Текст книги "Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon"
Автор книги: Mark Hodder
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“Until Brahmin Kaundinya came along,” Burton murmured.
“Ah, of course, you have studied the legend. Yes, your spy Kaundinya broke the Kumari Kandam Eye into seven fragments, causing the physical death of all the Naga on that continent. Their essence lived on in the stones, of course, but now they were isolated, for the other two Eyes were whole, whereas theirs was shattered.”
“Your Great Fusion requires the three Eyes to be in the same state?”
“It does.”
The group was now about halfway down the path. Speke led the way, self-absorbed and tormented; Trounce followed, listening to what he considered a fairy tale; Burton was third in the line; and the clockwork man hauled himself along behind, holding his pistol aimed steadily at the back of the explorer's head.
K'k'thyima continued: “When a Naga completes its lifespan, the Great Fusion offers the choice of true death-which many prefer-or a transcendence. Kaundinya's act of betrayal denied us all these options, and condemned us to eternity and eventual madness. Obviously, this is a situation that has to be corrected.”
“Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence,” Burton said. “You can't put a broken diamond together again, so you have to shatter the other two stones to achieve equivalence.”
“And restore the Great Fusion, yes. Incidentally, your friend Spencer is a very determined man. He is not happy that I borrowed his personality. He tried to leave a clue for the unfortunate Mr. Swinburne in his First Principles of Philosophy.It was all I could do to stop the poet from telling you about it.”
“How did you do that?”
“I've been radiating a mesmeric influence to make you all consider me harmless and friendly.”
They reached the cavern floor, and K'k'thyima directed them along a well-worn path toward the buildings at the foot of the temple.
“So we were at an impasse. We couldn't shatter the other two Eyes while our South American and African colonies still lived, for it would have physically killed them. Nor could we stand to exist in a state of disconnection. We thus lost the will to survive in the material realm, and allowed you soft skins to hunt us to extinction.”
“But the essence of you continued to dwell in the Eyes?” Burton asked.
“Yes, and now we had to wait for your species to discover the diamonds.”
“Why?”
“So that we might use you to bring equivalence. As high priest, I was the only one of my people whose essence spanned all of the stones, and I was able to channel the mesmeric abilities of my species through any of them. I was thus able to manipulate you soft skins. Ah, look! Here come the Batembuzi!”
Up ahead, figures were slouching out of doorways and sliding out of glassless windows. A large crowd of them gathered and loped forward to meet the approaching party. They were small and ape-like, with skin of a dull-white hue, and their eyes were strange and large and greyish-red. Shaggy flaxen hair descended to their shoulders and grew down their backs, and they moved with their arms held low, sometimes resorting to all fours. Thoroughly nightmarish in aspect, they proved too much for Speke. With a wail of terror, he threw himself backward.
“Hold him!” K'k'thyima ordered.
Burton and Trounce grabbed the lieutenant. He fought them, emitting animalistic whines of fear.
“They aren't going to harm you!” the priest said. “They'll just escort us into the temple,”
Speke finally quietened down when the hideous troglodytes, rather than attacking, simply fell into position beside the group.
As they entered among the squat buildings, the brass man instructed the Britishers to walk straight ahead to the central thoroughfare, then turn right and proceed along it. They followed his instructions and saw, some way ahead, the tall double doors of the temple entrance.
“Everything!” Burton suddenly exclaimed. “Bismillah! You orchestrated everything!You planted in Edward Oxford an irrational obsession about his ancestor so he'd travel back in time and cause all of the Eyes to be discovered! You manipulated Rasputin so you could occupy that clockwork body, commandeer Herbert Spencer's mind, and shatter the South American Eye! And you caused that damned babbage to be grafted onto Speke's brain so he'd lead me here!”
“That has been my song,” K'k'thyima confessed. “And now we shall shatter the last of the Eyes and the Naga will be free.”
Passing blocky, unadorned buildings, they came to the foot of a broad set of steps leading up to the temple's imposing arched entrance. They ascended, and a group of Batembuzi put their shoulders to the doors and pushed. As the portals swung slowly inward, Burton asked, “But what of the fragments Oxford cut from the South American Eye for his time suit? Surely they unbalance the equivalence you seek?”
“Soon, Sir Richard, you will discover the beauty and elegance of paradox. Those shards were cut in a future where the stone was complete. I changed that future when, earlier in the same diamond's history, I broke it into seven. Thus the pieces could not be cut from it.”
“I don't understand any of this,” Trounce grumbled.
The clockwork man gave a soft hoot. “Do not be embarrassed, William. Non-linear time and multiplying histories are concepts that most soft skins struggle with. For your kind, it is virtually impossible to escape the imprisoning chains of narrative structure. We have come here to address that deficiency.”
“Oh. How comforting.”
They entered a prodigious and opulent chamber. Its floor was chequered with alternating gold and black hexagonal tiles. The walls were carved into bas reliefs, inset with thousands of precious gemstones, and the ceiling was a solid blanket of scintillating phosphorescence from which hung censers forged from precious metals and decorated with diamonds.
Oddly, though, the chamber reminded Burton and Trounce less of a temple and more of Battersea Power Station, for there were strange structures arrayed around the floor and walls; things that appeared to be half-mineral formation and half-machine, with, dominating the centre of the space, a thick floor-to-ceiling column made up of alternating layers of crystalline and metallic materials.
Despite the abundance of precious stones on display, there was an air of abandonment about the place. As they passed through the chamber and started up a winding stairwell, Burton noted that many of the gems had fallen from their housings in the patterned walls and were lying scattered around the floor. There were cracks and crumblings in evidence everywhere, and at one point they had to step over a wide hole where the stone steps had collapsed and fallen away.
“Straight ahead, please, gentlemen.”
“My bloody legs!” Trounce groaned as they climbed higher and higher.
The stairs led up to a long, wide hall with gold-panelled double doors at its far end. Fourteen statues stood against the walls, seven to each side. They depicted Naga, squatting on short plinths, some with one head, some with five, some with seven.
At K'k'thyima's command, the three men approached the doors. The brass man clanked past, holding his gun levelled at Burton's face, took hold of a handle with his free hand, and pulled one of the portals open far enough for the men to pass through it.
“Enter, please, gents.”
They stepped into what turned out to be a medium-sized room. It was square and the walls were panelled with oblongs of phosphorescence. The tall ceiling was shaped like an upside-down pyramid, with an enormous black diamond the size of a goose egg fitted into an ornate bracket at its tip.
“The last unbroken Eye of Naga!” K'k'thyima announced.
A stone altar was laid out beneath the gemstone. Metal manacles were fitted to it, and there were stains on its surface that Burton didn't want to examine too closely. Gold chalices, containing heaps of black-diamond dust, stood to either side. The explorer noted nasty-looking instruments, like something one might find in a surgery, arranged on a nearby block, and there were other items around the room that, again, looked somehow more machine than architecture or decoration.
“William, Mr. Speke, if you would move over there-” K'k'thyima gestured to one side of the chamber, “-and Sir Richard, I'd be much obliged if you'd climb onto the altar and lie down.”
“Do you intend to sacrifice me, Naga?”
The clockwork man gave his soft hooting chuckle. “Rest assured, you'll leave here alive. On you get, please, or-” he moved the pistol, aiming it at Trounce, “-or do I have to shoot William in the leg before you'll comply?”
Scowling ferociously, Burton sat on the altar, swung his legs up, and lay down. Immediately, he felt an energy, like static electricity, crawling over his skin.
With one hand, K'k'thyima closed the manacles around the explorer's wrists and ankles.
Speke, who'd been detached and withdrawn since they'd entered the temple, suddenly spoke up: “Wait! Whatever you're going to do, do it to me instead!”
“I'm afraid that wouldn't be at all satisfactory,” K'k'thyima responded. “Only this man is suitable for the task.”
Speke fell to his knees and held his hands out imploringly. “Please!”
“Quite impossible. Stand up, Mr. Speke, and be quiet. The song will not require you again until the final verse.”
“Task?” Burton asked.
K'k'thyima picked up a wicked-looking knife from among the instruments on the nearby block.
Trounce stepped forward.
“Back, William! I intend no harm to your friend! See, I'm putting down the pistol now-” he placed his revolver next to Burton's head, “-but I'll slice his throat if you come any closer.”
Trounce bit his lip and gave a curt nod. He returned to his former position.
The brass man took hold of Burton's hair and, working quickly, began to slice it off.
“You have a most remarkable mind, Sir Richard,” he said. “When you wandered into this diamond's range of influence during your first expedition, we immediately recognised that you were the soft skin we'd been waiting for.”
Burton winced as the blade scraped across his scalp.
The priest continued: “The one with an open and enquiring intellect; an observer, sufficiently separated from his own culture to be able to easily absorb the ways of others; one not disorientated by the unusual or unfamiliar.”
“Why is that of any significance?”
K'k'thyima removed the last few strands of hair from the explorer's head and said, “William, Mr. Speke, I have to perform a delicate operation now. Do not interfere. If you try anything, he'll die, and so will you. Is that understood?”
Both men nodded.
The clockwork man put down the knife and took up a small bowl. It was partially filled with a sticky paste.
“Excellent!” he exclaimed. “The Batembuzi prepared everything well!”
He dipped the bowl into a chalice, scooping black diamond dust into it, then used a small instrument to work the dust into the paste. Limping to the head of the altar, he employed the same instrument to paint an intricate hieroglyph on Burton's naked scalp.
“It is of significance, Sir Richard, because it gives you the wherewithal to remain sane while experiencing history beyond the boundaries of your natural lifespan.”
“Beyond the-” Burton began. He stopped and his eyes widened. “You surely don't intend to send me through time!”
“I intend exactly that.”
The Naga priest finished painting, put the bowl aside, and reversed the instrument he was holding. Its other end was needle-sharp.
“This will hurt,” he said, and started to jab the point over and over into Burton's skin, working at such speed that his hand became a blur.
Burton groaned and writhed in pain.
“Time, Sir Richard. Time. Time. Time. You soft skins have such a limited sense of it. You think it's the beat of a heart, that its pulses are regular, that it marches from A to B to C. But there's much more to time than mere rhythm and sequence. There's a melody. There are refrains that arise and fade and arise again. Time can change pitch and timbre and texture. Time has harmonies. It has volume. It has accents and pauses. It has verses and choruses. Your understanding of it is tediously horizontal, but it has all these vertical aspects, too.”
William Trounce snorted. “Even if all that gobbledegook is true,” he growled, “so bloody well what?”
“Just this, Detective Inspector: when the ripples of consequence spread out from an action taken, they go in all directions, not just forward, as you soft skins would have it. All directions.”
“Ruddy nonsense!”
K'k'thyima straightened up from his task and said, “Do you happen to have a handkerchief?”
Trounce shook his head, but Speke reached into his pocket, pulled out a square of cotton, and passed it to the clockwork priest. K'k'thyima used it to wipe the blood and excess paste from the explorer's freshly etched tattoo.
“All done,” he announced. He picked up his revolver. “We shall now send our friend Sir Richard Francis Burton into the future, where he'll witness the music of time in all its glory. It is a gift from the Naga to the race that destroyed us.”
Burton said, “Why?”
“Because you have to learn! If you don't, this world is doomed! It is in your hands now, soft skin-teach the lesson you learn today.”
“Hogwash!” Trounce spat.
“It's a terrible shame,” K'k'thyima said, “and I'm truly sorry, but, as has ever been the case, the Eye requires a sacrifice to activate it. Your essence will, however, be imprinted on the stone, if that's any consolation, William.”
He raised the pistol and shot Trounce through the head.
Burton screamed.
There was a blinding white flash.
CHAPTER 12
Escape from Africa
“In despair are many hopes.”
– Arabic Proverb
The prodigious plant quivered and the huge red flower swung upward into a sunbeam and unfurled its outer layer of spiny petals to soak in the light and heat. The air bladders at the top of its stalk expanded like balloons then contracted, and the resultant squeak possessed an oddly dreamy tone.
“One, who is not, we see; but one, whom we see not, is;
Surely this is not that; but that is assuredly this.
“What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under;
If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.”
The bloom shifted again with a woody creak and appeared to look back down at the two men, who sat on their harvestmen and gaped at it in utter astonishment.
Bertie Wells whispered the obvious: “It's a talking plant. A talking bloody plant!”
Two long narrow leaves, positioned a little way below the petals, stretched and curled in a gesture that resembled a man throwing out his hands. “So explain yourself, you rotter! Why did you ignore me for so long? Wasn't it obvious that I was calling you back? The poppies, Richard! The poppies!”
Burton turned off his harvestman's steam engine, toppled from his saddle, thumped onto the ground, and lay still.
Behind him, Wells hurriedly stopped his own machine, dismounted, and ran over to kneel at his friend's side.
“I say!” the flower exclaimed. “Who are you? What's wrong with Richard?”
“I'm Bertie Wells, and I think he's fainted. Probably out of sheer disbelief!”
“Ah,” said the bloom, and added:
“Doubt is faith in the main; but faith, on the whole, is doubt;
We cannot believe by proof; but could we believe without?
“Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover;
Neither are straight lines curves; yet over is under and over.
“Two and two may be four; but four and four are not eight;
Fate and God may be twain; but God is the same as fate.”
“God is a proven fallacy,” Wells muttered distractedly as he took a flask from his belt and splashed water onto Burton's face.
“Indeed he is,” the plant agreed. “Darwin drove the sword home and left us with a void. What now, hey? What now? I say we should fill it with a higher sort of pantheism. What do you think, Mr. Wells?”
Without considering the fact that he'd somehow become engaged in a theological discussion with oversized vegetation-for he felt that to do so would lead to the inevitable conclusion that he'd gone completely barmy-Wells replied: “I feel man would be wise to work at correcting his own mistakes instead of waiting for intervention from on high, and should replace faith in an unknowable divine plan with a well-thought-out scheme of his own.”
“I say! Bravo! Bravo!” the plant cheered.
“Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels;
God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels.”
Burton blinked, sneezed, lay still for a moment, then scrambled to his feet, swayed, and grabbed at one of his harvestman's legs for support.
He looked up at the flower.
It angled itself downward and squealed, “I didn't think you were the fainting type, Richard! A hangover, I suspect! Did you drink too much of my brandy? I exude it like sap, you know! A very ingenious process, even if I do say so myself!”
Very slowly, Burton replied, “You, Algernon, have gotto be bloody joking.”
“What? What? Why?”
“A flower?”
“Oh! Ha-ha! Not just a flower-a whole bally jungle! What a wheeze, hey?”
“But is it-is it really you?”
The blossom twisted slightly, a gesture like a man angling his head to one side in contemplation. It refilled its air bladders and squeaked:
“Body and spirit are twins; God only knows which is which;
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.
“More is the whole than a part; but half is more than the whole;
Clearly, the soul is the body; but is not the body the soul?”
With a sudden jerk, the flower dropped until it was just inches from Burton's face.
“Is there something wrong with your memory, old horse?”
“Yes. There's a lot wrong with it. I've spent the past five years trying to piece it together while being pursued, shot at, and bombed.”
“And I suppose you've forgotten the poppy that sprouted from my hand?”
Burton flinched and put a hand to his head as an image flashed into his mind, bringing with it an overwhelming sense of loss. “Bismillah! I had! But I-wait! I think-I think-Culver Cliff!”
Swinburne shivered and rustled. “Unfortunately so.”
With watering eyes, Burton squinted at the surrounding rock face.
“I know this place. There's-”
He looked to his right, to where one of the plant's thick limbs crossed the ground and dug into the surrounding cliff. There was a dark opening in the root-like growth, and he could see that it was hollow.
Disparate recollections slotted together.
“There's a cave,” he said, hoarsely. “It's there! I remember now. A grotto! You killed Count Zeppelin!”
“Yes! The golden arrow of Eros straight into his eyeball! Good old Tom Bendyshe avenged! But the Prussian injected me with that horrible venom of his and the next thing I knew I was falling. It took me an age to grow back out of that pit and into daylight, I can tell you! Lucky for me that Zeppelin fell into it, too. He made very good fertilizer!”
A black pit.
Algernon Swinburne hanging by his fingertips.
A green shoot emerging from the back of the poet's hand. Petals unfurling. A red poppy.
“The poppies,” Burton whispered. “Now I understand.”
“Bloody typical!” the poet trumpeted. “I stretched myself to the absolute giddy limit to signpost the way back here, and you didn't even recognise what the confounded signs meant!”
“I'm sorry, Algy. Something happened to me in that cave-in Lettow-Vorbeck's temple! Yes, I remember now! It's in there, beyond the grotto!”
“Lettow-Vorbeck?” Swinburne asked.
Wells answered, “A German general, Mr. Swinburne. Apparently he's been trying to burn his way through your jungle to find this place.”
“The swine! I felt it, too! Very unpleasant!”
Burton murmured, “I lost my memory in that temple. The shock of your death was part of it, Algy, but there was more. And it ended with me being projected through time.”
Swinburne inflated his bladders, fluttered his petals, and said, “I know. You can imagine my surprise when, after having had nothing but Pox and Malady's foul-mouthed descendants for company for decade after decade, I suddenly saw you come stumbling into this clearing! You were ranting and raving like a Bedlam inmate! I tried to speak to you but you legged it through the gorge and out of the mountains like a man with the devil himself at his heels. By the way, what year is this?”
“I arrived in 1914. It's now 1918.”
“My hat! Really?”
The flower angled upward as if regarding the sky.
“One and two are not one; but one and nothing is two;
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.”
It turned back to the two men.
“I find it rather difficult to measure time these days. I've had such a different sense of it since I-er-took root, so to speak. It's not at all the way I used to think of it. Can you conceive of time as a thing filled with paradoxes and echoes? What a magnificent poem it would make!
“Once the mastodon was; pterodactyls were common as cocks;
Then the mammoth was God; now is He a prize ox.
“Parallels all things are; yet many of these are askew;
You are certainly I; but certainly I am not you.
“Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock;
Cocks exist for the hen; but hens exist for the cock.
“God, whom we see not, is; and God, who is not, we see;
Fiddle, we know, is diddle, and diddle, we take it, is dee.”
Swinburne arched his thick stalk and shook with a peal of high-pitched laughter. Leaves drifted down from his higher branches.
Wells leaned close to Burton and whispered, “I'm of the opinion that your friend, the giant plant, is rip-roaringly drunk!”
The explorer appeared not to hear the little war correspondent. “Vertical as well as horizontal qualities,” he mumbled to himself. “Who else spoke to me about the nature of time?”
Swinburne loosed a sound that resembled a belch and directed his petals back at Burton.
“But for all my newfound perception,” he said, “upon your appearance, I instantly recognised that you weren't where-or, rather, when-you belong; and I certainly didn't relish the thought of you being out there, beyond the mountains, among the savages.”
“Actually, there aren't many left,” Wells put in. “Most of those that remain are Askaris now.”
Swinburne gave a scornful hiss. “I'm not referring to the Africans, Mr. Wells. I mean the Europeans!”
“Ah. Quite so.”
“The barbarities that have been committed on this continent in the name of one ideology or another, this social policy or that-quite dreadful! And I mean to put an end to it. I shall soon have the strength to make the German vegetation-the red weed and the venomous plants-whither and die. Already I've gained influence over those horrible things the Prussians once employed as vehicles-”
Wells cried out: “Then it was you! You took control of the lurchers! You cleared the route out of Tabora for us!”
“Is that what you call them? Yes, of course it was me. Now I shall use them to rid this land of its armies. My influence is growing, Mr. Wells. My roots will one day reach from coast to coast. And when they do, I shall make a Utopia of Africa!”
“Utopia!” Wells's eyes glistened with hope.
“For as long as this version of history exists, Africa will be an Eden.”
The flower bobbed low, until it was level with their faces.
“But,” it squeaked, “this history should notexist. You have to go back, Richard, and you have to put an end to all such divergences.”
Bertie Wells frowned and looked from the vermillion blossom to Burton and back again. “Mr. Swinburne,” he said, “Richard has explained the phenomenon of alternate histories to me. Why can they not exist concurrently?”
“Time is a complex thing. It is like music. In addition to its rhythm, there is-”
“A melody,” Burton interjected. “Refrains, pitch, timbre, and texture. Time has harmonies, volume, accents, and pauses. It has verses and-Bismillah! I've heard this before-from-from Herbert Spencer!” He looked confused. “But not Herbert Spencer.”
“Good old tin-head!” Swinburne exclaimed. “I wonder what became of him?”
Burton pointed to where Swinburne's hollow root blocked the cave mouth. “He's in there!”
“I say! Is he? Was he then involved in your transportation here?”
The explorer struggled for an answer. Something felt very wrong. The clockwork philosopher had been a friend and ally, yet, for reasons he couldn't determine, when he thought of him now, he felt threatened and distrustful. “He was,” he said, and immediately felt he'd uttered an untruth.
“Then you must go to him,” Swinburne said. “And he must return you to 1863. For, to answer Mr. Wells's question, these alternate histories are proliferating and turning time into a cacophony. Imagine ten orchestras playing different tunes in the same theatre. The musicians would lose their way. Some would play the wrong melody by mistake. Musical expressions would be misplaced and mixed up. There'd be pandemonium. And that is what's happening. If this situation is allowed to continue unchecked, the borders between each version of reality will be breached. Diverse technologies will become horribly intermingled. People's personalities will be bent entirely out of shape. Events will develop in increasingly eccentric directions.”
“But how can I reverse the damage?” Burton asked.
“I haven't a clue! I'm just a poet! But you'll find a way.”
The king's agent looked at the opening in Swinburne's root. He didn't want to enter the cave; didn't want to see the grotto or the temple; and, especially, he didn't want to see Herbert Spencer.
He noticed a flower-strewn mound. It looked like a grave. The back of his mind seemed to flex, as if to divulge a secret, but the information didn't come-only deep sadness.
He addressed Wells: “Algy is right, Bertie. And that means I have to leave you now. I have to enter the temple.”
“I'm coming with you.”
“There's no need, and it might be dangerous.”
“I've seen this thing through with you from the start. I need to be there at the finish.”
Burton considered a moment, then nodded.
“Algy,” he said, turning back to the vermillion blossom. “I'm sorry this happened to you.”
“Sorry?” the poet responded. “Don't be sorry! This is everything I could have hoped for! My senses are alive, Richard! And whatsenses! I've never felt so engaged with life! So intoxicated by it! Finally, I feel the inexpressible poetry of sheer being!It's wondrous!”
Burton reached up and placed a hand on the side of the flower. “Then I'm happy for you, my friend.”
Swinburne's petals squeezed into a pucker, and the flower slid forward and placed a dewy kiss on the explorer's forehead.
Drawing away, Swinburne said, “Off you go.”
Burton reached up to his vehicle's saddle and lifted down his rifle. Seeing this, Wells stepped back to his harvestman and did the same. They walked together across the glade to the opening in the plant's root.
The king's agent looked back. The huge red flower had risen up into the sunbeam. Its petals were open. A trio of butterflies danced around it. He smiled and moved into the hollow limb.
Swinburne whispered:
“A wider soul than the world was wide,
Whose praise made love of him one with pride,
What part has death or has time in him,
Who rode life's lists as a god might ride?”
Sir Richard Francis Burton and Herbert George Wells walked through the hollow root and down into the grotto. They stepped out of an opening in the limb, crossed the chamber, and wriggled through the narrow tube in its wall to the shelf overlooking the vast cavern. After following the path down, they were met by the Batembuzi, who shepherded them to the Temple of the Eye.
The war correspondent gazed in disbelief at the monolithic edifice. “By gum,” he said. “It dwarfs even the pyramids!” He glanced nervously at their escorts. “It's funny, though-I always imagined that it'd be the workers who ended up as troglodytes, rather than the priests.”
“Historically, priests have probably lived underground more often than any other segment of the world's population,” Burton commented.
Wells gave a dismissive grunt. “The power of faith over rationality.”
“I used to think they were the opposite ends of a spectrum,” Burton answered. “Now I'm not so certain.”
“Surely you're not resurrecting God, Richard?”
“No. But perhaps I'm resurrecting myself.”
“Ah. Faith in oneself. When confronting the unknown, perhaps that's the only thing one can truly hope for.”
“I certainly have nothing else.”
“You have my friendship.”
Burton looked at Wells, reached out, and patted his shoulder.
“Yes. I do.”
They trudged along the central thoroughfare, reached the steps to the temple entrance, climbed them, and passed through the tall double doors. The Batembuzi ushered them to the foot of the staircase then slunk away and were absorbed into the shadows.
“Are they even men?” Wells asked.
“I have no idea, but, according to legend, the Naga managed to breach the natural divide between species to produce half-human offspring.”
They ascended to the hall, walked between its statues, and stopped at the gold-panelled doors.
Burton gripped a handle and said, “The last of my lost memories are in here, Bertie. Do you really want to face them with me?”
“Most assuredly!”
The king's agent swung the door open and they entered the chamber beyond.
He recognised it instantly. Everything was as it had been fifty-five years ago, except: “The Eye has gone!” Burton pointed to the empty bracket at the tip of the upside-down pyramid.
“That's the guarantee that you'll return to 1863,” Wells replied, “for obviously you removed the diamond and took it to London.”
Burton added, “Where it was recovered by the Germans after the destruction of the city. I go back knowing that will happen, so why do I allow it?”
“You'll find out! I say! This must be your Mr. Spencer!” He pointed to the floor.
The clockwork man was lying beside the altar. His brass body was battered, scratched, and discoloured, its left leg bent out of shape and footless. What passed for his face was disfigured by a big indentation on the left side. The speaking apparatus had been removed from his head and was sitting on the nearby block, among the various instruments.
Burton pointed out the exposed babbage to Wells.
“Do you see the seven apertures? They're where the Cambodian diamonds were fitted. They contained Spencer's mind and-and-”
