The chaos clock, p.8
The Chaos Clock, page 8
“He produced that lightning show without any working machines,” Betsy said.
“Well, then.” Matheson ground his teeth as he thought. He pulled a keyring from his pocket and unlocked the holding cell. “I guess it wouldn’t be murder if we send an inhuman varmint to Boot Hill before he messes more with my adopted hometown—but we only get lethal if there’s no alternative.”
***
After leaving New Alexandria Police Headquarters, they detoured to the Machinations Sundry workshop, where the morning shift coming on eyed Morris and Betsy in their rumpled evening clothes and wondered. For an hour, Matheson and Nameless waited while Betsy and Morris tinkered in Morris’s personal workshop until they emerged with a rough-forged assembly of brass and steel, clinging to Morris’s back on leather straps. A pipe rose from the mechanism two feet above Morris’s head, ending in a fluted horn encased in a perforated cap of bronze.
“What is that contraption?” Matheson said.
“Something I’ve been field-testing for the New Alexandria Fire Department. It’s meant for mounting on machinery, but in a pinch, I guess the human machine is as good as any,” Morris said.
“What’s it do?”
“Maybe nothing, Dan. It’s only an idea I’ve got, but it’s all we have for the moment.”
They found the Old Pharaoh’s Odeon as closed and still as the last time they’d visited. Matheson knocked at the front door. They waited, but no one answered.
“Let’s get some men out here and break the door down,” Betsy said. “Shouldn’t we rouse a posse or something? Isn’t that what they do in Texas, Dan?”
Matheson raised an eyebrow at her. “This ain’t Texas. With what we’re contemplating the fewer eyes the better. Human or not—and I ain’t decided on that question, yet—this fella looks like a man, and that’s going to raise questions if we take any sort of permanent-type action.”
“The fewer people exposed to him, the better. We must contain the mental contamination he breeds. Reaching weak minds will only make him stronger,” Nameless said. “Show me the door you used to enter last night.”
As Matheson led the group through an alley to the rear of the theater, he said, “I still don’t see what he gets out of all this. No one goes around ruining cities for fun, do they?”
“He is the messenger of the Old Ones. In places outside of time and space, in cities sunken at the bottom of the ocean, at the heart of the universe, they sleep, and sleeping they dream, but one day when the stars are right they’ll awaken,” Nameless said. “It is written in the Necronomicon that with strange aeons even death may die. When the stars are right, the clock of the cosmos will chime their return. Each city and soul Nyarlathotep takes under his influence speeds the pendulum toward the time when the Old Ones will reclaim what they once possessed. First our minds, next the Earth, the outer planets, then other worlds and times unknown to us—before ultimately, the nuclear chaos at the heart of the universe, Azathoth, who slumbers to the demoniac music of countless dreadful beasts who drum and pipe and dance for him to the measure of all time, ceases to dream reality. Each note of his servants’ music ticks another moment toward that day, and the faster their tempo, the sooner it comes.”
Matheson stopped dead in his tracks, whirled, then grabbed Nameless by his dirty suitcoat. “Are you pulling my leg? This is insanity. Nonsense. Bull-pucky. Morris, Betsy, tell me this can’t be true.”
“I don’t want it to be true,” Morris said, “but I’ve heard of the Necronomicon, attributed to the mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred, around 730 A.D. Anna Rigel, the Queen of New Alexandria’s witches, speaks of the tome with fear, and you know there is almost nothing in this world that truly frightens that woman. Betsy and I witnessed Nyarlathotep’s power last night. And… I’ve seen the lost city. From a distance, true, but its atmosphere of dread was unmistakable. Can we risk what happened there happening here? Do you want to watch one cold night as all of New Alexandria marches hollow-eyed into the sea?”
Matheson shook his head. “It’s too incredible, too… outlandish.” He released Nameless. “Guess I’m having second thoughts about premeditated murder if this hombre turns out to be more smoke and mirrors than monster. Can you promise he isn’t?”
Morris parted his lips to speak. An ear-shattering burst of sound stilled his words before they left his mouth. Noise cascaded around them, filling the alley, shaking dust and debris loose from brick and wood walls. A thousand, a million, even more flutes shrilled clashing notes into the air, accompanied by seemingly infinite drumbeats and footfalls, all wrapped in the crackling hiss of electricity unfettered. The back door of the theater flew open, slamming against the wall before cracking from its hinges and falling to the alley stones. Nyarlathotep emerged to his full, intimidating height. Morning light only deepened the shadows of his complexion and robes. Darkness writhed at his feet as if he stood upon a nest of squirming snakes and cockroaches.
“Welcome. Please, come in, come in, and see what I’ve prepared for you. The time is now,” he said.
Unable to do otherwise, they entered. The door vanished behind them, replaced by a solid wall as if it had never existed. Nyarlathotep pulled back a curtain and ushered them to the stage. Morris tried to stand his ground, lock his feet in place, but the rhythm of the demoniac music forced movement into his bones and muscles as if it combined with the ambient electricity to stimulate his body against his will. The pale disc of electricity rotated above the stage. All Nyarlathotep’s devices leapt with flashes and sparks of light and energy as if animated by the same irresistible power that carried Morris to center stage.
The quartet took equidistant positions beneath the electro-disc, puppets whose strings dangled from Nyarlathotep’s sinister fingers. Shapes formed in the charged air. Visions of abominable musicians and dancers, so hideous Morris could only perceive them as glimpses of body parts—mouths, hands, feet, and other appendages beyond anything human. His brain struggled to make sense of the perversity flooding it even as he fought to hold onto what Nyarlathotep tried to pry out of him. His awareness began to drift, to rise. He clutched onto it with all his willpower, clung to his body.
“Betsy, now, please, if you can, do it now,” Morris said.
Betsy took three steps toward him then stopped as if paralyzed. “I’m trying, Morris. It’s so hard to move.”
The maelstrom of sound and light cycloned around them.
“Whatever that thing does, now’s the time,” Matheson shouted.
Nameless moved then, seemingly less controlled than the others, perhaps from his longer exposure to the powers in motion or to his seasoned acceptance of the madness. He seized the tall climbing arc device, the Jacob’s Ladder, at its base, raised it, and thrust it into Nyarlathotep’s face. Electric ladder rungs lanced the dark man’s flesh. Showers of electrical sparks ignited and fell on the stage. Locked into place by the circuit he created, Nameless quivered and twitched in his threadbare suit as smoke rose from his body. Tongues of fire licked at the mechanism. Electricity coursed into Nyarlathotep’s uraeus until it seemed as if the snake’s mouth spit fiery venom. Nyarlathotep staggered, startled, even as Nameless’s teeth brightened with electric light and gray wisps trickled from his lips.
***
I am the last. I will tell the audient void.
I will tell. I will… Karolina, my wife! Muriel, my daughter! Oh, how I have missed the memory of you. But I must tell. I must. I must.
I am the last. I will tell the audient void.
I am the… I am… Richard.
Richard!
Oh, I am complete again!
***
Freed for a moment, Betsy rushed to Morris’s side and fired the miniaturized steam engine in the device on his back. Pressure built, and the bronze cup atop the fluted horn whirled. From his pocket, Morris withdrew the control mechanism wired to the engine and pushed a button. A howling whistle blasted from atop the fluted horn. The bronze cap oscillated, warping the sound, which rose and fell in pitch and volume. Designed to be heard through stone walls, through several floors of a building, the warning siren tore a sonic rip in the audible electric cloud pouring through the electro-disc. The rhythm of those inhuman players faltered. Their music struck even more sour notes. Morris worked the controller, pressing its buttons, turning its dial, sending disruptive peals of random sound in chaos time into the electro-disc, forcing sound waves into conflict, pushing back on the mad music from the heart of the universe until the sizzling lines around its circumference flickered and broke.
The disc snapped shut. The music from beyond ceased.
Betsy and Matheson dropped to their knees, hands clamped to their ears, screaming without voices, their words erased by the wailing of the siren until Morris switched off the steam flowing up the pipe and silenced it.
“Are you okay?” he said.
He shouted without meaning to, all sense of volume gone. So did Betsy and Matheson when they replied. Thick silence filled the theater. How much genuine, how much the result of the assault on Morris’s ears, he couldn’t say.
Nameless lay on the stage, face blackened and blistered, smoke wafting from his head with the awful odor of burning hair. His hands remained clutched around the climbing arc where his fingers had fused to its metal. At the end with which he struck Nyarlathotep there remained only a deep, dark stain seared into the wood of the stage, and no sign at all of the tall man.
“Did we kill him?” Matheson said.
“I don’t know,” Morris said. “Maybe we only sent him back somewhere.”
“To the dreaming thing?” Betsy said. “To… Azathoth?”
“I… don’t know,” Morris said.
“Wherever he went, I hope we never see him again,” Matheson said.
“You and me both, Inspector,” said Betsy.
“Me, too, but, even the poorest clock sometimes strikes the right time, and the universe is one enormous mechanism. How much could we have disrupted or delayed it with our little cry against its encroachment? I fear only time will tell.”
The Last Flight of the One-Eyed Jack
F.R. Michaels
Romilda Gunn wore black against the soot and filth of the Aerodrome. Her mind swam, haunted by the visions she’d seen over the past few months: a figure, wreathed in shadow, standing at the foot of her bed, its eyes reflecting the light of eldritch stars back at her.
Not a dream, she thought. It was Derrick, or his specter, trying to reach me.
Romilda walked the narrow causeways between the hangars, jostled by groups of rough-looking aeronauts and mechanics, lost in her thoughts until she was nearly trod upon by some clanking metal monstrosity that stomped past her, hissing steam, carrying a pallet of storage barrels toward one of the docked airships.
Romilda resumed her trek to the docking gantry disheveled but in one piece. An airship floated above the platform, moored like a whale on a leash, complete with rounded nose and pointed tail, and a sprucewood cabin slung beneath. Masts fitted with triangular sails jutted out like flippers along the fuselage, and four great fins stabilized the rear. She spied the enormous playing card painted on the tail, the Jack of Hearts, cunningly wrought but faded and chipped, just as the harbormaster had said. Romilda mounted the stairs leading up and scaled the tower.
At the top, a man in a weather-beaten frock coat sat with his boots up on the rail by the gangplank, idly flipping a throwing-knife.
“You want something, miss?” he said, without pausing his knife-play, peering at her from beneath the lowered brim of his leather coachman’s hat.
“I’m looking for Captain Finch.”
“Are you with the Air Guard?”
Romilda blinked. “No.”
“Then you’ve found him.” He touched the brim of his hat, hard blue eyes peeking out from beneath. “Alton Finch, Captain of the One-Eyed Jack, at your service.”
“Acting Captain!” came a shout from somewhere up in the rigging.
“My name is Romilda Gunn,” she said. “I’m looking for my brother, Derrick. The harbormaster said you might know him.”
Finch sheathed the knife and swung his feet off the rail. “Well, Miss Romilda Gunn, sorry to disappoint, but I’m afraid I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“He might have joined under an alias, five years ago. Tall, headstrong, prone to getting into fights...”
Finch smirked. “You just described most of my crew.”
A small, scruffy girl scrambled down from the rigging and dropped nimbly to the gantry beside him.
“I think she means Gunny Rick,” she said.
“Get the photograph, Boom.”
The young girl dashed up the gangplank and came back with a framed picture of the crew posing in front of the airship. Finch pointed to a young man squatting in the front row.
“This him?”
Romilda squinted down at the face, her heart racing. “That’s my brother! Is he here? I must speak with him.”
Finch took the picture back and shook his head. “Gunny left the crew a few months ago, after Captain Murano died.”
“Our real captain,” Boom chimed in. “Half the crew left.”
Finch tossed her an acidic look and continued, “He and a few others joined an air-frigate headed up to the pole. Haven’t heard anything since. Sorry.”
“What was the name of the ship? When did they leave? When do they get back?”
Boom replied, “The Ophelia, the fourteenth of June, and the ship never got back.”
Romilda stood there, digesting her words. She’d held a wan glimmer of hope that Derrick still lived… that some living aspect of his will tried to reach her, not his shade.
“Has a search party been sent? Another airship?”
Finch grunted a humorless laugh. “The Ophelia was a search party. They went looking for the Talavar, which vanished back in March.”
“The Talavar was sent to search for the Five Angels, which went missing back in January,” Boom added.
“You have an airship,” Romilda said. “We could look for him. I can pay.”
Finch shook his head. “No, no, no. Three ships have disappeared already. ‘Tis a fool’s journey. We might still have some of his effects onboard, though. Maybe you could bring something back. Boom?”
The young girl beckoned with a toss of her head. “Come aboard, city-girl.”
Romilda followed her up the narrow gangplank. The airship’s interior reminded her of the crew quarters on her father’s yacht: small and functional, no space wasted, lightweight spruce and bamboo fixtures accented with metal structural braces. The only real difference she could note appeared to be an overall sense of grubby utility, and a few pockmarks on the walls that looked like bullet holes.
“This one was Gunny’s,” Boom said, opening a door barely big enough to pass a grown person.
Romilda crinkled her nose at the distilled smells of an enclosed space that had been repurposed as a junk room. She picked her way through the clutter to examine the narrow bunk with its storage space underneath, run her finger through the dust of a folding table jutting out from one wall, and peered out the tiny porthole. Romilda could spread her arms and touch both walls.
“Cozy,” Romilda murmured.
Boom snorted. “You should see where I sleep.”
Romilda crouched down and pulled open the storage locker. A meager scattering of papers cluttered the bottom, but nothing of importance.
“Did you know my brother well?”
Boom said, “We were crew,” as if that explained everything, then added, “Can I ask you something, city-girl?”
“Please… Romilda.”
“Gunny was with us for years. Why’re you here now?”
“Father forbade me,” Romilda answered, flipping through a notebook at the bottom of the locker. “But in the past month I’ve seen…”
Maybe I shouldn’t tell anyone I’m seeing ghosts.
“Seen what?”
“I’ve seen… my father’s health failing. Mother wants them to reconcile. So here I am.” Romilda blew out a frustrated breath. “Families are complicated.”
She turned to look at Boom, but the girl was gone. In the awkward silence, Romilda heard the urgent tolling of a distant bell. The airship lurched suddenly, pitching her backward. As her head slammed against the wooden bulkhead, darkness claimed her.
***
“Romie…”
Romilda heard the whispered voice, as she wavered along the tidemark of consciousness. Only Derrick called her Romie.
“Derrick?”
Romilda opened her eyes and saw a dark silhouette looming over her, peering down. Its eyes reflected an unnatural light, and its substance writhed and iridized like shadows moving through ice.
“Help me…”
“Derrick!”
The figure vanished like smoke sucked back through an opaque screen. Romilda lay on the deck, alone, looking up at the ceiling of Derrick’s cabin.
She wobbled to her feet, gingerly holding the back of her head, and stumbled out into the corridor. Loud, but distant, she heard revving engines and gunfire, and the floor lurched under her.
Scrambling from the cabin, she stepped onto the bridge and into a beehive of activity. Finch paced to and fro, barking orders while a very small man stood on a box in front of the ship’s wheel and wrestled it to his will. A tall youth wearing thick goggles and missing a hand argued with a dark-skinned woman over a chart, while another crewmember readied a long gun. Shots from below ricocheted off one of the spars, but no one except Romilda flinched. She steadied herself against the hatchway, unnoticed, holding her head.
The gunner shouldered the weapon and sighted out a porthole, murmuring, “Steady now.”
A deafening blast and a gust of smoke briefly filled the room. The gunner lurched back with the recoil, then peered out the porthole.
