Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero (39 page)

    “This lodestone is responding to the Goety he has left in his wake. He’s still ahead of us, have no doubt.”

    “But this far down-river,” de Quincey began, giving up on his pipe altogether. “We’ll be under the Great Bridge in a minute or so. Is he heading for the sea, do you think? A waiting ship to speed him away?”

    Triumff shook his head.

    “I doubt that,” he replied. “Jaspers was so confident of success, I’d wager he made no contingency for escape. No, my guess is, he’s set upon one last mission an act of malice, of spite in revenge for his scuppered plan.”

    De Quincey frowned at Triumff.

    “You’ve got an idea, haven’t you?” he asked.

    “There’s a place he has struck at before,” said Triumff, “somewhere rich in arcane power, somewhere his particular talents can do the most harm.”

    “The Powerdrome,” said Mother Grundy.

    Triumff nodded, and said, “It has to be.”

    “Lord save us all,” murmured de Quincey.

    Above them, coloured fire continued to split the sky, as if the heavens themselves were at war.

Dominating the great curve of the Thames at Battersea, the Powerdrome had been designed by Sir Christopher Wren in

1671. It was as famous a landmark of London as the White Tower or Hardy’s Column. The three great smoke-stacks, provided to vent off the exhaust of the Cantriptic reaction, made it look for all the world like a giant, upturned milking stool.

    It loomed over them, impassive and silent, its stonework flickering in the sidelight of the firework bombardment.

    The wherry bumped gently against the low quay, and Triumff sprang nimbly over the rail to tie up the rope that de Quincey handed out. Mother Grundy leaned over the stern, and fluttered a handful of dried petals into the dark water.

    “What is she doi-” Triumff began, but shut up when he caught de Quincey’s look.

    Together, they helped Mother Grundy onto the landing, and made haste towards the drome’s entrance yard.

    A full ten yards from the edge of the quay, they passed another wherry. It was leaning on the stones, its belly raked and broken from its passage across the landingway, a passage evidenced by long gouges across the quay.

    “He was in a hurry,” mused Triumff with an unconvincing grin. “He didn’t even stop when the water ran out.”

    De Quincey scratched the back of his scalp nervously, and swallowed hard. “He’s er not going to be easy to tackle, is he?”

    “Nope,” said Triumff, unsheathing Gull’s beautiful rapier, “but then neither am I.” The naked weapon didn’t make de Quincey feel very much better.

    “A word of caution, Sir Rupert,” said Mother Grundy quietly. “Over-confidence is the handmaid of disaster.”

    “Really?” asked Triumff.

    “I mean it, sir,” she insisted, and there was a quality to her voice that left neither man in any doubt that she did. “A man with a sword, even a brave man, is no match for that creature Jaspers. Please, attempt nothing rash. Be advised by me as we go. I may be a frail old dam from Suffolk, but I know my Arte. My knowledge may be the only weapon we have.”

    “And,” she added, completely unnecessarily in de Quincey’s opinion, “even that might be far from enough.”

    They passed under the arch of the river gatehouse. The drome’s great yard opened before them, and beyond it, the massive entranceway yawned like a mouth.

    The curtain walls shielded them from the worst of the tumult down-river. It was unnervingly quiet in the yard, and there was a smell, one that even the inexperienced nostrils of de Quincey and Triumff could recognise. It was the smell of rank sugar, molten and burnt, of caramelised syrup.

    There were two lumpy shapes in the yard in front of the entrance steps. De Quincey took them to be piles of rubbish, until he stooped to check.

    He started back, a resilience, conditioned by twenty years of gruesome forensic examinations, overwhelmed in one unguarded moment.

    The lumps were men. Or they had been men. They had been guild men, drome workers of the Old Union.

    Something had melted them, and the remains of their robes were flecking away from the distorted bodies in the night breeze, dry as charred paper.

    “They tried to stop him,” de Quincey mumbled, bracing himself to act as professionally as possible, even though he knew his voice had a quake in it. “Those metal lumps in their hands were weapons. They were protecting the doorway. From the position of the bodies you can see-“

    “We can see,” Triumff said, gripping de Quincey’s arm and pulling him away. “Look, maybe you should go back to the river. Cross to Chelsea, alert the Militia. They should know what’s going on, in case we don’t make it.”

    De Quincey shook his head.

    “If we don’t make it, sir,” he said, “there’ll be nothing anyone can do. Anyway, you might need me.”

    Triumff nodded, understanding completely, and moved on.

    “God knows what for,” added de Quincey under his breath.

    They went up the steps and in under the entrance arch. The tapers in the hall wall-brackets had burned out, but there was light, a pallid, lambent glow that filtered through the stones all around them. It was a good ten degrees colder inside than outside. White, sulphurous mist foamed the floor around their ankles.

    “Has he staged these creepy effects to put the wind up us?” Triumff asked.

    Mother Grundy glared at him.

    “He’s at work in the Cantrip Chamber,” she said. “He’s boiling up the power spheres far beyond their operational capacity. This phlogestonic mist is just a by-product of the process: a symptom, and a mild one at that. If he goes on, we’ll see worse sights than this.”

    “Best guess, my lady, what’s he trying?” de Quincey wanted to know.

    “A meltdown of the Cantrip spheres, Neville? If he Goetically spurs them to melting point, the resultant implosion could leave a vast and smoking crater where the City used to be.”

    “Oh,” said de Quincey, as if this was an interesting thing to know.

    “It’s called the Ind Syndrome,” she continued. “The hypothesis is that if a Cantrip plant like this were to reach overload, it would melt down through the Earth, and eventually explode out of the other side, in India, one presumes.”

    “Hypothesis, eh? Has it ever, I mean, happened?” de Quincey ventured.

    “No, but there was an accident in Wiltshire, recently. It was kept hush-hush, but I learned of it from a local witchlock there. It seems the Church tried to awaken and harness the old power rooted in the stones of the great Henge. Foolish, of course. The Henge power is raw, Druidic energy. It is not compatible with modern processes. It was a disaster, and many died. It could have been worse if they hadn’t contained it.”

    “I heard the rumours,” de Quincey nodded. “So it’s true? Glory, I knew the Church was desperate for new Magick, but I never thought-“

    “It wasn’t the Church,” said a voice from the shadows.

    Triumff whirled, sword ready.

    “Step out! Show yourself!” he commanded.

    An elderly man in Union robes shuffled into the light. “Put up your sword, sir,” he said. “I am Natterjack, of the Drome Union. Vivat Regina. I was hiding in the canteen. I heard your voices.”

    They stared at him for a moment.

    “I’ve got credentials. Union papers. Hold on, then,” he said, and began to rummage in his robes.

    “Enough!” said Triumff. “I believe you, fellow. Quickly now, bring us up to speed. What’s happening here?”

    “Damned if I know,” said Natterjack. “I was on a break, waiting for me tea to mash. Next thing, I hear screaming, and smell the smell. You know, the Smell. I came out here and found some of my best men dead as kippers, and the doors to the main chamber shut as tight as a duck’s chuff.

    “Begging-your-pardons-no-offence, madam,” he added for Mother Grundy’s benefit.

    “Mister Natterjack,” she replied, “be assured that I am more than passing conversant with the watertight nature of a duck’s fundament. Please go on.”

    “Well, I tried to get in, and found no joy. Not that I really wanted to get in there, as it was. Then I tried to signal the proper authorities, but no one saw my flare,” said Natterjack.

    “There’s a surprise,” said Triumff. “And every witchboard operator in the City’s taken the night off.”

    “Precisely. So it was a right to-do. Then the gentleman came in. He seemed to know his business, and was most keen. I showed him to the Chamber, and then retired to the canteen on his advice. He said I would be safer there, circumstances as given.”

    “He was lying,” said de Quincey.

    “What gentleman?” asked Triumff urgently. “What bloody gentleman?”

    “An Eye-talian fellow,” said Natterjack. “Most proper and polite, he was. Rendered me this lovely speech about the welfare of the Queen and Country, and the Fate of the Free World. And the Unity, I think he mentioned. Yes, certainly he did.”

    “Where is he now?” asked Mother Grundy.

    “At the doors of the Chamber, as I left him,” said Natterjack. “I’ll show you, shall I?”

    Natterjack led them off down the long hallway.

    “Just out of interest,” said de Quincey as they hurried along, “what did you mean when you said it wasn’t the Church?”

    “Well, they had no knowledge of the Wiltshire affair. My Union was called in to mop it all up, decontaminate and so on. God’s bread, but it was a mess.”

“Then who did it?” asked de Quincey.

    “That great arse Lord Salisbury,” said Natterjack. “He was trying to win favour at Court by igniting the old power. He got a slap on the knuckles and no mistake, but they decided to keep it all shtum.”

    “Hockrake,” murmured Triumff. “He fails in his ambitious little plot and so lends his weight to this conspiracy instead. It all begins to mesh together, doesn’t it? In a horrible sort of way.”

    They had reached the end of the passageway. The doors to the Cantrip Chamber were brand new: vast, interlocking plates of reinforced iron. They had been fused together, melted into one solid sheet.

    “We only had them put in the other day,” remarked Natterjack bitterly. “Look at them now. Look at them!”

    Triumff looked. Strange chalk markings had been inscribed around the seized lock mechanism.

    “What’s this?” he asked.

    “Please do not touch that,” said a man emerging from the door of a side chamber with a lamp held aloft. He was a goodlooking fellow in his thirties, but he showed the signs of extensive wear and tear. His fashionable clothes were soiled and ruined. He looked as if he had been dragged across Europe behind a refuse cart.

    “I am Giuseppe Giuseppo,” he announced, bowing low.

    “Oh good,” said Triumff, his grip on the rapier tight.

    “Giuseppe Giuseppo?” said de Quincey. “
The
Giuseppe Giuseppo?”

    “I believe so,” said Giuseppe, bowing again. “I come from La Spezia, Italy. On urgent business. This business.” He gestured towards the doors.

    “You know him?” asked Triumff.

    “He’s the greatest inventor of the age,” said de Quincey

with undisguised admiration. “I’ve read about his work in Scientific Italian. This is an honour indeed, sir!”

    De Quincey shook hands with the Italian.

    “I’m de Quincey, of the Royal Militia,” said de Quincey. “This is Mother Grundy and Sir Rupert Triumff. Natterjack you’ve met.”

    ”
The
Sir Rupert Triumff?” asked Giuseppe, raising his eyebrows. “The discoverer of Australia?”

    “Yes. Yes. Yes,” Triumff said, clapping his hand to his brow. “Look, I really hate to be brusque, but the Fate of the Free World and all that? I’m sure we can have a jolly good time getting to know each other over a bottle or ten of musket, later, but that really hinges on there being a later, doesn’t it?”

    “Indeed,” said Giuseppe. “I was attempting to open these doors when you arrived. It is a difficult process. My guidebook is not altogether useful.” He produced the Most Important Book In The World from his pocket and tapped its water-stained cover.