Machina Mortis: Steampunk'd Tales of Terror

by Derwin, Theresa

  …she knew what it wanted of her…

  And as she watched, Cadachlod changed in the moonlight, his face changed and altered and shifted like the waves until his visage was that of the other, of the beloved, of the man Amelie loved.

  She ached to hold him, to touch him, to…

  The ceraunoscope was growing more heated by the moment, until it was now almost impossible to hold. The heat from the metal would surely blister her flesh soon, unless she gave in.

  And there was a sound very near, a whisper of feet on sand, and Cadachlod’s face was no longer that of the beloved and his face was that of a creature long dead and he opened his mouth and a sound emerged that was both raw pain and driving rage and Cadachlod was gone, was vanished into seafoam.

  The ceraunoscope fell unheeded from her trembling fingers.

  …for Alexander had come…

  ***

  With a desperate cry, Amelie reared upright in her bed, icy sweat dotting her cheeks…or was it tears? She didn’t know, or care.

  Her ceraunoscope rested where it always did, between her breasts, suspended on its slim chain. It was reassuringly cool against her skin.

  Slowly, she lay back against her pillows. She knew her nightgown had been changed, knew it by the silken touch of embroidery that met her fingertips. She glanced down the length of her body, and saw pale blue linen cambric where translucent ivory foulard silk had been when she’d gone to bed. In that instant, she knew she’d once more not merely dreamt but had walked in Dream, knew Alex had followed her, had brought her home…

  …had brought her away from…

  She rose from her bed, cambric flowing around her ankles. She went to the wide bay window that spanned much of one wall, and sat on the cushions that lined the oak window-seat. Her gaze was torn as always, as always, to the waters of Lyme Bay below. Moonlight gleamed on the waves.

  She glanced down at the rhododendron bushes beneath her window. They were unmoving. The night was silent and tranquil but for the ever-present crash of waves against boulders.

  She pressed her fingers to the cold ebony mullions, and she half-fancied that her fingers were wet for they came away so chill. She rubbed her hands together in a wasted attempt to regain warmth.

  The spume on the water was rising now, foaming, dancing, tugging at her in the moonlight, and she didn’t know suddenly whether she had truly awakened or was still asleep.

  …Alex…

  She heard him enter her room, she was sure of it, but when she turned to greet him, she knew with a sickening twist of her stomach that she was still asleep after all, for Cadachlod stood there, Cadachlod and not the brother she’d been so certain would come once more to her rescue.

  And the ceraunoscope was instantly overheating, going from cool comfort to blazing metallic flame against her skin in mere seconds. She began to scream…

  ***

  The screams needled through the cold night air, carrying clearly throughout the asylum. Alarms began to ring very soon afterward, waking everyone who had slept through the initial shrieking.

  Olivia Hunter sat up slowly in her bed and reached for her lamp, lighting it wearily. As light began to seep into the corners of her bedroom she slid out of bed and into her slippers. Her nightrobe was next, and she tied it with an exhausted motion. She’d been awake for three days straight before last night, before she’d finally been allowed to fall into a deep and dreamless slumber. And now this.

  She sighed and ran a hand through her tangled hair, knowing she looked like one of her patients but not really caring. If she stopped to brush the knots out, she would fall asleep at her dressing table.

  She glanced at her ornate brass pocket watch and gave it an irritated shake. It had apparently stopped working almost immediately after she’d fallen asleep. She flipped open the back with a fingernail and tapped the tiny bulb that should have held at least some aether. Empty. Naturally.

  She flung the watch onto her bed and stepped into the corridor, where she was greeted by complete chaos. Mercifully, an orderly had silenced the alarm bell, but patients had already scattered from their rooms and were milling about noisily, obviously frightened by the screams that were still emanating from the only room whose door remained closed. Amelie Tamnais’ room.

  …Amelie…and therefore static…

  Olivia darted back into her own room and grabbed a corposant candle from her nightstand, then walked out toward Amelie Tamnais’ closed door, refusing to show the unease she was feeling. It certainly wouldn’t do to cause even more of a panic. Orderlies were busily swarming about, gathering patients and calming them, herding them all into the asylum’s vast common room where the orderlies would dispense laudanum-laced cups of tea. The corridors were empty in a surprisingly short amount of time.

  Once relative peace had been restored, Olivia opened Amelie Tamnais’ door. Darts of tiny dancing static-light swirled over the door and slithered around the doorframe. White swirls of spitting static arced out to meet Olivia’s hand as she twisted the knob and entered the room. She hoped one of the orderlies would have sense enough to go to the Bethlehem chamber and turn on the cooling vapor vents that would soothe the static.

  Amelie Tamnais was standing on her bed, brown hair flying about wildly in a storm of static. Her eyes were wide and terrified, and she fixed Olivia with a look of pure terror even as she continued to shriek. Her nightgown swirled with static, prisms of the stuff making eerily lovely flowered patterns on the cotton fabric. Something glittered in one of Amelie’s clenched hands, and it looked to Olivia as if this might be the source of the static.

  Amelie suddenly flung her head back and gave a loud, long wail, and the static surrounding her gathered in upon her, forming a network of filaments that picked the girl up bodily and flung her at the ceiling.

  Olivia darted to Amelie and thrust the unlit corposant candle toward Amelie’s closed hand. Immediately, static shot toward the red wax, and the wax began to absorb it, turning a ghostly shade of blue as it took in glistening filaments of the floating laces of static. The candle grew warm in her hand, but Olivia refused to release it until it had done its job. After what seemed an eternity, Amelie gave one last high cry and opened her fist, and the gleaming object fell from her fingers to the floor with a hollow clatter.

  Amelie fell onto her bed from her place near the ceiling at the same instant the object hit the floor. The staticstorm ceased abruptly, and Olivia tucked the now-sated candle into a pocket of her robe. Once lit, it would provide enough electricity to light the asylum for a month, she thought grimly. And all of that power had emanated from one small brass object.

  Amelie was unconscious, her screams stilled, the fear on her face utterly gone. Olivia smoothed her nightdress and covered her with the mussed bedclothes before reaching for the object Amelie had been holding.

  It was a ceraunoscope, and it was blisteringly hot to the touch. She dropped it immediately, then took Amelie’s hand to examine it. As she feared, angry red blisters were already forming on the girl’s palm. The sound of the vapor vents coming on startled Olivia and she dropped the girl’s hand. Amelie had summoned static-light before, and Olivia had been at pains to understand how, and now she knew.

  Amelie moaned, and Olivia darted a glance at her face, and wished forever after that she hadn’t…

  For looking back at her was not Amelie Tamnais at all. Looking at her from Amelie’s eyes was something else entirely.

  Olivia was powerless to look away, held immobile by the dead and foul eyes that stared out at her, eyes as unlike Amelie’s warm amber ones as it was possible to be. A faint smell wafted now through the room, not the clean sharp scent of a staticstorm but the smell of the grave. The thing behind Amelie’s eyes chuckled.

  ***

  Aldwine Abbey Asylum lay darkling grey in the midst of a field littered with the ruin of a much older building. The original abbey, erected in the twelfth century by a Crusader desperate to save his soul after the acts he’d committed in t
he Holy Land, was torn down by Henry VIII, and it was the ruin of this structure that lay now amid weeds and hawthorn. The vast and sprawling current house had been built of local grey sandstone by a marquis under Elizabeth, and over the centuries it had gradually been altered, with entire portions rebuilt to match the then-prevailing architectural fashions. It had served as a private asylum for the wealthy mad of England for some two decades now, and was the most thriving such facility in Britain.

  The asylum boasted all of the modern conveniences, and was a sterling example of just how far scientific theory had advanced when it came to the care of the insane. There was a complete and fully functional Bethlehem chamber which contained all of the latest tools available, including a vast store of corposant candles for harnessing the static that was inevitably produced by the humming, gleaming machinery within the immense room. They could easily have used the machines to power the newly installed lighting fixtures, but the corposant candles provided what amounted to instantly recycled and therefore free energy. It was vastly more efficient than the gas system had been, and far less likely to trigger explosions.

  Olivia Hunter sat in the chamber now, trembling uncontrollably, her head in her hands. Light from the endlessly whirring machinery reflected off the tracks of tears on her cheeks. The tears had not been caused by sadness, but by fear…

  She rose stiffly from her seat and walked slowly and unsteadily across the chamber to the Lovelace analytical engine that sat in aloof majesty on a marble table near the chamber’s huge two-storey windows. She worked quickly, clicking many of the small toggles into various positions and finally pressing the brass button that would send her message flying through the aethersphere toward London. Toward Alexander Tamnais, step-brother of Amelie.

  All she could do now was wait for him to arrive, him and the man who had accompanied him when he’d committed his step-sister several months ago.

  And into her mind, once more, came the dead, rotted eyes that had stared out at her from Amelie’s face, and tears streamed unbidden and unnoticed once more down Doctor Hunter’s face.

  ***

  His Grace Alexander Maximilian Tamnais, Duke of Tamnais, Marquis of Tyrus, Earl of Glastenan, Baron Glastenan of Glastenan was nothing if not imposing. He stood well over six feet in height. His face was unfashionably clean-shaven. His eyes were an almost Nordic blue. His hair was the same dark honey color as his step-sister’s. So alike in features that their resemblance to each other had been frequently remarked upon by nearly everyone they knew. It was always assumed at first meeting that they were actually siblings, so close was the resemblance. They acted as though they thought of one another as actual siblings as well, seemed to be more brother and sister than many blood-related siblings Olivia had known through the years.

  He was accompanied by Random Stanbury, Amelie’s fiancé. He was almost as tall as Duke Tamnais, with thick brown hair that fell to his collar in wavy curls, disarmingly penetrating green-brown eyes, and a full, sensual mouth. Olivia couldn’t help thinking, as she always did when confronted by these two men, how very fortunate the Lady Amelie was to be championed by two such…well, frankly, delicious males. Her first meeting with them had been quite an experience, she reflected now as they stood before her. She’d definitely made a bad, rash diagnosis, and it had come back to, quite literally, haunt her…

  ***

  “This is a delicate situation, Doctor Hunter, please understand. My step-sister is suffering from nervous exhaustion,” the duke had said during that first meeting. “She’s been prey to nightmares and sleepwalking for the last several months. Her mother’s death seems to have affected her adversely.”

  “Has Lady Amelie suffered from stress?” Olivia had asked, and her question had for some reason prompted a snort from Mr. Stanbury. “And has there been any family history of madness? I ask because it would appear that our capacity to withstand nervous stress is inherited, and we are far more likely to fall prey to nervous exhaustion if any of our ancestors also suffered.”

  The duke had hesitated. “Her father, Antony Earl Parrish, was mad, yes.”

  “Neurasthenia, then, is likely,” Olivia had stated. “Has she shown signs of particularly strong emotion?”

  Duke Tamnais nodded. “Yes, she has had several outbursts recently.”

  “Can you treat her?” Stanbury had asked abruptly, and Olivia recalled now the edge of high tension in his voice.

  “Yes, of course, Mr. Stanbury. We believe that, with sufficient willpower on the part of the patient, anyone can be cured. The patient’s energies must be renewed in order for healing to begin. Your fiancée is in extremely good hands here at Aldwine Abbey. Unlike other asylums, for one thing, we do not eject our guests after a year’s stay.”

  “We’d very much like to see the room she’ll have,” the duke had interrupted, and even then Olivia had wondered at the seeming urgency the two men exhibited.

  “Your Grace, of course. I will gladly give you a full tour of the Abbey, but I do need your signature and that of Mr. Stanbury on several documents. You mentioned to my secretary that you wanted both signatures to be required before any decisions are taken concerning Lady Amelie?”

  “Correct. Except for treatment, of course. Lady Amelie is to have absolutely no visitor who does not bear a document signed by both of us, and she is absolutely not to be released to anyone at all except the two of us, who must be physically present unless bearing proof of the other’s death.”

  And that right there, that singular demand, should have set off every warning flag and bell in England.

  And, clearly, neurasthenia and nervous exhaustion were not even close to what was wrong with Lady Amelie Tamnais.

  ***

  Olivia now ushered the two men into her office and closed the door firmly. She went to the wall and lowered the lever on the office’s main vapor vent so that their conversation would not be overheard anywhere else in the asylum.

  “Your Grace,” she began once the men had seated themselves and she’d taken her own seat behind the desk. “I’m afraid I am in the rather awkward position of having to ask you to remove your sister from Aldwine Abbey. I fear we can do nothing to help her.”

  ***

  “What happened?” There was no surprise in the duke’s voice, and that alone surprised Olivia.

  “She set off a rather severe staticstorm in her room last night, one which endangered every life here as well as the building itself. She was in possession of an object which is strictly forbidden here, a ceraunoscope.” It had taken Olivia nearly an hour to devise this necessarily oversimplified explanation of why she was ejecting Lady Amelie. She’d be damned if she was going to mention the thing she’d seen…

  “A ceraunoscope.” It was not a question. Random Stanbury’s voice merely sounded defeated.

  “I’m afraid so. You can see why I must take this decision?”

  The duke nodded. “Of course. You can’t have such things in a building which houses a Bethlehem chamber. I quite understand. The danger to all concerned is far too great. Though, of course, simply removing the ceraunoscope rather than ejecting my sister along with it would have worked as well. However, I feel that you have come to the realization that you cannot effect a cure. Something happened, something frightened you, but I will not pursue it. I will take Amelie off your hands.”

  Olivia did not fail to notice that he didn’t ask where the ceraunoscope had come from. He had, therefore, probably suspected or even known that Amelie had had it among her belongings all along.

  “Mr. Stanbury and I traveled here in my steam-carriage, Doctor Hunter, so we are prepared to take my sister away with us immediately. I would also like to have her ceraunoscope back, if that’s possible?”

  ***

  Olivia watched the gleaming steam-carriage depart some minutes later with a mixture of relief and apprehension. She was glad that the lightning-calling ceraunoscope was off the premises, she was glad that the burden of Lady Amelie had fallen from her shou
lders, but still…still…Was she shirking her duties as a physician in ejecting Amelie like this? Was she showing herself to be a coward? She should have called in a specialist, someone who could have at least guided her decision…

  ***

  Alexander Tamnais stared at his sister where she sat across from him in the steam-carriage, curled into Random Stanbury’s arms. Amelie hadn’t once looked at him, not when he and Stanbury had helped into the carriage, not at all for the past hour. This studied muteness of hers could not be allowed to go on. They would soon arrive back in London, and he had already told her that he fully intended taking her home to the ducal manor in the Cotswold hills.

  “Amelie, please, speak to me.”

  He wondered whether she’d even heard him, so unchanging was her expression. And then she turned to face him, and he almost wished she hadn’t. Her eyes…

  “You will come to regret taking me home with you,” she said.

  “Why would you think such a thing?”

  …her eyes…

  “You cannot hide me from him, Alex. You and Random cannot protect me, he will come for me, he will always and forever come for me, and Glastenan’s walls will not keep him out. The walls of the asylum certainly did not keep him out.”

  Stanbury looked at him, and Alexander read only defeat in the other man’s eyes. Amelie sounded so lucid, far more lucid than she had in recent weeks. When they’d taken her to Aldwine, she’d been a nerveless and unaware shell of a woman. That shell had been filled…

  The driver of the carriage tapped on the glass separating him from his passengers. “We’ve arrived, Your Grace.”