Blackbird: A Warrior of the No-When Read online

  Unmoved by my outburst, Pierce waved his hand. An image appeared in the air between us, as if created by some supernatural agency and my jaw went slack. I was certainly familiar with photographs, stereoscopy, and children’s flip books, but this was something of an entirely different order. Not only were the images dancing in the very air before me, but they were moving--and in color!

  Then, like a bolt of lightning illuminating the night, the knowledge revealed itself. Somehow, I understood what this was, and I even knew its formal name. It was called a ‘hologram’; a three dimensional projection of light and movement--and a familiar thing to my eyes, even though it was impossible for me to reconcile this with my experiences.

  The scene that it displayed was nowhere near as mysterious, and all too recognizable, banishing all my wonder and replacing it with leaden comprehension. I was looking at the interior of the Zerodian Temple, and myself, lying in a coffin.

  My father and Aunt Veronica were also there, and from what I could tell, they were the only persons in attendance. Father was the very picture of sorrow, and she was lending her strength to him as best she could, but I could tell that the effort was exacting a great toll upon her. It was a terrible image and once again, my vision was compromised, but this time, it was from tears.

  “This is all a lie,” I wailed. “A dreadful, evil lie.”

  “It is no lie,” Pierce replied coldly. “As you well know.”

  Professor Merriweather stepped forwards. “I think she has had more than enough, sir. Please, let me take her away from here so that she might recover in peace.”

  But Pierce shook his head. “No, Professor. She shall remain and we will attend to business.”

  Merriweather began to utter a protest, but he bit it back, bowed his head and brought his fist to his chest in some form of salute. “N'che se'dem,” he said meekly.

  Then he departed with Jennie in train. Despite the fantastical nature of my situation, I still had enough presence of mind to feel outrage at this cavalier treatment of my friend and mentor. Before I could give my anger any voice however, Pierce held up one of the items of clothing that he had brought.

  I knew it now. It was the black tunic of the Bookmen, and I understood without asking, that it was meant for me.

  “Dress yourself,” he instructed.

  “In that?” I asked, aghast.

  Pierce nodded soberly.

  “I think not, sir,” I replied, crossing my arms defiantly across my breasts.

  “That, or prance around naked,” he answered, tossing the garments to the table next to me with contempt. “I do not care which state you choose for yourself.”

  I looked around the room and realized that with the exception of his loathsome offering, that there was nothing else to cover myself with. I also discovered that I had still not fully plumbed the depths of my loathing for the man, and I glared at him as hatefully as I was capable of.

  In any fair universe, my gaze alone should have slain him on the spot. Unfortunately, it did not. Instead, he remained hale and healthy.

  With no other alternative, I snatched the garment up, and inclined my head towards the door. “May I at least be afforded a moment of privacy, sir?”

  Pierce regarded my request with as much amusement as his emotionless features were capable of, but nodded in affirmation.

  “Very well then, Lady Penelope. I will afford you the opportunity to indulge your modesty and await you in the passage.” At that, he left me to dress.

  When I finally emerged, I had the uniform on, and had arranged my hair as neatly as possible. Aside from my dislike of the uniform itself, I felt absolutely ridiculous in the trousers.

  The only time that a woman with any proper breeding wore jodhpurs and boots was when she was piloting a monoplane, and only because of the demands placed upon her by the machines design. At any other point, she would be considered indecently attired, and although I was given to Sapphism, I was no cross-dresser like some of my sisters were prone to be. Because of this, my lips were tight with indignation, and naturally, the wretch chose to ignore my discomfiture completely. Instead, his attention was focused entirely on Professor Merriweather.

  “I tell you sir that she is not ready for such a blow,” Merriweather was insisting.

  “And I disagree, Professor,” Pierce countered. “She has always proven resilient enough before now. I daresay that she possesses more fortitude than most men I have known. Besides which, it is the Master’s will that she learn as much as possible in the shortest time. We will need her skills with the Phaseship and time is growing short.”

  “Then I must insist on accompanying you,” the Professor demanded.

  “So be it,” Pierce responded curtly. “You shall play the same role that you did during her previous life; that of the teacher. But mind you, I will be the Headmaster of our little school and all of its lessons will be tailored to the Master’s requirements.”

  Merriweather bowed his head again. “As I have no other options, sir, I am compelled to agree.”

  “Indeed, “Pierce observed. Then he finally deigned to notice my presence and took me in in one brief glance.

  “It suits you,” he commented flatly. Without awaiting my reply, he turned on his booted heels and started down the corridor, forcing us to follow. I was tempted to utter a rude rejoinder, but thankfully my good breeding gave me the fortitude to resist such a crudity. Although, to be fair, the man richly deserved any insult that he received, and from any quarter.

  “Penny,” Merriweather warned. “Please, try to prepare yourself.”

  Already quite overcome and my mind awhirl with a thousand unanswered questions, I looked at him in bewilderment.

  “Whatever do you mean? Where is he taking us?”

  The Professor hesitated, and then answered. “To your birthplace, my dear. Fortify yourself. The sight can prove to be rather overwhelming.”

  By this point we had reached a doorway set in the passage, and Pierce halted there.

  “She does not require any coddling,” he snapped. “She will weather the truth and carry on, as she always has.” He waved his hand in front of the portal, and it opened with the barest of whispers.

  The room within was quite dark, and he stood aside and waved us in with an elaborate flourish as if he were a stage magician inviting a member of his audience to discover the deception behind his trickery. But Pierce was no Indian fakir, and given what I knew of him, whatever was inside was nothing pleasant.

  Taking in a strengthening breath, I entered with Merriweather right behind me. Some unknown agency activated a group of spotlights as I stepped across the threshold so that the room’s contents became starkly clear. What I beheld made me gasp aloud and I felt the Professor’s strong hands grasp my shoulders in support.

  The chamber was quite large, and circular, and its ceiling was a great smooth dome. A walkway with a railing ran around its circumference, and at various points, stairs led down to a smooth, flat floor.

  And on this floor, arranged in neat concentric rows around the center, were what looked like glass coffins. As I approached the railing trepidatiously, I realized that each one was occupied by a naked human form.

  Peering more closely, I could just make out the features of the nearest inmate and again, I gaped in amazement. The body was female, with lustrous blond hair that blossomed like a golden flower around her pale features, and she possessed a curvaceous form that I knew all too well from the many hours that I had spent gazing upon its very duplicate in the mirror.

  Disbelieving, I walked to the nearest stair and descended it, and then made my way over to the crystalline casket. There, I halted, and stared down with a mixture of awe and horror. The woman lying before me was my perfect twin.

  She was not asleep however, or at least not in the conventional sense, for I was unable to detect any evidence of respiration, or even the small restless movements that normally accompany a natural state of rest. Even so, the healthy color of her skin a
nd the overall state of her form indicated that she was as alive as I, but in some arcane state of unconsciousness that I could not begin to fathom. She was like some princess in a child’s fairy tale, held in suspended animation through the agency of a witch’s curse.

  “W--who is this woman?” I asked, tracing my fingers over the smooth polished surface. And as I did so, I wondered if like an ensorcelled noblewoman, all that she required was a kiss to rouse her from her somnolence.

  Professor Merriweather answered me. “As Pierce stated, she is you Penelope,” he said in a half whisper. “Not a twin, but you in every respect.”

  I shook my head in bafflement, utterly confused by this, and yet, unable to deny what I was seeing with my own eyes. The man was telling me the truth, however fantastic it was.

  “The Masters have the ability to create copies of us from the smallest cells of our bodies,” he explained, “and implant them with the memories of their predecessors so that they believe--“

  He stopped himself and looked at me, his expression fraught with concern and doubt. Whatever he had been about to say was so terrible that it was clear that he feared for my sanity.

  “Believe what?” I asked, already beginning to grasp the fantastic shape of what he intended to reveal.

  “That they are the original,” Pierce interjected harshly. “The Masters refer to these duplicates as ‘clones’. And you, Penelope Victoria Steele are one yourself.”

  “No,” I retorted shaking my head in vehement denial. “That cannot be.”

  “It is, my darling,” Merriweather said softly. “You are the 1033rd iteration of the original, and all of your memories are the product of your predecessor, and not your own. Your life began after she died on Pierce’s sword.”

  The room seemed to spin as the full implications of this incredible revelation hit me with full force, and Merriweather caught me as my legs became weak.

  “I am so terribly sorry, Penny,” he said into my ear as he supported me. “I did not desire for you to learn the truth in such a harsh manner. But it is true, and not only for yourself, but for all the rest of us. We are all replicas, my dear.’

  “For us, death is not final. Thanks to the Master’s science, we cannot truly perish as long as our memories remain intact. Our bodies are merely shells for them, and the Masters have made those same bodies impervious to disease through the agency of microscopic mechanica that swim in our very blood.”

  Seeing the doubt writ plain on my face, he asked, “Did you ever wonder why the Influenza never claimed you when it took so many others? It could not, for it was unable to gain any purchase within you.”

  He was referring to the deadly Spanish Flu that had cut a swath through our city in 1893. I had been 16 then, and had volunteered as a nurse, helping to treat the victims of this terrible sickness. A number of other girls, serving as I did, had fallen ill and died.

  But not I. I had remained the very picture of health throughout the entire pandemic.

  “Even age has been conquered,” he continued. “Using the same advanced science, the Masters can fix our years at any stage of life. Yours is as you are now. You will never grow a day older than 18, no matter how many centuries pass. Only misadventure can claim you, and then, only temporarily.”

  This is utterly impossible, I told myself, wondering if the entire affair were some kind of grotesque dream. Had I gone down Mr. Carroll’s proverbial rabbit-hole only to end up in this bizarre and lunatic realm? Was this in fact some kind of terrible vision brought about by an unknown narcotic? I was half-certain that it was.

  I am no ‘clone’ of myself. I am as real as anyone!

  But was I? The woman lying before me, and the other supine bodies all around me, argued otherwise.

  This was no vision, I realized, nor any dream. It was all too real, and although I had just been told that I possessed a gift that any other woman would have desired, eternal youth and perfect health, I would have gladly surrendered them then and there for the chance to return to the life that I had once known. But I could not. That life was gone and the gifts could not be returned.

  “Did you know about this?” I finally asked. “From the beginning?”

  The poor man shook his head sadly. “No. I was like you. I was ignorant of my true origins…of all of this…until I was Awakened.” His gaze travelled to another part of the hall, and I knew that he was looking towards the place where his own duplicate slumbered in the shadows.

  “What about everyone else?” I demanded, gesturing towards the rooms contents. “Father? Edward? The others?” Now, anything at all seemed possible.

  “I truly do not know,” he answered. “Some are like us, and perhaps all of them are.”

  The caskets around me took on a new and urgent significance and I looked about me, searching their contents with my eyes. Then I turned back to face him.

  “Elizabeth? “ I asked haltingly, “Is she really...?” I couldn’t finish the question, and my heart was filled with a painful mixture of dread and desperate hope.

  Merriweather clasped my hand tenderly. “I cannot say. I only know that she died during the match. And I have not seen her clone, if it exists, either here nor anywhere else. But there is always the possibility, my dear. We are proof enough of that…”

  With the greatest of difficulty, I managed to master myself. Hope, however faint, would have to sustain me.

  By now, Pierce had reached the limits of his patience. “She has seen enough Merriweather, and we are wasting time with all this talk. It is time to show her the true shape of the world.”

  “No!” Merriweather exclaimed. “The poor thing has endured enough for one day. Have some decency, man!”

  “Decency is for mortals,” Pierce retorted, already descending the ladder and coming to us. “And we are neither mortal, nor are we afforded a surfeit of time. I told you that I would be the Headmaster, and school is still very much in session.”

  At this, he turned his attention to me. “You will come with me, “he ordered. “We are going for a ride.”

  “Wherever to?” I demanded, summoning up a measure of courage that I did not truly feel. There was something terrifying in his eyes, which warned me that if I did as he said, I would encounter things that were even more devastating than anything I had experienced thus far.

  “To the very edge of the world itself,” he said enigmatically.

  I glanced at the Professor, but his head was lowered in submission. “We must do as he says, Penny. I would not have it happen so soon after your awakening, and although he does not possess the grace to do so, I apologize.”

  “Come, Penelope,” Pierce snapped. “Or would you have me drag you there by your hair?”

  “Please sir,” Merriweather entreated. “There is no need for violence. She will accompany you.”

  Seeing that he fully intended to use force to get his way, I nodded. “I will come,” I said, following him reluctantly into what proved to be an elevator.

  The contraption was wholly unlike any that I had ever encountered before. There were no controls of any kind, and yet, when Pierce made a gesture, I felt us rising upwards with such a smoothness that it seemed as if the very zephyrs of the air were taking us upon their shoulders into the heavens.

  When the door opened once more, I found myself in another room. It was much smaller than the one containing the glass coffins, and instead of carriages and horses, there were a trio of the black motorcars that only the Bookmen used. Pierce directed me towards the nearest of these, and the doors of the machine responded, opening without any apparent manipulation and revealing its interior.

  It was clear that he intended to drive us somewhere in the infernal thing, and I balked at the prospect. Then I felt the pressure of Professor Merriweather’s hand returning to my shoulder, and thus fortified, boarded the car and took my place in the passenger seat.

  As Pierce started it, a section of the far wall irised open, revealing a featureless tunnel that was lit from above by s
trips of light that lent it little cheer and did nothing to reveal what lay at its end. Then we began to move, and immediately upon entering the passage, the motorcar’s lamps came on, illuminating the roadway with a garish intensity.

  But they provided no clues for my eyes to discern, and our drive was so smooth, and so silent, that only the passage of the lights overhead gave any indication at all of our progress. From the speed with which they approached and disappeared, I eventually calculated that we were traveling at a velocity that far outstripped what the fastest locomotive was capable of, and certainly beyond the capability of any steam car.

  Finally, at the very end of the tunnel, another opening appeared and before my senses had quite come to terms with this, we had emerged from under the very Halls of Justice itself and onto the familiar cobbles of the streets that I had always known.

  It was nighttime, and the gas lamps had been lit, illuminating the closed shops and the occasional passerby, or a hansom going about its business. Everything seemed quite normal, and yet I could not deny where I was sitting, or the strange circumstances that had brought me there, and I felt an odd disconnection from the scene as if it had all become part of some great dream. Which in a sense, it was.

  At last, I saw that Pierce was taking us on a road that led out of the city and into the countryside. He remained wordless, keeping his hands on the controls and his eyes fixed doggedly on the road.

  The lights from the instrument panel were the only illumination in the cabin, and their eerie greenish glow conspired with the night to make the Bookman seem like a religionist’s demon, intent on delivering me to some unimaginable netherworld. Unbidden and unwelcome, his remark that our destination was at the very edge of the world came to mind, and I recalled the Flammarion Print hanging in my father’s study. Sitting there next to him, the Empyrean realm now seemed less of an abstraction than ever.

  Only the Professor’s presence made our journey into the unknown bearable. That, and the fact that my mentor had already experienced whatever it was that I was about to deal with, and had emerged relatively unscathed. Had he not been there, I am quite certain that I would have been inclined to feel a greater sense of panic. Because of him, I was able to maintain my dignity and avoided giving Pierce the satisfaction of seeing me afraid.