Escapement

by Jay Lake

  So he followed the quiet man into a very large room, where older, heavier men with long muttonchops and red faces sat around a table the size of a longboat, nodding at a bloody huge chart of some islands. It wasn’t anywhere al-Wazir had ever been; that was for certain. He adopted the blank look-at-nothing practiced by sailors in the presence of officers since the first reed boats had sculled along the Euphrates.

  His escort faded into a number of similar men making notes and riffling through red folders along the dark edges of the room. There were no windows here, just as in the outer room, though a pair of frosted skylights admitted some gray from above. Otherwise the room was lit by electricks in sconces around the walls, giving forth a slightly scorched smell. Where there might have been more paintings of naval history, there were now charts or maps. Al-Wazir would be damned if he was going to stare.

  Busy. The room was busy. In some indefinable way, it reminded him of a gun deck just before battle. Men were sweating and the air was thick with tension. Simply because no guns were in evidence did not mean there was no enemy at hand.

  “Chief al-Wazir.” He was being addressed by a broad-faced man with humor in his eyes, dressed as all of them were here in black. The Prime Minister, in fact—Lloyd George himself.

  “Sir, yes sir.”

  “The man with the interesting name. You would seem to be as Scottish as the next oat-eater from Lanarkshire, I must say.” The Welsh in Lloyd George’s voice was almost absent, though the humor carried through. “You may think of me as the Member from Caernarfon Boroughs, if that helps. As for the rest of the gentlemen here, they are simply persons committed to the interests of the Crown. Their names and titles should not matter to you.”

  “Sir, no sir.” Though he did wonder why a room full of senior men in the heart of the Admiralty complex should be so empty of uniforms. Including his own.

  “Tell me, Chief . . .” Lloyd George’s eyes sparkled. “Have you ever heard of the city of Chersonesus Aurea?”

  Of all the questions Her Imperial Majesty’s Prime Minister might have asked him, that was not one al-Wazir would have imagined in his wildest dreams. “No idea, sir.”

  “To be expected, I suppose.” The PM sounded disappointed. “Neither had any of the rest of us. I daresay you know the Wall, and the Bight of Benin?”

  Al-Wazir felt a smile cracking. “Thumping huge bit of rock, sir, far to the south. Been on her a bit, then sailed myself home out of the Bight by way of Dahomey and Mauritania.”

  “So we have been informed.” He walked around al-Wazir, an inspection in all but name. “I shan’t apologize for your discharge hearing in Bristol, Chief. Regulations are regulations.” Lloyd George reappeared in al-Wazir’s line of sight. “But would you be interested in going back to the Wall on Her Imperial Majesty’s service?”

  “At my rank and grade, sir?” The question slipped out.

  “If that is what is required. Or as a civilian—No . . . I think not.” Lloyd George nodded at one of the quiet men on the edge of the room. “I expect you’ll be a chief petty officer once more by Monday next, if not sooner.”

  “Sir, yes sir.” Al-Wazir could feel his sweat pooling now. He felt much like the marine he’d silently mocked in the antechamber.

  “Kitchens,” said the PM in a carrying voice. “The other map, please.”

  One of the quiet little men used a long pole topped by a metal hook to roll up the island chart. A moment later he replaced it with a chart of the Bight of Benin, the bulk of the Wall a dark line brooding at its southern extent.

  “Your ship was driven down there, yes?”

  “Sir, yes sir. Storm and enemy action.”

  “I’ve seen the report of your court-martial. Pity to lose Smallwood and so much of his crew. Experienced hands, the lot.”

  Al-Wazir held back a shuddering breath. They were long dead now, his old crewmates and charges, and nothing he could do for them or their memory from this distance. “I was rather surprised to make it home alive, sir.”

  Lloyd George gave him a long look. “I’m sure it’s a fascinating tale, Chief, but I don’t suppose I’ll ever have time for it. However, your recent experiences have granted you the unique qualification of being the Crown’s leading expert on survival at the Wall. We lost far too much with Gordon’s expedition of 1900.”

  “Bassett foundered in support of that same expedition, sir.”

  “Of course.” The PM seemed slightly surprised. “Yet the holocaust produced you, trained and experienced, annealed in the blazing sun of the tropics.”

  “Burnt red is more like it, sir.” He wasn’t sure about the annealed bit.

  “There is a town, Acalayong, just above the foot of the Wall at the easternmost verge of the Bight. I would ask you to take ship and go there.”

  “Sir, if I’m in uniform again, I’m under orders.” Al-Wazir could feel the trickle of his sweat burgeoning to rivers. Nervous, he was not nervous. A chief never was. “Her Imperial Majesty’s Navy don’t ask its sailors what they want to do.”

  Lloyd George gave him a long, thoughtful look. “In this case, I’d prefer to have your willing agreement, Chief al-Wazir. There’s a scientific expedition being mounted, under qualified supervision. I’ve many men who will follow orders. I’d very much like an experienced man along for whom I can have some hope of personal trust.”

  “Sir . . .” Al-Wazir swallowed hard. “You do not know me in the least wee bit. I’m a sailor, a Scotsman, and quarter an Arab. Any Englishman will tell you that makes me a liar three times over. You’ve no cause or call to trust me. Not outside the following of orders.”

  “I said hope of trust,” the PM reminded him. “Neither of us is a fool. We’d both have been cast aside or left for dead long ago if we were. I’ve good men and true in the expedition, both officially placed and otherwise. But they’re each under orders in their way. You, sir . . .” He took a deep breath. “You survived, in a place where most men have perished without a trace. As did your father, it would seem, back in his day. That’s a special quality in a man. Quite possibly incongruent with the quality of obedience.”

  Al-Wazir cut to the obvious point. “So you’re not certain this expedition will succeed?”

  “No. I’m not.” Lloyd George turned toward the map. “I shouldn’t think it prudent, or even possible, to claim certainty, no matter what drivel we tell the papers. It is a great hunt we’re about, Chief. We’re surveying to drive a tunnel through the Wall, to beat the Chinaman at his own game. Because regardless of whether you or I have ever heard of Chersonesus Aurea, the Celestial Emperor most certainly has.”

  “They’re finding a way across the Wall?” al-Wazir asked. Might as well find a way to the moon. There were always stories, to be sure—Bassett’s lost navigator Malgus had walked amid some of the tales himself, and his poor, doomed boy Hethor—but it was one thing for some plucky hero to scale God’s ramparts and look down on the kingdoms of the Southern Earth. It was far different for Johnnie Chinaman to do the same thing with his wizards and his priests and his coolies and his endless waves of marching yellow soldiers under their banners of heaven.

  Al-Wazir found that thought horrifying.

  Lloyd George cleared his throat. “Through the Wall, we believe. Which cannot be permitted. Should China gain a foothold on Southern Earth unanswered by Her Imperial Majesty, our game of nations is at an end. There are no higher stakes.

  “Her Imperial Majesty is sending a scientific and technical expedition under one of Her German subjects, the engineer Lothar Ottweill. Herr Doctor Professor Ottweill will have full command of the mission. It is my hope that you will accept responsibility for securing their survival. A thousand men and more are nothing but a mote in the grand design of the Wall.”

  The Wall. He’d hated it, feared it, lived on it, fled from it. It had eaten his da’s wit in the years before. The old man was never the same once he’d come back. It had eaten al-Wazir’s ship and most of his friends and mates.

&
nbsp; It was the only thing besides the thought of serving once more in the air that might truly bring him back to life.

  Al-Wazir dropped to one knee. “Sir,” he said, fumbling for the words. “For the sake of that, I’ll be your man to the Wall and beyond.”

  “Up.” The PM was clearly uncomfortable. It was as if the two of them were alone, in this room of whispers and maps. “Mr. Kitchens will take you in hand. There’s much to be learned about Dr. Ottweill and the expedition before you leave. I believe the next sailing is in less than a week.”

  Al-Wazir stood. Kitchens was there, though he hadn’t seen the man move. These dark-suited men were the true heart of the Empire, not the braying asses in Commons nor the bright Lords in their formal estate.

  He tried to take comfort from that thought as he was led away from the Prime Minister without a farewell.

  CHILDRESS

  Librarian Childress sat at her high desk in the Day Missions Library, the Berkeley School of Divinity at Yale University. Her heels hung nine and quarter inches off the floor when she used this stool. The height allowed her to look down at all but the lankest of the Yale boys. That in turn helped keep their worst tendencies at bay.

  Most people had the sense to be afraid of an old woman with iron-gray hair and a long ruler.

  The day had clicked slowly by, dust roiling in the shafts of golden light from the high windows, the ever-present smell of leather and glue and paper that made up the bellows breath of the library, the footfalls of students and porters, the gleam of the dark, ancient oak shelves under generations of oil.

  She loved these autumn days when the semester had begun but the students were not yet consumed with research and the fear of their midterm marks. The trees were just turning outside, while the building within still retained a bit of the warmth of summer.

  The clock on the administration building struck the third hour of the afternoon as a woman approached her desk. That was unusual—there were no women at Yale, save for a few specialists such as herself. The porters were ordinarily quite firm about not admitting the weaker sex.

  This one was no student. Perhaps forty, with pale brown hair and an unmemorable face, wearing high button shoes and a sage-green silk dress that rustled of crinolines. She had a white sweater shrugged over her shoulders against the possibility of an early autumn chill.

  The visitor’s steps echoed with a controlled rhythm that set Childress’ mind to racing. Her arms seemed a trifle thick, muscled even, through the silk. Her eyes were the same pale green as her dress. They tracked the room briefly, then focused on Childress.

  This was a dangerous person, trained to violence in a way that Childress had rarely encountered in men and never in a woman.

  “Emily McHenry Childress.” Neither question nor greeting. Just a statement.

  “You already know.” Her voice was so soft that the woman had to strain slightly to hear her.

  “As may be.” The accent was London with a hint of the Continental beneath it. The woman reached up and touched the edge of Childress’ high, narrow desk. Something clicked beneath her palm. “Tonight.” Her voice was equally soft. “On the Long Wharf, at dusk.”

  A feather carved of delicate ivory remained behind when she walked away.

  It reminded Childress painfully of a silver feather a boy had brought her some two years earlier. He’d stood here, holding back tears and wondering how it was he’d seen an angel of the Lord when no one else knew or cared. She’d sent him on in the name of the avebianco, the white birds.

  She’d wondered, ever since the earthquakes stopped and time seemed to settle down once more, when her turn would come. She’d wondered ever since if she would go.

  Even without the threat implied by the messenger, Childress knew she would have answered the summons.

  Through the course of the afternoon, Childress walked the halls of the Day Missions Library. She made one silent excuse after another as she passed from room to room. Inspection . . . a lost book . . . reinforcement of her ars memoriae. Nostalgia, even, for the overwhelmed young woman first hired on sufferance during the labor shortages of the Loggers’ Rebellion.

  Childress was certain that if she went to Long Wharf at dusk, she would not be returning to the library. The messenger hadn’t said so, but it stood to reason that the avebianco would hardly have sent someone all the way from Europe to New Haven for a quiet hour over tea and sandwiches. One had to look into the thing to understand it. The true powers in society were almost always invisible, much like God’s messenger angels passing on a moonless night—sensed but rarely seen.

  The sum of her days thus far had been little more than another round of days. Her greatest deed in life had probably been to send that young man on to Boston. She might as well follow the path and see where it led.

  She’d sworn herself to this, after all, when she’d become part of the avebianco all those years ago.

  Childress went to pack her desk. Though the entire building had in a sense belonged to her, there was little enough that was personally hers. Reverend Doctor Dunleavey was the head of the library, with his fur cap and tassels and seat on the faculty senate, but it had been Childress who sought out new works, accepted bequests and donations, cataloged what came in and what was found moldering in the basement storerooms, shelved and then reshelved books as times changed the needs of the students.

  Other clerks had come and gone, pinched men of furtive habits who spent too long looking at the coltish boys playing rugby in the yard outside, and the occasional woman waiting for a proposal to carry them to maternal, married life. She’d remained here, married to the library, girl and woman, for almost four decades.

  And still the white birds had held her. Childress remembered when the first feather had come, pressed within a slim volume of anonymous verse that arrived addressed to her. It had carried marks from Strasbourg in Her Imperial Majesty’s Germanies. Her sixth year at the library, 1877, and old Master Humberto had finally allowed her the privilege of cataloging new works. In that same month, this had come as if by signal.

  Which, of course, it had been.

  To be a librarian was to know everything that was known. Not the entire sum of human knowledge literally at the command of one’s thoughts—Newton had perhaps been the last to do that. But to know what could be known, understand the indices and passwords of all the secrets of Creation. The science of libraries was the science of the truths hidden within the world. She’d even learned the ars memoriae as first described by Simonides of Ceos, using the library as a locus to build a memory mansion.

  The library and its work were her life, both within and without, but for where God dwelt in her heart. Into this world the white birds had spoken with a bit of doggerel about the vanities of creation and those who stood in the stead of God. Later, there were other books, letters, whispered words. The avebianco were in libraries the world over, from the emerald-hatted mandarins of Imperial China, to the rough-hewn keepers of shipping records in African ports, to the university librarians of the British Empire.

  Childress looked up to see the head porter watching her. Cletis Barron’s long, dark face was infused with concern. “No one said you was going away.” His voice was as deep and gentle as a boat’s horn on the foggy Sound.

  She tried to smile. “No one told me, either.”

  “Woman put away her nibs and her cutting knife, she ain’t coming back.”

  “I shall miss you,” Librarian Childress said firmly.

  “We too, ma’am. We too.”

  With that, he escorted her to the door. When she stepped outside, the evening chill was already descending. She’d forgotten her cloak, but Barron handed it to her. “Go with pride,” he said.

  She nodded, words flashing away from her like fish before a hand set in a stream, then set her heels to the street and the walk down to the Long Wharf. She wondered as she strode whether the Reverend Doctor Dunleavey would even notice she was gone.

  And that, Childress realize
d with a sad shiver, was perhaps the truest sum of her life.

  New Haven was dubiously blessed with shallow anchorages, a problem that had been solved with the Long Wharf. The structure extended from the west side of the harbor well out across the tide flats to where the deepwater channel lay. Six airship towers stood closer in to shore, along the waterfront itself among the dories and skiffs and shallow-draft fishing boats that plied the coast and crossed the Sound. Only at the Long Wharf could steamers and clippers and Royal Navy ships be found.

  A few years earlier, a co ali tion of merchants and shippers had built a great pier out in the middle of the harbor, near the far end of the Long Wharf, to provide greater ease in unloading and transshipment. An effort was in progress even now to reinforce both structures so that railroad trains could reach every portion. This would remove the necessity and expense of horse-drawn drayage from the ships to the freight terminals along the shore itself.

  The gulls wheeled in great gray clouds amid the gathering dusk. The scent of their waste filled the air like damp ammonia. The waterfront is a giant midden, Childress thought, but without the benefit of tillage being turned so it could rot decently into the ground.

  It was simple foolishness to think she’d find someone, anyone, on the Long Wharf. There were hundreds of longshoremen out there even now in the decline of the workday, along with their carts and hand trucks, horses, dogs, sailors both merchant and Naval, errand boys, pickle sellers, women of questionable virtue, customs officers, deputy port-masters and the miscellanea that any great port drew into itself. Childress had known this all along.

  She would not find anyone, but they would find her. It was a reasonable presumption that the white birds had a ship tied up among the several dozen vessels moored to the Long Wharf. There they would conduct the business of the secret empire of knowledge.

  The avebianco all held a common goal—quiet advancement of the Spiritualist cause. The movement went by different names in different places, even within the British Empire, but the purpose was always the same: acknowledge and preserve God’s work in the world, while advancing the labors of Man. The Rationalists dismiss that viewpoint as secular spiritualism, while the orthodox laughed them away as feeble in both faith and mind.