The Infernal Aether

by Oxley, Peter

  “I am sorry,” he said. “We need to find Maxwell. Something is very wrong with these devices.”

  *

  We arrived at 17 Bedford Square and were let in by Kate, who gasped as soon as she saw me. “Gus,” she said. “What happened to your neck?”

  I touched my neck and realised that it was still raw—and presumably red—from the noose. “I tried to kill myself,” I said.

  “What? Why?”

  “That is what we are attempting to find out,” said N’yotsu, marching in to the house. “Is Maxwell back yet?”

  “Yes, he’s through there,” she said, pointing and then following us into Maxwell’s laboratory. “Are you all right?” she asked me.

  “I’m fine,” I said. We found Maxwell hard at work, still wearing the fine suit which he had donned for his earlier visit to the Royal Society. “Max, we need to talk,” I said to him. “Now.”

  Maxwell noted the grim expressions on our faces. “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  “Yes, there is,” I said. “Your damned Aetheric Sound Conduit compelled me to attempt suicide. Both N’yotsu and I have now witnessed first-hand how destructive this device is.”

  Maxwell looked at N’yotsu, who nodded. “There is something happening with the devices which we had not anticipated, or indeed experienced during our experimentation.”

  “I took one of the Sound Conduits home with me,” I said. “It rang, and I found myself talking to our mother.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “It certainly sounded like her,” I said. “I was convinced at the time that it was definitely her.”

  “What did she say?” He had made his way over to me so that we were face-to-face.

  I coughed and looked round. “Let us just say that she compelled me to kill myself. I don’t really want to say much more than that.”

  He looked at me for a long few seconds and then turned to N’yotsu. “And you witnessed this?”

  “I cut him down from his makeshift noose,” said N’yotsu. Maxwell turned back to me with an open mouth, while N’yotsu continued. “I have seen and heard enough to convince me that there is something odd going on.”

  “In what way?” asked Maxwell.

  “In designing the Aetheric Sound Conduits, we assumed that the Aether itself was benign, nothing more than a medium for transmitting the communications,” N’yotsu said. “But these latest events make me question that.”

  “Continue,” said Maxwell, hand on chin and brow furrowed in thought.

  “Demonic entities clearly have the ability to exploit the Aether to their own ends,” said N’yotsu. “Experience has taught us this much. However, I have wondered if the Aether is something more than a mere passive medium.”

  Maxwell clapped his hands, the abrupt sound making us jump. “You mean it could be another realm? That would make sense—it would explain so many things!”

  “Wait,” I said. “Realm? As in another land, another country?”

  “Precisely,” said Maxwell, rifling through the nearest pile of his notes. “But not in the conventional sense. This would be a place removed from our tangible experiences, something yet unexplored by humanity.” He grinned at me. “We may have unlocked the access to another world, maybe even the spirit world!”

  “Then—that was really mother I spoke to?” My mouth was once more dry at the thought.

  “Possibly,” said N’yotsu. “The Aether could in effect be the spirit world. Or maybe you spoke to some form of villainous creature adopting your mother’s tone and voice.”

  “And thoughts,” I muttered through clenched teeth.

  N’yotsu and Maxwell debated their latest theory, after a while moving on to the Sound Conduits themselves. Maxwell had managed to retrieve the remaining prototypes from the Royal Society members and the devices sat in a disorderly pile in the corner, looking to my tainted eye like some form of foreboding monolith.

  “Can I just check something?” I said. “You are presumably going to destroy all of those damned objects?”

  They both looked at me. “Why would we do that?” asked Maxwell.

  “But...” I said and then looked to N’yotsu for support.

  “There is clearly more to understand about the Aetheric Sound Conduit,” he said. “We cannot just destroy them without doing more testing.” He caught the expression on my face and added: “But we will only do so in a controlled environment. We will not let them out of this room.”

  Kate cleared her throat from the doorway. “I’ve put the kettle on,” she said. “Why don’t you come and join me while these two do their science stuff?”

  *

  Since our earlier conversation, Kate had chanced smuggling a bottle of gin into the house and we spent an hour in the kitchen below stairs, happily trying to ignore the noises from the laboratory. Eventually the commotion was such that we had to go back to investigate, if only to reassure ourselves that the room was still intact.

  We opened the door onto a scene which was on a par with the most bizarre of Maxwell’s previous eccentricities. They had managed to create a space in the centre of the room by pushing the benches and tables and associated clutter to the walls. Within this void they had erected what appeared to be a scaffold composed primarily of Sound Conduits and related tubing. The whole amalgamation was around shoulder height and slightly wider than it was tall. A dreadful humming noise came from within its confines.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  “We are testing a theory,” said Maxwell.

  “Of course you are,” I said. “Care to elaborate?”

  N’yotsu grinned at me from the other side of the creation. “The Aetheric Sound Conduit can enable communication between people via the Aether, but also, it would appear, between people in this world and others who are within the Aether itself. Or possibly somewhere else connected to the Aether. Beyond the Aether.”

  “I am not sure I like the sound of this,” I said.

  “What do they mean?” asked Kate. “Beyond the Aether? They’re not talkin’ about the spirit world? Are they?”

  “I have a horrible feeling that they are.”

  “So, what, they’re gonna talk to the dead?”

  I looked at the size of the scaffold and the huge space in the middle of it which stood, invitingly, like a doorway of some description. “You’re not just planning to talk to them, are you?” I said.

  “This is an unprecedented opportunity,” said Maxwell. “An opportunity to actually see into the spirit world. Just think—we could be pioneers!”

  “See into?” I asked. “But—”

  “We believe it is feasible,” said Maxwell, mistaking my sputtering objection for an expression of doubt regarding his abilities. “Remember at the Pattersons’ house, when we encountered the ghosts plaguing young Milly? The Aetheric Sensor I was using in that house was a rudimentary predecessor of the Sound Conduit. Through the use of that sensor and the mist which infected the house—Aetheric mist—we were able to see a face from the Other Side. This is a much more refined device; the image will be much clearer and possibly tangible.”

  “But Max,” I said. “Do you not remember how badly that ended for us all? The spirits in that house—or whatever they were—were malicious. They tried to kill us and could very well try again!”

  “We have considered the possibility and have built in safeguards,” said Maxwell. “We believe that there is only a very slight risk of harm arising from this simple experiment.”

  “You believe,” I said with raised eyebrow.

  “There is always a risk,” replied Maxwell. “You know far better than I that if something is worth having then there is always an element of danger involved. Even so, I would understand if you wished to remove yourself to a safe distance.”

  “You know that I would not do that,” I said. “Particularly if there is danger involved. No, I shall stay.”

  There was a bang and N’yotsu backed away as the humm
ing from the apparatus increased in volume. “In any case, I think it might be a bit too late for any thoughts of leaving,” he said.

  CHAPTER 14

  We backed away from the apparatus slowly. The humming was now so deep and pervasive that it set my teeth on edge. Yet we did not leave, cemented in place by a mixture of curiosity and ice cold fear.

  Steam had been released by a pipe at the rear of the apparatus and somehow lingered within the confines of the device, as though contained within an invisible box. Eddies and swirls within the steam became less and less random until I fancied that I could discern images within. The whole experience was so reminiscent of our encounter with the ghosts which had plagued poor Milly Patterson as to almost send me into fits.

  One could almost believe that we were peering through a portal into a fog-filled street. Figures drifted in and out of the steam, individual forms walking toward us, lurching and creeping. Sounds drifted out of the murkiness, wordless moans and cries which made me take another step away.

  A point of light appeared in the centre of the scene, steadily growing like the rising sun on a misty day. It reached the size of a dinner plate and then burst silently, throwing off light in all directions. I turned my head and closed my eyes while a sickly breeze pulled at my clothes and hair.

  I opened my eyes to see stars drifting around at the edge of my vision. I blinked, trying to make sense of what was before us. A hole had been torn in the air, right at the centre of the apparatus, hanging unsupported within the mist where it floated, an evil eye regarding us balefully. As my vision restored itself, I realised that the hole displayed the same scene as that which we could see within the mist, but with much better clarity. It was as though the hole were a window to somewhere else, a ‘somewhere’ which was only hinted at by the images in the mist.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  Maxwell jumped forward and began tinkering with the machine once more, taking care not to get too close to the mist.

  “If I am not mistaken, I believe it is a portal,” said N’yotsu.

  “A portal? To where?” My questions were carried away on a rising gale which blew out of the so-called portal, carrying with it an odour of decay and putrefaction. I put my hand over my mouth to ward off the stench and we watched as the portal started to expand, bringing the scenes within into even starker perspective. I was reminded of the aftermath of battle; a smoke-filled landscape devoid of detail, landmarks, or hope: populated by ghastly survivors, the ghouls who stalked them and the spirits of the departed.

  Mist pervaded everything before us, obscuring the figures which roamed that strange place, wrapping itself around them, sticking to them, reaching out toward us. Occasionally, the mist would part for a second or two and reveal sights which my mind immediately rebelled against; hideous snatches of insane caricatures of human, animal and insect, flowing and merging into and between one another. Sounds carried out to us on the unnatural wind, snippets of words overlaid with groans and moans of a type to drive a man to despair, a scratching and shuffling like a thousand large insects trying to burrow through the walls.

  The portal continued to expand, going from the size of a dinner plate to that of a window and then becoming big enough for a man to walk through, albeit bent double. It reached the boundaries of the machine and then kept growing, its edges overlapping and consuming the device which had given birth to it.

  I ran to Maxwell and shouted in his ear, the only way to make myself heard in the increasing din. “Close it. Shut it down!”

  “Not yet,” he replied. “We need to get more information. Just a few more minutes.”

  I looked at the portal, which was now almost touching the ceiling. Tendrils of mist were starting to curl out of it and for a heart-stopping second I thought I saw a hand reach out of the portal. “Any longer and it’ll be too big to close. Look!”

  Maxwell blinked and, for once, common-sense took precedence over scientific curiosity. “N’yotsu!” he shouted.

  N’yotsu was standing stock-still in front of the apparatus, oblivious to our cries, a rapt expression on his face. Tendrils of mist reached out to him and curled around his hand, which in turn reached out at the portal. We started to move toward him but at that moment the wind increased, pushing us back. One of Maxwell’s cabinets fell to the ground with a crash as the portal reached it and snatched away the wall on which it had leant.

  Something started to loom large out of the portal. I instinctively knew it was not benign and tried shouting again, anything to try and pull N’yotsu out of his reverie, but to no avail.

  Kate appeared from a side door behind the apparatus and its portal with a broom in her hand and a determined look on her face. She swung the broom at the legs which held up the device—one of the few parts which were still visible outside of the portal. The whole thing lurched to the side and the portal shrank down to half its size with a jolt.

  “No!” yelled N’yotsu. He tried to lunge at Kate but the portal stood between them, blocking his progress. Wide-eyed, he was forced to watch as she struck the machine again and again, each blow causing the portal to halve in size. After half a dozen strikes the portal was reduced to the size of a small coin, finally disappearing with a barely audible pop after one last swing of Kate’s broom.

  My ears rang in the sudden silence, the sounds of our breath deafening as we looked at each other over the wreckage of Maxwell’s laboratory. I eyed N’yotsu as he glared at Kate, his hands clenched at his sides. I did not fancy my chances if I were forced to defend her.

  He simmered for a moment and then seemed to return to his senses, nodding and smiling at her. “Thank you,” he said. “And my apologies. I did not mean to put us in danger.” He relaxed his hands, but I noted that his eyes did not reflect his words.

  “You did get a bit carried away,” she said. “And anyway, I quite like this job. Didn’t want to lose it on account of the household being sucked into some sort of misty hell place.”

  “Can someone explain to me exactly what just happened?” I asked, leaning against an overturned table to ease the weight on my shaking limbs.

  “The apparatus which Kate destroyed,” said Maxwell, “harnessed the very same medium which the Aetheric Sound Conduits utilise to transmit messages. It allowed us to see into that medium.”

  Kate and I stared at him. “In English?” I said.

  “The Aether,” said N’yotsu. “What we saw was the Aether itself.”

  “And the people which were in there?”

  “You call those things people?” asked Kate. “They weren’t people like I know them.”

  “I believe those were the creatures which were seizing control of the Aetheric Sound Conduit,” said N’yotsu. “The voices which Augustus and the others heard when they used the devices.”

  “What, you mean spirits?” asked Kate. “Ghosts?”

  “Maybe,” said N’yotsu. “Or creatures capable of passing themselves off as such. But the fact that they are able to do so at the very least suggests some form of connection with the spirit world. It is an interesting concept and certainly requires further investigation.”

  My blood ran cold. “I seriously hope you are not planning to build another one of those machines.”

  “No,” said Maxwell. “There will be no more Aetheric Sound Conduits. At least, not until we have learnt more about these creatures and the implications of the devices.”

  “And what about weird portal-making things?” said Kate.

  “We have learnt our lesson,” said N’yotsu. “The thing was clearly unstable. We will not take such risks again. But we do have a duty to investigate further, albeit in a much safer and more controlled manner.”

  “Promise?” she said.

  “I promise,” said N’yotsu, and Maxwell nodded as well.

  “Good,” she said, hefting the broom. “You’ve seen what I can do with this thing. I won’t hesitate to use it again.”

  I suddenly felt incredibly weary. “I am going h
ome for a very long sleep,” I announced, pulling myself to my feet and staggering out of the room.

  N’yotsu called my name as I stepped out of the front door. He followed me outside and shut the door gently behind us. “We never really spoke about my... use of the Sound Conduit earlier.”

  I nodded. To be honest, the fact had completely slipped my mind in the midst of all the other insanities. “If it was nearly as traumatic as what I went through, I assume you would not wish to relive it. You certainly seemed pretty upset at the time.” I regarded him as he grunted and glanced around us. “If I may, though,” I asked, “who was it that spoke to you through the Conduit?”

  For a moment I thought he would snap at me, but then his shoulders slumped and he replied. “They said... they said they were my wife and child. At least, that is what I interpreted what they said to mean. They were not speaking English, and yet I was able to understand them. But the fact remains that I am not married, nor have I ever been. And I have no children.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “A message from the future, maybe?”

  “Perhaps.” His brow furrowed. “Then again, they could have been mischievous spirits, seeking to confuse or upset me.”

  “So, what was the content of their message?” I asked. “It clearly did upset you.”

  “Very little,” he said. “Just that they missed me and wanted me to come home. But there was something about the exchange which did not feel right, as if they were taunting me, or trying to encourage me into some action which would go against my morals.”

  I remembered the look on his face when he was staring into the portal. “Did you see them in the Aether just now, do you think?” I asked.

  “I... don’t know,” he said. “I just have words from someone who may or may not really know me, but there was something...” He stared into space and for a moment a look of sheer rage passed across his face. It was only there for an instant, but that instant seared itself in my mind. “It brought to the fore some very strong emotions,” he said. “I do not know why. I am not sure I want to know why.” He looked at me and smiled: comfortable, reliable N’yotsu once more. “I must not keep you any longer. I wish you a good rest.” From inside the house we could hear the sound of items being moved and swept up; Kate was clearly putting the broom back to its proper use.