Shadows Over London: A Shadow Council Archives Novella Read online

  Shadows Over London

  A Shadow Council Archives Novella

  James Palmer

  Contents

  1. Isabel!

  2. The Time Traveler

  3. The Diogenes Club

  4. The Elder Sign

  5. The Esoteric Order of Dagon

  6. Challenger

  7. Moriarty

  8. The Time Machine

  9. Father Dagon

  10. The Tower of London

  11. The King in Yellow

  12. A Shadow Over London

  13. The Lady of the Eye

  14. The Dweller on the Threshold

  15. It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

  16. Isabel and the Time Machine

  About the Author

  Falstaff Books

  To the memory of Kathryn Hinds

  Writer, Teacher, Collaborator, Friend

  “Dream manfully and thy dreams shall be prophets.” —Edward Bulwer-Lytton

  “Once you have eliminated every possibility, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth.” —Sherlock Holmes

  “We all have our time machines, don’t we. Those that take us back are memories…And those that carry us forward, are dreams.” —H.G. Wells

  Isabel!

  Richard Francis Burton stood in a hallway in Buckingham Palace, a feeling of existential dread enveloping him like a funeral shroud. Was he really to be knighted? It felt so strange, so surreal. And yet it was real.

  Wasn’t it?

  He felt disconnected, like he had forgotten something. He had the strange sensation that he was supposed to be somewhere else, like he had a prior engagement, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what it was.

  Everyone had come to see him be knighted. What would they call him now? Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton? Bismillah, what a mouthful. Why did the British insist on such long, complicated titles for themselves? He was Captain Burton if one must, or Dick Burton. Ruffian Dick, if one had a bone to pick with him. Dick Burton the explorer. Dick Burton the apostate. But never “gentleman Dick.” And certainly not Sir Dick! The very idea seemed preposterous.

  He walked past a line of his friends. To his left: Charles Bradlaugh. Doctor James Hunt. Richard Monkton Milnes. Sir James Plaisted Wilde. To his right: General Studholme John Hodgson. Charles Duncan Cameron.

  Down at the end of this procession was the young poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, smiling up at Burton drunkenly, raking an unruly shock of curly red hair out of his face. Burton nodded to these men and continued walking.

  Where in the deuce was he going? Part of him wanted to turn and run out the door. He thought he could still feel the blazing heat of a distant desert sun upon his back. His uncomfortable formal clothes itched, and he longed for his loose-fitting jebba. He needed to meditate, clear his head.

  Where is Isabel? She should be here, by my side.

  A face Burton had not expected heaved itself up out of the din and crush of bodies hunched together on either side of him.

  “Speke?”

  “Hello, Richard,” said John Hanning Speke, standing at the end of the long hallway. He wasn’t wearing formal attire, but dressed for hunting. But that wasn’t the strangest thing. Burton looked down at Speke’s right side, which was emblazoned with dark blood.

  “What happened?” Burton said, but even as he spoke he remembered. He knew.

  A hunting accident, the papers had said. But Burton hadn’t believed it. At least not at first.

  “That is not dead which can eternal lie,” said John Hanning Speke. “And with strange eons even death may die.”

  “What?” Burton’s mouth was dry.

  “They’re coming, Richard. You did not stop them. You cannot. They will have what is theirs.”

  John Hanning Speke reached out to touch Burton’s shoulder then, and his hand was cold and clammy, the fingers webbed, the skin fish-belly white. A powerful fishy odor assaulted Burton’s nostrils. “When the stars are right.”

  Buron tore from his grasp, spun around. Everyone was staring at him. His friends, his colleagues. They looked on him with glassy, bulbous, watery yellow eyes set in pale, scaly faces. Their mouths opened and closed, opened and closed, an unspoken litany, and they reached for him with sickly green flippers that used to be hands.

  Burton screamed.

  Richard Francis Burton’s eyes snapped open. He felt a cold sweat all over his body. Mid afternoon sun filtered in through his bedroom window. A shadow hovered over him.

  “Well bless me,” said his housekeeper and landlady Miss Angell. “Your fever’s finally broken.”

  She dabbed his forehead with a washcloth she had just rung out over a basin beside his head.

  “Mother Angell?” Burton murmured. “Good. Have to get ready. I have my, uh, coronation.”

  He tried to rise, but she pushed him back down, chuckling.

  “Coronation?” she said with a lopsided grin. “I don’t think the Empire is quite ready for that. Now get some rest. You’ve had an awful time of it since your return. And it’s no wonder, what with all this galivanting about the globe. I’ve a mind to nail your feet to the floor. Oh, but who can blame you? After what happened to Ms. Arundel.”

  She returned the washcloth to the basin.

  “Isabel?” said Burton. “What happened?”

  The old woman stared down at him, frowning. “Oh, you poor man. You really have been out of it. Don’t you remember? She disappeared while you were away. You slipped into this horrible fever when you returned and found out. Up and vanished in Hyde Park a week ago, she did. But there’s no use worrying about that now. You just lie back. I’ll nurse you back to health. I’ve worked too hard to get you this far. I won’t let you backslide.”

  “Isabel?”

  Burton sat up all the way this time, pushing himself up onto his elbows, fighting against the soggy, tightly tucked bedclothes. Isabel? Missing?

  “That can’t be right.”

  Ms. Angell slowly shook her head. “You poor, poor man. That fever really scrambled your brains, it did. Now lie down. You need your rest. The worst has passed, but you still need to get your strength back.”

  Burton stared at her, his mouth slowly opening and closing. This wasn’t right. Was it?

  “I don’t believe it,” he said finally.

  “Now, Captain Burton,” said the housekeeper. “I’ll not go through this again. The sooner you accept it, the better off you’ll be.”

  Burton scowled, pushed himself up fully to lean against the wooden headboard.

  His housekeeper wagged a finger at him. “Now the doctor said that you must resume your regular routine as soon as you are able. Looks to me like you’re able. I’ll bring you some lunch.”

  “I’ll take it in my study,” said Burton, not really hungry. He stared out the window as she gathered up the basin and other nursing implements and left the room.

  When she was gone, Burton got up, changing into a fresh, clean jebba. The white linen gown-like garment billowed about him like a cloud as he pulled it on over his head. He looked at himself briefly in the dressing mirror as he smoothed out the gold brocade running from his neck down the front of the material. It was so much more comfortable than the stodgy tweed suits, neckties, cravats, and corsets worn by his fellow Londoners, and once again Burton felt he was a stranger in his own country. He scowled at his reflection and went down the hall to his study.

  There was nothing amiss. And yet something still seemed off about it. He lit a cheroot cigar and smoked it thoughtfully. Isabel. My Isabel. What had happened?

  In a flash of memo
ry, he knew. He remembered. He had returned from his trip aboard the Nautilus, he and Challenger going their separate ways. Herbert had stayed on board to unload his Time Machine. He went home to a tearful Miss Angell telling him about Isabel’s disappearance, showing him the paper that carried the news.

  Bismillah! No. That wasn’t right. After emerging from the smaller submersible, Burton had hailed a hansom and went to the Cannibal Club, eager to see his friends. But when he arrived at Bartolini’s dining rooms, he found that his friends—James Hunt, Thomas Bendeshye, even Algernon Charles Swinburne—had been transmogrified into horrifying entities. After that, he couldn’t remember any more before the horrible dream about Speke before waking up in his own bed.

  “I must still be suffering ill effects from the journey,” he murmured aloud. He sucked on the cheroot and exhaled fragrant smoke that formed a brief halo around his head before dissipating. The eldritch horrors he’d witnessed must have profoundly affected his psyche, causing him to hallucinate. His friends, worried for his safety, brought him home.

  Or. . .

  The other memory reasserted itself, like experiencing the deja vu of someone else. He remembered coming home to learn about Isabel, and then falling into some sort of madness or stupor to awaken as he had minutes ago. Both memories were as real, as strong, but only one of them could possibly be real, and Burton knew which one that was.

  Burton sensed movement from the corner of his eye, as if someone was standing just over his left shoulder. He spun around in his chair, finding his study empty.

  Burton tossed the blackened stump of his cheroot into the fireplace and tried to meditate but couldn’t achieve the level of mental peace he desired and gave up. More memories—contrary memories—floated into his mind, like objects bobbing up in a murky mill pond.

  Burton wandered to his writing desk and glanced at a newspaper sitting there. It was dated the day he left, but the headline he had half- expected to find was no longer there. The headline was supposed to read:

  Madness Grips City’s Spiritualists

  But instead it read:

  Royal Geographic Society to Host Debate on ‘Hollow Earth’ Theory

  “What the devil is going on here?” Burton said aloud. He sat down behind the writing desk and pondered the paper until Miss Angel brought his lunch, a plate of cold cuts and pickles, with a snifter of brandy. Ignoring the food, Burton looked up at her from his chair. Seeking his words carefully, he said, “Do you remember the trouble a few months ago, before I left? The madness among the city’s spiritualists?”

  Miss Angell shook her head, perplexed. “What? No, sir. I don’t remember anything like that. Those spiritualist mediums are pretty well near mad enough for my liking.”

  Burton stared down at the paper on the desk in front of him. “This newspaper. It’s…” Changed? But how?

  “If you don’t mind my saying, Captain Burton,” said Ms. Angell with an air of motherly authority. “I think you should go out and get some fresh air. It would do you some good.”

  Burton nodded and poured himself a brandy. He looked up from his troubled thoughts, half expecting to see Mother Angell still standing there doting over him, but she had disappeared. He scowled at the newspaper, then got up and wandered over to the window. It was a rare bright, sunny day over Gloucester Place, though gray storm clouds threatened from the east.

  Isabel was gone. Just like that. Snatched away from him in Hyde Park. While he was gone on another one of his blasted adventures. Just one more jaunt to cure him of his wanderlust. And what a jaunt it was. He had boarded a submarine vessel and traveled backward through Time to confront alien horrors. He had returned with his sanity barely intact. He had hallucinated. He had fallen ill.

  No.

  Burton caught movement from the corner of his eye once more and searched behind him. No one was here. And yet he thought he saw something, a shadowy someone, lurking in the periphery of his vision.

  “Bismillah,” he muttered. He drained his brandy, poured another and emptied it down his throat.

  Something had changed. Their journey through Time had altered something. Perhaps several somethings. Maybe Isabel’s disappearance included. And Burton was the only one who had noticed.

  No. Challenger. Herbert. They had gone on this strange voyage with him. They would notice anything that was changed as well. He had to speak to them.

  Burton ran to his bedroom and hurriedly dressed. He shouted to Miss Angell that he was going out as he bounded down the stairs.

  The Time Traveler

  Burton walked up Gloucester Place toward Baker Street, rational thought setting in, slowing his steps. He stopped, looked around before realizing he had no idea where either man hung his hat. He supposed finding Professor Challenger would be easy enough. A short conversation with one of the members of the Royal Geographical Society would be enough to locate him. But what of Herbert? He didn’t even know the Time Traveler’s surname.

  Burton tapped his walking stick on the pavement in thought. He recalled from a conversation he’d had with Herbert aboard the Nautilus that he resided near Kew Gardens. It wasn’t as specific as Burton would like, but it would have to be enough.

  Kew Gardens was in Richmond, in south-west London. It would be mid-afternoon before he arrived, and he didn’t know how long it would take to narrow down the Time Traveler’s address. He decided to locate Herbert first, then worry about Challenger’s current whereabouts later.

  Burton hailed a hansom and began his journey.

  Lulled by the clop of the horses’ hooves on the cobblestones, he let his mind drift, allowing the conflicting memories that filled his mind to bob up to the surface once more, both alien and familiar. He could not reconcile them. He wanted to choose one set of occurrences over the other, but he was increasingly finding it more and more difficult. The memories that had felt so wrong and out of place earlier—those involving Isabel’s mysterious disappearance—were now beginning to seem as if they were the right ones. And yet that other nagging notion—that Isabel was still safe and sound—felt out of place. He thought of himself as two Burtons, both fighting for supremacy of one body, one reality. And he was starting to feel crowded.

  Using a Sufi meditation technique, Burton banished the feeling from his mind, at least for the time being. When he opened his eyes again, he was staring out at the entrance to Kew Gardens, the hansom having come to a stop in front of it.

  Burton paid the driver and got out. As the driver and his horse clopped away, the explorer looked left, then right, considering his options. “Eeny, meeny, miney, moe,” muttered Burton and started off to his right. Just up the street was a cluster of buildings containing various shops. He introduced himself and started asking if anyone knew a young inventive chap with a passion for optics. A half hour later, Burton had Herbert’s address, after describing the Time Traveler to a kindly, withered old chemist who had delivered a tincture of what he called “nervous medicine” to the home in question that very morning. Burton thanked him and moved on.

  It was a lovely day, and the home, the chemist told him, was nearby, so Burton had no qualms about walking. He had traveled on foot greater distances—and through much harsher conditions—than this, and it felt good to stretch his legs. He had been in bed too long, and still felt weak from the ordeal. The human body, he decided on the spot, had no place for lethargy.

  Forty-five minutes later, Burton strode up the front walk of the Time Traveler’s house. He knocked on the door with the knob of his walking stick. After almost a full minute, an older, harried-looking woman appeared, wearing a crisp housekeeper’s apron. “Can I help you?” she said.

  “Good afternoon. I am Richard Francis Burton, and I was hoping to call on the master of the house.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “The master doesn’t feel well. You’ll have to come back another time.”

  “Please,” said Burton. “It will only take a moment. He and I recently traveled together, and—”


  “You did, did you?” said the housekeeper. “Well, I suppose you are to blame for his sorry state. Did you know he’s been wandering around here half mad since he returned? He’s saying the strangest things you’ve ever heard. Some rot about shoggoths and other things I can’t even pronounce. Strange, guttural things that no human mouth has any business sayin’, if you ask me. Why, it’s worse than the last time.”

  “Last time?”

  “Yes sir. No doubt he told you about it. He tells everyone else. Can’t shut up about it. And I had just gotten him back on the straight and narrow. Now this.”

  “Can I talk to him, please?” asked Burton. “I think I can help.”

  “Well,” said the housekeeper, eying Burton suspiciously. “I suppose you can’t make him any worse. He’s down in his basement laboratory, tinkerin’ with that bleedin’ contraption of his.”

  “Tinkering?” said Burton, a dark thought crossing his mind. The memory of a brief conversation he and the Time Traveler shared during their return to England.

  I should destroy it when I get back. It’s given me nothing but grief.

  Burton reached up and pushed open the door, Herbert’s words echoing in his mind. “No!” He barreled past the protesting housekeeper and glanced around. In a moment he heard the sounds of banging coming from what must be the basement, and he ran down the narrow wooden steps as fast as he could.

  In the middle of a dusty workshop stood the Time Machine, looking just as it had aboard Nemo’s submarine. Its brass fittings glittered in the late morning sunlight that filtered in through a set of glass doors on the basement’s far end. An ornate saddle sat in its center, fronted by a brass and wood inlaid console from which the twin crystalline control rods glittered. Behind this was the large dish that spun when the Time Machine was in operation, its polished surface studded with clockwork emblems. Its presence had a strange solidity, and it set the disparate memories warring for supremacy of Burton’s head once more.