Paul Witcover - The Emperor of all Things

‘ So I am dead, then. The hunter has killed me .’ He felt numb.

The disquieting giggle came again. ‘ Rather, it has saved your life .’

‘ I don’t understand … ’

‘ How could you? Even I succumbed to madness when I awakened here, a lone mind adrift in a sea of eternal night, with only the squalling spirits of my cats for company. Many years passed before I regained my reason, like a crippled man relearning the use of his limbs. Little wonder that you would be confused .’

‘ Master, you have only been dead a matter of days .’

‘ Time runs differently here, Mr Quare, as you shall learn. Perhaps it does not run at all. That is a question beyond the grasp of human intellect, I fear. But soon I shall leave all that behind and be born anew, with knowledge and power beyond anything you can imagine .’

‘ Born how? ’ Quare asked.

‘ Why, by hatching out of this egg, of course .’

‘ And then what? ’

‘ I shall spread my wings, sir ,’ Magnus answered as if this were a foregone conclusion and Quare a dunce for having failed to see it. ‘ I shall bring order and reason to the world. Superstition and ignorance will be eradicated. There will be no more war, no more religion, only the fearless pursuit of scientific inquiry, under my direction .’

‘ But Master … do you imagine a dragon will be welcomed with open arms – a creature of legend suddenly made real? You will be seen as a demon, a monster to be slain. Indeed, I can well imagine that your presence might end the war between England and her enemies – but only so that they may unite against you .’

‘ Let them try. They shall learn to fear – and to obey. But I will not be restricted to the body of a dragon, Mr Quare. Dragons are protean creatures, or so I now perceive. I will walk the Earth as a man – as the man I should have been, my outer form at last a match for my inner qualities. People will follow such a man willingly – perhaps not all of them, but enough .’ Again the darkness took the shape of a godlike man.

Quare felt a shudder pass through him. ‘ Listen to yourself, Master – you are talking like a tyrant, not the man I knew … the man whose death I mourned .’

‘ In that, you were too hasty – though I appreciate the sentiment, of course. But as to the other: perhaps you did not know me as well as you thought. Perhaps I did not know myself. My perceptions were as stunted and twisted as the body that was my prison. But now I have escaped from both .’

‘ This is monstrous ,’ Quare said.

‘ Miraculous, rather. Yes, science has its miracles, too! For what else is this mechanism but a thing of science – an artificial egg, incubator of dragons, of gods? ’

‘ Of madness .’

‘ You disappoint me, Mr Quare, indeed you do. You, too, have known what it is to be mocked and scorned, to have the particulars of your birth held against you. Why would you not rejoice at the prospect of a world in which an orphan or a bastard could rise as far as his talents might take him? ’

‘ That world I would welcome. But you speak of fear and compelled obedience. I will not be part of such a world .’

‘ You are part of it already. When the hunter – the egg – drank our blood, it tasted us. It sifted our qualities and judged us. It chose how to use us in its great work of growing a dragon .’

‘ You speak as if it were intelligent .’

‘ Is a clock intelligent? A loom? This is a device, Mr Quare. A machine. It does what it was built to do – no more, no less .’

‘ Built by whom? ’

‘ That I do not know … yet .’

‘ But you knew the hunter was no ordinary timepiece. You’ve known that for years. You and Longinus – Lord Wichcote, that is – worked together once to discover its secrets. He has confessed as much to me. Surely he must have told you of his experiences in Märchen. Of the Otherwhere. Of Wachter, Doppler, and the rest .’

‘ Of course he did – though now I perceive, for everything you know is known to me in this place, that his lordship omitted some choice information. That extraordinary foot of his, for instance. And to think that Grimalkin was under my nose all that time! ’ His laughter rumbled. ‘ But Lord Wichcote is a man who likes his secrets. No matter. For many years, we did work together, as you say. If one of us had spilled even a drop of blood during those investigations, things might have gone very differently! But we had no inkling that blood was the key. No clue whatsoever. And finally, out of frustration, or greed, or an excess of caution, perhaps, fearful of drawing the attention of Doppler or some greater power, Lord Wichcote stopped cooperating. He refused to grant me access to the hunter, or even to tell me where he had hidden it. We continued to work together on other matters – he remained a key asset of the Most Secret and Exalted Order. But a certain mutual trust was spoiled .’

‘ Is that why you sent me to his house that night? To steal the hunter, so you could resume your investigations? ’

‘ I had no delusions on that score. Even at his age, Lord Wichcote is a deadly swordsman, a consummate fighter. I doubt there is a regulator alive who could best him. Certainly not you. No, you could never have stolen the hunter from him .’

‘ What then? Did you expect him to simply give it to me? ’

‘ In point of fact, yes, I did .’

‘ And why should he have done that? ’

‘ Have you not marked the resemblance between you? Lord Wichcote is your father, Mr Quare .’

Quare had not thought he could be any more discomposed than he was already. But in that, he had been wrong. ‘ Lord Wichcote … Longinus … my father?’

‘ You are his bastard by-blow. I tracked you down, brought you to London, trained you in the skills of a journeyman and regulator – all so that I might have a trump card with his lordship. It is always wise, I have found, when dealing with the gentry, to do so from a position of strength. They do not generally feel themselves bound by honour or any other constraint when dealing with those they perceive to be their inferiors .’

‘ But you are wrong. I asked Lord Wichcote himself if he were not my father. I put the question to him directly, face to face. He denied it .’

‘ Of course he did. Such is the way of the world. But make no mistake: you are his son, his bastard, and he knows it well .’

‘ Has he always known? ’

‘ No. He had not known of your existence until the very day I dispatched you to him. That same afternoon, I sent a confidential note to his lordship detailing the particulars of your parentage and informing him that you would be paying him a visit later that same night. Knowing that there are men in this world who do not welcome their by-blows with open arms, I warned him in no uncertain terms that if any harm befell you, I would release all the details to His Majesty … and to the vultures of Fleet Street. If he wished to avoid disgrace or worse, he need only hand over the hunter to you. I did not like to resort to blackmail, but there was no choice. Time was running out, you see. Others were on the trail of the hunter, among them, or so I thought, the notorious Grimalkin. I did not have faith in my old friend’s ability to keep the hunter safe from this paragon of thievery. And was I not right to be concerned? So it was that I decided the time had come to play my trump card. And I feel certain that his lordship would have given you the hunter, Mr Quare … if Grimalkin – a false Grimalkin, as it appears, and a woman no less! – had not got there first .’