The Infernal Aether

by Oxley, Peter

  Kate squeezed my waist in a tight grip as I drove us forward, grateful for the human contact in spite of the fact that it was less than comfortable. Maxwell pulled ahead of us, his horse less burdened than ours, and I focused my attention on his back. My world narrowed down to a tunnel of the wind rushing past my ears and the scenery whipping by in a blur of shadows and shapes. The pounding of hooves and the panting of our breath sounded unnaturally loud in this strange half-world in which we suddenly found ourselves.

  Kate screamed and squeezed me even tighter while I kicked my heels into the horse’s flank, urging the last few ounces of strength from the exhausted creature. I muttered a prayer and then, mercifully, a wooden building rose into view just in front of us. Maxwell threw himself to the ground and barged through the door and, a few moments later, I brought our horse to a halt and lifted Kate down, propelling her through the door before me. I slammed the door shut behind me—in the face of the tall, ghostly figure looming up out of the darkness.

  I leant against the door, sliding down to the ground and squeezing my eyes shut against the strangled whinnying of our horses, offering them a silent apology for their fate. I sucked in deep breaths to calm my nerves and then opened my eyes, drawing my sword if only for the inexplicable comfort it afforded me.

  Maxwell and Kate stood before me, panting and wide-eyed. I looked around the darkened room and then frowned at a figure huddled in a corner. “Who is that?” I asked.

  The man stared at us. “You’re not one of them, are you?” he asked.

  “No,” said Kate. “We’re not. We’re people, like you.”

  “Oh, thank God,” he said but remained hunched against the wall, hugging his knees.

  We all jumped at a scratching sound from outside and edged away from the door. “Oh God,” muttered the old man, rocking forward and back. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

  “What are those things?” asked Kate.

  “Soul-suckers,” whispered the old man. “Soul-suckers, soul-suckers, soul-suckers...”

  I remembered the creatures which the farmer in the Lake District had described as we huddled in his cottage after crashing in the Dirigible; pale, floating creatures which he had witnessed surrounding a man and leaving a lifeless, petrified corpse behind. The association swiftly gave rise to the memory of my own experience of having my soul torn from my body. I shuddered, icy tendrils of fear running down my back; it was not an experience I wished to repeat.

  The old man kicked his heels against the floor and moaned. Kate knelt to calm him, but he shrugged her off, his mouth working in wordless terror. He let out a strangulated yell as he pointed to the door. We turned and then froze as one of the soul-sucking creatures stepped through the wall.

  The thing was tall and thin, a wraith-like figure of sticks and bones bound together by an eerie, sickly light. Tattered rags the colour of vomit hung from its limbs while its face was a ghastly skull stretched and twisted almost beyond recognition. It pulled itself free of the wall with a little effort and then raised a bony finger to point at us. The old man screamed and darted through a door into the body of the house. We followed in quick order, backing away from the apparition, which glided toward us slowly and determinedly. My heart raced faster as I saw another soul-sucker beginning to penetrate the wall.

  I stepped forward, swinging the sword at the creature with grim determination. The barrel of a pistol appeared to my left and fired, followed by another, Kate and Maxwell having had the presence of mind to bring their weapons to bear. The gunshots rang loud in the enclosed space, temporarily deafening me but seeming to have little effect on the ghoul. It paused and then snarled soundlessly as the other of its fellows joined it. Together they advanced on us.

  “Go!” I shouted, my voice sounding muffled to my stunned ears. Without checking that they were complying, I stepped in to attack the creatures, swinging the sword in a broad arc which felt as flat as it was ineffectual. It passed through the ghouls as though they were mere mist and then my world was consumed by the hideous visages of the creatures.

  They seemed to speak to my very soul, studying me and finding me wanting. In one terrible flash of clarity, I realised that I was no hero; instead, I was an insect amongst Gods, a child trying to play at adult games who was doomed always to fall short. I realised in that moment that all of my bravado had been foolhardy—there was simply no way that I could prevail against creatures such as these, and there were untold numbers of them streaming through from the Aether all of the time.

  Tears leapt to my eyes and I wanted to collapse in front of them, to beg forgiveness and welcome the oblivion which they would grant me. A hand on my shoulder brought me back to my senses. “Come on, you fool,” said Kate. She dragged me back, away from the nightmares which stalked silently after us.

  We found the old man in the bedroom and slammed the door behind us, using the bed and wardrobe to create a further barricade against the creatures’ entry.

  “You!” screamed the man. “You led them in here! All these past weeks, they have never crossed my threshold. But then you came and they... they...”

  “Now just calm down,” Maxwell said. “We just have to sit here and wait until morn—” A ghostly finger protruded from the centre of our makeshift barricade, followed by a skeletal arm covered in ghastly rags. In short order, three of the creatures were in the room and advancing on us. I looked around; the room was windowless and our only exit was cut off by the ghostly forms. We huddled together against the wall as hideous death floated toward us.

  CHAPTER 38

  The creatures fanned out so that they seemed to fill the entire room, their fingers luring us, calling us toward them. As they approached, I fancied I could hear some form of music, a ghostly lilt playing us to our doom. A rhythmic banging accompanied this bizarre, hypnotic symphony.

  Our makeshift barricade over the door exploded inwards and a dark figure stepped into and through the dust. The wraiths turned to see what it was that had disturbed their hunt.

  “Hello,” said N’yotsu. “Did you miss me?”

  The nearest wraith swung its arm round and advanced on him. N’yotsu deftly stepped aside and thrust his arm into the creature’s body. He muttered something and the creature dissolved with a fading scream.

  The other two wraiths turned with a snarl and flung themselves at this new threat. Their fingers connected with N’yotsu’s chest before he had a chance to react and he tensed up as his soul was sucked from his body. I recognised the torment in his face and eyes; it was a torture which I had revisited in my worst nightmares over the past weeks, when my conscious mind was unable to block out the memories. His mouth stretched in a soundless “O” and his eyes disappeared in their sockets.

  “We should run,” said Kate. “While they’re distracted.”

  “But N’yotsu...” I began.

  A desolate, heart-wrenching scream filled the room, a cry which forced us to our knees. When it finally died down we looked up through tear-filled eyes to see N’yotsu, with no sign of the wraiths.

  He grinned. “They tried to steal a demon’s soul. Never a good idea, whichever circle of Hell you might hail from.”

  *

  We sat round a makeshift fire in the kitchen, warming our hands and feet while we tried to make sense of what had happened. Thanks to N’yotsu’s rescue, the old man appeared to be tolerating our presence although he clearly had no intention of trusting us and settled for sitting and glaring at us from across the room.

  For his part, N’yotsu was unrecognisable from the wretch we had left in Scotland just a few days beforehand. He was once again clean-shaven and impeccably dressed in top hat and tails.

  “How do you do that?” I asked him.

  “Do what, exactly?”

  “Get yourself so dapper and polished, given the state you were in back in Scotland. I do not recall seeing a wardrobe of neatly pressed clothes in the shack we found you in. Nor have we passed a barber shop on our way here.”

 
Kate rolled her eyes. “He turns up out of nowhere, after refusing to so much as talk to us, vanishes a couple of ghosts, and that is your question? How he got to look so neat and tidy?”

  N’yotsu smiled. “Let us just say that I am learning that there are one or two benefits to my being... what I am.” A flash of sorrow crossed his face before he continued, his smile reappearing like an electric illumination, not to mention about half as natural. “There are many things which I had assumed were immutable but which in fact are pliable to me. Like my appearance and the ability to hunt down my friends.”

  “Interesting turn of phrase,” I said. “‘Hunt down’.”

  N’yotsu stared at me. “You know what I meant.”

  “But if you can do that,” said Kate, “then Andras can as well. So why hasn’t it paid us a visit?”

  “There is every chance that those creatures we just confronted were the agents of Andras,” said N’yotsu. “In any case, the demon already has taken what it wants from you. No offence, but you are irrelevant now.”

  “None taken,” I said, shuddering as I recalled my inability to fight back the ghouls. “I would gladly settle for being irrelevant at this moment.”

  Kate frowned at me and then turned back to N’yotsu. “Few days ago all you’d say was ‘Go away.’ Now all of a sudden you’re back—why the change of heart?”

  We all looked at him as he cleared his throat and looked to the floor. “Seeing you all, hearing you speak, it made me realise how pathetic I was being. Once I considered the fact that you had travelled all that way to find me... I knew that I could not abandon you.” He stared at us and mistook our silence for mistrust. “I can only assure you that I am who I say I am, and that I speak the truth. But know this; with or without you, I shall go to London to stop Andras. I have grown rather fond of this world, and in my present state I would not be welcome amongst my kind. There seem to be far too many of them coming into this world for comfort.”

  “No disagreement there,” I muttered.

  N’yotsu turned to Maxwell. “The device you created… how long before the portal is permanent?”

  “I do not understand,” I said. “Why would it become permanent? Why could you not just turn it off at any time?”

  “Think of the fabric of this world, the barrier between here and the Aether, like your skin,” said Maxwell. “Now imagine a knife wound in that skin. If the knife is removed and the skin is not further distressed, then it heals. However, if the knife is left in or allowed to keep the wound open, the wound will never heal.”

  “And the patient would die,” I said.

  “Indeed. Although in this case it would be somewhat worse. The barrier between this world and the Aether would dissolve. You would, quite literally, have Hell on Earth.”

  “How long do we have before that happens?” asked N’yotsu.

  “Approximately fourteen days from activation,” said Maxwell. “And the portal was activated twelve days ago.

  “Then we need to move. Now,” said Kate, jumping to her feet.

  “So what is your plan?” I asked N’yotsu.

  “I shall kill Andras.”

  Maxwell leaned forwards. “Have you managed to identify a vulnerability in the demon?”

  “I have. We are, after all, essentially the same creature. What harms me would also harm Andras. I simply need access to some of your equipment.”

  After so long, I could finally see a glimmer of hope. “So... The plan is that we get back to London, make a weapon to kill Andras, and then?”

  “We break in to the Royal Observatory,” said N’yotsu. “I distract and kill Andras whilst Maxwell disables the portal, with the assistance of the particular runic forms that he needs from me. You can then all go back to your lives.”

  Kate was frowning. “One question. If you and Andras are the same person, what happens to you if you do kill Andras?”

  N’yotsu looked at her. “I die too.”

  CHAPTER 39

  What had started as a trickle of refugees became a torrent as we drew nearer to London, camps of the desperate popping up in every field we passed as the Capital displaced itself into the rest of the country, desperately trying to escape the epicentre of the Hell which Andras was slowly unleashing. I looked upon them with pitying eyes, knowing that, if we failed, their efforts at escape were like sheep running round a slaughterhouse to escape the butcher.

  We rode on horses which we had purchased from a farmer at an exorbitant rate, heading toward the hideous beacon which lay above and just to the south-east of London, betraying the location of Maxwell’s device and the portal it had spawned. The column of light was almost beautiful to look upon, if one ignored its purpose and the dots of invaders streaming from within the cloud above it.

  Soon the mass of people on the roads was such that our pace was forced down to little more than a crawl. I looked at the faces of those we passed, each one glazed in dull desperation. Mothers held sobbing children close while fathers stared ahead grimly.

  “Turn away,” said a voice from the roadside, a woman with a child in her arms. “You’re goin’ the wrong way.”

  I pulled my horse over to where she was seated. “How is London?”

  “Gettin’ emptier by the day,” she said. “You can tell it’s bad when us common folk jump ship.”

  “The Government have left already then, I take it?”

  She laughed. “’Course. Them were the first to head off to the country. Them and the Queen.” She spat on the floor. “First we see of her in years is when she legs it, leaving us all to rot.”

  N’yotsu stared into the distance. “So the city is empty?”

  “Empty of people, at least,” she said. “Plenty of other creatures in there though. Just mark my words and turn round.”

  “We cannot,” said N’yotsu.

  “Then I shall pray for your souls,” said the woman.

  “Save your prayers,” said N’yotsu, spurring his horse onwards.

  “Speak for yourself,” I muttered, smiling apologetically at the woman before following my friends down the road and towards the emptying city.

  *

  Our horses’ hooves echoed loudly as we made our way through the streets. Everywhere seemed much, much bigger without the clutter of people and traffic. The city in which I had grown up was now unrecognisable, a place of empty squares and streets that seemed to stretch for miles and miles.

  Not everyone had fled London, for here and there we saw glimpses of people at windows and round corners. But no one approached us; as soon as we noticed them or got close enough they darted away.

  I found myself jumping at the slightest shadow or movement, the woman’s warnings still ringing in my ears. We had seen and heard of all manner of creatures on our travels to and from Scotland. However, we were now much closer to the source of the portal than we had been before and I feared for what would become of the city after nightfall.

  I looked to the sky in an attempt to gauge how long we had before dusk. Tendrils of deep black stretched across the sky and for a second my heart quickened, thinking that we were already too late. Then I realised that in fact what I was seeing was the Aether’s sickly fingers reaching out and strangling the sweet light of day. My stomach turned as I realised that the stones beneath us were smeared by a faint covering of mist. I kicked my horse into a trot and the others followed my lead. I knew we still had plenty of daylight left but I no longer trusted the world to follow the same rules.

  My caution was rewarded just a few minutes later. “What was that?” hissed Kate, pointing down the street.

  “What?” I asked, peering into the distance.

  “It looked a bit like them things we saw in Windsor.”

  “Like them?” asked N’yotsu. We turned to look where he was indicating. A strange, squat creature stood in the street behind us, its body covered in slick black scales, lank hair trailing around it. It snarled at us, revealing a mouth full of needle-like teeth.

  My h
eart sank. I felt Kate fumble for her rifle and shook my head. “We would be better to run; I do not fancy making a stand here,” I said as the creature stepped forwards, glaring at us with a deep hunger. The shadows around it shifted to reveal another creature, as malicious as the first, then another and another. They crept toward us in a slow, determined tide.

  “Go!” shouted N’yotsu. We turned and kicked our tired horses into as close to a gallop as they could muster. Behind us the sound of claws scratching stone filled the street, drowning out our horses’ hooves.

  We rounded corner after corner, the noise of their pursuit increasing with every minute which passed by. I heard a horse scream and turned to see Maxwell flying through the air, the scaly creatures swarming round the legs of his mount.

  He hit the ground with a painful thump, but fortunately the majority of the creatures were too busy devouring the horse to pay him heed. Fighting an almost overwhelming urge to keep running, I wheeled my horse so that we were in between him and the creatures, my sword ready to fight them off, while N’yotsu pulled his own horse round and held his hand out to pull Maxwell up behind him. I focused my attention on the creatures as one of them started to take an interest in us, stalking toward us, its mouth dripping with blood. I swung my sword in a clumsy uppercut which nevertheless connected with the thing’s jaw, sending it yelping backwards. I frowned at the sword; something did not feel quite right.

  “Go!” shouted N’yotsu before I could dwell any more on the sensation and we charged off, Maxwell clinging to the back of our friend. As we rounded a corner, I chanced a look back and saw a mound of writhing, hungry bodies entombing the poor horse.

  We made it to my lodgings with minutes to spare before the sun set and were relieved to find that it had not been looted. We led the horses into the house, not wanting to leave them to the mercy of the creatures which dwelt without, before shutting and bolting the doors. Maxwell and N’yotsu immediately set to the various boxes which lined the hall and living room, the remnants from Maxwell’s laboratory which had lain untouched during his self-enforced exile from science.