“My hat!” he exclaimed and drew his hand back a little, for a bright-red flower had suddenly bloomed from the back of it. “It's—it's a poppy, Richard!”
His fingers slipped from their hold.
Swinburne dropped into darkness.
“Have you got him?” Trounce asked.
Burton didn't reply.
“Richard?”
The Yard man crawled around on his knees to face the explorer.
“Richard? Richard? Do you have him?”
The king's agent remained still, his tears dripping into the void beneath his face.
“Oh no,” Trounce whispered huskily. “Oh no.”
Burton untied Trounce.
John Speke stirred and sat up.
“Dick,” he groaned. “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for everything.” He touched the babbage embedded in his skull. “It was this damned thing. Every time I wound it up, it forced decisions upon me. I've been like an opium addict with it. Unable to stop!”
“But now?” Burton asked, dully. He felt remote. Disengaged. Broken.
“It was all about coming here,” Speke responded. “The wretched thing was designed to make me fetch the black diamond for the Technologist and Rake alliance. When you killed the madmen behind that scheme, the compulsion to come here remained, but I had no sponsor, so it forced me to find one.”
“The Prussian government.”
“Yes. I guided Zeppelin here, and as soon as I set foot in the place, the device, having realised its purpose, stopped working.”
An expression of sheer torment passed over his face.
“I still have the addiction, Dick. I'm on fire with the urge to wind it up again! But Babbage booby-trapped it. If I use it even once more, a timing mechanism will activate and it will explode!”
Herbert Spencer broke his pose and stepped forward. He spoke in an uncharacteristically precise voice: “The man you refer to was rather precious about his contraptions, wasn't he? I understand he booby-trapped them all to prevent others from discovering the secret of their construction.” He aimed his pistol at the king's agent. “This revolver will operate perfectly well while it's in my grasp, Sir Richard. Don't you think it rather regrettable that destructive forces must so often be employed to achieve one's ends?”
Burton gasped and clutched at Trounce's arm for support.
Spencer made a piping noise that may have been a chuckle. “Pretending to have lost motive energy is by no means an original trick but it is an effective one. As you can see, I have power in my mainspring.”
“What—what are you playing at, Herbert?” Burton stammered. “Why didn't you help us?”
“The song must be sung in the proper manner.”
“Song? What are you talking about?”
“The Song of the Nāga. Let us not stand here discussing it. A demonstration will be far more effective. If you would all please step over to that outcrop of blue crystal—” The brass man gestured with his revolver toward the wall of the cavern where a tall formation of amethyst hunched up from the floor. They moved to it. There was a low opening in the wall behind, a space big enough for a man to crawl into.
Spencer said, “Go in first, please, Mr. Speke; then you, William; and you last, Sir Richard.”
One by one, they entered what proved to be little more than a winding tube. Patches of phosphorescence illuminated its length.
Burton fought to quell his rising panic. He had an irrational fear of enclosed spaces. The passage into the grotto had been bad enough, but this was far worse.
As they inched along, flat on their stomachs, the clockwork man explained: “The fact of the matter is that I'm not Herbert Spencer and never have been. When he died in close proximity to the Cambodian diamonds, his mind was imprinted onto them, just as you thought, but it never had the power to motivate this mechanical body. It was I who did so, using his personality as a bridge—or a filter, if you will—through which to interact with you. Spencer is, I'm afraid to say, thoroughly suppressed. The poor man! I can feel his frustration, his eagerness to help you!”
“Then who are you?” the king's agent asked, fighting to keep his voice steady.
“I am K'k'thyima, high priest of the Nāga.”
Burton, whose mind had barely functioned since the loss of Swinburne, struggled to make sense of this revelation.
“I dreamt of you. You sounded different.”
“As I said, I employ the mind of Herbert Spencer in order to communicate. I could chin-wag more like what he bloomin' well does, if'n it'll make you feel more comfy, like.”
“I'd prefer it if you didn't.”
“A little farther, gentlemen. We're almost there.”
Moments later, the three men wormed their way out of the tunnel and got to their feet. They stood paralysed, with hearts hammering and eyes popping.
What confronted them was virtually incomprehensible.
They were standing on a ledge, hundreds of feet above the floor of a vast cavern, which was ablaze with the strange azure radiance; and if the previous vault had seemed magical, then this one appeared miraculous!
A megalithic temple rose from the centre of the massive space. Its soaring walls, spires, and columns were decorated with complex geometrical designs and friezes. The men gazed in awe at its sweeping arches and curving arcades; at the many gargoyles and representations of lions and oxen and other, extinct, animals; and at the thick round central tower that rose to the distant ceiling and merged with it.
The entire temple complex—for there were many outbuildings squatting around the base of the edifice—was hewn from solid rock, and for many minutes, Burton, Trounce, and Speke stood silent and confounded, wondering what manner of tools had been employed to achieve this eighth—and foremost!—wonder of the world.
As the brass man scraped out of the tunnel behind them, Speke whispered, “I never knew! I never got this far! Both times, when I reached the grotto, the things came and dragged me out of it.”
“Then when did you see the Eye?” Burton asked.
“I didn't. Not physically. But I had a clear vision of it.”
“What? All this we've been through began with nothing but a vision?”
“I planted it in Mr. Speke's mind,” K'k'thyima said.
“Things?” Trounce interrupted. “You said things dragged you out, Speke?”
“Yes. They were—they were—”
“They were the Batembuzi,” the brass figure interjected. “Long ago, they served the Nāga and had an empire that covered all of the Lake Regions, but now this—” he swept out his arm to indicate the temple, “—is their home.” He gestured to their right with his revolver. “The ledge goes down here and slopes around the wall to the floor. Follow it, please.”
They walked slowly, as necessitated by the condition of the clockwork man's left leg.
The ledge narrowed for a stretch, and they had to press themselves against the cavern wall to navigate along it.
“Allow me to tell you a little of the Nāga,” K'k'thyima said. “Long, long ago, we lived where the three Eyes had fallen: here, and in South America, and on the continent of Kumari Kandam—and though our colonies were separated, we bonded in a Great Fusion through means of the diamonds.”
“Until Brahmin Kaundinya came along,” Burton murmured.
“Ah, of course, you have studied the legend. Yes, your spy Kaundinya broke the Kumari Kandam Eye into seven fragments, causing the physical death of all the Nāga on that continent. Their essence lived on in the stones, of course, but now they were isolated, for the other two Eyes were whole, whereas theirs was shattered.”
“Your Great Fusion requires the three Eyes to be in the same state?”
“It does.”
The group was now about halfway down the path. Speke led the way, self-absorbed and tormented; Trounce followed, listening to what he considered a fairy tale; Burton was third in the line; and the clockwork man hauled himself along behind, holding his pistol aimed steadily a
t the back of the explorer's head.
K'k'thyima continued: “When a Nāga completes its lifespan, the Great Fusion offers the choice of true death—which many prefer—or a transcendence. Kaundinya's act of betrayal denied us all these options, and condemned us to eternity and eventual madness. Obviously, this is a situation that has to be corrected.”
“Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence,” Burton said. “You can't put a broken diamond together again, so you have to shatter the other two stones to achieve equivalence.”
“And restore the Great Fusion, yes. Incidentally, your friend Spencer is a very determined man. He is not happy that I borrowed his personality. He tried to leave a clue for the unfortunate Mr. Swinburne in his First Principles of Philosophy. It was all I could do to stop the poet from telling you about it.”
“How did you do that?”
“I've been radiating a mesmeric influence to make you all consider me harmless and friendly.”
They reached the cavern floor, and K'k'thyima directed them along a well-worn path toward the buildings at the foot of the temple.
“So we were at an impasse. We couldn't shatter the other two Eyes while our South American and African colonies still lived, for it would have physically killed them. Nor could we stand to exist in a state of disconnection. We thus lost the will to survive in the material realm, and allowed you soft skins to hunt us to extinction.”
“But the essence of you continued to dwell in the Eyes?” Burton asked.
“Yes, and now we had to wait for your species to discover the diamonds.”
“Why?”
“So that we might use you to bring equivalence. As high priest, I was the only one of my people whose essence spanned all of the stones, and I was able to channel the mesmeric abilities of my species through any of them. I was thus able to manipulate you soft skins. Ah, look! Here come the Batembuzi!”
Up ahead, figures were slouching out of doorways and sliding out of glassless windows. A large crowd of them gathered and loped forward to meet the approaching party. They were small and ape-like, with skin of a dull-white hue, and their eyes were strange and large and greyish-red. Shaggy flaxen hair descended to their shoulders and grew down their backs, and they moved with their arms held low, sometimes resorting to all fours. Thoroughly nightmarish in aspect, they proved too much for Speke. With a wail of terror, he threw himself backward.
“Hold him!” K'k'thyima ordered.
Burton and Trounce grabbed the lieutenant. He fought them, emitting animalistic whines of fear.
“They aren't going to harm you!” the priest said. “They'll just escort us into the temple,”
Speke finally quietened down when the hideous troglodytes, rather than attacking, simply fell into position beside the group.
As they entered among the squat buildings, the brass man instructed the Britishers to walk straight ahead to the central thoroughfare, then turn right and proceed along it. They followed his instructions and saw, some way ahead, the tall double doors of the temple entrance.
“Everything!” Burton suddenly exclaimed. “Bismillah! You orchestrated everything! You planted in Edward Oxford an irrational obsession about his ancestor so he'd travel back in time and cause all of the Eyes to be discovered! You manipulated Rasputin so you could occupy that clockwork body, commandeer Herbert Spencer's mind, and shatter the South American Eye! And you caused that damned babbage to be grafted onto Speke's brain so he'd lead me here!”
“That has been my song,” K'k'thyima confessed. “And now we shall shatter the last of the Eyes and the Nāga will be free.”
Passing blocky, unadorned buildings, they came to the foot of a broad set of steps leading up to the temple's imposing arched entrance. They ascended, and a group of Batembuzi put their shoulders to the doors and pushed. As the portals swung slowly inward, Burton asked, “But what of the fragments Oxford cut from the South American Eye for his time suit? Surely they unbalance the equivalence you seek?”
“Soon, Sir Richard, you will discover the beauty and elegance of paradox. Those shards were cut in a future where the stone was complete. I changed that future when, earlier in the same diamond's history, I broke it into seven. Thus the pieces could not be cut from it.”
“I don't understand any of this,” Trounce grumbled.
The clockwork man gave a soft hoot. “Do not be embarrassed, William. Non-linear time and multiplying histories are concepts that most soft skins struggle with. For your kind, it is virtually impossible to escape the imprisoning chains of narrative structure. We have come here to address that deficiency.”
“Oh. How comforting.”
They entered a prodigious and opulent chamber. Its floor was chequered with alternating gold and black hexagonal tiles. The walls were carved into bas reliefs, inset with thousands of precious gemstones, and the ceiling was a solid blanket of scintillating phosphorescence from which hung censers forged from precious metals and decorated with diamonds.
Oddly, though, the chamber reminded Burton and Trounce less of a temple and more of Battersea Power Station, for there were strange structures arrayed around the floor and walls; things that appeared to be half-mineral formation and half-machine, with, dominating the centre of the space, a thick floor-to-ceiling column made up of alternating layers of crystalline and metallic materials.
Despite the abundance of precious stones on display, there was an air of abandonment about the place. As they passed through the chamber and started up a winding stairwell, Burton noted that many of the gems had fallen from their housings in the patterned walls and were lying scattered around the floor. There were cracks and crumblings in evidence everywhere, and at one point they had to step over a wide hole where the stone steps had collapsed and fallen away.
“Straight ahead, please, gentlemen.”
“My bloody legs!” Trounce groaned as they climbed higher and higher.
The stairs led up to a long, wide hall with gold-panelled double doors at its far end. Fourteen statues stood against the walls, seven to each side. They depicted Nāga, squatting on short plinths, some with one head, some with five, some with seven.
At K'k'thyima's command, the three men approached the doors. The brass man clanked past, holding his gun levelled at Burton's face, took hold of a handle with his free hand, and pulled one of the portals open far enough for the men to pass through it.
“Enter, please, gents.”
They stepped into what turned out to be a medium-sized room. It was square and the walls were panelled with oblongs of phosphorescence. The tall ceiling was shaped like an upside-down pyramid, with an enormous black diamond the size of a goose egg fitted into an ornate bracket at its tip.
“The last unbroken Eye of Nāga!” K'k'thyima announced.
A stone altar was laid out beneath the gemstone. Metal manacles were fitted to it, and there were stains on its surface that Burton didn't want to examine too closely. Gold chalices, containing heaps of black-diamond dust, stood to either side. The explorer noted nasty-looking instruments, like something one might find in a surgery, arranged on a nearby block, and there were other items around the room that, again, looked somehow more machine than architecture or decoration.
“William, Mr. Speke, if you would move over there—” K'k'thyima gestured to one side of the chamber, “—and Sir Richard, I'd be much obliged if you'd climb onto the altar and lie down.”
“Do you intend to sacrifice me, Nāga?”
The clockwork man gave his soft hooting chuckle. “Rest assured, you'll leave here alive. On you get, please, or—” he moved the pistol, aiming it at Trounce, “—or do I have to shoot William in the leg before you'll comply?”
Scowling ferociously, Burton sat on the altar, swung his legs up, and lay down. Immediately, he felt an energy, like static electricity, crawling over his skin.
With one hand, K'k'thyima closed the manacles around the explorer's wrists and ankles.
Speke, who'd been det
ached and withdrawn since they'd entered the temple, suddenly spoke up: “Wait! Whatever you're going to do, do it to me instead!”
“I'm afraid that wouldn't be at all satisfactory,” K'k'thyima responded. “Only this man is suitable for the task.”
Speke fell to his knees and held his hands out imploringly. “Please!”
“Quite impossible. Stand up, Mr. Speke, and be quiet. The song will not require you again until the final verse.”
“Task?” Burton asked.
K'k'thyima picked up a wicked-looking knife from among the instruments on the nearby block.
Trounce stepped forward.
“Back, William! I intend no harm to your friend! See, I'm putting down the pistol now—” he placed his revolver next to Burton's head, “—but I'll slice his throat if you come any closer.”
Trounce bit his lip and gave a curt nod. He returned to his former position.
The brass man took hold of Burton's hair and, working quickly, began to slice it off.
“You have a most remarkable mind, Sir Richard,” he said. “When you wandered into this diamond's range of influence during your first expedition, we immediately recognised that you were the soft skin we'd been waiting for.”
Burton winced as the blade scraped across his scalp.
The priest continued: “The one with an open and enquiring intellect; an observer, sufficiently separated from his own culture to be able to easily absorb the ways of others; one not disorientated by the unusual or unfamiliar.”
“Why is that of any significance?”
K'k'thyima removed the last few strands of hair from the explorer's head and said, “William, Mr. Speke, I have to perform a delicate operation now. Do not interfere. If you try anything, he'll die, and so will you. Is that understood?”
Both men nodded.
The clockwork man put down the knife and took up a small bowl. It was partially filled with a sticky paste.
“Excellent!” he exclaimed. “The Batembuzi prepared everything well!”
He dipped the bowl into a chalice, scooping black diamond dust into it, then used a small instrument to work the dust into the paste. Limping to the head of the altar, he employed the same instrument to paint an intricate hieroglyph on Burton's naked scalp.