Siren didn't
have time to question, or to complain, because no sooner had the sharp-nosed
clerk informed her of her fate than she was being 'ushered' along another
corridor by a new pair of guards, this time dressed in waistcoats with military
epaulettes and the red and black colours of Skullbridge. This time she tried to fight. She had no desire to see Doctor Barkham ever
again and if she was in this 'Fracture' along with Marveille then it was a
place she no longer wished to linger.
She had learnt more than she had wanted to and now it was time to leave.
But she
couldn't leave. The guards were
stronger than she was. Thick muscles
bulged beneath their dress shirts and their grips were as vice-like as any
Siren had experienced. She struggled
against them for a while, slowing their progress down the marble-floored
corridor for a little while, but her feet couldn't get purchase and soon she
was just been dragged along, her toes trailing along the floor. It was humiliating and not at all how Siren
had intended to spend the afternoon.
Eventually the
two guards pulled her back onto her feet before a grand set of carved wooden
doors. One of them rapped lightly on
the wood, displaying a gentleness which had been conspicuously lacking during
the journey from the foyer, and then both guards stood to attention, Siren held
firmly between them as they waited for a response. After a moment the door cracked open and a tiny old man peered
out. He was dressed in the unmistakable
livery of a butler, but he still managed to look at Siren like she was many
rungs beneath her on the great ladder of fortune. Given that she was the only one of those present currently being
held captive by a pair men dressed like militant cocktail waiters, perhaps she
was.
"Siren,"
he said. It wasn't a question. It was barely even a statement of fact. It came out sounding most like a weary sigh,
as if all this was far too much effort for a man of his lofty station. Siren had never seen a butler quite like
him.
The man
vanished back inside the room and the door closed. It remained so for another couple of minutes, but, despite
Siren's best efforts, she could hear nothing of what was going on on the other
side of it to cause the delay.
At last the
door opened once more, this time wide enough for the two guards to pull Siren
into the lush study beyond. Her first
thoughts upon seeing the opulent room, so full of comfy leather chairs, solid
desks and lined with bookshelves brimming with precious tomes, was Franck would
just love this. Her second thought,
which came to her as she took note of just who else was in the room with her
was less positive and less repeatable.
There was
Marveille, of course, propping his face up one hand and wearing a devious
smile. Siren wondered if he had always
looked that way, or if she was just interpreting his expression through the
benefit of past experiences. Sitting
beside Marveille were a number of other well-dressed Ladies and Gentlemen, none
of whom Siren recognised but it was probably safe to assume that they too were
Philosophers of one sort or another.
There was also a tall, thin man who, judging by the grey and pronounced
widow's peak in his otherwise thick, black hair, was approaching his middle
years. He looked worryingly familiar
and it took Siren a while to realise that she had never met him before, only
heard about him, for he was almost certainly Franck's nephew, Baron Tiberius
Von Spektr. Also present, draped over a
chair at the back of the room, was what looked, at first, like a pile of random
clockwork parts and an old fish bowl, but as Siren tried to work out what it
was two things happened. Firstly it
moved, reaching over for a notebook sitting on a small end table nearby and
secondly an image flickered across the glass of the fish bowl, revealing the
grizzled visage of Adelbert Von Spektr.
This is fast
becoming a family reunion, Siren thought, wishing with all her heart that
Franck were there to enjoy it, for then she would have at least one ally in the
room.
The final
figure, reclined in the largest chair and nearest a huge, warm fireplace
mantled in gold and marble, was the president of the Noble Society of
Hypostatick Philosophers, the Countess of Skullbridge, Doctor Rosetta
Barkham. She looked older than the last
time Siren had seen her and she had a strange shimmering scar down one side of
her face. It seemed to distort the
light and made Siren want to rub her eyes any time she looked at it.
"It's
good to see you again Siren," Doctor Barkham purred in greeting, "I
never would have thought we would find you here, of all places, but it seems
your timing was quite fortuitous indeed."
“She found zis
Fracture ‘neath the sea,” tittered Marveille, “and came inside in time for
tea!”
Siren glared
at him, but he returned that glare with a slightly sickly smile of his own and
suddenly Siren found it easier to look back at the doctor, who appeared to be
waiting for her to say something. She
was clearly no less fond of drama than she had been in the Silverspire, which
brought a few questions to mind.
“How did you
escape? As far as we could tell almost
all of the Stoneskins were killed by the daemon Franck set free. How did it not go after you?”
“Oh, it went
after me, of that I can assure you,” she grimaced, “but I am a more formidable
Philosopher than even your Former Baron and I was able to defend myself and,
eventually, find a way out before the Silverspire was ripped back into the
Aether, undoing years of effort.”
“I feel for
you, I really do, especially after you kidnapped me and my friends, threatened
Ellis’ world and then your ever-so-noble accomplices set on a Lich on us and
killed half my crew. I’m all
sympathy, me.”
“I had
suspected you might be,” Doctor Barkham replied calmly, “but even so, it will
be in your interests to co-operate, I think.”
Siren made a
show of raising an eyebrow.
“Co-operate,
how? Oh, I get it, this is that
fortuitous timing thing you were talking about, how I just happen to stumble in
here at the apex of some new scheme and have just the right information or can
serve as the perfect slice of bait for your barbaric hook. Am I right?”
“Something
like that.”
“You shouldn’t
take such cheek from the girl,” came Adelbert’s voice from the back of the
room. “In my day we’d have already
flayed her and fed her to the Necroformes.”
“Which is why
you are a Geist, Uncle, and Rosetta is in charge,” replied
Tiberius. His voice was calm, cool and
commanding and sent a chill down Siren’s spine.
“Thank you
Tiberius,” Rosetta smiled indulgently, then drew her eyebrows into a scowl,
“but I can fight my own battles.”
“You can?”
Siren replied with a grin, “then just untie me and we can settle this like
women!”
“Very droll,
but that’s not going help me very much, now, is it? No, there are far more important matters at stake here than petty
vengeances, yours and mine included.”
“I beg to
differ.”
“Beg all you
like, it might suit you in those rags.” She glanced at the faces of the guards
who still held Siren tight in the middle of the room. “If she makes another quip I want her to feel the backs of your
hands. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Ma’am,”
they replied in chorus. Siren resisted
the urge to comment. As fun as it could
be to wind Doctor Barkham up, she wanted to make it out of Fracture in one
piece.
“Now that I
have your attention,” Doctor Barkham continued, returning her gaze to her
captive, “I’ll explain why we need you.
There is some… unfinished business relating to the Blackfeather incident
which I need to clear up before we can advance to the next stage of our
operations. To do this, I need access
to your friends. M. Marveille was
supposed to get what we needed whilst he infiltrated your little cadre, but it
seemed he had a more flamboyant scheme in mind himself and he failed to secure
the one thing I had asked of him,” She
turned to glare at Marveille
“I ‘ad aimed a
little to ‘igh, I do sink, and now ‘ere I am in ze dregs of ze drink!”
“Yes, quite
amusing, I’m sure, Marveille, but if it happens again…” She returned her gaze to Siren. “Anyway, we raided the Former Baron’s place
in Shalereef, but to no avail. There
appears to have been no one there for weeks, just a note left by a Miss.
Barkcastle. We followed that lead as
well, but she was unable to tell us where you all where – even under duress!”
“You better
not have harmed her!” Siren shouted in the split second before one of the guard
slapped her across the face, momentarily blinding her with pain.
“I thought I’d
made myself clear about talking back, Siren.
Please do not do it again.
Anyway, Miss Barkcastle is quite safe.
She has a very comfortable apartment here in the city. It’s best we are able to keep an eye on
people like her.”
She took a sip
from a dainty porcelain tea cup resting on a side table, then focussed on Siren
once more. “So, you see, I need
something from your friends, but don’t know where they might be, then you show
up, all unannounced and I think – perfect timing! Now I can get what I want, and I’m always much more pleasant to
be around when I get what I want.”
“You want
Ellis,” Siren said and, after a glance from the doctor, there was no reprisal.
“What makes
you think that?” Doctor Barkham asked with excessive calm.
“You created
him, didn’t you. All that nonsense
about him not really being important in the Silverspire, you were just saying
that to put us off the trail, but when we had him examined by Doctor
Gristfinkle-”
“That old
quack!” Rosetta laughed.
“-when we
had him examined, Doctor Gristfinkle
confirmed that he was a construct. I’ve
been thinking about it ever since and you are the only person who could be
responsible.”
The
Countess sighed, “Very well, you’ve got me.
Ellis is my greatest creation, the pinnacle of my Philosophy and the
lynchpin of my plan to recreate the Breakthrough. I was able to send him through first, you see, absorb a bit of
the world, become a part of it, so that when I summoned him back he would rip
an existential hole large enough to pull the Silverspire out of the Aether.”
“But
you failed. The Silverspire has gone.”
“And
yet, I am not done with Ellis. He is
mine and there are other ways to realise my designs. After all, that’s why this society exists! We will recreate the Breakthrough. It was the greatest act of Hypostatick
Philosophy ever achieved and we must prove it can be done again, successfully
this time.”
“If
you want Ellis so badly, why don’t you just summon him here.”
She
threw up her arms in exasperation.
“I’ve tried! The stupid boy has gone and got himself some kind of
protection, now, hasn’t he!” She
lowered her arms again carefully, rested her hands neatly in her lap, then
continued, “No, the only way to do this is the old fashioned way. I need Ellis in my hands and you will help
me achieve that.”
“Why?”
“Because
it is in Ellis’ best interests. I am,
after all, his mother, in a manner of speaking.”
“You’re
still a monster. Why would I help you
by handing over my friend?”
“If
he doesn’t come back to me he’ll eventually wind down and die. How about that?”
“We’ve
already jumped that hurdle. Ellis is
still alive, and from what I can tell the best way to make sure he remains so is
to keep him out of your grasp!”
Doctor
Barkham nodded and then suddenly another backhand slap cut across Siren’s
vision. She tried to duck and evade it,
but with her arms and legs tied and her body held so rigid it was difficult to
be as flexible as she would be usually.
Again the pain was momentarily blinding and she feared that this one
would turn into a black eye.
“I
don’t like being refused, Siren. I
don’t like it at all, but just right now it is ruining my afternoon tea.” She focussed on the guards again and
commanded, “take her away and let her stew in the dungeon for a while. We’ll see if that makes her any more
co-operative.” Then she waved her hand
and suddenly Siren was being dragged backwards, out through the doors into the
corridor, along the corridor and into the street, across streets, plazas, then
through a dark door and down, down and down into deep dripping darkness, all
the time wishing there was a way she could ring Doctor Barkham’s neck.
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