Evenmere (The Evenmere Chronicles Book 3)

by Stoddard, James

  and Will—”

  “I was with them when we were transported.”

  “They’re alive?”

  “Quite safe.”

  He clutched her to his chest and held her for a long

  moment. A single sob escaped him.

  He slowly released her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get

  emotional.”

  “It’s all right. Anyone would be.” She related what had

  happened since last they met, and he, in turn, told of his own

  adventures. After meeting Andy Carter, he had become lost

  among the machinery and had reached the fence just before

  she found him.

  “Are we going in the right direction?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I hope the postman really is on our side. He

  might have given a little more information. I don’t understand

  why both of us were guided to this place, then left to our own

  devices. I suppose we have to go forward and trust to good

  fortune.”

  Carter raised the sleeved gate latch and they slipped in. A

  gravel path ran before them, bordered by a pipe fence, with

  buildings and tanks on every side. Lamps, bright as daylight,

  shone on overhead towers, creating a world of stark brightness

  and multiple shadows. Lizbeth wondered what sorcery could

  make anything glow with such intensity.

  As they trudged beneath the cavernous sky, they discussed

  what Andy Carter had told them of the nature of Existence.

  “If this is indeed a deeper reality, it seems terribly

  chaotic,” Lord Anderson said.

  After a time, the ceiling began sloping down enough to be

  visible in the electric lamps; the walls narrowed and emitted a

  dim glow. The tapering continued until they walked inside a

  cavern similar to the spiraling interior of a conch shell. The

  machinery, thickly arrayed on either side, became more sparse,

  until what remained were tripod light poles, dozens of paces

  apart, curving downward in an endless line.

  “What do you suppose we will find?” she asked.

  “I haven’t the faintest notion. We are literally out of our

  waters. Actually, we’ve left the pond entirely.”

  “And we are very small fish,” Lizbeth said. “It’s too vast.”

  “We have to ignore that and concentrate on finding Erin

  Shoemate. It’s the only way to remain centered.”

  “Is that how you do it? Completing this task and that,

  trying not to think of the whole picture?”

  “The whole picture is never complete. Evenmere is …”

  Carter waved his hand to indicate the impossibility of it,

  “substance and shadow, metaphor and solid stone. One is

  always dealing with the material and the abstract together. The

  physical aspect we understand, at least most of the time; the

  immaterial we sometimes comprehend and sometimes only

  feel. There are always more questions than answers. How can

  the universe be so organized and so damnably slap-dash? If

  Enoch misses winding a clock, if Chant fails to light a lamp, if

  I do the wrong thing …”

  “And why a dinosaur in the attic?” Lizbeth asked. “I’ve

  wondered about that. Or the areas the Servants’ Circle

  oversees—why those particular ones? It’s all butterfly wings—

  so beautiful and colorful; but are the wings for the sake of the

  beauty, or the beauty for the sake of the wings?”

  The road curved always downward, until it seemed to

  Lizbeth they were surely following the curve of the earth and

  must soon come out on the far side of the world. Carter’s

  pocket watch had stopped, leaving them to guess how many

  hours they traveled. They stopped twice to rest and once to eat.

  At last the cavern narrowed even more, the ceiling descending

  to little higher than their heads, and they came to a circular

  opening. Carter drew his Lightning Sword and they crept

  through.

  Steam rose around them, warm but not burning, preventing

  them from seeing at first. A few paces in, their vision cleared

  and Lizbeth gasped. They had reached Deep Machine.

  The Great Mechanism

  Doctor Armilus and the Black Beast descended from the

  ruins of the ancient palace of Opo along a slanting corridor

  constructed of smoked glass, so that everywhere the anarchist

  turned were dark reflections of himself and his companion.

  The corridor shuddered with his every step, as if suspended by

  thin supports. The form of the beast had changed; it now

  resembled a leopard with hands instead of paws. It had grown

  slightly larger as well.

  “How much farther?” he asked.

  “Very near, yet an eternity distant,” the beast drawled in its

  hideous, growling tongue.

  The doctor winced. It always spoke in half-riddles,

  covering its thoughts with an air of inscrutability. In showing

  him the way to Deep Machine, it was shortening his quest to

  ultimate power over Evenmere, but that was small comfort.

  Armilus wondered when it intended to kill him.

  They reached an oak door, incongruous among the smoked

  glass, opening onto a stone corridor with doors scattered along

  both sides. Armilus tried the first he came to and found a

  small, empty chamber.

  “Step in there,” he ordered.

  “Why?” the beast asked.

  “If you are truly my servant, do as I say.”

  The beast growled, but complied. Immediately the doctor

  shut the door behind the creature, reached into his inner coat-

  pocket, and withdrew a packet of dynamite. With careful

  intent, he retrieved a match, lit the fuse, and held it until it was

  burned almost to the end. At the last second, he flung the door

  open, threw the explosives inside, and with a speed defying his

  size, dove to the floor.

  Even with his hands covering his ears, the explosion was

  deafening. The corridor rocked; stone fell all around. When

  the concussions died away, he rolled onto his back and sat up.

  The door had been blown off its hinges; smoke rilled from the

  chamber. He rose gingerly, his hand on the pistol in his pocket.

  A heavy crash sounded inside the room. From out of the

  smoke and debris, a black figure brushed aside boards and

  plaster. With labored ease, it stepped into the hallway. Not

  only had the beast survived, it was now as tall as the doctor’s

  chest.

  Armilus released his grip on his pistol. One must be willing

  to face realities, no matter how grim. If it decides to kill me,

  there is no help for it.

  “A primitive trick,” the beast said, “using a bomb.”

  “I am, after all, an anarchist. Why are you now larger?”

  The monster gave a convulsive rumble, the eerie

  equivalent of a laugh. “Violence begets violence, Doctor. I am

  a bit of violence your violent actions have enlarged. Perhaps

  now we understand one another better.”

  Armilus shuddered. “Perhaps.”

  They made their way down the corridor, the beast at the

  doctor’s heels.

  I have confirmed one thing , Armilus thought. I am this

  creature’s prisoner.

 
Hours later, the doctor and his strange companion arrived

  at a heavy iron door. Armilus reached for the handle.

  “Wait,” the beast said. “This is the Eye Gate. To cross its

  threshold is to pass beyond Evenmere.”

  “To the place of Deep Machine?”

  “To a place between places. You will face some type of

  guardian. I do not know what form it will take. It would be

  best if it did not see me. I will hide within the ring.”

  “How do you—” the doctor fell silent and stepped back as

  the beast began to expand. It billowed upward, turning to

  black smoke. When its entire form had vaporized, the dark

  cloud surged forward, pouring itself into the oval stone in the

  ring on Armilus’ finger. As the smoke entered, the ring grew

  heavier, until the doctor’s hand ached from its weight.

  Armilus studied it. The beast had appeared within the hour

  of his taking the ring from the pouch sewn within The Book of

  Lore and putting it on. The creature claimed it made him its

  master. Was that true, or had it instead been intended for this

  very time? Why else had the band welded itself to his hand,

  except to ensure he would always have it with him? Did he

  dare step through this door, knowing he might not be lord of

  his own fate? He could find an excuse to retreat, try to buy

  some time.

  He shook his head. He would not back out now. The beast

  would never allow it. Besides, there was too much to be

  gained, a universe to win. Great risks must be taken to achieve

  great rewards. The drama must be played to the end. If it

  turned out badly, he at least would not be one of those who sat

  on the sidelines, booing and cheering and smoking cigars. He

  would be a player; he would carry the ball or lose it in the

  skirmish. He would make the grand play or fall with a grand

  stand. That was what life was about.

  He chuckled at his own nonsense. Hadn’t he dedicated his

  career to ending what he had just espoused? By reshaping

  Existence into his own terms, and thereby removing suffering

  from the world, wasn’t he hoping to erase the very struggle he

  adored?

  He laughed again and opened the door. Stepping through

  into total darkness, he screamed at what he found there, the cry

  of a small boy facing the thing he most feared. Yet he was a

  man as well, driven by titanic purpose and will, and he stood

  up to the waiting monster, rushed at it with his enormous

  strength, and choked the life from it with his powerful hands.

  Afterward, with great weeping gasps, he strode down the

  alley until he came to a certain gate.

  “Here,” the voice of the beast spoke from out of the ring.

  “The portal lies within.”

  He composed himself, entered the gate, and knocked on

  the door. A figure in a blue uniform answered.

  “Hello, Doctor,” Mr. Carter said, his face set and

  unsmiling.

  “Do you know me?” Armilus asked.

  “I know of you.”

  “Then you know what I want.”

  “Come in, if you must.”

  The doctor followed the postman down the hallway into

  the living room.

  “I am told this is a reality different from that of

  Evenmere,” Armilus said. “Is that true?”

  “It is,” Mr. Carter answered.

  “Why is it so … physical?”

  The man raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I had heard you

  were a clever fellow. It’s a good question. Perhaps you were

  expecting some sort of bodiless spiritual plane? But people

  like bodies, you know. How else can we tell which thoughts

  are ours and which are someone else’s? The body—and

  physical objects in general—make a solid barrier between a

  person and the rest of reality.”

  “You mistake me,” Armilus said. “I expected no such

  spiritual plane, but these ordinary mechanisms cannot be what

  drive the universe. Alleys and guardians. Doorways into

  darkness. It’s too simple. What is the Deep Machine?

  Molecular forces, strings of power?”

  “Well, that’s a little hard to explain, and I’m certainly not

  the man to ask. I think of the Machine more like a wind-up toy

  taken out of someone’s pocket. One of those gadgets you

  might find in a clever shop.”

  “Are you mad?” the doctor demanded.

  “No, Benjamin, I’m not, but I am concerned. I don’t think

  you realize what you’re getting into.”

  “I doubt it’s any of your business.”

  The postman shrugged. “My business is helping people.

  From what I hear, you’ve taken a lot of chances. You’re a man

  of action. That’s commendable. But there comes a time to

  reassess those actions. Where you’re headed right now—it’s

  beyond anything humans can handle. You’ve seen the power

  of the poets; you know it’s uncontrollable, but you’re going to

  the source of that power, hoping to control it. It’s a bad road,

  Benjamin. Why don’t you give it up, go back to Evenmere,

  and rethink your philosophy? You want to make a difference

  in the universe? Help a single person that needs it. That’s what

  matters.”

  Doctor Armilus was tempted to sneer, but was unable to do

  so beneath the old man’s honest directness. It was too much

  like mocking one’s grandfather—especially since his words

  reflected the doctor’s own earlier thoughts.

  “I appreciate your concern,” Armilus said without rancor,

  “but I have come this far and must see it through. Can you

  show me to the portal?”

  Mr. Carter sighed and opened the door where Lizbeth had

  passed. The sound of the engines filled the room.

  Armilus gazed skeptically into the blackness. “This is the

  way?”

  “There isn’t any other.”

  “Any words of advice?”

  “I’ve given you all I have, Benjamin. You have to find

  your own way now.”

  The doctor nodded and stepped through, into what he

  would come to call the Place of Machines. He had seen many

  strange things in Evenmere, but none more peculiar than this.

  As an anarchist, he had dabbled in both sorcery and science;

  whether reading Daschett Limbar’s Essays of the Mystic or

  Phasho’s Principles of Energy , he had viewed both as paths to

  forms of force—if one seemed irrational and the other

  scientific, that was simply because he did not yet comprehend

  the underlying propositions. Yet in this region, with its

  monsters and rows of machinery, what would seem to be a

  confirmation of his theories struck him as the opposite. The

  universe was clearly mechanistic, but he had expected to find

  atomic and cosmic forces driving it, not a realm filled with

  gears, pistons, and levers.

  Dark smoke rose from the ring on his finger, and the beast

  appeared, an almost human smirk on its face. “We are in,

  Doctor. Your every ambition is about to be fulfilled.”

  Carter and Lizbeth stood on a metal deck, the foyer to a

  vast mechanism towering into a violet sky speckled
with blue

  stars. So great was its mass, so myriad the machinery upon it,

  that it took several moments to gain perspective. Every sort of

  device was represented: levers, buttons, valves, pipes, gauges

  and tanks, great engines and enormous wheels and pulleys.

  Shots of steam rose from tall stacks. Vegetation and living

  organisms served the mechanism as well; flying horses circled

  it, wolves and dolphins leapt among the pistons, giraffes raised

  pink tongues to clip the derricked leaves. Lions clattered and

  klaxons neighed, bluejays tapped and bellows brayed. Part

  automaton, part forest, part zoo was Deep Machine. In

  occasional flashes, a vast clock superimposed itself over the

  entire mass, its face displaying a single scene: a star, a person,

  a field, a stream.

  “What is it all for?” Lizbeth asked.

  Carter did not reply. She glanced at him and saw a strange

  light in his eyes. He pointed. “There, do you see him? When

  the clock appears. It’s Enoch.”

  Lizbeth gave a cry of surprise, for focusing on any part of

  the machine allowed its details to bloom before her sight.

  Carrying a large key, the figure of the Hebrew scurried around

  the edge of the clock, as if fleeing from the second hand.

  “They’re all represented,” Carter said. “There’s the Tower

  of Astronomy with Phra at its pinnacle juggling the stars. That

  bright light to the left is Chant lighting the lamps and that pool

  surrounded by walls of books must be the Mere. There’s

  Jormungand, too.”

  “I see him! But he’s not like the others; he vanishes and

  reappears.”

  “It’s mirroring our actions.” His voice rose in excitement.

  “If we could understand this, we could fathom so much that

  happens in the house. Our jobs would be so much easier!”

  Lizbeth placed her hand on his shoulder. “But would we be

  able to comprehend it? It’s not here to make things better for

  us. It just is.”

  The light in Carter’s eyes died. “Just another temptation to

  make too much of myself. Are you and I shown on it, or are

  we now out of the picture?”

  “We’re already standing on it, right here. We can’t be in

  two places at once.”

  Carter laughed. “Of course! But when we’re in Evenmere

  it must trace our paths through the manor.”

  “I doubt I am part of it,” Lizbeth said. “It seems to show