Shadows Against the Empire (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 1) Read online

“What are they?” Slaughter asked. “Some sort of billied-up demons for priests to keep people in line, blood sacrifices and gold offerings and such?”

  “The gods now worshipped on Mars are not the same gods which were held in awe and fear during the planet’s earliest age,” Early explained. “The current gods seemed to be based on a pantheon resembling the gods of the Egyptians – something we have never been able to fathom – but the first gods of Mars, the Dark Gods, made even the most bloodthirsty gods of any Earthly culture seem quite mild and docile. And, according to what little we have been able to glean from guarded Martian accounts and our own archaeological excavations – some clandestine because the Martians are quite touchy about their ancient places – the Dark Gods were physical creatures, not just ideological manifestations of a rigid theocracy.”

  “Doesn’t every heathen society believe in the reality of gods?” Slaughter offered.

  “And civilised society as well,” Professor Early added in his thin reedy voice, with a puckish gleam in his pale blue eyes.

  “Be that as it may,” Slaughter urged coolly.

  “Yes, be that as it may,” Early continued, “the Dark Gods, the First Gods of primal Mars, were physical creatures that ruled those hapless creatures with an iron and bloody hand.”

  “How could gods possibly be physical creatures?” Slaughter demanded. “Seems contradictory.”

  “I suppose, just as a white man might travel into the Congo’s dark heart and set himself up as a god among the black savages,” Early suggested.

  Slaughter scowled, but he conceded Professor Early’s point. “Were they a different race of Martians?”

  “I think not, Ethan,” the older man said. “Look at that fellow there.” He gestured toward the idol. “That thing never rose from Martian soil. It’s a nightmare. I think it probable it came either from the outer reaches of the Solar System, perhaps the conjectured planet beyond Pluto, or outside the Solar System completely, another star system.”

  Slaughter regarded the scientist with stark scepticism.

  “You should not let the present limits of our science restrict your vision.” Early said. “After all, less than an hundred years ago the idea of life upon other planets was sheer fantasy, and talk of visiting them the fevered babbling of Bedlam lunatics. We have the ability to attain Pluto in two month’s time, but even in our fastest aethership a trip to the nearest star would be a matter of years, if the aether between stars is not so thin as to not allow for propulsion, but that does not mean that another race of people, even monstrous people, could not possess technology, a higher technology, one not based on either aether-rays or steam.”

  “Tell me about the Dark Gods,” Slaughter urged.

  “Long ago, before the rise of a vanished Martian civilisation that created the planet’s network of canals, all the races of Mars were ruled by beings that came out of the darkness by means of black crystals.” Professor Early paused at Slaughter’s confused expression and said: “Please, Ethan, I understand that much of what I will tell you is perplexing, to say the least, but please bear in mind that gathering information about the distant god-ruled past is not much different than trying to learn about sexual reproduction from a Puritan – they just don’t want to talk about it, and certainly not with humans. So, please, just try to follow along.

  “Evidently, one or more ebony crystals fell from the sky, as meteorites do,” the scientist continued. “The Martians, not understanding them, treated them as holy objects, setting them within silver frames – like black mirrors – as objects of veneration. These objects were portals through which the Dark Gods were able to pass from their unknowable stygian realms into our world, utilising non-Euclidean geometries that make vast distances no more insurmountable than passing from one room to another. When the Dark Gods came to Mars, they enslaved the poor creatures, demanding blood sacrifices and actually devouring the Martians. They held court in the now-mythical city of Misr, which is supposed to exist somewhere in the south polar wastes, an area, as you might know, prohibited for exploration.”

  Slaughter shook his head.

  “The Red Prince, most powerful of the Martian rulers, is Her Majesty’s ally on the Red Planet, so we do what we can to keep that alliance strong, which means keeping away from the South Pole,” Early explained. “Anyway, the Dark Gods delighted in blood and murder; it was nothing for thousands to die in a single day of sport and ritual. The Martians suffered terribly under their horrible rulership, and it is no wonder that the psychic scar caused by those years of terror and wanton slaughter endures to this day.”

  “How did the rule of the Dark Gods come to an end?”

  “Ah, that is even more mysterious than the advent of the Dark Gods in the first place,” Early replied. “Some say there was a revolt by the Martians themselves, others that a hero arose from the enslaved Martians, but the most common reason given is that yet another godly race came from the stars, as bright as the other gods were dark; it was they who banished the Dark Gods to dimensions from which they could not escape, destroyed the black mirrors so the Dark Gods could never seek to return, lifted the Martians from abject slavery, and led them to create the civilisation that endures to this day; it was these beings of light who built the canal system that still links the Martian cities.”

  “What happened to these saviours?”

  Professor Early shrugged. “They had no desire for conquest, so when they had freed the Martians and lifted them from the mire, they returned to the stars from whence they came.”

  “Leaving behind the squabbling Martian races united only by a pantheon resembling the gods of ancient Egypt?”

  “In many ways, some only superficially,” Early admonished. “There is still intense debate about that among Aeresologists, Egyptologists and folklorists.”

  “Are there any Martians that still venerate the Dark Gods?”

  “Oh my no! An adherent would find himself in much the same predicament as would a Satan worshipper in the court of King James.” Early nodded solemnly. “With an even more violent and devastating fate.”

  “Maaten said the form was old, but the fabrication was not.”

  The little scientist hefted the idol and re-examined it through a more powerful glass.”

  “He may be right, I don’t know,” Early admitted. “The old Hun has seen more relics made to look old than have I, so I would not dispute him on that, but I will say that if there is any yearning on present-day Mars for the return of the Dark Gods, it is held in absolute secrecy, not even whispered in private; for were a Martian to be marked with the stigma of the Dark Gods, he would be murdered with the same emotion we would a venomous serpent discovered in the nursery…and the authorities, the Red Prince or any of the other leaders, would not take even token action against the murderer.”

  “Tell me, Professor,” Slaughter said after a moment, “does Venus figure in at all in the mythos of the Dark Gods?”

  The scientist frowned. “Why do you ask?”

  “Traces of dream-spice on the idol – Maaten noted it during his examination,” Slaughter explained. “And the Lascar who died clutching this beastie had never left Earth, not to Mars, certainly not Venus.”

  “Some of our less cautious informants – wine is a marvellous lubricant – did hint that the Dark Gods tried to assert themselves on other planets of the Solar System, Venus, too, I suppose, but were successful only on Mars; a black mirror might exist on Venus, assuming they ever existed at all and are not some sort of religious metaphor, but I can see no other connection.” He narrowed his gaze at the Scotland Yard detective. “You think it possible the idol came to Earth from Mars, by way of Venus?”

  “Or came into contact with dream-spice here on Earth.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “If I find out, Professor, I’ll try to let you know,” Slaughter said, reaching for the idol and the material in which he had wrapped it. “Thanks very much for the information; I don’t know what…”
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  “Do you mind if I keep the idol awhile longer?” the little man asked. “For further study? I might be able to help you further.”

  “All right, if you think you might, but please keep this all on the quiet.”

  “Soul of discretion.”

  “And do take care.”

  “British Museum – safer than the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, isn’t it?”

  “Very well, then. Thanks, Professor.”

  “What will you do now, Ethan?”

  “For the moment, lie doggo and watch my back,” Slaughter said. “Later, I plan to go sniffing in London’s dark heart…and I do mean sniffing.”

  After Chief Inspector Ethan Slaughter took his leave, Professor Early crept to the door, looked up and down the empty corridor, then locked and bolted the door, and returned to his desk. With an intricate brass key he unlocked the top drawer and pulled out the confidential report that had arrived from Whitehall, via Thames House, that morning. From time to time glancing at the loathsome idol that seemed to return a malevolent gaze, Professor Early read once more, but this time with reinvigorated interest, the reports of Captain Robert Folkestone and Sergeant Felix Hand of an incident in the ruins of Old Cydonia, which, along with the lost city of Misr, had also been a bastion of the Dark Gods.

  * * *

  A deep darkness had fallen over London, a moonless night with a thick fog starting to rise, and along the byways of the East End where Chief Inspector Ethan Slaughter made his way, there was not even the gentle relief of hissing gaslamps. He was not far from the dangerous rookery where the Lascar had met his fate; with the London Docks on his right – he could see the forest of masts of the clippers as well as the moored airships and docked aether-fliers in the glare of the import dock’s new electrics – he was fast approaching that region of London tenanted by the cast-offs and misfits of three planets, where life was often as brief as death was swift, and where, among the countless opium dens and gambling houses, one might conceivably find a hidden and closely guarded chamber where the sweet smokes of dream-spice wafted the unwary and the desperate to worlds deadly and unknown.

  When Maaten had detected the trace that had escaped his notice – he still upbraided himself for that lapse – he recalled a special bulletin from the Home Office, strictly confidential and seen by less than a handful of detectives within the Yard, that reported the confiscation of a cask of dream-spice contained in the cargo of a steam-dirigible that had travelled to London from Alexandria via Constantinople. Because the seizure had been incidental to another smuggling case, the detectives involved had been unprepared for the appearance of the alien narcotic, so by the time an enquiry could be started, the shadowy principals involved had cut off all the loose ends, leaving a string of clueless murders and a clueless aircrew. Still, it was clear the shipment had been bound for some destination within the East End, and it was probably not the first, just the first to be intercepted.

  Not reporting his discovery or his intentions to his superiors was a serious breach of protocol, but since the attack at the monorail station he did not know whom he could trust. He trusted the German as much as he did Professor Early, and the only other people who had known of his possession of the idol were a few people at Scotland Yard; though he did not want to think of any of them as bent, he knew that in these tumultuous times even the best of them faced very real temptations to stray from straight.

  If he ran into trouble, he would be on his own, and he doubted the .442 Webley Bulldog in his pocket would be of much use if serious violence flared. Still, he was accustomed to being on his own, just as he was more accustomed to asking forgiveness than asking permission.

  Crowds of sailors, labourers, roustabouts, cutpurses, trollops and West End thrill seekers who should have known better thronged the streets as he passed from Shadwell toward Stepney and Limehouse. He consulted with many of his informers – held to him by loyalty, gratitude, fear or money – but none of them could, or dared, guide him to where he needed to go, until he spoke to Qui Ah, a Chinese herbalist who ran an apothecary and was as well versed in the medicinals of the worlds beyond the sky as we was in those in his homeland far away.

  Slaughter busied himself looking at bottled of powdered dragon claw and Venusian swamp eel until Qui’s customer, a thin Mercurian wrapped against the deadly London chill, had vanished into the night with his purchase wrapped discreetly in brown mummy paper.

  “Hello, Qui,” Slaughter said softly as he turned from the display.

  The old man nodded in greeting, but, as usual, his features betrayed nothing.

  “I understand a new place has opened,” Slaughter said, “a den of dreams, strange dreams.”

  Qui’s eyes narrowed.

  “Dreams of worlds father than the worlds of space.”

  After a very long moment, Qui murmured: “You always seek the difficult, Chief Inspector Slaughter, some would say the impossible.”

  The ancient Chinaman’s voice was thin and sibilant, like a breeze moving among marsh reeds. Slaughter continued to gaze mildly at the old man, well knowing the futility of trying to make Qui Ah speak in anything but his own time.

  “You seek justice for the death of the Lascar, but his death was the just end for a life ill spent,” Qui said. “In time, those who took his life will also come to an end of their own making.”

  “No doubt, Qui,” Slaughter acknowledged, “but Lady Justice does not like to be kept waiting. It is the rule of law that binds together this industrious empire, not fate.”

  Something like a smile passed over Qui’s pale lips, but it vanished quickly.

  “There is a place in Stepney, a gambling hall where an emerald dragon throws golden dice, which hides a chamber where the tar is smoked.”

  Slaughter nodded, for he knew the place deep in the heart of the foreign enclave, where Martians and humanoid Venusians competed with Chinese, Russian, Turkish and African immigrants for space, and where the trade in human misery threatened to dominate the traditional maritime industries.

  “Beyond the obviously hidden,” Qui continued, “there is a secret grotto of dreams.” He crossed his arms with finality. “That is all I know.”

  Slaughter doubted that, but he knew that was all Qui Ah was going to tell him, and it was all he needed. “Thanks, Qui.” And he started to leave.

  “Take this,” Qui said, retrieving from under the counter a folded piece of the brown mummy paper he used for dispensing his philtres and medicinal powders. He pushed it toward Slaughter, who automatically picked it up.

  “What is it?”

  “What you need.”

  Slaughter smiled indulgently, shook his head, and slipped the small packet into an inside pocket of his jacket. From long experience he knew it was as futile to argue with Qui Ah as it was for Qui Ah to argue with fate.

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “It is a gift. Please take.”

  “Very well, Qui; I’ll be seeing you.”

  “If the forking paths allow.”

  Qui Ah was a queer duck, there was no denying that, a complicated chap, as Professor Early, who was often the master of understatement, might say. Still, in the past the old Chinaman had helped him in various investigations, and, Slaughter had to admit, had given him things from the shop that had, in the course of events, been exactly what he needed at exactly the right time.

  Chief Inspector Ethan Slaughter of Scotland Yard was possessed of that trait found in detectives who often rose above the rank and file of investigators in that he could easily appear to be anybody but Chief Inspector Ethan Slaughter of Scotland Yard, in fact not a policeman at all, a talent invaluable when entering all the dark places of London where agents of law and order are not welcome. Such a place was the Honourable House of Lucky Golden Dragon. From the intimidating door guardians, very large twin Venusian Nagas under the control of an equally large Martian highlander in full savage kit, to the line of giant golden dice spinning atop rods rising from the ground, to
the glittering emerald-eyed dragon that seemed ready to surge from the roof, whooshing steam from its nostrils from time to time, the gambling house announced that it was a redoubt of iniquity, an enclave separate from the ancient city in which it was nestled, fabricated for pleasure, subject to its own rule.

  Nagas were not forbidden on Earth or in London, but when they were imported as servants, or conscripted as militia, it was usually to the more torrid regions. Looking at the creatures that snarled at the patrons and snapped at the ones that got too close Slaughter felt a measure of pity – were he himself freezing, he would probably be bad-tempered as well. For their controller, however, he hoped he froze his bollocks off. The highland Martians were just as civilised as any of the Martian races, from what Slaughter had read, so to have this fellow show up in the heart of the Empire – even the decadent East End – all kitted up in feathers, furs and fighting harness, brandishing knives and a sword equal to his abnormal immensity, and decorated in outlandish war paint like a sideshow savage…an intolerable affront to civilisation itself.

  Of course, none of that indignation showed as Slaughter, looking for all the world like a slummer with more money than sense, joined the queue.

  The Honourable House of the Lucky Golden Dragon was evidently a bit choosy about its clientele, or so it seemed from the number of people sent packing. Of course, Slaughter surmised, it might be nothing more than an elaborate show, a way to transform what might otherwise be yet another gambling den in the sinful East End – where bent cards, shaved dice and off-level wheels of fortune were ubiquitous – into something aping the private clubs of the West End.

  Well, Slaughter decided, whatever the reason, it did not work to keep him out, for after being hissed at by the Nagas, and sniffed and snarled at by the bellicose Martian, he entered the mouth of the dragon and proceeded into the noisome smoke-filled belly of the beast. He wandered about, joining some of the wheel tables, betting on the rolls of the French dice, but mostly he sipped his drinks, which he examined very carefully, and closely observed the actions of others, and the ebb and flow of patrons.