CHAPTER 9. A Bend in Another River
EVERYTHING WAS JUST AS BEFORE-THE NIGHT ST. IVES TOLD HIM the story about the hand. “You wonder about it, don’t you, boy?” St. Ives asked, and tapped an ash. “How I came by the hand-and how I came to lose my own.”
“Y-yes,” Lloyd found himself saying. “There’s no hiding there’s a story behind it.” Yet there was something different about this scene. Indefinably different. Was the boat moving?
“Well put, lad.” The gambler nodded. “And well spoken. Like a gentleman. But I fear if I tell you the truth you will think me mad. Still, you have been an excellent partner. I believe you deserve my trust and may reward me with your discretion.” St. Ives lowered his voice and glanced around to see if any other passengers or crew were within earshot. He had not been wearing a hat the night before, but now he was-and a very stylish hat, too.
“A little over ten years ago I used to be the secretary to a very rich man in the East. He valued my memory and my head for calculations. That may be hard for you to imagine, given your skills, but I took the bait. Phronesis Larkshead, or so he called himself then. But that was not his real name, I am sure. Owner of the Enigma Formulary and Gun Works in Delaware. An inventor, a wire-puller. A formidable figure.
“He had the tinge of some sort of acid burn on his face and wore a flat-brimmed hat pulled down low, with a veil, which he claimed offered protection from all his ‘substances.’ He always kept his skin covered as much as possible in a dark suit without buttons. I used to fancy that his body was riddled with unnatural signs and scars. My initial belief was that one of his experiments had backfired on him. He was forever fiddling with new combinations of chemicals-schemes for weaponry. And other things. Weirder things. He was far, far ahead of his time, was Mr. Larkshead. He had designed and built a mechanical manservant. A sort of butler named Zadoc. What it was powered by I do not know, he would not reveal it-but it was not steam. The device had an almost blank, bland face, but I suspected he had other faces baking. How the thing could see or navigate I have no idea. This was the first of many things I wish I had not discovered, but my fascination got the better of me. His estate was like nothing you can imagine. He called it the Villa of the Enigmas.”
“Go on…” Lloyd said, feeling the hairs on his neck rise. This was like what had happened before-but not the same. Not the same.
“Well… I know this will sound like utter flapdoodle, but he had a colony of live ants from the jungles of South America in a great glass nest. I could not guess why or how he came by them, but I know that he spent a good deal of money keeping them alive in the northern climate… and that, as outrageous as it sounds, he had some notion of communicating with them. I could see that he was at work on a grand scheme. There was a whole wing of the estate I was never allowed to enter-and, frankly, I had no wish to, given what was in evidence around me.”
“How did you really come to work for someone such as that?” Lloyd asked. “Such a person would need no hired head for figures.” He had not thought to say that before. But it struck him now. “Indeed,” the gambler smirked. “I wanted to think then that it was because of my abilities. Now I know I was a fool. I believe I was one of his test subjects, without knowing it.”
“Test subjects?” the boy queried.
“Aye. I believe I was lured to the estate with the offer of employment, but I think I was given drugs-some kind of powerful narcotic that did not disrupt all perception but yet was responsible for visions. I cannot explain the things I saw elsewise. I witnessed a meeting. Whatever they were, or are, I suspect it is the real force behind his company and his wealth-behind a great deal of other things, too. Things we would do well not to know about.”
“That sounds like something far better to know about than not,” Lloyd replied.
“Just the kind of young-headed notion that got me into the mess,” St. Ives lamented. “What I saw was a group… of people, if you like. Who all looked like him. I can’t explain it. There were twelve of them in total! Yet they did not seem like individuals. They seemed as one. They had a kind of diagram they conjured out of the air-a mosaic-like puzzle-and they were engaged in some type of ceremony or strategy-planning session. I swear I have never told anyone else this!”
“Where were you hiding while you were watching?” Lloyd wanted to know.
“Well, this may be the most miraculous part!” the gambler whispered. “I saw the whole thing through a bewitched glass cube I found in the library. I had seen the cube before, but it had always been clear and empty. I had assumed it was just some type of mirror made into an art object. There were so many peculiar artifacts about the place, I gave it no special thought, until that day when it came alive. As the scene unfolded, I could not but conclude that Larkshead and the others were assembled in the forbidden wing of the mansion and that I was somehow eavesdropping on them. The images could not have been inside the cube. It was some kind of window.”
“An interesting deduction,” Lloyd said, his mind churning like the river, which was flowing now. “What did you witness?”
“Oh, my young friend… I hesitate to tell you. They took off their hats and veils. They were not men-or women, either. They were… I know not what. Creatures. Ghosts. Their apparent bodies were but masks, camouflage. Their true forms were hideous and impalpable. As absurd as they appeared, there was a malevolence about them… as if their forms were punishment. I felt that malignance radiated through the cube. Their resentment, their envy. Their relentless hunger for other shapes. But I felt that they were still somehow human. Not demons, not inhabitants from some distant star. They were-”
“Shadows of the mind… from out of time,” Lloyd said, as a nightjar sounded in the distance. “Please tell me all that happened next-and I must know everything that happened.”
The gambler dropped his smoldering cigar into the river but had regained his composure when he stared at the boy again in the pale light.
“I grew… so hypnotized by what I was observing… I did not hear that repugnant Zadoc sneak up behind me. The machine subdued me with some kind of sedative delivered by a needle… and I was brought before that unholy tribunal… awake but unable to resist or escape. Oh, Lord…”
“As painful as it is to recall,” Lloyd said, squeezing the mechanical hand, “you must tell me everything that transpired. Please.”
“They reinstated their body cloaking,” the gambler answered, staring down at his boots. “I could not stand to look at them without it, and they seemed to understand this. I could not understand their words, but I gathered that my witnessing their congregation had not been intended. It was some mistake. The cube was fetched. Zadoc was disabled. Things beyond my reckoning were transpiring in that secluded wing of the mansion.”
“Be as precise as you can,” the boy pleaded.
“I could not look upon their mosaic puzzle and see it clear and whole, but it was certain they could. It wavered and vibrated like something that was alive. It was like a cyclone… a labyrinth.”
“What happened then? What were you allowed to see-and why?” Lloyd asked with growing impatience.