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A jagged line of bright blue fire lashed out from a splinteringfacet of the Eye and enveloped him. It yanked him into the air andheld him there. He convulsed helplessly. Capillaries haemorrhagedbeneath his skin. The etheric lightning jerked and he was thrown upand slammed into the ceiling then dropped to the floor, where helay in the grip of a seizure as the fizzling energy snapped awayfrom him.
Pushed beyond the threshold of endurance, his mind seemed todisassociate, and awareness of his physical pain left him. It wasno relief. His consciousness was rent by a mortal shriek ofanguish-the Mad Monk's death throes as the fracturing diamond torehim to pieces.
It was too much for the king's agent. The world overturned, slidaway, grew dark, and was gone.
Sir Richard Francis Burton was dead.
He knew it because he could feel nothing.
There was no world, there were no sensations, there was nothingrequired, there was nothing desired, there was no past, there wasno future.
There was only peace.
A metal finger poked him in the ribs.
He opened his eyes expecting to see, as ever, orange lightflickering over a canvas roof.
He saw snow.
He sat up.
No, not snow-flakes of dead ectoplasm falling from the libraryceiling, vanishing before they touched the floor.
He pushed himself to his feet, pulled a handkerchief from hispocket, and wiped the blood from his face.
With a loud crack, Madam Blavatsky's corpse dropped. It crashedonto the plinth, which disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Burton turned away from the sight of her crushed skull andhorribly folded carcass and found that Herbert Spencer was standingat his side. The brass man held out his cupped hands. The king'sagent looked into them and counted.
“Seven fragments. Is that all of them?”
Spencer nodded.
“Good. Hold on to them, will you? The bloody things give me aheadache. Let's get out of here. And Herbert-”
The brass head regarded him.
“Thank you.”
Burton recovered a chair from a crumbling and fast-disappearingmound of ectoplasm and used it to smash his way through thecalcifying substance blocking the door and corridor beyond. Themediumistic material was fading from existence with increasingrapidity, and by the time he and his mechanical companion haddescended to the Venetia's ground floor, nothing of it remained tobe seen.
They stepped out into the fogbound Strand. It was strangelysilent.
Burton swayed, struck by a wave of dizziness, and clutched athis companion's arm for support.
“Give me a moment,” he muttered.
The next thing he knew, he was looking up at the anxious facesof Algernon Swinburne and Detective Inspector Trounce.
“Did I pass out?”
“Pillock!” screeched Pox from the poet's shoulder.
“Evidently,” Trounce said. “Lord Nelson carried you out of thefog. How's our enemy?”
“Dead. The show is over. And he's not Lord Nelson. Give me ahand, would you?”
Looking perplexed, Trounce reached down and hauled Burton to hisfeet.
“Not Nelson? Is it a different device?”
Pox hopped from Swinburne to the clockwork man's head andwhistled: “Beautiful sweetheart!”
“No,” Burton said. “It's our mutual friend Mr. HerbertSpencer.”
Trounce frowned. “What?”
“There's no time to explain, old man. Suffice it to say that SirCharles Babbage was a genius.”
“No time? I thought you said Blavatsky is dead?”
“She is, and so is Rasputin. I have to go. There's someone Ineed to see before I collapse onto my bed to sleep for a week.”
“Shall I come with you, Richard?” Swinburne asked, with a traceof anxiety in his voice.
“No, Algy. I have to do this alone.”
He turned to the brass philosopher. “Hand me a couple of thediamonds, would you?”
Spencer dropped two stones into the explorer's waiting palm.
Burton slipped them into his waistcoat pocket, turned, andstaggered off into the fog.
“Hey!” called Trounce after the fading figure. “Who the dickensis Rasputin?”
“Give Herbert a pen and paper,” came the receding reply. “He'llwrite you an explanation!”
Trounce scratched his head and mumbled: “By Jove! If he's justdefeated the Blavatsky woman and brought all this nonsense to anend, you'd think he'd look a mite happier about it!”
The fog thickened.
Burton picked his way through corpses and debris, gave a curtgreeting to the constables he encountered, left the Strand, madehis way along Haymarket, and passed through Piccadilly Square.
It was maybe five or six in the morning-he was waiting for BigBen to chime-and there was a faint glow overhead as dawn struggledto penetrate the murk. The city was absolutely silent.
He walked along Regent Street, passing broken windows and guttedshops. He couldn't shake the feeling that the world was crumblingaround him.
The riot was over. Blavatsky was dead. Rasputin's mind had beenshredded and the present was free of his sinister influence.
Yet something was deeply, deeply wrong.
The vapour swirled around him, muffling his footsteps, as heentered Oxford Circus and turned left.
A weighty despondency was settling over him, exactly like thathe'd experienced in Aden after returning from Africa's LakeRegions. It was the notion that, despite his every effort, a jobhad not been completed.
“What is it?” he muttered. “Why do I feel that I've failed?”
He came to Vere Street and stopped outside a narrow buildingsandwiched between a hardware shop and the Museum of Anatomy. Ithad a bright yellow door and a bay window, behind which a deep bluecurtain hung.
Taped against the inside of the window there was a notice thatread: The astonishing COUNTESS SABINA, seventh daughter,CHEIROMANTIST, PROGNOSTICATOR, tells your past, present, andfuture, gives full names, tells exact thought or question on yourmind without one word spoken; reunites the separated; removes evilinfluences; truthful predictions and satisfaction guaranteed.Consultations from 11 A.M. until 2 P.M. and from 6 P.M. to 9 P.M.Please enter and wait until called.
Burton looked at his reflection in the glass. His fiercecountenance was a patchwork of red and purple bruises.
“None of this is your doing,” he said, “but Chance has put youin the thick of it. Now you have to play the game to thefinish.”
His eyes moved to the notice.
Prognosticator.
He leaned forward and rested his forehead against the coldglass.
The African Eye will be found.
He was suddenly short of breath and started gulping in mouthfulsof air.
Found by you.
“Bismillah,” he gasped. “Bismillah. It's all gone to hell.”
An early-morning cafe had opened across the street. Burton tooka moment to even out his breathing then walked over to it, entered,and asked for a coffee.
“You're the first bloomin’ customer I've had in days,” theproprietor grumbled, glancing curiously at the explorer's batteredfeatures. “You fancy a round of buttered toast? It's on the house,mate.”
“That would be very welcome,” Burton answered. “Thank you.”
He sat quietly, sipping coffee and eating toast until a lightcame on and glowed through the fog from the upper window of thebuilding opposite. He gave it forty minutes or so, then left thecafe, crossed the road, and knocked on the door.
He waited, and, after a few moments, knocked again.
The countess opened the door. She wore a long, shapelessmidnight-blue gown.
“Countess Sabina,” he said. “My apologies. I know it'searly.”
“Captain Burton. My goodness, what has happened to you? Were yourun over by one of those dreadful omnipede things?”
He managed a wry grin. “Something like that, yes. I require yourtalents. It's a matter of great importance.”
She gazed at him silently for a moment, her eyes unfathomable,then nodded and stepped aside.
He entered and followed her along a short passageway, through adoorway hung with a thick velvet curtain, and into the room beyond.It smelled of sandalwood. Wooden chairs stood against itsundecorated walls.