Blackbird: A Warrior of the No-When Page 8

  Even in my grief, this struck me as rather odd, but then I caught sight of my dearest, lying within her sarcophagus like a wax figure. I very nearly collapsed at this, but my companions caught me and guided me to my seat.

  A series of eulogies followed, delivered by our friends and her relatives, but I heard none of it. To my ears, their words were meaningless babble.

  At last, the time came for us to approach the casket, and pay our final respects. Once again, my legs threatened to betray me, and I felt Edwards’ strong hand on my elbow, offering me all of his strength.

  As I came up to the coffin, all sense of propriety and restraint utterly abandoned me. Without any concern for the sensibilities of the congregation, I reached into my handbag and deposited the rose that I had brought, placing it on Elizabeth’s breast. Then I raised my veil, leaned down and gave her one last tender kiss upon the lips.

  At this, a collective gasp went up from the onlookers, but I did not give a fig. I was not about to say farewell to my beloved by acting out some charade simply for their benefit.

  At some point, Edward pulled me back, and led me away. My anguish blurred any recall of what passed after that and it was a fortnight before I learned that my Aunt Veronica had come to the aid of my reputation.

  Thanks to my rash actions, there had been no denying the bond between myself and Elizabeth, or its actual nature, and so she had applied another strategy altogether. A brilliant one.

  The rose, my kiss, and all the rest, had been explained away by her as the byproduct of a ‘youthful dalliance, such as some young women sometimes engage in’, and nothing more. She also made certain to focus everyone’s attention on my engagement to Edward, and with it, the unspoken promise that a proper marriage would set me on the path of assuming my role as a wife, and a mother. This mollified my peers, and when I had finally recovered enough to sort it all out, earned my eternal gratitude.

  CHAPTER 3: The Greatest Lie Ever Told

  In which I end my mourning and resume my work with the Professor.

  Then, a catastrophe and after that, death.

  After months of wearing widow’s weeds, I had decided that the time had come for me to return to the world. There was also a special occasion to prompt this; the Professor had sent word to join him for a matter of some importance. Guessing that it had something to do with the progress on the wireless machine, I elected to mark his invitation by attiring myself properly.

  In some places and times, dressing is a quick affair, but in my universe, it is done with care, and time is always taken to achieve the correct result. After bathing and applying a subtle dab of perfume, I put a great deal of effort into doing my hair that evening, piling it up into a French roll that was both highly attractive, and best suited for the work that I anticipated performing in the Professor’s laboratory.

  Although they were wholly unnecessary for such an undertaking and could even have been considered frivolous, I added the extra touch of donning my mother’s diamond and sapphire earrings. I did this in order to accent the blue in my eyes and to commemorate my resurrection.

  My clothes came next; a stiff corset that my maid helped me into, covered by a soft white blouse with just enough lace at the collar and the cuffs to lend femininity without getting in the way. A skirt followed this, and for the occasion, I chose one made of brown satin with a bustle that wasn’t overstated, or too showy. For the street, I selected a matching waistcoat, a hat accented with banded pheasant feathers and naturally, a parasol along with a pair of fine velvet gloves of the same color as the skirt. As I said, I wanted to honor the event, but also to be practical; nights in the great Northwest can be both cold and wet, and a lady is required to present the proper appearance no matter the hour.

  The entire process of putting all of this on took the better part of an hour and a quarter, and just before I was ready to leave my mirror and set out for the evening, I realized that one final touch was required. I took a thick length of dark brown velvet ribbon and tied it about my neck, securing it with one of my greatest treasures. This was a cameo of Hypatia, shown in profile, and it was special to me not only because it depicted that great light of the world, but also because it had always been a favorite of Elizabeth’s.

  My eyes attempted to spill tears as I recalled the last time that she had admired it, but I mastered myself and only a few managed to escape. Dabbing them away, I went downstairs to meet the coach, stopping only to give Father a peck on the cheek as I went out. But instead of my usual, “Goodnight”, I said “Goodbye, Father.” This elicited a puzzled expression from the old gentleman, and surprised me as well, but neither of us remarked upon it, and I took my leave.

  Arriving at Elizabeth’s former residence, the ladies of the Sewing Circle were gracious enough, and offered up their heartfelt condolences, but this only served to remind me of my loss. I left their company as quickly as propriety allowed, and was just as hasty in making my way through the alleys to Merriweather’s home. Every step of the way, I was haunted by images of my darling’s face and felt nothing but relief when I finally reached the Professor’s back door.

  I was let in by Jenny and taken straight to the laboratory, where Merriweather awaited me. Still in crutches, he greeted me warmly.

  “My dear, it is so good to see that you are recovered. Jenny and I have worried over you greatly.”

  “It is good to be back,” I answered somewhat stiffly. “I have missed you both.” Then before anyone could bring up the painful subject of Elizabeth, I gestured towards the worktable and the wireless device. “Is it--?”

  Merriweather nodded. “It is. In your absence, Jenny and I managed to finish it. Now, all of the components are in place, the aerial has been attached to the chimney and our batteries are fully charged. The only thing that is required is to switch it on, but I could not conceive of doing that without you.”

  My heart leapt at this. Now, I thought, all of our hard months of work would tell; if we had constructed it correctly, we would be able to communicate with other Free Radicals and add our own cries for freedom to theirs. Nothing seemed a more fitting tribute to Elizabeth’s memory.

  “Please,” I entreated him, “do not delay any longer on my account.”

  Grinning in anticipation, my mentor hobbled over to the device, whilst Jenny connected the wires to the batteries. Then as she and I took our places next to him, he tapped out a salutation on the Morse key.

  Had I been a religionist, I would have said a prayer at this juncture, entreating the Almighty to instill its blessings upon our endeavor. As it was, I simply held my breath and waited.

  But the machine remained silent. No return signal came back and we looked at one another in uncertainty.

  “Do not worry yourselves, ladies,” the Professor assured us, working the tuning coil. “We simply need to adjust the frequency to receive the reply. I am certain of it.” He fiddled with it a bit more, and tried sending another transmission. Still, nothing changed.

  Clearly, we had failed.

  Our collective disappointment was abruptly shattered by loud voices outside and above us. There were men shouting in anger and barking orders, and I heard many pairs of boots running about.

  Next, the glass broke. On top of our failure with the telegraphy machine, the very worst had happened. Somehow, the Bookmen had found the laboratory, along with all the evidence that they would need to condemn us to death.

  “Run!” the Professor cried. Behind him, a metallic hand was pulling the window frame apart as if it was made of nothing more than papier-mâché. Then another hand, this time made of flesh, pushed its way through the widening gap. It was gripping a pistol, and even as I processed this, the weapon discharged.

  Jennie’s hands flew up and her face distorted in pain as the round struck her in the chest. She fell soddenly to the floor, and panicking, I pelted up the staircase. Right then, I had no other thought in my mind other than to escape the death that was coming for me through the window. As a result, I
was totally unprepared for what happened when I reached the top of the stair and came out into the house.

  I was turning the corner to come into the kitchen when I suddenly felt a sharp pain and something akin to a heavy fist striking me in the stomach. This was immediately followed by an intense wave of nausea and an impossible coldness passing through my midsection. Out of reflex, I folded over at the waist, and heard someone who sounded exactly like me give out a surprised “Ooo!”

  It was then I realized that this ridiculous, tragicomic sound had actually come from my lips, and looking down, I understood why. Bookman Pierce had been standing there, waiting for me with his saber in hand. I had run straight into the blade and advanced myself almost halfway up its length.

  My mind became a confused, roiling mass of terrified, desperate thoughts, as the most primitive part of my being struggled to grapple with the reality of this, and attempted to find some way to escape and survive.

  I am going to die! I thought. I do not want to die! I cannot die now! There is still too much for me to do!

  Never, in any of my most tortured nightmares, had I ever imagined that my life might end in such a gruesome and painful manner. Despite the evidence that my hands were clutching, I didn’t want to believe that this fate was actually mine.

  Yet there I was, frozen in place, my eyes filled with terror and agony, and doing nothing for myself except clasping the blade, and trembling slightly. Then my vision narrowed and the room around me started to go grey.

  I understood the cause perfectly and even stupidly recalled the correct medical terminology. I was losing blood internally; my great abdominal aorta had been lacerated, and the only thing that was keeping me from toppling over into the chasm of death was the blade itself, staunching off the majority of the fatal leak. I also knew with a terrible certainty that I had only a moment or more to remain alive. When Pierce withdrew it, any hope of survival would be utterly dashed.

  “The penalty for disobeying the Masters is death,” he said coldly. Without any pity, he wrenched the weapon free. It was, I discovered, far more painful coming out, than it had been going in.

  And what did I say as a final epitaph? What great words did I utter that might have poetically summed up my 18 years of existence? Nothing. Instead all that I could do was respond with an inarticulate “Unh!”

  In the end, this was all my life had added up to, I realized. All the scientific study that I had engaged in, all of the languages that I had painstakingly taught myself to speak, all of my varied experience and carefully reasoned thoughts--everything had been distilled down to nothing more eloquent than an animalistic grunt of pain.

  And with this realization, another indignity was visited upon me. It was one of Death’s little calling cards, the undeniable sign that I was losing my battle with mortality. With the end drawing near, my bladder had given up the struggle at last, and released itself.

  Did my beloved Hypatia experience her end like this, I wondered? Was she as humiliated by the manner of her death and as disgusted by her body’s weakness as I was? I did not know, but I imagined that her final moments were no less miserable than mine.

  My legs were the next thing to go, and I dropped to my knees, feeling my lifeblood pulsing through my clenched fingers in perfect time with the beats of my frantic, overworked heart. Some perverse curiosity, or simply reflex, compelled me to turn my head at that moment, and stare along the length of the sabre’s blade. It gleamed wetly with a thin coating of gore that seemed to mock my terrible predicament.

  Blinking back tears, I turned away from this awful sight and managed to look back up at the Bookman one final time, slowly shaking my head at him in a silent, horrified denial of the obvious.

  His cold eyes met mine. “This was always intended to be your fate, Penelope Victoria Steele,” he said. “And now, you are going to die.”

  As if these were the words of a magical spell, the last of my strength drained away and I toppled forwards, only half feeling the carpet as my face slammed into it.

  The last things that I saw were the shiny surface of the Bookman’s boots with a few drops of my blood marring their perfection, the rough grain of the rug itself, and a thick, wavy lock of hair that had somehow escaped my coiffure.

  It covered a portion of my vision like a miniature shroud and the warm lights of the dining room made it seem as if it had been made from threads of pure, spun gold. The incongruent beauty of this struck me just seconds before unconsciousness arrived like a thief and stole everything away.

  After that, I saw and felt nothing…

  CHAPTER 4: Into the Empyrean

  In which I awaken and learn the truth about myself and my world. Then I am pressed into the service of the Masters and encounter the mysterious cabinet of curiosities.

  I had once read that a person’s life flashed before their eyes in some sort of review at the moment of death, but I learned that this was in fact, a blatant lie. I also confirmed the fallacy of heaven and hell. The Zerodian creed has it right; there is nothing mystical about the process of dying and nothing awaits us afterwards. Nothing save a vast grey void, and an electric hum that is neither pleasant nor grating upon the ears. It simply is.

  I spent something longer than centuries, and far shorter than seconds in this strange realm that was somehow both a place and nowhere at all. Then things akin to dreams appeared before me. They were weird disconnected visions that visited me in fits and starts, tormenting me as I floated in the grey nothingness, alone and terrified. I may have even screamed, but neither I, nor anything else, heard my cries.

  After a time, a voice reached my ears. “Penelope Victoria Steele,” it said. “It is time to Awaken.”

  I discovered then that I had eyes, and they fluttered open to reveal an incomprehensible scene. I was somewhere blindingly bright, and a figure was standing before me, but my vision was too blurry to lend it any coherency.

  “Your sight will soon clear,” the stranger assured me. “Give your eyes time.”

  I blinked again, and the scene sharpened a tiny bit. I was in a place that closely resembled a hospital room, and lying on some kind of metal bed. I kept at it, and the figure’s outlines, and then his features, became more intelligible.

  To my astonishment, I realized that I knew this man--and the uniform that he was wearing, although the combination could not be reconciled in my mind. It was none other than Professor Merriweather. He had no crutch, but supported himself as if he had never suffered any injury at all, and his outfit was that of a Bookman.

  I sat up, more thunderstruck at this than by my nakedness, and instantly regretted my decision. My head spun like a child’s top, and Merriweather rushed over and caught me in his arms before I could completely collapse.

  “There now, child! Not so fast!” he warned, “The transition cannot be rushed. You are still weak from your Awakening.”

  “How can this be?” I rasped. “I saw you dead. I-I died myself! And that uniform--why on earth are you wearing it?”

  “Penny my dearest,” he replied, his expression lined with pain. “You are correct; I died, just as you did. But I was not relieved of my obligation to the Masters. Neither were you.”

  I regarded him with an expression of puzzlement, and was just about to press for an explanation, when another man entered the room. By this point, I no longer had any difficulties with my vision. I recognized him instantly--and with absolute loathing.

  It was Bookman Pierce. He had some clothing draped over his arm, and he was holding a pair of boots.

  “You bastard!” I spat. Pierce did not react however. His face remained as impassive and unemotional as ever.

  “Murderer!”

  “It was necessary,” he replied flatly. “To serve the Masters properly, you had to be forcefully severed from your old life and in such a manner that you would never be afforded the opportunity to deny the truth. Thanks to the scar that your death left upon your consciousness, you will always be aware of your transition f
rom the mortal to the immortal.’

  “It is indelible, and now, illusion will never have the same hold upon you that it once did. Even if you manage to escape from this place, and return to your old world, none of it will be what it once was. That life, Ms. Steele, is well and truly gone.”

  I was so stunned by this that I merely gaped at him.

  “It is that way with all of us,” Merriweather offered. “We are all cursed with recalling the death of our mortality. Cruel certainly, but extremely effective.”

  While I attempted to cogitate this, another person appeared in the doorway. It was none other than Jennie, who I had seen shot through the heart. She too was attired in a Bookman’s uniform, and when our eyes met, she smiled at me in gentle reassurance. Some instinct made me look down at myself, and where there should have been a wound from Pierce’s sabre, my skin was smooth, and wholly untouched. I also realized that I lacked a navel.

  What has been done to me? I wondered.

  “My dear,” the Professor said. “There is so much that I have to explain to you that I am at a loss for words. Things are not as they seem. They never have been.”

  By this stage I had managed to recover enough of my senses to remember my father. “What of my father?” I asked. The poor man would be sick with worry about me.

  “He is in mourning,” Pierce stated without a jot of emotion. “He is weeping for a daughter who proved to be a traitor to the Laws. It will ruin him certainly, but you will enjoy a signal honor, for you will be considered a martyr by the Free Radicals. Indeed, like your beloved Hypatia, your death will inspire them. They will rebel, and in so doing, some of their number will prove themselves worthy enough to serve a greater cause.”

  “A greater cause?!” I demanded. “There is no greater cause than resisting tyrants like you, you heartless fiend!”