Tales of the Shadowmen 4: Lords of Terror

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  “Gone!” Alcandre cried. “And I am free to strike him down myself!” He drew a dagger from under his bottle-green coat and lunged at the boy, who shrank back gasping…

  Then the sorcerer gave a cry, as Cyrano’s épée flashed, and drove through the magician’s ribcage from the side, to pierce both his lungs.

  Skewered, the Magus stood there quivering, mouth agape, eyes wide with surprise, until the dagger fell from his hand. He followed it to the floor, slipping from Cyrano’s blade as he fell dying, bleeding copiously on the glossy marble.

  “You…!” the magician rasped. “You, Cyrano…will die as fated…the oaken beam will fall on your head…for without my will holding you…holding you here…you will be removed to your destined place…In killing me–you doom yourself!”

  “So be it!” Cyrano said. He turned to help d’Artagnan to his feet. “Monsieur, forgive me.” He turned to the King and doffed his hat. “Your majesty–I apologize for this disturbance. I…”

  He was unable to finish the apology. The room containing the Musketeer, the magician and the King began to recede from him–like a transparent box dropped from a high battlement, to fall away, to spin, to smash into pieces.

  And Cyrano, no longer held by the will of the magician, was drawn back; was gripped by destiny and pulled inexorably back to that October, that Saturday, that rain-wet narrow, cobbled street, outside the tenement in which he lived. Back to Ragueneau and that hurtling wooden beam…

  He appeared on the street–the beam fell.

  But he had forewarning, and there was just a split second in which he was able to move slightly to one side…

  The beam struck him. Yet it struck his head more glancingly than it would have, had he not been forewarned. He gave a grunt and fell, flailing, into the street, driven senseless, thinking himself flying headlong into the arms of Death.

  Cyrano woke a short time later lying, fully dressed, on his own humble bed. He was aware that some potion for the muting of pain had been forced between his lips, that bandages swathed his head. Waves of pain, dulled but unrelenting, rolled through him from the left side of his head. His vision was haloed, and dim. But he was still alive…for a time.

  The doctor, talking in low tones to Ragueneau, confirmed Cyrano’s suspicions.

  “He is in all probability dying. There is nothing more I can do. Who knows? If he remains in bed, perhaps there is some slight chance of recovery. If he rises…no. Even if he lies quietly, I can hold out little hope…Now, sir, I have no more time for charity cases–I must go.”

  The doctor departed, and Cyrano closed his eyes. He heard Ragueneau speak to him. “Cyrano–I am going to find our friends. Perhaps we can combine our purses and bring another surgeon. Soup, at least–you have nothing to eat here. I will be back soon! Do you hear me, Cyrano?”

  “Yes…yes my friend…my good friend…” Cyrano managed, through cracked lips. “How strange it was–I swear to you, I was carried off by a magician, who wanted me to assassinate the King. If I did the deed, I might live. But…I could not bring myself to do it. Thank heaven d’Artagnan was there to slow me, till my mind cleared, and…and I knew…”

  “Indeed? Yes, Cyrano, it was well that he was there.” Clearly Ragueneau did not believe Cyrano. Incredulity was stark in his tone.

  Cyrano wasted no more time on the tale. He had told many fantastic tales–his friend would conclude this was another, formed in delirium. “I must go to Roxanne…her gazette…I must see her again. Before the Old Fellow comes for me. I must….”

  “No, Cyrano! You heard the doctor–you must not move! Do not stir! I will return!”

  Then Ragueneau departed. Cyrano felt sick, caved-in within himself. But after a few minutes he managed to turn on the bed. In another minute, he was able to sit, and reach for his old cane. In another, to stand, leaning on the cane…

  “She waits for me…Roxanne waits…”

  And Cyrano staggered to the door.

  At the funeral in the chapel of Our Lady of the Cross, the Count d’Artagnan gazed upon the face, the grotesque and noble face, of Cyrano Hercule-Savinien de Bergerac. Cyrano lay in his coffin, dressed in borrowed finery.

  The Count d’Artganan was pondering on a strange dream that had troubled him the night before. In the dream, he had been asked to protect King Louis against a feared, unknown assassin. To his surprise, Cyrano had appeared at the door of the King’s bedchamber…and with him was a disagreeable little man in green, who seemed to be a magician. d’Artagnan had the curious impression that the magician had somehow been directing Cyrano, with a combination of guile and will. The magician had threatened to send Cyrano back in time to an appointment with destiny, and death–a falling beam of wood was mentioned. The oaken beam will fall on your head…

  And then this morning, d’Artagnan had been told by Le Bret that the man who’d fought so bravely at the Siege of Arras was dead. That he had been badly concussed by a falling beam of wood, but might have survived had he not insisted on keeping a date with a woman he had loved, chastely loved, for many years…

  That Cyrano had died, in her arms, in the garden of the Ladies of the Cross.

  Strange! The concordance of dream and real events. Could it be that in some future time he would in truth have to duel with Cyrano–who now lay dead before him? Preposterous. And yet…

  “Monsieur d’Artagnan!” called Ragueneau, joining him beside the open coffin. “Ah–how sad he looks!”

  “And how is the Madame Robin–the lady Roxanne?”

  “She has done her weeping, and now kneels praying for him at a shrine, just outside, where together they sometimes walked. She insists she feels him near her.”

  “Perhaps–he was a great soul. I did not like his politics–but what a man!”

  “Ah, to think I outlived Cyrano! An injustice. Only yesterday I read his Agrippine again. In it, you know, he said, One hour after death our vanished soul will be that which it was an hour before life. Yet I cannot but think that his soul will go on…journeying through time.”

  “Through time?” d’Artagnan was startled by Ragueneau’s choice of words. The dream still weighed upon him.

  “And it’s a most peculiar thing, Monsieur,” Ragueneau continued, bemused. “But as I approached Cyrano, yesterday morning, just before that chunk of wood struck him, why–I seemed to see him vanish! To completely, vanish, for a moment! It was as if God thought, ‘No, I cannot let this great man die thus!’ and snatched him away. And then God decided, ‘But then, I cannot change the rules of destiny for him alone!’ And so, a moment later, he restored him…Cyrano reappeared, and was struck down! Well. Doubtless a trick of the light.”

  “Yes. Yes, doubtless…”

  A young man entered the chapel–the son of one Duke de Guiche. Resplendently dressed in velvets, jewels and silk, he swaggered in, a flagon in his hand, a jeweled sword at his side. He wore a broad gold-stitched hat with a great white flourishing plume. He was quite evidently drunk.

  “So!” brayed the young de Guiche. “This is the famous Cyrano! I drink to him! But look–that nose–how will they get the coffin lid shut on that nose, eh? They shall have to crop nose or rebuild the lid! Ha haa!”

  “Imbecile!” snarled d’Artagnan, drawing his sword. “Apologize–or die!” He flicked the sword, and–snip!–de Guiche’s plume fell, cut in two, to the floor.

  The young nobleman squeaked in fear, and backed away–he fumbled at his sword, then thought better of it, and threw the flagon clumsily at d’Artagnan. Then he ran like a rabbit from the room.

  Whereupon the Count Charles d’Artagnan turned to coffin of Cyrano de Bergerac. He bowed his head. And d’Artagnan wept.

  The most Quixotic, and yet the most rewarding, contribution to our Tales of the Shadowmen series is Brian Stableford’s homage to the French feuilletonistes of the 19th century. The Empire of the Necromancers, of which this is the third installment, is a masterful continuation and expansion of what might be dubbed the “Févalverse”
after writer Paul Féval, whose seminal works Brian is translating for Black Coat Press. Drawing from, and incorporating characters from John Devil, The Vampire Countess, Revenants, etc., as well as other contemporary sources, Brian is assembling a compelling saga which grows in subtlety and complexity with each chapter...

  Brian Stableford: The Return of Frankenstein

  (Being the third part of

  The Empire of the Necromancers)

  The Story So Far

  In Paul Féval’s John Devil (Black Coat Press, 2005) that legendary pseudonym is adopted by Comte Henri de Belcamp in support of his mother’s career as a notorious member of London’s underworld, where she is known by her maiden name, Helen Brown. After attempting unsuccessfully to rescue her from an Australian prison camp, Henri takes news of her death to his long-estranged father, the Marquis de Belcamp, in the small town of Miremont, and is reconciled with him. Meanwhile, he is secretly engaged in financing the construction of an unprecedentedly powerful steamship with which he intends to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena and conquer India; in pursuit of this plan, he takes over a secret Bonapartist organization, the Knights of the Deliverance. Henri is assisted in this project by his long-term companion, Sarah O’Brien, the daughter of a murdered Irish general.

  When a potential traitor to the Deliverance, the opera singer Constance Bartolozzi, is murdered in London, the case is investigated by Gregory Temple, the senior detective at Scotland Yard, assisted by his junior, James Davy. John Devil is identified as the murderer. Temple strongly suspects that the person behind that name is Helen Brown’s son, known to him as Tom Brown, but the accumulated evidence seems to point to Temple’s former assistant, Richard Thompson (who is secretly married to Temple’s daughter, Suzanne). Actually, James Davy–who is another of Henri de Belcamp’s many aliases–has framed his predecessor, exploiting the account of his methods Temple has published in a book on the art of detection. Henri/Davy persuades Thompson to flee to France, where Suzanne is a guest at the Château Belcamp, but he is captured and convicted of the Bartolozzi murder.

  When Henri is reconciled with his father, Sarah rents the so-called “new château” on the Belcamp estate under the name of Lady Frances Elphinstone. Henri commissions the murders of his dead mother’s wealthy brothers but there is one further obstacle to the fortune he intends to collect by this means, in the name of Tom Brown: Constance Bertolozzi’s daughter, Jeanne Herbet, who also lives in Miremont. Jeanne is the designated heir of both brothers, neither of whom knows which of them is her father. Henri falls in love with Jeanne after impulsively saving her life, and decides to marry her fortune rather than murdering her.

  Henri eventually marries Jeanne under the alias of an English entrepreneur, Percy Balcomb, in which guise he slips out of the jail where he is supposedly confined. Henri is in prison because the obsessive Temple, having failed to prove that he murdered General O’Brien or Constance Bartolozzi, found out where the bodies of his hired killers were buried. Temple obtained thus information from the drunken mistress of the vertically-challenged petty criminal Ned Knob, who was a witness to the murders and disposed of the bodies. Ned also schooled the false witnesses at Richard Thompson’s trial, using members of a troupe of vagabond actors.

  On the eve of Thompson’s execution, Henri inveigles his way into Newgate Prison, helping him to escape by taking his place. When Temple tries the same trick, Henri confronts his nemesis in the condemned cell, almost driving him insane by telling him that Tom Brown is not, after all, one of his pseudonyms but an actual half-brother, sired by Temple. After escaping in Temple’s place, however, Henri finds that everything is going awry. The Deliverance is betrayed, his new steamship is destroyed, and his mother has returned from Australia, accusing him of having abandoned her. He finds it politic to commit suicide–or, at least, to appear to do so.

  Part One of The Empire of the Necromancers, “The Grey Men” (in Tales of the Shadowmen 2, Black Coat Press, 2006) picks up the story four years later, in November 1821. Ned Knob, now directing the acting troupe, is unexpectedly confronted with his predecessor in that role, “Sawney” Ross, who has been hanged but now appears to be alive again, though somewhat slow-witted. When the reanimated Ross is collected by a diminutive French physician, Germain Patou,6 Ned follows them to a boat where they are met by a man in a Quaker hat like the one Henri wore in his guise as John Devil.

  After being knocked unconscious, Ned wakes up in Newgate and is interrogated by Gregory Temple, now working for the secret police. Temple is supposed to be investigating a series of body-snatching incidents, but his attention has been caught by a report of the Quaker hat. Following his release, Ned tracks Patou to a house in Purfleet. There he renews his acquaintance with Henri and witnesses the resurrection of a man from the dead using an elaborate electrical technique recently discovered by a Swiss scientist.

  The demonstration is interrupted when Henri’s ship is attacked by a rival group under the command of the only one of the reanimated “Grey Men” to have recovered all his faculties: a person who styles himself “General Mortdieu.” Mortdieu’s hirelings seize the electrical apparatus from the house, taking it to their own ship, the Outremort. Ned is arrested again, but makes a deal with Temple.

  As the Outremort is about to depart from her berth in Greenhithe, a three-cornered battle develops between Mortdieu’s hirelings, Henri’s followers and Temple’s men. The fight eventually arrives at an impasse, but a hastily-contrived treaty permits Mortdieu to sail away, taking Patou with him.

  In Part Two of The Empire of the Necromancers, “The Child-Stealers” (in Tales of the Shadowmen 3, Black Coat Press, 2007), Gregory Temple is woken one night by Henri, who tells him that they must join forces, at least temporarily. Temple’s grandson has been kidnapped from the Château Belcamp, where Thompson and Suzanne are now resident, along with two younger children of much richer parents; one is the son of Henri and Jeanne, the other the son of the former Sarah O’Brien, now the widow of a German Count.

  Temple and Henri set out to make their separate ways to Miremont, where Temple has to break the news to Jeanne that she is not a widow. Henri is delayed and Temple has to respond to the first ransom note with no one to help him but Ned Knob. He is taken prisoner in his turn. Temple’s captors are members of a long-dormant society of heretic monks known as Civitas Solis, seemingly led by Giuseppe Balsamo, who are more interested in securing the secret of resurrection than in the ransom money that will help finance their exploitation of it.

  Henri’s delay has been caused by his traveling under the name George Palmer, in which guise he was involved with a vehm (a secret society of vigilantes) at the time of General O’Brien’s murder, and in whose eyes he is still a wanted man. Having made his peace with the vehmgerichte, however, Henri is able to attack Civitas Solis and liberate Temple and the captive children before disappearing again, intent on joining forces with Civitas Solis in the expectation of using them as he had formerly used the Deliverance.

  Now read on...

  Spezia, 1822

  Chapter One

  Sleepless in Spezia

  Having written his report out in longhand on the rickety table in his hotel room, Ned Knob began the tiresome work of translating it into two different ciphers, using two different keywords.

  The clear version of the report read: More laboratory equipment delivered today to house rented by Walton, including Voltaic cells and apothecary’s supplies. His companion remains hidden; will continue attempts to confirm identification. Other spy seen watching house not present today. Have identified visitor previously mentioned as Edward Trelawny, temporary resident at Casa Magni, San Terenzo, present home of Percy Shelley and Edward Williams. Town gossip associates Shelley and Williams with larger group including Lord Byron, Tom Medwin, Capt. John Hay, Leigh Hunt, John Taaffe, rumored to be involved in conspiracy. Agenda of conspiracy unknown, but company apparently has enemies. Several members recently involved in conflict; Shelley and Hay injured, their
attacker, Stefano Masi, badly wounded; legal investigation proceeding. Will travel San Terenzo tomorrow to make further inquiries.

  Having transcribed this screed twice, in the coded versions, Ned immediately put the original to his candle-flame and made sure that it was thoroughly incinerated. Taking great care not to mix them up, he put the two coded versions into envelopes, addressed them differently and applied two different seals to the wax that secured them. Then he took one of them downstairs, where the courier that would initiate its transmission to Gregory Temple of the King George’s Secret Service was waiting to receive it beneath the arch of the coaching entrance.

  Having watched the courier ride off into the night on a coal black mare, Ned left the hotel and hurried down the steep hill to the shore, where a second courier was waiting discreetly on the approach to the quays. Ned gave him the second envelope, and watched him hurry away. There was a yacht waiting in the harbor that would bear the courier and the letter away in the direction of Marseilles; thereafter, it would eventually make its way into the safe hands of Henri de Belcamp, wherever he might be and whatever alias he was presently using.

  Fortunately for Ned, Henri paid a good deal better for the information he received than the King of England’s Secret Service, which expected its operatives to be primarily motivated by patriotism. Ned was not devoid of patriotism, but he was proud to maintain an authentic radical conscience beneath his carefully-turned coat. He had no qualms about accepting the King’s secret shilling, but he had no qualms either about accepting Henri de Belcamp’s secret half-crown. He did not think of his double-dealing as a mere matter of trade; he obtained a whimsical delight from the knowledge that he was working for two mortal enemies at the same time, owing no particular loyalty to either, but he was also glad to be involved in a sequence of events that had the potential to change the world. His gladness had been redoubled by the discovery, earlier that day, that there was a direct and immediate link between the house he had been set to watch and one of the men he admired most in all the world.