The Map of the Sky (Trilogía Victoriana #2)(134)

Suddenly, there was a fearful explosion a few streets away, followed by a deafening crash. The noise made me leap up from the bench with a start, my whole body trembling. From the street opposite, accompanied by that peculiar hissing noise, there emerged what I can only describe as a bolt of lightning tamed by a god, which, instead of zigzagging through the air, sliced through it in a straight line, parallel to the ground, like the beam from a lighthouse. The strange ray shot across the square, igniting the treetops in its path before thudding into one of the buildings on the far side, blowing it to smithereens, and ruthlessly scattering a handful of coaches and their passengers.

Those of us in the square became aware of an increasingly loud clanging of metal behind us. The ground began to quake, and, terrified, everyone turned toward the street from which the ray had emanated, certain that what was approaching us could only be one of the tripods the fugitives had told us about. Sure enough, through the thick cloud of dust from the falling rubble, we glimpsed the gigantic spidery outline of a tripod. Seconds later, it emerged from the dust cloud and planted its three powerful feet firmly in front of us. Many people scattered in terror, but others, myself included, remained motionless in the center of the square, transfixed by this apparition. This was the first tripod I had seen, and to this very day the memory of it makes me shudder. It looked more powerful than any machine Man had ever built or could ever build. It must have been about a hundred feet tall, possibly taller, and swaying on top of slender, jointed legs like the ribs of an umbrella was something resembling the baskets attached to hot-air balloons, only bigger and sealed like an impregnable carapace. From the front dangled a kind of tentacle, probably made from the same shiny material as the machine, only more pliable. This twitched slowly in the air, like a fly’s proboscis. Attached to it was a strange artifact that looked like a weapon. Just then, as if to confirm my suspicions, it spat out a second ray, which smashed to the ground close to its feet. However, as the machine raised its tentacle, the ray began to slice diagonally through the square as if it were a wedding cake, reducing everything and everyone in its path to cinders. The terrible shaft of heat ended its trajectory by cleaving the corner building in two. The house exploded in a shower of debris.

Even though I was fifty feet away, I could feel the heat from the ray prick my skin painfully, and it goaded me to react. I realized my life was in danger, that I could die at any moment. However impossible it might seem to me, the invasion was taking place. And regardless of whether or not it was successful, I was a mere bit player who could die in any number of ways: roasted by a heat ray, crushed by falling debris, mown down by a runaway carriage. I became more aware than ever of how dreadfully vulnerable I was. I could be killed this instant; I could already have been killed. All of a sudden, just as the machine was preparing to resume firing at the buildings, I thought of Victoria, and my cousin and his wife, who could also be killed when the tripods reached Queen’s Gate. Like me, they were frail and mortal. I had to do something, get away from there, I had to reach them at once!

The demolished building formed a smoldering barricade preventing entry to the main streets that led to Queen’s Gate, and so, partly out of choice and partly swept along by the frenzied crowd, I began running down a side street, away from the tripod that had burst into the square and from another one that had just joined it. I then found myself carried along a maze of alleyways, unsure of where I was going, perceiving the explosions in the square and trying not to fall over for fear of being trampled, like many others. As I ran, I saw the sky above my head tinged with reddish flashes, I smelled smoke from the fires, and I heard an almighty crash mixed with screams from the crowd, the roar of cannons, and the relentless hiss of the tripods that seemed to be coming from all sides. Only when I emerged onto the Chelsea Embankment did I realize I had been running away from South Kensington, the direction I wanted to go. Instead, I had ended up at the river, panting and wheezing, crushed amid dozens of others, whose faces, like mine, were covered in white dust from the fallen debris. Suddenly overcome by dizziness, I was forced to lean over, my hands on my knees, and remained like that for a few moments, examining the toes of my shoes while I tried to stop myself from being sick. The last thing I wanted was for the crowd to see me as a cowardly young man. When I was finally able to raise my eyes, I noticed a cluster of launches at the foot of the jetty, their passengers hesitating over whether they should cross the river or climb back onto dry land. Then, straightening myself up, I discovered the reason for their indecision.

The glittering river Thames stretched before me, adorned with bridges, the nearest of which was the magnificent Albert Bridge resting on its four cast iron piers. This structure, which I had always considered a perfect example of Man’s ingenuity, now looked pitifully fragile faced with the sinister tripods that were advancing on the far side of the river. The ghastly horde stood out against the blazing buildings they had left behind in Battersea and were clearly approaching the Thames with the aim of crossing it on their gangling stilts to wreak havoc on the other side. But before any of them could reach the water, a destroyer appeared at the scene. Gliding up the river like a fearless Leviathan, it positioned itself between the tripods and the swarming crowd on the quayside, of which I was a part. Craning my neck above the mass of bobbing heads, I could see that similar scenes were occurring the length of the Thames. The river was dotted with warships attempting to keep at bay the hordes of tripods that had penetrated London from the south and had razed Lambeth and the outlying neighborhoods. Judging from the blasts coming from that direction, some of the destroyers had already opened fire on them.