Ellis found it hard to keep awake in the old armchair as the Former Baron and Siren chatted away to each other about the details of defence mechanisms, hypostatick wards and weapon arsenals. He tried to focus on what they were saying, to absorb as much information as he could, but it was all too complicated for him.
“You see I rerouted the hypostatick fluids widdershins around the perimeter at twice the pressure, thereby increasing the range of the effect without decreasing the potency,” the Former Baron was saying, “and by using a three inch valve instead of the standard three and a half inch…”
It was all completely meaningless to him. He had no idea how the flow of fluids and the use of soul energy could constitute a defence system. It was as good as magic to him, even if the Former Baron might deny any such accusation. It was also surprisingly dull.
“But have you considered using super-heated pipes to generate vapour?” Siren replied, “I’d heard that they can increase efficiency.”
“Oh, of course it can, but the risk of explosion increases even more so and the piping network is fragile enough as it is.”
“Then, have you tried coating the pipes in a mixture of black sand and Glasswhale oil?”
“My word, where did you get an idea like that, my dear?”
“It was something we used on the engine of the Ebony Crest after it started leaking and we suddenly had a massive shoal of vicious Velocignaths bashing against the hull. It’s really quite effective!”
At this Ellis roused himself enough to ask, “Is there a possibility that you might be able to switch the topic of this conversation to just the ship and the Velico-things, at all?”
“I’m trying to do my job here, Ellis,” Siren snapped.
“So, in what ratio do you mix those?” the Former Baron continued as if Ellis had never spoken.
“Well, we tried it a couple of different ways, but I think three to one was the most successful. Certainly, any more black sand than that and the whole mixture becomes pretty useless and with a mixture that’s half and half…”
Ellis sighed, dragged himself out of the seat and made for the hall. Neither of his companions seemed to notice. Staggering past the covered frames, he made his way upstairs into the ‘east wing’. When he reached the guest room he collapsed on the bed and fell asleep within minutes.
Everything was lit by the purplish light of the moon and the streets seemed to stretch on into infinity, winding left and right and up and down over low hills, breeding shadows at every corner. Ellis was alone. He had the sense that he was going somewhere. He had someone to meet.
His feet seemed to move of their own accord, and yet their guiding movements were not alien. He wanted to travel this way, for whatever reason. He turned up a side street and began to ascend a hill. The moon hung in the air above its summit, like the nativity star, guiding travellers to some fixed point.
He wondered who it was he had to see. There were no names or faces rising in his mind to meet the question. All he knew was that the meeting was very important. That’s what the moon said. That’s what his feet told him.
It started to rain as he reached the halfway point up the hill. The rain shone neon green in the night, every drop clearly visible against the darkness. There was a roar and Ellis thought, Grinder, but before he could react there was another in reply, and then another and another. The city was coming alive with monsters.
His feet started to pick up their pace. At first it was just a quick walk, splashing through bright green puddles, eyes fixed on the moon and the hilltop, but then, as his heart began to pound and his breath came in short supply, they were running. Each footfall was a slap against the wet stone. Each footfall was epic, eternal. The distances covered with each step were vast, but the hilltop seemed no nearer and the roaring of the Grinders was growing louder all the time, like an alarm in the back of his head.
Suddenly he could feel hot breath against his back. Turning his head through air that was now as thick as syrup he was able to see the rain sizzling on the beast’s burning eyes and dripping thickly over its rusting teeth.
He willed his legs to work harder, to cover more distance, but the monster was gaining. Everything took forever to happen. The instant of the kill seemed to stretch on into infinity as those terrible teeth came down and down and down, and Ellis’ arm wouldn’t move out of their way. He felt the teeth start to cut the skin and then-
He was at the top of the hill. It was no longer raining. The night was silent and the moon watched on impassively over his head.
“I was wondering when you’d show up,” Sarah said.
He opened his eyes in an instant. He felt cold and his body was drenched with sweat, matting his hair to his forehead. The bright light of midday shone in through the window. He sat up and tried to take a few deep breaths, slowing down his heart rate and calming his nerves. His hands shook a little as he grasped at the damp sheets. He closed his eyes for a moment and the fuzzy memory of the Grinder’s teeth seemed burned into his eyelids. They shot open again at once.
When he felt a little more calm, which took a few minutes, he pulled himself up out of the bed and made his way back downstairs, popping his head around the doorway into the dining room and preparing a forced smile to greet Siren and his host. They weren’t there. Instead the remains of the tea lay abandoned on a pile of books, already gathering dust.
“Hello?” he called out. There was no answer, only a slight echo.
Sighing, he retreated back into the hall and noticed that the door to the basement was slightly ajar. As he approached he could hear voices debating some point intensely. He pulled the door open and made his way down into the gloomy laboratory.
“You can’t activate it yet; half the parts are held on with elastic!”
“My dear girl, I have been inventing things since before you were born. I have a pretty fair idea about what will work and what will not.”
“But, elastic? That’s insane!”
“I have suffered worse accusations before, now get out of my way so I can start priming the fluid pumps.”
Ellis stepped down into the laboratory just in time to see the Former Baron push a fuming Siren aside to reach for a large pump lever. It was connected to the same machine that Ellis had sat down on before, except that this time there were extra pipelines winding their way across the room to a pedestal, upon which the ring sat amidst a complicated clockwork device. The device and its pedestal were connected, specifically, by knicker elastic. The same seemed to be holding all the pipes in place.
“Ah, Errol,” the Former Baron declared as he looked up from pumping the lever, “perfect timing! We were just about to test out my latest invention.” He gestured towards the pedestal. Siren merely shook her head in despair.
“What is it? I mean, what does it do?”
“Well, if I’ve aligned the rotations and the hypostatick field generator properly, it should resonate with the energies within the ring, allowing us to communicate with it.”
“Like through a code?”
“Oh goodness, no! That would take forever. No, this should help to strengthen the soul within the ring so that it can communicate more directly. At the moment it just doesn’t have enough energy to do much more than exist, but with this machine it’ll be chatting away with us in no time, none at all!”
“Sounds a bit creepy to me.”
“You have an overdeveloped sense of fear, then, my boy. It’s really no different than waking someone up in the morning, only hopefully this soul will not behave like my uncle Johannes, who once decapitated his manservant in a fit of postsomnial insanity.”
“Okay, now you’re just making it sound dangerous.”
“Yes,” the Former Baron conceded, “exciting isn’t it?”
“You really are just a crazy old thrill seeker aren’t you?” Siren said haughtily, “What if this goes wrong? It could hurt someone. It could destroy the ring! How will Ellis get home then?”
“Oh, nonsense, girl” Von Spektr replied dismissively then he gestured for Ellis to step close and pointed down to a switch on the side of the machine. “Since it’s your ring, perhaps you would like to do the honours?”
Ellis gazed down at the switch with a worried expression, then looked at the machine and its lingerie bindings. Finally he gazed at Siren. Her eyes seemed to be shimmering slightly. Was she genuinely afraid of what would happen, after everything she had said that morning in Kerring’s stockroom? He gave her a weak smile and then flicked the switch.
Instantly the room filled with noise. The pumps began pushing fluids though the pipes and Ellis was able to see the green glow leaking out between the joins and visible through the occasional glass panel. When the glowing fluids reached the pedestal the brass began to sparkle and then the clockwork whirred into action, spinning around and around as the ring sat motionless in the centre. Then it began to shine brighter than it had before and the tiny purple stone, which ought not to have been noticeable at the distance Ellis was viewing it from, was suddenly glowing with a pulsing purple light.
A high-pitched sound began to be audible over the sound of the machinery, growing louder and louder and, as it did so, the Former Baron’s expression, which had been verging on ecstatic, suddenly changed to one of anxiety.
He rushed over to the machine with the pumps and began checking all of the pipelines quickly, then, when he reached the pedestal, he skimmed over all the joints and examined all the whirring clockwork pieces. The noise increased, sounding almost like a shriek now and Ellis and Siren were forced to clap their hands over their ears. The Former Baron glanced up at the ring, saw the pulsating glow expanding rapidly and then dived for cover.
There was a flash of pale, purplish light and then a sudden, all-consuming silence.
Ellis was lying on the floor and his ears were ringing. His vision was obscured by purple blotches that refused to disappear when he blinked. He could smell smoke and suddenly had to fight the urge to cough. As he sat up and the ringing subsided, he realised that the room was completely dark except for a single point of light. It was a pale indigo light and within it he could just make out the still-sparkling silver surface of the ring. The pedestal was gone and the ring seemed to be suspended in mid air, surrounded by the light. The purple blotches at last began to fade and then he realised that the light had a body and a face and an expression of surprise. None of this prepared him for what happened next.
“Oh,” the ring said, “I guess this means something worked.”
AUTHOR COMMENT: So, our heroes finally make some progress with the ring, but who is this strange new figure on the scene and what is their connection to Ellis' arrival in Shadow?
ReplyDeleteNext Week - 'A Study in Amethyst'