Caller of Lightning

by Eytan Kollin

  Fothergill smiled as he shook hands with the eager Scotsman. “I am delighted to meet the author of the work that finally made Sir Newton’s works accessible to my understanding. Wonderfully done.”

  “’Tis my pleasure to meet you, doctor.”

  Peter reached out his hand as well, saying, “Lovely to see you again, James, as always. Perhaps we can catch up more in a bit? For now I must beg everyone’s pardon—things are about to get going, and I have a part to play in the proceedings.” Ben blinked. That was news to him—he had thought Peter was only attending in order to accompany him.

  As he left, a nearby argument became heated enough to interfere with all other conversation in the vicinity.

  “Who are those two?” whispered Ben.

  Ferguson answered in a voice slightly less loud than his usual, the closest his nature came to being discreet. “Oh, those two. The most pompous people in attendance, I would say. They get into it at every banquet. That one there,” he said, pointing, “that’s Mark Akenside. Thinks he’s God’s gift to poetry, though he butters his bread as a doctor. And the other one’s Thomas Anson. Most people’d be happy enough standing for Litchfield in the House of Commons, but no, the man can hardly speak a sentence without reminding you that his brother is Lord Anson, or that his second cousin is Lord Macclesfield, our esteemed host. God spare me insecure elder siblings—”

  At that moment, as if cued, Anson’s voice carried through the room.

  “My brother George is First Lord of the Admiralty! I will not have you imply that one of my rank could ever be so—”

  “I’ll say what I bloody well want about your family, you—”

  Ben leaned toward his tall Scottish friend. “This is better than the mummers and seasonal players who pass through Philadelphia. Will they try to sell us cure-alls after the fight?”

  “Aye, ’twould seem they might,” James shook his head sadly. “But it’s right dreary on regular rotation.”

  “You idiot!” Anson shouted.

  “Come,” John Fothergill spoke up. “For those of us new to the display, this is most entertaining.”

  It was Akenside’s turn now. “ . . . one who rides on his brother’s coattails without embarrassment, and is an amateur at everything, and master of nothing, should not speak as if he were—”

  “Gentlemen!” A very big man, even larger than James Ferguson, came up from behind them and easily separated the two arguing men by placing one hand on each of their shoulders.

  “Who would that be?” Ben asked.

  “Shukburgh Ashby. He was made Sheriff of Leicestershire in the same decree that named Hutchinson to Massachusetts and Haldane to Jamaica last January. I rather think Akenside’s ‘bloody’ got his attention.” James shrugged. “And the curtain comes down . . . ”

  Ashby’s grip had rendered both men sullenly mute, though each still glared at the other. He squeezed hard and was pleased to see them falter. “Gentlemen—more respect, please, for the importance of this assembly; and for our patron, His Majesty, King George the Second.” Akenside and Anson eyed one another for a moment, but now seemed disinclined to continue their argument. When Ashby released his grip, they quickly moved off in opposite directions.

  Lord Macclesfield called out again from the front of the room. “Thank you, Sheriff Ashby. I appreciate your assistance in maintaining order. Assembled gentlemen, please take a seat in the provided chairs. The proceedings are about to begin.”

  James commandeered a nearby table and pulled out chairs for himself, Ben, and the two Quakers.

  Behind the Earl of Macclesfield stood four easels draped with white cloth. To his left were three chairs occupied by Peter Collinson, William Hogarth—still holding his pug—and a man Ben did not recognize. In front of the Earl was a plain table with four neat glasses of water, and a silver pitcher.

  “I will now put forth a framework for our discussion. When I am done, then Mr. Collinson, Mr. Askew, and Mr. Hogarth will present their evidence and information in this matter.”

  Ben settled in for what appeared likely to be a long and somewhat stodgy introduction. He could not have been more wrong.

  “The Royal Society has long been engaged in the study of things, which our fellow Englishmen believe to be fairy tales, or the talk of those addled by madness. We know truths that they do not—and each and every one of us here has taken pride in our secret knowledge, as is only human nature. But there are orders and domains of knowledge. A philosopher of physics and a physician may respect one another’s work and enjoy mutual discourse; they have nothing in common beyond two spoken syllables.”

  He paused to clear his throat. “Well . . . those of us who have guided our Society from its inception—its inner circle, as you will—have had the privilege, and the responsibility, of knowing a truth the rest of you did not, because its very importance required that it be kept from you. Tonight that division ends. Tonight we bring the whole into the light.”

  Ben blinked in astonishment. Around him he heard furtive whispers and hushed exclamations; the sound of questions leaping to the front of more than a dozen brilliant minds.

  Lord Macclesfield held up his hands, palms down, then waited for the room to quiet before continuing. “The basis is this—where the arcane is concerned, the philosopher of physics and physician do not occupy separate worlds. There is an underlying cause that unifies their particulars. That cause unifies the idea of a philosophiae naturalis and a philosophiae praeternaturalis into a singular principium. That cause is nearly upon us and is of grave concern.”

  He took a long moment to examine the faces of his audience. They, in turn, saw how absolutely serious he was. The silence was profound.

  “I speak of the proximity of Mr. Halley’s comet, which the inner circle has proven to be instrumental in causing outbursts of magic and mysterious happenings that do not align with the norms we can expect at most times and most places. Further, we now know of a certainty that the comet’s influence has increased with each return. We theorize that as shavings fall from the comet to the Earth, more of the arcane laws are accessible, even between the comet’s orbits. This does not mean we expect the comet to hearken the ‘end of the world,’ as superstition and some ha’penny newspapers would have it, nor the second coming of Christ—Sir Newton calculated that event to be several centuries away, using his mathematical method. But we know the magical havoc the inner circle had to overcome in 1682, and we feel certain that this time, it will be worse.

  “Halley himself thought the comet would reach us in late 1758 or early 1759. We have a bare few months, then, to galvanize ourselves and find ways to mitigate a potentially catastrophic disaster. Which makes what our three speakers are here to tell us of the utmost importance. I urge you to let them proceed without interruption.” At this, Ben was sure he saw Lord Macclesfield cast a stern look in his cousin’s direction.

  “I will not waste any more of your time when these other gentlemen have so much to make clear to you. Mr. Collinson? The floor is yours. Please begin.”

  He took his own seat as Peter Collinson rose and stepped to the fore.

  “Thank you, Lord Macclesfield. Ahem.” Collinson coughed into his fist. “My esteemed colleagues of the Royal Society, a little over three years ago the Society funded me to complete a botanical survey of rare plants in and around the areas of Salisbury and Hampshire. Some of you may have read the paper I published—we collected some extraordinary samples of burnt-tip orchid, field fleawort, and bastard toadflax, among many others. What I did not include was that the real purpose of my journey was to investigate long-hinted connections between Halley’s Comet and certain specific locations, beginning with Salisbury Cathedral.”

  “The construction of the cathedral in Salisbury began in 1220, and the historical record indicates that the comet returned a mere two years later, in 1222. This appearance was, of course, taken as a great portent, especially since its passage was accompanied by a larger than usual
number of falling stars, and the concurrent discovery of large chunks of anomalous geologic material through the Salisbury region. Our suspicion was that this unidentifiable debris might have been cast-off material from the comet itself. Further, we theorized that an unknown quantity of it might have been taken up by the foundry workers and stone masons of the day and included in the cathedral itself.”

  He sipped water from one of the glasses on the table, then continued. “This was not a search at random. It was inspired by reports of certain strange phenomena that all had Salisbury Cathedral in common and that mapped neatly against the known periodicity of the comet. Again and again, since the 13th century, as the comet approached our sphere, these anecdotal reports increased in number; and as it departed, they decreased in turn. Within the last decade the pattern appeared to be repeating. In its simplest form, it can be described thusly: an unsuspecting soul grips the knob of a door in London, or Liverpool, or Little Bushey Lane in Hertfordshire—the starting points in these accounts varied wildly—and then, upon opening the door and walking through, finds himself standing on the other side of the cloister door at Salisbury.

  “Yes, I know how that sounds,” he said in response to murmurs from his audience. “It gets stranger. Those who held onto the knob and immediately went back the way they came, closing the door behind them, remained safely where they had started. They were startled, to be sure, and quite a few went straight round to their confessor or their alehouse, but otherwise they were unaffected. By contrast, anyone who let go of the knob was stranded; no amount of opening and closing the cloister door would yield a passage back. This left these people in considerable straits, being so inexplicably far from home and unequipped for travel.

  “I inspected each component of the cloister door in detail, making detailed sketches of the knobs on both sides. There was no lingering trace of the occult, nor could I discern anything radically out of the ordinary. The substance of the doorknob did look slightly unusual to my eye, but I am no metallurgist; it might have been common as lead for all I knew. So I took samples from the knobs, though many of them appear to have been replaced with a different pattern over the years, and each separate piece of metal on the door, and gouged sample splinters of the wood. These I gave over for analysis to Mr. John Hadley, Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge University, who reports no clear results.”

  Hadley was in attendance. Collinson nodded to him, and the chemist rose for a moment to be recognized.

  “I next went to Stonehenge, to look into testimony of ghosts, strange lights, and noctambulism on the Salisbury plain. I was unable to document any such activities at either first- or second-hand; at present they remain no more than rumor. Once again I took some small samples for Mr. Hadley.”

  Ben thought of his own samples from Stonehenge, and the strange echoes he had felt when visiting there. Though he understood why Collinson had never mentioned this research to him, he wished it could have been otherwise, and resolved to follow up at earliest opportunity.

  “Winchester Castle was my next destination. Specifically the Great Hall, built as an addition during the 1222 passage of the comet. As I am sure some of you already know, an ancient replica of Arthur’s famous table hangs on the wall there; and local legend has it that whenever a comet is at its brightest, King Arthur and his knights and the actual Round Table appear in the middle of the hall. The castle itself was built upon Roman ruins that can be dated to a calculated comet pass circa 66 Anno Domini. As with Salisbury, we suspect the castle itself was begun in 1067 using materia we believe to have been impregnated with debris from the comet’s 1066 passing. Once again I found no direct evidence, just talk and local superstition, but some of it was compelling.” He paused for another sip of water.

  “Regardless, I took samples from the Great Hall and attempted to take samples from what I believed were remnants of the original castle. I did not dare take a sample of the round table, though I wish that would have been possible.

  “At each stop, canvassing the local population revealed consistent patterns, such as distress at the imminent arrival of the comet, anecdotal reports of legends coming to life, and an increase in people claiming to have experienced ghostly visitations and other bizarre experiences similar to stories told by their grandparents and great-grandparents, i.e., tales dating back to the last passage of the comet.

  “Excuse me . . . ” Collinson unfolded a slip of paper from his vest pocket and, squinting fiercely, scanned the notes he had written on it. “Ah. Sorry, sorry . . . completely forgot Montisfont Abbey. Much the same, really. Recent reports of ghostly monks in what had been the nave and the cloisters, nothing directly observable while I was there, some samples for Mr. Hadley, the usual local talk. The results of the surveys seem to be consistent.” He refolded the scrap and tucked it in a different pocket. “Thank you all for your time, and I invite Mr. Anthony Askew to take the floor.”

  Looking relieved, Collinson returned to his seat, taking his water glass with him. There was a smattering of polite applause. As Ben glanced around to his fellow audience, he read mainly skepticism and confusion there.

  The third man, the one Ben hadn’t known, waited until the clapping ended before he finally stood. He was lavishly dressed, as if for a more formal occasion, and, unlike most of the Society’s fellows, he wore an elaborately coiffed and powdered wig. He bowed respectfully to the gathering.

  “My friends. Though the collective knowledge of our Royal Society is vast, the portions which concern the comet are still mainly theory and conjecture. We do not know why it returns as it does. We do not know why it makes magic blossom in the world, the way that rain makes our gardens bloom. Above all, we do not understand why this fostered, amplified magic takes on so many different forms, and does so many different things, nor why these are all too often terrifying and harmful; perhaps even malignant. I’ll not bore you with the details of the research and vetting I have performed. Suffice it to say that I can vouchsafe for the information brought to you by the esteemed Mr. Collinson and our celebrated guest to my right. The observations made are accurate, despite our lack of knowledge as to the how. What is most interesting, though, is that it is possible there is someone who already possesses this knowledge. Someone we must find.”

  It was almost impossible for those present not to gasp at this. Even Ben found himself taking a deep involuntary breath.

  “I now require the assistance of Mr. William Hogarth, the celebrated artist, who is here tonight as a most valued and respected guest. If you please, sir?”

  Hogarth put down his pug and left his seat, taking up position next to the first draped easel. The dog followed along happily, sniffing the floor with great interest.

  William paused, studying the room with a smoldering intensity that reminded everyone present of his youth, and the subsequent tremendous talent that accompanied it. His right eyebrow twitched up as he simply said, “Exhibit one.”

  A Silk, the lone representative of the King present, stepped up from the back wall and lifted the drapery off the easel, revealing a framed portrait in an antique style. Ben carefully kept his comportment, though the presence of the Silk, and the task delegated to him, seemed odd. He tried to ignore it for the moment and focused on the painting. The subject of the portrait was an intelligent-looking man in his mid-thirties or so, visible from mid-chest up, wearing fine clothes of perhaps a century before. At the man’s neck, just under his long beard, was a jade brooch that carried an indistinct metal something at its center—the artist had not bothered to detail that portion of the painting to the same degree given the face and, especially, the eyes.

  Ben shifted in his chair and came to full attention. He knew that brooch very well, or one uncannily like it. And the man was oddly familiar, though he couldn’t quite place him.

  “Presenting a work in oils by John Riley, painted in Anno Domini 1682—the last passage of the comet. The name of the sitter is not known. Next, please.”

  Thi
s unveiling revealed an older, larger painting than the first. This was a full figure of a man wearing elaborately brocaded Elizabethan court dress. Allowing for the difference in styles, the man captured here was virtually a twin of the first—and at his neck there was a jade brooch.

  “We discovered this one hanging in Windsor Castle and arranged to borrow it. It is dated 1607, yes, another year of the comet, and was painted by Isaac Oliver. Mr. Oliver is primarily remembered as a court miniaturist for Elizabeth, and then James the First, but he also painted larger works. I’m grateful this was one. As I am sure you have already guessed, the name of the subject is recorded nowhere.”

  Hogarth nodded to the Silk, who removed the third drape.

  This piece was very old indeed: a cracked wooden panel perhaps eighteen inches high, showing a highly stylized face, from the neck up, against a nighttime sky. The signature feature of that sky was a bright ball, done in gilt, at the head of three wavy, retreating gilded lines. There was no great talent in the work, and either the varnish or the paints had been poorly made, so there were cracks and ripples everywhere and several large patches of the picture had simply fallen away. These imperfections made it hard to say from the rendered face alone whether this was the same man as in the other two portraits. But the jade brooch at his neck was unmistakable, and the streak in the sky could only be the artist’s interpretation of a comet.

  “I have no idea who painted this, or when it was done—by materials and style it could be anywhere from 1200 to 1500. But it takes no leap to assume it was painted in a comet year, and the ever-present brooch completes the connection.” Hogarth pointed to the detail in the painting.

  Anthony Askew leaned forward, knuckles resting on the table, and addressed the room once more. “The only thing that Mr. Robert Hooke and Sir Isaac Newton agreed upon was that the secret to everlasting life, the philosopher’s stone, was a mystery none could understand. I’m no longer certain they had the right of it. In these paintings we see evidence of a man who has lived at least 300 years, possibly more than 500, unchanging, a man who seems only to appear when the comet does. This cannot be coincidence. I reject that idea. There must be a connection, and I propose to you, my fellow members, that we must locate this man and ask him for ourselves. The last veil, Mr. Hogarth.”