Free Time's Mistress by Steven Savile Page A

stone, the stone tip of the spear of destiny that wounded the Nazarene, the corpse of a clockwork man fashioned by Kepler long before he obsessed upon his astronomical clock, an ethereal figurine of unbeing, a Vodoun effigy of Baka and a statuette of Baron Samedi, the sketches of Hausenhofer’s blueprint for the uberman and more marvels inked on roll upon roll of vellum. On a small mahogany table sat a seemingly empty phial. He picked it up, turning it around and around in his hand until the essence began to solidify; a soul trapped in a bottle, bound to the vessel in death. There was so much more in the room, so many clues to the mechanisms of heaven and hell. He ignored them all, fixating on a stone cross-braced upon the furthest wall. It was almost half his height, and engraved in a lost tongue.
    He knelt before the cross, his fingers feeling out every tongue and groove within the carving. He closed his eyes, committing them to memory. There were seventeen shapes, four engraved on each arm of the cross, four on the head and four at the feet, and one at the apex, a crucified man with a bestial face set in a snarl of seventeen teeth. It was a homunculus, a false human, twelve inches in height and rendered in perfect detail. A serpent was wrapped around the homunculus’ length. The cross itself was a key. The outside markings on each limb corresponded to an element: earth, air, fire and water, but it was the others that were interesting. Images of Shango, father of storms, and Mawu-Lisa, the hermaphrodite joining of twin, male and female deities, side by side with more obscure Judo-Christian symbolism, and other markings that made no earthly sense whatsoever. Together they formed a complex cypher around the body of the homunculus that when deciphered unlocked a treasure map.
    The Brethren already had possession of the map, procured from a nameless tomb in the Afghan wilds. They had protected it for over two centuries, seeking the location of the key without realizing it lay under their noses in the very heart of Holborn.
    With the cross in to decode the map, he felt sure they would unearth the whereabouts of the fabled Catamine Stair, and with that knowledge would come the power to unleash the horrors buried deep since the dawn of time.
    “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy. And isn’t that just the truth of it,” he said to himself reverently as he lifted down the huge stone cross.
    In doing so the man who wore the name Nathaniel Seth as effectively as any mask assured that all hell would break loose.
    O O O
    Dorian Carruthers walked the copper thruppenny bit across his knuckles and made it disappear in a flourish of fingers. It was a simple trick, the eye reduced to believing what the hand wanted it to. He grinned wryly at the slight prestidigitation; it was smooth enough that only the most discerning spectator would have spotted the manipulation. He repeated the walk from finger to finger, slower this time, concentrating on the final palming of the coin. He spread his fingers wide and held out his hand, palm up. The coin was nowhere to be seen.
    In the doorway to the smoking room Anthony Millington teased off his white gloves and applauded.
    “Your hat, sir?” Mason, the chamberlain asked, the slightest hint of distaste in his cultured tone. Millington was, after all, an actor. He was new money and rather proud of his vulgar exploits, regaling the gentlemen with stories that most assuredly kissed-and-told.
    Millington tipped the brim and rolled the plush aile de corbeau the length of his arm, catching it with a snap of the wrist. He held the top hat out with a raffish grin. “Good man,” and to Carruthers, “I see old man Locke is out like a light, as ever.”
    Brannigan Locke was indeed asleep, his face pressed up against the leather wing of his chair, his pipe still balanced precariously between his teeth. His lips rattled against the stem as he snored