Steampunk Cthulhu: Mythos Terror in the Age of Steam

by Jeffrey Thomas

  “Suffice to say, it worked. But not as Munroe intended, for instead of opening the lock and releasing the inmates, I had done something far worse.

  “I summoned screaming chaos from the Outer Darkness itself, calling it up from beyond to do my bidding.

  “The cave started to dim, as if a veil was being drawn over the sun. The whispers of the inmates turned to screams, shrieks so hideous that I thought my ears might burst. The dark began to swirl and spin, spiraling columns of blackness that danced over and around us in ever more frenzied motion.

  “Munroe shook himself, as if coming out of a trance.

  “‘Is it working?’ he asked.

  “I started to pull him away towards the exit.”

  “‘All too well,” I replied. ‘Come away. It is over.’

  He laughed at me.

  “‘No. It is only just begun.’

  He walked to the center of the chamber and threw another switch. The organ pipes squealed even louder. The dark swirls gathered into deeper, more violent spirals, whirling dervishes that sucked up anything that wasn’t fixed to the floor, crushing and mangling the copper plate, cogs and gears of Munroe’s creations and turning them into fuel for ever faster destruction.

  “I backed away as the dark swelled over me. I muttered protective incantations under my breath, knowing even as I did so that I could not waste any more words on Munroe, for any pause would have meant joining him there in the chaos.

  “The last I saw of him as I backed off into the corridor was his ecstatic face raised high, the huge copper organ pipes thrown, dancing, in the air around him as the blackness swelled high above…and fell on him.”

  “I only just managed to make it to the jetty as the caves collapsed in on themselves and I’m afraid I lost all of my luggage in the chaos, but that was the furthest thing from my mind at that point.

  “I had a frantic minute’s worry as I tried to figure out how to pilot the boat, and I had only just managed to exit the small harbor before the whole island fell in on itself in a great gout of hissing steam. At the last a dark shape seemed to loom over the foaming waters, one that was torn into wisps by the wind and scattered even as the seas calmed.

  “Of Munroe’s island, not a single trace was left.

  “I managed to get back to Tighnabruaich later that evening, and instructed the locals to burn the boat and anything they found on it. They were only too keen to comply, removing the very last vestiges of Munroe and his experiments from the face of the earth.”

  ***

  Carnacki stopped.

  He went quiet, and I thought he was done, but when he looked up there were fresh tears of anguish in his eyes.

  “Do you see, old friends? I have become that which I have fought against these long years. I have used the powers of the Outer Darkness to further my own ends. What say you? Am I to be eternally damned?”

  Arkwright spoke for us all.

  “Do not fret old chap,” he said. “If what you related is indeed true, then you have spared us from a bleak future; one in which the Outer Darkness conspires to remake the world into a place suitable for all the haunts and bogles to inhabit.”

  Carnacki was inconsolable.

  “But have I? Have I really?”

  On my way back along the Embankment I saw a large group of workers lower a great machine into the new tunnel workings for the Central Line enhancement program. The huge drill-bit at one end looked like a giant, ravenously hungry, mouth.

  Carnacki’s last words stayed with me all the way home.

  Pain Wears No Mask

  By John Goodrich

  “Excellent port,” the Marquess of Queensbury commented, his words colored by a Scottish Brogue. Wrinkled and shrunken with age, his evening dress hung on him like a shroud. To Ernst Udet, sitting opposite him, he seemed jaundiced, his skin’s pallor unhealthy. Udet remembered that the noble had once been a great boxing enthusiast, and wondered where that young powerhouse had gone. “You young gentlemen know how to treat the peerage, even if your Frenchmen are guillotining me with their eyes.”

  “France still has scars from the depredations of Henry the Fifth and other British tyrants,” Georges Guynemer said with a gallic shrug. His rich blue velvet dinner jacket matched his eyes. The youthful George never wanted for pleasurable company.

  “The aristocracy was made for the guillotine, not the other way around.” Charles Nungesser twisted his face into a sardonic smile. He sat behind a palisade of bottles, mainly wine, but also brandies, ports and an absinthe. “Else the world would not have followed the example of La Révolution so closely. It is 1925, and there hasn’t been a king anywhere in the world for a decade.” Ernst suppressed a chuckle. Drunk, Nungesser was more impressively mordant than he was sober.

  “Men are happier with kings to rule them,” the Marquess remained defiant in the face of the Frenchmen’s anti-monarchist sentiments. “Freedom is seductive, but without their betters to govern them, the common man will fritter away his limited industry away on frivol and dissipation. Do you think an establishment like the Gundel could possibly have been built under a republic?” His encompassing gesture took in the cream-colored walls of the room, its fine crystal chandeliers, gilt tracery, and the elegant portraits of Andrea Ilona Lang.

  “It wasn’t built by the aristocracy, though.” Eugene Bullard’s face was impassive as a mahogany idol in a smoking jacket. “Why do I doubt the men who built it were paid a fair wage?” Udet knew Bullard’s father had been a slave in the American Confederacy, and considered that the Marquess was unlikely to win this argument.

  “You promised us information, not banter.” Bill Wellman, captain of the Black Cross and self-styled pirate of the airways, shifted uncomfortably, as if his American tuxedo chafed. Handsome enough to be described as dashing, Wellman’s tall forehead and pencil thin moustache marked him as an American, even when he kept his mouth shut.

  “Americans, relentlessly to the point,” Queensbury’s mutter was dark and resentful. Udet pursed his lips.

  Cigar smoke formed strange, drifting coils around the crystal chandelier.

  “There is nothing to say. I don’t know a thing about this so-called marriage of the former Queen,” their guest muttered into a glass of brandy.

  There was a general exhalation of frustration around the table.

  Udet stood, pulling himself to his less-than impressive five-foot, two-inches. But the former Marquess was sitting, so Udet loomed over him like a frowning thunderhead.

  “John Douglas, I have seen the shabby hotel you live in, and I would have been ashamed of it in my student days. What we offer will keep you well fed until the end of your days. Spent wisely, it will allow you to keep the shreds of your former dignity in a more spacious and better-heated location. If you tell us nothing, you will return to your chilly rooms with a full belly today, and only the pale shadow of that memory in a week’s time.”

  Queensbury stared up at the German, his jaw clenching. The rest of the table didn’t breathe. And then something broke inside the Marquess.

  “It was disgusting from the start. I knew the prancing white-feather playwright from before, but he began to pay court to Her Serene Majesty, more than twice his age. He, a commoner, like that Brown, and a sodomite to top it all off. Revolting.”

  The table was silent, all eyes on the Marquess. He glared back at them.

  “Only a few, mostly public atheists, and only those with titles, attended. I doubt any members of Parliament were invited, certainly none were there. Republicanism was on its triumphant upswing, and the Queen’s ministers probably feared that the wedding might lead to an insurrection.” He grunted. “If only we had known.

  “Of course, this didn’t happen in a church. They chose the lawns of a hideous Gothic house in the country, Borley Rectory or some such ridiculousness. Rumored to be haunted by the ghosts of indiscreet monks and nuns and other flights of fancy. The playwright” he spat the word, “said it was somehow appropriate.


  “I suspect only atheists were invited because only we would have stood for it. That prig the Archbishop of Canterbury would have died of apoplexy.”

  The smoke formed weird swirls in the yellow light that caught Udet’s eye. The rest of the table were rapt, intent on the Marquess’s story.

  “They put up a pagan altar in the middle of the grounds. To the left and right were staked painted draperies, supposedly the work of the groom, entirely of decadence and corruption and I won’t begin to describe them here.

  “The less said about the groom, the better, but the bride… Victoria was clearly besotted. She wore flowers in her hair, as if she were some blushing Irish virgin rather than a grandmother more than thirty times over. The music was… I can only assume of the groom’s own composition. Grotesque would be the best way to describe it. It hung in the ear like a sickness, insinuating itself where it was not wanted.” The Marquess slammed down another gulp of expensive port.

  “They processed between ranks of lit torches and exchanged some ridiculous set of vows before a pallid worm in yellow silk vestments. I was not close enough to hear them. They exchanged as, as private a kiss as ever man bestowed on woman in the confines of their bedroom.

  “I think they only invited me so the Irishman could cement his triumph over me.”

  With a hiss and a clump, a mechanical waiter opened the door to their private dining room. All eyes were on it as it stepped, with frequent halts, up to the table. Udet didn’t like the permanently smiling face, as inexpressive as a dead man’s.

  “Is sere anysing else the cus’omers hwisshh?” It fluted through metallic lips that flapped in a regular pattern that did not form words. Tiny tubes in its mouth, like a miniature organ, were more suited to fluid, vowel-rich Magyar than to the harsh fricatives of English. The sleek, clockwork waiter was supposed to ensure a measure of privacy, but the pirates did not trust that there were no listening devices secreted on it.

  “We are fine, thank you.” Wellman said it with careful enunciation that would not confuse the automaton.

  “Ssank you,” the mechanical waiter turned in fits and starts, and headed back across the floor.

  When the door had closed, Wellman brought out a small briefcase, stuffed with Hungarian libertás bills, and extended it over the table. The Marquess reached for it, but Udet’s hand came down, blocking the old man.

  “You haven’t told us all you know,” the German said.

  “I am an old man, older than I ever thought to be. I have lived long past my time.” The Marquess shrank back, looking more frail than he had. Exactly how old was he?

  “What was the groom’s name?” Udet ground out the pitiless question. “Where can we find him?”

  With a glare of pure hate, the former Marquess upended the table, raining the dishes and tablecloth onto Wellman. The withered hands turned to claws, the jaws foamed as he raved. “He has my heart! Don’t you understand, he has my heart!” With uncanny speed, those clawed hands reached for Ernst’s throat, but Bullard’s fist crashed into the Marquess’s face, sending him sprawling. Ernst, recovering himself, remembered that Bullard was reputed to have the most fearsome left hook in all of Paris.

  “What’s that damned idiot doing?” Wellman struggled from under the tablecloth, shards of broken china raining onto the tile floor. “What the god-damned hell is that son of a bitch doing?”

  Georges approached the downed nobleman, and Ernst came up on his other side. The fight seemed to have gone out of him.

  “Tell me the name, old man. Who did Victoria marry?”

  Queensbury’s face contorted with fury.

  “Wilde,” he shrieked. “That disgusting reprobate Oscar Wilde.”

  The pilots looked at each other in silence. Georges motioned for the briefcase. Wellman, now disentangled, passed it to him.

  “Where?” Georges placed the suitcase on the floor, keeping himself between their guest and the money.

  “Kuala Lumpur.” Queensbury’s tone was of defeated resignation.

  Guynemer helped the Marquess up, and handed him the briefcase. Those shrunken hands clutched it to his chest like a drowning man holding a life ring.

  “You’re mad to seek him,” was all the Marquess would say before turning and shuffling out the door.

  The pilots were quiet for a moment, each thinking their own thoughts as they righted the table and began to assemble the shards of smashed china.

  “Is he telling the truth, or is he just a demented old codger who walked away with our money for a fairy story?” Wellman asked.

  “Might be both,” Georges responded “Still, we’ve got a name.”

  “It’s too fantastic, though.” Bullard was hard-headed and practical, and Udet liked that. “Wilde? The playwright?”

  “And what did you make of that heart business?” Of all the strangeness in the man’s story, that had disquieted Udet the most.

  “Have you read Wilde’s last work?” Charles Nungesser’s question was quiet, but cut through the conversation.

  “I seem to remember something after The Importance of Being Earnest,” Georges was vague on the point.

  “It was called the King in Yellow.” Nungesser held a glass of absinthe, staring at a portrait of Andrea Lang which regarded him with pity. “It had two performances, and during the second, the audience rioted, ending with the theater in flames.”

  “Poor critical reception,” Ernst said with a small smile.

  “It’s no laughing matter,” Charles said in that same quiet voice. “Dozens were killed, and none who attended those performances were ever right again.”

  “What do you mean, were never right again?” Bullard leaned closer.

  “My uncle was one of those who managed a ticket to the second show.”

  “And?” Wellman’s drink sat neglected by his elbow.

  Nungesser looked at the china that littered the floor.

  “And he was never the same. It is partially for him that I painted that sigil on my plane.”

  “Let’s see, a skull and crossbones surmounted by a coffin, candles left and right all in a black heart.” Wellman recited from memory. “You don’t seem that morbid.”

  “I was inspired by my uncle’s drawings. After seeing The King in Yellow, he continually drew strange and fantastical pictures, images of death and dying, as if he were possessed by the spirit of Hieronymous Bosch. It broke my aunt’s heart. He died a few years later. He never spoke about the performance, but I remember my mother saying that similar things had happened to other attendees. One never spoke, only hummed the same tune over and over. Another locked herself away and wrote, on paper when she could, on the walls of her house when she couldn’t. My aunt still thanks God that my uncle hadn’t found a pair of tickets. She’d loved The Importance of Being Earnest.”

  “We’re looking to score the British Crown Jewels, and you’re telling us ghost stories?” Bullard’s expression was one of disbelief.

  “The old world protects itself with stories and superstitions,” Georges said. “You Americans don’t understand, your country is too young. With more than three thousand years of history behind her, Europe has had time to wrap her secrets in myth. They may be metaphors, distortions, or even the remnants of lies a hundred years dead, but it never does to ignore something like this, Eugene.”

  The pilots eyed each other quietly. Udet wondered if Georges believed in this hocus-pocus. Or Bullard.

  “I fancy a crown,” Bullard adjusted an imaginary coronet on his head. The rest of the table nodded in consensus.

  “Gentlemen, the Black Cross will be ready to depart for Kuala Lumpur in five days,” Wellman’s tone was slow and deliberate. “I don’t think I need to remind you that it’s best to keep our destination and everything discussed here a secret. If you have concerns, bring them to me before we lift.”

  Udet stood in the internal hangar of the Black Cross, looking at the planes. Four Sopwith Snapdragons were racked there, vibrating almost imperceptibly in s
ympathy with the airship’s steam engines. Each aircraft was less than a year old, all trusted and reliable. His eyes lingered on the strange symbol on Charles Nungesser’s plane, the morbid coffin, skull, and black heart. But they all had done something unique with their planes. Udet’s own plane had “Do Doch Nicht” written on the tail, “Certainly not you.” Bullard had the silhouette of a bird on his.

  “The Black Swallow of Death,” said Bullard as he entered the hanger behind Udet.

  “Was this how you felt when you came to Europe?” Ernst asked Bullard. Below them the verdant green of the Indian subcontinent crawled past. The Black Cross’s propellers whispered in the twilight. Below, everything was silent.

  “There was more work to do on the steamer. I was shoveling coal once they found out I was on board. Didn’t leave a lot of time to think about where I was going.” But there was something else working behind Bullard’s face. Udet knew enough to let it work its way to the surface.

  “But this feels strange,” he finally said. “Not just distant, but like we’re intruding. Like we don’t belong.”

  “A fair number of the people we’re flying over would agree. It’s frightening to think that we could land and not be able to find anyone who speaks a language we understand.”

  “Alien, is what we are. Strangers intruding into places where we don’t know what’s going on,” Bullard had been quiet since leaving Budapest. Udet could not disagree.

  “I don’t like the way they stare at us,” Udet said. “And the further we get into Hindustani territory, the more they stare.”

  Bullard sighed.

  “This isn’t about the stares. This is about Wellman keeping us on the Cross. If you’re not flying, you’re not happy.” Bullard placed a comforting hand on Udet’s shoulder. “Not much more than a week, he says. Then we’ll be at Kuala Lumpur.”

  “Can’t be soon enough,” Udet said.