The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep

by H. G. Parry

  “I’m sure it is,” Eric agreed. “More than you need. I haven’t come to stay long, and certainly someone as umble as I am expects no hospitality. No, I have dared to venture here only to convey a message from my master, he who summoned me and raised me above my station to the real world.”

  “Do you like the real world?” Charley asked curiously.

  “Oh, I like it very much, Dr. Sutherland,” he said at once. “The parts I see of it are admittedly very umble, being mostly a basement and a law library, but there is such potential here.”

  “Potential for what?”

  “What’s the message?” Millie interrupted. Bitter experience had taught her that Charley could chase a point of inquiry around the world and back, if allowed.

  Eric turned to her. “Well, if I might be so blunt, it concerns the Street. This Street, and Dr. Sutherland. My master feels that this Street, and Dr. Sutherland, have been working against him. He would like to warn you to stop.”

  “We’ve seen what your master would like to do,” Millie said. “Where is he, by the way? You must have got our message that we were willing to talk, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “He did receive your very kind message, thank you. Mr. Scrooge was happy to pass it on, the next time he was in the world. You indicated that you had an offer to make?”

  “Not to you, if you don’t mind. To the summoner. In private.”

  “I understand completely. You don’t want all these people to know the terms.” Millie didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at the Street, but she knew his barb had found its mark. They wouldn’t be happy with the idea that she was keeping them out of things. “Well, I myself am fortunately authorized to make an offer of my own. My master intends to bring forth a new world. It would be a world where characters the likes of you could be safe, and free, no longer hidden and fearful of discovery. He would protect you. If you hand over the book, and leave him to summon it forth, he invites you to join him there. Otherwise, if you continue to hamper him, he will have to put an end to it.”

  “We’ve seen his new world,” Millie said. “Stunted readings like yourself sleeping on filthy mattresses amid old books, or read in and out on a whim to do his bidding. No thanks.”

  “Those like me, the readings you speak of, were read out for no other purpose,” Eric said. “We don’t mind. It fits our umble stations. It wouldn’t be like that for you. You would be citizens of the new world.”

  “A world built on slavery.”

  “As I said, Miss Radcliffe-Dix,” Eric said, “the slaves don’t mind. I can say that, speaking as one myself. And once the new world comes, there will be no need for us. This is just a beginning.”

  “And what does it look like in the end?”

  Eric licked his lips. “It’s really more like the old world, in the end.” He almost seemed to be reciting. “Some of you lived through the nineteenth century. You might remember what it was like when it was easy to hide in plain sight, to move across borders and countries without fearing detection. Some of you came from a fictional nineteenth century, or thereabouts, the old world that only really existed on paper. The world that the Street embodies.”

  “‘In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street,’” the Witch said unexpectedly. They were the words that opened the first of her books. The invocation of an early London that never really was, built from the pages of other children’s stories. “‘And the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road.’”

  “Yes.” Eric’s eyes gleamed. “Exactly.”

  The Witch tossed her head, recovering her equilibrium. “Fool. What do I care for your master’s new world? Do you think it is in me to be the subject of another ruler? In my book I was a queen. I crumbled entire cities into dust. I cloaked a world in eternal winter.”

  “And you can again,” he said. “But not here. Not in their world. In their world we are nothing—you, if you’ll forgive me, Your Majesty, were working as a bouncer in a nightclub in Hong Kong before the Street arrived. You’d fled from England, where the authorities had sought to commit you to a psychiatric facility because you believed yourself to be a queen and tried to turn them to stone. What they might have discovered had they examined you too closely, we don’t know.”

  She stiffened. “How could you possibly know that?”

  He ignored her. “The Street keeps you safe, but at a price. You’re trapped behind this wall, fearing detection. Imagine a world of our making. Imagine the Street, but as one of many streets, going on and on and on until it covers the world. Twists and turns and cobbled roads, all yours for the taking. You don’t need to fear discovery anymore. You’ll be under protection.”

  “And under control too,” Millie pointed out. “You say that he has his own slaves, summoned forth for the purpose. But what’s to stop him rereading us as well?”

  “It would be very difficult, with such complicated readings as yourselves.” This, Millie suspected, was flattery, but it sounded sincere. Certainly, the Witch would believe it, as would several others. They wanted to believe themselves to be real. “He may not even be able to manage it. Certainly there would be no point. He doesn’t want slaves—he could have those in abundance. He wants citizens.”

  “Well, as I said,” Millie said. “No thanks.”

  “Suit yourselves, of course.” He looked at the surrounding characters—some of whom, Millie saw with unease, were listening with more interest. “All of yourselves. But my master does want to tell you that if you don’t intend to join him, then from now on, there will be repercussions for anyone attempting to thwart the new world—repercussions for the entire Street.”

  “Why can’t he tell us that himself?” Millie asked. “Why won’t he meet with us? Perhaps we could come to some arrangement.”

  “He said to tell you that there can be no arrangement as long as this street is allied with Dr. Sutherland. My master and Dr. Sutherland are archnemeses.”

  “What?” Charley half laughed, half frowned. “I don’t have an archnemesis.”

  “With all due respect, Dr. Sutherland,” Eric said, “I don’t think you get to choose.”

  “Possibly not,” he acknowledged. “But I think I should probably have been informed.”

  “My apologies, Dr. Sutherland. A terrible oversight, to be sure.”

  “This is nonsense,” Millie cut in. “We’d be your master’s archnemeses with or without Dr. Sutherland. What he’s doing threatens all of us. It threatens you, if you could see it. You can’t, because you’ve been read not to, and that’s a jolly shame. But we can.”

  She spoke for the benefit of the Street rather than for the Uriah Heep who called himself Eric. She thought he was probably beyond reach. But the Street’s inhabitants were capable of being swayed, and she wanted to make sure that it was by her. She hadn’t forgotten the expression on the portrait of Dorian Gray.

  “You’re quite right,” Eric said, shaking his head sadly. “Of course, I am too umble to understand what you understand. But I do understand this. The new world is very close. It’s come to the time of choosing sides. Choose the right one.”

  “We have,” Millie said.

  He ignored her. “You’re not used to doing that, are you? Some of you have been in this world for such a long time. A century, perhaps even more. You’ve seen wars come and go. You probably think you can wait this one out in the same way. They’re not your wars. It’s not your story. It’s what his brother’s telling himself, isn’t it? Mr. Sutherland. But this is your war. As long as Dr. Sutherland is here, you’re fighting already. His brother might find the same, if he’s not careful.”

  “Don’t you dare threaten my brother,” Charley said. For the first time, there was a note of warning in his voice. “He has nothing to do with this.”

  “Me, Dr. Sutherland? I’d never threaten anyone. You asked for a negotiation. I’m only passing on what my master sent me to tell all of you.”

  “Your master sent t
he Hound of the Baskervilles to kill my brother and me. He took him from his book, twisted him into a monster, and launched him at us. And I took him back, and reread him, and now he’s here at my side. I’m not afraid of your master.”

  “Perhaps you should be, Dr. Sutherland,” Eric said. “Just a little.”

  With a start, Millie realized that the Street was growing darker. It was the quirk she had noticed earlier, and at which Dorian had hinted: the way Charley’s mood seemed to change the lights and shadows of their written world. It could have been illusion before, but it was unmistakable now. Clouds were rolling in. Millie looked up at the sky, and felt the first specks of rain on her face.

  Of course, it made more sense now. It was his street. He may not have summoned it, but he had written the words from which it was grown. On some level, it was listening for him.

  “Get out,” Charley said to Eric flatly. At his side, Henry growled. “I have no idea if I can read you into your book, or into a lesser version of yourself, or into a Christmas pudding, but I can promise that if you stay any longer, I’ll give it my very best shot. And the same goes for anything or anyone else that your master sends to intimidate this street. Get out.”

  “May I tell my master that, then, Dr. Sutherland?” Eric said.

  “Please,” he said. “Maybe not the bit about the Christmas pudding, but otherwise, yes. Do.”

  “Keep the bit about the Christmas pudding,” Millie declared. The rain was falling harder; her curls were darkening into ringlets. She felt, illogically, that part of it was hers. She gloried in the power of it. “I liked it. And add that we did not appreciate being threatened. Any of us. Did we?”

  “We certainly did not!” Heathcliff spoke up, to her relief. He aimed his knife-gun squarely at the stunted version of Uriah Heep. “Get out. Or I swear from the depths of my stormy soul you shall feel my wrath.”

  Eric seemed neither affronted nor worried, although his eyes flickered to Henry.

  “You know, Copperfield,” he said, and his voice changed. At once, Millie could hear the grating wheedle of the other Uriah, stronger than before. It was a quotation. She recognized the tone of a character turning without warning into a caricature of themselves. “You’re in quite a wrong position. You can’t make this a brave thing, and you can’t help being forgiven. I’m determined to forgive you. But I do wonder that you should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be so umble!”

  Guilt crossed Charley’s face; then, just as quickly, his eyes flashed with anger.

  “Oh, you want to do chapter forty-two?” he said. “Very well. Here’s chapter forty-two.” He paused, and gathered himself. “‘Heaven knows I write this, in no spirit of self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine, in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. I do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I have not abused. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest—’”

  The Street heard him, and knew him. It was the only way Millie could describe the shiver in the world around her. The houses rippled, flexed, with a groan of wood and stone. The pavement trembled. Rain poured from the sky. In the lamplight, it was a cascade of gold.

  There was a flash of white.

  Millie blinked at the man now standing in the middle of the Street. An older man, with a wide mouth, expressive eyebrows, and dark hair swept flamboyantly across his head. Victorian, no doubt—the waistcoat and cravat gave that away, as did the utter confidence with which he wore them. Something about him was familiar, though she couldn’t think where she had seen his features before.

  Eric peered at him too. “Master Copperfield?” he said uncertainly. Then his eyes widened. “No—”

  “Hello, Uriah,” the man said.

  Eric took a step back, his red-brown eyes wide behind his spectacles. “No. You can’t—not from that book. Not him. It isn’t possible. Not Mr. Dickens.”

  Millie’s eyes widened. “I say,” she breathed.

  The man who was, somehow, Charles Dickens cast a quick glance at the Street. In that one look, he seemed to take in his surroundings, buildings and inhabitants alike, and make himself perfectly at home. His eyes were very large and dark.

  “As you can see,” Charley answered Eric, “I can.”

  Eric had recovered his composure, but his shoulders twitched. “It’s very impressive, Dr. Sutherland. My master will be very interested to hear of it. I’m just not certain it will be enough, if you’ll forgive me.”

  “Get out,” Charley said.

  Eric looked Millie and Charley in the face, one by one, then inclined his head. He didn’t look at Dickens. “I’ll give your regards to your brother, Dr. Sutherland.”

  He stepped back. The gray wall took him, and swallowed him up.

  “Put Dickens away,” Millie said to Charley in an undertone. “Quickly.”

  The words seemed to take a few moments to reach him; when they did, he shook himself and nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Dickens,” he said. “We’ll talk another time. May I have your hand?”

  Dickens gave it, his eyes twinkling, and Millie saw Charley start a little at the touch. Then Dickens disappeared in a flare of white.

  The sudden burst of rain had faded, quietly and without drama, to a drizzle, and now the stars overhead were shining between wisps of cloud. The Street was still once more.

  In retrospect, Millie wondered if she hadn’t done more harm than good. Her instruction had been an impulse, guided by the feeling that it would be easier for the shock to die down without Charles Dickens standing in their midst. Instead, she might have just added the shock of seeing one of their own kind disappear. Too late now.

  Charley seemed to feel the same. She saw his eyes sweep over the crowds of characters.

  “If you want me to go,” he said, raising his voice above the growing whispers, “then I’ll go.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Millie said quickly; her heart had leaped at the offer. “Nobody wants you to—”

  “Can you in fact protect us?” Darcy One interrupted. The five of them were clustered together much more tightly than usual. Darcy Three, though he had gotten to his feet, still looked pale and unsteady.

  “I can try,” Charley said. “I want to try.”

  “In that case,” Two said, “I do not see how you can possibly contemplate leaving us with your honor intact.”

  “I don’t want to,” he said. “Obviously. But if you don’t want me here, now you’ve seen what…”

  “We do,” Millie said firmly, before he could do any more well-meaning damage. “We need you.”

  “But what about that man?” Miss Matty said, almost too quiet to be heard. “What’s going to happen when he tells his master—?”

  “We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Millie said.

  “And who are you to make that decision for us?” the Witch said, her voice dripping ice. “I think we need to know more about this book that little worm spoke of, and what exactly it is we’ve agreed to stand against.”

  “I’ll tell you all tomorrow,” Millie said. “But what we’re standing against is simple. Goodness, everybody, you saw Scrooge read away in front of our eyes—how frightened he was, and how hopeless. Those are the people Eric says are happy to be enslaved. Whoever the summoner is, he’s either deluded, or a monster. And there’s nothing to stop him treating us the same way.”

  “He said he couldn’t.” Uriah Heep’s voice spoke up: tentative, apologetic. Millie wondered where he’d been until that moment. “He said he wouldn’t want to—that he wants to build a world where we could be free.”

&
nbsp; “We have a world where we can be free!” Millie snapped, with what she knew was too much temper. Uriah Heep had that effect. “We’re not alone anymore, and we’re safe behind these walls—as long as we stay secret, and support each other. What the summoner wants to do will expose us. And frankly, I don’t believe that anyone who manufactures slaves out of pen and ink cares very much for anybody’s freedom.”

  Nobody replied. She let the pause grow just long enough; when it was at the right length, she broke it.

  “We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” she said. “Come on, the show’s over. Time for bed.”

  As usual, her bossy Jacqueline Blaine voice seemed to do the trick. The crowd dispersed—reluctantly, with many glances over shoulders.

  Dorian was one of the last to go. He leaned against his doorway, watching Millie from glorious blue eyes, until it became obvious that she was not going to move until he did. Then he gave a tiny smile, and straightened.

  “Good show, Millie,” he said, with just a trace of irony. “I cannot wait for the curtain to rise again.”

  “Dorian,” Millie called sharply, before he could disappear. “Do you have Uriah Heep in there?”

  “I do,” Dorian said. “He had nothing to do with this interesting arrival, if that’s what you were asking. As soon as he heard of it, he hid himself. I believe he feared being noticed by the summoner through his counterpart.”

  “What was he doing with you in the first place?”

  “Talking.” His young, guileless face was utterly sincere. “I have to amuse myself somehow, when you’re not around. Don’t worry, he’ll be going back to the Darcys soon enough. Uriah Heep is rather one of those guests who cause happiness whenever they go rather than wherever they go—as you made so abundantly clear.”

  He closed the door.

  Charley stood next to her, his hand still on Henry’s collar. He showed no signs of having even heard her conversation with Dorian. His eyes had darkened, and seemed to be seeing something either very far away or deep inside his own head. Surprisingly, Millie felt a touch of unease; all at once, she found herself unwilling to touch him or attract his attention. It was foolishness, but she felt it anyway.