Today he was going to be late, and it was Dennis the Dip's fault. He'd spotted the notorious East End pickpocket on the Mall. The crook was, as usual, dressed as a gentleman and looked entirely at home among the well-heeled crowd that sauntered back and forth along the ceremonial avenue. He scrubbed up well, did Dennis, and easily passed muster as a gent so long as he kept his mouth shut. Were any of his fellow perambulators to hear him speak, though, they would have instantly recognised the harsh accent and mangled grammar of the Cauldron and would most certainly have given him a very wide berth indeed.
As it was, Dennis mingled with his potential victims with nary a glance of suspicion cast his way. No glances—but there was one unwavering gaze, and that belonged to PC53 Trounce.
It would have been a very satisfying first feather in his cap for the young constable if he'd ended the career of this particular villain today, but alas it was not to be. Dennis's eyes flicked from handbag to handbag, pocket to pocket, but his long, restless fingers remained in plain view the whole time, and Trounce had to settle for warning the man away.
“Oh bleedin’ ’eck, I ain't up to nuffink, am I!” Dennis had whined. “Jest givin’ me Sunday best an airing, that's all.”
“It's Wednesday, Dennis,” Trounce pointed out.
The thief objected and wriggled on the spot a little more before finally scurrying off, and Trounce resumed his beat, a mite disappointed that he'd still not “christened his badge” after two weeks on the beat.
At the end of the Mall he passed Buckingham Palace and turned right into the park. He preferred to walk along on the grass rather than on the Constitution Hill path itself; it was better to position himself behind the crowds that often gathered along Victoria's route, for the troublemakers nearly always hid at the back, where they could more easily take to their heels should anyone object to their catcalls.
He saw that Her Majesty's carriage, drawn by four horses—the front left ridden by a postilion—was already trundling along a little way ahead of him. He increased his pace to catch up, striding down a gentle slope with an excellent view of the scene. Despite the mild weather, the crowd was sparse today. There were no protests and few hurrahs.
He jumped at the sound of a gunshot.
What the hell?
Breaking into a run, he peered ahead and noticed a man wearing a top hat, blue frock coat, and white breeches walking beside the slow-moving carriage. He was throwing down a smoking flintlock and drawing, with his left hand, a second gun from his coat.
In an instant, horror sucked the heat from Trounce's body and time slowed to a crawl.
His legs pumped; his boots thudded into the grass; he heard himself shout: “No!”
He saw heads turning toward the man.
His breath thundered in his ears.
The man's left arm came up.
The queen stood, raising her hands to the white lace around her throat.
Her husband reached for her.
A second man leaped forward and grabbed the gunman. “No, Edward!” came a faint yell.
The scene seemed to freeze; the two men entwined; their faces, even from this distance, so similar, like brothers; each person in the crowd poised in mid-motion, some stepping forward, some stepping back; the queen upright in the carriage, wearing a cream-coloured dress and bonnet; her consort, in a top hat and red jacket, reaching for her; the four outriders turning their horses.
Christ! thought Trounce. Christ, no! Please, no!
A freakish creature suddenly flew past.
Tall, loose-limbed, bouncing on spring-loaded stilts, it skidded to a halt in front of him. Trounce stumbled and fell to his knees.
“Stop, Edward!” the weird apparition bellowed.
A bolt of lightning crackled from its side into the ground and the lean figure staggered, groaning and clutching at itself. Below, the two struggling men turned and looked up.
A second shot echoed across the park.
Mist-enshrouded Tabora was dirty and crowded and filled with oppressively monolithic buildings and bustling, noisy streets. Its many vehicles reminded Sir Richard Francis Burton of hansom cabs, except their steam-horses had been incorporated into the body of the cabin, so the things rumbled along on four wheels with no visible means of locomotion. Bertie Wells referred to them as “motor-carriages.”
The two men were in one now, along with the three Tommies from the Britannia, one of whom was driving the contraption by means of a wheel and foot pedals. Burton watched him and thought the operation looked exceedingly complicated.
Upon the rolling sphere's arrival in the besieged city, the king's agent had been hustled out of the ship and marched straight to a rather more luxurious motor-carriage than the one in which he was currently sitting. He'd waited in it for a while before being joined by Wells, General Aitken, and a driver. The latter started the engine, steered the vehicle onto a broad street, and sent it rattling along until they reached the centre of the city. A second conveyance—the one Burton was now in—had followed behind.
He was escorted into a large square building that, from the outside, reminded him of London's Athenaeum Club but which, on the inside, proved far less opulent. Here, he was presented to twelve generals who, along with Aitken, acted in lieu of an elected government. They ordered him to explain how he'd come to be in the Ugogi POW camp and why he was being moved. He answered the first part of the question truthfully. To the second part he said simply: “I don't know.”
The men then requested a full description of Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck and demanded that Burton recount everything the German had said to him. He told them as much as he could without revealing his identity.
Finally, they questioned him about the approaching L.59 Zeppelin and its payload, the A-bomb.
When he'd finished explaining, he was summarily dismissed.
Bertie Wells had taken him back outside and to the second car, in which the Tommies were waiting.
They were now on their way to a secret destination.
“We're supposed to be escorting you to Colonel Crowley,” Wells said, “but we're disobeying orders. When he finds out, if we're lucky, we'll be court marshalled and executed by firing squad.”
Burton looked at his companion and asked, “And if you're unlucky?”
“He'll use his mediumistic powers on us. I dread to think how that might turn out. One way or the other, though, this is a suicide mission.”
“Bloody hell!” Burton exclaimed. “Why didn't you tell me that before? I'd rather face this Crowley character than have you sacrifice yourself!”
“Which is exactly the reason I kept it quiet. I'm only telling you now so you'll realise the importance of what we're doing. I trust my editor implicitly, despite his eccentricities, and if he says the future depends on him meeting you, then I'm willing to bet my life that it does. Here, strap on this pistol, you shouldn't be without a weapon.”
Burton clipped the holster to his belt. He watched, amazed, as three smaller versions of the Britannia suddenly sped out of the billowing mist and swept past the motor-carriage. They were about eight feet in diameter and lacked the jungle-slicing arms of the bigger ship.
“What are those things?”
“Steam spheres. I suppose the nearest equivalent you had in your time was the velocipede.”
Burton shook his head in wonder, then said, “Eccentricities?”
Wells smiled. “The old man has a rather unconventional sense of style and his, um, ‘living arrangements’ tend to raise eyebrows.”
“Why so?”
“The gentleman he lodges with is, er, rather more than a friend, if you know what I mean.”
Burton threw up his hands in exasperation. “Good grief! It's 1918 and that's still considered unconventional? Has the human race not evolved at all since my time?”
The driver swung the motor-carriage into a narrow side street and accelerated down to the end of it, drawing to a stop outside a plain metal door.
Bertie stepped
out of the vehicle. Burton and the Tommies followed. The explorer wiped perspiration from his eyes and muttered an imprecation. Tabora possessed the atmosphere of a Turkish bath.
“Keep alert,” the war correspondent said to the three soldiers. They nodded, drew pistols from their holsters, and stood guard at the door while Wells ushered Burton through it.
“Up the stairs, please, Richard.”
The king's agent passed an opening on his left and ascended. There was an oil lamp hanging from the upper landing's ceiling, and by its light he saw that the walls were painted a pale lilac and decorated with colourful theatre posters, most of them dating from the 1880s. He reached the top and stopped outside a wooden door with a glowing fanlight above it. Wells reached past him and rapped his knuckles against the portal: Knock. Knock-knock-knock. Knock-knock.
“Code?” Burton asked.
“Open sesame,” Wells replied.
Algernon Swinburne's face flashed before the explorer's mind's eye.
“Come,” a voice called from the room beyond.
They pushed the door open and stepped through into a large chamber. It was lit by four wall lamps and reminded Burton of his study in Montagu Place, for it was lined with bookshelves, had two large desks, and was decorated with all manner of ornaments and pictures and nicknacks.
A crimson rug lay between four leather armchairs in the centre of the room. A heavyset man was standing on it, and, immediately, Burton felt that he'd seen him somewhere before. He was tall, rather fat, and appeared to be in his mid-sixties. His brown hair—which had obviously been dyed, for its roots were grey—was long and fell in waves to his shoulders. It framed a jowly face, with creases and wrinkles around the grey, indolent eyes, and full-lipped mouth. He was wearing a black velvet smoking jacket, inky-blue slacks, and leather button-up boots. There was a long cigarette holder between the pudgy ringed fingers of his left hand.
After a long pause, spent staring fixedly at the king's agent, the man drawled: “The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.”
His voice was deep and mellow and lazy. It possessed an Irish lilt.
Burton almost collapsed.
“Quips!” he cried out. “Bismillah! It's Quips!”
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde grinned, displaying crooked teeth, threw his cigarette holder onto a table, rushed forward, and took Burton by both hands.
“Captain Burton!” he exclaimed. “You're alive and young again! By heavens! How have you done it? I demand to know the secret! To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable!”
Burton gave a bark of laughter. “Still the rapier-sharp wit! The war hasn't blunted that, I see, and praise be to Allah for it! It's good to see you, lad! It's bloody good to see you!”
“Sure and begorra, he's calling me lad now! And here's me a quarter of a century his senior by the looks of it!” Wilde caught Burton as the explorer suddenly sagged. “Hey now, you're trembling all over! Come and sit down. Bertie, in the drinks cabinet—there's a decanter of brandy. Fetch it over, would you? Sit, Captain. Sit here. Are you feeling faint?”
“I'm all right,” Burton croaked, but, to his horror, he suddenly found himself weeping.
“It's the shock, so it is,” Wilde said. “A dash of brandy will put you right. Pour generously, Bertie, the captain probably hasn't tasted the good stuff for a long while.”
“I haven't—I haven't tasted it at all since—since Dut'humi,” Burton said, his voice weak and quavering.
Wells passed him a glass but Burton's hand was shaking so violently that Wilde had to put his own around it and guide the drink to the explorer's mouth. Burton gulped, coughed, took a deep shuddering breath, and sat back.
“Quips,” he said. “It's really you.”
“It is, too, Captain. Are you feeling a little more steady now?”
“Yes. My apologies. I think—I never—I never expected to find a little piece of home in this hellish world.”
Wilde chuckled and looked down at himself. “Not so little any more, I fear.” He addressed Herbert Wells: “Bertie, you'd best be getting off—we don't have much time. The devil himself will be snapping at our heels soon enough, so he will.”
Wells nodded. “Richard,” he said, “I'm going to prepare our escape. All being well, I'll see you within a couple of hours.”
“Escape?”
Wilde said, “Are you fit to take a walk? I'll explain as we go.”
“Yes.” Burton drained his glass and stood up. “By ‘the devil himself,’ I assume you mean Crowley.”
The three men moved to the door and started down the stairs.
“That I do, Captain.”
They reached the lower hallway. Wells opened the street door and peered out. The three Tommies were waiting by the car. The little war correspondent nodded to Burton and Wilde and slipped out into the mist, closing the portal behind him.
Wilde gestured to the opening in the side wall. “Into the basement, if you please, Captain.”
Burton stepped through and started down the wooden stairs he found beyond. “I don't understand Crowley and all this mediumistic business, Quips. The only evidence I've seen of it is the Germans occasionally manipulating the weather.”
“When the Hun destroyed London, they killed most of our best mediums, which is horribly ironic, do you not think? Here we are. Wait a moment.”
The stairs had ended in a large basement, which was filled with old furniture and tea chests. Wilde crossed to a heavy armoire standing against the far wall.
“Ironic?” Burton asked.
“Yes, because our clairvoyants didn't predict it! As a matter of fact, we now think their opposite numbers, on the German side, may have perfected some sort of mediumistic blanket that can render things undetectable.”
“Such as the approaching A-Bomb, for instance?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Ah-ha! That's got it!”
Wilde had been fiddling with something behind the big wooden unit. Now the whole thing slid smoothly aside, revealing the entrance to a passage. He turned and grinned at Burton. “Do y'know, I became the captain of a rotorship thanks to you? Do you remember old Nathaniel Lawless? A fine gentleman!”
“I remember him very clearly, and I agree.”
“After you wangled me the job on the poor old Orpheus, Lawless would never settle for another cabin boy. He sponsored my training, helped me rise through the ranks, and, before you know it, I was given captaincy of HMA Audacious. A lovely vessel, so she was, but the war had broken out by then and she was put to fiendish use. I soon found that I was losing myself in the mesmeric brutality of battle. As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it's looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. It took me a few years, I must confess, to realise that vulgarity.”
He indicated that Burton should follow and disappeared into the secret passage.
“So I had myself drummed out of the Air Force.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Through what they call ‘conduct unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman.’ I inspired the wrath of a certain Colonel Queensberry, and he rather gleefully put his proverbial boot to my backside. It caused a bit of a stir at the time, I can tell you.”
“And afterward you became a newspaper man?”
“Aye, I did that—going back to my roots, as you might say—and I wound up in Tabora.”
The passage made a sharp turn to the right. As they continued on, Burton looked at the small lights that, strung along a long wire, gave illumination. “How do these work?” he asked, pointing at one.
“Electricity.”
“Ah! Like I saw on the Britannia! Was it Isambard who mastered the technique?”
“Good Lord!” Wilde cried out. “Brunel! I haven't thought of him in years! What a genius he was!”
“And for all his faults, loved by the public,” Burton noted.
“To be sure! To be sure! Ah, what a delight it must be to be a Technologist! So much more romantic than being the editor of a newspaper! I can assure you that popularity is the one insult I have never suffered. But to answer your question: yes, he mastered electricity—in 1863, as it happens.”
They hurried on, with Wilde panting and puffing as he propelled his bulk forward.
“Where are we going, Quips?”
“All in good time, Captain.”
Burton began to wonder if the tunnel spanned the entire city.
“So the mediums,” he said. “They were killed when London fell?”
“So they were. And we had no more of them until 1907, when Crowley came to the fore. In recent years he's focused his talents on defending this city, which is why the Germans have never managed to conquer it.”
“Surely, then, he should be regarded as a hero? Why is it that no one seems to have a good word to say of him?”
Wilde shrugged. “That's a difficult one. There's just something about him. He's sinister. People suspect that he has some sort of hidden agenda. Here we are.”
They'd reached a door. Wilde knocked on it, the same arrhythmic sequence Wells had used earlier. It was opened by a seven-foot-tall Askari—obviously of the Masai race—who whispered, “You'll have to be quick. There's some sort of flap on. They're going to move the prisoner.”
Wilde muttered an acknowledgement. He and Burton stepped into what appeared to be a records room, followed the soldier out of it into a brightly lit corridor, and ran a short distance along it until they came to a cell door. However, when it was unlocked and opened, the room behind it proved to be not a cell at all but a very large and luxurious chamber, decorated in the English style, with Jacobean furniture and paintings on its papered walls.
In its middle, there was a metal frame with a wizened little man—naked but for a cloth wrapped around his loins—suspended upright inside it. He was held in place by thin metal cables that appeared to have been bolted straight through his parchment-like skin into the bones beneath. His flesh was a network of long surgical scars and he was horribly contorted, his arms and legs twisted out of shape, their joints swollen and gnarled, and his spine curved unnaturally to one side. His finger-and toenails were more than two feet long and had grown into irregular spirals. Bizarrely, they were varnished black.