The Earl of Brass (The Ingenious Mechanical Devices Book 1) (2 page)

Ether Dreams

Painful fever dreams coursed through Eilian's mind as he lay unconscious. The muggy jungle rose around him, engulfing him in mist and shadow as he stumbled through the dense undergrowth. The tatters of his clothing clung to his chest and restricted his limbs until he could scarcely hobble over the fanned buttress roots of a mangrove tree. Eilian leaned back against the tree panting. Where was he? His skin burned with the salt of his sweat, but as he closed his eyes against the oppressive heat, something bit into his arm with a sharp prick. He stared down at his hand in horror as a horde of ants and jewel-backed beetles marched up his forearm, tearing and chewing at his flesh. The archaeologist tried to shake them off, but the insects continued their torturous feast. Beneath their teeth, his arm was eroded until all that was left were the raw, bloodied sinews and ivory bones, which peeked from between the bands of glistening flesh. His breath quickened as he desperately wiped his arm against the trees and ferns to knock the carnivorous bugs away. He stumbled back but tried to grasp the nearest branch. The leaves slipped through his fingers, and Lord Sorrell plummeted from the jungle cliff.

His body collided with the polished, algid surface of the rocks, but as his eyes met the searing sun, the rainforest dissolved into darkness. The plaster-walled room chilled his skin, teasing each hair and goose-bump to attention. Four alien figures eclipsed the sun as they stared down at him and manipulated his body. Against his will, his aching frame was raised and bound in long loops of linen. From the edge of his vision, he saw the creatures’ webbed masks and misshapen grey bodies. Eilian moaned as one of them lifted his arm, sending waves of unbearable pain and nausea coursing through every cell. Hearing his cry, the largest of the beasts held his head in his massive paw and wrenched his jaw open. Lord Sorrell fought against his grip but was easily overpowered as the man poured something hot down his throat. To keep from drowning, he swallowed the bitter brew until the creature left him to return to spinning his web around his torso and breast.
They must be mummifying me
, he concluded as his mind lapsed back into ether dreams.

The impermeable nothingness entrapped Eilian Sorrell, keeping his body and mind suspended in a quiet only rarely punctuated by a voice so distant he could barely discern its owner. A woman was weeping somewhere deep in the abyss. His mother cried that her child didn't deserve this, but when he tried to reach her, he only floated further into the shadows. Time slipped from hours to days and back to minutes in the silence. A much deeper yet familiar grumbling voice echoed through his mind. He lamented for his poor boy. A bolt of panic nearly broke through the cavern. Could the dead hear? Maybe he was eavesdropping on his own funeral. The voices died away again, and as quickly as the glimpses of consciousness returned, they were torn asunder in the vacuum of his mind.

***

Multiple men were calling out around him, all nonsensical and foreign, except Patrick’s gentle voice, which sounded further away. Eilian drowsily opened his eyes, using all his strength to keep them open as he scanned the people around him. All of them were touching his face, pulling at his eyelids, and grabbing at his wrists.

“Lord Sorrell, open your eyes. Please cooperate, Lord Sorrell!”

Eilian defiantly rolled his head away from their prying fingers and let his eyes flutter open again. He was in his bedroom surrounded by old, rather ugly men, grimacing and gaping down at him like Renaissance grotesques.

“Leeb me a-own!”

The words were articulated correctly in his head but came out muddled. Eilian tried to fight against the bandage entrapping his jaw, but his skull felt twice as heavy as it normally did and pulsated rhythmically. He struggled to move his body. His right side was numb yet tingled with a prickling pain while his left side ached unbearably. As he succumbed to fatigue, he closed his eyes and allowed the doctors to continually touch and prod him. One of them ripped his blankets away, sending a rush of cold air across his bare skin, making his bandages flutter. The physician listened to his heart and lungs before carelessly throwing the covers back over him. He sighed softly as the intoxicating warmth sucked him into slumber.

***

Nearly a day later, the familiar glimpses of life returned. Eilian strained to open his eyes, but through the afternoon sun filtering in between the gaps in the drapes, he could make out the trappings of his bedroom. Tapestries of knights and dogs hunting and traversing fields of mythological beasts and embroidered forests hung on every wall. The clock on the mantle ticked beneath the solemn face of Athena. Peeking between the green curtains of the four-poster bed, he was pleased to find the room empty.
Maybe it was all a dream
, he thought until he realized he still ached as if he had been hit by a steam engine. Carefully, he attempted to lift his head, but his neck didn’t feel strong enough to pull it off the pillow. He turned toward the mirror near the far wall and could make out Patrick pacing in the sitting room right outside his door.

“Pat,” he called hoarsely, scarcely audible even to himself.

As if waiting to be summoned, the young yet white-haired butler rushed in followed by two doctors. “Sir, how are you feeling?” Patrick asked but was quickly knocked to the side by the most corpulent doctor.

The fat one took up over half of the bedside as he pulled off the covers and began to listen with his stethoscope. Eilian wondered how the doctor was able to hold it since his sausage fingers were barely able to grasp the nickel funnel. A second physician with a wig fit for a barrister checked his pulse before pushing past the fat one to examine his eyes. To get them to leave him alone sooner, he allowed them to subject him to every test they could concoct until they were finally satisfied that he was alert.

“Butler, bring him some tea and food,” bellowed the roundest doctor after he had finished poking and prodding him.

Of course, Fatty wants me to eat the moment I’m conscious
, he thought as they finally replaced his covers and backed away. “I’m not hungry.”

“Lord Sorrell, you need your rest and plenty of nourishment after the ordeal you have been through,” the barrister began pompously, counting off the events on his fingers. “The crash, the fire, the surgeries—”

“Wha—what surgeries?” Eilian stammered, suddenly feeling very alert.

Patrick paused with his hand poised on the door. Somehow he knew this moment would not go well. He looked back at his master’s eyes and found them wide and full of the terror one only sees in a child.

“We amputated your right arm.”

“You did
what
?” he yelled hoarsely as he struggled to sit upright.

“We excised it.”

“Wait, wait, I don’t understand.”

“We cut it off.”

“I know what
excise
and
amputate
mean, you dolt! Why would you do this?”

Eilian grabbed the edge of the sheets and pulled them away to reveal a heavily bandaged and bloodied stump where his right arm had been. He hadn’t realized it was gone. In his mind, the fingers were still wriggling. He tried to lift it, but the movement sent sharp pains through his chest and what remained of his arm. The breath caught in his throat as Eilian ran his fingers over the end of his shortened limb. It was true. It was gone. His eyes watered as he stared at it before turning back to the group of men at his feet.

“Why did you do this?” he choked with tears burning his lids. “Was— was there no other way?”

“There was simply no other choice. You simply must accept that it had to be done,” the doctor replied in the same arrogant manner as before. “You have much more convalescence ahead of you.”

The anger steadily rose up his throat, threatening to venomously spew out. Each physician was staring down at him, making him feel less than human. How dare they speak so offhandedly about his altered state. The flippant yet portentous manner in which they had dealt with him was enough to make him strike them if he had the strength.

“Get out!” Eilian roared. “All of you,
get out
!”

“Lord Sorrell, you have no right to be ill tempered with us,” reprimanded the corpulent doctor.

“I am still master of this house, and I have every right to be
ill tempered
!” He pointed at each of them with his left hand. “All of you,
out
!”

They both separately turned to protest, but the fire in his eyes and the authority he exuded even in his deteriorated state deterred them. As the barrister stormed out with a slam of the bedroom door, Patrick watched the strength seeped from Eilian’s body as he gradually sunk into the pillows. The butler hesitated at the door. The doctors he had brought to care for his boss were leaving while he was still on the verge of death, and worse yet his master had been the one to dismiss them. Lord Sorrell held his head in his hand and fought back the tears collecting behind his eyes.

“Sir,” Patrick began uncomfortably, “do you want me to escort them out or would you like them out of the room temporarily?”

“Show them out. Tell them they will be paid later.”

Patrick nodded and disappeared into the hall.

Eilian raised his left arm and stared at his wrapped, swollen hand. Every muscle ached as he reached up and touched his face. The skin was puffy near a few cuts that were stitched closed, but it was wholly unburned. As he inched toward his chin, the sting of healing blisters became more pronounced. What state was he in? His neck and jaw were bandaged as was his chest and torso on the right side. He reached below the sheets and ran his hand over the gauze around his thigh. He tapped his big toes against each other.
Both feet are here, so both of my legs are intact
.

“Hello,” he said to himself, testing his speech. “How are you? The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

Apart from being slightly weak, he could pronounce every syllable even with the tight wrappings encumbering his jaw. He then promptly ran his tongue over his teeth.
Thank goodness they are all there
. Despite hating that he would eventually inherit a title, he didn’t want to look like a common beggar or be forced to wear dentures. As he reached up to touch his teeth, his heart sank. His fingers would never reach. The nub hung suspended in midair. Eilian knew his hand and forearm were missing, but he could feel his fingers clenching and relaxing. Did his body not realize it was gone?

“Sir, are you all right?” Patrick asked from the threshold as he watched Lord Sorrell stare longingly at his missing limb.

“I can still feel it.” His eyes were rapidly filling with tears. “Why did they do this, Pat? Was there no other way?”

Patrick weightlessly sat on the edge of Eilian’s bed. “I knew this would be very hard on you, and I wanted to be the one to tell you. Despite the tactlessness of the men you sent away, they
are
some of the best surgeons and doctors in England.”

“So even the best were powerless to save it?”

He nodded. “When I heard about the airship crash, I got to the hospital as fast as I could. The doctor unwrapped your arm to ask me what you would want done. It was blackened below the elbow and burnt to the bone. You could,” he paused and swallowed hard, “see
it
when they lifted up the skin. That’s why I hired the other doctors in London and had you brought back here for treatment. They decided that removing it was the best option, the
only
option.”

His eyes grew wide. “But what about…”

The butler raised his hand, and Eilian fell silent. “If you were allowed to keep it, you would have gotten gangrene and died. You don’t seem to grasp the gravity of your condition. You may care most about your arm, but there are other injuries that are much more pressing.”

Eilian’s chest tightened as Patrick continued, “You have severe burns from your neck to your thigh on your right side, you were in a coma for five days for seemingly no reason, and you have dozens of cuts and bruises. Who knows if you have any infections or if you will be able to move or walk normally again?”

Tears flooded Eilian’s eyes. His ribs squeezed until breathing was nearly impossible. His heart pounded as the words reverberated through his mind. He rubbed his shortened arm as he fought against the intense stinging in his eyes. Patrick was looking at him with the soft, concerned eyes of a friend, but he couldn’t bear to meet his gaze. As his roving fingers trailed to the curve of his arm, his resistance finally broke down. The stifled sobs shook his back, sending sharp pains through his ribs and spine. All hope drained from his body as he poured out his soul and strength to his friend. What if everything that could go wrong did?

Patrick watched helplessly as Eilian finally broke into ragged, hiccupped sobs that sounded as painful as they were heart-wrenching. Never had he meant to make him cry. He had let his own built-up emotions and stress get the best of him and had taken it out on his friend. Even when Eilian had been gravely ill with various tropical diseases, he had never lost his underlying fire, but for the first time in years, the young adventurer and writer looked frail and broken. The butler stared at his companion and tentatively reached out to gently squeeze his shoulder, faltering as he did not know what to do without overstepping his bounds.