Robert Rankin - Retromancer

‘I do,’ I said and I nodded my head.

‘And do you swear never to divulge what you see?’

‘Not even in the pages of a book that I might pen sometime in the far future?’ I asked.

‘Other than for those.’

‘I swear,’ I said. And I saw it wet and I saw it dry once more.

‘Then follow me once more.’

Hugo Rune swung open the door and led me into darkness. He shut and bolted this door behind us, bringing on greater black. Then I heard the clicking of a switch, light welled and I became aware that we were travelling downwards. As in a lift descending into the very bowels of the Earth. And I do not make this statement lightly, because we were travelling down and down and down.

My ears began to pop and Hugo Rune offered me a boiled sweet to suck, which certainly took the edge off.

And down and down we went and down and down some more.

‘It is very very deep down, your workshop,’ I said.

But Hugo Rune said nothing.

Presently the lift halted and we had reached our destination. There was a door before us and the Magus slid this open.

I stared into what lay beyond.

And then I all but fainted.

I stood as if within a vast cathedral. A climbing triumph of High Gothic. The columns contained cloisonné coffering in the champlevé style. Sheltered cameo-crusted capitals supported a calotte which rivalled that of the basilica of João de Castilho. But for the subtle differences of the Diocletian diaper work. And the bas-reliefs of booger men and banjos.

‘What is this place?’ I managed, in a strangled kind of voice.

‘Come, Rizla,’ Mr Rune said, kindly. ‘Surely you recall this style of architecture. We are in one of the Forbidden Zones [5], those hidden areas that are not to be found upon any map, where all that is “lost” or “missing” is ultimately to be found. You see, it all began when-’

‘Yes,’ I said and I nodded as I said it. ‘I do remember. We discovered the Chronovision within such a cavern as this, beneath the streets of Brighton.’

‘And I have appropriated this one for myself,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Requisitioned it, as it were, for our old friend the War Effort.’

I gazed all around and about, my jaw hanging slack in awe. There were many tables, or workbenches, dwindling into the distance, and upon these rested many outré items.

Complicated contrivances, wrought from burnished brass, heavy on the cogwheels and ball-governors. Constructions resembling the interiors of mighty clocks, clicking and clacking as wheels slowly turned and curious business was done.

‘What are all these mind-boggling things?’ I asked of Hugo Rune.

The Magus, stepping to a bench, toyed with an intricate engine. ‘Many are inexplicable conundra,’ he said, ‘built from plans discovered in the lost notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Others once belonged to Cagliostro and the Count of St Germain, who designed them for the improvement of diamonds. Over there, the wheel of Orffyeus, a perpetual motion device that has been turning at precisely twenty-three revolutions per minute for more than three hundred years.’

I shook my head at the wonder of it all. ‘And all these marvels belong to you?’ I said.

And Hugo Rune did noddings of the head.

‘Then why not give them to the world? Or sell them, if you prefer. An ever-spinning wheel could replace the internal-combustion engine. Such miracles as these could change the world.’

But now the sage did shakings of the head. And sad they were, the shakings that he did.

‘Alas no,’ said he. ‘Such wonders as these must never find their way to the world above. As with the Chronovision, only evil would come of it.’

‘That cannot be true,’ I said. ‘You are just being selfish.’ And even as I spoke those words, I wished I had not done so.

‘No, Rizla, no,’ cried Hugo Rune. ‘You fail to understand. These machines confound all scientific principles. Here, see this, for this is what we’ve come for.’ And he drew my attention to a disc of dull metal about the size of a manhole cover that lay on a nearby table and upon which there rested several house bricks.

‘A pile of bricks, on a metal disc,’ I remarked. ‘Perhaps one of the less-impressive items to be found in this hall of dreams.’

‘You think so?’ And Hugo Rune flung aside bricks and hoiked up the disc of dull metal.

It was a half-decent hoik and what followed it had my heart rate increasing and my throat turning dry.

He literally balanced that disc of dull metal upon a single finger and then released it into the air.

But it did not fall; it yet remained there, all still and a-hover, defying the law of gravity.

‘Wow,’ I said, when I could say it. ‘What in the Underworld is that?’

‘That is Gravitite, young Rizla, created by a certain Professor Kaleton. It does not wholly defy the law of gravity. It is actually falling, but only by an inch or two a year.’

‘Now that would certainly help the War Effort,’ I said. ‘And do not go telling me at all that it would not.’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘In fact, it will be helping the War Effort this very night. It with the help of you.’

And there was something in the way that he said that which I found unappealing, and when he explained to me exactly what he expected me to do, I-

‘No!’ I said. ‘I could never to that.’

‘But with training, young Rizla, right here, under my supervision, there is no telling what you might be capable of.’

‘But I might die.’

‘This is a possibility. But if I were a betting man I would say that it was a long shot. At most you might expect some injuries and a degree of hospitalisation.’

‘Then no once more,’ I said. ‘I will not do it.’

‘Why not give it a little go now? You never know, you might like it.’

I shook my head. And then I ceased with this shaking. Because, after all, what was being offered to me was every schoolboy’s dream. Well, every schoolboy’s dream after the one about being able to turn invisible at will and sneak into ladies’ bedrooms.

This dream was the other dream. The one about being able to fly. ‘You are saying to me,’ I said to Hugo Rune, ‘that the disc of dull metal floating there can support my weight and that on it I would be able to fly through the sky?’

‘You read comic books, do you not, Rizla? You have surely read tales of the Silver Surfer TM.’

‘The Silver Surfer TM,’ I said, and I did that whistling thing that I did in moments such as these.

‘You would surf through the clouds, Rizla. Imagine that.’

And I could imagine that. Because I had certainly dreamed about that.

‘How do you work it?’ I enquired, in a sheepish fashion.

‘It is simplicity itself,’ the Magus explained. ‘Here, let me demonstrate. ’ And he shinnied up onto the table and climbed aboard the disc. And it simply hovered there, bearing his weight and defying more laws of gravity and suchlike than I dared think about.

‘Angle it up at the front and it will rise, down and it will lower, same to swing right or left, a little pressure here, a little pressure there. Lean forwards to make it move forwards, back to make it move back.’

And then he took it up for a spin. Up into the very cathedral-like dome of this subterranean phantasmagoria. And there he performed loop-the-loops and victory rolls and emergency stops and roller-coaster mimickings.

And to say that I was impressed would be-

‘Let me have a go!’ I shouted. ‘Let me have a go!’

And yes, all right, there were moments when I surely might have died. And I came near to many a tumble and many a horrid crash. But during the next couple of hours I steered that magical disc through the air of that underground fastness. And really became most adept.