by Guy Adams
“Wormwood,” Father Martin said. “This was our first glimpse of the unnatural.”
“We’re hundreds of miles away,” Billy replied. “Even if it does affect its surroundings, surely we’re nowhere near close enough.”
The monk shrugged. “All we know are rumours. Who can say for sure? Perhaps the disturbances aren’t just random.”
“What do you mean?” Forset asked, having joined them.
“Maybe it’s not the world that it attacks,” the monk suggested. “Maybe it’s the people that are trying to find it.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHOOT THE LIVING, PRAY FOR THE DEAD
MAYBE IT’S NOT the world that it attacks. Maybe it’s the people that are trying to find it.
Having hit upon this thought, Father Martin simply couldn’t leave it alone. His comment had been met with a degree of skepticism amongst the party, which was not unexpected. Quartershaft dismissed everything unless it came out of his own mouth, and Billy and Elisabeth didn’t believe Wormwood even existed.
Lord Forset was a believer, certainly, but only insofar as he had traced the myths and rumours and now pursued them. He held no great spiritual belief. To him Heaven was an abstract concept, something from a book. To Father Martin and the rest of the order, it was a core part of their existence, a central pillar in their faith. To Father Martin, the idea that they were approaching the home of God threatened to burst his very soul.
So what if it was trying to repel them? Perhaps all of this was designed to keep the inquisitive from its borders. Was he fighting against the will of God? This was not a question he could take lightly. Nor was it one he could answer.
If God did not wish people to approach Wormwood then why allow it to exist at all?
The order had endlessly discussed the passage from the Book of Revelation:
The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from Heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood.
Some of the brothers—those with a little more fire and brimstone in their bellies—were concerned that this meant the arrival of the town was, in itself, a sign of the Apocalypse. The majority (and Father Martin had been one of them) pointed out that the town was said to have many names in its time and, really, it was probably only called Wormwood now because the name had a suitably ominous tone. There was a great difference between Holy Scripture and hearsay; one did not allow the latter quite the same potency for metaphor and allusion. While there was enough truth in the myth to be worth investigation, you couldn’t let it gain sufficient weight as to predict the End of Days.
Now, however, Father Martin found his conviction on the matter weaker than it had been a few days ago.
He sat in his compartment, looking out onto the plain beyond the glass. The skinless monk was there again. Father Martin had accepted the fact that the apparition was a portent of some kind, a warning of hardships to come. All of his order were safe and sound for now. Whoever that was beyond the glass, his peeled skull quite black in the white light of the moon, he had yet to manifest himself into a reality. Was it—the most obvious assumption—a prediction of the death of one of the order? Or perhaps the death of them all? Father Martin supposed this was likely. It did not altogether distress him. If you were a man of faith, then death held little to fear. What was death but a transition? A journey just like the one he was on now. One that may even have the same destination at the end of it.
But that head, that exposed bone... that spoke of great pain. It was all very well accepting death as the end of one state and the commencement of another, but that wasn’t to say that one wished to make the journey in a chaos of tears and suffering. He dearly hoped that his decision to undertake this journey wasn’t to result in the torment of one of the others. He was no masochist, but if the physical pain was to be his to bear, then at least his soul would bear it easier.
He watched the figure as it slowly paced the dusty plain like a caged animal. Was it that impatient for the future to be written?
QUARTERSHAFT FELT ABSURDLY pleased with himself. His actions may not have been the stuff of heroic legend—indeed, if he had written them into one of his stories, his editor would have soon insisted he ‘gave it a bit more pep’—but nonetheless, as it was certainly the closest he had come to an act of bravery, he felt justified in a degree of self-congratulation.
For the first time, he began to wonder if he might not survive the trip after all.
He cast his mind back to that hazy afternoon in the snug of the Velvet Pocket. He had been on the wrong side of a couple of bottles of simply delicious champagne, courtesy of a publisher’s lunch. The dark walnut and maroon leather furnishings had taken on the soft, welcoming appearance of pillows, and he had folded himself into an easy chair with the desire to nap for a few hours. It would not have been the first time he had slept in the bar; indeed, a number of the regulars had taken to calling his favoured armchair ‘Quartershaft’s Rest.’ Usually he slipped into unconscious for a couple of hours only to wake with a voracious appetite and the renewed stamina needed to quench it.
That day he had been interrupted.
“I say,” said a voice that poured itself unbidden into his ears from behind the padded armrest, “aren’t you Roderick Quartershaft, the famous explorer?”
Quartershaft was always wrong-footed when a fan found him in his cups. He was quite aware that some of the more devout readers of his exploits would find the sight of him in a drunken pile something of a disappointment. It was a major concern to him, not only because of his desire to keep his popularity high, but also because he felt quite enough self-disgust without the need to see it reflected back at him from others.
“I am,” he replied, desperately trying to pull himself upright and shake his head into some semblance of sobriety. This was more than mere biology could manage, but he did at least open his eyes and point his face towards the enquirer.
He was a well dressed, middle aged man with light blond hair. If he noticed the inebriated state of the explorer, he seemed content to ignore it.
“I knew it was,” the man said. “Spotted you from across the way there. I’ve been a fan of your work for many years.”
Not that many, Quartershaft thought, I’ve only been in print for eighteen months. This was not a new phenomenon; it constantly surprised him how many people seemed convinced he had been a mainstay of literature since they were barely weaned from the breast. ‘Always the way,’ his publisher assured him. ‘It’s the true sign of success when people can’t remember a time without you on their bedside table.’
“That’s extremely gratifying to hear,” he replied. “I’m glad my little exploits bring you pleasure.”
“They do, they do.” The man sat down in the chair next to him and Quartershaft’s heart sank. It was one thing managing to maintain a conversation for a minute or two, but quite another if the fellow decided to make an afternoon of it.
“In fact,” the man continued, “I was discussing you this very morning with a friend of mine.”
The man withdrew a pipe from his jacket pocket and proceeded to fill it. This was not a good sign, thought Quartershaft. The bugger means to play the long game.
“‘If anyone knows about Wormwood,’ I said to him, ‘then it would be Roderick Quartershaft.’”
“Wormwood?”
The man’s face fell in a theatrical frown of disappointment. “Oh, don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the place. I was so sure you would have done that I admit I made him a small wager. ‘Alonzo,’ my friend said to me—my name’s Alonzo, blame an Italian mother—‘if you’re that struck by the feller, then why not put your money where your mouth is?’”
If there was one thing liable to bring sympathy from Quartershaft it was the possibility of a failed bet. He was not a gambling man, for the simple reason that the only two horses he had ever staked money on had died before finishing the race. Luck like that
puts a man off.
“Oh!” he said. “Wormwood! Well, of course I’ve heard of Wormwood, yes. Forgive me, my mind was elsewhere for a moment. Planning the next trip, you understand.”
“Wonderful!” Alonzo replied, clapping his hands with excitement. “And may I be so bold as to suggest we both know the destination?”
Quartershaft had no idea if the man could be so bold, but thought a simple smile was the safest reply.
“I knew it, I knew it!” Alonzo reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “You know, it’s funny, but I picked these up the other day and thought of you then.” He spread the papers out on the table between them. “I dare say they’re forgeries, but I considered sending them to you via your publisher anyway. You never know, I said to myself, they may be of some use.”
Quartershaft tried to read the scribbled notes on the paper but a combination of bad handwriting and champagne made it impossibly hard work.
“It’s obviously someone’s research notes,” Alonzo continued. “He talks about the whole myth of Wormwood, where the town has appeared before, where it might appear again. Who has seen it, what secrets it may contain...” The man selected a specific sheet, every inch of it covered in frantic calculations and sketches. “What was particularly interesting, though, is he’s actually had a stab at predicting the next location and date of the town’s appearance.” He shrugged, tossing the paper onto the top of the pile. “I dare say he’s quite wrong. Still, makes you think, doesn’t it?”
“It does, it does,” muttered Quartershaft, still utterly at a loss as to what the man was talking about.
“I mean,” Alonzo continued, lowering his voice as if discussing the greatest secret in the world, “if he’s right, then you have everything you need to attempt the most amazing expedition of your career. There isn’t a man or woman in the world who wouldn’t be singing the praises of Roderick Quartershaft if you attempted this. No sir, not a man or a woman in the world...”
He leaned back in his chair, once more affecting a casual air. “Of course, if you were already planning the trip, you probably know all this. I dare say you’ve conducted far better research of your own. Still, I thought it was worth passing on.”
Alonzo suddenly snatched at his pocket watch as if it had been burning a hole in his waistcoat pocket. “I say!” he exclaimed. “Is that the time? I’m terribly late.” He leaned forward and placed his hand on Quartershaft’s shoulder. “Worth it to have made the acquaintance of a hero, though, naturally.”
He got to his feet. “I’ll leave the papers with you, in the unlikely event they might help corroborate your research. Least I can do.”
And with that, he vanished, leaving Quartershaft to stare at the papers for a moment before falling asleep to dreams of worldwide adoration.
When he woke, the notes had taken on an entirely new light. Sleep had given him enough sharpness to attempt reading them and, while it was unquestionably hogwash, the blond fellow had certainly been on the money when he had said it could provide the backbone for a new piece in Fireside Quarterly.
The last thing he had imagined was that his editor would manage to verify them. More than that, he had found others who had heard of the myth and were eager to mount a trip to investigate. What had begun as a dollop of inspiration for a new story had wound up dragging him across the ocean and hurling bats at him. He could safely say that the very next person to suggest an expedition to him in a bar would be given short shrift.
“How sad,” said Elisabeth, looking at the pile of dead bats they had thrown from the Land Carriage.
“You wouldn’t think so, had the things been assaulting you half an hour ago,” Quartershaft suggested, though the look on her face immediately made him regret the sentiment. “Although they could hardly help it, I suppose,” he added. “Driven wild by some other force.”
“They couldn’t have done much harm,” Billy said, “though you weren’t to know that in the dark. I’d have been as terrified as you.”
Quartershaft wasn’t altogether fond of the word ‘terrified,’ but he appreciated Billy taking his side.
“Of course,” he said, “there are some species of bat that can kill a man with ease. Why, I once saw a beast that was four foot across. It drained every drop of blood from a cow in a matter of moments.”
He kicked himself, as their respect for him visibly dwindled. “Well,” he admitted, “I heard about it, at least. Didn’t see it with my own eyes.”
His moment of acceptance within the party having drawn to a close, he made his excuses and returned to his compartment. As he lay in his bed. he wondered if he would ever learn to keep his mouth shut.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Billy was up early and examining the outside of the Land Carriage for damage.
“How is she looking?” Forset asked, emerging from the sleeping carriage and stepping down onto the plain. The ground was still littered with dead bats, though perhaps less than there had been the night before. No doubt nocturnal predators had taken advantage of an easy meal.
“I suppose it could be worse,” said Billy. “Most of the damage is only superficial, she looks a little rough but she’s still in good shape.”
Forset couldn’t help but feel sad at the state of his proud invention. One day ‘in the wild’ and the paint was chipped, glass was cracked and everything had been marbled with guano. Still, as Billy said, functionality was the thing. As long as the engine wasn’t impaired in any way, then they had escaped the night unscathed.
“I suppose we can hardly justify delaying the journey for the sake of a scrub and touch up,” he said. “We’re not out here to impress with our appearance, after all.”
Billy was far from certain they ever had, but he was sensitive to the peer’s feelings. “If they’re not impressed by the sight of us tearing our way across the land, then they’re blind.”
THEY WERE UNDER way again within the hour, Billy stoking up the boiler and slowly accelerating towards optimum speed.
Inside, everyone lent a hand to fixing the damage of the night before, sweeping up broken china, righting fixtures and fittings. By mid-morning, the Forset Land Carriage was all but restored, bar a boarded-up window in the sleeping carriage and the damage caused by Quartershaft’s rifle.
If the rest of the party noticed Father Martin’s discomfort, they didn’t mention it. He spent much of his time on his own in his compartment, trying to reconcile the warring thoughts in his head. The rest of the order had reverted to their attitudes of the day before: Brother Samuel tutting over everything modern he could find while the rest looked out of the windows and enjoyed the view.
It was Brother Jonah who first noticed the smoke plumes on the horizon.
He was one of the meeker members of their band, a man more content inside his own head than in the company of others. Before leaving his old life behind, he had been an assistant at the British Library, happily whiling away his days in a fog of indices and translation. Like most of the order, his private reading eventually brought him to a crisis point: he had become so obsessed with his researches into apocrypha that he could no longer maintain both his job and his private reading. Something had to give, and he had taken to religious servitude like a natural. Silence and arcane papers. He had never been happier.
His reading had taken its toll on his eyesight, however, and for the first couple of minutes he was quite sure that what he saw was nothing but the tops of distant trees. It was only when the trail of smoke began to carve its way towards them that he realised his error. Trees simply did not move in procession.
Even then, his natural reluctance to draw attention to himself made it difficult for him to speak up. It was only when he considered the possibility that the smoke could be the passage of a vehicle much like theirs—perhaps one on a collision course, for it seemed to be making a bee-line for them—that he realised he had to say something.
“Excuse me,” he said, raising his hand, “but can anyone else see that trail of sm
oke that seems to be coming towards us?”
He was joined at the window by Brother Clement, an altogether more outspoken member of the order who spared no time in raising the alarm.
“It’s another train!” he shouted. “Watch out, or we’ll end up crashing into it.”
“We’re not a train,” explained Forset. “We have no track.”
Brother Clement, a man only too used to nit-picking over dogma, felt relieved by that until it occurred to him that, in this context, the difference hardly mattered.
“There’s something coming from this side, too!” called Brother William, peering out of the right-hand window. “But I don’t think it’s a train. It’s a whole procession of smaller vehicles.”
Forset moved through into the engine to find Billy already gazing at the twin smoke trails coming in from both directions. He had a pair of binoculars and was turning from one side to the other.
“You’ve seen them, then?” Forset said. “Able to tell what they are?”
“Not with any certainty,” Billy admitted. “They look...” He handed the glasses to Forset. “See for yourself.”
Forset did so. He understood why the engineer had found it hard to describe.
The closer the twin processions came, the more he could discern their detail, though that hardly helped him understand. “They look like people on horseback,” he said. “But their heads...”
Soon the figures were close enough that they were both able to take in their surreal appearance without the binoculars.
“They’re incredible,” said Forset. “Unbelievable.”
Billy was forced to agree. The bats he could have written off as an accident of nature, but this was harder to explain. At that moment, the existence of Wormwood seemed a little less absurd.
From the waist down, the riders appeared to be a tribe of Native Americans. As the eye rose, however, they were impossible to identify. Brown skin fused into plates of iron or steel. In some places the metal appeared as if it might have been bolted on to a human torso, while in others the joining was less clear-cut, the skin growing over the metal. The metal became dominant as it rose to the head, jagged constructions of pipes, valves and pistons that towered above their shoulders like girders. The glow of hot coals emanated from each metal skull, trails of smoke flickering behind them in the wind like feathered headdresses. Their arms seemed an awkward combination of nature and engineering, glimpsed muscles and fingers poking from between hinges and panels.
