The Dragons of Winter (17 page)

“Curse it all, Uncas!” he yelled. “Slow down!”

Suddenly he realized what he’d just shouted, and he turned crimson from the neck up as Verne roared with laughter.

“Sorry,” John said. “Force of habit.”

C
HAPTER
T
EN
The Hotel d’Ailleurs

The hotel was only three
stories tall, and the exterior was not especially imposing. It was a Swiss building in a Swiss town, and so it was practical, efficient, and just a little bit bland. John was about to make a comment to that effect when Verne opened the front door and ushered him inside.

To the left of the clerk’s desk—which Verne bypassed with a wave of his hand—was a bar, which was to be expected, and a small kitchen from which a delicious aroma was wafting. But to the right was a great room, and suddenly John started to realize what it was about this hotel that kept Verne’s attention. From Persian-rug floor to pressed-tin ceiling, the walls were covered with perhaps the greatest collection of fantastic art John had ever seen.

There were framed paintings, and etchings, and pencil drawings, and in the corners even a few sculptures—and the common theme that tied them all together was that they were based on great works of science fiction. John also noted, wryly, that a large percentage of the art was based on the work of Jules Verne.

“But of course!” Verne exclaimed when John commented on it. “It’s my hotel, so why shouldn’t most of the decoration be based on my own best works?”

It was appointed to resemble a private club . . .

“I see,” John said as he examined a painting based on one of Verne’s earliest works,
In Search of the Castaways
. “And how many of Bert’s works are represented here?”

“A goodly number,” Verne replied, “at least fifteen percent.”

“Fifteen percent?”

“All right, ten,” Verne admitted, “but it’s a really excellent ten percent.”

He led John past all the paintings to a doorway located under the stairs to the rooms above. The door led down to an older structure that the hotel was built on. As they passed, John could see the notches in the walls that were meant to hold lamps before the gas lines had been installed.

Verne continued down the corridor to a cramped foyer, which was lit by a small Chinese lamp on a rather rickety oak table. Opposite the lamp were double doors, which were fitted with an elaborate lock. On the center of the right-hand door was a large knocker.

John had noticed as they walked through the hallway that in the older part of the hotel there were ancient Icelandic runes carved into every bit of exposed wood, and around these doors, they were so thick that they looked like another layer of graining in the wood.

“You know,” he said as he peered more closely at the runes, “with a good magnifying lens I could probably translate these in fairly short order.”

“I’ve no doubt you could, young John,” said Verne, “but I’ll save you the trouble. They basically say ‘Here you leave the world
of the flesh and enter the realm of the spirit,’ or something like that. Shall we go in?”

“Knock, or do you have the key?”

“Both,” replied Verne. “Knock to let them know we’re coming, and use the key to actually get in. After the recent incidents at Tamerlane House, security is ever more on my mind.”

The door knocker was an ornate carving of a face, with a kerchief tied around its jaw. “A Marley knocker,” Verne said as he reached for the tappet. “Charles gave it to me as a Christmas gift some years back, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do with it.”

He rapped with the knocker once, then again, then a third time before inserting the key into the lock below and turning the handle.

The door opened, and John’s jaw dropped as he recognized the man behind it as Benjamin Franklin.

“Why, John, my fine young fellow,” Franklin said, roaring with laughter. “What’s wrong? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!”

“That’s not funny,” said Verne as they stepped across the threshold. “I haven’t explained everything to him yet.”

“I apologize, then,” Franklin said, ushering them inside. “It’s good to see you again, John.”

“And you, Doctor,” said John. “What is this place?”

“Some of us have taken to calling it the Wonder Cabinet,” Franklin answered. “It’s the place where wonderful, improbable things are kept. And also,” he added, “we’re in Switzerland, so, you know, of course no one knows about it who isn’t supposed to.”

The room was expansive, but crowded with individuals who
all stopped what they were doing to take note of their visitors. It was appointed to resemble a private club, much like the club on Baker Street in London—except that instead of being a club for gentlemen scholars, this one was more of an eclectic think tank populated by Caretaker candidates.

“John, my boy,” said Verne, “meet the
Mystorians
.”

He immediately recognized Charles Dodgson, also known as Lewis Carroll, sitting with George Macdonald on a riser over to the right. Christina Rossetti was arguing with the American writers Robert E. Howard and L. Frank Baum on another riser over to the left, while Arthur Machen and Hope Mirrlees were in the center, debating politely with Sir Isaac Newton and two other men whom John didn’t recognize.

“This is Dr. Demetrius Doboobie, and Master Erasmus Holiday,” Verne said in introduction, “both here by way of the novel
Kenilworth
.”

“Sir Walter Scott’s book?” John asked, scanning the room again. “Is he here?”

“Sorry,” Dr. Doboobie said, standing, but not offering his hand. “He was a fiction—but luckily, we are not.”

“Not as long as we’re here, anyroad,” said Holiday.

“Agatha Christie is also with us,” said Verne, “but she’s less able to travel, since on her last mission, her absence was noticed—a little too prominently, shall we say.”

“When was that?”

“In 1926,” said Franklin. “She was shadowing you, incidentally, John. But it turned out all right. I’d have done it myself, but”—he gestured at the room—“being dead, I was a bit more limited than she was.”

It was only then that John realized that most of those in the room were actually well past their allotted time spans.

“Yes,” Franklin said jovially. “We’re dead—well, most of us anyway. We served as Mystorians in our own times, and now we exist here, to help those who serve during yours.”

Suddenly John understood. “The runes, outside, on the walls.”

“Yes,” said Verne. “That’s what allows these spirits to exist here, alongside the living.”

“It’s why I also impolitely declined to shake your hand,” said Franklin. “My substance has not kept pace with my influence, it seems.”

“They are present, but insubstantial,” Verne explained, “so they can’t touch anything. They can only advise and discuss—and they do a lot of that.”

“You don’t have to speak as if we’re not here,” sniffed Carroll.

“Sorry, Doctor,” said Verne. “I apologize.”

“Doctor?” asked John.

“There’s no real seniority or ranking among them,” said Verne, “and the living Mystorians got irritated by Franklin’s insistence that he be addressed as ‘Doctor,’ and so at some point they all started requesting it.”

“Is this hotel the only place where ghosts are actually visible to, ah, the still living?” asked John.

“Not at all,” Franklin said, chuckling, “but it is the only place where ghosts are visible
by design
.”

“Hmm,” said John, rubbing his chin. “What do Houdini and Conan Doyle think about all this?”

“I’ve thought now and again about bringing them here,” Verne replied, “in part because they both have an affinity for the realm of
the spirit, but also because they are both brilliant minds. And then,” he added ruefully, “Harry says or does something so completely irresponsible that I want to throttle him, and I think better of it.”

“And Sir Arthur?”

Verne shook his head. “Tell the one, tell them both,” he said dismissively. “They really are decent Caretaker material, or would be, if they weren’t perpetually sixteen.”

“I take offense at that,” said Frank Baum, who was in a corner immersed in a stack of comic books. “Sixteen was a good year to be alive.”

“All our scientific research is done here,” said Verne, “away from the prying eyes of the Cabal, or traitors like Defoe.”

“Forgive my ignorance,” said John, “but other than Dr. Franklin and Sir Isaac, I don’t see any other . . .”

“Scientists?” Carroll said, rising from his seat. “You do not look deeply enough, boy. My prime specialty is mathematics, and Frank’s—”

“Ahem-hem,” said Baum.

“I apologize—
Dr.
Baum is a technological genius greater than even Dr. Franklin. It’s part of what makes us effective as Mystorians,” he concluded. “I can tell you all the secrets of time travel in a poem. And have. It’s just that no one has bothered to look to poetry for the secrets of the universe.”

“I’m sorry,” John said, shaking his head in disbelief, “but you make it sound as if time travel were much simpler than it really is.”

“In actuality,” said Carroll, “
everything
is much simpler than it appears to be. Everything.”

Another young man from the back of the room stood up to meet John.

“My name is Joseph,” the ghost said as he started to offer his hand to the Caretaker, then, with a wry smile, thought better of it. “I admire your work very much.”

“Thank you,” John replied. He looked over the young ghost, trying to ascertain where he fit among the pantheon of noted men and women in the Mystorians.

When Joseph realized why he was being scrutinized, his ghostly cheeks pinked self-consciously. “No, good sir, you do not know me,” he said, answering John’s unspoken question. “At least, not in this form.”

“Some of the Mystorians were not so much engaged in active work on our behalf, as they were in observing and reporting on the players in the Great Game at the time they were alive,” Verne explained. “Young Joseph here was just such an observer—and later in his life, he was as famous as any of those he reported on. That was his shield—he was so famous that no one noticed the activities he engaged in for himself.”

Again, the young ghost’s face reddened. “That’s very charitable of you to say, Mr. Verne, but we both know that’s not the reason no one paid attention.”

He looked John squarely in the eye and smiled a sad smile, which was made more beautiful by the perfect symmetry of his features. “The reason no one gave credence to me or what I was covertly doing for the Prime Caretaker was that I was hideously deformed, and no one among the members of polite society could fathom that my mind was not similarly deformed.”

John considered this for a moment, then stepped back in surprise. “Joseph . . .
Merrick
?” he said hesitantly. “You’re Joseph Merrick!”

The young ghost nodded gravely. “I am. You would have known me by the appellation ‘The Elephant Man.’”

John looked at Joseph, then at Verne and back again. “I’m not sure I understand,” he said. “Are you a tulpa? How is it that . . . ah . . .” He stumbled over his words, unsure of what to ask without offending the young man.

Joseph smiled. “How is it that I have the appearance that I do? It’s simple—this is how I really am.”

“But you were so terribly deformed—,” John began.

“No,” Joseph said firmly, cutting him off. “My
body
was terribly deformed. I was not.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I
am
a soul,” Joseph answered. “I
had
a body.”

The clarity of it suddenly flashed across John’s face. “Ah,” he said. “I do understand, and I apologize. My friend Jack would have seen that right away.”

“Here,” Verne said, drawing John to the far side of the room and pulling out two chairs so they could sit. “Let me show you what the good Doctors Baum and Carroll have been doing.

“They’ve been working on a theory that the trumps are actually opening something called wormholes,” Verne explained, gesturing at some diagrams on Carroll’s table. “The smaller ones permit communication, and the larger ones actual travel. And what Carroll here has been working on—”