by Peter Oxley
The door slammed shut in my face and I hammered on it impotently before a rasping breeze from behind reminded me of my pursuer. I ran to the next door, which opened easily, and slammed it shut behind me.
As I emerged back into consciousness I realised I was lying down on my bed, the room bathed in faint light from the one remaining candle. I could hear whispering from nearby and turned my head slowly to see a figure that my addled mind interpreted as the doctor kneeling by the side of N’yotsu’s bed. I held my breath as I listened to what he was saying.
“…such a shame for you to waste away like this, a grand creature that has lived for so many, many years. Think of all that you could still do if you did not restrict yourself to such fleeting mortality.” His voice seemed different, distorted and scratchy, as though he were speaking from within a tin can.
“But it would come at too great a cost.” N’yotsu’s voice was slurred, sounding as though he were drugged.
“You are strong enough to control your urges. And anyway, the world is a different place to what it was, no longer as hidebound by the old ways.”
“I cannot be that… thing again.” Despite his weakened condition, I could still hear resoluteness in N’yotsu’s voice.
“You always have been and always will be Andras. It is a part of your nature just as much as the rest of you is. The act of merely trimming your hair does not automatically make you a new person. Only the surface changes, what is beneath remains.”
“I… am… not…”
“In denying yourself—your true self—you are merely tearing yourself to pieces, which is in turn harming your friends and distracting them from their cause. Soon you will become a liability, and one of them may be forced to sacrifice themselves to aid you. What good will your precious stubborn morality be to you then?”
There was a faint gurgling sound from N’yotsu. I listened incredulously: was he sobbing?
The doctor continued. “If you persist on this path you will die; it is inevitable. Is that what you want?”
“It is no less than I deserve, given what I have done.”
“But it was not you who did those things. You have changed, and still can. Do you really want to die?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Do you know what fate awaits you? An eternity of Hell and damnation, all because you were too stubborn to take a risk.”
There was a pause and then N’yotsu muttered something quietly in response. I shifted to get closer to what was now being said, and the doctor’s head snapped round at the sound.
His face was distorted, as though I were watching it through a waterfall, and the light shone red and hot on his features. But the candle was behind him so how could it be…? Everything started to swim before his glare and I found myself falling back into the corridor, the door once again slamming shut on me.
Back in my dream state, I ran on as best I could, seeking somewhere to hide but met only by the end of the corridor. With nowhere else to go, I turned slowly to face my pursuer.
Red-hot eyes glared at me from a face pocked and scarred with runic symbols. The symbols twisted and turned beneath the skin like cogs in a clock mechanism, giving the features an oddly angular and yet fluid appearance. I recognised the creature from my nightmares: it was what I was likely to become if the runic sword’s influence on me were to run its course.
While I had always been petrified and revolted by the thing’s appearance, at that moment in time I found myself oddly calmed. We regarded each other and I found myself observing a bizarre type of elegance and grace about the creature, the way it moved. There was an intensity to the eyes that—while still as murderous as ever—was also quite beautiful. This is not so bad, I found myself thinking. What was I afraid of?
Something intensely cold reached into my head, pulling me back into the world with a jolt.
I was lying on my bed once more, blinking into the well-lit room. Kate sat between me and N’yotsu. “Mornin’ sleepy-bones,” she grinned at me.
“Um, morning,” I said. “Was I…?”
“You were having some sort of dream, that’s for sure. How ya feeling?”
“Sore,” I groaned as I pushed myself up on my elbows. The doctor’s earlier comments about my powers of recovery were proving true, in that I certainly felt a lot stronger than I had the previous day. The thought of the doctor brought to mind what I had experienced that night and I turned to look at N’yotsu, who was propped up on his pillows.
“Did the doctor come in here last night to talk to you?” I asked him.
“No,” he said. “At least not when I was awake. Hopefully he got the message from yesterday. I do not need help from physicians.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, watching him closely.
“Yes.” His face was a picture of bemused innocence. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought I saw him in here last night, speaking with you about your… condition.” I rubbed my head. “It must have been a dream; I was having some rather bizarre and terrifying ones.”
“What like?” asked Kate.
“Oh, just…” My mind flashed through the various images I had seen, already starting to blur in the light of day. “Actually, I do not remember any details,” I lied. “I just remember how bizarre they were.”
“So what exactly did Maxwell do to you two, anyway?” she asked. “He’s being really cagey with me, won’t tell me nothin'.”
“Oh, well, you know what he’s like when his experiments go awry,” I said, as nonchalantly as I could.
“So…?” she asked.
“So what?” I asked.
“What did his experiment do?” She glared at us. “The truth: don’t sell me a dog. Honestly, I’m beginning to think you lot are actually hiding something from me.”
“Nothing of the sort, Kate,” said N’yotsu. “He thought that he had a new way of healing wounds quicker, of harnessing the power of the Aether to aid our recovery. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect, as you can see.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Even for Max, that’s a pretty glocky idea.”
“I agree it sounds idiotic,” I said, gratefully picking up N’yotsu’s lead. “But the implications would be fantastic. And he had tested it on mice, which indicated it would work fine.”
“So why didn’t it?” she asked.
“Oh, you’ll have to ask Max,” I said. “You know what I’m like with all this science stuff. Probably something to do with the Fulcrum: it usually is.”
“I think I will ask him,” she said, looking from me to N’yotsu and back again.
“Why, Kate,” N’yotsu said, “it sounds almost like you don’t trust us.”
“The day I start trusting everything you lot say is the day you should get worried.”
She left the room and I shared a relieved grin with N’yotsu. “But what about Max?” I asked. “What if he gives her a different excuse?”
“He won’t,” said N’yotsu. “I agreed the story with him in advance. Don’t worry: your secret is safe.”
The atmosphere in the room soured a few minutes later when Dr Smith entered once more, making a beeline for my bed while N’yotsu pretended to be asleep. “How are we feeling this morning, Mr Potts?”
“I am well,” I said, watching him closely as my mind replayed the nightmare, the way the figure that seemed to be him but somehow was not had appeared sinister and otherworldly as he spoke with N’yotsu. I was almost disappointed to note how perfectly ordinary he seemed in the cold light of day.
My suspicions must have been clear from my bearing and manner, for he looked at me and asked: “Are you sure? You seem a little… distracted.”
I shook my head to clear it of the poisonous thoughts; after all, it had only been a dream. “No, really, I am fine. I’m feeling much better.”
He grunted and turned to examining me, occasionally glancing up as though looking for some other indication of my suspicions. After a few minutes he sat down next to me, packi
ng away his instruments. “Well, you appear to be healing well. Your heart rate is now normal and the skin is much recovered. I think that in another couple of days you should be strong enough to try moving around, but for the moment you should continue to rest and take plenty of fluids.” He leant in to me. “I was thinking about your condition last night. Your… other condition, that is. Tell me, how does it manifest?”
I looked at him for a few seconds, unsure as to what extent I should let him into my confidence again. I took a deep breath and mentally shook myself; after all, he was a doctor and might be able to help Maxwell find a cure for me.
“At first,” I said, “the sword displayed remarkable powers; it could cut through any material—steel, wood, bone, stone—as though it were wet mud. But more than that it seemed to speak to me, to guide me as to how to react to any threat. But there was a downside to its use in that it became overly hot when used too much, so I could at first only wield it for around five minutes or so before it scorched my hand.
“However, over time I noticed that my tolerance to this heat increased, and I was able to use it for longer and longer periods. At the same time—it was when we were in Windsor at night, fighting a pack of Hell hounds a few days before Andras opened the portal at Greenwich—I found that my perceptions were greatly increased when I used the sword; I could see much more than I should be able to. My senses were effectively taking on a preternatural edge.
“Then I noticed more… profound effects. When in battle the runic symbols seemed to flow from the sword onto my skin. At first I thought it was just a delusion borne of the rage that descends on one in battle, that peculiar focus when you are in the midst of a fight. When your world is consumed by the anger, strength and joy of the kill.”
I caught myself and looked up. “I am sorry,” I said. “That was too graphic; I do not want you to think that I am some form of unhinged monster.”
He waved a hand. “Of course not. So these changes were not, I take it, an illusion?”
“No,” I said. “Unfortunately they were very real, and they have increased in intensity over time, on every occasion that I use the weapon in fact.”
“So why do you not simply stop using it? That seems to me the most obvious solution.”
I felt my breath quicken at the suggestion. “It is my sword,” I said. “It is a part of me. I cannot give it up: I will not…”
He looked at me, a quizzical expression on his face. “I see why you and N’yotsu get along so well,” he said. “You are both as stubborn and fixed as each other.”
“I am not—” I stopped myself and took a deep breath. “You do not know what it feels like to wield the sword in battle. And, worse, how it feels to be divorced from it for any period of time.”
“I can tell,” he said, looking pointedly at my bedside, where the sword lay. “If we were talking about a narcotic, I would say that you were displaying all the symptoms of full-blown addiction. And the best prescription I can give to the addict is to separate him from the source of his addiction. That would be my advice to you, but I can see that you will ignore it.”
I looked over at the sword and said nothing. I knew that he was right but the thought of losing the sword… that was a price I was not yet willing to pay.
“I can understand your concerns,” he continued. “Any sane man would feel the same; you do not wish to be seen as a monster. And that is what the sword makes you: a monster that has no place amongst humanity.” He leaned in closer. “How much longer can you continue this charade do you think?”
I blinked at him, shocked by the intensity of his words. “I thought you were meant to make me feel better, not worse?”
He stood. “Sometimes a cure is only possible by making the patient feel worse. Reflect on my words.” He turned to N’yotsu. “I am assuming by the way you are feigning sleep that you still do not require my attentions,” he said.
“I am not feigning sleep,” said N’yotsu. “I am affecting indifference to your presence.”
“Very well,” said Dr Smith. “I will attend to the older Mr Potts, who is by far the most sensible and least intractable of the three of you.”
N’yotsu chuckled as the door closed behind the doctor. “I never thought I would hear anyone say that: Max as the most flexible of the three of us!”
I grunted and managed a smile, but Dr Smith’s words rang sourly through my head.
Chapter 10
A few days later, feeling strong enough to venture from our beds unaided, N’yotsu and I made our way down the corridor to Maxwell’s quarters. We found him in conversation with the ever-present Dr Smith, with Kate at his side and the Bradshaw siblings sat at a table surrounded by papers.
“Ah, the patients have arisen,” grinned Maxwell. “How are you both?”
“Good,” I panted, “although in need of a rest. I never realised how long a walk that is.”
“Your strength will return,” said Dr Smith. “You just need to take time with your recovery.”
“Time is always a precious commodity for us,” said N’yotsu. “There are demons abroad, and I dread to think how the army have managed in our absence.”
“I’m sure Albert’ll be overjoyed to hear you say that,” said Kate. “They’re big boys, and they’re more than able to handle themselves.”
“I’m sure you are right,” said N’yotsu. “But I for one itch to rejoin the fight.” He looked to me for confirmation, but I found myself only able to mutely nod under the doctor’s gaze.
“There is a way you can aid the fight, Mr N’yotsu,” said Joshua. “I would be grateful for your insights in relation to some lines of inquiry I am pursuing.”
“Show me,” said N’yotsu, hobbling over.
“I really must insist,” said Dr Smith to Maxwell, clearly continuing a conversation they had been having before we entered the room. “The lack of fresh air is harming you considerably. A day or two in the open air would do you the world of good.”
“The answer, as ever, is ‘no’,” said Maxwell. “I will take the air when I wish and I do not need you to accompany me.”
“Very well,” sighed the doctor, pulling out his stethoscope in what seemed an overly ostentatious manner. “Then I shall conduct my tests. It would aid me if you would remove that bracelet.”
Maxwell shook his head. “Again, we have discussed this before, and again I shall not. The bracelet stays on.”
“As I understand it, the bracelet protects you against any demon interference,” said Dr Smith. “There are no demons in here, and removing it would make my examinations a lot easier and quicker.”
“Doctor,” said Maxwell, “you have known me for some weeks now; have you ever observed any indications that I might be open to taking undue risks with my wellbeing or those of my friends?”
The doctor looked pointedly in my direction. “Well…”
“Aside from that,” said Maxwell, clearly irritated. “And as far as I was aware, the risks with that procedure were minimal; the prior tests had uncovered no suggestions that it would affect my brother in the way that it did. Regardless, the bracelet stays on my wrist and I will not be accompanying you on any expeditions to take the air. Now, please, undertake your examination post-haste.”
Dr Smith complied perfunctorily, and I grinned remembering how he had described Maxwell as the least stubborn of us all. I looked at the table beside me, picking up the papers that were laid out there. It was a pile of drawings showing an elaborate and intricate series of buildings, varying in detail and all picked out very carefully by hand. At the bottom of the pile was a set of parchment with rough sketches in a scrawled cursive.
“Be careful with those,” said Maxwell. “The bottom ones are originals sketched by Henry VIII himself.”
“Henry…? These are of Nonsuch Palace in Surrey, are they not?” I asked, my weariness forgotten as I peered at the drawings. While they displayed different views and perspectives—not to mention varying degrees of skill—they all showe
d a set of buildings that were awe-inspiring in their ambition and grandeur. A multitude of turrets reached to the sky atop long ranges of walls in which were carved the most intricate reliefs and images, rivalling the best that even Italy had to offer. Certainly the drawings supported the boast that gave rise to the name, that there was no such place in all the world to rival the palace’s magnificence.
“They are indeed,” Maxwell said. “Fascinating, aren’t they?”
“Beautiful,” I breathed, drinking in the details of some of the more intricate documents. Remembering who I was talking to, I looked at him quizzically. “But why do you have these? Nonsuch has been no more than ruins for centuries now. Why the sudden interest in archaeology?”
“It’s not sudden,” said Kate. “He’s been obsessing about that place for bloody ages.”
“Kate is right,” said Maxwell. “As you would know if you showed any interest in my studies.”
“I might have if I realised you were looking at stuff like this,” I said. “Rather than all those dull formulae and the like.”
“But they are interlinked,” Maxwell said, destroying the meagre romanticism in the room in one fell swoop. “For I believe that Nonsuch was deliberately designed along lines that were not merely architectural, but also a mixture of the scientific and occult.”
“Oh really? Pray tell,” I said.
Maxwell failed to pick up on my sarcastic tone. “At first it was merely a hunch, a theory if you like. However, my investigations have uncovered mention of a number of sorcerers in the reign of King Henry VIII. One in particular, most commonly referred to as ‘Mr Wood’, claimed before the Privy Council that he was learned in the arts of Solomon.”
“As in your book about Solomon? The one listing all the demons and spirits he supposedly conjured?”
“The Lesser Key of Solomon, yes. Which also, remember, speaks of Andras; not to mention Gaap, whom our young friend over there somehow managed to summon.” He nodded at Joshua before continuing. “This ‘Mr Wood’, in a number of different guises, also appears in the King’s court itself to engage in various discussions, including the acquisition of the lands at Cuddington, near Ewell, which became the site for Nonsuch Palace.”
