My Clockwork Muse

by D. R. Erickson

  "Inspector, no!" I cried, but could not even hear my own voice, much less coax Gessler back from what I feared was certain death.

  He took a flying leap onto the machine and grabbed Coppelius around the neck. Now the electricity encompassed all three of them. There was a crack and a flash.

  And then they were gone.

  The room fell silent. All traces of Gessler, Olimpia and Coppelius had vanished. Only the smoking machine remained.

  Clockwork Poe sneered at me with a look of unyielding hatred. "Ah, the moment for which my soul did pine," he said. "We are alone at last, Poe, you and I." I saw that he was still carrying the discharged pistol. He started towards me. "'Take this kiss upon the brow'," he hissed, raising his hand. I flinched.

  And then everything went black.

  Chapter 23

  I dreamt of Coppelius' infernal machine.

  Whatever its purpose, the thing had malfunctioned, reducing its operator and passengers to ash, vaporizing them in a flash of fatal electricity. Though it did not have wheels, it was my distinct impression that the machine had been intended to move—though where it would have gone within the confines of the small room that housed it, I could not say. But it seemed to be endeavoring to do so when it had suffered its tragic malfunction. Coppelius' reach had finally surpassed his genius—as undeniable as it was—and it had cost him, and my friends, their lives.

  In my dream, Olimpia was strapped to the machine with a ring of needles piercing her heart. She was crying out for me to save her. Then she vanished and there was nothing left but the machine itself. No trace of Olimpia remained, save the sound of her beating heart.

  I heard it faintly at first as it slowly grew out of the cessation of the machine's deafening clatter, one sound replacing the other. Gradually, it increased in volume until it came to dominate my entire consciousness. At length, I fancied that the heart itself had grown to enormous proportions and the sound was that of the blood sweeping through it.

  Whoosh!

  I might have been standing inside the heart itself.

  After a pause, the sound came again, even greater than before.

  Whoosh!

  My eyes snapped open and I quickly became aware of a sharp pain in the back of my head. I winced.

  "Ah, Poe, there you are!" The voice seemed to come from a long way off, somewhere to my right. Whoosh! Something passed before my face, from one side to the other, and then vanished. It carried the voice with it. "Now where were we?" the voice asked, now from my left.

  Only gradually did I become aware of my surroundings. The sound, which in my delirium I had fancied to be the beating of an enormous heart, was, in fact, that of a massive pendulum such as you might find suspended from a clock. It swung from side to side several feet above my chest. The weighted brass disk that would normally occupy the terminal end of the swinging rod had been replaced by a razor sharp crescent of glittering steel.

  I did not understand the intent at once, until I realized that I had been strapped to a wooden table by a narrow leather cord coiled tightly about my legs and torso. It bound my legs one to the other and my arms to my sides, leaving only my head at liberty to move. I followed the arc of the pendulum with my eyes. I noticed to my horror that in addition to its back-and-forth motion, it was also descending slightly with each oscillation.

  "Oh, yes, I remember." The voice started on my left and—Whoosh!—moved to my right. "I was just about to kill you."

  I could see the blade clearly only as it passed directly above me, a glittering blur of silver metal. Perched atop it was my nemesis, the clockwork Poe. He squatted there, clutching the pendulum arm. I could see his—that is, my—face grinning down at me every time the blade passed. The blade itself appeared to be about five feet wide, from tip to tip. How long it had been descending while I lay unconscious I could not say. But the ceiling from where it must have begun its descent was a good thirty feet above the floor.

  I strained at my bonds to take in my surroundings. I could see a long set of stone steps leading up to a landing where a door was set in the wall. If I was still in Coppelius' house, then I was below the level of the laboratory and I believed the door must have been the mysterious locked portal about which I had queried Olimpia on my previous visit. Small wonder that she had never been allowed inside.

  "Ah, I see you have taken an interest in Coppelius' pendulum. I wasn't sure you would notice."

  I followed him with my eyes as he swung atop the pendulum from side to side. As I watched, I noticed the slight descent of the blade. Its rate of fall was almost imperceptible—perhaps an inch per pass, no more. I tried to work out how much time I had left, but my mind was reeling. Each whoosh of the blade scattered the numbers as quickly as I compiled them.

  "Behold the clockwork heart, Poe!" my nemesis cried, ignoring my lack of response. "Imagine the irony when your own heart is sliced in two by the very mechanism that keeps your killer alive!"

  I could hold my tongue no longer. "What are you talking about, you scoundrel?"

  "This pendulum. It is a model of the heart that beats within the breast of every clockwork man. And woman, for that matter. Coppelius constructed it, at this enormous scale, to work out certain troublesome elements of its design. Inside here, the pendulum is but this big." The scoundrel patted his chest and then held his fingers about an inch apart. "The whole is encased within a tiny glass bulb containing a mixture of gasses and liquid, hermetically sealed, of course." I remembered back to the object we had found inside the clockwork Pluto. Yes, I saw it now. And here it was, swinging above me: the thing's heart, writ large. Coppelius had pretended to admire the genius of its creator, when it was he himself who had designed it. I should have suspected the connection then, knowing that the perpetrator of such a vile crime would have to expose himself, if only to accept the credit for the brilliance of his creation. "The action of the pendulum is powered by the expansion of the gasses due to changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure. This large-scale mock-up, however, is powered by a steam engine in the ceiling and controlled by that lever in the floor over there. The addition of the blade that will soon slice you in half is my own small contribution to science." In desperation, I tried kicking my legs to loosen the bonds, but I was wrapped tight as a mummy. The clockwork Poe laughed at my struggles. "The only downside is that no one—not even Coppelius—knows how long such a machine can continue to operate without human intervention. It could be hundreds of years, perhaps more."

  "Perhaps less!" I shouted in defiance. "Perhaps much less!" The blade had descended several inches during his speech and I was no closer to formulating a plan of escape. I had given up calculating the span of my life and wished only for a speedy conclusion to his.

  "You're quite right, Poe. It could be much less. One thing is certain, though: my heart will beat longer than yours."

  "Villain!" I cried in hopelessness as I struggled at my bonds. "Why do you hate me so?"

  "Because you have what I want, Mr. Poe."

  "Tell me what it is, and I will happily give it."

  "But you cannot give this, for it is your life. In order for me to live as a real man, you would have to die. But your lady-friend has made that quite impossible. I was well on my way to becoming a real man, Poe. One more injection and I would have been complete. Perhaps I could find some more of Coppelius' serum around here somewhere. Perhaps I could even learn to manufacture the stuff on my own. But that could take years, and I'm afraid you'll be quite dead by then. It makes little difference to you either way, for there can only be one Poe, Mr. Poe—and you, I'm afraid, are one too many."

  "But you will live as a machine forever."

  "Perhaps I can learn to love that as well—at least to the same extent that anyone loves being human. You, for example. Which is to say, not always very much, it seems."

  "I am afflicted by melancholy, you fiend! It is not a question of will or an indictment of my contentment—"

  "Oh, Poe! This could have bee
n so much easier. I was going to expose my face to you just before I ran you through at the Rue Morgue house. Burton and I would then have walked out hand-in-hand with no one the wiser. Poe goes in, Poe comes out.

  "Then, later, when Coppelius brought me your story about the lady with the teeth ... Well, that was just irresistible. The coincidence of a Berenice living so close to your cottage and under the care of Coppelius was to be your undoing—and it almost was. Planting the teeth at your bedside would drive you over the edge, I thought. I knew you would visit the crypt just as you had the Amontillado and Rue Morgue scenes before it. And I knew you would meet the revenant Berenice inside, much to your detriment. I was waiting and watching you the whole way. Once Berenice had finished with you, I was going to stuff your body in her coffin—New Roman" s 12for who would ever look for you there!—and walk out of the crypt no different than when I had walked in. Again, Poe in, Poe out. But you brought the policeman with you and survived the attack. You were saved every step of the way by dumb luck. Only to find yourself here. Of course, now, I'm afraid your luck has run out."

  As he crouched upon the blade, I saw his face as he passed above me and I reflected how ill-suited was my visage to an expression of smug self-satisfaction. I had never considered myself a handsome man, but now I found that I hated the very sight of me. I began to wonder: Even if some miracle should occur that allowed me to escape the plunging blade, would not the hatred I bore for my clockwork counterpart burden me for the remainder of my days with a grim self-loathing? It occurred to me then that I would be happy to perish if only by so doing I could guarantee the demise of my tormentor.

  A quick end under the slicing blade would fail to accomplish this. So I strove to calm my mind while endeavoring to conceive a plan of escape.

  I found it difficult to concentrate, for as the blade whooshed past my ear, I could hear the dark laughter of my evil twin. The maniacal cast to his voice unnerved me, scrambling my thoughts.

  "'From childhood's hour...'" He shouted, the sound filling my right ear.

  Whoosh!

  "'I have not been...'" Now filling my left.

  Whoosh!

  "'As others were...'"

  "Fiend!" I cried. The blade was two feet above my chest. Could the steel slice my restraints, I wondered, without touching my skin?

  Whoosh!

  "'I have not seen...'"

  Oh, to be mocked by my own words. It was intolerable! I thrashed my head. To be free of my bonds? No! But to rid my ears of the terrible sound of his voice.

  Whoosh!

  "'As others saw...'"

  "Damn you!" Perhaps as the blade descended, I could puff out my chest slightly to place my restraining bonds in the path of the razor's edge. Since I perceived that it was but a single strand coiled tightly about me, the whole would become quickly detached—

  Whoosh!

  "'I could not bring...'"

  "Ahhh!"

  "'My passions from..."

  The strand would, perhaps, with the sudden release of tension, unravel of its own accord. I would have but a fraction of a second to roll out from under the returning blade—

  Whoosh!

  "'A common spring!'"

  "Devil!" I cried. "Torment me no more!" My pleas rang hollow in my ears, as hollow as my only hope for escape now seemed to me. I was filled with despair. What chance had I of slicing away my bonds without also feeling the steel crescent's deadly bite?

  Worse, I saw that my plan—could I even summon the courage to try it—would have to be put into action sooner than anticipated. For clockwork Poe was now laughing and jumping upon the blade, forcing it downwards not an inch at a time but now inches at a time.

  I would know within moments whether I would live or die. The span of my life was now measured in seconds.

  Clutching the pendulum arm, my lunatic twin was jumping and screaming at the top of his lungs, making a mockery of my final moments.

  "'Out!'" he cried, hopping forcefully, the blade plunging. "'Out are the lights! OUT ALL!'"

  A sharp crack filled my ears. I feared the pendulum's supporting arms had given way and the entire apparatus would come plunging down upon me. I closed my eyes, expecting to be crushed.

  When I was not, I opened them again to see Poe hurtling from his perch upon the swinging blade. He flew through the air and fell with a thud to the floor. I realized the crack I heard was not of snapping timbers but that of a gunshot.

  I strained to see behind me. There on the landing atop the stone staircase stood Olimpia. She was still aiming my pepperbox revolver, steadying her gun-hand by clutching her wrist with her other. At fifty yards against a moving target, it was a masterful shot!

  But unless she had managed by chance to strike some vital portion of clockwork Poe's artificial anatomy, I knew he would be back on his feet in seconds. In addition, while the blade had resumed its normal rate of descent, I still had not much time before the steel found my breast.

  "Olimpia!" I cried. My chest did puff out, after all—not in the implementation of my doomed plan, but in happiness and love. Olimpia was not dead! But how was it possible? I had witnessed her incineration with my own eyes. As happy as I was to have her back, I knew that unless she could loosen my bonds within the next minute, we would again be parted—no less than I myself most certainly would be; that is, my upper half parted from my lower.

  Lifting her skirts to prevent her feet becoming entangled in them, she dashed down the steps and rushed across the floor towards me.

  "Oh, Olimpia!" I cried. "We haven't a moment to lose! The blade! It is descending upon me!"

  She sized up my situation quickly, glancing up at the ceiling and then down at the cord that bound me to the table. A knife, of course, would put an end to my predicament at once. But I saw in her eyes that there was to be no such simple solution.

  "Hold still, Eddy!" she said. She tugged on the table. Yes, a solution even simpler than a knife. My hopes soared. But then flagged again when I saw her straining against an immovable object and I realized that the table had been bolted to the floor.

  She looked frantically about my person for the knot that secured the cord. But the strap had been twined around me by such a profusion of intricate convolutions that the location of the knot was not easily discerned. It could be hidden anywhere within the baffling complex of coils. She ran her hands over my chest, searching for it by feel. I shivered when I saw the blade pass but an inch above her delicate fingers.

  "The lever!" I cried at last, remembering the words of the clockwork Poe. If I raised my head, I could see it on the other side of the table from where Olimpia stood, a chromium plated iron rod with some sort of trigger mechanism on the handle. "It controls the pendulum. Quickly!"

  Olimpia rushed around the foot of the table towards it. I only hoped its operation was self-explanatory. But who knew what combination of pulling, pushing and triggering would cause the pendulum to stop? Any action we took might just as easily increase its speed or rate of descent, our efforts serving only to hasten my demise.

  But the desperation of the moment allowed no time for prudence. Olimpia made to grasp the lever. "Pull it!" I cried, lest she entertained the same reservations that had entered my mind. "Pull it! Pull it!"

  The clockwork Poe had risen from where he had been lying stunned on the floor and now stood between Olimpia and the lever. I saw the hole in his coat where the bullet had entered him. His waistcoat beneath was smeared with a red-tinged fluid that I knew was not blood. Olimpia's shot had taken him in the stomach, a fatal wound for any man but a mere nuisance to one of Coppelius' devilish creations. As she reached for the lever, Poe grabbed her by her wrists, forcing her hands up. My heart sank. Even armed, Olimpia could not hope to overcome his strength.

  "'And this maiden'," the villain began with a vile sneer, "'she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me.' Say good-bye to your precious Eddy, my dear. For you are mine now."

  No sooner had the fiend spit
out his words than Olimpia wrenched herself free and twirling like an acrobat delivered a roundhouse kick to the machine's mouth. I heard a loud, wet-sounding crack and I knew that whatever material formed his jaw had shattered into a million pieces. He went flying across the room as though he had been kicked by a horse. I was astonished.

  Unfortunately, the force of her effort had driven her to the floor—and my time was up. Not knowing what else to do, in desperation I inhaled deeply thereby expanding my chest to gain the fraction of an inch necessary for the sweeping blade to just barely kiss the cord that bound me.

  Whoosh!

  The blade swept upon its course. The world seemed to pause and I saw in stark clarity that the razor's edge had sliced a single strand halfway through its breadth. I had only to expand my chest further to snap the bond, but I could breathe in no more. I had not even time to exhale, when I saw Olimpia's hand appear on my chest. She clutched a handful of the coils, including the broken one, and pulled. As expected, my bonds began to unravel like the uncoiling of a tightly wound spring. The cord snapped and the severed ends lashed the air like whips, releasing me from its deadly embrace.

  I made to roll away, but felt myself restrained by the shoulders. Poe had grasped me from behind, determined to hold me down for one last pass of the blade. The damnable murderous creature! I in turn grasped his wrists, twisted around and pulled with all my might. I had taken him by surprise and this, coupled with my fury-enhanced strength, was sufficient to haul him headlong onto the table. He realized his peril at once. He looked up at me, his jaw from Olimpia's kick a shattered ruin. Gone was his expression of sneering contempt. It was replaced by a look of genuine fear as sweeping down upon us was a clear premonition of the fiend's demise born on a glittering blur of burnished steel.

  Without pity, I looked him straight in the eye. "'A dirge for you the doubly dead!'" I shouted, just as the blade swept past me.

  With the sudden lessening of the automaton's weight, I fell backwards off the table. I landed on the floor, still holding the clockwork man's arms, head and chest.