The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(176)
“My God . . . It can’t be,” murmured Murray: “It’s Solomon!”
Doyle said nothing. He was speechless with shock. Then Murray began to walk with open arms toward the cortege, as if to greet them.
“I can’t believe it!” he cried. “I can’t believe it!”
The convoy came to a halt as it spotted the human being. The automaton heading the procession took one step forward, opened a little shutter in its chest from which a tiny cannon emerged, and opened fire at Murray. The shot glanced off his shoulder, causing him to howl in pain. Astonished that the apparitions were no longer harmless, Murray watched as the automaton prepared to fire a second time. Transfixed, Murray grinned uneasily before Doyle fell on top of him, flinging him to the ground. The projectile cleaved the air where a second before Murray’s head had been.
“They hit me, Arthur!” wailed Murray, more out of resentment than pain.
Still sprawled on top of him, Doyle examined his wounded shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Gilliam, it’s only a scratch,” he pronounced.
He surveyed the cortege. Two of the automatons, the one that had fired and one of his companions, were clanking slowly toward them with that unnerving sway of inebriated children, pointing the weapons in their chests at them.
“Curses, they’re going to shoot us!” Doyle declared, having already worked out they wouldn’t have time to get up and make a run for it.
He gritted his teeth, defying his killers, while Murray looked terrified. But before the automatons were able to fire, a shadow leapt over them. From where they lay, almost level with the ground, they saw a pair of black boots with bronze buckles planted on the ground. The shadow was between them and their killers, so they could only see him from behind, but he struck them as an impressive figure. Whoever it was, he was clad in an intricate suit of riveted armor and a complicated-looking helmet, beneath which only his powerful chin was visible. They watched him draw his sword from the scabbard round his waist with one swift movement. Then they heard a swish of metal, and one of the automaton’s heads rolled across the ground. Doyle took the opportunity to sit up and to help Murray to his feet. He clutched his wounded shoulder, watching their savior execute a series of two-handed thrusts as he charged the second automaton.
Murray laughed nervously. “It’s the brave Captain Shackleton!”
“Whoever he is, he’s real, Gilliam. They’re all real! And so are their weapons!” exclaimed Doyle, grabbing him by the arm. “We have to hide!”
He dragged Murray over to a mound of rubble large enough to shield them both. They reached it just as, in response to an order from their captain, four soldiers emerged from beneath the mound, encircling the startled automatons. They opened fire as one. Crouched behind the debris, Doyle and Murray were observing the skirmish in openmouthed astonishment, when all at once, a few yards away, the air seemed to rip open like a canvas slashed by a knife. The tear was accompanied by a deafening explosion that split their eardrums. Taken aback by that seemingly monstrous howl, the automatons and Shackleton stopped fighting. Then, with an equally earsplitting roar like a hurricane, the hole started sucking in everything around it. The reality around it crumpled like a bunched-up tablecloth. The bulky automatons quivered for a moment before being uprooted and dragged toward the tear by the suction force that had also overpowered the captain. Flabbergasted, Doyle and Murray saw them disappear inside the hole, which contained a throbbing, primeval blackness. From their hiding place, they seemed to be contemplating the first darkness—or rather, what was there before darkness was created, before any god appeared onstage to endow the world. Inside the hole was nothingness, nonexistence, whatever was there before the beginning, for which no one had invented a name. Then Solomon’s support was torn abruptly off the ground and sucked through the orifice, too. The debris between them and the tear were gradually swept away as the suction field around the hole expanded. The air, and the reality painted on it, puckered into infinite folds around the opening. A few seconds later, the huge chunk of masonry they were crouched behind began to quake.
“My God!” exclaimed Doyle. “We have to get out of here!”
They started running back the way they had come but soon felt the suction power of the hole pulling them toward it, rolling up everything behind them. Doyle grunted with frustration. Running was like climbing an impossibly steep hill or swimming in a turbulent sea. Each step they took required a titanic effort, and they had the impression they were making less and less headway.
“We won’t make it!” Murray declared, giving a strangled cry.
He was struggling forward, teeth clenched, face bright red, body tilted forward. Doyle realized that Murray was right. The greedy mouth of nothingness would soon swallow them up. Within seconds they would be pulled off the increasingly concave ground, following the captain and the automatons into the orifice, where a blackness awaited them that would obliterate their minds and shrivel their souls. With great difficulty, Doyle turned his head to the right and saw that they were only a few yards from Gloucester Road.
“Follow me, Gilliam!” he shouted, changing direction.
Murray obeyed, realizing that if they managed to veer off to one side they might free themselves from the force that was making their every movement an excruciating torment. Walking as though buried waist-deep in quicksand, and praying they wouldn’t be hit by any of the smaller bits of rubble transformed into lethal projectiles by the terrible suction, they managed to gain a few agonizing yards. Finally, they reached the intersection and immediately noticed they could move more freely. It no longer felt as if they were sheathed in leaden armor. As soon as they were outside the suction field, they collapsed in an exhausted heap.