by Mark Hodder
We left the fourth terrace and traversed the fifth and the sixth, both of which were now almost entirely filled by the new residential districts. The seventh had been transformed into a beautiful park with lakes and bandstands, banks of exotic flowers, and thickets of curiously formed trees. I saw Yatsill strolling along the footpaths and others enjoying picnics on the bluish-green grass. There was also a small group of unclothed individuals marching along bearing placards that read: Reverse the changes! Back to the old ways! Say no to the dissonance!
At the seaward edge of the park, along the top of the almost sheer drop that fell to the next terrace, the Yatsill had built a high crenellated wall with bastions spaced evenly along its length. Initially, I took this to be a defence against seagoing marauders, but as we passed onto the eighth terrace through a tremendously tall gateway, I realised the battlements were facing inward, not outward. This made no sense. If the Yatsill feared a land attack, why was the wall here rather than at the top of the first level? And what, exactly, was the nature of the threat? I determined to find this out as soon as possible.
Beyond the wall, the eighth terrace contained forts, parade grounds, and barracks. There were also builders’ yards, paper mills, printworks, and the premises of metalworkers, carpenters, and glassblowers.
The cabbie drove me to a military establishment and dropped me at the gate, above which a sign read “Crooked Blue Tower Barracks” despite there being no tower present, crooked, blue, or otherwise. Out of habit, I patted my pockets in search of loose change to pay for my ride. Of course, I had none, and regardless, the hansom clattered away before I could have handed over any coins.
A sentry—Working Class—stepped forward and said, “You must be Fleischer.”
“Yes,” I responded, then foolishly added, “How did you know?”
The Yatsill regarded me through the holes of his mask and said, “You’re underequipped in the leg and elbow department, Guardsman. Go through, please. Colonel Spearjab is waiting for you.”
He held the portal open and I passed through into a large courtyard. There were about thirty Workers in it, all dressed in Napoleonic grey. Five of them were wielding swords—chopping, slashing, and stabbing at ten-foot-tall tree stumps—while the others watched.
A figure strode over to me. When he spoke, I recognised the voice of Colonel Momentous Spearjab coming from behind the long-beaked stork mask.
“Ah-ha! There you are, old chap! We’ve been waiting for you! What! What! Here, take this.”
He held out a scabbarded sword, hilt first.
I looked at it and felt the heat sucked out of my body.
“We’ve been practising but we’re not bally sure of the technique,” Spearjab said. “Show us, would you? Hey?”
I shook my head and took a step back. “I can’t. I don’t know how to use it.”
“Come come, old fellow. Harrumph! Give it a try.”
Again, I shook my head.
“I say,” Spearjab grumbled. “I am a colonel, you know. A colonel, I say! Humph! Humph! You do realise you have to obey my jolly old orders, yes? The thing of it is, this is an order. What! Take the sword.”
I drew an unsteady breath, reached out, and closed my fingers around the weapon’s grip. Spearjab maintained his hold on the scabbard as I slowly pulled the weapon from it. It scraped free and I stumbled a little, surprised by its weight. It was much heavier than I had anticipated.
“Good show!” the colonel murmured.
I looked down at the hilt, at the ornately carved quillons and studded pommel.
“Please, no.”
It was the sword the Valley of Reflections had shown to me—the weapon I would use to kill Mademoiselle Crockery Clattersmash.
° °
6. Guardsman and Magician
How much time had passed since I’d last awoken in a bed? I had no idea, but when I finally did so once again, it was not the pleasure it should have been, for my entire body ached abysmally. Every muscle felt bruised. My hands were blistered and I could hardly straighten my fingers. When I sat up and swung my legs to the floor, the pain was so excruciating I couldn’t help but moan in distress.
I had no memory of my return to the house—though I could vaguely recall a cab driver helping me out of a hansom—nor did I know how much time had passed since then. By the angle of the light slanting in through the gap in my curtains, I guessed it to be no small period.
Curtains! There’d been none before!
With another moan, I pushed myself upright, hobbled across the room, and pulled the draperies open. The square below was empty, the only movement being from the water of the tinkling fountain. I looked down at myself and found, to my surprise, that I was wearing blue-and-yellow-striped pyjamas. Then I turned and surveyed my bedchamber. The walls had been painted a very pale green. A dressing gown was hanging from a hook on the door. There was a wardrobe to my left, its doors open, showing it to be full of clothes. A pair of slippers poked out from beneath the end of my bed.
I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again, bemused.
I could smell toast.
In a trice, I donned the gown, put on the slippers, shuffled out through the door, visited the bathroom—which I discovered had been fitted with a tub—then descended the ramp.
The house had been transformed. There were rugs on the floors, vases on shelves, incomprehensible artwork on the walls, cushions on the sofas, and all manner of homely knick-knacks around the place.
“Good gracious!” I exclaimed.
Clarissa came out of the kitchen. She was wrapped in the yellow robes of a magician. “You’re awake!”
“I don’t think so. Surely I’m dreaming!”
“You were gone for ages, came home in a daze, and slept for what must have been twenty-four hours. As you can see, we’ve been busy.”
“So I see! We?”
“Kata has been appointed as our housekeeper. Come through—there’s tea and toast.”
With my eyes wide and my jaw dangling, I followed her into what had become a very well-appointed kitchen. Kata, who was cleaning the work surfaces, turned and smiled. “Hello, Mr. Fleischer.”
“Kata! I’m happy to see you again!”
I gingerly lowered myself into a chair at the table. Clarissa placed a cutting board before me on which sat a tub of butter, a pot of jam, and a plate piled high with toasted bread. She added to it a teapot, covered with a knitted cosy, cups and saucers, a jug of milk, and a bowl of sugar.
She laughed at the expression on my face. “These are the products of a Dar’sayn meditation, Aiden.”
“How—how so?” I stammered.
“The Magicians use the fluid to enhance their connection to the other Yatsill. I drank the stuff during my first training session with Father Spreadflower Meadows at the Temple of Magicians.”
“Who? I thought you were to be taught by Mademoiselle Clattersmash.”
“I was, but her dizziness has developed into an illness of some sort, so Meadows, one of her acolytes, has taken over her duties. My session with him involved imbibing this Dar’sayn fluid. It put me into a peculiar state of mind. I became consciously joined to the Yatsill, and I learned a lot.”
“Joined? Telepathically?”
“Yes. I was right about the Working Class. It’s hard to believe, but they have only the most rudimentary intelligence. Everything we see them accomplishing—their efficiency, their craftsmanship, even their ability to communicate with language—is by virtue of the acumen transmitted to them by the Aristocrats.”
I chuckled. “Am I to take it, then, that you, being one of the latter, used the same mental channel to plant a knowledge of tea and toast into the species?”
She smiled and nodded. “In a manner of speaking. As I suspected, the Yatsill have excavated, mimicked, and, in some respects, adapted my memories, but they work on a broad canvas. I was able to communicate greater detail to them, especially where things that’ll make you and me more comfortable are co
ncerned. Their natural enthusiasm did the rest. As a matter of fact, they’d already created a rough approximation of tea—our English obsession—but I was able to refine their recipe. Then they set out to replicate bread, reproducing its texture and flavour as closely as possible. And so forth.”
“On which subject—” I said, and tried to pick up a knife. My fingers wouldn’t cooperate. Clarissa took over, applied butter and jam to a piece of toast, and handed it to me. I took an eager bite and tasted something similar to strawberries but with a spicy edge.
“Of course, I didn’t confine myself to trivialities,” she continued.
I swallowed and exclaimed, “There’s nothing trivial about this!”
“True. But I also refined what they’d already picked up from me concerning mechanical engineering. In future sessions, I shall try to give them more. With their fervour and astounding proficiency, they’ll soon make Yatsillat a better approximation of London. We shall feel quite at home!”
“If we can get used to having four-legged neighbours.”
“I tried to find out more about this ‘being taken’ business, too,” Clarissa continued, “but in that was singularly unsuccessful. They block the entire subject from their own minds.”
I watched our housekeeper as she took oddly shaped and strangely coloured vegetables from a bag and started to peel them.
“Kata,” I said, “were you born on Ptallaya?”
“Yes, sir, and my father. But my mother was from a place called Futuna.”
“It’s an island some distance to the north and west of Koluwai,” Clarissa put in.
“Why was she sent here, Kata?” I asked
“To serve and to have children.”
“Are many of the Servants born here?”
“Most are, but newcomers appear in the Forest of Indistinct Murmurings each time the Eyes of the Saviour open. Like all of us, they serve until they are released.”
“Released? I’ve heard that term used once or twice before. What does it mean?”
“It is when we are sent to your world as a reward for our service.”
I looked at Clarissa and said, “Home!” then to Kata, “How do we get released?”
“The gods will decide,” she answered, and her tone signalled an unwillingness to discuss the matter any further.
It took six rounds of toast and two cups of tea to stop my stomach from grumbling. When I’d eaten my fill, we left the kitchen, crossed the black-and-white-tiled floor of the big square vestibule, and settled in our lounge. It was a bright and cheerful room, with tall windows in two of the walls.
I was telling Clarissa about my training.
“It was brutal. Over and over, I was ordered to assault a tree stump with a heavy sword.”
“You brought the weapon back with you,” she said. “It’s by the front door.”
“I have to carry it whenever I’m on duty. I’m positive the dashed thing is heavier than I am. I could barely stand up by the time Spearjab released me. There’s not a single part of me that doesn’t hurt.”
“Exercise has never been your forte, but I’m sure you’ll adapt to it.”
“I don’t want to! I never want that accursed blade in my hands again. It’s the one I saw in my vision, Clarissa. The one I shall use to murder Mademoiselle Clattersmash!”
“It is? How curious! But if you really saw the future, then you should regard the vision as an opportunity.”
“An opportunity to do what?”
“To change it.”
For the briefest of moments, my heart filled with hope. Why hadn’t I realised that before? Of course! All I had to do was avoid ever being alone with Mademoiselle Clattersmash!
The image of the Yatsill’s butchered corpse invaded my mind’s eye. It blurred and became the ragged carcass of Polly Nichols.
“It won’t work,” I whispered. “I have no control over my Mr. Hyde.”
For the first occasion in all the time I’d known her, I witnessed my friend lose her temper. Slapping her hands down onto the arms of her chair, she shouted, “Why the blazes do you persist with this absurd notion, Aiden? You are not Jack the Ripper! For crying out loud, don’t you think we all have a darkness within us? Don’t you think I’ve imagined wreaking a terrible revenge on Rupert Hufferton for what he did to me? He killed my father! Caused my mother to die of grief! He made a twisted ruin of me and threw me out of my home and into the streets. I was an outcast, and it was his fault. I haven’t just imagined murdering him—I’ve spent hour after hour daydreaming how I might bring him down, deprive him of his riches, destroy his reputation, take away everything he holds dear. I’ve even thought how satisfactory it would be to hold him prisoner and torture him! Horrible things! Horrible!”
I stared, open-mouthed, at her.
“It’s natural!” she insisted. “It’s perfectly normal to harbour such thoughts about a person who’s done you a terrible wrong!”
“But—” I began.
She halted me with a palm directed at my face. “No. Just listen. That Tanner girl and her father made of you a victim and gave you little choice but to leave Theaston Vale. Anyone would react with rage at that, but up until then your life had been a sheltered one, your character mild, your emotions unformed. You didn’t know how to articulate your fury, so you locked it deep inside yourself and refused to acknowledge it. Then, in London, when you stumbled upon the corpse of Polly Nichols, you experienced primal fear. The horror of that experience was also suppressed and got mixed up with your imprisoned wrath. It left your memory impaired and is causing you to doubt the integrity of your own character. You imagined that Jack, to commit those dreadful murders, must possess the same intensity of anger as you, and since you find it inconceivable that anyone but you could possibly possess it, you’ve concluded that you must be the Ripper. Bad logic!” She leaned forward until her goggles were close to my face. “You are not a murderer!”
My heart rejected her assertion, but intellectually she made perfect sense. I said, “How, then, do I overcome this delusion?”
“You are akin to a dormant volcano. If you erupt, it might be destructive. If, however, you can find a way to relieve the pressure in a more measured fashion, that will do much to calm your inner turmoil.”
I looked at my blistered hands. “Perhaps if I throw myself into this training?”
“Yes! Physical activity!”
“If I’m up to it. I’m already a wreck.”
“I’m sure a hot bath will help. You relax here while I light the fire and put some buckets of water to heat.”
While Clarissa fussed around me—and almost certainly to stop me dwelling on my fears—she talked about the estate she’d been given. It was comprised of the house we were in, a farm just outside the city, a manufacturing plant on the first level, and a block of dwellings on the second. The residents of the latter would be her workforce when she decided what her factory should produce.
“Some mechanical contrivance or other,” she said. “I have no idea how long we’re going to be here. It may be for the rest of our lives, so I might as well make myself useful.”
“Contrivance?”
“Hmm. I’ve been thinking about those long avenues. They’re ridiculously steep. It occurred to me that they might benefit from cable trams, like the ones they’ve been constructing in San Francisco.”
“Judging by the number of spills I saw on them earlier, I’d agree.”
My bath was soon ready. Among the new items in the bathroom, I found a cut-throat razor crafted at my companion’s behest by one of the city’s knife makers. After some work, I was finally able to liberate my chin from its outrageous beard. My hair, on the other hand, was almost down to my shoulders and I felt oddly disinclined to cut it. Having shaved, I thankfully gave myself up to the tub’s steaming water, its heat penetrating my sore muscles all the way to the bone.
Maybe Clarissa was right. I wasn’t the Whitechapel killer. But still I could feel that black something insid
e of me. I wanted to know it. I needed to be sure it hadn’t committed the acts I attributed to it. Cautiously, with my eyes closed, I mentally probed inward.
I sank into shadows.
Nothing. For a long time, nothing.
Then, as if hands were reaching into me to dredge the images from the depths of my mind, I saw the sword, the blood, and Polly Nichols, torn, gutted, dead. Her eyes were looking up into mine. The two deep lacerations in her throat worked like mouths. They chorused: “You think I might find happiness with a dusty old bookworm? A tall, thin dullard? A bundle of sticks bound together in last century’s clothes? Why, I would rather be alone for the rest of my life than be bonded to a wretched scarecrow like you!
She spat. Her blood splashed onto my boots.
I opened my eyes. My jaw was clenched. My fingers were white, gripping the sides of the bathtub.
“Damn you!” I hissed. “Damn you, Aiden Fleischer!”
After remaining in the water until it had cooled to tepid, I dried myself, returned to my room, and dressed in a loose shirt and fairly shapeless trousers.
As I was descending the ramp, there came a knock at the front door. Clarissa stepped into the vestibule behind me just as I opened the portal to find a cabbie on our doorstep.
“Come to take you to the barracks, chum,” he said.
I turned to my friend and slapped a hand to my forehead. “Already? Am I to get no respite, Clarissa?”
“Apparently not,” she replied.
° °
While I was occupied with my second painfully long training session, the Yatsill built their first printing press and opened a newspaper office. I knew nothing of this, and even had I been told wouldn’t have digested the information, for I didn’t possess the capacity to train and think at the same time. Such was the strain on my body that my brain simply shut down in order to avoid the pain. I remember only the flashes of the sword, the thuds of metal on wood, the clashes of metal on metal, and Colonel Spearjab’s voice insistently demanding that I do more, work harder, stop slacking, chop, guard, slice, riposte, dodge, thrust, fight fight fight!
