HORRIFIC SCREAMING WAS echoing through Berd’s head when she awoke. Blue light wavered all around her, fishtailing and bubbling, giving her the impression of being underwater. But that was impossible. She would not be able to breathe if that were the case.
But she was, undeniably, floating in a world of blue radiance.
Her skin tingled, even as water pushed in from all sides. Berd lifted her hands in scrutiny, expecting to find a gaping hole in one of them. She had dreamed it. The black dirt under her fingernails was gone, and every torn nail had regrown.
Baffled, she continued her examination, pressing the skin of her face and running fingers down the delicate curves of her ears. Jagged bursts of intermittent pain erupted in various parts of her person. The stink of charred flesh made her wonder if she had been set alight, but soon all was replaced by overwhelming bliss.
This had to be the afterlife…
She was beginning to revel in the peacefulness when a subtle sound filled her ears.
Water that sounds like bees humming…
She looked up and saw a blue radiance wrinkling in sheets before her. Then intense yellow light flashed. Blinding. A searing dread rose from deep within as she squeezed her eyes shut.
I must get out.
Berd moved her hands back to raise herself, only she could find no purchase…
There was nothing beneath her.
Her chest constricted and her heart thundered above the sound of the supernatural water. She opened her mouth to scream just as a voice spoke.
“Please, relax.” A melodic voice burred. Male and young, it had a firm guiding tone like a doctor’s.
Of course! She had to be at a retreat. James must have sent her to take the waters after the explosion. With that in mind, she closed her mouth and unclenched her fists.
The voice came again. “It’s far safer to keep your eyes closed while you’re under. At least you’re whole again.”
Whole again? What kind of spa was this?
Confusion seeped into her consciousness, and her muscles tightened. She squinted against a halo of sulphurous yellow light.
“What has happened to me? Where am I?”
To her annoyance, the speaker ignored her questions. “Excuse me, my lady, while I carry you out of the river.”
A shadow passed over her. Pain re-entered her body. Her muscles tensed. It was all she could do just to clench her teeth and hold back her scream.
“I’m sorry it hurts. Being one with the energy of the river causes you to feel pain as you’re removed, but it’ll pass.” As he spoke the light dimmed, and as he placed her on her feet the pain subsided. Finally, she was able to see.
Only what she saw did not make sense. She had expected to find herself indoors, instead she was outdoors and the ground she was standing on, if it was indeed ground, was composed of bright green enamel that reflected the frail light like polished glass.
She tapped her foot, and heard the resulting echo. Whatever it was, it seemed solid enough. She appeared to be on the bank of a river, but this was like no river she’d ever encountered. It rippled with translucent blue silk skeins, its surface undulating and shimmering as if worked by a million looms beneath. And she had been in there. Inside. She lifted her gaze. The heavy odours of metal shavings, paraffin, and engine oil wafted over her face.
A city was spread to the horizon. A city composed of blocks. Huge blocks. Gigantic blocks. So titanic that even as she stared, she felt herself shrinking into the landscape. Copper, brass, silver, and polished steel took the place of brick and painted wood. The cubes, arches, pyramids, and rectangular prisms closest to her were the size of the workmen’s cottages back on the estate, but others in the distance rivalled the Great Pyramid at Giza.
This was no spa.
Except for a slight humming, it was silent. No one and nothing moved in this alien landscape.
Berd’s throat was dry as she stared.
Models of geometric figures... Wasn’t that what Grandmother Bird had required in order to help her understand mathematics?
Berd wrapped her arms around herself and turned to the stranger who stood nearby, one hand resting on his hip, as he observed her.
The yellow grail-like halo that obscured him earlier had vanished. He looked not much older than she. Jet hair, finger-raked off his high forehead, fell straight to his shoulders in the style of the knights of old, but there was a sense of wildness about him she doubted any knight ever possessed. This was evidenced by the rakish curve of his brows over deep-set eyes, narrowed in grim contemplation. But he did not look at her as a damsel in distress. More like a dragon to be despatched.
Berd frowned back at him. He wore no hat, not even a commoner’s one, and what appeared at first like shadows wrapped around him, was on closer examination more akin to black leather. Whatever it was, it was certainly no morning coat.
He took two almost predatory strides towards her, completing his aura of danger. This was not someone who played by the rules. This was someone who made the rules.
He was neither Sir Gawain nor even Sir Galahad.
Naught but the Black Knight himself.
For a moment neither spoke. The only sound was the dull hum that seeped through the soles of her feet and fluttered the tendrils of her hair from her shoulders. She smoothed down her blouse, rubbing a fold between her fingers. The mauve silk crackled, proving what was happening was real.
If she’d appraised his outfit, he was now doing the same to her. With a start, Berd remembered she was still clad in James’s pants. After that latest encounter, it’d been a point of honour to continue to wear them.
Let the stranger think they were bloomers or whatever. On her they were baggy enough that her form was not revealed. She owed him no explanation.
“Who are you, my lady, and where’s my father?” Steel edged his tone.
“I...” She glanced up, only to be caught by his eyes. They were the intense blue of the sky at twilight.
This was the young man from the Engine the day before. The ghost.
The realisation stole her breath away, but at the same time a part of her rejoiced. Jubilant. She’d succeeded. She’d wanted to speak to Charles Babbage Fotheringay, to find out how to get the Engine working, and now she was. Not that she’d ever have imagined this. For not only was she speaking to him, she was actually in here with him. And the only place ‘here’ could be ... She shook her head, trying to deny what her eyes and mind told her was truth. Her heart raced, and fear gripped her in tight hands. She was within the Engine itself.
Trapped.
Absolute panic flooded through her. Berd jerked her head up, desperate to see the comforting inside of her stables, but all that greeted her was an alien gold sky.
I wanted to teach the Engine. Not end up within it.
“My lady?”
The anger she sensed in him earlier was gone. His behaviour now appeared geared to pacify, as he reached one hand, palm-up, towards her.
The faint blue veins across his wrist, the bluntness of his grease-stained fingernails, even the stink of paraffin...
She inhaled sharply as all her senses screamed: this was not the hand of a ghost. Her voice was raw when she spoke, “Mr Charles Babbage Fotheringay, I presume?”
She thought she caught the glimmer of a smile.
“And you are?”
“Lady Elizabeth Ada Lovelace. My brother, James William—”
“Is the Earl of Lovelace.” His face darkened. “You wrote my father over a year ago, indicating your desire to purchase our Engine. I was overseas at the time but Father informed me of your attempt when I returned.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Well, it appears you have succeeded.”
So he knew about her letter. But all she’d done was make an innocent offer, which his father had declined. She’d not pursued the matter further until she heard of the Engine being auctioned. “Sir, you mistake me. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
However, the way Charles Fotheringay was regarding her, she had no doubt that if she told him his father was deceased he’d think she had a hand in it.
This was certainly not the time to inform him of his father’s passing.
“Congratulations. You wanted the Engine. You’re now in it. Enjoy yourself.” He bowed, and without further ado, strode towards a golden trapezoidal prism balancing at a dangerous angle a hundred yards away.
Berd bristled. Though the last thing she desired was to come under any man’s protection, by now the silence and immensity of the place was creeping in.
Eager for shelter, she took a step towards the city and was about to take another when one of the distant brass cubes shimmered oddly. Its faces had turned liquid. A movement arose from within, as though something inside was trying to escape.
I must be losing my mind!
In the distance, Fotheringay hadn’t even slowed. His black form was growing smaller by the second. The hum increased until the ground rumbled. It felt like it was going from the city toward Fotheringay.
Then the trapezoid began to melt. It oozed into the air like water down a glass. Berd cupped her mouth to stop a scream. She had expected him to exhibit the same response as her, but his stride never slowed. Surely he must see what is happening!
The ground continued to rumble. He was fifty yards away when, to her left, cracks began opening in the green enamel, as though in an earthquake. At the same time, the trapezoid he was headed for melted completely, exposing a hot-air balloon behind it.
The balloon could be used to escape from the earthquake and maybe the Engine itself! This must be the reason he wasn’t worried. He must have known.
And to think the churl wasn’t going to take her with him. The nerve! Well, she would rectify the situation!
She raced towards the balloon.
Fotheringay was shaking his fist at the sky as she passed him. “I wondered if I’d have to issue an invitation,” he called after her, his voice carrying a note of wry amusement. But even as he spoke, his steps quickened. He caught up easily and to her annoyance then kept pace with her.
The middle of an earthquake was not the time to take offence with the only person who could aid her.
“Are you attempting to escape the Engine?” she puffed, feeling like a bird with ruffled feathers. And she would have been better to be a bird, for how much the ground was shaking.
“That’s a good question. A very good question.” His mask of ease broke through and contorted with the effort of running. “How did you enter the Engine?”
Berd decided that she loathed people who could talk and run at the same time, especially ones who did not answer questions. “Found your logbook. Mentioned an Act of God. Lightning.”
The balloon loomed ahead.
“Are we dead?”
Fotheringay burst out laughing. To Berd’s annoyance, he laughed so hard he had to wipe his eyes with his sleeve, but it was a genuine laugh, too – all the latent anger was gone.
“If we were dead, we wouldn’t be running for our lives. Come, we must make haste!” He held out an arm.
Though she couldn’t go any faster, being left behind was not an option. Still, she hesitated to take it. The golden trapezoid, now but a puddle, spread before them.
With a shout that sounded strangely cheerful to her ears, Fotheringay grabbed Berd’s arm and pulled her up with him as he leapt onto the edge of the puddle. She’d have crashed onto the surface had he not also seized a handful of her trouser waistline and effortlessly hauled her upright. Embarrassed heat flooded her throat.
With a suddenness that took her already strained breath away, the golden pond transformed again. A series of stairs rose, solid and liquid simultaneously.
Berd screamed, but Fotheringay never hesitated. He pounded up the steps. There seemed to be a hundred of them, extending right to the edge of the balloon’s metallic wicker basket.
Each time, her foot connected with the metal surface a ping rang out, further confirming she was really here. She was actually climbing steps that had not existed a moment ago!
As they neared the top, Berd turned to him in breathless disbelief. “What on ea—”
“Come on!” He pushed Berd into the transportation, tumbling in beside her just as the balloon rose. Stunned and dumbfounded by such treatment, she managed to grasp the side of the basket and pull herself up.
Berd had been to France; she’d seen a red-and-yellow Montgolfier lovingly ascend to the heavens. Her nose crinkled at the memory of burning straw. Back then, she’d wished it had been her floating away in the basket. Now that she was, though, she’d never imagined it’d be under such dramatic circumstances.
The ground continued to tremble. Beyond the water, blocks quivered like blancmange. The rumbling became a roar as an obelisk of silver rippled, then exploded beneath their feet. Berd jumped as silver projectiles launched in every direction, some right at them.
The flashing shards, as if pulled by a thousand invisible hands, transformed into an exact miniature of St Paul’s cathedral. Over its exterior, a wondrous maze of large, protruding pipes grew; a bird cage of plumbing.
She inched forward just as droplets from the pipes sliced the air, little silver blades hissing as they stabbed the ground, and embedding there like morbid flowers.
Berd reared back, taking refuge in distance. “Danger, magic, beauty and chaos...” she whispered, sure that the electrocution must have affected her.
There had to be a logical explanation, but only one person would have the answer. Pity he was mad.
After his earlier manic behaviour, Fotheringay was a silent figure as he studied the scene. Propped against the basket opposite her, not bothering to even flick his dark hair out of his eyes, he seemed pleased with all the turmoil happening below. In the reflected light, his outfit of sable leather, roped round his body with the thinnest of strings, sparkled as if miniature stars skated upon its surface.
He caught her gaze, pushed his shoulders back, and gave her a half-smile as if he’d just remembered he was not alone.
To Berd’s annoyance, her heart fluttered. She tilted her chin away from him, and clasped her hands primly in front of her.
His smile only broadened. “Do you remember the pain? A burning sensation as though your insides were eaten alive? And as for your hand…” He twirled a finger at her right side, at her ungloved hand, pointing with a lazy flourish to her wrist. “There. The entry point.”
“I beg your pardon!” she said stiffly, wishing she was anywhere but here, and with anyone else but him.
Fotheringay waved his hand insistently. “Lightning! Lightning always finds the path of least resistance into the ground. Unfortunately, that meant using us. If the Engine had not sucked us in, it would have been our deaths.”
She was sure that if she had not tightened her grip on the gunwale of the gondola, she’d have gone sliding to the ground. Cold metal bit into her hand. So it was true. The images in her head when she awoke weren’t from a dream — the emerald green ground stretched out before her, and in the distance sat the city of brass.
For all her anger with him, he was the only one who could answer her questions. “If we are not within our proper bodies, nor are we ghosts, then... what are we?”
Fotheringay laughed, as if he knew all the answers she was dying to ask. He probably did, only she wished she didn’t have to be dying in order to ask.
“We’re not dead, if that’s what you mean. We’ve been converted into a pattern of energy. Electrical matter. But fear not. All matter is merely a pattern of energy. Ours.” He sighed and turned to concentrate on the blocks below. “Ours has merely changed.”
Changed? Everything had changed. Right now they were so high she could not bear to look down. And as for her body becoming an energy pattern…
“Why, I feel as solid as ever!”
“Of course, you do. Energy feels solid to other energy.”
A hot gust of wind buffeted their balloon and the gondola swung wildly. She grasped the railing, felt the metal grow warm in her grip.
“Wind is normal. Being buffeted by the wind is normal. You are mistaken, Mr Fotheringay.”
He stared at her a moment; brooding melancholy filled his face, then he lifted one finger.
The swaying ceased.
Her stomach dropped; she gripped the railing harder. “No, this is not possible. This balloon is solid.”
I am solid. Real.
His eyes only grew wider. “Everything you see around you is energy.”
Everything. She released her grip on the railing. The taste of metal was strong in her mouth.
“Mr Fotheringay, we were almost burnt to death,” she said, trying to steady her voice as well as her feet. “We need to get out of this balloon.” Though where they could go, she’d no idea. Not with an earthquake still rumbling below, sending knives of steel and brass flying around.
His eyes locked on hers a moment, curious. “Charles.”
“I beg your pardon?” Only children raised together were allowed such intimacy. Not even married couples used such informality – unless of course they were commoners. To acquiesce to this request would breed a familiarity that at this stage, if ever, she was not keen to encourage. And he wasn’t answering her question again.
“Charles,” he repeated, undeterred.
His eyes glinted in the amber glow from the buildings. His coal-black hair blew devilishly loose across his shoulders, like the pictures she had seen in the papers of savages.
“We are in what you may find to be a ’strange land’, and in certain situations that may arise I’ve no time to waste on niceties.”
Certain situations… the churl meant those of life and death. She remembered his desperation to get her on board the hot air balloon before it took off – but he had waited long to do so. She did not like to think as to what might have happened had he not done so accordingly. She met his gaze with what she hoped was a cool, detached expression. “Understood. So long as we have an accord, that you will avoid causing such situations.”
He snorted then he turned his back to her and looked out. “We’re here.” The words were spoken quietly.
“Where pray tell is here? Have we reached another city?” Berd looked around.
Fotheringay flung out one arm. As though he had cast a further spell, the smoke cleared. Their balloon bobbed against a building sprouting beside them. The top of the green onyx building disappeared into the sky, far above their heads. Weird brass turrets decorated with red enamel drops jutted around its exterior.
This was like no dream or nightmare she’d ever had. Maybe they had reached another city. “But the earthquake…”
His eyes sparkled mysteriously. “Look below.”
Beneath them, the earthquake appeared to have ceased. Roads laced the land, only they didn’t wind through the landscape: instead, each sparkling highway gleamed straight and long, thin-stretched wires of gold.
She shook her head. No, not landscape. This was the computerscape. She was in a computer.
Even as she gazed, the constant sensation of falling never left her.
“No matter how many times I’ve seen it, its beauty always astonishes me.”
Awe hung in his words. Fotheringay’s eyes were bright as a winter’s morn, his gaze transfixed by the view. Though she was angered, she had to admit that his world was stunning. If he was the inventor of the Engine, he’s created all of this. He’s truly the Great Enchanter.
“Majestic,” she whispered, herself caught up in the magic. And some of her fear eased.
“Come.” He offered his hand.
She took it; the skin on his palm was roughened.
He waved his free hand and from out of the side of the building, like a seedling budding, tendrils twisted out, lengthening and thickening and filigreeing until they formed an arched door that opened into the smallest room she had ever seen, the walls and the roof were of glass, while the floor was rock-like, veined and flaked like mica.
“An elevator?” she muttered, amazed.
Again Fotheringay did not answer. Instead he leaped inside, turned, and then reached down to place his hands around her waist.
“I can manage!” she protested as he lifted her out of the balloon.
He placed her on her feet. Then he waved behind them.
The balloon was gone.
Berd’s heart pounded, rising to her ears as she followed him into the elevator. Inside, the hum intensified. The scent of ginger floated around her as the door closed, increasing her sense of unease. She was Alice in Wonderland about to go down the rabbit hole.
Right now she was in a tiny room that had not existed moments earlier. Just like the balloon now no longer existed. Energy. “How far up did we go?”
Fotheringay smiled. “Almost to heaven.” He soothed the glass as if it was a wild stallion. Then he whispered, “Down.”
The elevator began to free fall.
Her stomach lifted, as did the rest of her. For a moment, her body felt as if it weighed nothing; that she was going to fly right out the glass top and plummet to her death. A scream tore from her throat. No one knew where she was. If she died, no one would know what had happened to her. She gripped his hand with all her strength, as if that might somehow save her from the crushing effects of gravity. And indeed he stayed still, as if affixed to the bottom of the car, but his arm lifted up with her as if she was a balloon and he were the feather.
But weight returned gradually, not in a grand finale of a single moment. She floated to the floor and rejoined Fotheringay, her hair and clothing tamed once more. The ever-present hum lessened to almost nothing, and then the elevator came to a halt.
The door snapped opened. He released her hand and continued on his way, as if falling elevators were a natural occurrence. The ground no longer rumbled, but Berd could not smooth the shaking inside her. She wiped her damp hand on her pants and peered out.
She stood in the midst of another city of gigantic blocks. No doubt these blocks would also transform or explode into wonderful buildings. And if she stayed in the lift, it would also transform and entomb her in the walls.
Ahead of her, Fotheringay walked out into the street, his movements smooth and unhurried. He was the white rabbit pulling her into this Wonderland, his Wonderland. She hurried after him, her feet clattering across the metallic floor, the taste of metal in her mouth, and the hum buzzing in her ears.
Like Alice, she wanted to be home before the Queen of Hearts said, ‘Off with her head.’