and Will—”
“I was with them when we were transported.”
“They’re alive?”
“Quite safe.”
He clutched her to his chest and held her for a long
moment. A single sob escaped him.
He slowly released her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get
emotional.”
“It’s all right. Anyone would be.” She related what had
happened since last they met, and he, in turn, told of his own
adventures. After meeting Andy Carter, he had become lost
among the machinery and had reached the fence just before
she found him.
“Are we going in the right direction?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I hope the postman really is on our side. He
might have given a little more information. I don’t understand
why both of us were guided to this place, then left to our own
devices. I suppose we have to go forward and trust to good
fortune.”
Carter raised the sleeved gate latch and they slipped in. A
gravel path ran before them, bordered by a pipe fence, with
buildings and tanks on every side. Lamps, bright as daylight,
shone on overhead towers, creating a world of stark brightness
and multiple shadows. Lizbeth wondered what sorcery could
make anything glow with such intensity.
As they trudged beneath the cavernous sky, they discussed
what Andy Carter had told them of the nature of Existence.
“If this is indeed a deeper reality, it seems terribly
chaotic,” Lord Anderson said.
After a time, the ceiling began sloping down enough to be
visible in the electric lamps; the walls narrowed and emitted a
dim glow. The tapering continued until they walked inside a
cavern similar to the spiraling interior of a conch shell. The
machinery, thickly arrayed on either side, became more sparse,
until what remained were tripod light poles, dozens of paces
apart, curving downward in an endless line.
“What do you suppose we will find?” she asked.
“I haven’t the faintest notion. We are literally out of our
waters. Actually, we’ve left the pond entirely.”
“And we are very small fish,” Lizbeth said. “It’s too vast.”
“We have to ignore that and concentrate on finding Erin
Shoemate. It’s the only way to remain centered.”
“Is that how you do it? Completing this task and that,
trying not to think of the whole picture?”
“The whole picture is never complete. Evenmere is …”
Carter waved his hand to indicate the impossibility of it,
“substance and shadow, metaphor and solid stone. One is
always dealing with the material and the abstract together. The
physical aspect we understand, at least most of the time; the
immaterial we sometimes comprehend and sometimes only
feel. There are always more questions than answers. How can
the universe be so organized and so damnably slap-dash? If
Enoch misses winding a clock, if Chant fails to light a lamp, if
I do the wrong thing …”
“And why a dinosaur in the attic?” Lizbeth asked. “I’ve
wondered about that. Or the areas the Servants’ Circle
oversees—why those particular ones? It’s all butterfly wings—
so beautiful and colorful; but are the wings for the sake of the
beauty, or the beauty for the sake of the wings?”
The road curved always downward, until it seemed to
Lizbeth they were surely following the curve of the earth and
must soon come out on the far side of the world. Carter’s
pocket watch had stopped, leaving them to guess how many
hours they traveled. They stopped twice to rest and once to eat.
At last the cavern narrowed even more, the ceiling descending
to little higher than their heads, and they came to a circular
opening. Carter drew his Lightning Sword and they crept
through.
Steam rose around them, warm but not burning, preventing
them from seeing at first. A few paces in, their vision cleared
and Lizbeth gasped. They had reached Deep Machine.
The Great Mechanism
Doctor Armilus and the Black Beast descended from the
ruins of the ancient palace of Opo along a slanting corridor
constructed of smoked glass, so that everywhere the anarchist
turned were dark reflections of himself and his companion.
The corridor shuddered with his every step, as if suspended by
thin supports. The form of the beast had changed; it now
resembled a leopard with hands instead of paws. It had grown
slightly larger as well.
“How much farther?” he asked.
“Very near, yet an eternity distant,” the beast drawled in its
hideous, growling tongue.
The doctor winced. It always spoke in half-riddles,
covering its thoughts with an air of inscrutability. In showing
him the way to Deep Machine, it was shortening his quest to
ultimate power over Evenmere, but that was small comfort.
Armilus wondered when it intended to kill him.
They reached an oak door, incongruous among the smoked
glass, opening onto a stone corridor with doors scattered along
both sides. Armilus tried the first he came to and found a
small, empty chamber.
“Step in there,” he ordered.
“Why?” the beast asked.
“If you are truly my servant, do as I say.”
The beast growled, but complied. Immediately the doctor
shut the door behind the creature, reached into his inner coat-
pocket, and withdrew a packet of dynamite. With careful
intent, he retrieved a match, lit the fuse, and held it until it was
burned almost to the end. At the last second, he flung the door
open, threw the explosives inside, and with a speed defying his
size, dove to the floor.
Even with his hands covering his ears, the explosion was
deafening. The corridor rocked; stone fell all around. When
the concussions died away, he rolled onto his back and sat up.
The door had been blown off its hinges; smoke rilled from the
chamber. He rose gingerly, his hand on the pistol in his pocket.
A heavy crash sounded inside the room. From out of the
smoke and debris, a black figure brushed aside boards and
plaster. With labored ease, it stepped into the hallway. Not
only had the beast survived, it was now as tall as the doctor’s
chest.
Armilus released his grip on his pistol. One must be willing
to face realities, no matter how grim. If it decides to kill me,
there is no help for it.
“A primitive trick,” the beast said, “using a bomb.”
“I am, after all, an anarchist. Why are you now larger?”
The monster gave a convulsive rumble, the eerie
equivalent of a laugh. “Violence begets violence, Doctor. I am
a bit of violence your violent actions have enlarged. Perhaps
now we understand one another better.”
Armilus shuddered. “Perhaps.”
They made their way down the corridor, the beast at the
doctor’s heels.
I have confirmed one thing , Armilus thought. I am this
creature’s prisoner.
Hours later, the doctor and his strange companion arrived
at a heavy iron door. Armilus reached for the handle.
“Wait,” the beast said. “This is the Eye Gate. To cross its
threshold is to pass beyond Evenmere.”
“To the place of Deep Machine?”
“To a place between places. You will face some type of
guardian. I do not know what form it will take. It would be
best if it did not see me. I will hide within the ring.”
“How do you—” the doctor fell silent and stepped back as
the beast began to expand. It billowed upward, turning to
black smoke. When its entire form had vaporized, the dark
cloud surged forward, pouring itself into the oval stone in the
ring on Armilus’ finger. As the smoke entered, the ring grew
heavier, until the doctor’s hand ached from its weight.
Armilus studied it. The beast had appeared within the hour
of his taking the ring from the pouch sewn within The Book of
Lore and putting it on. The creature claimed it made him its
master. Was that true, or had it instead been intended for this
very time? Why else had the band welded itself to his hand,
except to ensure he would always have it with him? Did he
dare step through this door, knowing he might not be lord of
his own fate? He could find an excuse to retreat, try to buy
some time.
He shook his head. He would not back out now. The beast
would never allow it. Besides, there was too much to be
gained, a universe to win. Great risks must be taken to achieve
great rewards. The drama must be played to the end. If it
turned out badly, he at least would not be one of those who sat
on the sidelines, booing and cheering and smoking cigars. He
would be a player; he would carry the ball or lose it in the
skirmish. He would make the grand play or fall with a grand
stand. That was what life was about.
He chuckled at his own nonsense. Hadn’t he dedicated his
career to ending what he had just espoused? By reshaping
Existence into his own terms, and thereby removing suffering
from the world, wasn’t he hoping to erase the very struggle he
adored?
He laughed again and opened the door. Stepping through
into total darkness, he screamed at what he found there, the cry
of a small boy facing the thing he most feared. Yet he was a
man as well, driven by titanic purpose and will, and he stood
up to the waiting monster, rushed at it with his enormous
strength, and choked the life from it with his powerful hands.
Afterward, with great weeping gasps, he strode down the
alley until he came to a certain gate.
“Here,” the voice of the beast spoke from out of the ring.
“The portal lies within.”
He composed himself, entered the gate, and knocked on
the door. A figure in a blue uniform answered.
“Hello, Doctor,” Mr. Carter said, his face set and
unsmiling.
“Do you know me?” Armilus asked.
“I know of you.”
“Then you know what I want.”
“Come in, if you must.”
The doctor followed the postman down the hallway into
the living room.
“I am told this is a reality different from that of
Evenmere,” Armilus said. “Is that true?”
“It is,” Mr. Carter answered.
“Why is it so … physical?”
The man raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I had heard you
were a clever fellow. It’s a good question. Perhaps you were
expecting some sort of bodiless spiritual plane? But people
like bodies, you know. How else can we tell which thoughts
are ours and which are someone else’s? The body—and
physical objects in general—make a solid barrier between a
person and the rest of reality.”
“You mistake me,” Armilus said. “I expected no such
spiritual plane, but these ordinary mechanisms cannot be what
drive the universe. Alleys and guardians. Doorways into
darkness. It’s too simple. What is the Deep Machine?
Molecular forces, strings of power?”
“Well, that’s a little hard to explain, and I’m certainly not
the man to ask. I think of the Machine more like a wind-up toy
taken out of someone’s pocket. One of those gadgets you
might find in a clever shop.”
“Are you mad?” the doctor demanded.
“No, Benjamin, I’m not, but I am concerned. I don’t think
you realize what you’re getting into.”
“I doubt it’s any of your business.”
The postman shrugged. “My business is helping people.
From what I hear, you’ve taken a lot of chances. You’re a man
of action. That’s commendable. But there comes a time to
reassess those actions. Where you’re headed right now—it’s
beyond anything humans can handle. You’ve seen the power
of the poets; you know it’s uncontrollable, but you’re going to
the source of that power, hoping to control it. It’s a bad road,
Benjamin. Why don’t you give it up, go back to Evenmere,
and rethink your philosophy? You want to make a difference
in the universe? Help a single person that needs it. That’s what
matters.”
Doctor Armilus was tempted to sneer, but was unable to do
so beneath the old man’s honest directness. It was too much
like mocking one’s grandfather—especially since his words
reflected the doctor’s own earlier thoughts.
“I appreciate your concern,” Armilus said without rancor,
“but I have come this far and must see it through. Can you
show me to the portal?”
Mr. Carter sighed and opened the door where Lizbeth had
passed. The sound of the engines filled the room.
Armilus gazed skeptically into the blackness. “This is the
way?”
“There isn’t any other.”
“Any words of advice?”
“I’ve given you all I have, Benjamin. You have to find
your own way now.”
The doctor nodded and stepped through, into what he
would come to call the Place of Machines. He had seen many
strange things in Evenmere, but none more peculiar than this.
As an anarchist, he had dabbled in both sorcery and science;
whether reading Daschett Limbar’s Essays of the Mystic or
Phasho’s Principles of Energy , he had viewed both as paths to
forms of force—if one seemed irrational and the other
scientific, that was simply because he did not yet comprehend
the underlying propositions. Yet in this region, with its
monsters and rows of machinery, what would seem to be a
confirmation of his theories struck him as the opposite. The
universe was clearly mechanistic, but he had expected to find
atomic and cosmic forces driving it, not a realm filled with
gears, pistons, and levers.
Dark smoke rose from the ring on his finger, and the beast
appeared, an almost human smirk on its face. “We are in,
Doctor. Your every ambition is about to be fulfilled.”
Carter and Lizbeth stood on a metal deck, the foyer to a
vast mechanism towering into a violet sky speckled
with blue
stars. So great was its mass, so myriad the machinery upon it,
that it took several moments to gain perspective. Every sort of
device was represented: levers, buttons, valves, pipes, gauges
and tanks, great engines and enormous wheels and pulleys.
Shots of steam rose from tall stacks. Vegetation and living
organisms served the mechanism as well; flying horses circled
it, wolves and dolphins leapt among the pistons, giraffes raised
pink tongues to clip the derricked leaves. Lions clattered and
klaxons neighed, bluejays tapped and bellows brayed. Part
automaton, part forest, part zoo was Deep Machine. In
occasional flashes, a vast clock superimposed itself over the
entire mass, its face displaying a single scene: a star, a person,
a field, a stream.
“What is it all for?” Lizbeth asked.
Carter did not reply. She glanced at him and saw a strange
light in his eyes. He pointed. “There, do you see him? When
the clock appears. It’s Enoch.”
Lizbeth gave a cry of surprise, for focusing on any part of
the machine allowed its details to bloom before her sight.
Carrying a large key, the figure of the Hebrew scurried around
the edge of the clock, as if fleeing from the second hand.
“They’re all represented,” Carter said. “There’s the Tower
of Astronomy with Phra at its pinnacle juggling the stars. That
bright light to the left is Chant lighting the lamps and that pool
surrounded by walls of books must be the Mere. There’s
Jormungand, too.”
“I see him! But he’s not like the others; he vanishes and
reappears.”
“It’s mirroring our actions.” His voice rose in excitement.
“If we could understand this, we could fathom so much that
happens in the house. Our jobs would be so much easier!”
Lizbeth placed her hand on his shoulder. “But would we be
able to comprehend it? It’s not here to make things better for
us. It just is.”
The light in Carter’s eyes died. “Just another temptation to
make too much of myself. Are you and I shown on it, or are
we now out of the picture?”
“We’re already standing on it, right here. We can’t be in
two places at once.”
Carter laughed. “Of course! But when we’re in Evenmere
it must trace our paths through the manor.”
“I doubt I am part of it,” Lizbeth said. “It seems to show
Evenmere (The Evenmere Chronicles Book 3) Page 37