James Palmer - Shadows Through Time

A face Burton had not expected heaved itself up out of the din and crush of bodies hunched together on either side of him.

“Speke?”

“Hello, Richard,” said John Hanning Speke, standing at the end of the long hallway. He wasn’t wearing formal attire, but dressed for hunting. But that wasn’t the strangest thing. Burton looked down at Speke’s right side, which was emblazoned with dark blood.

“What happened?” Burton said, but even as he spoke he remembered. He knew.

A hunting accident , the papers had said. But Burton hadn’t believed it. At least not at first.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,” said John Hanning Speke. “And with strange eons even death may die.”

“What?” Burton’s mouth was dry.

“They’re coming, Richard. You did not stop them. You cannot. They will have what is theirs.”

John Hanning Speke reached out to touch Burton’s shoulder then, and his hand was cold and clammy, the fingers webbed, the skin fish-belly white. A powerful fishy odor assaulted Burton’s nostrils. “When the stars are right.”

Buron tore from his grasp, spun around. Everyone was staring at him. His friends, his colleagues. They looked on him with glassy, bulbous, watery yellow eyes set in pale, scaly faces. Their mouths opened and closed, opened and closed, an unspoken litany, and they reached for him with sickly green flippers that used to be hands.

Burton screamed.

Richard Francis Burton’s eyes snapped open. He felt a cold sweat all over his body. Mid afternoon sun filtered in through his bedroom window. A shadow hovered over him.

“Well bless me,” said his housekeeper and landlady Miss Angell. “Your fever’s finally broken.”

She dabbed his forehead with a washcloth she had just rung out over a basin beside his head.

“Mother Angell?” Burton murmured. “Good. Have to get ready. I have my, uh, coronation.”

He tried to rise, but she pushed him back down, chuckling.

“Coronation?” she said with a lopsided grin. “I don’t think the Empire is quite ready for that . Now get some rest. You’ve had an awful time of it since your return. And it’s no wonder, what with all this galivanting about the globe. I’ve a mind to nail your feet to the floor. Oh, but who can blame you? After what happened to Ms. Arundel.”

She returned the washcloth to the basin.

“Isabel?” said Burton. “What happened?”

The old woman stared down at him, frowning. “Oh, you poor man. You really have been out of it. Don’t you remember? She disappeared while you were away. You slipped into this horrible fever when you returned and found out. Up and vanished in Hyde Park a week ago, she did. But there’s no use worrying about that now. You just lie back. I’ll nurse you back to health. I’ve worked too hard to get you this far. I won’t let you backslide.”

“Isabel?”

Burton sat up all the way this time, pushing himself up onto his elbows, fighting against the soggy, tightly tucked bedclothes. Isabel? Missing?

“That can’t be right.”

Ms. Angell slowly shook her head. “You poor, poor man. That fever really scrambled your brains, it did. Now lie down. You need your rest. The worst has passed, but you still need to get your strength back.”

Burton stared at her, his mouth slowly opening and closing. This wasn’t right. Was it?

“I don’t believe it,” he said finally.

“Now, Captain Burton,” said the housekeeper. “I’ll not go through this again. The sooner you accept it, the better off you’ll be.”

Burton scowled, pushed himself up fully to lean against the wooden headboard.

His housekeeper wagged a finger at him. “Now the doctor said that you must resume your regular routine as soon as you are able. Looks to me like you’re able. I’ll bring you some lunch.”

“I’ll take it in my study,” said Burton, not really hungry. He stared out the window as she gathered up the basin and other nursing implements and left the room.

When she was gone, Burton got up, changing into a fresh, clean jebba . The white linen gown-like garment billowed about him like a cloud as he pulled it on over his head. He looked at himself briefly in the dressing mirror as he smoothed out the gold brocade running from his neck down the front of the material. It was so much more comfortable than the stodgy tweed suits, neckties, cravats, and corsets worn by his fellow Londoners, and once again Burton felt he was a stranger in his own country. He scowled at his reflection and went down the hall to his study.

There was nothing amiss. And yet something still seemed off about it. He lit a cheroot cigar and smoked it thoughtfully. Isabel. My Isabel. What had happened?

In a flash of memory, he knew. He remembered. He had returned from his trip aboard the Nautilus , he and Challenger going their separate ways. Herbert had stayed on board to unload his Time Machine. He went home to a tearful Miss Angell telling him about Isabel’s disappearance, showing him the paper that carried the news.

Bismillah! No. That wasn’t right. After emerging from the smaller submersible, Burton had hailed a hansom and went to the Cannibal Club, eager to see his friends. But when he arrived at Bartolini’s dining rooms, he found that his friends—James Hunt, Thomas Bendeshye, even Algernon Charles Swinburne—had been transmogrified into horrifying entities. After that, he couldn’t remember any more before the horrible dream about Speke before waking up in his own bed.

“I must still be suffering ill effects from the journey,” he murmured aloud. He sucked on the cheroot and exhaled fragrant smoke that formed a brief halo around his head before dissipating. The eldritch horrors he’d witnessed must have profoundly affected his psyche, causing him to hallucinate. His friends, worried for his safety, brought him home.

Or…

The other memory reasserted itself, like experiencing the deja vu of someone else. He remembered coming home to learn about Isabel, and then falling into some sort of madness or stupor to awaken as he had minutes ago. Both memories were as real, as strong, but only one of them could possibly be real, and Burton knew which one that was.

Burton sensed movement from the corner of his eye, as if someone was standing just over his left shoulder. He spun around in his chair, finding his study empty.

Burton tossed the blackened stump of his cheroot into the fireplace and tried to meditate but couldn’t achieve the level of mental peace he desired and gave up. More memories—contrary memories—floated into his mind, like objects bobbing up in a murky mill pond.

Burton wandered to his writing desk and glanced at a newspaper sitting there. It was dated the day he left, but the headline he had half- expected to find was no longer there. The headline was supposed to read:

But instead it read:

“What the devil is going on here?” Burton said aloud. He sat down behind the writing desk and pondered the paper until Miss Angel brought his lunch, a plate of cold cuts and pickles, with a snifter of brandy. Ignoring the food, Burton looked up at her from his chair. Seeking his words carefully, he said, “Do you remember the trouble a few months ago, before I left? The madness among the city’s spiritualists?”

Miss Angell shook her head, perplexed. “What? No, sir. I don’t remember anything like that. Those spiritualist mediums are pretty well near mad enough for my liking.”