The Emperor of all Things Page 22

  ‘It baffles me, rather. The proofs of God’s existence are all around us; it seems to me that one would have to be blind not to see them.’

  ‘Perhaps I am blind. But I hope you will grant that a man may learn to navigate his way through the world without sight. Why, I have known blind men – and women, too – whose other senses have, as it were, become all the sharper in compensation for the lack of it. One of the keenest horologists I ever met was a blind man able to repair timepieces by touch and hearing alone. So it may be with a man like myself, blind to what others take for granted. Certainly I do not mean to disparage the genius of your late master. His insights into time and horology were profound, and I never met a quicker, more fertile mind, one better able, moreover, to turn its fancies into facts. And what wondrous facts! Nor did our differences of opinion on this and other matters prevent our long partnership from being, on the whole, a happy and successful one. I mourn his passing, sir, and honour his memory: truly, I do. And I will have more to say about that in due course. But I have pursued my own researches into the nature of time, and I think it fair to say that I have come to an understanding no less profound than your late master’s.’

  ‘I should like to hear it,’ Quare said.

  ‘I believe that time is another dimension. A fourth dimension, if you will. It is like a river in which we find ourselves, a great river stretching into the unknowable distance of the future and the irretrievable distance of the past. Yet we know only an infinitesimal portion of this river. Of its depths we can say nothing. Nor do I believe that we are afloat upon its surface; that is an illusion of perspective. Rather, it surrounds us on all sides, and the heights to which it extends above us are as infinite as the depths below. What we perceive as the passing of time, the steady beat of seconds and minutes that we measure out with our clever clocks, the signs of aging that we recognize with dismay upon our faces and the faces of our loved ones, which testify to the briefness of our earthly lives, the progression of the seasons, which, like a rolling wheel, both repeats its revolution and moves forward towards some culmination we cannot know, are but visible indications of an invisible force, just as the rustling of leaves in a tree signifies the passing of a breeze we cannot otherwise perceive. In this great river – or ocean, if you prefer – of time, we are but bits of debris carried along by the current. We mistake, in our ignorance and arrogance, the flow of that current for our own movement, and flatter ourselves that we give shape and direction to our lives by our actions and beliefs. But in fact, the vast majority of us are quite helpless, and all our vaunted intelligence is lost on inconsequential ephemera, bubbles and rainbows, rather than on the mysteries of this wondrous medium that surrounds us.’

  ‘An interesting theory,’ said Quare.

  At which, as if acknowledging the scepticism behind Quare’s politeness, Longinus gave a bark of laughter. ‘It gets better, sir. Imagine, then, a great sea, in which we humans are carried along on a particular current, just as, in our own seas, ships may travel from one place to another simply by catching a certain stream. But would it not be strange if, in this sea of time, there were not other currents? And would it not be stranger still if there were not other creatures also living in this sea – just as, in our own watery seas, there is an abundance of life – life, moreover, that is not captive to one current or to any of them, but may move with freedom and purpose throughout the entire medium?’

  ‘What sort of creatures do you mean?’

  ‘Call them what you like: gods or angels, demons or dragons. Fairies, even. Creatures of myth and legend, though quite otherwise than those myths and legends paint them. Names are unimportant; what matters is that they exist. Some are mindless, some harmless, but others are as intelligent as we, or more so, and far more dangerous. These creatures can take many forms. What they look like in their own realm we cannot even imagine; we see them as they choose to appear to us, within the bounds of what our senses are equipped to perceive. Their own senses are quite different from ours, as you might expect, and their perceptions of time far more complex and acute. To some of them, the regular ticking of a clock has a scent as well as a sound – you understand that I am speaking metaphorically – a scent that attracts them to us, as the scent of blood in the water will attract a shark. That is why I keep all the timepieces in my house and on my person out of step. To muddy the waters, so to speak, and thus keep these predators at bay.’

  ‘I see.’ Quare did not know what to make of the man before him. Was he a lunatic? His words were almost absurdly fanciful … yet not without interest. ‘What of a workshop like Sir Thaddeus’s, where an army of clocks marches to the same drummer?’

  ‘Such a place is like a beacon in the dark. A veritable lighthouse. Whether he knows it or not – and I believe he knows it very well – Sir Thaddeus has been visited by these creatures. Indeed, I believe he has been suborned by them.’

  ‘To what end?’

  ‘Nothing good. They would use him to extend their influence among us, to make our dimension, into which they cannot fully enter, or long remain, a subsidiary of their own – or such is my belief. In short, they war against us. They are a deadlier enemy than the French, more powerful, more subtle … more to be feared. Because they are not human.’

  ‘And you have proof of this, I suppose?’

  ‘There are many proofs. You have held one of them in your hands.’

  Quare felt a chill. ‘The hunter.’

  ‘Yes, the hunter.’

  ‘What did you mean earlier when you said that the hunter had killed Master Magnus?’

  At this, Longinus pushed back his chair and stood. He began to pace alongside the edge of the table, his hands clasped behind him. When he reached the far end of the table, he turned and started back. Not until he had drawn level with Quare did he speak again. ‘I wish that damned device had never come into my possession. In truth, part of me was glad to surrender it. And yet, now, I would give anything to have it back. Once he had that watch, Magnus turned the whole of his formidable intellect upon it. He was convinced that, properly understood, it would give us the means to defeat the French for good and all. Especially after the slaughter of his cats, he became obsessed with it. I tried to warn him, but, scornful as ever of my theories of time, he would not heed my entreaties. He was, to the last, a man of science and reason, and he had faith that science and reason would unlock the secrets even of a mechanism whose very existence flouted both. Faith, Mr Quare, is a dangerous thing. Faith in God, faith in reason – each is blinding in its own way. That is why I strive to be as free of it as I can. I recommend the same approach to you, sir. A regulator, above all other men, should take nothing on faith. His life, no less than the success of his mission, depends upon it. But I digress. Magnus knew that blood was the fuel that drove the engine of the thing, but how that was possible, and to what end, he did not know. And it was this that he was determined to discover, using his own blood to power the device while he experimented upon it. After what had happened to the cats, you will understand that I had no desire to be present during those experiments.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Quare. Even now the memory of his experience with the hunter was fresh enough to make his blood run cold.

  ‘We had arranged that I should monitor his progress and his safety at regular intervals,’ Longinus continued. ‘Every half an hour, I would send a signal to him via bell pull, and he would signal back the same way. Thus did we continue through that day and into the night. At last, early in the morning, at two-thirty, to be precise, there came no response to my signal. I rushed back to his workroom, and there I discovered my friend stretched upon the floor, on his back, his glasses knocked askew and the eyes behind them open wide and staring sightlessly at whatever horror it is that doomed men see. In his hand was clutched the foul mechanism, glowing cherry red and pulsing like some loathsome organ. Even as I watched, the glow faded, and the thing returned to its former pale appearance – but no paler now than the man who held it,
drained of every last drop of blood and stone cold dead.’

  Quare could not repress a shudder.

  ‘I was not eager to touch the thing. Nor did I have the chance to do so. Before I could act, a half-dozen of my fellow servants burst into the workroom – men, I saw at once, loyal to Sir Thaddeus. There was nothing I could do against so many, not without revealing myself, and so I stood aside as they gathered the notes that Magnus had been writing upon his desk and, with a callousness that injured my heart to see, wrested the timepiece from my poor friend’s fingers – which, strangely, were already locked in rigor, though I do not believe he had expired more than ten minutes before my entry. Nonetheless, such was the case, and to free the timepiece from his frozen grasp the servant had first to break those supple fingers, which, as you well know, sir, were as beautiful and well-made as the rest of him was stunted and grotesque – the hands of an angel affixed to the body of a gargoyle. I felt as if I were witnessing a desecration, and I confess I had to look away, though I do not believe I shall ever be able to forget the sounds of his bones snapping like twigs. But forgive me – I did not mean to cause you distress!’

  And indeed, Quare had found Longinus’s account of Master Magnus’s end distressing, but not entirely for the reasons the other assumed. Now he too stood, leaning over the table to demand of Longinus: ‘Did you say two-thirty?’

  ‘Yes. Why? Is there something significant about that time?’

  Quare sighed, shoulders drooping. ‘You could say that. It was approximately the time of my death.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘There is a particular detail of my brief acquaintance with Mr Aylesford that I withheld from Sir Thaddeus, for reasons that will become obvious. Following the brawl at the Pig and Rooster, Aylesford and I took refuge at the lodgings of one of the barmaids. I was all but insensible – I realize now that I had been drugged; indeed, I believe that the assassin slipped something into all of our drinks that night, to facilitate his cowardly butchery, but for some reason the drug was slower to act on me than on my unfortunate fellows. My last memory of the night is staggering through empty streets, supported by Aylesford and Clara. When I awoke the next morning, Aylesford was gone, and Clara reported having woken during the night to find Aylesford and myself engaged in an act of sodomy – though in fact, what she witnessed was a crime far worse. Murder. For as I discovered shortly thereafter, I had been stabbed in the back – a wound angled towards the heart, sir, and deep enough to have reached it. Yet there was little blood, no pain to speak of, and, obviously, no death. You may imagine the look of shock on Aylesford’s face when I surprised him later at my lodgings! Because I could not account in any rational way for having survived such a wound, I looked to the irrational, and fixed upon my experiences with the hunter earlier that day, when the device had drunk my blood; it seemed to me that the two events must be related. Somehow, though I could not guess by what means, the watch had saved me – had restored me to life, or, rather, taken away my death. I do not know the exact moment that Aylesford slipped his knife into my heart, but it was early in the morning by Clara’s testimony. Surely the fact of Master Magnus’s death at approximately the same time can be no coincidence – not with that infernal watch involved. Just as, earlier, it had taken the lives of all those cats, so, too, or so I must believe, it transferred my death to Master Magnus, and, perhaps, his life to me.’ Quare slumped back into his chair. ‘It was I who killed Master Magnus. Not the hunter. His blood is on my hands.’

  ‘That … that is most interesting.’

  ‘Interesting? Is that all you can say?’

  ‘Your pardon. I understand your feelings. Yet you must not blame yourself. How were you to know what would come of handling that watch? Magnus himself did not comprehend it, nor did he forbear from risking his life to unlock its secrets.’

  ‘How did such a thing come into your possession in the first place?’

  ‘I will tell you. But first – what of your wound? Has it healed?’

  ‘Honestly, I have been afraid to look.’

  ‘Let us look now.’

  ‘Are you a physician, sir?’

  ‘I have some small skill in physic.’

  ‘Very well.’ Standing, Quare removed his coat and then his waistcoat and shirt, laying them over the back of the chair. Longinus, meanwhile, had come around the table to stand beside Quare, who now turned away from him, displaying his back. Quickly, using the dagger in his sleeve, he cut away the bandages.

  ‘Extraordinary.’ Longinus more breathed than spoke the word.

  ‘What is it? What do you see?’

  ‘It is as you said. There is a puncture below the left shoulder blade. I confess, I should expect to see such a wound upon a corpse, not a living and breathing man. There is no blood; the wound is quite clean. The flesh shows no sign of infection or of healing. And you say it does not pain you?’

  ‘There was some pain at first, but now it merely itches, like the bite of a bedbug.’

  ‘Most extraordinary,’ Longinus repeated. ‘May I examine it more closely?’

  Quare nodded. He heard the rattle of metal from the table behind him and turned to see Longinus holding up a butter knife.

  ‘I do not have my instruments to hand, but this should serve admirably as a probe.’

  ‘I am not a scone, sir.’

  ‘That had not escaped my notice. Try to relax, Mr Quare.’

  ‘That is easy for you to say.’

  ‘I will stop the instant there is any pain.’ He motioned for Quare to turn.

  Sighing, Quare complied and braced himself. He felt the cold but gentle touch of the butter knife at his back, then an altogether unsettling sensation as the flat blade slipped under a flap of skin and entered the wound. He shuddered, gasping, hands fisting at his sides; the knife halted but was not withdrawn.

  ‘Mr Quare?’

  ‘I cannot say it is pleasant,’ he answered through clenched teeth, ‘but there is no pain.’

  The progress of the knife resumed, accompanied by an outbreak of cold sweat upon his forehead. His insides spasmed most unpleasantly, and he felt his gorge rise – less from the sensation of the intrusion than the unnaturalness of it. ‘Take it out,’ he said at last, when he could stand it no longer.

  Longinus did so at once. ‘I apologize for any discomfort,’ he said.

  Quare’s body was trembling beneath a sheen of sweat. Speech was beyond him. He held to the back of the chair to keep himself standing. Spots swam before his eyes.

  ‘You had better sit down,’ came Longinus’s voice; and then Quare felt the man guiding him into the chair. ‘Put your head between your knees.’

  Again, Quare complied. It did seem to help.

  ‘Here.’

  He raised his head to see Longinus offering him a tumbler filled with a dram of amber liquid.

  ‘Brandy,’ he said.

  Quare took the glass and drained it at a swallow. The liquor flushed new vigour through his limbs. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘You’re most welcome. I think I could do with one myself. Can I get you another?’

  Quare shook his head and stood. He lifted his shirt from the back of the chair and began to dress. ‘Well? What is your diagnosis?’

  Longinus, who had crossed to the side table to pour himself a glass of brandy, tossed it back before answering. ‘Diagnosis?’ he echoed, setting down the empty glass. ‘Asclepius himself could not diagnose your condition. You are a walking dead man, sir. A living and breathing impossibility. That is my diagnosis.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I do not doubt that your surmise is correct, and the hunter is holding your death at bay by some mechanism unknown to me. Whether permanently or temporarily, I cannot say. It would be interesting to learn if you are proof now against all mortal injury – in short, whether the watch has conferred a kind of immortality upon you. Unfortunately, I can think of no way to test this hypothesis without risking your life.’

 
; ‘Yes, most unfortunate, that,’ Quare said, shrugging into his coat.

  ‘You asked how the watch came into my possession,’ Longinus said. ‘Come, Mr Quare. A turn in the garden will do you good, I think. And I shall tell you as we walk.’

  Longinus crossed the room and opened a glazed door leading out to a terrace. He gestured for Quare to precede him. The morning air was cool and refreshing, the sun bright, the garden green and flowering, woven through with meandering white gravel paths and sequestered behind high brick walls that screened off the neighbouring houses. The two men set off along a path, the crunching of their footsteps over the crushed stones and shells loud and vigorous in the hushed air. The bustle and clamour of London seemed miles away.

  ‘Are we safe in the open like this?’ Quare inquired. ‘Won’t the Old Wolf send his regulators against us?’

  ‘Not even Sir Thaddeus would dare to trespass here,’ Longinus replied with confidence. ‘My royal cousin, His Majesty, would look most unkindly upon any such intrusion, as the Old Wolf knows very well indeed. No, you may set your mind at ease on that score, Mr Quare. As long as we remain behind these walls, we are untouchable – at least, by Sir Thaddeus and his minions. Of course, we have other enemies to worry about. Nor can we remain behind these walls for ever. But I think we are safe enough for now. Besides, we are both armed, are we not? And though you cannot see them, rest assured that my own men are present, watching over us.’

  Quare glanced about but, indeed, could not detect another soul. ‘They are very well hidden.’

  Longinus inclined his head. ‘Now, as to the watch. I have been an avid collector of timepieces for many years, even before my partnership with Magnus. At first it was the exteriors that attracted me: I admired the richness and beauty of ornamentation lavished upon certain clocks and watches, caring nothing for the refinement of their inner works or even how accurately they kept the time. But gradually my interest shifted, and, as I began to pursue my researches into the nature of time, I sought out timepieces of advanced or eccentric design – it was this which brought me to the attention of Master Magnus. He viewed me as little more than a dilettante at first, a mere dabbler, but he did not scorn my wealth and influence, which he perceived, quite rightly, could benefit the Worshipful Company. In exchange for my patronage, I insisted that he take me on as an apprentice – and this he did. Our association was a secret one; not even the Old Wolf knew of it. But from that time, we proceeded in parallel, Magnus and I, our respective researches mutually reinforcing despite their obvious differences. In truth, we learned from each other. My experiments became more rigorously scientific, while he learned to be less scornful of the more esoteric branches of horological inquiry. When my apprenticeship was complete, I joined the ranks of the regulators, just as you did, though, again, the association remained secret, and I functioned more along the lines of a special agent, continuing to undertake my own investigations and acquisitions alongside the occasional mission that Magnus did not wish, for one reason or another, to entrust to the common run of regulator. And so it was, some twenty-odd years ago, that I first began to hear rumours of a timepiece like no other, a clock or watch – opinions varied on this point – that was to other timepieces as the philosopher’s stone is to these stones beneath our feet. Though “rumours” may be putting it too strongly – hints, rather, of something strange and anomalous, of a clockmaker who might as well have been a wizard out of some old fairy tale. When I mentioned them to Magnus, he dismissed them out of hand and advised me against chasing phantoms. Needless to add, I did not heed him. In those days, Mr Quare, I was young and fit – well, younger and fitter – and liked nothing better than a good adventure; my fortune allowed me the luxury of chasing whatever phantoms I pleased. I was absent from England for a number of years, and my quest took me throughout Europe, into Russia, and farther east, to Mongolia, China, and Japan, and thence to India, the Holy Land and Africa, and finally back to Europe again. Such marvels I encountered in my travels, horological and otherwise, that we might walk from here to Edinburgh before I had related even a tenth of them. Yet always the object of my search remained tantalizingly out of reach; the rumours, as it were, seemed to recede before me, drawing me ever onwards. And such, I concluded, was the case – I was being led a merry chase.’