Episode III - Blue Sky Thinking

The house was as much a mess on the inside as out.  A crooked staircase descended into the main hall at an unsettling angle and none of the door frames seemed to be straight.  There was dust covering every surface and the hall was filled with the veiled shapes of large paintings, leaning against the walls.

“Excuse the mess, but I haven’t quite got around to doing the spring cleaning this year yet… or ever before for that matter!”  He gave Ellis another of his wide, thin grins and then led the way into what might once have been a dining room.  There was certainly still a dining table in the centre of it, but every inch of it was covered in dusty old books and a delicate and complicated arrangement of glass flasks and rubber tubing.  The apparatus was empty but there was a crusty orange residue in the bottom of most of the vessels.  A series of bookshelves and mismatched chairs lined the walls, making it appear almost like a library.

The Former Baron Von Spektr scanned the room quickly, then chose a mouldy red velvet armchair in a corner, dragged the pile of books that had been sitting on it to the floor and gestured for Ellis to sit.

“I’ll just check in the kitchen to see if there are any biscuits after all,” he said hurriedly and then vanished into an adjoining room where there proceeded to be a lot of clanking of metal and smashing of china.  Ellis took a seat and tried not to listen too intently.  Instead he let his gaze pass over the spines of various books, doing his best to make out those he could actually read through all the dust.  Sewer Management for the Discerning Citizen, The Grimoire of Hypostatick Philosophy and A Genealogy of Borough Families were all equally meaningless to him.

He sighed and stared at his hands.  In spite of the noise in the kitchen and the rattling of pipes outside, this felt like his first moment of silence since he had arrived in Shadow and he suddenly felt a wave of depression wash over him.  First Sarah hated him, now she was in another world.  He was stuck with mad ex-nobility, exploding devices and a city filled with monsters.  He shook his head in despair.

The he stopped.  There, on his finger, was the ring he had picked up in the alleyway.  It had been dull when had retrieved it, but now it was glimmering slightly and the purple stone in the centre was catching the light of the Former Baron’s dusty oil lamps.  It suddenly looked like it might be quite valuable.  He wondered how the tarnished silver had managed to brighten itself up in the course of half an hour.

“Here we are,” the Former Baron announced as he stepped back into the room, covered in little chips of porcelain and carrying a large tray which was sloshing pale orange tea onto the carpet with every step and gesture he made, “I didn’t find any biscuits, sadly, but there was some cheese, so I took the liberty of cutting you a slice.”  He placed the tray on top of another pile of books and then, with a gesture that was obscenely careful after the mess he had made carrying the tray in, handed Ellis a cup of tea and a small side plate with a slice of slightly mouldy cheese.  He found himself a seat by the table, took his own cup and plate and began merrily munching his way around the blue patches.

Ellis stared at his tea.  There was something swimming in it.  He put it back on the tray and tried to strike up a conversation instead.

“You have a lot of books,” he began, not being a great expert in small talk.

“Oh yes, yes indeed.  I have books in every room, books of all sizes, shapes, colours and content!  I like to read, don’t you?”

“I’m more of a music person.”

“Ah, sweet music, eh?  Yes, well I haven’t been to the Opera for a few years now, or is it decades, but the last time I went was quite memorable, I think.”

“Uh, yeah… Opera.”

“But I just never have the time, these days, what with the inventing and the assassination attempts, not to mention the war – why, I’ve never been more busy reading in all my days.”

“Assassination attempts?”

“Oh yes, it’s all part and parcel of being a former noble, you know.  Everyone thinks they have something to gain from killing you.  They tend to fear that maybe one day you might want your rightful title and role back and they have obviously grown rather attached to it themselves, assuming someone hasn’t already killed them, of course.  It’s nothing to worry about.”

Ellis didn’t have a response to that.

“Anyway, they all know where I live and what I do here, so they take on the risks willingly before each venture.”

Ellis thought about this for a moment, then asked, “I’m sorry, what happens to the assassins?”

“Well, usually they never even make it to the front door.  It doesn’t look it, but it’s heavily warded with hypostatick energies, that’s what all those pipes are for.  If anyone comes near without my permission, well… you wouldn’t want to see the results.”

There was a gleam in his eye that suggested that he would.

“You said you’d have answers for my questions?”

The Former Baron took another sip of his tea and then gazed out a dust-covered window for a moment before turning back to look at his guest.

“Yes, yes, I imagine I will do.  Ask away.”

“Okay, well, this is another world from mine, right?  You didn’t seem all that surprised when I told you… I mean… you believed me straight away.”

“Well you talked about blue skies, it made any attempt at debating the point merely academic.”

“What do you mean?”

“We know about your world, have done for, well, as long as it has been your world.  It’s in all the ancient histories and the one thing that always stood out about it was the sky.”  He paused, smiling to himself, “ Blue,” he mused, “who could imagine it?”

“How do you know about my world?  I didn’t even know there were other worlds out there until I stumbled into this one by accident!”

“As far as I’m aware there are only the two, but then again, perhaps there are more.  We know about yours because, well, there was an event a long time ago that… well it was something of a disaster, destroyed a whole section of the city, never to be rebuilt again, but in the process we broke into your world, just for a little while.  There have been people trying to get back in ever since.”

“How long ago was this?”

The Former Baron made a show of counting off dates on his fingers and muttering numbers under his breath, then he looked up and said, “Oh, about ten thousand years ago, I should think.”

“Just how old is this city?”

“I’m pretty sure that I have already informed you that it is the Eternal city.”

“But it can’t actually be eternal can it?”

The Former Baron shrugged, “Don’t ask me, I only live here.”  He took another long sip of tea, then placed his cup on the tray.  “Anyway, as you can imagine, your arrival here in Shadow is likely to cause a bit of a stir if  people find out about it.  In fact I might admit to being somewhat stirred myself.  Think of it, ten thousand years of trying to get back in  to glimpse those fabled blue skies and here you are, just ‘stumbling’ in to our world, as you put it, as if it were a walk in the park.”

“It was a drunken stagger home, really.”

“Really?  Perhaps there’s a theory in there somewhere… Hmm.”

“All I really want to know is, how do I get back?”

“Back?  But you’ve only just arrived?”

“I have things to do back home.  I have… monsters to avoid meeting in back streets, that sort of thing.”

“My goodness!  Is our city’s little battle unnerving you that much?  Well then, you might have a problem.  Would you like to know how much closer we are to accessing your world now than we were ten thousand years ago?”

Ellis sighed, “I can guess.”

“Not an inch!  As far as I am aware there have been no attempts even partially successful at breaking through the mysterious aether between the worlds, so, in that regard, the question as  to how you might best get home is rendered somewhat moot.”

Ellis dropped his head into his hand and groaned.  This was terrible, so terrible, in fact, that once again he tried to find some hope that it was really all just a dream, and once again every sense told him it was not.

“But don’t despair, young Elisha, there may yet be a way!”

He looked up, raised an eyebrow, “How?”

“Well we just have to work out how you got here in the first place and then figure out how to reverse the process, plus I have something none of those who have tried before have had.”

“And what is that?”

“Something which has come from the other world - namely you!”

“But I don’t know how I got here! I can’t explain it!”

“Then we won’t start by asking questions, shall we?”

“Wh- what else is there you can do?”

The Former Baron Von Spektr gave another wide grin, “To the Laboratory!”

The Former Baron led the way back out into the hall, past the covered gallery and around the back of the main staircase where there was a small worm-eaten door hanging off its hinges.  Pulling this aside he descended into a gloomy world lit only by luminous liquids and Bunsen burners.

“Over here, Ellison, my boy,” the Former Baron called as he weaved his way between workbenches and unfathomable pieces of machinery, “over to this corner, if you’d be so kind.”

The corner in question was filled with a large brass throne, from which a variety of differently sized pipes emerged, feeding into other peripheral devices, many of which looked like large, sealed cauldrons, some with circles of glass in the centre like diving helmets, and all of which eventually led into a large machine of gears and wheels and pistons  upon which was placed a single piece of parchment.

“Now, if you could  just sit down there,” the Former Baron began, gesturing to the throne, but Ellis was already backing away slowly.

“It really doesn’t look safe.”

“Nonsense!  Why, I built it myself.  It works perfectly most of the time so there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Most of the time.”

“Oh, just sit down, it’ll only take a few minutes.”

Warily, Ellis approached and then, after reaching and touching the cold metal with an uncertain hand, turned and sat down.  It was monumentally uncomfortable.

“Now, I just have to flick this switch here, and here and here and here, then turn the pump handle a few times – are you all right there, Elijah? Just sit still – and then I flick this last lever here and… Ah, there it goes.”

The machine clunked, clicked, whirred, buzzed and churned into life as fluids started pouring into the pipes and began to slosh lazily towards the throne, picking up speed and gaining pressure as more and more was added.  The room began to fill with a green glow from all the little windows and Ellis could feel heat building beneath him.  He remembered the green explosion in the street and the death of the Grinder and felt a chill  run down his spine despite the efforts of the throne to warm him up.

The Former  baron Von Spektr was a few feet away now, staring down at the piece of parchment as the gears began to turn faster and faster, spinning around like green Catherine wheels as the fluids began to paint the cogs.

“Ah, yes!  Something’s coming through now, yes indeed!  Oh this is fascinating!  What the Academy of Hypostatick Philosophy would make of this if there were any of them not burnt to ashes!”

“What is it?” Ellis asked, starting to rise from the still-heating brass throne.

“No, no! Don’t stand.  I’ll show you when it’s done!”

Obligingly, Ellis sat and found himself staring down at his hands again.  The ring was sparkling now.  It looked brand new.

“What the-“ he began to say, but then-

“There, that’s it done.  Flick all the switches back and let the thing cool down, that’s what I always say, or at least I try to, when I remember.  Don’t want a repeat of what happened last year, oh no, no, no!”

“Can I stand up now?”

“What?  Oh yes, by all means, stretch your legs, have a run, do whatever, but you might want to come and have a look at this.”  He picked up the piece of parchment from atop the machine and waved it in the air, then he walked over to a workbench and smoothed it out so it was clearly visible in the light of one of the burners.

Ellis walked over and peered down at the paper.  It was etched with a series of circles and lines and letters which he could not read.

“What is it?”

“it’s a map of your hypostatickal energies, and quite a good one at that.  The machine can be a little hit or miss at times.”

“And what are hypo-whatevers?”

“Goodness!  Don’t they teach you Hypostatick Philosophy in your world?  The shame of it!”

“No.”

“Oh, well, hypostatick energies are what keep you alive, it’s the energy given off by your very soul and this machine can read the patterns of it.”

“And you can read the machine?”

“Well, mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Well, I can tell just by looking at this that you are not from this world.  It’s all warped at the edges, indicating a major aetherick shift and I think that if we analyse that further we should be able to find the corresponding shift to get you back through the aether and- oh my, what is that?”

“What now?”

“Well there’s another distortion on the map, like a separate energy source, off to one side, just about where… where that ring is on your finger.”

Ellis held up his hand and let the ring catch the light.

“You mean… this ring… it has a soul?”

“Oh my.”

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