A Quantum Mythology

by Gavin G. Smith

  ‘This is the place,’ the Hellaquin said when they finally reached their destination. His eyes read the plaque in the darkness as if it were broad daylight. His ability to read had also come from the chalice. The Knight moved up next to the Hellaquin, keeping an eye out all around, a pistol in each hand. The Hellaquin knew that the Knight would have no qualms about killing common soldiers if any of the redcoats found them. The Knight glanced down at the lock and then at the Hellaquin.

  ‘You are just as capable of picking locks as I,’ the Hellaquin growled.

  ‘Except I have no picks, and surely it’s much more appropriate for one of your station than for one of mine?’

  The Hellaquin bit back a reply, reaching instead into his arrow case. He pulled out his picks and went to work on the lock. It was a complex modern design, very much what you would expect from Birmingham, and it gave him some trouble.

  Quentin Padget felt the steel against his skin in his sleep, but it was the strong hand holding his mouth shut that woke him. The master gunsmith found himself looking down the rifled barrel of a pistol whose workmanship he had to admire, he recognised it as one of Nock’s pieces.

  ‘My apologies,’ the well-dressed pistoleer told him. There was another much larger figure behind him. Padget was surprised to see that the larger figure appeared to be holding a longbow with an arrow nocked. They must have come through the workshop and somehow not woken any of the apprentices. Padget started to panic. He tried to move his head to see if his wife Susan, lying next to him, was all right, but strong fingers held him still. ‘We would not have come upon you unannounced if it was not a desperate situation, but we must know certain things and we will have our knowledge. Now, if I let you go you must be quiet and still, else my large companion will murder and rape all here, possibly myself included. Do you understand?’

  Padget saw the large man with the bow turn and look at the well-dressed pistoleer, but he could not make out the hulking brute’s expression in the darkness of his room above the workshop. He managed to nod and the fingers came away from his mouth. He looked over at Susan and was astonished to find that she was somehow still asleep.

  ‘Please—’ he begged.

  ‘No extraneous information, just answer our questions and we will be on our way.’ Padget had no idea what ‘extraneous’ meant, so he kept quiet. ‘A man bought a pepperbox pistol here recently—’

  ‘Sir Ronald Sharpely—’ Padget began.

  ‘No,’ the pistoleer said gravely. ‘I have not asked you anything yet.’

  Padget felt his bowels turn to ice water. He saw the bowman glance at the man with the pistols again.

  ‘Who made the pistol?’ the well-dressed man asked.

  ‘I did,’ Padget said as a tear ran down his cheek. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I’m a master craftsman. I always look after a client of Sir Ronald’s standing. One of my finest pieces.’ Padget had a horrible feeling that the pistoleer had lost someone to the pepperbox in a duel and decided that the seven-barrel pistol had provided an unfair advantage. The well-dressed man appeared to be studying him. Even in the gloom it felt as if the pistoleer was looking into him somehow.

  ‘No,’ the well dressed man finally said, thoughtfully.

  Padget almost pissed himself. ‘Sir, I promise—’

  ‘Quiet,’ the pistoleer said. Padget only just resisted the urge to sob. ‘Someone else worked on it.’

  The Hellaquin observed the poor man the Knight was terrorising. The Knight had made sure the gunsmith’s wife would sleep through the ordeal by using a needle of Cathayan manufacture to drug her as she slept. He watched realisation followed by relief spread across the terrified man’s face at the Knight’s question.

  ‘Yes, sir – a clockworker and toymaker, he did the pan mechanism.’

  ‘And where may we find him?’

  ‘He has a workshop on Snow Hill, sir.’

  ‘And where does he come from?’ the Knight asked.

  The Hellaquin looked sharply in his direction. Why hadn’t the Knight asked for the clockworker’s name first?

  ‘Austria, I think, maybe Switzerland, one of the Germanic countries, certainly.’

  ‘And his name?’

  ‘Silas Scab.’

  The Knight let the name hang in the silence of the night for a while. The Hellaquin only noticed because he was looking for it and could see perfectly in the dark, but there was a moment of recognition on the Knight’s face, and then it was gone.

  ‘Where exactly on Snow Hill?’ the Hellaquin asked. He felt bad because the man jumped at the sound of his voice and a wet patch started to appear on the bedclothes. The gunsmith told them.

  The Knight was holding up a tiny, ornately decorated brass egg.

  ‘There’s life in this – I can see the light of it. I wonder if this is an unborn baby scorpion?’ He put it down. The workshop in the ‘toy’-making district of Snow Hill was immaculate. ‘Toy’ referred to all manner of small metal goods from buttons to buckles, but it was clear that Silas Scab was a clockworker of prodigious talent. The workshop was so full of ticking, moving gears and springs that, to the Hellaquin, it appeared to be alive in the most unnatural way.

  They had let themselves in again, though the lock had broken a number of his picks and then stabbed him with a needle coated in a venom that would have felled a normal man.

  ‘You know this man?’ the Hellaquin asked the Knight.

  ‘No,’ the Knight finally answered, but from the tone of his voice the Hellaquin knew there was something the Knight wasn’t telling him.

  ‘Who’s in there?’ a voice asked from outside. The accent was English.

  The Hellaquin and the Knight looked at each other. They had been quiet and careful. Nobody should have heard them. The Knight moved quickly to one side of the double doors that opened into the workshop, drawing one of his flintlock pistols as he went. Then he nodded to the Hellaquin.

  ‘It’s the Watch – the door was open. What business is it of yours?’ the Hellaquin demanded with an authority he’d learned commanding mercenaries in France. The door was pushed open a crack by the barrel of a musket, and an old but still hale-and-hearty-looking man peered in. The Knight placed the barrel of the pistol against the man’s head.

  ‘Do please come in,’ he said politely. The man looked irritated but not frightened.

  ‘How did you know we were in here?’ the Hellaquin demanded, worried that they had come upon another of their kind.

  ‘Master Scab asked me to keep an eye on his place. He gave me one of them clocks. He said that if I ever saw the bird it meant there were someone in here. I thought he was talking nonsense meself – till the damned bird woke me up.’

  The Hellaquin glanced at the Knight, who shrugged.

  ‘And where is Mr Scab?’ the Knight asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the man said stubbornly.

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘What if I am? I can’t see sneak thieves or assassins meaning anything but ill to Mr Scab, who’s always done right by me.’

  The Hellaquin saw the expression of exasperation on the Knight’s face. The Knight was always confused whenever anyone whom he perceived to be lower than him in station didn’t just do exactly what he wanted when he wanted it done.

  ‘You realise I have a pistol clapped to your head,’ the Knight pointed out.

  ‘That hadn’t entirely escaped my notice, but it’s not the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at me, and I’ve lived a good, long life.’

  Despite the man’s words, the Hellaquin could see the man was frightened.

  ‘That is your prerogative,’ the Knight said and cocked the pistol. ‘I’ll tear what I want to know from your steaming carcass.’

  ‘Wait,’ the Hellaquin said, not least because a shot would bring the redcoats and the actual Watch running. ‘He’ll do it,’ he told the ma
n.

  The old man turned to look at the Knight. Even in the darkness his eyes had adjusted enough to see the bored expression on the Knight’s face.

  ‘I believe you,’ the man finally said.

  ‘Is this Scab worth dying for?’ the Hellaquin asked.

  ‘I’m guessing he is polite but distant,’ the Knight said. ‘Pleasant enough, but you’ve always felt there was something not quite right about him.’

  ‘I just thought he was one of them Quakers.’

  The Knight’s laughter was humourless.

  ‘He’s killed a young boy and a whole family in the last few days – that we know of,’ the Hellaquin said.

  The old man looked between them both, then appeared to come to a decision: ‘He’s gone up to Soho. Old Man Boulton saw some of his work and asked for him.’

  ‘Who?’ the Knight asked.

  ‘Mr Matthew Boulton, the manufacturer, James Watt’s partner.’

  ‘The steam-engine man?’ the Knight asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And where can we find Mr Boulton?’

  ‘At this hour? Abed.’

  ‘I will shoot you,’ the Knight promised.

  ‘Try Soho House.’

  The Knight removed the pistol from the old man’s head.

  ‘Go away and tell nobody that you spoke with us.’

  ‘Why don’t you go away, because I live here and I’ll call the Watch?’

  The Hellaquin knew that the Knight was getting ready to kill the old man just to make his life easier.

  ‘Leave him,’ the Hellaquin said firmly. The Knight looked surprised that the Hellaquin would speak to him so, but he walked out of the workshop.

  Soho House was a grand, three-storey rectangle with columns. It was faced in white-painted slate, giving it the appearance of having been constructed from large bricks of stone.

  The drawing room was lined with dark wood panelling and bookshelves, and the fireplace still contained the dying embers of last night’s fire. The Knight was seated in a leather-upholstered chair, glancing between the tasteful finery of the room and the hastily dressed Boulton, who stood in front of the fire.

  He was a formidable-looking grey-haired man in his sixties with a hawk-like nose and dark eyes. Despite the sternness of his features, the Hellaquin thought he could see a kindliness about the man. He was dressed in a black velvet housecoat, a silk waistcoat and a ruffed shirt that somehow managed not to be too ostentatious.

  ‘I am not in the habit of accepting visitors this late at night, regardless of how histrionic they are. What is this nonsense you told Evans?’ he demanded.

  ‘Do you know a Silas Scab?’ the Hellaquin asked.

  Boulton’s eyes narrowed. ‘What business is that of yours?’

  The Hellaquin opened his mouth to reply but the Knight beat him to it.

  ‘Just answer the damned question so we can get on with our business,’ the Knight demanded. He could have been talking to a stable boy. The Hellaquin let out a sigh as Boulton turned on the Knight, his face like thunder.

  ‘Get out of my house before I have you beaten out of it!’ Boulton demanded, barely able to talk through his anger. The Hellaquin could see his point. It didn’t matter what your ‘station’ was in society, you didn’t speak to a man that way in his own house.

  The Knight looked equally furious at being threatened. The Hellaquin saw the other man’s hand creeping towards a blade, or maybe a pistol. The archer grabbed the Knight’s arm. The Knight looked about ready to kill both of them.

  ‘Decide what’s important here,’ the Hellaquin hissed, ‘or walk away.’ He watched the Knight control his temper with some difficulty.

  ‘Take your hand off me,’ the Knight said quietly, dangerously. The Hellaquin let go of him. ‘I’ll leave you to converse peasant to peasant.’ The Knight stood and strode out of the room. Boulton, his face a mask of fury, watched him go. If he heard the Knight’s parting comment, he said nothing.

  ‘Quickly tell me why you are here,’ Boulton said, turning on the Hellaquin when he heard the front door close.

  ‘Silas Scab has killed nine people that we know of. He is a lunatic and we believe he will kill again.’

  ‘Why should I believe you?’ Boulton demanded. ‘Where is your proof?’

  ‘We have witnesses … back in the city—’

  ‘You are a bad liar, sir!’

  The Hellaquin shouldn’t have lied, he knew that. You didn’t get to be as wealthy – and obviously powerful – as Boulton without a degree of shrewdness.

  ‘He kills families in the most horrible ways, causes as much pain as he can. You have to believe me. He is possessed by devils.’

  The Hellaquin read the expression of distaste on Boulton’s face as he said this last, and he knew he’d made another mistake. Boulton might believe in god but he was a man of his age, of science and clanking steam, clockwork and machinery. There was little room in this new world for devils. But then, surprisingly, Boulton’s face softened.

  ‘That at least is true, or you believe it so. Tell me, are you suffering a religious mania?’

  ‘I’m not that kind of man. I believe what I’m forced to because of what I’ve seen. If they had told you of Watt’s steam engine when you were a child, would you have believed them?’ The Hellaquin was all but pleading. Boulton thought on this.

  ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘That I had to see to believe as well.’ Boulton was staring at the strange, burly man who had come unbidden to his house as he tried to make a decision.

  The Hellaquin retrieved his bow from where he’d hidden it in the bushes by the iron railings surrounding Soho House and walked over to stand by the Knight. To the south-west the forest of chimneys, steeples and spires above soot-stained brick almost filled the landscape as they looked back at Birmingham. Even now, workers would be starting to get up and break their fast before heading to toil in foundries, mills and workshops, powered by coke from Warwickshire and Staffordshire, and fed by iron from Sweden and Russia.

  But the Knight wasn’t staring at the city. He was staring at the massive building that was the Manufactory, just below them on South Hill. The Hellaquin started flexing his bow.

  ‘He’s down there, isn’t he?’ the Knight said. The Hellaquin nodded. Boulton had wanted to look into the possibility of mass manufacturing Silas Scab’s clockwork. Silas had asked to see the Manufactory and Boulton asked his foreman to show him around. That was early yesterday evening. As far as Boulton knew, Silas had looked around the Manufactory and then returned to the city.

  ‘He knows we’re coming,’ the Knight said.

  ‘How?’ the Hellaquin growled.

  ‘The blood magic. He sensed me and destroyed the “devils” I sent out into the night.’ He said the last bit sarcastically.

  ‘He’s strong, then?’

  The Knight just nodded. ‘I kill him, you understand me?’

  The Hellaquin met the other man’s blue eyes and held their stare. ‘What is this man to you?’

  The Knight didn’t answer. Instead he spun on his heel and headed down the hill towards the Manufactory.

  The inside of the Manufactory was a cavernous space full of noise but empty of people. Massive machinery moved of its own accord, powered by glowing furnaces. Huge copper kettle-like boilers stood here and there in various states of assembly. The flickering gaslights threw strange shadows across the filthy stone floor and the air was unpleasantly hot and humid from the venting steam. The Hellaquin didn’t sweat any more, but his clothes, particularly the heavy leather coat he wore as armour, were very quickly soaked through.

  I think when they’ve calculated all my sins I’ll be sent to a place like this, the Hellaquin thought as he stalked deeper into the Manufactory, a flesh-tearing broad-head arrow nocked on the bow. Stalking or not, he did not feel like the h
unter.

  There was movement above him as something crossed in front of one of the windows on the third floor. The movement looked wrong, somehow, too jerky to be natural.

  Even over the noise of the machinery the explosion of the pistol shot was loud and the muzzle flash momentarily bathed the interior of the building in a hellish orange glow. The Hellaquin tracked the source of the noise. One of the Knight’s pistols was still smoking.

  The Hellaquin heard the chains first. He had a moment to realise the shadows around him were growing, then brought the bow up and loosed the arrow, relying on instinct rather than aiming.

  The Hellaquin knew he had hit the thing falling from the ceiling beams of the Manufactory. His gift allowed him to hear through the noise of the machinery and he heard the sound of flesh torn open as the arrow passed through his attacker’s body. It landed in front of the Hellaquin. Whatever it was had chains wrapped around its wrists and ankles, but was otherwise shaped like a man. It moved towards the archer in jerky fashion, as if the chains were controlling it, though the Hellaquin could see that this was not the case. The Hellaquin realised the creature was supposed to look like the kind of puppets the Italians called marionettes. The wound in its chest was certainly mortal, but it kept coming. All over the Manufactory the Hellaquin could hear chains rattling, and he was aware of other things dropping from the beams running under the ceiling.

  The Hellaquin loosed another arrow as he moved away from the thing and the human marionette’s head shot back as the arrow tore through it. The Hellaquin was appalled when its head jerked forwards again to look at him as the thing continued advancing. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining being able to see through its head or not. It swung a mattock at him, and the Hellaquin barely managed to dodge out of the way. It made no sense, the chains were getting in the way of the walking dead man’s ability to move. He could hear fighting behind him.

  As he reached into the long tubular pockets inside his coat for another arrow, the Hellaquin saw the small brass scorpion wrapped around the marionette’s eye socket, its legs and stinger moving deeper into skin, flesh and the eye itself. The Hellaquin backed away from it rapidly as it lurched after him, swinging the mattock. He pulled an arrow with an adamantine-headed bodkin from one of the pockets, quickly nocked it, brought the bow up, took the barest moment to aim this time and loosed. The arrow hit the still-moving metal scorpion and tore the side of the man’s skull off. The marionette slumped forwards in its chains. The Hellaquin was aware of some tiny thing skittering across the floor and under one of the half-completed boilers.