The Educated Ape & other Wonders of the Worlds (56 page)

Mostly
this watch made the cardinal smile. But he smiled not this evening. ‘The time
draws near,’ he whispered to his catamite. ‘Evil comes amongst us.

Evil now fell
into orbit around the planet named Earth. The flying palace, with its many pink
turrets and spires, swung through space at a fair rate of knots, sailing high
and mightily above the planet of blue that turned below.

‘Now
what be those?’ asked Mister Mate, bedecked as a pirate with tricorn and
britches and getting rather into the spirit of it.

‘What
art what?’ replied the pinky princess.

‘There
be ships a-sailing.’ Mister Mate did pointings with his cutlass.

Princess
Pamela located a spyglass, bound elegantly in pink flamingo skin, and raised it
to her favourite eye. Away into space white forms drifted, ghostlike fluttering
forms.

‘Venusian
aether ships,’ said Princess Pamela. ‘There art a veritable armada of ‘em out
there.’

‘Should
I put a couple of rounds across their bows?’ asked Mister Mate.

‘No.’
The princess shook her head. ‘When I take my place on t’ throne, they’ll bow
their silly ‘eads same as all t’ rest, or blood’ll surely flow,’ said Princess
Pamela.

‘Blood! The snow
has turned to blood!’ Mr Churchill’s adjutant began to flap his hands and spin
around in small circles.

‘Cease
your foolishness!’ Mr Churchill used his most commanding voice. ‘It will be
sand from the Sahara or some such. Stay still, lad.’ Mr Churchill grabbed the
spinning Pooley by the scruff of the neck. ‘You will behave yourself, or— Mr
Churchill paused as the light shining up from the great halls below tinged the
adjutant’s face a glowing pink. But Mr Churchill saw more than this. Boils were
breaking out upon young Pooley’s forehead and cheeks. Boils that sprouted where
the red snow had touched.

Cries
and screams now came to Mr Churchill’s ears, rising from the Mall and streets
below.

A
shout of, ‘ ‘Tis the Pestilence!’ was loudly to be heard.

But not within
the concert hall of the Grand Exposition, where the red snow touched not and
only beauty was to be heard. The audience, enchanted by the glorious music,
sighed in their comfortable seatings, their heads bobbing gently, their spirits
drifting.

Cameron Bell sat
three seats along from the cardinal. He too studied the face of his pocket
watch and he too feared for what might lie ahead. The nineteenth century was
drawing to a close and although he was here in this wondrous building
listening to music that many, including himself considered to be amongst the
highest of human achievements, the great detective felt a chill that pierced
him to the bone. She was coming, he knew it, the monster, the Lady Beast.
Coming to claim the throne of her sister. Coming to bring ruination to Mankind.

Could
he prevent this from happening?

Would
those he had urged to help fail him when he needed them the most?

Cameron’s
head bobbed in time to the marvellous music. His hand gripped tightly around
his pocket watch.

Princess
Pamela’s hands gripped tightly to the parapet of a curly-whirly tower. The
princess wore a lustrous gown awash with sequins all in pink, a cloak with a
collar of ermine and a mighty train that spread for many yards.

The
flying palace passed into the atmosphere of Earth. Which differed but little
from the all-pervading atmosphere of space, but for a smell of smoky chimneys,
brass and brickwork and the scent of Man.

The
Lady Beast turned up her nose at the rancid stink of Man.

‘Picture
it pink, lass,’ she told Lavinia Dharkstorrm. ‘Picture a world run by women,
where men do what they art told.’

Lavinia
Dharkstorrm pictured such a world. ‘It would be pleasing,’ she said.

The
palace now dropped down towards the clouds that covered London. Clouds from
which the bright red snow fell thickly.

‘Stay out of the
snow, lad.’ Mr Churchill dragged the boil-ridden adjutant to the airship’s
cabin and set him down to rest. ‘Call the troops below,’ Mr Churchill shouted
at the wireless operator. ‘Tell them to shield their faces and hands and train
their guns upon the sky. I fear that Cameron Bell is right — the danger comes
from above.’

Down and ever
downwards came the palace of the Lady Beast.

And there appeared a great wonder

in Heaven. A woman clothed with

the Sun and the Moon under her

feet.

Revelation
12:1

And there appeared another wonder in

Heaven: and behold a great red

dragon with seven heads and

ten horns.

Revelation
12:3

And
as a great red dragon, the palace descended in silence. As within the concert
hall, the very first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth came to its perfect ending.

54

ilence
in the concert hall and silence now without.

Arturo
Toscanini raised his baton. Brought it down.

Began
the second movement.

A movement in
the Heavens drew the attention of gunners on the ground, gunners now sheltering
from the deadly snow. Messages were exchanged. Mr Churchill viewed the
descending palace. Ordered the airship’s captain to swing away to starboard.
Ordered the gunners on the ground to open fire upon the massive structure
dropping from on high.

Now blood-red
as any dragon, down the palace came.

Bolts of deadly
energy tore into the sky, flashed and burned upon the walls of the falling
bloody palace. The flashes and explosions lit up the sky above the great arched
roof of the Grand Exposition and the concert-goers leaned back in their seats.

A son
et lumière! Fireworks to accompany the great musical work! How fitting! How
absolutely perfect!

Queen
Victoria rattled her jewellery, then sipped at her champagne.

Cameron
Bell rose up from his seat.

‘So
it begins,’ he whispered.

Mr Churchill had
his helmet on. He bawled instructions into the brass mouthpiece of the wireless
set. The Mark 5 Juggernaut Tanks lurched into motion in Trafalgar Square,
angled up their turret cannons and rolled towards the Mall.

Incendiary
shells exploded about Mr Churchill’s airship. Mr Churchill hurled invective
into his brass mouthpiece.

The
blood-stained palace drew to a halt five hundred feet above the halls of the
Grand Exposition. In the throne-room on the second floor, Princess Pamela
strutted to and fro before a mighty gathering of pirates, her long cloak
trailing out behind, a crown upon her head.

‘Lads,’
cried she. ‘I want thee t’ go down there and give those soldiers ‘ell. Many of
thee won’t be comin’ back, but that don’t matter nowt to me as I ‘ave bigger
things to be going on with. Dost thou all ‘ave stuff to throw down?’

‘Aye!’
went the pirates, as pirates should, and displayed those items they had chosen
for throwing down. Pointy objects, heavy things that would hurt if they fell
upon your head. Pots of paint, which held to a certain humour. A baby seal and
a puppy, which did
not.

Lavinia
Dharkstorrm stood in a towering turret, before her on a pedestal her silver
scrying bowl. She passed her hands over the inky liquid, causing ripples and
contortions on its surface.

‘Let
me see you, Mr Bell,’ said the evil witch of a woman, making magical passes and
speaking magical words. An image swam into view of a dumpy fellow in pince-nez
spectacles, a fellow who bore an uncanny resemblance to Mr Pickwick, standing
to the rear of the concert hall. This fellow examined the face of his pocket
watch. Examined it once, examined it again.

‘Priceless,’
said Lavinia, a-fluttering of her fingers. Time within the scrying bowl fled
forwards. The solitary image of Cameron Bell just looked at his watch again and
again and again.

‘You
are stuck,’ said Lavinia Dharkstorrm. ‘Mine to do with as I choose. You will
await me there.’

She
moved her hands once more over the scrying bowl. ‘And where are you, my sister
dear?’ said she. Images of the concert audience swept across the surface of the
liquid. Lavinia Dharkstorrm halted them, diddled with a finger. The face of
Ernest Rutherford appeared, a face that wore an intense expression as the
chemist immersed himself in the mathematical purity of the music. And beside Mr
Ernest Rutherford, a lady all in black with a heavy veil.

‘Wait
there, little sister,’ said the witch. And she poured down magic into the
concert hall, securing the lady in the veil to the seat she sat upon.

The pirates
poured down sticks and stones upon the troops below.

Sticks
and stones and sealing wax and cabbages and kettles.

The
troops responded with rifle fire, which struck a pirate here and there, tipping
him from his lofty perch and sending him with speed to Jonny Jones.
[25]

The troll named
Jones had not received an invite to the concert. Naturally he concluded that
this must have been some clerical error, as one so important as he should
surely have been offered a seat with a comfy cushion in the royal box. Mr
Rutherford had insisted Jones drive the chemist and Miss Wond to the concert in
the elegant pony trap hired specially for the occasion. The two well-dressed
humans were now in the concert hall. Jones sat bitterly on the trap, collecting
boils as the red snow fell upon him.

He
was enjoying the gunfire, though, and he had grown quite excited a moment ago
when a pirate plunged down from the sky and splattered in a gory heap a few
short yards away.

The pirates on
high were now firing flintlocks and muskets. But these made little impression
on the convoy of Mark 5 Juggernaut Tanks, which returned fire with a most
malevolent force.

Cupolas
and turrets exploded, shattered and fell. The palace shook to this assault.
Lavinia Dharkstorrm’s scrying bowl went tumbling to the floor.

‘Enough
of this nonsense,’ Lavinia cried. ‘Men of Earth, you all will know my magic.’
She strode from her turret, down spiral steps and into the royal throne-room.

Princess
Pamela lazed at her dining table, sucking at the finger meat of the
fresh-cooked cabin boy. A violent concussion shuddered the room, hurling a
pink-framed portrait from the wall.

‘They
will have the palace down about our ears!’ cried Lavinia Dharkstorrm. ‘Let me
rain down fire upon their heads.’

‘‘Appen,’
said the princess. ‘Give ‘em a little taste of what’s to come.

Lavinia
Dharkstorrm stormed from the royal throne-room, mounted to a battlement, cast
aside pirates and flung her arms aloft. Called forth words in a forbidden
tongue. Conjured fire from the furnaces of Hades. Hurled it down upon the
forces ranged along the Mall.

The
concert-goers marvelled as the fire filled the sky. Further jewellery rattled
and gentlemen did noddings of the head.

Flames swept
down upon the soldiers of the Queen, wreaking terrible death and destruction.
Infantrymen were sizzled black and then reduced to ashes. Drivers of Mark 5
Juggernaut Tanks sought escape as metal glowed about them.

A troll named
Jones bobbed up and down in glee.

And
then was gone to cinders. Just like
that.

And just like
that, Venusians in the concert hail stiffened in their seats. They were
sensitive to magic and when it occurred with such force and in such close
proximity, they were deeply troubled. Whispers spread amongst them.