Mark Hodder - The curious case of the Clockwork Man

Burton blinked rapidly. He had the sense that he wasn't bringing the little creature into full focus, despite being able to see her clearly. She seemed only partially present, as if imposed onto something else by his own mind, and he struggled, but failed, to pierce the illusion.

The strange being regarded him with golden-coloured eyes, then turned, bared her tiny pointed teeth, and started to chew at his bonds.

A second fairy appeared, also female, and clamped her jaws around the cord binding his right arm.

Movement at his ankles told him there were fairies at work there, too.

A fifth fluttered onto his stomach and ran up onto his chest. She put her hands on her hips and looked down at his face.

Burton felt his mind manipulated until words emerged from it, and he heard, in his own voice: “The long slow cycle of the ages turns, turns, and turns, O human. Thou art one of the few who knowest how an individual of thy strange kind didst spring from the next level of the spiral into that which thou currently inhabits, into that which thou callest thine own time. This action marked a dividing. Yet the path thou treadst echoes the one that is lost, and upon both a transition begins-a melting of one great cycle into another. Be warned!-tumultuous the change that comes! The storm shall wipe many of thy soft-skinned kinsfolk from the Earth, and thou shall be present when the thunder sounds, for the time allotted to thee is filled with paradox. There is a role assigned to thee, and thou must play the part out to its end. Thy kind infest a world in which there is only dark because there is light, there is only death because there is life, there is only evil because there is good. Be thou aware that a world conceived in opposites only creates cycles and ceaseless recurrence. Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence. Remember that, Richard Francis Burton. Do not forget it. Only equivalence can lead to destruction.”

Or a final transcendence, he wanted to add.

The bonds fell from his ankles and wrists.

The five fairies backed away from him, floated into the air, landed on the sand, fell onto all fours, scampered like lizards, and burrowed into it. They vanished from sight.

He lifted his arms and rubbed his wrists.

A figure strode into view and looked down at him from the top of a dune. It was Isabel Arundell, dressed in flowing white robes and looking radiantly beautiful.

She opened her mouth to speak.

He sat up.

Light was filtering through his bedroom curtains.

It was late on Tuesday morning.

He stretched, reached for the bell cord that hung beside his bed, and gave it a tug. Moments later, the door opened and his valet stepped in.

“The usual, please, Nelson.”

The clockwork man saluted and departed.

Only equivalence can lead to destruction.

Meaningless nonsense. As for the rest of it, obviously Countess Sabina's words had become jumbled with his research, populating his nocturnal imaginings with little people and gobbledygook about vast cycles of time.

The little ones are not as they appear

The king's agent sat and pondered until his valet delivered a basin of hot water and a breakfast tray. He got out of bed, took a small bottle from a drawer, and poured five drops from it into a glass of water, which he swallowed in a single gulp. Dr. Steinhaueser had instructed him to use quinine and nothing else when his attacks came on, but, secretly, Burton had also been dosing himself with Saltzmann's Tincture, which Steinhaueser scorned on the basis that its manufacturer had never disclosed the medicine's full ingredients. He'd warned that it almost certainly contained cocaine, which could lead to dependency.

Burton washed and shaved at the basin. A warm vitality soaked into his flesh as the tincture took effect-honey and sunlight oozing through his arteries. Nevertheless, he was still feeling weak and decided to spend the rest of this Tuesday wrapped in his jubbah, dedicating himself to driving out the last vestiges of malaria with strong tobacco and perhaps a brandy or two.

After finishing his toilet and winding the brass man's key, he repaired to the study, lit a Manila, and began to leaf through the morning newspapers. A great many of their pages were devoted to the Tichborne case, and he quickly realised that he was still lacking sufficient background information about the affair. It was time, he decided, to start earning his salary.

A little later, when Mrs. Angell brought him a coffee, he asked her to take a note: To Mr. Henry Arundell, My dear sir, though, to my deep regret, relations continue to be strained between us, I hope I can go some way to repairing them by doing you a service with regard to the Tichborne situation. The prime minister has commissioned me to look into the matter, and I would greatly appreciate the advice of one who has greater knowledge of the family than I. To that end, may I extend to you an invitation to dine with me at the Venetia Royal Hotel at seven o'clock this evening?

Ever yours sincerely,

Rich'd F. Burton

“Send that by runner, please. Mr. Arundell is currently residing at the family's town house, 32 Oxford Square.”

“A nice area for those that can afford it,” the old lady opined. “If you don't mind me asking, has there been any word from Miss Isabel?”

“The last I heard, her parents had received two letters. It seems my former fiancee is running around with the notorious Jane Digby, the bandit queen of Damascus. I believe they've gathered quite a force of brigands and are currently raiding caravans on the Arabian Peninsula.”

“My stars!” Mrs. Angel exclaimed. “Who'd have thought?”

“The Arundells still consider that my breaking the engagement caused her to run off to Arabia in the first place. I expect to receive a frosty response from her father.”

His housekeeper left the room, went downstairs, lifted a whistle from a hook, opened the front door, and blew three quick blasts. Moments later, a runner arrived on the doorstep. It jogged, turned in circles, and whined restlessly until she produced a tin from beneath a hall table. She took a chunk of roast beef from it and fed it to the ravenous hound. Then she placed the waxed envelope between its teeth and stated the delivery address. The dog turned and sped away.

In his study, Burton had settled at his main desk and was writing in his journal, copying out the notes he'd taken at the British Library and adding copious annotations and cross references. An hour later, he moved to a different desk and began work on a tale from The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. He employed a unique device for this: a mechanical contraption invented by Mrs. Angell's late husband. It was the only one of its kind, an “autoscribe,” which Burton played rather like a piano. Each of its keys corresponded to a letter of the alphabet or an item of punctuation and printed it onto a sheet of paper when pressed. It had taken the king's agent two weeks to master the machine but, having done so, he was now able to write at a phenomenal speed.

At four o'clock, a runner brought a reply from Henry Arundell: Sir Richard, The Venetia is booked solid by a large private party. I have reserved a table for us at the Athenaeum Club instead. I will see you there at seven.

H. Arundell

“To the point but satisfactory,” Burton muttered.

He abandoned the desk, flopped into his armchair, and contemplated the case at hand.

Burton met his former prospective father-in-law at the appointed time and place. As they shook hands, the elder man exclaimed: “You look positively skeletal!”

“A bout of malaria,” Burton explained.

“Still bothering you, eh?”

“Yes, though the attacks come less frequently. Have you heard from Isabel?”