Pocketbook

A short telegram arrived from Lavelle in the morning. It read, ‘PARIS TRANSEPT MIST = CHAOS. HEADING COAST FAST’. I tried to puzzle it out over my toast and marmalade but, coming up with no theory beyond yet another Bonapartist revolution, fancied I would pop in on Ogilvy at Imperial College to see if anything had come through the pneumatic tubes on the Transept. I remember, I found her in the light canteen, happily tucking into an excellent cottage pie. I ordered some myself and probed her for news. She was excited about the new Paris Transept, but reported that the pneumatics were disordered. ‘A little inter-Realmic Pale leakage’, she said. About the telegram, she was quite clear: the French must have rushed the Portal closure, got their equations wrong; the Calcularian types in Nightingale would know more. As soon as the pneumatics were up again, she promised to message Paris.

That same evening, I was sat in my smoking jacket, enjoying a Wilkie Collins and wondering what I could teach my pupils, when a knock came on the street door. It was Ogilvy, of all people! She was shaking, without coat or hat, so I put her in front of the fire with a stiff brandy. Reviving a little, she said that the pneumatics were still out—but worse, no one was returning from the Portals—not just at College, but anywhere. The other academic staff thought it a temporary aetheric disturbance, but Ogilvy knew it was more fundamental. She looked exhausted, so I called a hansom to take her home. Pausing on the cab’s step in a borrowed jacket, she asked if I’d heard of Dr Dee and his Realm Cards, of the pre-Transept forms of Portal science. I promised to read on it overnight and visit her in the morning, at College.

The next morning, I woke early, disturbed by a curious silence. The blackbird wont to sing outside my window had vanished; indeed, there was no birdsong at all. Perturbed, I ate a hasty breakfast and rushed to the College. I could see immediately that Ogilvy hadn’t slept. She’d been fretting about the Paris equation all night, but had made no headway. At great expense, she’d called Curie at Nightingale by trunk telephone and found that the Calcularia were having similar Portal problems. Curie had recommended an old book of Dee’s on Realm Cards, and they had discussed the evacuation of the Earth. I will admit, I scoffed at that. But in the face of Ogilvy’s silent gaze, I swallowed my contempt. She handed me a list of quite insane, rare, expensive things and told me I had three hours to gather them. I humoured her and went off into the city.

The morning had left me rather discombobulated, but I found myself gathering Ogilvy’s strange ingredients from various pawn shops, costermongers and pharmacists. One old alchemist recognised my ingredient list and cackled that ‘Realm Cards were wonderful…for gambling with your life’. I hurried away. At midday, the Flèche d’Or express arrived from Paris. Victoria was overrun with the French, tear-stricken, dishevelled, but all hiring cabs to Paddington for the Nightingale train. Those wild-eyed Parisians couldn’t explain what had happened to their city—beyond ‘Brume, brume!’ From there, the panic spread quickly. As I made my way back to the College, the streets were jammed with carriages, cars, buses and people—the rich heading for their country estates, others heading for mountaintops or even setting sail for the Americas. When I got there, Ogilvy was passed out asleep at her desk, so I left my purchases, headed home and sank into an armchair exhausted.

Dawn woke me with a start, and I dressed quickly to walk back to the College. The city was quieter than usual—no birds, little traffic, not even the buzz of horseflies. The early editions had the Parisian mist encroaching on Chatham and Rochester this morning (the naval captains staying with their ships) and would be with us by teatime; and that the Queen had refused to let the Royal Family flee, despite Lord Beaconsfield’s pleas. Ogilvy was calm. She had spoken to a Parisian researcher the day before. The Transept equation was right, but the Portal Network itself had gone wrong. ‘The Pale has somehow escaped the inter-Realmic void’, she said. ‘We have no idea what it will do, but it will cover the Earth by the new year.’ She had spent the night with other researchers, creating Realm Cards. She is sure this combination will get us to New Kernow, then to Nightingale. We’re about to go through.

Herbert held my hand across the threshold—the brave fool. Didn’t write that in his journal, did he? Brave Victorian gentleman needing the comfort of a lady’s hand. Can’t write it now; I have the journal. In his coat, on my shoulders. Good for notes. He never said it, boy, but he’d never Portalled before. I fancy he’d not been further than Stoke-on-Trent. So he wouldn’t know it wasn’t meant to look like that. Surface roiling with currents. Gusts of Pale from the immaterial. Definitely not meant to have the Bound there. Scrabbling and howling at our passage. The older ones, floating back, tuberous eyes watching, resting on the aetheric void, biding. The wisps, skimming off the Transept tunnel with actinic flashes. Most definitely not meant to be two ways to go. But we were separated. His hand in my glove, slipping. Spinning off into his own Realm. And me into mine.

Enough food, water, shelter. Safe, empty, boring. Alone on this island Realm. Two billion humans scattered to infinite Realms means we are infinitely spread out. Cannot stabilise the Portals. The Arch I came through opens to a new Realm every time. Not meant to work that way. Meant to take me back. If the Portal Network were working, the Portal should be a fixed, permanent connection. One Realm to another. Kyklolabe Mechanisms to maintain them, powered by aetheric gradients. But not fixed. Broken. I have Curie’s list of Realm Cards. (I hope she had time to defend the city. Or run.) Crossed out New Kernow combination—not working. Trying to make new cards. Older types. Unsafe ingredients. Sympathetic symbols. To reach Curated Realms, for Nightingale. For Herbert. I have faith. To the Fae, this may be magick. But man takes chaos and puts order into it. Makes it science.