The Map of Chaos (73 page)

Clayton looked at him in surprise and then burst into even louder guffaws than before.

“Stop that cackling!” yelled the Villain.

“Oh, forgive me, forgive me . . . I just can't help laughing when I think of the way you describe as an immense, unique gift a simple disease caused by a tiny virus accidentally brought into this universe . . .” The inspector dried his eyes. “I confess I admire your unwavering belief in yourself. I think we should all take a lesson from your irrepressible optimism, Mr. Rhys . . .”

“I see you know my name and everything about the cronotemia virus . . . ,” the voice hissed. “The old woman had time to tell you a lot before she jumped.”

“Oh, no. Alas, Mrs. Lansbury scarcely had time to tell me anything. Actually, it was you who told me everything I know . . .”

Beaming, Clayton turned around, picked up the kettle sitting on the table, and flicked a small switch on its side. Instantly, the Villain's voice boomed out, crossing time and space:

“Very well, George. But I warn you, if you are trying to buy time, it won't do you any good. I have all the time in all the worlds at my disposal! So, you want to know who I am! Are you sure you want to know? I am the most powerful being in all creation! I am the epilogue of mankind! When the universe comes to an end, only I will remain . . . presiding over all your accursed graves. My name is Marcus Rhys, and I am the God of Chaos!”

Clayton flicked the switch back and the kettle went quiet. He patted it lightly, as one would a dog that has just performed a trick, before turning to the Villain, smiling.

“We are very proud of these little gadgets at Scotland Yard's Special Branch. They can record any conversation and transmit it to a similar terminal on the other side of the city, and they work as remote alarms . . .” Clayton clucked his tongue in admiration. “Thanks to the fact that, courtesy of the Division, Mr. Wells also has one of these kettles, he was able to warn me this morning when he sensed danger. And not just me. As soon as Wells placed his
special
kettle on the fire, another kettle started whistling in my boss's house . . . Isn't that so, Captain Sinclair?” he addressed the air, hands clasped behind his back.

At this, several police officers popped up from behind the piles of wonders kept in the Chamber, silently aiming their weapons at the empty space where the book and the pistol were floating. Finally, the plump Captain Sinclair stepped out from behind one of the strange columns, his false eye glowing red in the dark, like an infernal lighthouse beacon. He placed one hand on a lever to the side of the column and raised the other slowly, also aiming his pistol at the invisible man.

“Quite right, lad,” he said to Clayton. “Only, next time, remind me to adjust the volume on that damned thing. My wife is threatening to leave me next time that unbearable whistling wakes her up . . .”

“Oh, I am sure Marcia would never do such a thing.”

“Be quiet! Be quiet, both of you!” the voice roared, the book and the pistol gyrating in the air, as if the Villain was spinning round, observing the ring of police officers now surrounding him. “What is this farce? Do you really think you have caught me in your silly trap?” He let out a menacing guffaw and the pistol and the book instantly dropped to the floor. “I am the Invisible Man! You can't see me, and you can't stop me from escaping. I can leap into another world! And when I come back for what is mine, you will never know when I am behind you. You will never see me coming!”

Clayton contemplated him with the weary expression of someone realizing that the most boring guest is still at the party.

“Invisible, really?” he retorted scornfully. “Take a good look at yourself. Do you still think we can't see you?”

At that moment, the captain pressed down the lever on which his hand had been resting, and the strange columns dotted about the Chamber lit up with a subdued hum, emitting a ghostly bluish light. Before everyone's eyes, clearly traced in the air was the gelatinous outline of a hand, slowly extending to an arm, a rounded shoulder, and part of a chest and neck, as if someone were blowing up a blue bubble in the shape of a human.

“What the devil is happening to me?” the Villain stammered, his watery hand opening and closing in front of his still-invisible face.

“I don't wish to bore you with complex chemical explanations,” replied Clayton amiably, “so I shall try to sum up the most important facts: that book isn't
The Map of Chaos,
it is an amusing novella I wrote when I was younger. I had it bound to look like the original, and then our scientists impregnated the cover with a substance you have been absorbing through your skin for the last few minutes, which reacts to a certain kind of light . . . It is now in your bloodstream and, as you can see, is already coloring your cells . . . irreversibly. Soon your body will be visible even in daylight. Congratulations, Mr. Rhys, you have ceased to be a monster! At least in appearance . . .”

The Villain's lower jaw and mouth had started to appear, and a savage cry of rage issued from his lips. Then the outline of his body, which was gradually becoming whole, began to flicker, as though intermittent pulses of forgetfulness were racing through it.

“He is going to jump to another world!” Wells cried out.

Just then, Captain Sinclair lowered the lever to a second position. The gentle hum of the columns gave way to a deafening roar, and hundreds of lights flashed through the encircling cables at an incredible speed. A blinding light filled the room, forcing everyone to screw up their eyes. Marcus Rhys's body stopped hovering between the real and the imaginary and resumed its solid shape, which was beginning to look more and more like an irate ice sculpture.

“I left out the most important part!” Clayton cried as he walked toward him, straining to make his voice heard above the roar of the columns. “These masts also give off a very special kind of radiation. We commissioned them from Sir William Crookes, one of the greatest scientists of our time . . . I met him at that séance at Madame Amber's and took an instant liking to him, which wasn't the case with you. I have a sixth sense that allows me to see people's true natures; it is a gift that has failed me only once in my life . . . but not with Sir William. When I went to see him a few days ago to tell him about an outlandish theory of parallel worlds, and to ask whether he could design some sort of machine to stop people from jumping between them, he didn't so much as raise an eyebrow. And yesterday he sent us these splendid columns. Just in the nick of time, it would seem. Obviously, he didn't have time to test them, but he thought there was a good chance they would work. And judging from your expression, Mr. Rhys, and more important from the fact that you are still here, I don't think Sir William was boasting.” Clayton had walked right up to the Villain, who was roaring like a caged animal, baring his teeth and clenching his fists. The inspector knelt down, picked up his pistol, and put it back in his jacket. Then he took a book out of one of his pockets and dangled it in front of the watery silhouette into which the Villain had been transformed. “This is the real book, Mr. Rhys,
The Map of Chaos
! I have kept it safe from you for twelve years, knowing that one day you would come back for it! And now, finally, it is all over. You have lost, Mr. Rhys. You will spend the rest of your life in a miserable cell specially designed for you, from which you will never be able to escape. The book is no longer in danger, and all its mysteries have been unraveled,” he said, almost to himself, unable to hide his satisfaction. “It only remains for me to find those for whom it was intended, those who come from the Other Side, and I will have fulfilled the promise I made to Mrs.—”

Inspector Clayton broke off suddenly, his eyes glazed, the blood draining from his face. He staggered back a few paces, murmuring softly, “No, please, not now . . .”

Then he fainted.

B
Y THIS TIME
, G
ILLIAM
M
URRAY
and Arthur Conan Doyle were hastening down Cromwell Road toward the Natural History Museum. They had passed through a Kensington in uproar, with streets overrun by transparent ghosts. Doyle was maneuvering the carriage with difficulty through the terrified crowd fleeing in all directions, trying not to be distracted by the translucent figures all around him. Murray wasn't helping much.

“Would you believe me if I told you I had just seen a white rabbit in a waistcoat looking at his watch?” he said with the same amazement he had been expressing ever since they left the house.

“In any other situation, no. But in this one I will believe anything you tell me, Gilliam,” muttered Doyle.

He tried to concentrate on the road ahead, dodging the real carriages and letting the translucent ones pass through them with a shudder while Murray enumerated each preposterous apparition that popped up, like a child in a safari park.

“Good God, Arthur! Was that a Cyclops?”

Doyle ignored him. If, as he suspected, the troupe of fantastical creatures Murray was describing ceased to be harmless mirages and became flesh and bone, they would be in serious trouble. They had to reach the Chamber of Marvels before that happened, although he wasn't sure what awaited them there. If Clayton's idea of setting a trap had been successful, they would find the Invisible Man caught in the device Crookes had invented. Wells and Jane would also be there, and between them all they might come up with a solution. It was conceivable the creature knew how to use the book to put a stop to this mayhem and could be persuaded to reveal its secrets. Doyle knew how to help the creature overcome any reluctance he might have; all he needed was a few minutes alone with him and a heavy stone to crush his hands with. And if that got them nowhere, it was still possible they could find the solution on their own, in a flash of collective inspiration. Human beings rose to the occasion in moments of great crisis, and he doubted there could be a greater crisis than this . . . He breathed a sigh. Who was he trying to fool? According to Clayton, the most celebrated mathematicians in the land had pored over the book and had not been able to decipher a single page, so what chance did they have? They were doomed to perish along with the rest of the universe . . .

When they reached Marloes Road, they found the street blocked by a barricade of rubble. Doyle pulled up the carriage and observed with irritation the obstruction they would be forced to climb. The museum was not far, but this would certainly delay them. Stepping wearily down from the carriage, he began to scale the hillock, with Murray following him. When they reached the tiny summit, they saw that the rest of the street revealed the same devastation; as far as the eye could see it was littered with a layer of rubble and chunks of masonry. Treading gingerly, they started to make their way along it.

“How odd,” Doyle murmured, noticing that the buildings along either side of the street were intact.

Where did all that rubble come from? It was as though someone had brought it there simply to pave that stretch of Cromwell Road. They had scarcely walked a few yards when, on the corner of Gloucester Road, they glimpsed the clock tower of Big Ben lying at the end of the street like a severed fish head, flattening several buildings. Murray contemplated it with a mixture of suspicion and melancholy, which Doyle couldn't help noticing. They proceeded to pick their way among the mounds of debris, and as they walked past the remains of a staircase sticking out of the rubble, a sound of clanking metal reached their ears on the breeze. The two men stopped in their tracks and squinted. Emerging from a cloud of black smoke at the end of the street, they saw a group of strange, vaguely human metallic creatures walking with a sinister swaying movement, propelled by what appeared to be miniature steam engines on their backs. Four of them were bearing a throne, on which another automaton sat stiffly, a crown on his iron head.

“My God . . . It can't be,” murmured Murray: “It's Solomon!”

Doyle said nothing. He was speechless with shock. Then Murray began to walk with open arms toward the cortege, as if to greet them.

“I can't believe it!” he cried. “I can't believe it!”

The convoy came to a halt as it spotted the human being. The automaton heading the procession took one step forward, opened a little shutter in its chest from which a tiny cannon emerged, and opened fire at Murray. The shot glanced off his shoulder, causing him to howl in pain. Astonished that the apparitions were no longer harmless, Murray watched as the automaton prepared to fire a second time. Transfixed, Murray grinned uneasily before Doyle fell on top of him, flinging him to the ground. The projectile cleaved the air where a second before Murray's head had been.

“They hit me, Arthur!” wailed Murray, more out of resentment than pain.

Still sprawled on top of him, Doyle examined his wounded shoulder.

“Don't worry, Gilliam, it's only a scratch,” he pronounced.

He surveyed the cortege. Two of the automatons, the one that had fired and one of his companions, were clanking slowly toward them with that unnerving sway of inebriated children, pointing the weapons in their chests at them.

“Curses, they're going to shoot us!” Doyle declared, having already worked out they wouldn't have time to get up and make a run for it.

He gritted his teeth, defying his killers, while Murray looked terrified. But before the automatons were able to fire, a shadow leapt over them. From where they lay, almost level with the ground, they saw a pair of black boots with bronze buckles planted on the ground. The shadow was between them and their killers, so they could only see him from behind, but he struck them as an impressive figure. Whoever it was, he was clad in an intricate suit of riveted armor and a complicated-looking helmet, beneath which only his powerful chin was visible. They watched him draw his sword from the scabbard round his waist with one swift movement. Then they heard a swish of metal, and one of the automaton's heads rolled across the ground. Doyle took the opportunity to sit up and to help Murray to his feet. He clutched his wounded shoulder, watching their savior execute a series of two-handed thrusts as he charged the second automaton.