Augustus hammered on the arm of his throne with a chubby fist that was lacking a thumb and asked the question Soames had been hoping for: ‘And you, wretch! What are you going to do about it?’
‘It’, of course, was the unheard-of situation in which the Immortals had found themselves. They had been driven out of their home and had to take refuge in another – unnamed – location, they had been bested by one of their many enemies, their slowly nurtured plans had been disrupted and, just before they had escaped, they had seen the boy they had been hunting for, there, in their own hall!
Intolerable wasn’t a strong enough word. Everything about it had incensed the Immortals, but Soames suspected that it had also shocked them to be confronted with evidence that they weren’t as infallible as they had thought.
Soames enjoyed that. It gave him some confidence.
‘I? What will I do? I will endeavour to assist you in any way I can, as I always have.’
His plans for assuming the mantle of the Immortals would have to wait. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, for his time as lord of the manor hadn’t been as trouble free as he had thought it would be. Perhaps he could use the interruption to inveigle some answers from the creatures, perhaps a pointer or two towards solving the mystery of their power.
Augustus narrowed his eyes. ‘Then find children for us. To replace those we have just used.’
‘Of course.’
Jia startled him, then, as she leaned forward, her child’s face suffused red. ‘And get the boy for us, now!’
Soames blinked. ‘Now?’
‘We want his brain.’ Forkbeard’s voice may have had the shrillness of a six-year-old, but his essence made the child’s throat grab the words, reducing them to a hideous growl.
Obscure as the Immortals’ motives had always been, Soames was heartened by this insight. The boy’s brain was important? Who would have thought? Soames started to think of the best way to approach the Neanderthals about the lad.
‘Getting the boy back will take much phlogiston,’ he said. ‘For bribes.’
Augustus didn’t answer. He sat with his arms crossed, looking away. Soames was no longer important to him. Jia glanced at her companion and hissed before addressing Soames. ‘You’ll have it.’
‘And I will need time.’
Jia narrowed her eyes. ‘How long?’
‘A few days.’
She leaned towards Forkbeard and they had a rapid, whispered discussion. When they finished, she had to adjust her black wig. Soames noted that at least one of her ears was missing. Spawn production had been in full swing.
‘Three days,’ she said. ‘Do not take longer. Find him. Do not bother us with minutiae.’
A Spawn trotted up and whispered in Forkbeard’s ear. The fur-clad Immortal leaped to his feet, then toppled onto the cushions, howling. ‘And don’t forget the children! Fresh children! More!’
Jia and Augustus muttered to each other and glanced at Soames.
‘Arrangements are under way,’ Soames said, as soothingly as he could manage, quite happy if he could curry favour with two of the three Immortals. ‘I have my eye on a particularly useful source of the items you’re after and your cells will be stocked before you know it.’
Augustus sat up. ‘That is what I like to hear. Go, do your work.’
Soames congratulated himself on his flexibility and quick thinking – and turned over the possibilities for wringing an advantage out of this curiously important boy.
Soames was sent to supervise the Spawn in assembling the phlogiston to trade for the boy. After some curt words from a bleeding Augustus, the Material Manipulator – the cube – glowed and spat green light at Soames. Terrified and doing his best not to show it, he found himself rising, along with a trio of newly formed – and quite dazed – Spawn.
Soames swallowed his fear and composed himself as he drifted up, high above the floor of the Hall of the Immortals. He had never been one for aerial balloon ascents, not seeing the entertainment gained by putting oneself in a state where setting foot on the earth again could be precipitous and fatal. He had trouble breathing as he rose.
A pentagonal hatch slid aside as he and his helpers drew near the ceiling. They rose through it and were gently deposited inside a chamber nearly as large as the Hall of the Immortals itself.
Soames was overcome.
He actually went to one knee. He bowed his head. He breathed deeply and tried to maintain his dignity, surrounded as he was with wealth of such a magnitude that he was light-headed, giddy, teetering on disbelief.
Jabez! This could all be yours!
Soames was forced to reappraise his estimate of the abilities of the Immortals. And their history. And their underground dominance. He was stunned by this evidence of their power, which was much greater than his already substantial estimate.
Each of the five walls that joined the floor and sloped away from him was embedded with slots, as were the walls that joined the ceiling. Most of the slots in the lower five walls contained a glowing phlogiston vial.
His brain stumbled in trying to estimate how long the Immortals had been gathering phlogiston. Centuries. Longer. The wealth here was immeasurable. With it, the Immortals could buy the world and have enough left over for a deposit on the moon and stars.
The prospect of immortality suddenly dwindled in importance. Riches, immediate and concrete; that was something much more worthwhile! Besides, if he could take this treasure for his own, he could easily overwhelm the Immortals and discover their secrets!
Numbly, he directed the Spawn to gather the requisite vials. He wasn’t even surprised when a new vial appeared in midair and shot off to lodge itself in a slot on the far wall, evidence of the ongoing phlogiston extraction. Discovering the secret of the plinking noise simply wasn’t important any more.
He did, however, wonder at the purpose of such a treasury. What were the Immortals doing with all this wealth? They must use some of it to power their magic – the manipulators, for a start – but what else? Did they spend time up here, gloating at their riches? Did they pile the vials in the middle of the chamber and dive into them, swimming about like pudgy pink otters?
The most ordinary of considerations took some time to nudge its way into Soames’s bruised mind: the Hall of the Immortals must be buried deeper than he’d thought.
While the Spawn gathered the vials, Soames struggled. Simply by its vastness, the phlogiston treasury emphasised how inconsequential he – and every other mortal – was. In the face of the Immortals’ might, ordinary earthly endeavours were meaningless.
Eventually, however, Soames remembered himself. He ran both hands through his hair. He straightened his jacket, took his tie pin out and reseated it.
If anyone is going to be in charge of such a wonder, Jabez, it should be you.
Jabez Soames was not one to be cowed.
Kingsley had never been as glad to see a band of Neanderthals as he was when two dozen of them thundered into the Immortals’ unfinished lair. A diversion was what Kingsley and Evadne needed and a band of well-armed, pugnacious brutes filled the vacancy to perfection.
Instantly, the enormous space became a battleground. Spawn everywhere abandoned their construction work and hurled themselves at the intruders. The Immortals themselves waved their pudgy hands and shrieked orders that lacked tactical subtlety, but left no question that they wanted the Neanderthals chopped up and removed immediately.
The Neanderthals produced a bizarre assortment of firearms and set about laying waste to the charging Spawn. The hail of metal shredded the creatures mid-advance.
‘The Neanderthals must want us badly,’ he said. He peered at the mayhem. He recognised the foremost Neanderthal as the leader of the band that had ambushed them in Deptford.
Evadne touched her satchel. ‘They mus
t be desperate for this phlogiston.’
‘Or they have another reason.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.’
Evadne hurried off, bent nearly double, and Kingsley slapped himself on the forehead. A diversion is worthless if you don’t use it, Kingsley! What magician wouldn’t lift a dozen watches and purloin a handful of spectacles from an audience if a brawl broke out in the front row, only to dazzle the owners some time later with their return?
Evadne made the most of the building debris and tools that had been abandoned by the Spawn. She flitted from scaffold to wheelbarrow to workbench to coils of rope, waiting each time for Kingsley to join her before she advanced to the next milestone. The barrels of paint were the last before a dangerous open stretch and they paused a moment, judging the best time to go.
The Neanderthals had pressed close. Only a triple line of Spawn stood between them and the Immortals. The battle was awesome in its violence. The clubs of the Neanderthals swung with enough power to puncture metal, but the Spawn didn’t back away. From all sides, they charged at the Neanderthal advance, seeking a weak spot, a way in, a misstep, but the juggernaut pushed on, snarling in a way that Kingsley couldn’t help but respond to. His wild side was equally excited and appalled. It wanted to join the Neanderthals and to run away from them.
Kingsley’s wildness was diverted, however, when the throne of the Immortals began to shake. It dislodged Spawn from its bottom step like a dog ridding itself of fleas, then it rose. When it was forty feet above the floor, the rotating cube sprang into life, bathing its alcove in bright green light.
A bolt of green lightning flashed, joining the cube and the throne for a split-second and rending the air in the chamber with an ear-punishing crack. The Spawn and the Neanderthals were bowled over like dolls.
When Kingsley’s vision had cleared, the Immortals and their throne were gone.
‘That is a truly splendid escape act,’ he said, and he wondered if this were the moment the Immortals decided India was a more hospitable place for their particular needs.
Evadne was looking up with an expression of frustrated disappointment. ‘Don’t take my hand,’ she said to Kingsley. ‘We can run faster if we don’t.’
‘Yes. Good point. Ready?’
She rolled her eyes and then she was gone. He had to sprint to catch up to her.
For a moment, Kingsley had the hope that they might be getting away unnoticed, but then a shout went up. He increased his efforts and leaped into the alcove to join Evadne. She was crouching and examining the rotating pyramid.
Kingsley left her to it. He positioned himself on the second stair of the alcove, between Evadne and the three Neanderthals who were running towards them. ‘Soon would be best,’ he called over his shoulder.
‘I’m doing the best that I . . . Oh!’
Kingsley didn’t like the sound of that. He liked even less the flare of warm light that rolled over his back, briefly illuminating the hall and making the trio of approaching Neanderthals stop dead.
He risked a glance over his shoulder. Evadne was standing there, staring at her open hand. ‘I had a vial of phlogiston. It ate it.’
‘Now it’s rotating faster.’ Kingsley turned back to see the Neanderthals had resumed their advance, but they were more cautious, even hesitant, spreading out as they neared.
Another flare of light washed over him, then another. The satisfied ‘Aha!’ from behind made him look over his shoulder again, and while he took in the fact that the tetrahedron was whirling much faster now, it also gave the Neanderthal on his left time to charge.
Kingsley thought he’d been hit by an omnibus. Two omnibuses. The entire London fleet of omnibuses. He landed with the Neanderthal on top of him. As well as having all of the air driven out of his lungs, his head cracked hard on the marble plinth.
It was as if he’d taken a step sideways from the universe, which had then had all of the colour shaken from it, while all of the sounds had been passed through layers of wool to make them familiar in shape but utterly meaningless. Bright lights hung in his vision, which he vaguely thought appropriate. He saw more Neanderthals rushing and leaping over him. Four backed Evadne against the wall of the alcove. Her sabre flashed. More flaring light. A giant bell was tolling at the back of his skull and had been for some time.
He closed his eyes and it all went away.
‘We’re back home.’
Kingsley found he was lying down. He went to sit up, but he was made of rubber and couldn’t. He made an effort to show he was coherent by repeating part of what Evadne said, but chose poorly: ‘We’re?’
Evadne loomed over him. She’d lost her coat, he noticed, but he did like the way it showed off her dove grey dress with the red ruching. Her arm snaked under his shoulders. ‘Here, drink this.’
He sipped at the water and had a feeling he should admire the mug, which was made of gold, but he couldn’t raise the energy. She studied him with concern. She looked tired, but determined and entirely, inappropriately fetching.
He was about to ask the standard orientating question when he took in the glazed blue bricks. They haven’t invented a prison I couldn’t break out of, he thought, but I can’t stop them putting me back in it.
‘You’re going to feel nauseated, I’m sure. That was quite a knock on the head.’
It came back to him. He touched the back of his head and regretted it, but his astonishment and relief made the pain bearable. ‘It worked? The Time Manipulator?’
‘In a manner of speaking. Two Neanderthals tried to take me, but one of them put his hand on the tetrahedron. He vanished.’
‘He activated the machine?’
She grimaced, an altogether wonderful sight. Kingsley wondered if she’d ever had her portrait done. ‘It stopped glowing after he disappeared, so it would seem. But I have no idea where he went. I couldn’t see any way to calibrate it, no controls to set, nothing. It’s frustrating.’
‘I imagine that’s how our missing Neanderthal must feel. He’s probably sitting around in the Renaissance thinking what he’d do if he had his time over again. So to speak.’ He sat up, gingerly. ‘So we’ve travelled back in time a few hundred years, then forward in time by the same amount. Quite an achievement. And then there’s freeing a company of abducted children and avoiding the clutches of the Immortals.’
‘I’d love to be in a position to marvel over our achievements,’ Evadne said. ‘I have a few people I’d like to consult about the mechanics of our time travelling. However, we have more pressing issues. Escaping from here, for one.’
‘Wait. You said we didn’t use the Time Manipulator. How did we get back here if we didn’t?’
‘We were taken through time in the not so gentle embrace of the Neanderthals.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The sparkling belts they wore weren’t fashionable accoutrements. They were part of their time travel equipment. One of them slung you over his shoulder and one held me tightly. The others surrounded us in a ring, then they linked their belts with fine chains so they were all connected. The black-bearded one took out two brass marbles. He fitted one into a slot on his belt, and as soon as he inserted the other into a different slot, we snapped out of 1666 and ended up here.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘Our arrival did some damage to their machine, I’m pleased to say.’
‘What? How?’
‘The argument was about someone forgetting to allow for the fact that you and I had temporal potential energy as well as our captors.’ Absently, she made juggling motions with her hands. ‘We snapped back with too much force and the dampeners hadn’t been set to compensate, apparently. We’ve burned out some sensitive bits and pieces. They’ll need remanufacturing.’
‘I suppose they took your satchel.’
‘Most greedily. And my sabre and pistol.’ She
cocked her head. ‘Are you all right? You don’t have a fractured skull, do you? Let me look at your eyes.’
‘I don’t think so. Just a bump and a nasty headache.’
She let go of the sides of his head. ‘Your eyes look well enough. Your concussion must be minor.’
‘You have medical training – no, don’t tell me.’ He held out a hand in the manner of a traffic policeman. ‘Clarence has. He’s an amateur brain surgeon.’
She opened her mouth, closed it again, reconsidered, then said: ‘I note your heavy-handed irony and I’ll endeavour, in future, not to bore you with Clarence’s achievements.’
‘He isn’t, is he?’
‘A brain surgeon? No, not amateur nor otherwise. He has worked on a voluntary basis, however, with doctors treating the poor and indigent.’
‘I find it hard to believe.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Achieving so much in one lifetime. Extraordinary chap.’
She looked at him closely. ‘He’s very busy.’
‘So it would seem.’ He stretched. ‘We’re in the Neanderthals’ prison, aren’t we?’
‘Freshly dusted for our convenience. What is it?’
‘What is what?’
‘What is it you’ve just thought of? You went all squidgy there.’
‘Squidgy?’
‘You drew in your cheeks, narrowed your eyes, and moved your jaw from side to side. Something awkward or embarrassing has just occurred to you.’
Kingsley put a hand to his chin. ‘I did all that?’
‘You did.’
‘And you noticed and you have a name for it?’
Evadne hesitated and nipped around the question in an expert flanking manoeuvre. ‘What was it?’
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