The Emperor of All Things (50 page)

‘An accomplice! You might have mentioned that detail sooner!’

‘Listen, and you will understand why I did not. The accomplice was a mouse, sir. No doubt you find that hard to credit. But so it was, as I saw to my astonishment. A trained mouse that nibbled through her bindings and then, quick as a wink, vanished into her clothing.’

Longinus gave a start. ‘A mouse, you say? Why, Corinna kept a mechanical mouse upon her person – I believe I mentioned it.’

‘Yes, but this was no machine, no automaton.’

‘You would have said the same had you seen the little dragon that lived in Frau Hubner’s cuckoo clock.’

‘So … you believe it was Corinna after all?’

Longinus considered, then shook his head. ‘No … for all the reasons I have said. But the mouse is meaningful. I am sure of it. It bespeaks some connection to her.’ He sighed again. ‘It is a riddle I cannot solve. Unless …’

Quare spoke into the hush. ‘Unless what?’

‘Nothing,’ Longinus said with a shrug. ‘An idle thought. Only, I regret not having had the opportunity to question this young woman.’

‘That would have been a most dangerous undertaking,’ Quare said. ‘I do not believe she would have spared you as she did me.’

‘Spared you? But she was at your mercy, was she not?’

‘I had my pistol pointed at her, but even so, I was not confident I could pull the trigger before she was upon me. She was that fast. But though free, she did not attack. The fight had gone out of her. Indeed, she seemed resigned to the loss of the watch. It was as if she’d had her chance and must abide by the result, however little she liked it. She was much struck by the fact that, in subduing her, I had spilled her blood – and she mine. That seemed, in her mind, to create a bond between us, to join us in some way I did not understand then and still do not, even now. Yet I cannot but recall the effect that my blood had upon the watch in Master Magnus’s study. I had thought that was the first time the watch had drunk my blood, but perhaps it had already tasted it, upon the rooftop. Perhaps, after all, it was not Magnus who awoke the watch with his probings, but I – or, rather, the girl and I. At any rate, she warned me of its dangers – called the watch a weapon – but made no attempt to take it back. Instead, she flung another of those glass vials to the rooftop and vanished into the cloud thus conjured. When the smoke lifted enough for me to see, she was gone. Nor did it seem that she had used the diversion to make her escape across the rooftops. There was not time enough for that. No, she disappeared, sir. Like a phantom, into thin air. And that is not the only time she did so.’

‘What? You have seen her again?’

‘Rather, it is she who has seen me. The other night, as I sat at the Pig and Rooster, she accosted me. Asked for my help in stealing back the watch, if you can believe it! But vanished as suddenly and completely as she had upon the rooftop, without shedding any more light on these mysteries. I confess, I have half expected to meet with her at any moment since. Indeed, there have been times I could have used her help! But I have had no further contact with her.’

‘Most intriguing,’ said Longinus. ‘You have given me much to consider, Mr Quare. But for now, I think it best that we resume our journey.’ He extended his hand again, and Quare clasped it. ‘Recall my
warnings
of a moment ago,’ he added. ‘Keep hold of my hand, no matter what, say nothing unless or until I indicate it is safe to do so, and shut your eyes until I give you leave to open them.’

‘Very well, but where—’

‘Humour me, Mr Quare. All will become clear.’

So saying, he took a step forward. Drawing a breath, and closing his eyes, Quare followed.

He had an impression of swift movement, almost as if he were falling, similar to but more pronounced than what he had experienced in the stair-master. Despite his intention to comply with Longinus’s instructions, he could not control an involuntary reaction – he opened his eyes. Madness confronted him. There was no fixed point of reference upon which to hang his understanding. Up, down, sideways: none of those terms described what he was seeing, or his position in it. The room in which he had been standing seemed to have stretched out to an infinite length, as though it had become a corridor leading to the very end of the universe. In the process its walls and floor and ceiling had faded to insubstantiality. Through them he could see other corridors, more than he could count, cutting through this one at every angle imaginable … and some he could not have imagined. Amidst this dizzying display he saw that Longinus was still taking the step which had begun the journey; his foot had not come down. Yet the sensation of movement grew more intense by the second, and the strange elongation of the room and everything in it – including Longinus and himself – accelerated. It was as if they were standing still, frozen in place, while around them the world was being pulled away in all directions at a speed greater than time could measure or human senses perceive, so that each object was, or seemed to be, in multiple locations at once. Longinus’s leg stretched farther and farther ahead, becoming increasingly attenuated. It no longer resembled a human limb but rather a black line … and the same was true of his own leg: two black lines extending in parallel into an immeasurable distance. But not straight. The lines, which were yet somehow themselves, traced a route that was full of sharp and sudden turns, abrupt cornerings that should have shattered bone but did not; instead, their legs bent as easily as copper wire being threaded through the labyrinth of a watch’s insides.
Quare
would have cried out, screamed in terror, but even that would have required more presence of mind than he possessed just then.

‘Close your eyes,’ hissed Longinus beside him.

But it was too late for that. Quare felt as if he had become a single all-seeing eye, open to everything, mute witness to a reality he could not comprehend. He clung to Longinus’s hand with every bit of strength and intention in him; how easy it would be to forget that he had a hand, that he was a body, that he had some stable, enduring centre which could not be dissipated in this place, swallowed up in its crazed immensity.

‘This may,’ gasped Longinus, ‘have been a mistake. Something is tugging at me, pulling me towards it, too strong to resist. I am sorry.’

And with that, the world returned to normal. Limbs and everything else shrank to their customary proportions. Quare stumbled, wrenching his hand from Longinus’s grasp. He looked around in wonder; they stood upon a London rooftop. He sank to his knees, dumbfounded.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Longinus. ‘That has never happened before. I had thought Doppler must have caught us and was reeling us in, like an angler his prey. But we are quite alone here – wherever we are.’

‘I know where we are,’ Quare managed to gasp out at last. He clutched his arms about his chest, shivering as if with cold.

‘Do you? Pray enlighten me, Mr Quare.’

Quare breathed deeply. He felt as if he might be sick again. But finally the nausea receded enough for him to go on. ‘This is where I caught up with Grimalkin. Why did you bring us here? And how?’

‘I did not bring us to this place,’ Longinus said. ‘My intended destination was quite other. I had thought to show you the peak of Mount Coglians. As to how …’ He shrugged. ‘I have the ability to walk between worlds, to cover vast distances in the blink of an eye.’ He spoke matter-of-factly. ‘I have no idea how it works, but it is as if I were wearing a pair of seven-league boots, like Jack in the fairy tale. Only in my case it is not magical footwear but instead the wondrous foot with which I was fitted in Märchen. With this appendage, there is no earthly room I cannot enter, no door that can lock me out, no distance I cannot travel. I need merely think of the place, take a step, and I am there. It is the secret of my success as a thief … or was, until, over time, I began
to
sense that I was not alone in my journeying, that others were present in that in-between realm of which you, too, have now caught a glimpse: vague shapes and shadows, or things even less substantial than that … yet which nevertheless filled me with unease, as though their insubstantiality did not make them harmless but, rather, more dangerous than I knew. Creatures of the Otherwhere, perhaps. Or agents dispatched by Doppler. Perhaps both. In any case, I became convinced that I was being hunted. I did not care to discover by whom … or what. Some years ago, after a particularly narrow escape, I stopped travelling in this way altogether. I had no wish to push my luck.’

‘But if you did not bring us here, who did?’

‘Why, I can only assume it was you, Mr Quare.’

‘I assure you I did no such thing.’

‘Not consciously, perhaps. Yet do you not find it telling that we were discussing this very place before we set out? In the past, the mechanism – or some lively spirit bound within it – fastened upon my intent and translated it into action. And indeed, it was that demonstration I hoped would convince you of the truth of my words. But this time I believe it was
your
intent that was translated, that overpowered my own. For some reason, Mr Quare, it is you who are the master of this magic – or, if you prefer, this science indistinguishable therefrom. Whatever it is, it answers to your whim above my will.’

‘B-but why?’ Quare stammered. ‘How?’

‘No doubt the answer lies in your connection to the hunter. Both artefacts had their origin in Märchen, after all, and both, or so it seems, were crafted by the same hand. Your blood brought the watch to life, whether here on this rooftop or later, in Magnus’s laboratory: provided it with a motive power it had lacked until that moment, and through that shedding of blood you gained a second life, for the watch stepped in when you were mortally wounded and miraculously preserved you. Perhaps even now, for all we know, it is the only thing keeping you alive.’

Quare shuddered, still on his knees. The afternoon was drawing on towards evening, the sun dipping low in a hazy, coal-smudged sky. His shadow, and that of Longinus, stretched across the dirty rooftop, a stark reminder of what he had seen as they travelled here. Longinus had
called
him the master of the magic, yet he did not feel himself to be the master of anything, least of all himself. He wanted to run … but run where? To lash out … but against whom? There was no place of refuge, no enemy to strike.

‘Come,’ said Longinus gently, as if pitying his distress, and once again extended a hand to him. ‘The hour grows late. We must ready ourselves for what lies ahead. Let us return to my house.’

Quare drew back. ‘Do you mean to take us back by the same route that brought us here?’

‘There is no other way,’ Longinus said. ‘For all its risks, it is safer than trying to navigate the streets of London, where we may be recognized and apprehended at any moment.’

‘And once we are safely returned, what then? Will we step from your house to the guild hall in the blink of an eye?’

‘Alas, that is beyond my power. The presence of so many ticking timepieces fences me out, even were I to try and step directly into the Old Wolf’s den. His clocks may keep a common time, yet though that regularity does not, as it were, throw up an impenetrable wall, like the one protecting my own house and its environs, it does engender obstacles, like the bars of a cell that are too narrow to squeeze through from either side. But never fear – I have another way to get us into the guild hall.’

‘You mean for us to return as we escaped – through the air? I tell you truly, sir, I am sick to death of such unorthodox means of transportation as you seem so readily to employ.’

Longinus smiled. ‘I assure you, Mr Quare, I have in mind a more mundane means of entry.’

Quare grunted. He took Longinus’s hand and allowed the other man to pull him to his feet. ‘Somehow, I do not find that comforting.’

‘But you believe me, don’t you?’ Longinus asked rather anxiously. ‘Surely, after all this, you must believe!’

‘I don’t know what I believe any more,’ Quare said. ‘I cannot explain how we came here; I cannot even explain what I saw along the way.’

‘What did you see?’ Longinus asked, peering at him with genuine curiosity. ‘All those years ago, when I escaped from Märchen, Corinna
told
me that the Otherwhere revealed itself differently to everyone who passed through it. That is why I warned you to close your eyes, as she had warned me, once upon a time. And to as little effect. To me, it has always seemed as it did then: a maze of corridors, with doorways leading to various destinations. Somehow – until this evening – I have always moved unerringly to the correct door; the rightness of it has always been apparent to me. But this time, I could sense immediately that the door was wrong – it was not the door that would lead to Mount Coglians. But I could not hold back from entering it.’

‘I did not see anything like that,’ Quare said. ‘I saw … But I do not have the words for it.’ A shiver ran through him. ‘Madness. That is what I saw. Madness.’

‘Yet even that may be proof of a kind,’ Longinus said.

Quare gave a sickly laugh. ‘Proof that the universe is mad?’

‘Or that we humans, for all our vaunted intellect and powers of reason, are helpless when confronted by the true mystery of existence.’

‘That is no comfort,’ Quare said.

‘Why, the truth seldom is,’ Longinus answered, raising his eyebrows. ‘At least, not at first. It is always painful to have one’s illusions dispelled. But salutary. Would you not rather know the truth than continue in ignorance?’

‘But what good is that knowledge if it merely reveals the extent of our helplessness, our ignorance?’

‘Every increase in knowledge is beneficial in and of itself,’ Longinus answered. ‘And perhaps we are not so helpless after all, Mr Quare. What seems like magic or miracle – or, indeed, madness – may be nothing more than a mechanism we do not yet understand. But that does not mean it lies forever beyond our understanding. Or our mastery.’

‘It sounds as though you would make yourself one of them,’ Quare said. ‘Raise yourself above the human and become a god.’