Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Burton & Swinburne) (52 page)

Burton reached up and placed a hand on the side of the flower. “Then I'm happy for you, my friend.”

Swinburne's petals squeezed into a pucker, and the flower slid forward and placed a dewy kiss on the explorer's forehead.

Drawing away, Swinburne said, “Off you go.”

Burton reached up to his vehicle's saddle and lifted down his rifle. Seeing this, Wells stepped back to his harvestman and did the same. They walked together across the glade to the opening in the plant's root.

The king's agent looked back. The huge red flower had risen up into the sunbeam. Its petals were open. A trio of butterflies danced around it. He smiled and moved into the hollow limb.

Swinburne whispered:

“A wider soul than the world was wide,
Whose praise made love of him one with pride,
What part has death or has time in him,
Who rode life's lists as a god might ride?”

Sir Richard Francis Burton and Herbert George Wells walked through the hollow root and down into the grotto. They stepped out of an opening in the limb, crossed the chamber, and wriggled through the narrow tube in its wall to the shelf overlooking the vast cavern. After following the path down, they were met by the Batembuzi, who shepherded them to the Temple of the Eye.

The war correspondent gazed in disbelief at the monolithic edifice. “By gum,” he said. “It dwarfs even the pyramids!” He glanced nervously at their escorts. “It's funny, though—I always imagined that it'd be the workers who ended up as troglodytes, rather than the priests.”

“Historically, priests have probably lived underground more often than any other segment of the world's population,” Burton commented.

Wells gave a dismissive grunt. “The power of faith over rationality.”

“I used to think they were the opposite ends of a spectrum,” Burton answered. “Now I'm not so certain.”

“Surely you're not resurrecting God, Richard?”

“No. But perhaps I'm resurrecting myself.”

“Ah. Faith in oneself. When confronting the unknown, perhaps that's the only thing one can truly hope for.”

“I certainly have nothing else.”

“You have my friendship.”

Burton looked at Wells, reached out, and patted his shoulder.

“Yes. I do.”

They trudged along the central thoroughfare, reached the steps to the temple entrance, climbed them, and passed through the tall double doors. The Batembuzi ushered them to the foot of the staircase then slunk away and were absorbed into the shadows.

“Are they even men?” Wells asked.

“I have no idea, but, according to legend, the Nāga managed to breach the natural divide between species to produce half-human offspring.”

They ascended to the hall, walked between its statues, and stopped at the gold-panelled doors.

Burton gripped a handle and said, “The last of my lost memories are in here, Bertie. Do you really want to face them with me?”

“Most assuredly!”

The king's agent swung the door open and they entered the chamber beyond.

He recognised it instantly. Everything was as it had been fifty-five years ago, except: “The Eye has gone!” Burton pointed to the empty bracket at the tip of the upside-down pyramid.

“That's the guarantee that you'll return to 1863,” Wells replied, “for obviously you removed the diamond and took it to London.”

Burton added, “Where it was recovered by the Germans after the destruction of the city. I go back knowing that will happen, so why do I allow it?”

“You'll find out! I say! This must be your Mr. Spencer!” He pointed to the floor.

The clockwork man was lying beside the altar. His brass body was battered, scratched, and discoloured, its left leg bent out of shape and footless. What passed for his face was disfigured by a big indentation on the left side. The speaking apparatus had been removed from his head and was sitting on the nearby block, among the various instruments.

Burton pointed out the exposed babbage to Wells.

“Do you see the seven apertures? They're where the Cambodian diamonds were fitted. They contained Spencer's mind and—and—”

“What is it, Richard?” Wells asked, noticing his friend's pained expression.

“K'k'thyima! I was wrong, Bertie—it wasn't ever Spencer! It was a Nāga priest named K'k'thyima. He used the power of the diamonds to send me into the future—but I don't understand; the diamonds are gone, so how can I return?”

Wells pointed to something on the altar.

“Perhaps that holds the answer.”

Burton looked and recognised the key that wound the clockwork man. He picked it up.

“Help me turn this thing onto its stomach,” he said, squatting beside the brass machine.

Wells did so, then watched as Burton inserted the key into a slot in the device's back and twisted it through a number of revolutions.

The two men stood back.

A ticking came from the figure on the floor. A click and a whir and a jerk of the footless leg, then it rolled over, sat up, and struggled upright. It looked at Sir Richard Francis Burton, saluted, and pointed at the altar.

A tremor ran through Burton's body. “Of course. I have black diamond dust tattooed into my scalp. It must be connected through time to the Eye in sixty-three.”

He hesitated. “I'm torn, Bertie. My instincts object, but have I any other choice but to go through with this?”

“All the evidence tells us that you did, and therefore will. Hmm. I wonder. Does Fate eliminate paradox? Could Fate be a function of the human organism?”

Burton climbed onto the altar and lay down. He rested his sniper rifle between his body and left arm. “If it is, then perhaps these multiple histories are disrupting it, making us prone to paradox after paradox.”

“Then you know what you have to do, Richard.”

“What?”

“You have to seal your own fate.”

Wells stood back as the clockwork man circled the altar, closing the manacles around Burton's wrists and ankles.

The explorer began: “Whatever the case, I—” then stopped with a strangled gasp as, without warning, the last missing fragment of memory returned to him.

“Oh no!” he hissed. “No no no!” He looked at Wells and bellowed: “Get the hell out of here, Bertie! Run! Run!”

“What—?”

“Run for your life! Get out!” Burton screamed, his voice near hysterical.

The clockwork man suddenly lunged at the war correspondent, grabbed his head with both hands, and twisted it violently. Bone cracked. Wells slumped to the floor.

“No!” Burton howled.

A bright flash.

The blinding light lingered in John Speke's one functional eye.

The gunshot left bells clanging in his ears.

The noise was gradually superseded by the sound of a man howling in pain and distress.

William Trounce fell against him and thudded onto the floor.

Speke blinked rapidly.

Vision returned.

Burton was on the altar. His head was thrown back and he was screaming hysterically. He'd undergone a shocking transformation. Where, seconds ago, his head had been shaved, tattooed, and smeared with blood, now it was covered by long snowy white hair. Where his face had been gaunt and savage and strong, now it was frail and lined and brutalised, as if the explorer had aged, and suffered intolerably.

His clothes were different. He was terribly emaciated. There was a rifle beside him.

K'k'thyima stepped back and placed the revolver on the block with the various instruments.

“Most satisfactory,” he said. “A sacrifice was made and our intrepid traveller has returned. Mr. Speke, would you calm him down, please.”

Speke breathed a shuddery exhalation and stepped to the altar. He took Burton by the shoulders and shook him slightly.

“Dick! Dick! It's all right, man! It's all right! Stop!”

Burton's eyes were wild. His lips were drawn back over his teeth. His screams gave way to words: “Bertie! Get out! Get out!”

“It's me, Dick! It's John! John Speke!”

“Get out. Get out. Get out.”

Speke slapped him hard.

“Dick! Look at me! It's John!”

Burton's eyes fixed on him, focused, and sanity gradually bled back into them.

“Is it you, John?” he croaked. “John Speke?”

“Yes, it's me. We're in the Nāga temple. Do you remember?”

“I remember death. So much death.”

Tears flowed freely and a sob shook the king's agent. “I have lost my mind. I can't take any more of it. Algy was—was—then William, and Bertie!” Burton looked over to K'k'thyima and suddenly screamed: “Get me out of these shackles, you damned murdering lizard!”

“Welcome back, Sir Richard,” the Nāga priest said. He limped to the explorer's side and clicked open the manacles on Burton's left wrist and ankle, then moved around the altar, leaned past Speke, and liberated the other two limbs.

Burton sat, swung around, pushed himself to his feet, and sent a vicious right hook clanging into the side of the brass man's head. He stifled a groan as pain lanced through his hand, but was satisfied to see that he'd just created the big dent he'd noticed in the clockwork man's face in 1918.

“You bastard!” he hissed. “I'm going to tear you apart!”

“I wouldn't recommend it, soft skin. Don't forget where you are. This is 1863. You need me to remain here, in this room and in one piece, for fiftyfive years, else how can I return you from 1918?”

“You damned well know it doesn't work like that! I'm here, now, and I won't disappear if I rip your bloody cogs out!”

“Perhaps not, but even if you had the strength to overpower me—which I assure you, you don't—do you really want to create yet another history—one that denies a path home to that alternate you, condemning him to exile in Africa of 1918?”

Burton swayed. Speke, looking bemused, steadied him. “What happened to you, Dick? You didn't go anywhere but your appearance is—is—”

Burton looked down at William Trounce's body. His face twisted into an expression of fury, then one of utter despair.

“I have spent four years in the future, John,” he said, “and now I must prevent that future from occurring.” He turned back to K'k'thyima. “How?”

The high priest shuffled back to the other side of the altar. He reached up and began to work the Eye out of its housing.

“That's the question, isn't? How will you ever know whether what you're doing is, from the perspective of the time you just visited, any different from what you did?”

The black diamond came loose. K'k'thyima stepped back and held it up.

“You are on your own, Sir Richard. The Nāga are finally departing this world. We leave you to sing the final verse of our song.”

The phosphorescence around the walls suddenly dimmed, its blue light concentrating around the diamond, and small crackles and snaps sounded, increasing in volume. Bolts of energy started to sizzle over the stone's many facets, then flared out, dancing across its surface and down K'k'thyima's arm. The Eye hummed, the sound rapidly deepening, causing Burton's and Speke's ears to pop before it passed below the range of human hearing.

Tiny fractures zigzagged across the Eye, and as each appeared, with a faint
tink!
, a small entity was expelled. To Speke's astonishment, they appeared to be tiny people with the wings of butterflies and dragonflies—fairies!—but Burton knew it was an illusion; that they appeared this way because the human mind wasn't able to process the things' true appearance, and so replaced it with a marvel from mythology. To him, the ejected forms were sparks of reptilian consciousness, sensed rather than seen. He'd witnessed the same dance around the South American stone when it had shattered.

The energy built to a storm-like frenzy, banging and clapping and sending out streaks of blue lightning that sputtered up the walls and across the floor and ceiling.

Speke cried out in fear: “What's happening, Dick?”

The king's agent yelled, “He's breaking the stone!”

Moments later, with a loud detonation, the enormous black diamond cracked and fell apart, dropping out of the brass man's hand and falling to the floor in seven equally sized pieces.

The room became still.

The bolts of energy vanished.

The smell of ozone hung in the air.

K'k'thyima bent and retrieved the stones.

“Equivalence! Though one or two or even all of the Eyes remain whole in some versions of history, in this one they are all divided into seven, thus, across all the realities, the Nāga can now transcend or die.” He directed his misshapen face at Burton. “Our gratitude, Sir Richard. The Nāga thank you for the role you've played in our release.”

“Oh just bugger off, why don't you?” the king's agent growled. He suddenly staggered, made a grab at Speke, missed, and fell to the floor, where he sat with his eyes open but glazed. Speke squatted beside him and felt his forehead.

“Feverish,” he muttered. “And exhausted beyond endurance, by the looks of it.”

“I don't know what to do,” Burton mumbled. “How do I seal my own fate, Bertie?”

“Who's this Bertie he keeps mentioning?” Speke asked K'k'thyima.

“I don't know, Mr. Speke. Let's get him up.” The brass man bent and hooked a metal hand through Burton's arm. Speke took the cue and supported the explorer on the other side. They pulled him upright and sat him on the altar.