Gears of Destiny

The Unmade-2

“If eternity is a short trip, then yes.”

Somerset laughed at that, a dirty, nasty thing of disgust. “So proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

“No, but I’m confident you cannot kill me, Somerset, or I should already be so. Only when you know the secrets to my work, of my children, will I be disposed of. One cannot have one’s monarch rusting to a standstill before the populace, can one?” Robert gasped two raking breaths before continuing. “Told Monk you could maintain her, did you? Told him and his cronies that you, too, knew the secrets of amalgamating flesh and steel? How you must have schemed. Has it been three years in the making, five?”

“Closer to ten, my once friend. From the moment life stirred from scraps and scrapings and my realising I assisted God.”

Robert’s laugh caused an agony equal to that dispatched upon him the previous day, but it was worth the pain to see Somerset’s bristling ire. “I am no God. Only an i***t claims omnipotence. Someone like you,” he added and coughed something rancid into his palm.

“Once again, you see through me.”

“It is not difficult. Your heart is polished glass to my eyes, it always was. You seek to curry favour with the Queen and her ilk, and in so doing gain access to the work and secrets I withheld.”

“Go on,” Somerset oozed.

“And may I deduce that my children have departed, left you in the lurch, so to speak. May I also deduce, it was you that claimed me as a danger, a sorcerer, not scientist, and that it was you who sowed the seeds of doubt amongst the Government and higher. You always were one of the blue bloods.”

“Ooh, I like this fantasy. Please, continue.”

“You think I did not know you plotted against me. Now, who is the fool? Her Majesty cannot function for long without my hand upon the wrench. When all I wished for was to serve and do my duty, your conniving forced me to set certain protocols. I have seen to it, Somerset; pistons seize, and movement will stall. I gather it is they you agonise over, your real reason for coming here to uncover them.”

“Well, I cannot deny it. Yes, I sought the riches that only those closest to Her Majesty might attain. As Victoria’s physician, I have been in an excellent position to drop her a subtle hint here, a word there. I have studied your amendments to her ancient, shattered frame, yet the key to their amalgamation still eludes me.”

“Pfft!”

“Scoff if you will. After all, it is your life.”

“Yes, it is,” Robert retorted.

“You are ever the fool. When we could have made history together, the first true combination of machine and man, or woman, as it were, you have instead forced my hand in deceit.”

“Deceit is never forced, old friend, it is engendered. You are a jealous, greedy man and always have been. I would give anything to see your face when she has your head for treason.”

“By that, I take it you refuse once more to help in protecting Her Majesty’s immortality.”

“I do if it means the extermination of my life’s work.”

“Well, know this,” Somerset hissed, as he knelt at the crippled man’s side. “I shall find your children, dissect every last secret from them, and then unmake them. I would love to say you will hear their screams, but the only ones you shall hear are your own. Guards! Be good fellows and make life miserable for this traitor.”

“I will never talk!” Robert shrieked, but the hands about his larynx strangled any further words before they left his gullet.

The darkness came quicker to him a second time, his body having adjusted to the pain. His last memory was of Somerset’s laughter echoing through the infinity of his unconsciousness, an unpleasant end to an unpleasant meeting.

* * *

Robert’s final visitor announced herself with the subtle scent of jasmine. Alexandra begged and pleaded from beyond the door, her tears as false as always. Robert remained unmoved. He could no more acquiesce to her supplied wishes than he could the others.

Queen Victoria had grown desperate indeed if she would play the love card on him; Robert and his former fiancée had fallen from it many years before. Alexandra left him as a faceless entity much as she had been in his life. Much as they all had been.

* * *

The tiniest scraping followed the slightest scratch. Perhaps some predatory owl having made a nest in the crumbling brickwork marked his territory, or a rat clawed for food? Perhaps, not? To the untrained ear, those sounds as of infestation were just that, but a father will always know his own.

A shadow cast a black shade across Robert’s narrowed eyes, then another and another. One by one, those that stood before the full moon lowered, scrambled, or jumped to the stone floor.

It is said man was the sole creature given the gift of tears. If anyone should have seen the gathering of those obscure forms, those tiniest of metal creations, they should have disagreed.

“Papa,” one wept.

“Father,” cried another.

“Daddy,” said the littlest of all. “What have they done to you, Daddy?”

“My children? Is it you, or do I pass from this realm and you come to me in my final dream?”

“We are here to take you home, Papa,” said the one who cried tears of grease.

A shrill whistle preceded the descending of a horde of the little creatures. The things crept and crawled, slithered and skulked, to amass as a single protective shield of spare metal over their father’s prone form. The littlest one, no larger than a shiny sovereign, nuzzled up close to its papa’s ear and spoke in a hushed, metallic buzz. Robert heard the words of his child as the bricks that made up the Thames side of the Tower crashed and crumbled to the ground.

“They came for us, Papa, but we hid. They bashed and burned and stamped and made lots of noise, but we did not come out. When night fell, and all was darkest, we crept forth and escaped. We did as you told us, Papa, but we could not flee. We had to save you as you have saved us.”

The ant-like speech was clearer than a July dawn to Robert. He heard that tiniest of singsong voices as those born from his hands used their own to lift him with delicate care from the floor. There he hovered an inch from the stone as his litter bearers realigned themselves. Caterpillar-like, hundreds of feet marched forward up and over the rubble and began a vertical descent. Impossible to all but they, the drop caused no fear to Robert. The little ones guarded him now; there was no safer place. They stole down the tower walls with slow, deliberate movements never once jolting the one they bore. When almost to the ground a deeper chorus of “Father,” rang out, as they passed him to the larger ones. Those who resembled men more closely than the rest, iron arms lifting, piston legs shuffling, ruby eyes blazing, they carried their maker across the close-cropped grass to the shoreline. Somewhere, a raven protested with a grating caw of anger, but no other witnessed Robert Swift’s escape from the Tower of London, perhaps the greatest removal of all.

The sounds and smells of the river swept over Robert’s senses as he felt himself lifted between riverbank and barge. And there she was, his true Queen, his love, his Made wife.

“I thought they should kill you. I thought they would hunt you down and unmake you,” he whispered, the hurt in his heart overwhelming that of his physical self.

“Life cannot be unmade, only extinguished, and it was not our time to die,” she answered in a strange, accented manner. Her porcelain skin gleamed like freshly poured milk in the moonlight, hair of twisted, tin ringlets corkscrewed against sculpted cheeks. Her slim body, dressed in exotic silks that swayed in the night air, exuded warmth where none had existed. But it was her painted smile that gave such reassurance to her charge. Robert had loved that smile from the moment the crimson paint left his brush. She signalled to the others with a jerking movement of her arm, her body swivelling to face them, her head never once looking from the one she protected. She was perfect in an imperfect way just as he had made her.

Robert smiled then. Despite his pain, the anguish only the broken can know, he tried to speak, but his bride shushed him in her odd metallic way. He sensed the barge being pushed out into the river, all the little ones finally aboard, and allowed sleep to take him. He did not know what he would wake to other than a kindness that a kingdom had long forgotten. The thought soothed his soul as the barge sailed into the unknown.

* * *

Screams met the news of Swift’s miraculous escape. Buckingham Palace shook with them. Whether it was frustration, pain, or both was open to debate. Several gaskets were blown, one breathing apparatus cracked, and a marble floor shattered at an impetuous stamp. Hell hath no fury like a monarch scorned.

Somerset cringed at the furore, Sir Magnus Monk slapped his aquiline features and hung his head. The wooden stools the pair sat upon outside Her Majesty’s chambers rattled with their fear, as they prayed to a higher power that they’d be able to repair her.