Fiendish Schemes Read online

  “Ah, yes . . .” He nodded slowly, still deep within his doubtlessly mercantile ruminations. “What we have witnessed— exactly so. Surely you must applaud the Stromneth woman’s employers, the genius MacDuff and his companion, for their perspicacity in founding such a business as Fex. They have seized upon an opportunity for great profits, well before others discerned the faintest outlines of so much that is to come. One could almost suspect that they possessed some preternatural capacity for envisioning the Future.”

  “If so, whoever they might be, they are a burden upon Humanity. I have known others who could see the world that lies ahead, and you may trust me, nothing good came of their ability to do so. A merciful Providence blinds us to all but the present Time.” I unfolded my arms and pointed a single admonishing finger toward the other man’s chest. “Your enthusiasm for the Future, and its besieging horde of devices, is the indicator of a diseased mind.”

  “Perhaps so.” His shrug indicated no great concern on his part. “But it is a disease that will soon infect all Mankind, and fortunately so. We shall be transformed in the twinkling of an eye, as is promised to us in Scripture, but without the necessity of waiting about for an insufferably tardy deity to take care of the job for us. Surely you were impressed with the size, the force—the every aspect!—of those beings we spied upon, back at Fex.”

  “ Impressed is scarcely the word,” I replied stiffly. “Revolted would be more like it. Such activities are unseemly enough when performed at a human scale—by which I mean that which we used to consider as human. When magnified in this way, wrapped about in iron and steam providing the motive impulse rather than the excited pulse of the participants—I find it even less endearing.”

  “Yours is a minority opinion.” He gestured to the brougham’s window and beyond, to the darkened windows of the buildings we passed. “Vast numbers of your countrymen dream as they sleep, of just such transformation being wrought upon themselves. And why shouldn’t they? Here in London, at least, they possess an advantage over you, of having become accustomed to a continual advent of wonders, one after another, and hastened by that power of Steam about which our hostess at Fex became so rhapsodic. In this, they anticipate the very near future of Britain entire, in which virtually everyone will be a complete feckhead—”

  “I beg your pardon?” My interruption was prompted by the obvious vulgarity of the term just pronounced by Stonebrake, though I merely suspected its meaning. “What was that you said?”

  “The near Future of Britain?”

  “No, the other. The very last.”

  “Feckhead?” He further irritated me with a patronizing smile. “I forget, that your innocence colours your language—or rather, drains the colour from it. Surely the etymology of our modern cant is obvious. Once you admit the existence of something such as fex—not the business establishment, but the absorbing activity itself—the replacement of previous rude language follows as a matter of course. Thus the verb to feck, the process of getting fecked, the insult Feck you!—even the revised meaning of the word feckless, which now more specifically refers to the condition of not getting any fex at all. Which would seem, Dower, to describe your own status.”

  “May a merciful deity grant that it remain such.”

  “I’m in a slightly better position,” said Stonebrake, “to judge whether prayers are ever answered. In my previous employment, I heard enough of them—usually from Jacktars achieving a painful sobriety after a roistering night in port. They generally asked for divine Providence to keep the bottle far from their lips in the future— and that never happened, either. If wiser persons take it upon themselves to achieve their desires, I can only concur with a rationalist’s Bravo; well done. And if that fulfillment here on Earth runs toward the large and intimidating, to the degree that can be afforded, such is merely human nature. Granted, there might be some advantage to making a timepiece as small as possible—and certainly your crafty father excelled in that pursuit—so that one can slip it into one’s pocket rather than upon one’s shoulder, or in a cart following behind. But when it comes to base anatomy, no man seeking transformation wishes to be smaller upon the other side of the division from his former self. On the contrary; he wishes to be greater.”

  “The one we witnessed was certainly that.”

  “Rightly so.” Stonebrake’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “That particular gentleman—discretion forbids my revealing his name— inherited an ancestral fortune, of such immensity that he possesses no thought other than how to spend some portion of it. With the impressive results that you saw.”

  “It must make participating in the social calendar difficult.” Legions of difficulties presented themselves in my thoughts. “I find it hard to imagine him making an appearance at a fashionable ball, without his ironclad aspect being the subject of waspish commentary.”

  “Scarcely an issue for them: these people travel in circles of which we have little if any comprehension.”

  “And to which,” I observed, “you aspire.”

  “If it should come to that. These recent sights which you evidently found so appalling, I found to be rather . . . stimulating.”

  “Indeed.” This was not the first occasion on which I found myself speculating on the sanity of someone with whom my own fate had become entwined. “Perhaps it would be better if we concluded this topic of conversation, and moved on to more practical matters.”

  “Such as?”

  “The search for my father’s Vox Universalis device. Isn’t that the reason you have gone to such lengths to drag me about this modern London?”

  He nodded. “To a large degree, such was my motivation.”

  “I would have thought it was your entire motivation for doing so.”

  “Well . . . there has been a certain . . . shall we say, amusement to be derived from observing your reaction to these things. However rapidly these changes have come about in our society, it nevertheless has been a gradual process, so the urbane population has had the opportunity to become accustomed to the new steam-driven world in which they find themselves. It’s a rare opportunity to come across someone such as yourself, possessed of both intelligence and innocence on such matters. It doesn’t speak well for rural life, that it allowed you to become so out of touch with Progress.”

  “Speak of it as you will,” I replied with as much hauteur as I could summon. “But for myself, my feeling is that the sooner we achieve our ambitions and are enriched thereby, the sooner I will be able to return to that sanctuary. London and the rest of the world can then continue its plunge into the steam-filled abyss without any involvement on my part.”

  “How sad for you. There is so much on which you will be missing out.”

  “Of that, I am already bleakly convinced. Thus my renewed sense of urgency. Now that you’ve derived whatever merriment could be gained from my discomfiture at that loathsome establishment Fex, and inured me against whatever shock I might have sustained from witnessing other such spectacles, I’m interested in knowing just how we proceed from here. I can’t see how any of this has brought us closer to laying hands on the Vox Universalis— if it exists at all.”

  “Alas,” said Stonebrake, “exactly so. I am a bit chastened thereby as well. Even though I was diverted just now by the company of the charming Miss Stromneth, the stoic maxim Duty before pleasure still came to mind.”

  “A fool’s errand, then.”

  “Perhaps. But in my defense, our visit to the establishment which she oversees was initially prompted by other productive intentions. I had hoped that we would encounter not just her, but that couple by which she is employed.”

  “What manner of people are they? This MacDuff and his no doubt equally depraved consort?” I instinctively drew back, as if there were some chance they might suddenly appear inside the carriage, summoned by mere reference to them. “I found their chief employee alarming enough. Perhaps it was a stroke of good fortune that they were not present.”

  “I’m ce
rtain you will find them merely eccentric rather than frightening, when the time comes. Many of their distinguished patrons are quite smitten with them.”

  I kept a discreet silence. To myself, I imagined that the fondness displayed toward this mysterious pair by its clientele was due rather more to the accommodation provided to base desires than to engaging personalities.

  “But as I indicated,” Stonebrake continued, “your acquaintance with them waits upon another occasion. At this moment, we must press forward without the assistance they might have provided to us.”

  “What aid could they have possibly been?”

  “Simple, my dear Dower.” He gestured in a manner both magnanimous and dismissive. “The establishment known as Fex is more important—and more vital to our concerns—than would be encompassed by that judgement you have so prudishly bestowed upon it. Past its doors, and beyond the spaces revealed by them, its proprietors would be able to grant us access to strata of society otherwise unavailable.”

  “God in Heaven—” This time, I was unable to refrain from speaking up. “What good would it do for us to encounter even more such creatures, maddened by both sex and steam? If there are in fact, as you have said, great walled-off estates full of such transformed beings, surely they are but distractions from our pursuit. And as such, better left alone by us.”

  “This also is where you are in error. And if I have misled you in this regard, you have my utmost apologies. For it is not just carnal desires that are accommodated through the services of Fex and its proprietors. There are other lusts that Mankind possesses, beyond those of the senses. Power, ambition, the thrill of dominion over one’s fellow human beings—indeed, one could assemble a veritable catalogue of such impulses, both from the pages of history and from the simple observance of everyday life.”

  “Doubtless,” I replied. “But I fail to see how Fex and its legions of surgeons and pipe-fitters could aid in the fulfillment of those desires. Unless, of course, the iron rails at its business establishment were to be used not just for such monstrous assignations as the one which you forced me to witness, but also for tying sacrificial victims to the tracks and then allowing those transformed customers to run over them. And while I am sure that Miss Stromneth and her employers could find suitably hapless individuals amongst the city’s poor and kidnap them for such a purpose, nevertheless the legality of such a pursuit seems questionable, even in the wretched circumstances to which this world has fallen of late.”

  “Ah, Dower; how I wish . . .” Stonebrake sadly shook his head. “How I wish I could speak with her kindly tones. I must seem like a cruel schoolmaster, dragging a reluctant pupil from one arduous lesson to another. Your education continues, even this night.”

  I realized the import of his words: we were not returning to Featherwhite House and its hissing, clattering assembly of my father’s devices. Upon looking out the brougham’s window at my side, I saw that we had traveled elsewhere in the city, somewhat more central but closer to the Thames. The larger shapes of the buildings seemed familiar to me, but in the night’s darkness I was unable to establish immediate recognition of them.

  “Is this absolutely necessary?” My voice rose in protest. “You might relish one enormous novelty piled on top of another, but the ordeal I have recently endured has brought me close to exhaustion.”

  “Be a man,” Stonebrake curtly replied, “or at least make the attempt. But a moment ago, you were complaining of some dilatoriness in pursuing our aims. Very well, then. Let us seize this moment and push forward.”

  “My suggestion was to persevere after appropriate—and much- needed—rest.”

  “No time like the present.” His dismaying cheerfulness had surged to another high point. “Besides, we have already arrived at our destination. So you might as well summon whatever resources you have remaining, and bear up a while longer.”

  I perceived that the brougham had left the street and, after passing through a tightly constricted gate, entered upon an even darker courtyard. The structures about us towered high enough to block out all but the vision of the stars directly above, as though we had found ourselves at the bottom of a well. I could hear iron creaking through rust as a stiff-hinged gate was dragged shut behind us.

  “Ye’re late.” A grizzled face scowled in at the carriage’s window. “Been waitin’ a right fair bit, I have.”

  “You have my apologies.” Stonebrake further mollified the individual with a bright coin laid in one grime-blackened hand. “But unforeseen circumstances delayed us.”

  “Sorghum stanzas be buggered.” The other gummed the coin, lacking sufficient teeth to test its authenticity. Frustrated, he pocketed it and yanked open the brougham’s door. “Diff’cult enow to smuggle the two of you in, ’fore all the cursed yammering begins. Place be fookin’ empty back then; could’ve fired a fookin’ cannon down the halls, not hit a blessed soul.” The sooty crevices of his face deepened with an even sourer expression. “Now’ll be packed with fookin’ bleeders, goin’ ’bout their ’fernal preock- upations.”

  “All the better for us, it would seem.” Stonebrake had already dismounted from the carriage; he gestured for me to follow him. “We shall lose ourselves amongst the crowd.”

  “Aye, ye’re a devious sort. Simple type such as meself would ne’er thought o’ these wily stratagems.”

  Once outside the carriage, I was better able to look around, attempting to place myself on the perhaps outdated map of London that existed inside my head. The first thing I spotted—and difficult not to, given its size—was the four- sided tower rearing above my head, bearing massive clock faces at its highest elevation. A certain disorientation afflicted me, despite the landmark’s familiarity, even to one absent from the city as long as I had been. As many occasions as I previously had seen the grand clock tower at the north end of Westminster Palace and set my pocket watch to coincide with its observance of the passing hours, it struck me that I had never glimpsed it from the precise angle at which I viewed it now. The secretive gate through which I had been conveyed, and the narrowly winding route leading to it, had placed me on some spot not otherwise accessible to the casual pedestrian.

  “What is this place?” I turned toward Stonebrake, seeking the answer. “It must be of extreme importance to the nation, given that it exists where the Houses of Parliament formerly stood.”

  “Hargh!” The gatekeeper emitted a phlegmy laugh. “Ye’re not so clever then as yer mate. Bluidy is Parliament, ye great booby.”

  “You’ll have to forgive him.” Stonebrake spoke with a condescending smile. “My companion has been out of town for a while. He has experienced so many changes upon his return, that he has evidently assumed everything must have been altered during his absence.”

  “Feh—we’re not bluidy likely to prise up the centers o’ guv’mint and plunk ’em down in the middle o’ Swindon, just to ’commodate his fookin’ self.” He directed his glaring squint toward me. “They be fine where they are.”

  “Come along, Dower.” Stonebrake seized my arm and drew me away from the carriage. “You’ve made enough of a fool of yourself for the time being, expert as you are at that.”

  A guttural shout followed after us: “Go ’bout yer business, ye daft prat!”

  “It seemed a reasonable enough observation—” I shook myself free as our footsteps brought us through a low stone arch and into a dankly odorous corridor. A trickling sheen of water outlined the rough bricks by which we passed. “The fellow spoke of masses of people who would soon be thronging the corridors. What was I supposed to deduce from a comment such as that? Surely the Houses are not in session at this late hour, unless there is some great governmental crisis under way. Though if we were at the precipice of war with another land, I’m sure I would be the last to be informed of that as well.”

  “Calm yourself.” He strode purposefully toward the flickering glow of gas lamps farther ahead. “The affairs of state are in no calamitous predicament. These are but the nor
mal hours of business for the nation’s leaders. Or rather, to be precise, those leaders when they are engaged in matters of actual consequence, rather than mere sunlit playacting.”

  “Pardon me?” I hurried to keep pace with him, taking care to avoid contact with the mouldering walls on either side. My surmise was that if we were entering upon the Houses of Parliament, we were doing so via some conduit for the disposal of whatever effluvia was generated by their inhabitants. “You seem to imply some subterfuge on the part of the government—”

  “Imagine that.” He spoke with evident sarcasm. “Is there no limit to human perfidy?”

  “I suspect there isn’t,” I replied, “but this is the first I’ve heard of a nocturnal aspect to the regulation of state affairs, opposed to how they might be conducted during the day.”

  “As with so many things that come as a revelation to you, Dower, it is a recent development; that Steam, of which our friend Miss Stromneth spoke so reverently, has not only transformed the higher aspects of human sexuality, but the baser category of politics as well. But then—perhaps it’s all really the same thing underneath the surface appearances.”

  “The connection, frankly, is completely occluded to me.”

  “Are you sure?” Stonebrake came to a sudden halt and turned upon me, the somberness of his altered expression once again indicative of his rapidly shifting temperament. “I see it quite clearly now.” He leaned in closer to me, as though imparting some confidence made even more ominous by the grim tunnel in which we stood. “Is it not all about Power, however conveyed? When you think about it, what essential difference is there between the ability to express one’s will in matters carnal—or in the case of that which you witnessed for the first time back at Fex, such an ability as augmented by steam and iron—and the capacity for making others heed one’s will in matters political?”