Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl (37 page)

After seeing Countess Bathory’s bloodlust on the
Yellow Rose,
and now her supernatural ability to transform into a powerful- looking wolf, Stoker began to feel they might just have a fighting chance against the Children of Heqet. Looking forward, he almost tripped over something at his feet.

Stoker crouched and peered in the light of his lamp at one of Okoth’s helmets and air tanks. Trigger bent down and covered his mouth.

“John’s,” he said at last.

Stoker tried to smile. “Then at least we know he made it safely this far.”

“Perhaps this ancient sepulcher is John’s tomb also,” said Trigger hollowly.

They walked on in silence, and a sudden draft caused the flames in their oil lamps to flicker. Stoker peered ahead. “Fresh air. And I can see light, though it’s very faint.”

They hurried forward, and Stoker murmured to Bathory, “Are you well, Countess? You look paler than usual.”

She smiled, but thinly. “The transformation took more out of me than I expected. It is the harsh sun I have endured, and the lack of sustenance.”

Stoker stroked his beard. “If you really need to feed . . .”

She shook her head and pointed forward. “Some kind of open doorway ahead, Bram.”

“Careful!” called Bent. “Might be another effing booby trap!”

Stoke and Bathory paused by the stone opening through which the tunnel widened to a room, with a similar, darkened doorway some thirty feet opposite.

Stoker poked his head around the opening. “It is lit with torches,” he observed. “Set into sconces on the walls. Evidently, we are entering inhabited territory.”

“The Children of Heqet,” said Bathory grimly.

“Curious room, innit?” said Bent.

The floor, ceiling, and walls were composed of black and white tiles, though not symmetrically laid, and of quite a different nature than the stones in the booby-trapped tunnel. Some of the black tiles had smaller white squares set into opposing corners, giving an appearance that straight lines were in fact wavy, while tiles of diminishing sizes and rounded edges tricked the eye into seeing extended vanishing points where there were none, and swirls of tiles, though static, appeared to be rotating slowly, first one way, then the other.

Bent shouldered past Stoker for a look, then pulled back and pushed the pith helmet back on his head. “Giving me a fit of the vapors.”

“We know how fiendish these ancients were,” said Stoker. “It would be best to tread carefully.”

“Check your ammunition,” ordered Trigger, spinning the chamber of his revolver. “We’re close to them. I can feel it.”

Stoker looked around on the ground and found a few fallen stones, which he cast in a handful across the checkerboard floor. Nothing moved. Holding the pistol aloft, he took a step on to the tiles, then another. He turned and shrugged, and Trigger followed him, rifle in hands. The two men padded to the center of the room, then beckoned for the others to follow. The other doorway was ahead of them, doused in darkness. Trigger said quietly, “Whatever we want is through there. Keep your wits about you now.”

As Bathory and Bent joined them in the center of the room, Stoker cocked his head. “What was that?”

Beneath their feet, hidden cogs and gears began to turn, and the ground began to thrum with their regulated movement. Bent frowned and said, “It could be my imagination, but . . . is this room moving?”

27
Your Fear Is a Lie

“Tea!” called Okoth, clapping his hands and waving them at Mori.

Cockayne stared at Gideon, until he met the American’s eyes and said irritably, “What?”

Cockayne shrugged. “Wasn’t expecting that from you, Smith.”

Gideon looked at his hands. They were trembling. “I couldn’t,” he said in a small voice. “I just couldn’t.”

“What scares you?” said Cockayne.

“Leave him, Louis,” said Fanshawe quietly.

Gideon shook his head. “It’s the tunnels. When I was a small boy . . . I got lost. Underground.”

Gideon Smith first truly knew fear when he was nine-years- old. Oliver Thwaite had been reported missing a scant hour before, and the men were getting organised to comb the moors. Gideon knew where he was, though; Oliver Thwaite spoke of nothing else other than the pirate gold which lay within the catacombs of Lythe Bank. He’d tried to tell his dad but had been unable to penetrate the carefully-controlled panic infecting the grown-ups. So he decided to rescue Oliver himself.

Thanks to his already vast knowledge of Trigger’s stories, Gideon knew exactly what was required for a descent into the underworld. He would need light, of course, and had borrowed an oil-lamp from his daddy’s shed. Chasms or sheer stone faces would need to be traversed or scaled; he hadn’t dared take a rope from the
Cold Drake
but his mother’s spare washing line would do. A ball of string, tied to the entrance of the caves and unwound behind him would ensure he wouldn’t get lost. Gideon wasn’t sure why, but he did know brandy was something of a cure-all so decanted a couple of inches from his daddy’s bottle into a stone jug.

Gideon had never ventured inside Lythe Bank before, of course. As he stood before the black fissure he felt something inside his throat catch, felt his chest constrict. The crack in the high walls seemed to beckon him into a world not his, a world where thousands of tons of rock waited to press down upon him, a world without sunlight or fresh air.

Unfurling the string behind him and holding the oil-lantern high, Gideon sidled with ungainly crab-movements along the narrow passage, his back against the rough wall. He shouted Oliver’s name and the caves mockingly echoed his words. His adventure was not quite as thrilling as he would have hoped. The weight of his situation pressed down on him, all those tons and tons of rock gathered around his thin nine-year-old self. Gideon began to breathe quickly and shallowly, panic rising. One stumble, and the oil-lantern crashed to the sharp rocks. Plunged into blackness Gideon began to wail, then sob, and hurriedly retraced his steps along the string . . . which hung limply in his hands, sheared off by the angular rocks. He began to run blindly onwards, falling and scuffing the palms of his hands. He was, as lost as Oliver Thwaite. But more than that . . . he couldn’t breathe. The caves had lured him from the wide-open spaces. Gideon’s eyes bulged and he clawed at his throat, but it was no use.

He was dying.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, dying in the impenetrable black, before a faint glow appeared and grew into an oil-lamp carried by a frowning Arthur Smith, who picked him up and carried him back towards the light. With each step Gideon’s imminent death seemed to recede and his breath came in ragged rasps. Shame mingling with relief, he realised he had walked barely thirty steps into the tunnels, and in seconds Arthur had him out.

“You went to look for him? You’re a brave lad. Foolish, but brave. Promise me you’ll never go in there again,” Arthur said into Gideon’s hair. “I couldn’t bear it if I lost you.”

Then he frowned and put Gideon down, and looked back at Lythe Bank. Gideon knew what he was thinking. “I’d better get the men, though. If Oliver Thwaite’s in there . . .”

Arthur Smith knew, and Gideon could sense, there wouldn’t be a second small boy brought out of those tunnels that day.

Cockayne nodded. “And this fear has lived with you ever since.” He ruminated for a moment, then said, “Your fear is a lie, Smith.”

Gideon frowned. “I’m not lying. You weren’t there. You didn’t see me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.”

“I didn’t say you were lying. I said your
fear
is a lie,” said Cockayne. “What, you think the walls are going to close in on you? The roof will collapse? You’ll be lost in the darkness forever?”

Gideon nodded. “All those things.”

Cockayne waved his hand. “We’re, what, thirty feet below the surface here? The submersible could crack. Water could pour in and drown us. Crocodiles could eat us. Those goddamn mummies could come back. Why the hell aren’t you curled up in a ball, whimpering for your mother?”

Gideon took a breath. “I don’t know.”

Cockayne smirked. “You flew from London to Alexandria strung under a balloon. That didn’t scare you?”

Gideon shrugged. Cockayne went on, “Your fear is a lie, Gideon. It only hurts you because you believe it. Stop believing it. Tell it to go jump in the lake.”

“What would you know about it?” asked Gideon, not intending to sneer but doing so anyway.

Cockayne stroked his moustache. After a long moment he said, “What do you think I’m scared of, Gideon?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m scared of being more than twenty feet off the ground.” Cockayne smiled.

Fanshawe laughed. “Louis, you’re a ’stat pilot.”

He turned to her and nodded. “Yes. And how do I do it? Because I stopped believing the lie.” He paused and looked back to Gideon. “When I was nine years old I lived on a farm in Connecticut. I had two brothers. We had a grain tower, and my brothers liked to climb it, play pirates. I was always too little. One day I followed them up the ladder and out around the rim. I looked down. I couldn’t move. I was frozen to the spot.”

Cockayne accepted a cup of tea from Mori and sipped at it, pulling a face. He handed it back. “Needs sugar, kid.” He looked into the middle distance. “Robert, who was my eldest brother, came up to help me. He climbed across the domed roof of the grain tower and tried to get me to scramble back to the ladder. I couldn’t move. He tried to grab me, told me he’d kick my ass if I didn’t move.”

Gideon looked on, listening despite himself.

Cockayne said, “Robert fell. Lost his grip. His eyes met mine as he fell. He held my gaze all the way down.”

“What happened?” said Gideon.

Cockayne shook his head. “I don’t really remember. I was in shock, I guess. They got me down somehow.”

“Robert? Your brother?”

Cockayne looked down. “He died. I could barely climb the stairs after that. I knew everybody blamed me, even if they didn’t say so. I’d look out of my bedroom window, I’d get dizzy. But I knew it would ruin my life, if I let it. So I looked my fear dead in the eye, and told it to go jump in the lake.” He stood silently for a moment. “Don’t think it doesn’t creep up on me. Don’t think I never stand on the observation deck of the
Yellow Rose
and feel that tingle in my feet, my stomach turning somersaults. Don’t think I never look over the edge and suddenly don’t know which is up and which is down. But my fear’s a lie, Gideon, and I’ll be fucked seven ways to Sunday before I let a lie bring me down.”

Gideon turned away and stared through the window, at the black hole of the tunnel. He said softly, “That’s what it means to be a hero.”

“If you like,” said Cockayne. “Maybe that’s just what it means to be a human being. You kick a dog often enough, it knows if it comes near you, it’ll get kicked. So it keeps away. That’s the difference between a man and a dog. Kick a man, a real man, and he’ll bide his time, until he can kick you back, only harder. That’s what you’ve got to do, Gideon. Kick back. Don’t let a lie bring you down. Tell your fear—”

“To go jump in the lake,” said Gideon. He turned around and smiled. “Mr. Okoth? Do you have any of those air tanks left?”

“I’m coming with you,” said Maria.

They all looked at her. Gideon said, “No. It’ll be dangerous.”

Fanshawe sighed. “Didn’t Maria deck one of those mummies with one punch?” She shook her head. “You men really are full of your own hot air, aren’t you?”

Cockayne raised his eyebrow. “Really? One punch?”

“I’m stronger than I look, Mr. Cockayne,” said Maria. “And I don’t need an air tank. Not after the Children of Heqet brought me halfway across the world under the water.”

Gideon shook his head again. “Maria, no. I insist.”

She smiled tightly. “Mr. Smith, you are being what I believe Mr. Cockayne would call an asshole.” She looked at the American. “Is that right?”

Cockayne grinned. “Perfectly, Miss Maria.”

As she helped put the air tank on Gideon’s back, Fanshawe gave him a hot, deep kiss. “For luck,” she said.

She tightened the rubber seals on the helmet and stepped back. Gideon, the sword hanging at his side, gave her a little wave, then tugged at Maria’s arm. The pair of them entered the airlock and Okoth shut them in it.