What Ned wrote to Gregory Temple, in the clear version, was: VF forced to abandon new experiment and flee following arrest attempt by Tuscan cavalry, urged on by Malo de Treguern, once Knight of Malta–please investigate. VF’s first resurrectee joined company; fled with his maker. No reported English casualties. Bolivar and Don Juan both put out to sea, carrying most or all of conspirators, but all their equipment lost. Destination unknown, but should be possible to identify if enough spies alerted. VF will certainly resume work if possible. Ned was by no means entirely content with this narrative, but he resisted the temptation to embellish it further. There were some things that he would have to confide to Temple in person.
By the time Ned finally reached London, a full two weeks later, more news had caught up with him, arriving through the orthodox medium of the French daily newspapers.
Percy Shelley and John Williams, in company with one Charles Vivian, it was reported, had set sail in the Don Juan from Leghorn on July 8, intending to take the vessel to San Terenzo. Edward Trelawny had intended to accompany them in the Bolivar, but had been retained there by the harbormaster. A storm had blown up that afternoon, and Trelawny had been forced to wait until it cleared to set out after his friends. The Don Juan had not arrived at San Terenzo, and the boat’s dinghy had been washed up at Viareggio, with other debris. Three days later, two bodies had come ashore, one near the tower of Migliarino and the other near Viareggio. Both had been badly damaged and were partly decomposed; they had been buried in quicklime. One of them had been identified as Shelley’s by means of a book of poems by John Keats, contained in the pocket of his jacket; the other was assumed to be Williams. A third body was subsequently found, and buried at the mouth of the Serchio. The body identified as Shelley’s was subsequently burned on a pyre, although Trelawny was said to have recovered a heart, miraculously unburnt, from the ashes and had preserved it in brandy.
Ned felt perfectly sure that these reports were false from beginning to end, and he told Gregory Temple that when he finally came face to face with him in his office in Whitehall.
“For one thing,” Ned said, “the Don Juan was at San Terenzo on the morning of July 8, not Leghorn, and the Bolivar was almost certainly there too. If the two boats encountered the storm, as my own did, they probably encountered it together. Mary Shelley and Jane Williams were in Spezia when I arrived at Casa Magni, having presumably been sent there for safety’s sake. Having been entirely uninvolved in the events at Walton’s house, it is possible that Percy Shelley and Williams remained there with them, but I feel certain that they would have gone with their companions.
“Assuming that they did put out to sea with Frankenstein and the other members of the company, they must have been taken aboard the Bolivar if the Don Juan really did run into difficulties, but it seems equally probable to me that the debris was thrown overboard deliberately, to give the impression of a catastrophe that did not, in fact, take place. The intention may well have been to persuade the Tuscan authorities, and Malo de Treguern, that Victor Frankenstein and his first subject had drowned in the storm–although the authorities could hardly be expected to publicize that, whether they believed it or not
“I cannot guess whose the three bodies actually were, but I am sure in my own mind that Shelley, Williams and Frankenstein are all alive. This manifest nonsense about the heart being recovered from the funeral pyre must have been put about for the purposes of dissimulation. Even if they are not alive–even if Shelley had already succumbed to the unfortunate reopening of the wound that Masi had inflicted–I feel sure that his body is safe in Frankenstein’s custody, not burned on some Italian beach. Whatever Trelawny has in that jar of brandy, it is certainly not Shelley’s heart. It cannot be.”
“You’re an utter fool, Master Knob,” Temple told him. “A spy cannot think like that. He must deal in facts, not Romantic fancies and delusions. In any case, there is no need for us to worry about some miserable poet. The point is to determine whether Frankenstein and his creature are alive. If they do contrive to resume their work, even after some delay, when they have made a discreet landfall, we need to know about it. You made a bad mess of this mission, and I’m sorely disappointed in you. You should have discovered where Frankenstein was bound, even if you had to stow away on the vessel that carried him away from Spezia in order to do it. Now we have to find him all over again. It might not be so easy to stop him in his new location as it would have been in Tuscany.”
“Stop him?” Ned queried. “Is that the policy of the King and Parliament? Are they so jealous of their petty privileges that they would preserve death’s empire in order not upset their own?”
“No more of that radical talk, imbecile!” Temple told him, sternly. “You work for me now, although you’re so ridiculously incompetent that I ought to send you back to play the fool in Jenny Paddock’s gin-palace until you rot. The King’s desires are your desires, and you’d better not forget that.”
“I won’t forget it,” Ned promised. “Did you investigate Treguern, as I suggested?”
“I’ve obtained reports on your former Knight of Malta from his native Brittany,” Temple told him. “They’re agreed that he’s a good and heroic man, albeit a little crazed. We can work with him, I think, despite his being a Romanist.”
Ned shook his head, slowly, but made no verbal protest. He knew that Henri de Belcamp would not have understood, either, why it was so important that Percy Shelley should not have been lost forever, whether he were dead or alive. Nor would Guido, the vampire’s minion, have understood it. None of them understood that it was the poets who were the true legislators of the world. None of them was a true Romantic.
Ned had not included any mention of Guido’s vampire master in the report he had sent to Gregory Temple from Genoa, and he renewed his decision not to mention it in Whitehall. This was not because he particularly wanted to keep the vampire’s existence secret, but because he did not want to damage his credulity and further than it had already been damaged. He had, however, told Henri de Belcamp about the alleged vampire’s request for a meeting, on the grounds that John Devil was a man of far more liberal imagination than his former arch-enemy.
I am on no one’s side but my own, now, Ned told himself, when Gregory Temple finally dismissed him from the dingy office, after suggesting disdainfully that he might as well go back to his work with Jenny Paddock’s petty theater while awaiting further instructions. No one’s side, that is, but that of the unbound Prometheus. If Shelley is really dead, and there is no one left but me who understands how the world ought to be changed, and must be changed, then I must be the one to direct its metamorphosis.
END OF PART THREE
Part Four of The Empire of the Necromancers,“The Vampire in Paris,” will appear in Tales of the Shadowmen 5.
Credits
Captain Future and the Lunar Peril
Starring:
St. Menoux
Daniel Crewe
Erik John Stark
Simon Wright (The Brain)
Curt Newton (Captain Future)
Halk Anders
Grag
Otho
Northwest Smith
Yarol
Gerry Carlisle
Tara of Helium
Annette Essaillon
Also Starring:
Noël Essaillon
Madame Atomos
The Planets:
Vulcan
Mercury
Sha-ardol (Venus)
Barsoom (Mars)
Eurobus (Jupiter)
Cykranosh (Saturn)
L’gy’hx (Uranus)
Yaksh (Neptune)
Yuggoth (Pluto)
Rhea
Mongo
The Moon:
Michel Ardan
Selwyn Cavor
Baloise, Ingala, Nial
Moon wolves
Mars:
Jekkara
Helium
The Ahai
The Macrocep
hales
Created by:
René Barjavel
Edmond Hamilton
Leigh Brackett
Edmond Hamilton
Edmond Hamilton
Edmond Hamilton
Edmond Hamilton
Edmond Hamilton
Catherine L. Moore
Catherine L. Moore
Arthur K. Barnes
Edgar Rice Burroughs
René Barjavel
René Barjavel
André Caroff
Edmond Hamilton
Leigh Brackett
Catherine L. Moore
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Clark Ashton Smith
Ramsey Campbell
Clark Ashton Smith
H.P. Lovecraft
Jean de La Hire
Alex Raymond
Jules Verne
H.G. Wells
Catherine L. Moore
Edmond Hamilton
Leigh Brackett
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Clark Ashton Smith
Arnould Galopin
Written by:
Matthew BAUGH is a 43-year-old ordained minister who lives and works in Sedona, Arizona, with his wife Mary and two cats. He is a longtime fan of pulp fiction, cliffhanger serials, old time radio, and is the proud owner of the silent Judex serial on DVD. He has written a number of articles on lesser known pop-culture characters like Dr. Syn, Jules de Grandin and Sailor Steve Costigan for the Wold-Newton Universe Internet website. His article on Zorro was published in Myths for the Modern Age (2005). He is a regular contributor to Tales of the Shadowmen.
Fool Me Once...
Starring:
Harry Dickson
“Hunter” (his alias)
M
The Hautefeuilles
Fascinax
The New Lords of Chaos:
Numa Pergyll
Leonid Zattan
Dorje
Benedict Stark
Dr. Natas (a.k.a. Fu Manchu)
Dr. Mabuse
Roxor
Created by:
Anonymous
James Mitchell
based on Ian Fleming
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Jean de La Hire
Talbot Mundy
Theodore Tinsley
Guy d’Armen
& Sax Rohmer
Norbert Jacques
Harry A. Earnshaw,
Vera M. Oldham
& R.R. Morgan
Written by:
Bill CUNNINGHAM is a pulp screenwriter-producer specializing in the DVD market and a regular contributor to Tales of the Shadowmen. A recognized authority and speaker on low-budget filmmaking, his website, www.D2DVD.blogspot.com, offers screenwriters and filmmakers useful tips and insight into the DVD industry. He is currently producing the motion pictures Stainless and The Gore Gore Gore-met with legendary exploitation filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis.
The Atomos Affair
Starring:
Madame Atomos
Alexander Waverly
Napoleon Solo
Ilya Kuryakin
Created by:
André Caroff
Norman Felton & Sam Rolfe
Norman Felton & Sam Rolfe
Norman Felton & Sam Rolfe
Written by:
Win Scott ECKERT holds a B.A. in Anthropology and a Juris Doctorate. In 1997, he posted the first site on the Internet devoted to expanding Philip José Farmer’s concept of the Wold Newton Family. He is the editor of and contributor to Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe (2005) and a contributor to Lance Star, Sky Ranger (2006). His article “The Black Forest and the Wold Newton Universe” is included in The Black Forest 2: Castle of Shadows (2005), and he recently contributed the Foreword to the new edition of Farmer’s seminal “fictional biography,” Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke (2006). He is a regular contributor to Tales of the Shadowmen.
The Anti-Pope of Avignon
Starring:
Solomon Kane
Fausta
Gaston Rochefort
The Horla
Created by:
Robert E. Howard
Michel Zevaco
based on Alexandre Dumas
Guy de Maupassant
Written by:
Micah HARRIS is the author (with artist Michael Gaydos) of the graphic novel Heaven’s War, a historical fantasy pitting authors Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien against occultist Aleister Crowley. Micah teaches composition, literature and film at Pitt Community College in North Carolina. He is currently developing several comics and prose projects. His self-published novel, The Eldritch New Adventures of Becky Sharp, in which the villainess of Vanity Fair becomes the agent of a Lovecraftian alien race, will be available soon.
Three Men, A Martian and A Baby
Starring:
Doctor Omega
Denis Borel
Fred
Kal-L
The Selenites
Created by:
Arnould Galopin
Arnould Galopin
Arnould Galopin
Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster
H.G. Wells
Written by:
Travis HILTZ started making up stories at a young age. Years later, he began writing them down. In high school, he discovered that some writers actually got paid and decided to give it a try. He has since gathered a modest collection of rejection letters and had a one-act play produced. Travis lives in the wilds of New Hampshire with his very loving and tolerant wife, two above average children and a staggering amount of comic books and Doctor Who novels.
Corridors of Deceit
Starring:
The Black Coats
Kaitlin de Winter
Baron Gruner
Catarina Koluchy (a. k. a. Mrs. Moriarty)
Count Corbucci
Antonio Nikola
Josephine Balsamo
Marguerite Chavain
Maude North (a.k.a. Hendrika Pienaar)
Maud Beltham
Irene Chupin/Tupin (a.k.a. Irina Putine)
Victor Chupin
Rosette Trevor
Eva Relli
Countess Yalta
Purity Parker
The Pallid Mask (a.k.a. Juan North a.k.a. Fantômas)
Sebastian Medina
Roger Vollin
Anna Beringer
Porky Shinwell
Mary Holder
Dr. Mabuse
Richard Vollin
Introducing:
Berenice Fourneau (a. k. a. Blythe Furnace)
And:
Institution Bachelard
Created by:
Paul Féval
Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
L.T. Meade & Robert Eustace
E. W. Hornung
Guy Boothby
Maurice Leblanc
Narcisco Ibanez-Serrador
& Juan Tebar
based on Marcel Allain
& Pierre Souvestre
& John Buchan
Marcel Allain
& Pierre Souvestre
Narcisco Ibanez-Serrador
& Juan Tebar
Emile Gaboriau
based on Guy Boothby
based on Dario Argento
& Daria Nicolodi
Fortuné du Boisgobey
based on Arthur Conan Doyle
Robert W. Chambers,
Marcel Allain
& Pierre Souvestre
Richard Matheson
based on David Boehm
L.T. Meade & Robert Eustace
Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Norbert Jacques
David Boehm
Rick Lai
Emile Zola
Written by:
Rick LAI is a compute
r programmer living in Bethpage, New York. During the 1980s and 1990s, he wrote articles utilizing Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe concepts for pulp magazine fanzines such as Nemesis Inc, Echoes, Golden Perils, Pulp Vault and Pulp Collector. Rick has also created chronologies of such heroes as Doc Savage and the Shadow. He is a regular contributor to Tales of the Shadowmen.
The Evils Against Which We Strive
Starring:
Sâr Dubnotal
The Shadow
Ligeia
Introducing:
Nick
Miss Nolan
Created by:
Anonymous
Walter Gibson
Edgar Allan Poe
Roman Leary
Roman Leary
Written by:
Roman LEARY was eight years old when a family friend gave him an Ace paperback of Conan stories. He has been a devotee of pulp fiction ever since. Today, he is a librarian living in the small town of Washington, North Carolina, with his lovely wife Ana. The Evils Against Which We Strive is his first published story.
Madame Atomos’ Christmas
Starring:
Madame Atomos
Also Starring:
Tales of the Shadowmen 4: Lords of Terror Page 42
