The Lamplighter's Love (2 page)

Goose bumps rose along Mary’s arms when
Nicholas lined her hands up with the armrests and swung into place
the suspended mechanism carrying the gauntlets. Her fingers slid
easily into slots still warm from the Lamplighter’s touch. She
could feel the spring of the weights and counterweights against her
fingers, the subtle whirr of the gyroscopic gears that provided
more power over the long hours. Her muscles flexed against the
snug, stabilizing straps. Each finger could tap in four directions,
the hammers striking keys that struck wires that transmitted
signals almost instantaneously across the four engines.

After her first few attempts in the Chair,
her hands and arms sang with pain for hours afterward. Now,
however, the hour was nothing to her. She knew all the keys, the
subtle movements of each finger to convey meaning to the engines
controlling the world far above.

“Now for the view.”

Just before the mirrors lowered into place,
she caught a glimpse of Nicholas’ face, still in shadow. Then her
vision was obscured by the reflections of a thousand equations and
terse messages. The figures ticked by in endless rows and columns,
revealing all that was important in the city’s daily workings.

Mary found her place, orienting herself
mentally within the world of the engines as she interpreted the
screens. In her mind a picture of London emerged, with herself in
the middle of it, sending invisible lines of control out to every
intersection of the city.

Monitoring each schedule, reporting on the
occasional irregularity, from time to time adjusting something just
slightly to accommodate the fluctuation of traffic.

Time ceased to matter, and Mary let her
awareness flit seamlessly from one event to the next, ebbing and
flowing with the life of London through the medium of the
difference engines.

It was easy to get lost in that world, and
coming out was always a shock. Doubly so this time as she emerged
from the cocoon of devices and routines to see not one, but two men
waiting next to the Chair.

“Amberherst? Aren’t you several hours
early?”

Amberherst was her counterpart, the young
master who took over the machines for an hour each evening while
the Lamplighter took his only other respite of the day. Slender,
nearly as pale as Nicholas but with fair hair to match, he looked
like he might simply vanish into the machines completely one day.
But his brain was as sharp as the fine edge of shattered glass.

“Jinks sent me. I’m to take a four-hour
shift this afternoon. Tomorrow morning you’ll start as well.” He
had already shucked his jacket and rolled his shirtsleeves back,
and Mary sensed his impatience to begin though he was trying not to
appear too eager.

She looked at Nicholas but could discern
nothing from his expression. He was as smooth and cold as the
mirrors he stared at all day. “So soon?”

Nicholas just shrugged. Amberherst cleared
his throat and slipped past them to the Chair. “Sorry about it,
Nicholas.” Mary didn’t think he sounded very sorry.

“I’m not,” the Lamplighter said softly.
“Let’s get you strapped in.”

* * *

Four hours at a stretch was much harder than
she’d imagined. The flow was different over a longer shift, Mary
found. And there were more things to think about. By the end of a
week, she had seen a steamcar explosion, a suspension bridge
malfunction, several traffic accidents and a host of smaller
irregularities. All needed to be worked around, the flow of people
and steamcars rerouted, the roadways cleared for emergency
vehicles, the public kept apprised of routine maintenance. And of
course, the lamps must be dimmed or lit on time, despite all that.
Those functions were automated now, of course, run by the giant
clockworks that dominated the cavernous inner halls of the
lampworks. But the Lamplighter still oversaw the system, ensuring
any malfunction was swiftly handled.

But down here, in the literal cavern of the
difference engines, all information was secondhand. Mary “saw”
these things as notations, equations, items on lists. She could
observe London in her mind’s eye as she worked. But for all she
knew, none of this was really happening. She couldn’t verify it
with her eyes or ears, isolated as she was.

“It’s like knowing everything but feeling
nothing,” she complained to the Lamplighter as he unbuckled her
from the gauntlets one afternoon. “None of it seems real, you know?
I think I understand the Bristol incident for the first time
now.”

Amberherst frowned as he took her place.
“Shouldn’t talk about that.”

“I don’t mean I’m in danger of doing the
same,” she snapped, holding a hand to her forehead. After hours of
focusing on surfaces so close to her, she often suffered a headache
on leaving the Chair as her eyes re-adjusted to the longer
views.

The Bristol lamplighter of some thirty years
past had earned an infamous place in history by going quietly,
calmly insane and nearly bringing the city to its knees. After
months of stony refusal to speak whenever he was forced from his
Chair to rest, he set out one day to prove that the world outside
the Chair did not, in fact, exist unless he willed it into being.
He shut the traffic lights down, jamming the city and causing
countless collisions. Next were the steamworks that powered most of
the shipyard equipment. The fail-safes on the dry docks were
overridden, flooding them and causing hundreds of deaths and
incalculable damage to property.

And finally, the lamps. And who knew what
else, really, because once the steam and gas were gone and darkness
had descended on the beleaguered city, it scarcely mattered what
other systems ran amok.

One might have thought this would serve as a
warning to the guild, not to invest one man with so much power
again. But dire as the incident was, tradition and politics kept
the old practices in place. The Bristol lamplighter was labeled a
madman—which he undoubtedly was—but he was also promptly dismissed
as an outlier, a fluke. Some even argued the fact the disaster
happened at all meant it was statistically much less likely for
something similar to happen again. What were the odds that another
madman would rise to such a position, his mania going unnoticed for
so long? There was never even a suggestion that the nature of the
work itself might have contributed to the Bristol lamplighter’s
mania. The guild only took human nature into account when it suited
them.

Amberherst was a guild man, born and bred.
“It’s just poor form. Although to tell you the truth, I never
really believed it was as bad as the legend has it anyway. I think
it’s just grown in the telling. And they like it that way, the
older masters. It makes such a convenient cautionary tale.
Shrouding it in secrecy pretty much guarantees that every
apprentice will hear it too. But how bad could it be, really?
People still have eyes and minds. Surely even if the steam and gas
failed they would manage to get along until it was restored. These
are machines, not engines of the divine, and the Lamplighter isn’t
a God. No offense, Nicholas.”

Amberherst’s eyes, a glittering smoky blue,
disappeared behind the screens as Nicholas lowered them into place.
The Lamplighter had said nary a word since Mary emerged from the
Chair, she realized.

“You’re quiet today.”

He nodded, made a final adjustment to the
screen array then stepped back. “It’s a momentous day. Amberherst,
are you ready?”

“I’ve got it. See you in two hours. Mind
you, get him back on time, Mary.”

“Back?” She looked from the Chair to
Nicholas. “Momentous how?”

He turned his eyes to hers, venturing a hint
of a smile. “We’re letting Amberherst go it alone for a few hours.
And it’s early afternoon, only a few more days until Christmas. So
. . .” He released a long sigh, as though trying to calm himself.
“I’d like to go to a shop and buy a little something to send to my
mother. And I would be honored if you would accompany me, Master
Mary. Because,” he admitted, “I don’t actually remember how to get
to any shops.”

The steps that led to the front entrance of
the Lampworks were slick with icy, melted mud. The slurry of salt
and sand that had prevented slipping earlier in the day was long
since trodden away, tracked down the street and into the hall by
innumerable boots.

The doorman, an ancient gnome-like gentleman
who still wore the convoluted prosthetic “hand” of a machine
specialist, gasped as he recognized the Lamplighter.

Nicholas, in turn, gasped at the blinding
glare that greeted him when he stepped out the door. He threw up
one arm to protect his eyes, hissing in pain as the doorman and
Mary shuffled him away from the entrance to clear the path.

“It’s overcast today. But there is a bit of
glare from the snow. Keep your eyes closed for a few moments and
just try taking your hand away first,” Mary suggested, hoping that
her grip on the Lamplighter’s free arm was a comfort to him and not
a nuisance.

“My hat, sir. With my compliments. An honor,
sir, a genuine honor,” the little doorman said, gently placing his
trim black derby on Nicholas’ head before dropping into an awkward
bow.

Nodding in the direction of the doorman,
Nicholas shifted his hand to the hat’s brim and tugged it down a
bit before lowering his arm. Mary marveled at the sight of filtered
daylight on his jaw, the delicate blue veins visible beneath the
skin of his neck, and the way his impossibly long, sooty lashes
fluttered upon his cheek before finally, slowly, lifting to reveal
his eyes.

Blinking and squinting cautiously, he gazed
at the scene before him, his mouth falling open. Mary tried to see
it through his eyes, wondering what astonished him the most. People
striding here and there, tradesmen and merchants and folk of all
sorts, as casually as though it were nothing to be walking about
the city. Above the buildings that rose all around the paved square
courtyard of the Lampworks, there was a swath of chilly gray sky.
The sharp smell of impending snow overrode even the odors of the
pedestrians and passing vehicles.

Nicholas jumped as a steamcar jittered to a
noisy halt by the curb. His hand clasped suddenly over Mary’s,
pressing it into his arm. She looked up to see him swallow, the
pale line of his throat looking far too tender and vulnerable in
this light. He scarcely looked human at all in that moment. More
like some fairy-creature, dumped unceremoniously in the middle of
London by a cruel, unseen magical hand.

“There’s a sweet shop just down the road,
and there’s the stationer’s on the corner. And a book shop. Would
any of those suit your needs, sir?”

After a pause, Nicholas blinked again and
nodded. “A tin of sweets. She’d like that, I think.”

“Come on then. This way. First step’s going
to be the hardest, I suspect.”

She wasn’t expecting him to chuckle. The
movement of his rib cage against her hand felt strangely intimate,
even through many layers of heavy garments.

“I suspect you’re right. I’m sorry I’m so
taken aback, Mary. I really had no idea it would be so much to take
in.”

He stepped forward, but after that he let
her lead as he took in the sights. Nothing spectacular, only the
city in its workaday clothes. But there was the crisp chill in the
air, the festive window adornments in the shops, a troupe of
carolers just down the road.

The colors and smells and sounds combined to
create that unique holiday atmosphere, the gleeful anticipation of
the few weeks leading up to Christmas. The shops competed with
good-natured zeal, enticing customers to sweeten their holiday fare
with delicacies, or remember loved ones with thoughtful gifts for
the Yuletide.

By the time they were halfway to the sweet
shop, Mary had decided it was more like walking with a large child
than an adult. Nicholas was drawn to every bright window display,
to toys and lights and oh! Food! So their progress was slow, and
she was forced to remind him they had only two hours.

“For today, that’s right,” he agreed, but
when she asked what he meant, Nicholas had already moved on to the
next distraction. “Mary, hot chestnuts! We must have some!”

Before she could blink, he had approached
the chestnut vendor’s cart and acquired two handfuls of steaming
chestnuts. Neatly secured in twists of paper, they served as
excellent hand warmers while they cooled, and Mary was glad of the
heat. But she hesitated when Nicholas paid for both of them and
moved to take her arm again to continue down the street.

“Thank you. I shouldn’t have let you pay for
those. Here, let me pay you back.”

“For the chestnuts? Don’t be ridiculous.” He
tugged, and they started walking again. “It’s you who deserve my
thanks for accompanying me on this little . . . adventure.”

“It’s an honor. And my pleasure. But are you
sure you have enough pocket money? I don’t want you to run short
before we’re even to the sweet shop.”

Nicholas shook his head. “Mary, for ten
years now I’ve been earning a master’s pay and a stipend on top of
it. And I’ve had absolutely no need to spend a single farthing of
it. I appreciate your concern, but I have more than enough to spare
to repay your kindness today with a packet of hot chestnuts.”

Resigned, she let him press on, and she
resolved to enjoy the chestnuts whether they were illicitly come by
or not. She was fairly certain young ladies were not supposed to
accept impromptu gifts from gentlemen in that manner. But if
Nicholas was aware of that societal constraint, he seemed content
to ignore it in this case.

People didn’t know who Nicholas was, for the
most part, or they might have done more than glance at his gleaming
white face and then look away in studied courtesy. He might have
been an invalid, or a foreigner, for all they knew. Only a few
guild members hurrying by paused and stared to see the Lamplighter
taking to the street in broad daylight.