your desire for it had made in the substance of the world—but never this strong. Not even in the keystone of the greatest building, or the powers which bound the moon to the earth. Not even in the greatest of all makings when the entire universe was willed by God the Elder himself. Although this, Alice imagined, as she ordered these flakes of falling night with senses she could no longer describe, must have been very much how He felt.

  Doubt had never been something which had greatly afflicted her, but all the enterprises of her life seemed like abject wavering in comparison to now. Was the telephone on? Yes, of course it was on. Telephones, like the tides and the seasons and her continuing urge to be more of what she already was, had no state of off. But the mirror before her—hung inside what her eyes told her was an edifice of old, damp brick, although strangely ornamented, and lit by a bare single electric bulb—flared and sparked. The voices of the men within her near command, who had grown too fearful now to approach her directly, had keened like the calls of distant birds, and what was left of the old Alice Meynell dealt with their queries with a briskness which her old self would have admired. Western guns were lobbing in shells. Not a full assault, but a range-finding, a tuning-up, and she ordered them to make response from decoy positions whilst their main guns remained silent and unrevealed, just as the West’s main guns undoubtedly were. When it came down to it, both sides in battle were essentially the same. The only thing which had ever mattered was who imagined they had won, and even that would soon be irrelevant.