by Jay Lake
Then Hethor was in a hallway full of wigged and powdered men dressed in a fashion that would have been wildly strange on any street in New England—either the latest mode from London, or far out of date; Hethor had no way to know which. The gentlemen of the court wore silk brocade coats in the colors of brilliant tropical flowers opened over ruffled shirts and wide sashes, while flared pants dropped to high, polished boots of exotic leathers.
The West Indian had not come with him, instead tugging the closet door shut after shoving Hethor into the hall. Hethor perforce followed the flow of peacock men into a larger room, two stories high, lined with classic white columns. Incense burned, assaulting his nostrils, presumably there to cover other, baser scents. One side of the room—the south?—had tall windows cranked open, the panes set with colored glass. Multichromatic freckles of filtered morning light stretched at a steep angle across the room from them. The opposing side sported alcoves reflecting the shapes of the windows, each populated with statuary.
Hethor wondered if some of Phelps’ Specials lurked behind the statues.
Except for all the finery and the colored glass, the room seemed a large version of any New England town meeting hall or church. There were some other small differences—chairs instead of pews, no lectern at the dais at the far end—but this room was New England as Hethor knew his home, conforming to deep tradition and the inertia of place.
Despite the sense of familiarity, he had no idea where to go. The gentlemen of the court swirled in an intricate pavane known only to them, finding seats arranged by some sympathetic magic of status and rank and function. Hethor was suddenly left standing alone on the worn red carpet between the two arrays of chairs. No one ever bothered to glance at him. This was more disconcerting than if everyone had been staring.
Hethor looked at the head of the room, where four more soldiers in gray New England uniforms stood at the back wall with carbines in their hands. They were in turn flanked, two to a side, by British regulars in lobster-red coats over dark green wool. Which must be hotter than blazes in this well-warmed room, he realized.
Phelps walked onto the dais from a side door. The little man was dressed in a rainbow of silk—pink, blue, chartreuse, and half a dozen more colors besides—punctuated by fountains of lace, and an enormous matching hat. The effect made him look like a gamecock dyed for Easter, communicating an absolute lack of dignity.
“The Honorable Lieutenant-General Lord Devon de Courtenay,” Phelps bawled in a voice that would have served him well in music hall comedy, “Knight Grand Cross of Saint Michael and Saint George, Order of the Wabash, by appointment of Her Imperial Majesty Queen Victoria now Viceroy of New England and the American Possessions, Protector of Canada and Warden of the Western Frontiers, sitting en banc to hear the prayers and appeals of Her Imperial Majesty’s people.”
All the peacock gentlemen stood in a rustle of silk and a cough of rheumy lungs as a man in a simple white uniform strode in behind Phelps. A red-and-blue star hung on a ribbon, while his chest was crossed with an enormous vermilion sash. A worn silver sword dangled over glossy polished cavalry boots. His unadorned appearance made every other gentleman of the court a pompous liar by their very dress.
Everyone but Hethor, who began to wish mightily he had taken Phelps’ other choice and allowed himself to be pomaded into anonymity.
The viceroy took his place on a mahogany chair that was so simple as to be a shouted understatement. As one, the peacock gentlemen sat with another rustle and cough, leaving Hethor once more standing like a muddy stick in a field of roses.
Turning a bright smile on Hethor, the viceroy narrowed his eyes as another man, taller than any in the room, with ice-blue eyes and red-brown hair over features similar enough to place him kin to Phelps, slipped in at the back of the dais. Hethor realized that this must be the sorcerer William of Ghent. The advisor affected clerical garb, a black cassock with a high collar, but he walked like a king.
And he stood behind the viceroy, unremarked. Even Hethor could see that was a position of tremendous trust and power.
Bright smile glittering and fixed, the viceroy pointed at Hethor. “Major domo, who disturbs the order of my morning hearing?”
“One Hethor Jacques,” bawled Phelps, “an apprentice of the Loyal Order of Horologists and Timekeepers, come from New Haven on his own recognizance to seek counsel from His Lordship.”
“Ah,,” said His Lordship. After a moment he cocked a finger over his shoulder.
William of Ghent stepped forward to have a whispered conversation with the viceroy. Still none of the peacock gentlemen would look at Hethor. He did not exist for them.
Hethor was almost relieved to see two of the redcoats at the back of the dais giving him hard-eyed glares. He had to suppress a manic desire to wave at them. At least he wasn’t invisible.
“We shall indulge the apprentice horologist,” the viceroy announced. “You may instruct him to proceed.”
“Apprentice Jacques, you will speak your piece,” bawled Phelps.
At that, all the peacock gentlemen turned their heads to look at Hethor. Now he existed, if only under the stares of a hundred dandies.
“Your Lordship,” Hethor said slowly, resisting the urge to blurt out Librarian Childress’ pass phrase, “six nights ago I received a visitation from the archangel Gabriel.” Careful, he told himself. He would never make a more important speech. “God’s messenger warning me of a grave danger to us all. It is my duty as an Imperial subject and a loyal New Englander to pass that message on to your ears, that you might best determine how to respond to the warning.”
The viceroy cocked his head slightly while William of Ghent whispered again in his ear. Phelps stood like a statue, not meeting Hethor’s eye. At some signal invisible to Hethor the peacock gentlemen began to titter. It was as if he were indeed surrounded by birds, in a court of birds, before a bird emperor.
“I …” Hethor faltered. “I was told … to seek the Key Perilous. To find a way … a danger, sir. Sire. Sir.”
The tittering turned to full-throated laughter around him. Hethor would have expected no less had he dropped his trousers, or suddenly turned into a Chinaman.
The viceroy leaned forward. Silence fell as soon as he opened his mouth. “Fascinating,” he said. “And men such as you are permitted to walk the streets without a keeper?”
The laughter returned.
Hethor stood in the middle of the room, dappled in colored sunlight, while the viceroy’s court roared out their amusement and contempt, until someone took his arm to tug him away. Phelps finally met Hethor’s eye. The little man only shook his head with an almost imperceptible motion.
Hethor’s last view of the room as Sergeant Ellis led him away was of William of Ghent, a cold smile on his lips, nodding in counterpoint to Phelps.
HE SAT alone in one of Phelps’ interview rooms. The street outside rumbled with traffic, indifferent to Hethor’s plight.
This time there was no food, no drink, no pretense of liberty or civility. Just the stark silence of imprisonment. At least he remained unchained.
Even the ticking of the Earth seemed distant from him now. He would have done better to remain in New Haven and hurl himself on the mercy of Master Bodean’s sons or the criminal courts. Even a thief or a debtor might eventually win free. Here, there seemed little chance of Hethor walking away. Still, he spent much time thinking on what he might say in a last, desperate plea.
Around late morning, judging by the angle of the niggardly sunlight from the tiny barred window, there was a screaming of birds outside, followed by eerie silence. Even the street had fallen still. At the same time, what he had taken at first for a cloud shadow deepened to a true darkness.
The silence beyond his window was shattered by the peal of church bells. Dogs howled; firearms were discharged. Had the world’s turning stopped of a sudden? He was too late already!
Hethor realized that if the Mainspring had seized in that moment, Boston would be
trapped in light, not darkness.
In that strange midday darkness, the door opened. Despite a dozen resolutions to remain firm and spirited in the face of what might take place, Hethor turned with questions on his lips only to be stopped by whom he saw.
William of Ghent had come to him.
The sorcerer was dressed in street clothes now. Neither a gentleman nor a mystic by his attire of nondescript black suit and gray cravat, William could have passed for any tea trader fresh from bidding in some dockside warehouse.
The ice-blue eyes bored into Hethor like the gem-tipped drills of Master Bodean’s trade.
“Did you end the world?” Hethor blurted. Not what he had hoped to begin with.
William looked surprised. “What? You credit me with far too much.”
“The sun is gone.”
“It is a solar eclipse, boy.”
“Oh” Hethor was seized with embarrassment. He knew perfectly well what an eclipse was. The peculiarities of the sky were part of clockmaker’s lore. Master Bodean had not neglected his training in that regard.
“Still not thinking.” William’s tone was not unkind. “No more than you were this morning in the audience. That was poorly done, I’m afraid.”
Hethor stared at the dirty floor. He realized the dark stains were probably blood. “I had sought a different outcome,” he mumbled.
“Mister Phelps tells me you are not a madman, nor a fool. You would never have come back up the stairs in the first place were that so.” The sorcerer seemed sympathetic. “What had you hoped for?”
“An honest audience.” Hethor looked up. “Some attention to my words. It is plain truth I tell you, sir.”
“No one comes to court for plain truth, my boy.” William began to pace the perimeter of the room. “The question of Heaven is tricky. There is no denying Creation, certainly. But some look for God in every shadow and sunrise.” A smile quirked. “Even in eclipses, perhaps. Others find His long absence telling. Are you a Rational Humanist?”
“I … I don’t know.” Hethor wanted to have nothing to do with any creed of Pryce Bodean’s. And he’d had the evidence of Gabriel in front of him to argue for the close presence of the divine in human affairs. Yet the Spiritualist approach seemed overly comfortable, even facile. “Perhaps I’m too near the question.”
“Hah,” said William. “Well put.” He stopped in front of Hethor. “Look, boy, the world is more than you think. Whatever dream or illusion you had was well told enough for Mister Phelps, but there’s far more at stake than you know. Man was never meant to live under the yoke of Heaven. Earth is changing. The wise ones will let it change.”
“No.” Hethor had no power left but the truth. “I know what I saw. I think you know it, too, sir.”
“Maybe I do.” William smiled sadly. “And that’s the true shame. You could have lived to see the light of day one more time. Ah, well. Regret is for the foolish. Though there’s no profit for it now, you might still consider how much better events could have gone for you.”
With those words, he stepped out again, leaving Hethor to wonder in the long, silent hours that followed what he might have done differently.
“NO MORE little rooms for you this time, I’m afraid.” Ellis half dragged Hethor down a different brick tunnel. This one led deeper underground, far from any windows. The big man carried a small bull’s-eye lantern in his free hand to light the way. “Judging by the look on Lord William’s face, I do believe that you’ve gone and forked the duck.”
Hethor made no reply. He just stumbled after the sergeant. What was he going to do? He had failed in his mission, failed so thoroughly as to remove himself from any possible hope of redemption. And that bastard William had sealed his fate with nothing more than a word.
“Can you take a message for me, Sergeant?”
“You’ve got a ma’am somewhere wondering after you?”
“No.” Hethor had no memory of his mother at all, and only the one, slim year with Mistress Bodean to fill that hole in his heart. “But there’s a man who drinks down at Anthony’s on Pier Four. Malthus, Malgus. Something. Tell him I’m here.”
Ellis stopped in front of a huge iron-bound door to fish out a key. “And why would he care about you, lad?” the sergeant asked gently.
“He won’t care about me at all.” Hethor stepped quickly through the door so Ellis didn’t have to shove him. “But he might care about my message.”
The door slammed shut, the sergeant’s final words, if any, muffled by the wood.
Hethor stepped into the darkness, sweeping his foot carefully in front of him. He realized he was in a tiny chamber rather like a mudroom except for being deep underground. He found something solid that thumped at the knock of his boots. A moment’s exploration with his hands revealed that another door stood in front of him. In a rush of panic, afraid of being locked in a little closet to starve, Hethor grabbed for the latch of the second door and threw it open.
Beyond there were stars. Tiny glints twinkled high and low.
Hethor stood blinking, trying to figure out what it was he saw, until he realized that a multitude of candles was set before him. Dark, ragged shapes stretched between them.
Some moved.
A bent man approached Hethor, took his hand, rubbed Hethor’s clean fingers between grimy calluses. “Welcome, son,” the man whispered in a voice so tiny Hethor had to lean forward to hear it. “Welcome to the pit of the candlemen.”
The bent man led Hethor to a pallet of rags between four lit candles. Up close, Hethor could see that pounds, perhaps hundredweights, of wax were melted in flowing mounds to serve as bases for those tapers that yet burned. It was a century’s worth of candles or more, burning down here forever. He wondered how long the bent man had been here.
He also wondered how long the pallet’s previous inhabitant had been here.
He lay back with the top of his head pillowed against flows of wax and listened to his breath and his pulse and his unshed tears, listened to the sputtering pop of the candles and the ragged breathing of the candlemen, listened to the gentle sweating of the bricks and stone beneath the wax.
Under it all, the world turned, the rattle ever louder. Hethor didn’t even have to strain to hear it. There was something wrong. Some escapement or fusee was out of time with the gears of the world. God’s Creation was like a sick clock not yet gone to ruin but set almost inexorably on that path.
Lost among the candlemen, Hethor knew with a terrible certainty that the world was going wrong. Only he could fix it.
Only he couldn’t, not here.
The little lights flickered, spotting the darkness even as Hethor slipped into exhausted sleep, dogged in his flickering dreams by William’s voice.
THREE
“BREAK YOUR fast, boy?”
Hethor awoke with a start. His body spasmed against cold stone. Darkness around him glittered with tiny flames, each point of light bringing his memories back with it. He had been dreaming of his feather pillow and pallet in Master Bodean’s attic, and how only a week before, his greatest worries had been steering clear of Headmaster Brownlee and improving his command of the art of filing the correct gear ratios onto the smallest of the blank wheels.
“I’m sorry,” Hethor whispered to the candleman who crouched next to him on hands and knees. “I’m not hungry.”
“Never hungry in this heart of stone,” the candleman said matter-of-factly. “Not no one. Still, a man’s got to eat if he’s going to live.”
Hethor supposed the candleman had a point. He pulled himself up into a squat, back and joints protesting from time spent on cold stone and chunky wax, then scuttled after the man who had come to fetch him.
A number of the prisoners were seated in a circle. They were surrounded by a veritable rampart of candle wax. The top of the lumpy, flowing wall was lit by still more candles. Hethor had no sense of the size of the room, other than of a great space, for the flickering flames made the darkness around them all the
more impenetrable.
He would have preferred less light and more vision.
His guide brought Hethor into the circle, patted a place on a little seat of wax worn by years of buttocks, then crawled to his own place.
“Welcome,” said another candleman. It might have been the same one who had greeted Hethor the night before. He seemed to be the spokesman.
If it had been the night before, Hethor realized with a shiver. His sense of time told him it was morning. The clattering of the Earth was almost loud here, a metronome overriding the confusion of the darkness, but there was no way to check the passage of sidereal midnight, no validation at all.
No master clock save the one he carried within.
“Thank you,” Hethor said belatedly, recovering from his train of thought. “I’m—”
“No,” the candleman said firmly as he raised a hand. “We have but one rule here in the pit. Slow, go slow. Your least bit of news is a treasure to be gleaned and passed about from man to man. Do not scatter lightly now what you will prize later.”
“I see.”
“In the pit of the candlemen, no one sees.”
They all intoned, “No one sees.”
“I hear,” said Hethor with a flash of understanding. He did hear, after all, the music of the Earth below all the levels of life. That strange gift he had always had, commonplace to him but seemingly peculiar as some rumored power of a sorcerer from the Southern Earth the few times he had tried to explain it.
He understood their darkness in a basic, primitive way. “What of you, then?”
“We are waiting here,” said the spokesman.
Hethor considered that answer. He inhaled deeply, smelling wax and sweating stone and distant slops and unwashed candlemen. He listened to his breathing and theirs, the hiss of hundreds of candle flames and the unaccountably loud sounds of the Earth. He looked around the glimmering darkness.