James Palmer - Shadows Through Time

Fleming puffed on his cigarette and stared at Burton. “You mean he is the mysterious Time Traveler?”

“Yes,” said Burton. “A version of the man, prone to mischief and evil. But now that I think about it, I believe he sent me here to stop something, something he himself set in motion back in my time. The thing Miss Hemlock went back to stop.”

“What do you mean?”

Burton moved upwind of Fleming’s cigarette smoke. “Tell me more about Aleister Crowley.”

Fleming nodded. “He’s our Occult Minister. A new post, he’s the first of his kind. When Germany was just getting started flexing its military muscles, I was working for the Navy. Crowley came to me with an unusual request. He wanted to fight Hitler using magical means. I, along with nearly everyone else, thought the man insane. Then a village in Poland was stamped out of existence by a giant, invisible foot. We employed Crowley’s help immediately, and I became his right hand.”

“Where is he now?”

“The old man is all over the place these days,” said Fleming, sucking his cigarette down to the filter. “He’s working on something big he says will change the tide of the war in our favor, something called the Babalon Working. He spends a lot of time with the Thinker. He’s there now, completing his final preparations.”

“Yes,” said Burton. “I know of this as well. Your Ratiocinator. It’s actually the mind of Mycroft Holmes installed with the aid of the Wold-Newton stones into a difference engine.”

“You are well-informed,” said Fleming. “No one is supposed to know that. I shall need to have a few words with Miss Hemlock upon her return.”

“She told me what she thought I must know,” said Burton. “Mycroft Holmes is still alive inside that machine in the clock tower because of a Map of Time, a list of future events that the Time Traveler’s doppelganger gave him in the past.”

Fleming’s mouth opened in surprise, almost losing its cigarette holder. “Are you saying our current state of affairs is all due to his meddling?”

“I’m afraid so,” said the explorer. “Miss Hemlock traveled back to my time in an attempt to steal the Map of Time from Mycroft Holmes after Nebogipfel gives it to him.”

Fleming scowled. “Who?”

“Moses Nebogipfel. That is what the scoundrel calls himself.”

“Oh hell,” said Fleming. “This Time travel is a ghastly business. I rue the day Prime Minister Churchill had the bloody thing constructed.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” said Burton. “Now, I think that the only way to stop Nebogipfel in my time is to stop this Crowley fellow from carrying out his magic spell in yours.”

Fleming dashed out his cigarette and prepared himself another. “Why on earth would you want to do that?”

“Because it will end badly!” Burton declared. “Crowley is meddling with forces he cannot possibly understand. I’ve seen this before. There are things beyond the veil that are neither god nor devil but worse than either! Whatever Crowley is trying to bring into this world is better left where it is.”

“Even if that were true,” said Fleming, blowing a ring of blue smoke, “We cannot possibly disturb him now. His working is at a crucial juncture, and the balance of the war is at stake. We’re getting hammered, Captain Burton. And the Yanks just got into things. It could go badly for us before they’re able to make a dent in Germany’s war machine.”

“I can’t tell you how to end this war,” said Burton. “All I can tell you is that what Crowley is up to is very dangerous. The entities he is trying to summon will destroy you all. Humanity is a nuisance at best to them, and a bloody pestilence at worst.”

Fleming tapped his right foot on the carpeted floor. “I don’t know…”

“At least let me speak with Mycroft Holmes. Whatever is left of him. Perhaps he will give me a clue to the Map’s whereabouts back in my time. If I can convince him what a fool’s errand this has all been, maybe he’ll help me undo it.”

“Tell me this,” said Fleming. “What happens to me when this is undone? What happens to everything?”

“I do not know,” said Burton. “The moments of your life will rearrange themselves into their original course, with you none the wiser. Beyond that…I don’t know.”

Fleming shrugged. “That is enough, I suppose. I miss my work with the Navy. I’m tired of this bloody war. You go and have your chat with the Thinker, not that it will do you much good, I’m afraid.” He glanced at the door before continuing. “Holmes, what’s left of him, is blinking mad.”

“Thank you,” said Burton as he turned to leave.

“Good luck, Captain Burton,” said Fleming.

Burton paused at the door and nodded once toward the other man before exiting the room.

It was an hour’s walk to the Westminster Clock Tower. Burton looked up at it to see that it had been altered. No longer did a clock face on all four sides of the tower greet his eyes, but an enormous green sphere like a huge leering eye looked down on fog-shrouded London.

“Bismillah!” Burton swore and went inside. He was surprised to see no attendants, no guards, as he walked up the flight of steps that led into the clockwork heart of the tower the world at large mistakenly called Big Ben. When he reached the top, Burton was surprised once more. The interior of the structure had been gutted of clockwork. In its place were banks of dusty metal components with large glass tubes jutting from them. An old man with parchment-like skin huddled over a large tome in the far corner, muttering to himself.

“Richard. Francis. Burton.”

The explorer looked around. The voice, which sounded like air being forced through a gigantic bellows, seemed to come from all around him.

The old man, whom Burton surmised to be Aleister Crowley, scowled in his direction. “No visitors!” he said. “I told Fleming on no uncertain terms, no bloody visitors. I am at a crucial juncture.”

“I need to converse with the Thinker,” Burton said. “He and I are old friends.”

Crowley scowled at him some more, then stepped around the wooden dais which held the book from which he was reading. “It can’t be! Oh, but it is. Explain this, Mycroft.”

“It. Is. Captain. Sir. Richard. Francis. Burton,” the machine intoned. “He. Traveled. Here. Through. Time. Just. As. I. Was. Told. He. Would.”

Crowley laughed, which came out as a phlegmy cackle. He rubbed his bald head with talon-like fingers. “This is an auspicious occasion. The signs are in our favor. I am a great admirer of yours, Burton. It is an honor to meet you.”

Burton nodded. “What are you doing, Mr. Crowley?”

“That’s Minister Crowley, if you please. And I am opening the veil. Summoning the elements. Putting the balance in our favor. This damnable war ends tonight.”

“You are mad,” said Burton. “You must stop what you are doing. You are inviting entities into this world that only want our destruction.”

“They will destroy our enemies.”

“They will destroy everyone,” the explorer corrected.

Crowley gave him a dismissive wave. “I haven’t the time to deal with this just now. Speak your peace with Mycroft the Thinker and begone. You do not belong here.” The old man hobbled back to the dais and began his arcane muttering once more.

“What. Do. You. Want?” the machine said.

“I’d just like to know,” said Burton, “was it worth it?”

“Was. What. Worth. It?”

Burton gestured to the machinery around them. He smelled dust and ozone. “All of this. Losing your humanity to become a difference engine, a calculation machine.”