The Doomsday Machine (Horatio Lyle)

by Catherine Webb

  Lyle met Lord Elwick’s eyes, and saw nothing but burning anger, although his face was ice. ‘Because of me, my lord. Because it is known to some who are my enemies, that Thomas is my friend. They may try to hurt him, to hurt me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Did I not just explain that?’

  ‘Why are they going to hurt you, and why would they assume you have any sort of relationship beyond a passing one with my son?’

  ‘Because I teach him!’

  ‘What do you teach him?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What do you teach him, Mister Lyle? I know full well that once a week he departs for the city, and once a week he does so claiming to visit a teacher or a relative or attend a concert or a sermon or a lecture or some such device - does he visit you? What do you teach him, what do you tell him, who are you to have put him in danger?!’ Lord Elwick was on his feet, and now his face was purple. ‘How dare you?!’

  ‘Science.’ Lyle’s voice was cold and unmoving. ‘I teach him science.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘That’s the part I think you’ll understand, my lord.’

  ‘He has no need for science!’

  ‘He has more need than anyone I’ve ever met.’

  ‘I do not need a stranger to tell me about my son! Why did he lie? Why did he not mention you?’

  ‘Perhaps because you do need a stranger to tell you about your son, my lord.’

  ‘Do not push me, Mister Lyle!’

  ‘I’m sorry; there’s no nice way to tackle this. Believe me, I tried when first I came through that door; but you just wouldn’t let me, would you? So I’ll get to the point.’ Lyle sought a good way to begin, and failing, gave a shrug and dived in.

  ‘Your son has flown, in his own machine - has he told you that? He has built a flying machine from bamboo and canvas, launched it off Hampstead Heath, flown across the city, so high and so fast you’d think he could touch the moon, called it Icarus, after the boy who flew too close to the sun until his wings melted in its heat. And he made it work; he did the maths, he calculated the pressure, he worked out the speed. He has . . . such a passion for it, an astonishing brilliance. Perhaps he has not told you because he is afraid, because science is not what the Elwicks do. In his own way, I suspect that is his attempt to be a good, dutiful, son. That means he doesn’t admit to his interests - it is not what you expect of him. Not that this is important, it ’s not what I’m trying to say . . .’ Lyle hesitated, then said, ‘Put it like this. Forget the science, forget the maths; what matters is that he does what he thinks is right - studies what he thinks is important, does what he believes will make things better.

  ‘It was by accident that he met me, and I suspect he’d do what he does regardless. His connection with me . . . is nothing. Just a nudge along the way. But I do care for your son, and I think it would be a tragedy and a loss if he were not to study and do what he does. And now a man who is ... how can I put it? Without scruple. A man without scruple is going to try to use your son against me, and I am scared sick that I won’t be able to protect him, and I need to warn him that this might happen. Is that enough, my lord? Is that what you needed to hear?’

  Lord Elwick had sunk back down into his chair. Now he murmured, ‘But . . . he is my son.’

  ‘Yes, my lord. And he is my friend. Between us, he should be all right, don’t you agree?’

  ‘Thomas?’

  Lady Elwick stood in the doorway. Thomas got to his feet. Tess stood too. Instinctively, in the presence of someone obviously a lady, she attempted a little curtsey, and almost stood on Tate’s ear.

  Lady Elwick was pale. ‘Thomas,’ she said softly, ‘your father is asking for you, and . . . you, young lady.’

  Tess tried not to feel like a walking, soaking refuse heap in contrast with Lady Elwick. Thomas moved stiffly towards the study door, his face empty. Tess followed and Tate slouched after her.

  At the door, Lady Elwick put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. ‘It’s all right,’ she said softly. ‘I know what you do. The servants told me. And it ’s all right.’ She smiled weakly when he froze, and nudged him forward. ‘Go and speak to your father.’

  He walked into the study, not registering his surroundings, unaware of his own movement or Tess shuffling behind him. His father sat at the desk; Lyle stood in the window and peered round the curtain at the street outside, seemingly oblivious of anything else. Thomas felt like the most lonely person in the world.

  His father cleared his throat.

  ‘Thomas.’

  ‘Yes, Father?’

  ‘Mister Lyle informs me that . . .’ his voice trailed off, then started up again. ‘There are some things you have not been telling me, Thomas.’

  ‘No, Father.’ His voice was barely a whisper.

  ‘Now, before I make my mind up about this situation, I need to hear you tell me, just once, why you do these things. Why you . . . wilfully endanger yourself, why you court trouble, linger where you know there will be risk, why you . . . why you . . . no, I will not ask why you do not tell me, the answer to that is too easy: what father would permit knowingly the things you do? But I need to understand why you so readily accept that this man’ - a glower in the direction of Lyle ’s impassive back in the window - ‘can risk his life and yours, why you can just let that happen and not blame him, not run from this . . . strange world you seem to inhabit. I need to hear you tell me why.’

  Thomas looked behind him at the shivering Tess, then down at Tate, and across to the window, where Lyle was watching him over his shoulder, face closed, saying not a word. He turned back and saw his father, shorter in real life than the portraits on the wall suggested, whiskers sticking out either side of his face, back slightly hunched with age, dressed in fine evening wear that, being designed for a younger man, just made Lord Elwick look older. For almost the first time in his life, he found he knew exactly what to say.

  ‘Because it ’s right, Father. What we do is the right thing to do. And someone has to do it. You can’t just . . . walk away from something like that. You told me ... that it’s my duty to do right. You said that I had to do right by my family, my servants, the people who would look up to me - you said that because I was . . .’ he hesitated for a moment, glancing up at Lyle, who showed no reaction, ‘. . . because I was born to privilege, it was my duty to follow a code and do the best I can for those who were born beneath me, who trusted me not to mislead or abuse them. More - not just not to mislead, but to try to do something so that they would be better, that I could make a difference because of who I am! If you say that it is a duty to be a gentleman, and that duty means I should be understanding and kind towards my family and my servants, does it mean I should ignore everyone else? I can’t make everything better - but I can’t not try.’

  He stopped, feeling the blood standing out on his skin, trembling at the end of his fingers, and looked at Lord Elwick.

  His father’s face seemed to empty, smoothing out as every muscle unknotted itself and as he let out a long sigh that seemed to start at his strained shoulders and flow all the way down to his fingertips. ‘In that case,’ said Lord Elwick, and his voice no longer rang with imperious command, but was gentle and real, ‘you have my blessing, Thomas. Mister Lyle?’

  Horatio Lyle looked up and smiled faintly. ‘My lord?’

  ‘You and your . . . companions . . . may stay here for as long as it takes you to resolve this situation. I will ensure that there are guards outside your friend’s door, and my son’s - no harm can come to them. I will help you make right whatever it is that is wrong, I give you my word.’

  Lyle bowed. ‘Thank you, my lord.’

  And so Tess goes to her room, a larger one than she has ever seen before, where a steaming bath awaits her, and hot food has been brought in on a tray. The window is twice her height, and the carpet is so thick she thinks it’ll reach to her knees. The bed is so big she could roll in it like an ant across a dune and, at her door, a f
ootman keeps guard with a poker, lest any stranger should venture upstairs.

  In the kitchen of the Elwick house, Tate lolls in a basket lined with an old eiderdown, while the women servants coo over him and brush his coat and scratch him behind his ears and tickle under his chin and rub his belly, until even Tate has to admit he’s having a very pleasant evening, before rolling over in front of the stove, kept warm all night and all day, to sleep in a dry, peaceful bed.

  In the living room, Thomas Edward Elwick stands opposite Horatio Lyle, who is gently steaming in the blasting heat of the fireplace, and says, ‘Mister Lyle?’

  ‘I’m sorry about this, Thomas.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Coming here in this way. I know it’s not what you wanted.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘I should explain. Havelock . . .’

  ‘Miss Teresa explained.’

  ‘Did she?’ Lyle raises an eyebrow, then shrugs. ‘Well then. Havelock. He means the threats he makes, Thomas. I know this from experience.’

  ‘How do you know him?’

  ‘Oh,’ Lyle smiles uneasily and turns to dry another side of his clothing in the warmth of the fire. ‘You can’t help but notice men like Havelock, particularly when they’re climbing to the top. I will do what I can to make amends for this situation, Thomas.’

  ‘There’s no need, Mister Lyle.’

  ‘I think there probably is.’

  ‘No! There isn’t.’ Thomas smiles, and finds he means it. ‘I chose this, Mister Lyle. I chose to help when we first met; so did Miss Teresa. It’s for the best.’

  Lyle seems to deflate a little in the firelight. ‘You’re getting old, lad.’

  ‘Only in a good way, Mister Lyle.’

  Lyle pats Thomas absently on the shoulder. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘You may be right.’

  Later, upstairs, Lady Elwick kisses her son goodnight on the cheek. Lord Elwick stands uncomfortably in the doorway, before moving forward and patting his son on the shoulder and saying, ‘Sleep well,’ in a stiff voice, and wondering if his son isn’t too old after all to be tucked in. Afterwards Thomas crosses his bedroom, pulls open the bottom drawer by his desk, lifts up its false bottom, and takes out some papers. Numbers and pictures and lines of force and letters and ideas race across the paper in thick, scrawly lines. Having considered them by the light of the candle, he doesn’t put them back, but leaves them on the floor like an artist’s greatest work, to be admired by anyone who might now decide to look. At various places outside his door wait a valet with a sabre, the head groom with a shovel, three footmen with candlesticks, and one of the gardeners with a crowbar, just in case someone should even think about approaching his room at night.

  At the back of the house, above a rear parlour, Horatio Lyle yawns, scratches at the dry shirt and pants the second under-gardener lent him, being the only person in the household whose clothing seemed to fit, and which smell slightly of loam. He turns the handle of the door to his small, gloomy room, and steps inside.

  Three things meet his senses. The first is the smell of smoke, sharp, from the wick of a candle just extinguished. Second is the faint sound of something moving through the air, silk rippling. Third is a flash of green, implausibly bright in the darkness - no, two flashes of green, a pair of eyes rising out of nowhere, locking themselves into his. They are the only things there to focus on, the only things to see, and thus the only things he looks at, to find he cannot look away. He opens his mouth to call out, and a hand is over his mouth. Something, someone, slams him back against the wall, and there are the eyes, filling his world. The hand over his mouth is small and neat and has the strength of a blacksmith’s, and wears a black silk glove. And a soft voice like the distant sound of wind chimes whispers, ‘Don’t speak, don’t move, Mister Lyle. They put guards on every door except yours - you didn’t expect someone to come for you. Just relax.’

  He tries to look away, sees emerald and the colour of spring leaves with the sun overhead and . . . and . . .

  ‘You did not need to lose your followers by the bridge, Mister Lyle. When everything else is taken from you, where are you going to come, except here? I only had to wait.’ . . . just needs to close his eyes and fight, kick, struggle, raise a fist, bite, anything except look and sink and drown in warm greenness and . . .

  ‘No magnet, Mister Lyle. You left it in your coat on the end of the bed. No iron either. Time to fall asleep.’

  . . . no no no no no NO NO NO . . .

  ‘Just fall asleep, Horatio Lyle. I promise you’ll be all right.’

  . . . please no . . . please . . .

  And finally, Horatio Lyle closes his eyes, and lets his head loll, and obeys. He falls asleep in the Tseiqin’s arms, without a word or a sound, while she carries him to the window.

  CHAPTER 6

  Strangers

  Flashes of a journey, nothing more. Frozen glimpses. A carriage window, green eyes opposite, a moment. Hyde Park - sleep, Mister Lyle, just sleep. Park Lane - a glimmer of street lamp and lamplighter with his ladder; sleep, Mister Lyle, you have nothing to fear. A nightmare; the mansions of Mayfair - wake cold and sweating, did they come and there they are, a waking nightmare, dream made real, green eyes, black silk hand reaching out and brushing eyelids shut again; you must trust us, Mister Lyle, sleep until we ask for you. Sleep.

  This time, he was ready for the awakening. Rather than open his eyes, he lay still and waited for every other sense to report in, to confirm by the ache in his shoulders that this was not a dream. Lyle didn’t dare to move or look, although every second wilfully blind was an agony, not knowing what could be out there.

  Smell of wood burning in a fireplace, some coal too. A taste of lavender on the air, and soot as well, a chimney that hadn’t been swept for a while. The feel of padding and silk beneath him, the undergardener’s warm, dry clothes still itching at the back of his neck, and a new itch, rope around his wrists, thick, almost like a piece of ship’s rigging, wedging his fists together and making the ends of his fingers numb. A crackle from the fireplace, and somewhere, near by, laboured breathing - not threatening, but wheezing: a long-drawn-out whistle on the way in, that rattled on the way out. With every other sense describing all it could, he did what he’d dreaded to do, and opened his eyes.

  The room was a bedchamber and, more to the point, his kind of place. The walls were lined with books, and above the fireplace hung a painting that caught Lyle’s eye and didn’t let it go. From the corner of the room, somewhere behind the sofa on which Lyle had been ungracefully deposited, the voice with the wheeze spoke, with a sound like sandpaper across rough stone: ‘Turner.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘The painting. Turner.’ The voice managed to imply without so much as changing tone that if Lyle didn’t know exactly what this meant and who Turner was, then he was clearly an idiot.

  Lyle eased himself up, waiting for the blood to settle in his head and his thoughts to pick up speed. At length he risked standing. He turned, his back to the fire, and looked in the direction of the voice.

  In a giant bed there was a man. He was old, of that there was no doubt, but somehow his face seemed to have aged unevenly. His skin was lined and leathery. But his hair was such a pure white that its colour didn’t look like a consequence of aging, and his eyes sparkled bright green. He was sitting up in the bed, wearing a long nightrobe and an undignified nightcap with a bobble on it, and seemed oblivious of the rattle of his own breath. Around him stood or sat a group of five or six other people of various indeterminate ages, all with the same bright green eyes. Their silence suggested deference to the old man in the bed.

  Finding that he felt neither hypnotized nor threatened, Lyle looked at the man and murmured, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘At present I go by the name of Joseph Turner. I like that artist’s work, although perhaps you think it is arrogance to steal his name? I am also known, among my own kind, as Old Man White. You may call me whichever you think mo
re appropriate.’

  ‘You’re Tseiqin.’

  ‘And for you to notice, we only had to hypnotize you and carry you halfway across the city.’

  ‘I’m sorry; it was more an exclamation of surprise than a question.’

  ‘In that case, you are welcome. We are Tseiqin.’ Old Man White put his head on one side and, smiling faintly, said, ‘Does that alarm you?’

  Lyle’s laugh came too fast for him to control it: fear overrode all other instincts. He felt his ears burn red. ‘Yes, God damn it,’ he choked.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Angel-demon people with hypnotic green eyes, white blood and an allergy for all things magnetic? And me, here among you? I can’t imagine how it might end well.’

  ‘We haven’t hurt you.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Lyle raised his bound wrists accusingly.

  Old Man White shrugged. ‘You are Horatio Lyle. You destroyed the Fuyun Plate in a blast of lightning; you fought Selene, who was once one of us, tooth and claw; you were there when her blade was shattered into a thousand pieces; you build machines that hurt us - unintentionally, perhaps. But the iron is in your blood; you can’t help what you are. You can’t help but uproot the land that we loved, to build your new, strange, iron world. That does not make you any less dangerous.’

  ‘As I said, it can’t end well.’

  ‘Mister Lyle, you miss the point. You have encountered the full wrath of my people, and survived. This is something few humans have achieved. Are you surprised that there are some here who fear you?’

  ‘You’re scared of me?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Really? In that case I’ll just be going, wouldn’t want to cause trouble, always dangerous, me . . . please?’

  Old Man White looked sceptical. ‘How you survived, Mister Lyle, always strikes me as something of a mystery. Please come here.’

  Too late, Lyle tried to look away. But there were the eyes, already filling his mind. He’d let his guard down and damn damn damn . . . He felt his legs jerk, moving him forward; he bit his lip until he tasted blood as he tried to fight it - and perhaps, for an instant, there was resistance, that taste of iron on his tongue, the tang of salt. For a second he stopped, tried to twist his head away, to shut his eyes and . . .