Philip José Farmer's The Dungeon 06] - The Final Battle (18 page)

"That's all right, Major Folliot." Horace Smythe, still garbed as the Tsarist Count Splitofsky, brushed his coat and adjusted his lapels. I can show the Major what became of Chang Guafe more clearly than I could ever explain it, sah. With the Major's permission, then…"

Unable to control his voice, Clive nodded.

"If the Major will take a seat, then." Smythe flicked a series of switches, adjusted a series of levers on the machine. The light in the room grew dim. Before Clive's amazed eyes a cloud of fog or smoky material arose and floated at eye level. Within it a scene slowly took form.

"Why—why it is myself! Myself and Chang Guafe and the Widow Shelley's monstrous creation. See us there, struggling across the ice floe. And see us, now, sailing before the Arctic zephyr. Sergeant Smythe, how can this be? What do I see?"

He plunged his hand into the fog—or tried to do so. It was no use, for the fog resisted, gradually, gently. He could shove his fingertips into it easily, but after the first few inches they felt a counterpressure, and the harder Clive pressed, the deeper into the fog he penetrated, the stronger the resistance became. After the first four or five inches, he found himself pressing with all his strength, perspiration breaking out on his brow, unable to reach any of the figures that he beheld.

He ended his efforts, withdrew his hand, slumped back in his chair.

"If you would merely observe, Clive Folliot," Sidi Bombay urged, "you would accomplish more than you would by attempting to intervene. It is the karma, after all, of those you behold. It is the will of heaven. One must not interfere."

"But—but it is I myself!"

"Indeed it is."

"Is this an image merely?"

"I think not, Clive Folliot," the Indian said.

"Nor do I, sah." Horace Smythe adjusted a knob, and the figures in the fog grew until they seemed the size of a child's dolls. "I believe we are actually seeing the Major, along with Chang Guafe and that other chap, the tall, pale one."

"You
believe
, Smythe?" Clive saw the space-train come to a rest on the arctic water. He saw himself and the Frankenstein monster clamber onto cars. He saw Chang Guafe slip beneath the surface of the frigid polar sea. "Can we do nothing to help him?" he exclaimed.

"We must not interfere, Clive Folliot." Sidi Bombay's voice was as calm as ever. "Nor could we. You saw what happened when you attempted to penetrate the fog."

"They don't know we're watching them. Are we actually seeing the past as it takes place, or is this an image merely?"

"Don't know as it matters, sah."

"The Major speculates upon matters of metaphysics." Sidi Bombay smiled.

"Can we see anything we want? Any scene in time or space?" Clive demanded.

" 'Tisn't easily done, sah. The controls of this thingamabob are devilish hard to master. I can only tune in now and then. But I think I reached Chang Guafe because you was with him, sah. And now you're here. It all connects up somehow, sah."

"But you saw him before, you say?"

"Yes, sah. But you, sah, you're here now, ain't you?"

Clive nodded dumbly. Metaphysics indeed. It was all beyond him. "What's happening to Chang Guafe? Can you show me him?"

Without speaking, Horace Smythe operated the machine's controls. Water rushed upward, filling the volume of fog in the center of the room. Murk filled the space. A feeling of chill and moisture pervaded the room. Dark green forms wavered and silvery ones darted by like bullets. Clive realized that he was observing the bottom of the polar sea. A large shape, in part covered with a smooth, metallic carapace, crawled forward.

"It's Chang Guafe!" Clive exclaimed. "He's all right!"

Neither Horace Smythe nor Sidi Bombay spoke.

The phantom Chang Guafe crawled, crablike, along the bottom of the sea. Briefly the waters swirled and boiled, and by dropping down and peering up into the foggy area Clive could see the surface of the sea in an uproar, and the space-train above it, rising into the cold sky. Clive returned his attention to Chang Guafe.

The alien cyborg extruded a shovel-like scoop and lifted a gob of material from the seabed. With tiny tools that he extruded from his body, Chang Guage shaped the material into a tube and sent it rising to the surface of the sea. He sucked in air, inflating elastic sacs that appeared through openings in his carapace.

Gracefully, Chang Guafe rose to the surface. Again he changed his configuration, filling newly created fuel tanks with water. The water fed into Chang Guafe's body, reappeared as glittering particles through tubes that emerged beneath the cyborg's body.

Chang Guafe rose into the air, sped away from the Earth, and was lost to sight.

The fog grew as dim as if night were falling.

"That's all, sah."

"But where did he go, Smythe?"

"I don't know, sah. It 'pears as if the Major got too far away from Chang Guafe. Or Chang Guafe, from the Major, sah. Leastways, I can't hold the image past that point, sah."

"It is my guess," Sidi Bombay put in, "that Chang Guafe has gone in search of his people. Or perhaps he is headed elsewhere."

"And this is happening… now?" Clive inquired.

"This happened long ago."

"And where is Chang Guafe
now
—in 1896?"

The Indian shrugged. "Sergeant Smythe told you that Chang Guafe was well and busy, Clive Folliot. But that was in part surmise. I believe, also, that we will see him again, although I do not know when or where that will be."

Horace Smythe was manipulating the controls of the machinery, but the image in the fog faded, and he was not able to call it back. "What happened after that, sah?" he asked. "I mean, sah, after the Major climbed aboard the train, and the train rose into the sky. What then, sah?"

"And then, I found myself in London. In the home of my dying friend, George du Maurier. I had spoken with him, from the Dungeon. It was never clear to me whether we had truly communicated or whether it had been an illusion, a dream or mirage or hallucination. But it was no illusion—it was real."

"Mr. du Maurier is dead," Sidi Bombay said.

"He is now."

"Was he alone when you saw him? Was he conscious? Was he in command of his faculties?" Horace Smythe asked.

"He was not alone. He was attended by Madame Clarissa Mesmer, the granddaughter of the famous Anton Mesmer. He was conscious and fully coherent when I left him."

Horace Smythe and Sidi Bombay exchanged another glance. Smythe's fingers flew. Enigmatic words and symbols flashed across the message panel.

"Madame Mesmer is a very powerful woman, Major Folliot," Sidi Bombay said.

"Powerful?" Clive responded. "Do you refer to psychic power, or to human influence, Sidi Bombay?"

"Both, Major Folliot. And more."

"More, Sidi Bombay? Please elucidate."

"Her influence extends not merely to human agencies, Major Folliot. That is what I meant."

"Sidi Bombay, Sergeant Smythe… I fear that I have gotten into a situation that is far beyond my depth. At times I feel like a solitary adventurer, a Hercules or a Parsifal, facing monsters on the one hand and traitors on the other. Yet even that I can cope with. There was a time in my life when I should have cringed helplessly before these odds. Such is no longer the case. The Dungeon has changed me, strengthened me, altered me for the better."

He looked from Horace Hamilton Smythe to Sidi Bombay. "But at other times I feel like a piece on a chessboard," he continued, "moved about at the whims of others, a helpless pawn being played in a game I neither comprehend nor control."

"Chess is an ancient game," Sidi Bombay replied. "It was known in the Middle East and in my own country long before it reached Europe. We are, perhaps, all chessmen in the game of the gods. But we are not pawns. Sergeant Smythe I should take as a rook—powerful, straightforward, stalwart. As for myself—well, perhaps a bishop, cutting across the paths of others, striking at distant and unsuspecting targets, Major Folliot."

"And I? What chess-piece am I, do you think, Sidi Bombay?"

"You, sir? In my mind there is no question, sir. You are a knight. Your power is not so obvious, but then, sir, neither are your intentions. You seem to be moving straight ahead, only to strike to the side. Yet again, you move to the left or the right, then veer and plunge where your attack is unexpected. Or you retreat and at the last moment turn and slay your pursuer. You may never survive to become a baron, Major Folliot, but in the game of chess you are already a knight!"

Clive could not suppress a smile. He looked from Sidi Bombay to Horace Hamilton Smythe. "It was we three who entered the Dungeon together. You, Horace… and you, Sidi Bombay… and I. The rook, the bishop, and the knight—perhaps. But who is the king? Baron Tewkesbury? My brother, Neville? Baron Samedi? Father O'Hara? George du Maurier?"

"The king is dead, long live the king," Sidi Bombay intoned in a low, solemn voice.

Clive flashed him a look.

Sidi Bombay returned it but said no more.

"And who is the queen?" Clive resumed. "The Lady 'Nrrc'kth? My great-great-granddaughter Annabelle Leigh? Madame Mesmer? Lorena Ransome?"

Sidi Bombay spread his hands in silence.

"Time and again I have encountered chess sets in the Dungeon," Clive said. "In Green's house, for one. And in the strange room that was like a scene from the fantasies of Dr. Dodgson, for another. Chess sets, with real personages replacing the pieces. I appeal to you. You appear to know far more than I of our mutual situation. Share with me your information."

Sergeant Smythe said, "That we shall, sah. That we shall do." He took Clive's elbow and guided him to the seat that, in his guise as young Maurice Carstairs, he had just vacated. "If you'll sit yourself down right 'ere, sah, you shall have plenty of information. More, p'raps, than you'll enjoy!"

Clive fixed his companions with his gaze. "After this, my friends, I shall propose a further course of action."

"Yes, sah. As you say, sah."

"Sergeant, I shall thank you not to patronize me. We three entered the Dungeon together, there at the ruby heart within the Sudd. All that followed, all that befell us within the Dungeon, is the sequel of that event. I propose, therefore, that we three join—or rejoin—forces, and see this thing through to its end.
Now
, Sergeant Smythe and Sidi Bombay.
Now
, and without further delay or distraction. We have been through much, together and apart. We have suffered fang and claw and venomous barb. We have been imprisoned, have known privation and pain."

He pounded a fist into the palm of his other hand. "I propose that the three of us form a pact, that we swear a great vow, as blood brothers—yes, as blood brothers, despite the disparity in our station and the differences of our races—and see this through to its end!"

Without another word, the three men, a patrician Englishman, a hardy yeoman and professional soldier, and a dark-skinned Indian mystic, clasped one another's hands.

There was a moment of silence. Then Horace Hamilton Smythe winked his eye. "I was hopin' yer'd say somethin' like that, sah. Something exactly like that! Thank yer, sah! Thank yer! All very good, and it's time to get to work, then, sah!"

"Very well. Our first task shall be to reassemble the party of adventurers who have shared most of our experiences in the Dungeon."

"I thought it was just the three of us, sah. The Major and Sidi Bombay and meself, sah." Smythe's voice and the expression on his face betrayed a measure of disappointment.

"I understand your feelings, Sergeant Smythe," Clive said. "We three are more than associates, more than members of a business enterprise or a sporting team or a military unit. Yes, we are brothers! But we three cannot undertake this task without help."

"There's the Universal Neighborhood Improvement Association, sah."

"Indeed there is. And we shall act under their ensign, if you and Sidi Bombay so deem, Horace. But you must pardon me for feeling that we will do better if we but locate our own comrades. Those, at least, who still survive, and who are willing to join us in what must surely be the final confrontation between the champions of all that is just and decent and moral—and their sworn foes."

"Just who is it that the Major has in mind, sah?" Horace was looking more and more morose. "Surely we won't have to break up this team, I hope."

"Never." Clive shook his head. He saw the look of relief on Horace Smythe's face. Even the normally stolid and undemonstrative Sidi Bombay smiled and nodded.

"But look here, Horace, Sidi Bombay," Clive resumed. He pressed his thumb to one side of his nose, his forefinger to the other. Before his mind's eye there appeared images of uncounted adventures, unmeasured perils and privations in the Dungeon. And yet, all the suffering that he had undergone seemed, in retrospect, strangely sweet to him.

"But look," he repeated, "let me call to mind just a few. Horace, Sidi Bombay—is that marvelous mechanism not capable of tracking down a handful of individuals?"

"I do not know, Clive Folliot." The Indian looked doubtful. "You must tell me as much as you can, and I shall attempt to do as much as I can."

Clearly, Clive thought, it was Sidi Bombay who was the master of the machine.

"Chang Guafe you have already shown me."

Sidi Bombay nodded.

"And Annie, my darling Annabelle Leigh. If that was truly she, flying the aeroplane above the polar ice—but
not
truly she whom I left in Gloucestershire—then where is Annie now? And where is the aeroplane?"

The Indian held his palms outward in a strangely Western gesture. It was not necessary for him to say that he did not know the answers to Clive's queries.

"You do not know, but you can find out?"

The Indian frowned.

"Before you even try," Clive said, "let me complete the list. There is Shriek—"

"That bloody gigantic spider?" Horace Smythe's face reddened.

"Yes, Horace. A strange and alien being, but one who stood beside us through peril and privation. When last I saw her, the poor thing had been reduced to the size of an ordinary domestic arachnid. But where is she now? Can we bring her to us? And can we restore her to her proper stature?"