The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi

“I had during the fever-fit, and often for hours afterwards, a queer conviction of divided identity, never ceasing to be two persons that generally thwarted and opposed each other.”

—RICHARD F. BURTON, THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA

Burton was led out of the League of Enochians Gentlemen’s Club by the same route through which he’d entered, guided by a man named Doyle, who ducked back into Brundleweed’s without having uttered a single word.

The explorer could feel the aftermath of Perdurabo’s mesmeric influence and was strongly inclined to book passage to America, there to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

He liberated the enclosed portion of his mind. It flooded into the rest and drowned the insistent suggestion. Lincoln would be safe from him, and from Thomas Lake Harris, too.

It was half-past midnight by the time the explorer met Swinburne outside the Queen’s Arms. The pub had just closed and the poet was leaning against a lamppost, careless of the rain that was pattering on and around him, quietly reciting poetry to himself. The velocipedes were standing at the side of the road.

He looked up as the explorer approached. “Hallo! Hallo! You’re still in one piece, then? Was it worth it?”

“Most definitely. Are you sober?”

“Horribly. It’s a thoroughly objectionable state. What next?”

“How awake are you? We haven’t had much sleep recently.”

“Wide.”

“To Battersea Power Station, then. I have the measure of our enemy. Let us now meet our mysterious ally, if that he be.”

“Rather!” Swinburne enthused.

They mounted their vehicles, started the engines, and went rattling down St. Martin’s Lane. The streets were mostly empty and quiet but for the hiss of rain, so they rode side by side while Burton described what had occurred in the club.

“You have to warn Disraeli,” Swinburne said. “The signing ceremony is not even two days hence, and is surely Perdurabo’s target. The entirety of the British and German governments will be gathered in Green Park. The royal families, too. He could kill them all in one fell swoop.”

“How, though?” Burton pondered. “The event will be wrapped in the tightest security possible. Even if he has an army of assassins at his disposal, they’d never get past the guards, and the Orpheus will be hovering over the park, too, bristling with her new guns.”

Crossing Trafalgar Square, they steered into Whitehall and parked their penny-farthings. While Swinburne guarded them, Burton entered Scotland Yard. Pepperwick was off duty and had been replaced by the night clerk. The man examined the explorer’s authorization then said, “Can I help you, sir?”

“Are Detective Inspectors Trounce or Slaughter on duty?”

“All our officers are on extended duty tonight due to the unrest in the East End, but I think I saw Detective Inspector Slaughter come in a few minutes ago. Hold on a minute.”

He turned to the speaking tubes, selected the one connected to Room 14, and through it confirmed Slaughter’s presence.

“Go right up, sir.”

Burton found Slaughter in his office nursing a pint of milk. His clothes were dirty, his jacket sleeve torn, and a large bruise marked the left side of his forehead.

“Bloody chaos!” the policeman announced as the explorer entered. “The Cauldron is boiling over. Half the population is frightened out of its wits and fleeing north into Hackney, and the other half is ranting about Germanic perfidy and pushing westward into the city, apparently intent on smashing its way to parliament. We’re trying to hold them back but they’re like wild animals.”

“The League of Enochians Gentlemen’s Club is at the root of it,” Burton said.

“So Trounce told me. Can’t we raid the place?”

“You can. Have your men knock down the doors. You’ll find an underground tunnel connecting the club to the basement of the Brundleweed jewellery shop, so be sure to go in that way, too. Arrest them all.”

“By George!” Slaughter exclaimed. “If we can stop ’em from fanning the flames, that’ll be something. I’ll organize it at once. We’ll have the Enochians behind bars before the night is done.”

Burton rejoined Swinburne and they set off down Millbank. The reek of the Thames assaulted their nostrils.

The Vauxhall Bridge tollbooths were closed at night, so they traversed the river unimpeded and turned right by the Belmont Candle Factory onto Nine Elms Lane.

The rain intensified. Both men were wet through, and Burton felt ice clawing out of the ache in his left forearm and invading his flesh.

Please! Not a fever. Not now.

The four tall copper rods of Battersea Power Station glimmered ahead.

“‘To all the four points it shall batter thee,’” Swinburne quoted. “I hope Abdu El Yezdi is waiting for us. I shall have to take him to task over that childish doggerel.”

“Indeed,” Burton agreed. “Had it been rather more sophisticated, I might have got the message a little sooner. As it was—though it was staring me in the face—I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.”

A stretch of wasteland extended from the base of the station, separating it from the Royal Navy Air Service Station. It was too uneven to drive across, so they dismounted, turned off the engines, and pushed their penny-farthings along. The whole area was illuminated by the lights of the airfield, which even at this time of night was a hive of activity, with ground crew working in and around a truly gargantuan rotorship that dwarfed even the mighty Orpheus.

“The Sagittarius,” Swinburne said.

“So that’s the fist Elgin will use against China,” Burton exclaimed. “Bismillah! The size of it!”

“It’s the biggest warship ever built. Rossetti thinks Elgin will employ it to destroy the Summer Palaces.”

“If he does, it’ll go down in history as one of the worst acts of vandalism ever committed,” Burton said. “And having looked into Elgin’s eyes, I feel quite certain he’s capable of it.”

Swinburne pointed at the power station. “It’s all lit up but the gates are shut. Shall we knock?”

“I’d rather reconnoitre before we present ourselves. Let’s see if we can find an alternative means of entry.”

They leaned their vehicles against the building and examined the huge gates. A normal-sized door was fitted into the right-hand portal but it was firmly bolted. Starting off around the perimeter, they looked up at the lowest windows, which were far too high to reach, even had Swinburne stood on Burton’s shoulders.

“Impregnable,” Swinburne muttered. “This is what Old Wardour Castle must have been like before it was ruined.”

The comment prompted Burton to peer at the upper reaches of the structure. As far as he could tell, there were no ravens squatting atop it. That was a good sign.

After completing a circuit of the station and seeing no possible way in, they stood again outside the gates. Burton looked at his companion, shrugged, moved to the small door, and hammered upon it with the head of his cane. The portal swung inward immediately. A pistol was poked into his face.

“Give me that swordstick and put your hands over your head,” Krishnamurthy said, “and step in. You, too, Mr. Swinburne.”

“Not a constable, then?” Burton growled. “I should have known.”

The two men did as instructed, passing through into a large quadrangle. Montague Penniforth loomed out of the shadows. “Sorry, guv’nor,” he said, and frisked Burton. He removed the pistol from the explorer’s waistband. Swinburne was subjected to the same treatment.

A third man, Bhatti, also brandishing a pistol, closed the door behind them. “If you’ll pardon the language, Sir Richard,” he said, “about bloody time. What kept you?”

“Perdurabo,” the explorer answered. Then, “Ravindra Johar and Mahakram Singh, I presume?”

“Yes, sir, though we go by Shyamji Bhatti and Maneesh Krishnamurthy these days. How is your brother?”

“Fat and obnoxious but alive—thanks to you.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Perhaps we can be reunited at a later date. I’d very much like to see him again. For now, though, we can’t afford to lose another moment. Will you start toward the big doors, please?”

Burton looked across the open space and saw the station’s inner entrance. He set off, with Swinburne on his left and Bhatti on his right. Krishnamurthy and Penniforth trailed behind.

“You can lower your guns,” he said.

“All in due course,” Bhatti replied.

Swinburne shrilled, “Are we on the same side or not?”

“We are, Mr. Swinburne, but this meeting has been a long time coming and we need to feel confident that neither of you will do anything silly. We’re cutting it very fine indeed—there’s no room for any monkey business.”

“Would’ve been a lot better if’n you’d turned up a few weeks ago,” Penniforth rumbled. “If I ’ad me own way, I’d ’ave thrown you into me cab an’ driven you here the moment you stepped off the bloomin’ Orpheus.”

Krishnamurthy said, “Now, now, Monty. You know perfectly well that time has its shapes and patterns, and Sir Richard had to come here of his own accord.”

“Yus, but—lord love a duck!—he’s almost too late, ain’t he!”

“Perhaps that is what’s necessary,” Bhatti said as they stopped outside the doors.

“My hat! What the blazes are you blathering about?” Swinburne cried out.

“Patience, my friend,” Krishnamurthy said. He reached up and twisted an odd-looking combination lock back and forth until a click sounded. He pushed the doors open. Burton squinted as an incandescent light assaulted his eyes. As his vision adjusted to it, he saw a cathedral-sized chamber, from the roof of which hung big glass globes. The light radiated out from them, as if they each held captive lightning.

“This way,” Bhatti said, and led them in and across a vast floor crowded with baffling machinery. There was no steam here; it was all electricity, fizzling, crackling, and popping; sending writhing bolts from one megalithic device to another, filling the place with the tang of ozone.

From among the coils, towers, dials, and showering sparks, a man emerged and approached. Short, plump, and blond-haired, he was dressed conservatively but for an extraordinary contraption slung around his shoulders and buckled over his chest and waist; an extra pair of arms, mechanical and intricate, multi-jointed, and with a number of different tools arranged at their ends. Two thin cables ran from the harness up to either side of his neck. They appeared to be plugged directly into his skull, just behind his ears. The artificial arms moved as naturally as his fleshy ones.

“Daniel Gooch!” Swinburne exclaimed.

“Yes,” the man said. “And you must be Algernon Swinburne. I’m very pleased to meet you. And you, too, of course, Sir Richard.” He addressed the others. “Lower your guns, chaps. Our guests are doubtlessly far too curious to cause us trouble.” He looked at Burton for confirmation and received it in the form of a brisk nod. To Bhatti, he said, “Shyamji, would you tell him? I expect he’ll want to prepare.”

“Rightio.” Bhatti hurried away.

“This way,” Gooch said, gesturing to the right with a metal limb. “Let’s get out of this noise.”

They followed him past a bank of flashing lights, around a dome-shaped contraption of glass and silver rods, and through a central area of workbenches.

“Are you a captive, Mr. Gooch?” Burton asked.

“No. I’m free to leave whenever I want to.”

“You disappeared from an undersea suit.”

“Yes. One of those.” Gooch pointed to the right where bizarre outfits were hanging from a rail; padded rubbery affairs each criss-crossed by harnesses and draped beneath globular metal helmets that had porthole-like openings in their fronts. “It was planned. The suit they raised was not the same one I was wearing. I was collected from the seabed by a prototype submarine boat and brought here. Through this door, please.”

He ushered them into a room furnished with bookshelves, leather armchairs and couches, expensive rugs, a grandfather clock, and tasteful pictures and ornaments. It could have been the sitting room of a manor house, were it not for the tall metal box mounted on wheels in one corner.

A figure, sitting at a desk, rose as they entered. Constructed of polished brass, it resembled one of Charles Babbage’s clockwork men, but was considerably bulkier, possessed six arms, and was more extensively engraved with decorative designs. The front of its head was beautifully fashioned to resemble a human face, though, being immobile, it more resembled a death mask.

Burton recognised the features.

“Brunel!” he blurted.

“Sir Richard,” the mechanism clanged. Its voice sounded like a blending of handbells and a church organ. “Thank goodness you’ve come at last! I wanted to fetch you but he wouldn’t allow it.”

With much whirring and ticking, the metal man stepped forward and extended a gauntlet-like hand. Bemusedly, Burton shook it and said, “‘He’ being Abdu El Yezdi?”

“Correct. He has a baffling obsession with the timing of events. Ah! Algernon Swinburne. It is good to see you. I am Isambard Kingdom Brunel.”

“In a suit of armour?” Swinburne asked.

Brunel produced a tinkling noise that might have been laughter. He tapped the side of his head. “As a matter of fact, I’m nothing but electrical impulses. Unfortunately, my body suffered a stroke and breathed its last this September past. During my final hours, Shyamji Bhatti and Maneesh Krishnamurthy brought me to Charles Babbage and Daniel Gooch, who had this mechanism already prepared for me. My consciousness was transferred into a number of black diamonds of a rather unique nature. They were fitted into a babbage probability calculator—to all intents and purposes an artificial brain—so I live on, I’m happy to say, and in a considerably stronger body.”

“I need a drink,” Swinburne said. “This is a lot to take in.”

“I envy you. I’ve missed my cigars and brandy terribly since becoming mechanical. Well, it’s dashed late, and there’s much to discuss, but I’m sure a tipple won’t do any harm. Daniel, would you do the honours? Gentlemen, take a seat, please. Our host will join us presently.”

Burton, Swinburne, and Krishnamurthy settled in armchairs. Brunel pulled the wooden chair he’d been sitting in away from the desk, turned it around, and carefully lowered himself into it. “I’m still getting used to weighing a ton,” he chimed. “I keep breaking chairs, and if I use an armchair, I have difficulty getting out of it.”

Gooch distributed brandies to all but the engineer, then sat and said, “As you just heard, Babbage is among our little band. Nurse Nightingale is, too. None of us has been harmed and we all remain here of our own free will.”

“Are you certain of that?” Burton asked. “I find it hard to believe that Nightingale would abandon Saint Thomas’s Hospital.”

“I’m certain. She recognises priorities.”

“Anyone else with you?”

“Plenty of engineers and scientists, Sir Richard, but I expect you’re referring to other people who’ve been reported missing, in which case the answer is no.”

“We are all working for Abdu El Yezdi,” Brunel put in. “A situation that will, I fear, soon end.”

“Why?”

“He’s dying. He suffered a serious heart attack on the first of September, and a number of minor ones since.”

“The first of September?” Burton said. “The day the aurora borealis appeared.”

When my friend William Stroyan had his throat cut by Laurence Oliphant.

“And the day a disruptive presence arrived in our world,” Gooch added.

Brunel said, “The point is, he is extremely frail, Sir Richard, and has very little time remaining. He has much to tell you, but it will exhaust him, so, please, could you refrain from challenging him?”

Burton sipped his brandy. “I shall do my best. May I smoke?”

“Be my guest,” Brunel said, and emitted an airy whistle that somehow resembled a forlorn sigh.

After lighting his cheroot, the explorer addressed Krishnamurthy. “For how long have you and Mr. Bhatti known the Arabian?”

“Arabian?”

“El Yezdi.”

“Ah. He approached us in Ceylon, early in ’fifty-six, and told us when and how your brother was going to be attacked. If we saved him, he said, he’d ensure Edward would pay our passage to England. It was an opportunity too good to miss, but we nearly did miss it—we arrived a little late, and your brother was almost killed.”

“Nevertheless, I’m in your and El Yezdi’s debt,” Burton said.

The door opened and Bhatti entered, followed by a stooped and elderly man. Burton instantly recognised Charles Babbage and stood to greet him.

“What’s happening?” the scientist snapped in a querulous tone. “Where are the helmets? Why am I dragged from my work? Interruptions! Always interruptions! Don’t you realize how close I am to completion?”

“Sir Richard and Mr. Swinburne have arrived,” Brunel said.

“About bloody time!” Babbage glared at Burton. “I’ve done the calculations, sir. The probabilities don’t lie. You no doubt received all the required information seventeen days ago. Why did you not act upon it? Why have you delayed?”

“Charles,” Daniel Gooch said, “you know full well that random elements must be factored in.”

“Random be damned! Any man with a clear head can steer the correct path. Random is just another word for muddled thinking!”

Brunel clanged, “I fear we shall embark upon another of our inexhaustible debates if we pursue this any further. You know there’s no time for that, Charles, so please recalculate and join us. Would you care for a brandy?”

Babbage disregarded the question. His brows lowered over his eyes and, ignoring the gathering as if it weren’t there, he lowered himself into a seat, mumbling, “Recalculate. Recalculate. Another bloody divergence. Let’s see now—” He raised the fingers of both hands to his high forehead and began to tap them upon it, as if pressing lots of small buttons in a specific but inscrutable sequence.

Swinburne leaned close to Burton, rolled his eyes, and whispered, “First Harris, now Babbage. Cuckoo!”

Bhatti helped himself to a drink and sat down just as the door opened again. Nurse Florence Nightingale entered, pushing a three-wheeled wicker bath chair. She positioned it in the middle of the room, facing them all, then stood by its side.

Burton couldn’t take his eyes off the man sitting in it.

Abdu El Yezdi.

He was swarthy-skinned and sharp-cheeked, with a dark left eye and a milky right. His nose was large and hooked, and his long grey beard flowed down over a very fat stomach. Dressed in the robes of a sheik, he exuded magnetism and authority, but as Burton took in the details, it quickly became apparent that the man was also deep into his final days, if not hours; his hands were shaking, there was a blue tinge about his lips, and he was struggling to breathe.

When he spoke, his voice was thin and weak.

“Algy, it is good to see you again. Are you well?”

“Yes,” Swinburne answered. “But I wasn’t sure whether I’d dreamt you or not.”

“Culver Cliff? No dream.”

The impenetrable eyes flicked to Burton and considered him for what felt to the explorer like a minute, though it was probably seconds. “And you. You have lost—have lost—” His respiration faltered. He gasped in air, waved Nightingale away when she bent toward him, and went on, “You have lost Isabel.”

Burton nodded wordlessly.

“The pain you feel. You deserve every bit of it. Bloody fool.”

“Sir,” Brunel quietly rang. “I don’t think—”

“Shut up, Brunel, I’m speaking. So, Burton, who else has died while you’ve been flapping about like a headless bird?”

Burton glared at the Arabian and snarled, “Why, exactly, must I account to you, sir?”

“Because I know a great deal more than you do, dolt.”

El Yezdi addressed Krishnamurthy while gesturing toward the wardrobe-like wheeled box. “Maneesh, show him.”

Krishnamurthy stood and walked over to the odd item of furniture, which was about a foot taller than him, and dragged it out of the corner. He positioned it beside the bath chair, then twisted a catch and slid the front panel aside. Two white suits were hanging inside, both one-piece affairs that would cover a man completely but for the head, hands, and feet. The material was white and had the texture of fish scales. Each had a circular disk attached to the chest and a cloak descending from the shoulders. Two shiny black helmets rested on the floor of the box, along with two pairs of boots attached to two-foot-high stilts. The outlandish costumes differed only in that one was fire-scorched and its helmet dented, while the other was in pristine condition. Without a doubt, Trounce had seen one of those outfits hanging from a branch in Green Park back in 1840, and the Mad Marquess had also glimpsed one momentarily in the grounds of Darkening Towers three years earlier.

Babbage jumped up from his seat. “There they are! Why? Put them back in the workshop at once! I have to finish!”

“Settle down, Charles,” Abdu El Yezdi said. “They’ll be returned to you presently.”

The old scientist muttered an incomprehensible protestation and sat down.

El Yezdi returned his attention to his guests. “You are not looking at two suits. You are looking at the same suit, which is present twice.”

“What? What? What?” Swinburne shrilled.

The Arabian chuckled, revealing large crooked and decayed teeth.

“And this outfit, which is here in duplicate, will not be created for another three hundred and forty-three years.”

“More brandy!” Swinburne screeched. “At once!”

Bhatti, smiling, passed the decanter.

El Yezdi went on, “It is from the year 2202—an almost inconceivable date, I’m sure you’ll agree—and though there is nothing visibly mechanical about it, it is, in fact, a machine.”

“One that enables its wearer to travel through history,” Burton said. “And that wearer was Edward Oxford, descended from the man of the same name who shot Queen Victoria.”

“Good! The late Countess Sabina didn’t speak to you in vain, then?”

“Of course not.”

“She was a good, good woman, Burton. So far, she has sacrificed herself twice for me.”

“Twice? So far? Do you intend, at any point in this conversation, to make sense?”

El Yezdi gave a bark of amusement, coughed, then recovered himself, rubbed the heel of his right hand against the middle of his chest, winced, and continued, “Oxford travelled back to watch his ancestor at work. It went wrong. His presence caused The Assassination—which should have failed—to succeed. Worse, his forebear was killed, and in an instant there could be no descendants, which meant Oxford had no ancestors and no longer existed in the future he’d come from.” The Arabian shook his head sadly. “The situation didn’t get any better. While fleeing the scene, his suit was damaged by young Constable Trounce. When he leaped away through time, it misfired and sent him to 1837 and Darkening Towers, where Henry Beresford took him in.”

“Your statement differs considerably from the accounts of both Trounce and Beresford,” Burton objected.

“I know. I’ll come to that. During Oxford’s subsequent weeks on the estate, while he attempted to make repairs, he dropped many hints about the future world. The marquess communicated these to Mr. Brunel, who, with his extraordinary inventiveness, turned them into the machinery we see around us today, much of which should never have existed.”

“Wait!” Burton exclaimed. He turned to the brass figure. “You knew Beresford, Brunel?”

The engineer clanged, “No, I didn’t.”

Swinburne gave a screech of confusion.

“Then how—?” Burton said.

“Be patient, Sir Richard,” Daniel Gooch advised.

Abdu El Yezdi was grinning, obviously enjoying himself at Burton’s expense. He said, “May I continue?”

Burton answered with a slight motion of his hands.

“Beresford and Oxford concocted a plan. If Oxford could locate the woman his now-dead ancestor would have married, and if he could impregnate her, then perhaps he might become his own great-great—I don’t know how many greats—grandfather. In other words, he might re-establish the line of descent and his own eventual existence in the year 2202.”

“That’s utterly insane,” Swinburne objected. “Pure gobbledegook!”

“Beresford always was half-loopy,” the Arabian responded, “and Oxford’s predicament sent him right over the edge, too. Nevertheless, they put the plan into action, and though the suit wasn’t properly repaired, it carried Oxford far enough into the future to do what he intended. So he started leaping through time in and around 1861—a little over a year from now—and while hunting for the right girl, he was spotted again and again, becoming known as Spring Heeled Jack. Perhaps it would have stopped there—with nothing but rumours of a mysterious stilted figure—but unfortunately Henry Beresford had learned too much, and when he told Francis Galton and Charles Darwin about the time suit, they became obsessed with using it to create their own futures, which they regarded as little more than Petri dishes such as are used in experimental biology.”

Burton interrupted, “I’ve met Darwin. He struck me as a decent sort.”

“A man is the sum of the opportunities he accepts and the challenges he does battle with,” El Yezdi said. “Change those, and you’ll have a different man.”

“Personality adapting to the environment,” Burton mused.

“Precisely. So history was sent careening off course by Oxford, and no one would have realised were it not for the investigations undertaken by Sir Richard Francis Burton and his companion, Algernon Swinburne.”

Burton looked at Swinburne. The poet looked back.

“In 1861?” Burton said. “In our future?”

“After a fashion,” the Arabian answered. He turned to Nightingale. “Florence, help me to my feet.”

“You’re not strong enough, sir. This charade is quite ridiculous.”

“Stop quibbling and do as I say!”

Nightingale bent and took him by the elbow.

Krishnamurthy whispered to Burton, “He does so enjoy his dramatics.”

El Yezdi gained his feet and stood unsteadily. He glowered at Burton as if expecting a challenge. When none came, he reached up to his mouth and pulled out a set of dentures, which he threw carelessly aside. His real teeth, exposed, were much smaller and in far better condition. Unbelting his robe, he shrugged it off and allowed it to fall to the floor, revealing padding strapped around his middle. Nightingale helped him remove it, until he was standing in trousers and shirt—a deep-chested and broad-shouldered man, whose stomach was paunchy with age but not fat.

He yanked the false beard from his face—a neatly trimmed white Van Dyke adorned his chin—then took hold of his nose and twisted off the theatrical putty that had made it so hooked. The milky eye followed; a thin saucer of smoked glass that fitted over the pupil. He slipped the keffiyeh from his head. His hair was short and white, the oddly glittering lines of a tattoo on his scalp visible through it. Finally, he used a handkerchief to wipe his face. Makeup came off, showing him to be in his mid-sixties or thereabouts.

Swinburne yelled.

Burton jumped to his feet, stepped back, fell against his armchair, and thudded onto the floor. With his eyes fixed on the old man, he scrambled backward until his shoulders hit the wall. His mouth worked but no sound came out. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the long, deep scar on the man’s left cheek.

There could be no doubt about it.

Abdu El Yezdi was Sir Richard Francis Burton.