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A sense of purpose – The wrath of Lady Itzel – The returning hunters – Unseen passengers – Claviceps Purpurea – Sample all the food
INTERVIEW WITH MR. RANDALL ZWINGE
Rina Prescott reporting
As you will remember, Mr. Randall Zwinge was due to hold a guest lecture last week on the subject of critical thinking and how to avoid falling for deceptions. I wrote to him apologising, and since he was still in Ipswich waiting for the airship back to the Americas, he kindly granted me an interview.
Mr. Zwinge is a ninety-years-old man with a long grey beard, wearing heavy-rimmed spectaces. He complimented me on my hair, and we sat down in the hotel lobby for tea and biscuits. To start with, he asked me one simple question: ‘Have I fooled you yet?’ I told him no, and he told me he had no idea what my hair looked like. He showed me his spectacles. They contained perfectly flat discs of glass. He then put on his real glasses, which resembled the bottom of a bottle. And, being a charmer, complimented me on my hair again. I asked him why he had gone through that pantomime, and he answered me with a large-eyed stare: ‘To fool you, my dear. To demonstrate to you that everyone, yes everyone from a young child to the most seasoned scientist, will make assumptions. You saw my fake glasses, and made the perfectly reasonable assumption that I could see you perfectly. Quacks, rogues, cheats, and charlatans will use any assumptions you make.’
Mr. Zwinge asked me to write down a secret phrase on a piece of paper while he looked away, and fold it up so he could not possibly read it. He pressed the paper to his forehead, and told me without fail what I had written. How could he have done that, if not through mystical powers? Dear Readers, it was a trick! He even taught me how to do it, though I am sworn to silence.
I can tell you, that Mr. Zwinge is neither a Satanist, nor a sexual deviant. He is a driven man, and the sworn enemy of those who seek to deceive their fellow humans for reasons other than entertainment. He proudly proclaims himself to be a swindler, a cheat, a trickster, and a conjurer. The difference is that Mr. Zwinge admits to it, when many others do not.
I am sure all students would have enjoyed Mr. Zwinge’s lecture, had he not been prevented from giving it. One cannot escape the notion that we know why this is. Do not be fooled, Dear Reader, unless you want to be.
Wainwright had taken out Alexandra, Brenda, and Carl to go looking for Prometheus agents. With Sabine Moreau gone, and their base lying in ashes, along with the remains of the unfortunate Mrs. Najilah Moghadam, we didn’t have much hope. There was no island base off the Cape of Good Hope. Even in her agony, Sabine Moreau had misled us. Margaret, with her playing cards and her shrewd mind, had got more reliable information out of her. A lesson worth learning.
The rest of us were on the bridge, drinking cups of tea. My xocolatl burnt my throat. I was running out of the mixture of chillies and spices that I had taken from Anctapolepl. I could of course use less of it to make it last longer, but I enjoyed the burn of it, and the characteristic flavour. I wasn’t going to water it down, like a fading memory. I would make the last cup extra strong, and after that, there would be none left. I wasn’t surprised to see Itzel leaning against the ailleron controls. I raised my cup to her, and she smiled. Andrew sat a little off, playing with the Hermes Detection Device. Miss Felicia had volunteered to clear away the sleeping facilities in Second Class, had found the book Sabine had been reading, and was now reading it herself. Fatin sat in a comfortable chair feeding Raage from a bowl of porridge. The little boy would be on solids soon. Wadcroft had found an old copy of the Gazette and had taken it to bits to share with Margaret, who was doing the crossword. It all looked very homely. Precisely as if a shadowy organisation was not trying to hunt us down and kill us.
Itzel came to my chair, leaned over me, not quite touching. “Why are you so glum, Philip Tennant?”
“We are not doing well,” I looked up at her. If she would touch me, would I feel it?
“Twenty one down,” said Margaret. “River in South America, six letters, blank-M-blank-Z-blank-blank. Philip?”
“Amazon,” I said. “Did that really have you stumped?”
She wrote down the word, looked at me over her half moon glasses. “How aren’t we doing well?”
“We are not making progress. We have been flying here there and everywhere, watching Prometheus hideouts go up in flames, we caught one agent and then we lost her. Our other passenger thanked us for our efforts by pointing a gun at my only daughter, and if Mr. Moghadam ever finds out she was on board, he will not be pleased with us at all. Still, we are not an inch nearer to defeating the Enemy. No progress.”
“I would like to know when I can take Andrew home.” Miss Felicia put down her book. “We are nowhere near as safe as I thought we would be.”
“That wasn’t the point,” said Wadcroft. “We aren’t running away from danger, quite the opposite. The plan was to draw fire away from Algernon. That, we have done.”
I pulled out my pipe, a gesture of habit. Smoking underneath nearly four thousand pounds of hydrogen gas was strictly forbidden. I looked at it, decided I would look silly with it unlit in my mouth, put it away again. “We have to find Slate, and stop him. Prometheus and Slate are the same thing. Cut the head off the snake, and the body dies.”
“Or two more grow,” said Wadcroft. “Maybe we are better off leaving him alive.”
Miss Felicia sneered. “Slate is an evil man. He has murdered, tortured, enslaved people, forced them to do his bidding, under inhuman conditions. He must be brought to justice.”
Margaret got up, walked to the teapot and refilled her cup. “Find Slate, pick him up and hand him over to the Police with a note saying he’s a very naughty boy. Easy!”
“Are you suggesting that we take matters into our own hands?”
Margaret turned round to Miss Felicia. “We’re already doing that. We are hunting.”
“Badly,” I said. “What we have been doing up to now, isn’t working. We need a better plan.”
“Most wars aren’t won by killing, but by economy.” Margaret sat down. “The first party unable to keep their people fed, loses. All these bases, hideouts, must be costing Prometheus a lot of money. It must run out sometime.”
“That depends on how rich Prometheus is,” said Wadcroft. “If we can find out where that money comes from, we have a place to strike.”
“Maybe he has a gold mine somewhere,” I said. “Maybe he has found a golden statue like I have.”
“Found? That is not how I would put it.” Itzel moved in front of me, bent down. “I do not think Huitzilopochtli meant for you to use that as you have, Philip Tennant.”
“I set your people free! What more do you want?”
Itzel sneered. “Are they free now, Philip? Do you want me to fly you back there and see? Do you think Huitzilopochtli, Tlaloc, Quetzalcoatl, all disappeared? They are still looking at Anctapolepl, but now their servants are unworthy. Drunks, perverts. Anctapolepl is now a place of dread.”
“It was already a place of dread!” Itzel’s robes had fallen open, showing a red open but unbleeding wound. “Look what they did to you!”
“They sent my tona to the gods carrying your words. What have you done?”
I looked at her, in her anger. “I gave them a chance to be free. That is all I could do.”
“No, Philip Tennant, it is not all you could do. Nor is it all that you will do. Huitzilopochtli is not done with you. Your task is not complete.” She turned round, took two steps, and vanished. I blinked only to find Wadcroft standing over me.
“I say old chap. Who are you talking to?”
I breathed slowly. “I think I need a little nap,” I said.
I walked into my cabin. Sat down on my bed. Closed my eye, half expecting to see Itzel’s angry face, but nothing happened. I felt extremely tired, and I lay down to look at the pictures of Iris and Itzel.
“I’m…” I started to say, but then I sat up, nearly cracking my skull on the top bunk. I stepped over to the picture, stared with my mouth open. The picture of Itzel had changed. She had turned, and was now looking away from me. I looked at Iris, but her picture looked exactly the same as it had when it came home from the artist. I felt nauseous. The world started to turn round me, and I could only just stagger to my bed and fall down on it. The next moment, I was asleep.
I woke up with a start at a knock on the door. I looked at the picture, but Itzel was still looking away.
“Just a moment!”
I went to the door, and opened it. It was Alexandra. She looked tired but otherwise all right.
“Nothing,” she said. “We found nothing. No French girls with bullet wounds in any of the hospitals. No suspicious boats. No Prussians marching about the place. Not a thing. Except there’s a French restaurant by the docks. They do a good lamb stew. But that’s all the flipping Frogs we’ve seen today.”
“The afternoon wasn’t wholly wasted then.”
“I suppose not.” Alexandra leaned against the doorframe. “They’ve flown. Cape town is empty of Prometheuses.”
“Right.” I swayed on my feet.
Alexandra gave me a slightly worried look. “Are you alright Father?”
“Don’t worry. A bit tired that’s all. I blame old age.”
I looked over my shoulder at the pictures on the wall. I almost asked Alexandra if she saw anything strange about them, but thought better of it.
“Who’s on watch?”
“Wadcroft. He says we’ve been hunting all day and he’ll take a turn for us.”
“Very nice of him. Well, get some sleep then. We leave in the morning.”
“Aye-aye Father.” She yawned. “Good night.”
I closed my cabin door, turned round, walked to the pictures. Itzel still didn’t want anything to do with me. I was too tired to care. I took off my leg, changed into my pyjamas, and went to sleep.
That night, I was visited by many disturbing dreams. I was back in Anctapolepl, on the night before Itzel’s departure. We were making love, but in the final moment, Itzel’s stomach burst open. She reached inside, ripped out her beating heart and offered it to me to eat. I was in pain, but still I could not wake up. Then I sat at the side of the King, watching the row of sacrificial victims. Each and every one looked like Itzel. Each and every one screamed in the same way, and then her body came tumbling down the steps, onto the platform called the apetlatl, landing with dead eyes staring at me, accusing me of wasting her brave sacrifice. I turned to the King, asked, begged him to let me take her place, but the King shook his head, and then the store of gunpowder exploded beneath us and we were torn to shreds, somehow still alive even with our bodies broken and limbs thrown to the four winds. I woke up on the floor, having thrown myself out of bed in my violent convulsions, and still I could not quiet down. My limbs did not obey me and I kept thrashing round on the floor, knocking my head into the bed. There was a sudden blinding light, and I screamed.
“Enough! I give in! Great Huitzilopochtli, tell me what I must do and I will obey!”
The next moment, someone held my arms. Someone sat on my legs and thrust a piece of cloth between my teeth. A female voice screamed at me to calm down in a language that I didn’t know, and after struggling for maybe another minute, I went suddenly completely limp.
“Father…”
I now recognised the language as English, the voice as that of my daughter. I looked up and saw my son holding my arms. I tried to move, and found I had pulled almost every muscle in my body. I groaned, and Carl let go of my arms. Alexandra got up, held a glass of water to my lips. I drank greedily.
“Thank you,” I said, in a voice hoarse from screaming. “I’m alright now.”
“No you bloody aren’t!” said Alexandra. “What was that all about? You were shouting in some strange language.”
I slowly and carefully sat up, and Carl helped me onto my bed. My children sat down on either side of me, and held me.
“It was only a bad dream,” I said. “Only a bad dream.”
Alexandra looked at me for a long few moments, clearly not believing a word of what I said, but unwilling to argue.
“Carl,” she said, “You go back to Fatin. I’ll sleep in the top bunk.”
Carl nodded, touched my shoulder, left. Alexandra helped me back into my bed, pulled the blankets over me. She studied my face for a few moments.
“Father. Try to sleep. I’m here. I’ll watch over you. In the morning, we’ll sort this out.”
I muttered a ‘Thank you’, and immediately fell into a thankfully dreamless sleep.
“Hallucinations. Convulsions.” Margaret looked at me with a grim smile. “Have you lost any more limbs recently?”
“None to speak of.”
“You haven’t been feeling well lately, have you?”
“Air sickness. Admiral Nelson suffered from it.”
“Any contractions of the uterus?”
I laughed. “I think I can safely say that I haven’t had any of those. What are you implying?”
Wadcroft put his hand on my shoulder. “What Margaret is getting at, dear boy, is ergotism. You have ingested claviceps purpurea. Ergot fungus. It goes around among the enemies of Prometheus.”
“Good Lord! I…” I wiped my forehead. “What do I have to expect?”
“Stop ingesting whatever contains it, and the symptoms will disappear. Things like gangrene and blistering only happen after prolonged exposure.” Wadcroft looked round the table. “Something on board is poisoned. Does anyone else have these symptoms? Unreasonable fears? Itches? Seeing things that aren’t there?”
Brenda raised her hand. “These last few months, I’ve had this weird dream that I’m on an airship with a bunch of Limeys.”
“Sorry darling,” said Margaret. “There’s no cure for that.”
“I’m doomed. Doomed!”
“We all are unless we find what it is,” said Wadcroft. “It has to be something only our Captain consumes.”
There was a short silence. Fatin stirred. “The bitter water.”
“Xocolatl,” I said.
“That is something that only you can get down your gullit,” said Alexandra.
“I tried some,” said Fatin. “If water tastes like that in my tribe, you find a new place to camp.”
“But I boil those herbs,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter for ergot,” said Wadcroft. “It’s impervious. If someone can fetch me some of that horrible stuff, I will fetch a microscope and we can see.”
Wadcroft went to the library and came back with a wooden case and issue 771 of Bulletin de la Société botanique de France. He set up the microscope, put some of my precious herbs onto a piece of glass, peered through the eyepiece. He waved Margaret over, and she looked as well.
“Claviceps…” she said.
“Purpurea,” said Wadcroft. “I prescribe bedrest and to drink lots of fluids.”
“Thank goodness you found it,” said Miss Felicia.
“We’ve found one infection,” said Margaret. “Now we get to sample all the food!”
Margaret, Wadcroft, and the children were still busy going through our food supplies, checking for signs of tampering and ergot fungus. So far they had come up with nothing. I was at the helm setting course for Khartoum and our only working Hermes device apart from the one built by the Wizard Sparker in Ipswich.
Brenda was sitting in the captain’s chair, feet up on the bridge railing, Stranger the cat in her lap, watching me just in case I was about to go mad and send Lady I crashing into the ground. She waved her hand at me.
“Captain? How many ladies on the bridge with you?”
“How do I know you are real?”
“Fair point. If a ghost lady would kick you in the bollocks, would you feel it?”
“If a real lady were to fill up my tea mug, I could drink it.”
Brenda dropped her legs down, went over to the teapot, refilled my mug. I looked at it.
“Tea with milk and you just said ‘bollocks’. You’re going native.”
“If I start wearing bowler hats, somebody shoot me.”
“Somebody shoot me what?”
“Somebody shoot me please.”
I put down my mug and touched Brenda’s heavily illustrated shoulder. She felt reassuringly real. The idea of her being some sort of apparition was ridiculous.
“To answer your question, one woman. And she ain’t no kind of lady.”
Brenda gave me a grin. “Damn straight I ain’t.”
Lady Itzel came to me that night, in a bona fide dream. She sat down on my bed, looking at me with a soft gentle light in her eyes.
“You have a long journey ahead,” she said. “Sometimes we must take the long or painful way so we arrive at our destination knowing what we need.”
“I have stopped drinking the bitter water,” I said. “I will miss you.”
“Oh Philip. Do you really think I am just in your head? A product of the poison your enemies have given you? Do not forget who guides your steps, and who it is that I serve. I will not abandon you.”
And then she touched me, and her hand felt warm and real, and try as I might, I could not tell whether it was ergot-induced hallucination, my own wishes, a dream, or even reality. She got up, and left without a sound.
The Algernon Expeditions 