‘I am.’
She shook her head and addressed their guests. ‘What a pity it is, for you are both beautiful and should rejoice in your physical existence. Your bodies glow with the beauty of Being, a beauty which is undeservedly dimmed by the obscurity of clothing, born of a shame as false as it is puerile.’
‘I… that is to say, we,’ stammered Blackwood. ‘We are products of our culture and history, I’m afraid. It’s… just the way we are.’
‘Thomas wishes to make love to me,’ said Titania, her amusement growing in her voice. ‘And Sophia wishes to make love to you, Oberon.’
Sophia gave a little gasp at this, and Blackwood said, ‘Your Majesty! I assure you the thought never crossed my mind!’
Oberon and Titania laughed at Blackwood’s discomfiture, and the Faerie Queen said, ‘Your denial is as charming as it is ridiculous.’
‘Come, my friends,’ said Oberon. ‘Do not allow yourselves to be put out of sorts by my wife’s sense of humour. She is merely teasing you, for she is often amused by the antics of humans, by their strange beliefs and attitudes.’
‘We are often amused by them ourselves,’ said Sophia.
‘I have no doubt. But for now, we must lay such things aside, for we have important matters to discuss.’
Apparently in response to this statement, the floor stirred, and from it arose four chairs with cushions and backs of soft leaves. ‘Be seated,’ said Oberon. As they sat in the chairs, he added, ‘I would offer you refreshment, but were you to partake of it, you would never be able to leave the Realm of Faerie.’
‘Then human folklore is true in that regard?’ said Sophia. ‘It’s often said in wild and remote communities that faerie food should never be eaten.’
‘It is true,’ Oberon replied, ‘as is much of your folklore. Now, Thomas, you asked me a question earlier: why did I disguise myself as a humble faerie Helper?’
‘Indeed.’
‘But first, there is another question you wish to ask.’
‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘You are wondering how you were able to banish the pain from your amulet so easily.’
Of course!
thought Blackwood. The marvels he had experienced in the last few minutes had made him forget entirely about the amulet and the agony it had so recently caused him – not to mention the fact that it had apparently disappeared. ‘I suspect,’ he said ‘that I had your help in that.’
Oberon shrugged and indicated Blackwood’s chest. ‘Open your shirt.’
Blackwood did so, and looked down at his chest. Sophia looked also, and gasped in shock. The amulet had not disappeared; nor, however, did it remain hanging around his neck. The irregular pentacle with the staring eye at the centre was now – incredibly, unbelievably – embedded in his skin, its silvery lines glittering in the lamplight.
‘Good grief,’ Blackwood whispered. ‘How did this happen?’
‘The Comte de Saint Germain gave you a useful tool; I have merely made it
more
useful. Now, it cannot be taken from you, and it will alert you – without pain – to the presence of Magick and will offer a certain amount of protection.’
‘I’m very grateful,’ said Blackwood. ‘Although I’m bound to say that I don’t come up against Magick all that often.’
‘In the past, no,’ Oberon replied with a faint, mysterious smile. ‘But in the future… who can say?’
‘Do you, by any chance, know something I don’t?’ Blackwood asked.
Oberon’s smile grew broader, but no less enigmatic. ‘My friend, I know a great many things which you don’t.’
‘I have no doubt, sir.’
‘But to return to your other question, regarding my disguising myself. That is easily answered. I did it to offer you aid in your current assignment.’
‘May I ask why?’
‘Because the future of your world is at stake. We will not allow Earth to fall into the hands of the Venusians, who have all but destroyed their own planet, and now wish to take possession of yours. The Earth is beloved by us, for as I have said, we once walked openly and often there, and we maintain our connection with it. In fact, the connection can never be broken, for in a sense, Earth is still our home as much as it is yours, and we love it and the vast diversity of its life – a diversity which you have yet to appreciate or fully understand, even with your rapidly developing sciences.’
‘If that’s the case,’ said Sophia, ‘then why don’t you come to our world
en masse
and engage the Venusians openly?’
‘A fair and simple question,’ Oberon nodded. ‘The answer, however, is a little more complicated. When we left the Earth behind in ages long past, when human consciousness was new and civilisation was first stirring in its cradle, we made a Covenant with the material Universe that we would allow custody of the planet to pass to humanity and never interfere directly with the course of human history. We maintain that Covenant to this day and keep our interventions to a minimum. We help humanity when we can, in small ways: we help to run the information processing systems in your cogitators, for example, and we sometimes give aid to those who grow things upon the land. And there are other ways in which we lend a hand to humans on occasion, although they need not detain us here.’
‘But major interventions are forbidden,’ said Blackwood.
Oberon nodded.
‘Is that the reason you brought us here, rather than allowing your men to engage the fighting machine and the Æther zeppelin directly? From the looks of those weapons of theirs, they would have made short work of them.’
‘That is correct, and I must apologise, for we could indeed have destroyed them.’
‘But you would have been doing our jobs for us, and you’re not allowed to do that.’
‘We are not. We engaged the djinn because it is not a creature of the material Universe. Our Covenant permits us to intervene where Magick is involved, and the djinn would certainly have pursued Lord Pannick until it had found a way to exact its vengeance upon him; in so doing, it would have wreaked untold havoc upon your world, perhaps ultimately consuming it entirely. Of course, I could not allow that to happen. I brought you here to Faerie because it was the only way I could protect you from the fighting machine, which even as we speak is destroying the woodland around Lord Pannick’s house in its search for you.’ As he said this, a great anger and bitterness entered Oberon’s voice, and his expression grew dark at the thought of what the machine was doing to the trees.
‘We thank you for that,’ said Blackwood. ‘But if it’s our job to prevent war with Mars, then it’s just become a lot more complicated. The fighting machine is in Indrid Cold’s hands, and the Æther zeppelin has likewise made its escape and may well be
en route
to Mars at this very moment. Even if I took another zeppelin equipped for space travel and set off in pursuit, I wouldn’t be able to catch up with it until it was too late.’
‘And in the meantime,’ added Sophia, ‘the fighting machine may well have been hidden at another location, making it impossible to find before the Greater Exhibition opens. Lord Pannick is not the type of man to leave any contingency unplanned for.’
Titania turned to her husband. ‘Oberon, you must help them, and if necessary, you must put aside the terms of the Covenant to do so.’
Oberon shook his head. ‘My Queen, you know I cannot do that. We are bound to the Covenant for all future time; we cannot break it.’
‘What would happen if you
did
break it?’ asked Blackwood.
Oberon looked at him in silence, and Blackwood saw something in his eyes which made him look away and wish that he had not asked the question.
‘Then they are lost,’ said Titania. ‘For they cannot intercept the Æther zeppelin, and they will not be able to find the fighting machine before it rains destruction upon the Greater Exhibition. Queen Victoria will die, as will thousands of others, and thousands upon Mars will succumb to the terrible plague that is being carried to them. The burgeoning friendship that exists between the Blue Planet and the Red will wither and be transformed into fear and hatred. War will be declared, and each civilisation will decimate the other, while Venus looks on in satisfaction.’
‘That will not happen,’ said Oberon, and there was something in his voice which made Titania hesitate and regard him closely.
‘Why do you say that, my husband?’
‘I have listened to the Æther, and have heard the whispering of the Planetary Angels of Mars. They are beings very much like us: the first inhabitants of the Red Planet. The Martians – some of them, at least – have a much closer relationship with them than humans do with the Faeries of Earth. That is how Petrox Voronezh was able to recognise my true identity when he met me in Leason’s Wood. The Planetary Angels are saying that the Martians have developed a new and terrible weapon, which will ensure their survival if war breaks out.’
‘A new weapon?’ said Blackwood. ‘What kind of weapon?’
‘They call it the Sun Cannon. Each shell it fires contains within it the energy of a star. Were these shells to be fired at Earth’s cities from Mars or dropped upon them from interplanetary cylinders orbiting above the planet, they would destroy them, instantly and completely.’
‘Instantly?’ said Blackwood. ‘Completely? But no such weapon exists… surely no such weapon
can
exist!’
‘I assure you, it does, and if they perceive their world, their civilisation to be under threat, the Martians will use it.’
‘Then what are we to do?’ said Sophia, her voice tremulous.
‘Oberon, please…’ said Titania, taking her husband’s hand.
‘I cannot intervene directly,’ the Faerie King whispered.
‘Then there must be another way,’ said the Queen. ‘There must be a way to help them to save their world and its people.’
Blackwood leaned forward in his chair. ‘I will give my life to prevent the disaster that is threatening my world. But if that Æther zeppelin really is headed for Mars as we speak, and if the fighting machine with its Heat Ray really has been hidden beyond our sight or reach, then I can do nothing. King Oberon, there must be
something
you can do, some way you can help me to perform my duty.’
Oberon looked at Blackwood and Sophia, and then at his Queen. ‘There is something I can do,’ he said presently. ‘But the timing of it will be critical, and I cannot guarantee that it will enable you to succeed. And it will be extremely dangerous.’
‘I am used to danger,’ said Blackwood. ‘And death has been my constant companion for many years. What do you propose?’
Lord Pannick sat at the controls of the great space craft as it left Earth behind and headed into the depths of the Luminiferous Æther. Upon acquiring the machine, he had acquainted himself thoroughly with its workings and knew the function of every dial and switch with which the ornately fashioned oak and brass instrument panel was festooned. Through the gondola’s front windows, the stars shone brighter and more intensely than he would have imagined possible, and notwithstanding the foulness of his mood and the trepidation which gripped him, he gazed upon them with astonishment and wonder. Far behind him, the vast, frond-like propellers gripped the Æther and pushed the zeppelin onward, into the endless night of deep space.
His bad temper was caused partly by the weightlessness of the Æther, which was causing havoc with his stomach and which necessitated the wearing of the rather ugly and uncomfortable magnetic boots which kept him firmly upon the deck, but mainly by the destruction of his beloved Furfield and all it contained by the djinn. He had taken the zeppelin up to a thousand feet and had watched his home being ripped asunder by the entity, and as he watched, he had thought of all the beautiful things he had collected over the years, all the priceless artefacts which now lay in ruin at the centre of his estate. Blackwood, he supposed, had not come to Furfield alone: he’d had help – someone or something had allowed the djinn to return to this world, and a thwarted djinn was not to be trifled with, even by one as versed in the arcane as Pannick.
As the zeppelin had hovered high above the chaos, he wondered how Blackwood had managed it, and as he watched Indrid Cold take the Martian fighting machine out of its hangar and begin blasting the grounds with its Heat Ray, he hoped that somewhere down there, Blackwood and little Miss Harrington were frying…
He’d been about to leave the scene, preparing to take the zeppelin out of the Earth’s atmosphere and into the Luminiferous Æther, when something had caught his eye, and he had stayed his hand over the large twin throttles at the centre of the instrument panel. Someone was firing a beam of something that was not light at the monster, forcing it back through the rift in time and space through which it had come. He quickly recognised the beam as coming from a faerie weapon, and with that realisation, the mystery resolved itself in his mind, and he couldn’t help smiling grimly in appreciation. He had arranged for Blackwood’s cogitator to be sabotaged by the removal of its dreamcatcher, and that was precisely how the djinn had been allowed entry into Furfield.
Blackwood had indeed had help – faerie help.
Touché, Mr Blackwood
, Pannick thought.
In spite of his annoyance at the loss of his home, Pannick had to admit that the arrival of the faerie warriors had solved the problem of the rampaging djinn: at least now he wouldn’t have to worry about it coming to look for him. They really were most tenacious in the pursuit of their prey. That thought, however, immediately gave rise to another concern: Oberon, King of the Faeries. Had he become directly involved in this? Pannick doubted it, for he knew of the Faerie Covenant and how they had forbidden themselves from intervening in important human affairs. All the same, he might find some more subtle way of meddling…
Pannick glanced behind him, through the hatch and into the gondola’s main compartment, at the shelves packed with canisters containing the
Acarus galvanicus
mites, and he smiled in satisfaction. Neither Blackwood nor Oberon would be able to stop him now. He was well on his way to Mars, and even if Blackwood or some other fool launched an Æther zeppelin in pursuit, they would have no hope of catching up with him before he reached the Red Planet and dropped his calling card upon the good people of that world.
The only hiccup in his plans was the death of Peter Meddings. The idiot had lost his nerve at a crucial moment, had tried to flee and blundered straight into Blackwood’s hands. He deserved the bullet that had blown his head to pieces, the cowardly dolt! Now Pannick had no choice but to pilot the zeppelin himself and hope that he could drop the cylinders and get back into the Æther before the Martians knew what had hit them.
And while the little
Acarus
blighters hatched and grew and stole the air from their lungs, and the Martians died in fear and horror, Indrid Cold would stride across London in the fighting machine, to Hyde Park and the Greater Exhibition, where he would rain fiery destruction upon all who had gathered there. Two catastrophes, two great cries of outrage, two worlds turning in rage upon each other. The Æther zeppelins would fly, a vast interplanetary armada loaded with the most powerful weaponry at Earth’s disposal, while the cylinders would come from Mars, carrying battalions of fighting machines…
And then the war to end all wars would begin.
Pannick leaned forward and looked through the eyepiece of the zeppelin’s telescope at his destination. The flawless clarity of the Æther allowed a magnificent view of the tiny orb floating in the black infinity. It struck him that the Red Planet was not actually red at all: its hue was more that of pale orange Carnelian, with inclusions of Aventurine-green. Those little swathes were, he knew, the regions of vegetation which were maintained by the planet-wide system of irrigation canals which brought fresh water from the north and south poles.
‘Pretty little world,’ Pannick whispered…
And then there was a sound behind him, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose as he became aware that he was no longer alone on the zeppelin.
He spun around to see Thomas Blackwood floating in the hatchway between the flight deck and the gondola’s main compartment. With his left hand he gripped one of the many supporting handles bolted to the walls and bulkheads, while in his right he gripped a revolver.
‘Good evening, your Lordship,’ he said. ‘Or is it morning? Difficult to tell out here, isn’t it?’
‘How did you get on board?’ Pannick growled.
‘You’re the occultist; you tell me.’
Pannick hesitated, and then, as realisation dawned, he smiled and said, ‘Ah… I think I understand. The faeries who engaged the djinn in battle took you back to their realm, didn’t they? And then they opened a portal directly to here. Very clever.’
Blackwood gave him a sardonic smirk. ‘Thank you.’
‘Tell me, how is Oberon these days?’
‘He’s very well – and extremely annoyed at your antics, I might add.’
‘I don’t see why: after all, the Earth doesn’t belong to them anymore. Why should he care what happens to it?’
‘He cares because he still loves it, and he understands that humans are its caretakers now. He doesn’t want to see it become like Venus, and neither do I. Now, turn this craft around immediately and return us to Earth.’
Pannick chuckled. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Mr Blackwood. You see, I have a delivery to make, and I assure you I intend to make it. And by the way, I wouldn’t even think about firing your gun in here: the results would be most unpleasant for both of us.’ As he spoke, Pannick’s hands slowly and carefully moved behind his back, until they came to rest upon the engine throttles and the joystick.
Blackwood raised the gun, pointing the barrel between Pannick’s eyes. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them…’
But his order was too late. With a single movement, Pannick pushed down on the throttles and the joystick. Instantly, two things happened: the engines flew into a screaming frenzy of overdrive, and the zeppelin’s prow pitched upwards. Blackwood was thrown backwards by the wildly-inclining deck, through the hatch and into the main compartment. Pannick pulled another lever, and the hatch slid shut with a hiss of hydraulics.
He turned to the instrument panel and quickly corrected the zeppelin’s course, putting it once again on a heading for Mars; then he took a key from his pocket, inserted it in the panel and twisted, locking the controls in their current position. He glanced back at the hatch, cursing it for its lack of a locking mechanism. In another few moments, Blackwood would open it, and they’d be back to square one. Pannick, however, had other ideas. He withdrew the key, put it back in his pocket and stepped away from the instrument panel.
*
Blackwood had been flung backwards against a steel supporting brace, cracking his head and momentarily dazing himself. When he opened his eyes, he saw the compartment spinning wildly about him, and for a moment he couldn’t tell whether it really was spinning or he was suffering from vertigo induced by the blow to his head. He had never experienced weightlessness before, and it was a deeply unpleasant sensation: his internal organs felt like they had grown tired of their locations in his torso, and had decided to go for a wander in search of more amenable surroundings, while his brain told him that up was down, down was up, left was right and right left, before finally giving up and leaving his body to its own devices.
His flailing hands connected with another brace, and he held on and steadied himself, realising that he had been cartwheeling end over end. His stomach felt like it was jostling his heart for its position in the middle of his chest, and for a few moments he was certain that he would be physically sick. He closed his eyes, realised that that was a bad idea, and opened them again, taking deep breaths in an attempt to steady his innards.
He looked around for his revolver, which had flown from his hand, but it was nowhere to be seen, and with a curse, he decided that he didn’t have the time to go looking for it. Nor could he see any of the magnetic boots which he had noticed Pannick wearing. He supposed that there might be some in a locker somewhere, but once again, time forbade a search. In any event, he felt more comfortable without them. He decided that unencumbered speed would be more of an ally than the ability to walk upright.
As he began to pull himself towards the flight deck hatch, his brow damp with nausea-induced sweat, Blackwood looked down and noticed something odd about the floor of the main compartment. He glanced back at the ranks of canisters.
Ah
, he thought.
I see…
He reached the hatch, pulled the lever set into the bulkhead next to it and was surprised and gratified when it opened immediately. The flight deck was empty. Blackwood pulled himself inside and glanced around.
Where have you got to, you blackguard?
On the starboard side, there was a metal ladder ascending to a trapdoor in the ceiling – probably a maintenance hatch allowing access to the interior of the balloon. Clearly, this was Pannick’s escape route.
Blackwood cast a quick eye over the instruments, which were not so different from those of a conventional zeppelin, except that in place of a magnetic compass, which was of no use away from the Earth, there was a curious spherical instrument mounted in a water-filled cylinder on top of the panel. Blackwood took note of the numerals etched into the surface of the sphere – which apparently referred to degrees – and then took hold of the joystick, intending to guide the vessel through a 180-degree yaw away from Mars and back towards Earth.
The joystick, however, refused to budge. Blackwood looked down and saw the keyhole. Above it was a label marked INSTRUMENT LOCK.
Damn and blast!
he thought. As he turned towards the ladder, his eye caught another control and the label above it. And then he was up the ladder and through the maintenance hatch.
Pannick was nowhere in sight. From his vantage point, Blackwood quickly took in the layout of the balloon’s interior. He was at the forward end of a metal catwalk which appeared to stretch for the entire length of the zeppelin. Eight feet above the catwalk was the lowest row of gasbags, gigantic and bulbous, like whales floating in midair, and strapped together with heavy canvas webbing. Blackwood peered along the three hundred feet of catwalk. At fifty-foot intervals, ladders ascended – he guessed to the axial corridor running through the centre of the balloon. Pannick had to be up there, somewhere.
Blackwood listened intently, trying to catch the faintest sound which might alert him to Pannick’s location. He pulled himself slowly along the catwalk, past the first ladder and on to the second. All was silence. He moved on towards the third ladder, halfway along the zeppelin’s length.
A barely-audible metallic clank brought him to a sudden halt. A few moments later, another clank sounded from somewhere above. Pannick was up there, apparently directly above Blackwood’s position – although such were the acoustics in this singular place that he could not be entirely sure. He grabbed the rungs of the third ladder and hauled himself upwards through the vertical shaft connecting the catwalk with the axial corridor.
The shaft was oppressive in its narrowness; its walls were the dark ruddy yellow of the surrounding gasbags and seemed to stretch upwards uniformly to their vanishing point. So uniform were the walls that Blackwood realised too late that he was fast approaching the axial corridor, and before he could do anything to slow himself down, he was within it. Pannick was standing directly in front of him, swinging a massive spanner at his head. Blackwood barely had time to put up his left arm to fend off the blow, and he felt both his ulna and radius shatter in an explosion of pain as he was knocked out of the shaft and began to tumble along the corridor.
His crippled arm floating uselessly at his side, Blackwood reached out with his right hand, grabbed one of the girders lining the corridor and brought himself to a halt. The pain was sickening, unbearable, and combined with the effects of weightlessness, it was nearly enough to make him pass out.