Disclaimer: The graphic novel the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was created and is owned by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. The film adaptation is owned by 20th Century Fox. No illegal infringement is intended.
Authors Note: Thank you, everyone, for your wonderful reviews! Wow . . I'm very late. My apologies. This chapter is longer, however, so maybe that will make up for my tardiness.
Warning: Flashbacks ahead. I've tried to do them as smoothly as possible, so hopefully they aren't too confusing. Also, some direct references to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, so if you haven't read I hope I'm clear, and if you have, then I hope I haven't cheated too badly. (Insert sheepish grin)
Chapter Three: In Death's Dream Kingdom
Tom Sawyer set One Thousand and One Nights down open on his chest, finally folding. He'd read the same paragraph four or five times with superficial concentration, eyes trailing over the script without absorbing any of the contents. With a sigh of frustration, he rubbed a hand over his tired eyes and glanced to the world outside the porthole.
While submerged, the open panels of the Nautilus revealed only the midnight blue of the ocean depths, flecked with the iridescent silver of fish drawn to the ship's phosphorescent glow. The persistent monotony of the landscape created an almost hysterical impression of claustrophobia -- he appreciated the giant canoe and it certainly served all the creature comforts one could ask, but Sawyer had never been one to regret the feeling of solid dirt under his feet.
The clock had long since been displaced, and in retrospect, he wasn't sure whether its ticking or the disorientation from never knowing the time was worse. The only anchor to reality, otherwise, came every twenty-four hours, when the Nautilus rose from submersion and expelled her stale air to ventilate anew. While the oxygen tanks filled, Tom could enjoy the vision of the sun's yellow disc peering from across the glassy green water. Maybe it was because he was country boy at heart, but he would always prefer the sun to an electric light.
Activities between episodes were aimless and restless; he disassembled his colt pistols, cleaned and polished them with nimble, practiced dexterity, reassembled them just to repeat the task. Sometimes he visited Skinner, though the conversation was strained and awkward, due to the nature of the invisible man's injuries – something that should have strengthened the novice friendship but didn't, just made Tom's already morose frame of mind even blacker with guilt and shame. Skinner tried easing him with jokes and assurances, but it was apparent that -- while affable in the charming excess of theatric roguishness -- the gentleman thief had no great experience with amity and he, too, fumbled with the strangeness of rapport.
So, mostly, Tom read. He'd already gone through Don Quixote and Gulliver's Travels, as well as a number of other favorites from his childhood, books he'd read enough times to memorize the prose. They, at least, remained static, and the concrete familiarity of their contents, the accustomed weight in his hands, comforted him. They were almost an anodyne, in the face of . . .
He thrust the thought away, turned his eyes from the window only to have his gaze fall unluckily on his bedside stand.
King Solomon's Mines. Allan Quatermain. Allan's Wife and Other Tales. Books, that, in his youth, he had devoured in the same fevor as a dying man who's found water, their pages long since stained and dog-eared with wear. He had lined them there when he first arrived on the Nautilus, thinking . . .
What? A small voice sneered. That he would be flattered by your infantile obsession? That he would sit you down on his knee and spin yarns of Africa, patting your head and calling you son? That—
Tom lashed out, knocked the novels askew. They clattered to the floor with a discordant meter of hollow thuds.
It was a minute before he rose slowly from the bed and collected them with the greatest of care, muttering inane apologies. He returned to his seat, studied the faded gold lettering, absently thumbing the peeling leather.
It hadn't been clean, like all the books had said it would be. The heroes had prevailed, true to form, but the cost was written in the blackened walls with the blood of the lionhearted.
(Despite the preservative qualities of the cold Quatermain wasn't in death as he had been in life, something else the books had promised: the dead were to look elegant, peaceful, as if the deceased had merely slipped into sleep.
Spirited away by eddies of eternity was the hunter's presence of greatness, of strength. In its wake, what remained of Allan Quatermain looked old, small and shriveled, his countenance deeply creased -- far more so than before, it seemed -- sallow against the white beard. His expression was not that of a peaceable rest but vapid, slack with the emptiness of death. Blood caked the back of his shirt, had dried to a mottled brown tack.
Nemo knelt next to Quatermain, touched two fingers to his limp wrist, then his neck. It was unnecessary, Tom had done the same before leaving the place . . . but somehow there was a fierce, crushing finality when the captain's dark fingers rose, and gently pulled the great white hunter's vacant eyes closed.
"He is gone."
They used a tapestry from the hall to cover him. Tom couldn't bring himself to look at the dead man, at his companions as they carried his body back to the atrium.
There was no romance in it. None at all.)
Even after everything with Huck, in the white solstice light of the aftermath stood revealed the last fragments of naiveté he had clung to in a child's desperation, some further innocence he had yet to lose. He had shed them in biting cold of his first eastern winter like infected snake skins, and the Tom Sawyer that emerged was not newer, cleaner, but aged and weary.
("M's bag of tricks will need to be retrieved." Nemo said quietly, after an eternity of regarding silence. Sanderson Reed's naked carcass lay not far from the trio. Far below, a black blemish against the lake of white was slowly being claimed by the flurries of snow.
"I'll do it." Mina seemed about to protest but the captain lay a hand on her arm, conveyed an unspoken word with his eyes. Her expression marred but she remained silent. Nemo turned to Tom.
"We will run a line down for you."
He produced a faint smile. "Thanks, Captain."
It took more than an hour to scale down the wall that separated the iced-over cliff from the mainland. Tom -- hooked up to a rudimentary harness that would keep him from being killed if he were to slip -- descended slowly, clad in a much thinner jacket than the down parka to improve mobility. He didn't feel the cold, didn't feel the sharp ice and rocks as they nicked his fingers and palms through the gloves, didn't feel the biting wind at his back. It seemed like minutes and his feet were touching the pillow of snow at the base of the precipice. He unfastened the metal clip from the belt around his waist, gave a wave to the half a dozen men above, and started across the ice.
Snow blanketed the body in a thin film, melted only in a small spot that revealed a clean, quarter sized hole almost exactly between the villain's shoulder blades. Steam still rose from the puncture in the slow, simmering gate of vapor from the lip of a warm kettle. Moriarty's suave features were slack, his skin tinged blue, ice forming the smallest stalactites on the tip of his nose, the lobes of his ears, frosting the crowns of his cheeks. His eyes were open at half-mast, glazed with death cataracts.
Tom didn't realize that he had unslung the Winchester from the strap on his back until the first shot split the air, until he tasted burnt gunpowder, until Moriarty's body jumped with impossible animation. Black, clotted blood erupted into the air as his debonair face caved, as the side of his skull burst like a shattered egg, ropy discharge splattering out across the ice, billowing steam.
He stood over the body, heart pounding a violent war drum in his ears, gasping raggedly, trembling with such fury the muzzle of the rifle shook. He fired into the shapeless mass again and again, spraying the toes of his boots with lukewarm blood; thumbed back the cock, each gunshot the sound of another nail pounding into Quatermain's coffin; he punched the trigger, over and over, stumbling back with the clout of a recoil that had never seemed so strong before. Moriarty, black and red, blurred into the surrounding blaze of crystal snow as Tom's vision warped and swam. He shot, until there was nothing left of Moriarty's head but a repulsive puddle of blood, shards of bone and clods of hair, until his back was peppered with holes, until—
--until all the Winchester produced were dry, rasping clicks.
One hand fumbled for the extra magazine in the breast pocket of his coat, fingers cold and stupid against the button holding the cloth flap closed. He cursed, and the gun slipped from his numb grip.
Tom staggered. His knees gave, and he dropped into the snow.
A wild, animal sound of anguish tore from him, pierced the glacial air singular and wretched. He put his clenched fists to his streaming eyes, and sobbed.
"The samples weren't there. There's a place where the ice is thin; it probably fell through."
"I will dispatch divers, but in these waters recovery might be impossible."
"We can only hope." Nemo concurred with Mina with a small nod. Both of their faces were carefully constructed in passivity; if either heard the episode they gave no indication, did not broach the subject after. For that, he was grateful.
Another part of him almost wished they would have.)
Recovery had been tedious. The Nautilus had stagnated three days on the river's bank while the scientists and their families trekked the white Mongolian wasteland, lead by armed sailors flanking the train of handcuffed and cowed, the pitiful remainders of M's revolutionary army. Quatermain and Skinner had both been carried back with them, Jekyll tending to the latter. At the time, there had been no assurances that only one corpse would arrive.
Mina, Nemo and himself had remained behind, shifting through the black skeleton remains of the fortress, collecting 'items of interest.' Their concern had been with the procurement of what had made M so great, so terrible -- his blueprints, his experiments, the remains of the knowledge that had perished with the violated grey folds of the villain's cerebrum.
(He wasn't exactly sure what he was looking for; he had discovered some brittle documents that had survived the explosion, but an attempt to collect them had disintegrated the fragile paper to dust beneath his fingertips. Nemo had found a phial of clear fluid amongst a pile of glass shards, it was tucked into his belt. Mina carried a square object approximately two feet wide and high under one arm, but the canvas covering kept him from identifying it.
The agent kicked over a pile of wood, sending cinder chaff bursting into the air.
"Here's another one!" Nemo and Mina both glanced up. Tom knelt down, brushed soot from the face of the body. Most of the flesh had been seared away by the flames, reduced to crusts of black and planes of greasy pink. The agent touched for a pulse, expressed no surprise when the vein proved still, cold beneath his fingers. Sawyer pawed off his hat; snowflakes clung to his hair and eyelashes. "Looks like one of yours, Captain."
Nemo bowed his head, closed his dark eyes for a heartbeat, and moved towards the younger man.)
It was three days before other agents arrived from the colonized coast of China to assume the task, and by that time they had only gotten through the personal quarters of Sanderson Reed and Mortiary himself, even with the handful of Nemo's men returning to assist in their search of the snow strewn rubble. Once seven, then three, they had trekked back to the Nautilus together, taciturn and distant in something that transcended physical confines. It took a full day of hiking to reach the ship's moorings, and they were greeted by Skinner's tortured screams.
One of the Nautilus' many freezers had been emptied of its contents, the bodies of their dead stored on metal tables, each formless, covered mass indistinguishable from the next. Tom hadn't the chance to locate Quatermain's remains, to properly grieve, thrust into realizing the extent of the ship as they made room for the scores of refugees. Rooms had to be opened, furnished and cleaned. Their small infirmary was instantly overwhelmed with the wounded, and part of the gymnasium had to be converted into a temporary hospital. The kitchen and galley that had once been more than sufficient for the seven of them and the crew was severely lacking for the sudden crowd. Above all, with most of Nemo's men cooling, stiffening in the bowels of the ship, they had been staggeringly short of hands.
Nets had to be cast out to harvest game from the sea; coal had to be shoveled into the ship's sodium converting broilers; the pumps for the flooded chambers needed maintenance and manning; with time, under the enormous pressure of the water, the welded scars on the Nautilus' flanks had folded like paper and had been in constant want of repair; bedding, clothes and bandages had to be washed; food had to be baked and served, the dishes cleaned; there were instruments in the hospital that needed sanitizing, minor wounds that even he could treat; the children of the scientists were constantly getting lost or otherwise in need of entertainment. He had been terrified of nightmares of Quatermain, of Skinner, but never suffered them. Every night he had collapsed into his room, managed a few hours of thin, dreamless sleep before having to drag himself up again. Mina and Jekyll, as the vessel's only physicians, were even worse off.
Their return trip had been made at considerably less than maximum speed and completely above surface. Over a month it took to return to England around the Asian continent, through Egypt's Suez canal and across the Mediterranean. After the first week or so, the days blurred into each other, indistinguishable, and he had hardly felt the passage of time.
He'd been numb, and too busy to care.
(The sun was just peering over the horizon, a bloated, infected crimson eye, and the distant air rippled with the sudden heat. Red light flooded over the ground, over the skeletal construct that was to be the rebuilt Britannica Club, skirting the crooked tombstones and ragged crucifix markers with long shadows.
He, Jekyll and Nemo, along with a few of the natives, had been digging since the morning was new, tilling the parched ground under the damning desert heat, heat that soared from a scorching simmer to a dry broil with the appearance of the sun. Flies, mosquitoes buzzed in his ears, and he had long since given up swatting at them. His shirt was plastered to his skin, caked with the red dirt each shovel throw kicked up; his hair clung to his face, stinging sweat ran into his eyes. They finished by early afternoon, could not have continued even if they had not – by then, the heat was something solid and excruciating.
A cab took them back to their hotel where they washed, readied themselves for the funeral. They rode back to the cemetery with Mina and Skinner, the former clenching a telegraph in her hand.
The world closed her eye on the three men as it had opened -- toiling, this time filling the grave.)
"We put rocks on to keep the critters from gettin' him."
Tom jolted, not realizing he had spoken the words until they rebounded through the otherwise silent cabin, and the sound of them galvanized him back from the half-dream world of abject memory. He rubbed his hand over his eyes again, took the books and replaced them, titles facing the wall.
A swift, sudden shift in perception, and the books, unsupported, toppled once again. Tom frowned, retrieved them and set them anew, unconsciously tuning to find cause of the disturbance.
The Nautilus had stopped.
A look out the porthole proved that the scenery had not changed, though he supposed they could have risen; the darkness of the sea was not so different from the sky of a cloud cast night. Tom waited a minute, two, for the Nautilus to resume her voyage, or for the captain to visit with an explanation, which was the usual decorum for unscheduled stops.
Neither occurred. The Nautilus remained inert, her halls silent of footsteps.
Tom shook his head, and grabbed his jacket.
Fifteen minutes later, not finding him at the helm or in the saloon, Tom was considering giving up when he happened upon two members of the crew, the two apparently having some directed intent. He followed them discreetly, and came upon Nemo in the bowels of the ship.
The captain was pulling one of the diving suits that Sawyer had seen just briefly in Venice over his normal attire, a number of the other sailors already clad in the strange white ensembles, pickaxes and shovels in hand. When the door opened Nemo turned to him, regarded him deadpan. Tom shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny, was about to retreat when the captain spoke.
"Do you wish to accompany me on an expedition, Agent Sawyer?"
Tom blinked. Of everything, those were the words least expected. His eyebrows shot into his hairline, fell into a furrow with the slight, confused frown that followed. "But . . ."
"The package will arrive on its prescribed date, not to worry. I would not dare delay any English bloodshed." The words were strangely bitter, and the captain seemed to drift into another plane as a heavy metal pack was secured over his shoulders and back. He hardly flinched under the weight. He came back to the present just a moment gone, cocked his head in a 'Well?' gesture.
Sawyer shifted again, cupped his elbow with one hand. The agent shot a considering glance out the open panel.
"There's no air out there, captain." He said somewhat lamely.
Nemo emitted an uncharacteristic chuckle. "Very astute, Agent Sawyer."
As it was said a member of the crew capped Nemo's suit with one of the strange circular helmets, screwed it into attachment with the rest of the suit. Tom saw no tube emitting from the top, which, on any other vessel, would be connected with the boat to provide oxygen. Instead, two hoses looped from the helmet, and as he watched, where hooked into a circular gauge attached to the metal backpack.
The captain regarded him from that alien metal fishbowl helmet, and Tom shifted, glanced out the door, back into the sterile hallway. How long would they be stopped for? How long would he be left to sit in his room, let to . . .
"I never was one to turn down an adventure." He shrugged, the words issued without any of the owner's famed enthusiasm. What might have brought a ghost of a smile to the captain's face before failed to do so, and he simply nodded. Two of the sailors converged before the agent with a suit between them, and blocked the captain from view.
Tom Sawyer had flown over the sparkling oceans in a hot air balloon and seen them glisten like diamonds in the sunset, had seen the rolling deserts that wove endless sand sashes across the Middle Eastern landscape, had seen the yellow plains of Africa ripple in the wind like water. He had seen the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the United States Capitol, Lady Liberty, Big Ben and Parliament.
None compared to the beauty of the Coral Kingdom.
When the docking bay finally opened, submerging them in cold water, evidently dawn had just come – bars of light shot spears through cerulean water that was as clear as the sky itself, illuminating the considerable depths with stunning white light. Nemo was at the head of the congregation; he produced a lantern to add to the radiance and motioned for them to move forward. Sawyer stood just behind the captain, behind him, about twenty-five crewmembers carried pickaxes, shovels, and the occasional lantern; hammocked between each was a long white bundle.
Thirty feet or so below the surface, the seabed stretched before them not smooth planes of underwater beach but cragged and disjointed towers, sconce rock pillars and walls, giving the impression that they were not walking through some natural reef but rather the fallen remnants of some deity's submarine citadel. This terrain parted before them a narrow valley, marred with mazes of rock edifices great and small.
They walked at a constant downward slope, though Sawyer hardly took note. All around, on the jagged outcroppings of the territory, was coral. Brittle, mottled bunches of coral, their colors sundry, vivid and brilliantly rich. They blanketed the surrounding walls and overhangs, the ground beneath their feet, so thick the underlying rock was impossible to glimpse.
Spongy, alabaster shelves stretched out from the bulkheads in stair step mushrooms, flanked by shoots of white stems dotted with the tiniest of pink starflowers. Trees that looked like collected thatches of yellow bone collided with smaller scrubs of thick, rubbery tentacles, their more supple bodies rippling and dancing in the soft current. Cliffs on either side were encrusted with a porous scum, broken by erupting sea flower shrubbery, while loose-fingered plant hands grappled up towards the surface from protruding ledge faces, their bodies swaying with the water's unseen breathing. Tubes of mustard colored coral wound the ground, marred with open holes like anthills, while their brother pipes shot up in miniature chimneys. Flat plants waved at them in large vertical fans. Moss blankets rippled upward to reveal vibrant lavender underbellies. Crimson cauliflower underbrush peeked from every hole. Overhead, dappled light filtered through brilliant green hanging plants, their long leaves ribbed with canary yellow.
Among them swarmed thousands of fish, even more colorful than the coral in which they lived – pinks, oranges, blues and greens -- their bodies spotted and striped in every imaginable pattern. The group advanced, and the fish flittered away, retracting back into the tentacle beds, the cavernous holes of their skeletal home. Turtles drifted by, unmindful of their presence. Stingrays, their wings rippling, skated over the surface of the seabed.
The only sound was his own heavy breathing inside the helmet, the muted crunch as the delicate formations were crushed under their heavy boots. He tried to avoid the structures but they were carpeting every surface as far as the eye could see, and he soon gave up. The captain kept a tight line, ensuring the damage would be minimal, and Sawyer trusted he knew what he was doing.
"Huck would have loved this." Tom breathed, the voice sounding strange and hollow in the helmet, and for once the words held no grief; it was impossible to feel anything but candid wonder amongst the sea's wilderness. He reached out, brushed one of the colorful, spindle branches that extended out to him. The plant recoiled in an almost human gesture; the flowers withdrew into their buds so quickly he almost laughed out loud. The beauty was overwhelming, and isolated in the diving suit, unable to communicate with the others save exorbitant hand gestures, he lamented the inability to converse and connect, to share the amazing spectacle with another.
He wasn't sure how long they walked, maybe hours, though he wasn't tired – walking through the water in the heavy suit was tedious but was otherwise undemanding, and in a sort of exhilaration he imagined he could walk in the depths forever. After a time the natural light dimmed to nothing, the coral disappeared, presumably the water too deep for it to continue growing. Then, their only light came from the electric lanterns, and they proceeded through the ocean's deep wreckage – petrified trees and mineral coliseums, caught in the dim light to be revealed as almost spectral -- while the coral at their feet was replaced with a glittering carpet of sea loam.
Then, abruptly, they stopped. Sawyer blanched, glanced around. He had never questioned exactly what task the so-called expedition aimed to accomplish, and with their presumable arrival he found himself confused. There was nothing before them but empty water and a circular plane, the ground marred with oblong mounds, the upraised dirt collected in rows with the mathematic precision of . . .
Tom made a low noise in his throat as the men behind him came forward. He glanced at their shovels, at the bundles carried between them. The white garbed silhouettes were laid on the ground in a way that reminded Tom of cigarettes, and the men, Nemo included, began to dig.
At the center of the plain, erected on a tower of tumbled rocks, a great cross of crimson coral stood sentinel.
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."
A cemetery. They had come to bury their dead.
"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake."
Tom picked up his own shovel, murmuring the only psalm he knew, one even years of bible school had not managed to tattoo into his heart.
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. . ."
He went to join the gravediggers.
It was late in the day when they returned to the Nautilus. Tom was lightheaded from what he imagined was something to do with his air supply; he shed the suit gratefully, knowing he was going to be sore for days.
Nemo had remained the longest over the graves (and there had been fifteen? Twenty? Tom had lost count) on his knees, head bowed, and even in the silence of the sea it was impossible to hear if he were praying. After a time he had risen, and nothing of his stance betrayed any emotion. Tom wanted to say something to him now that they could speak and he struggled to find words, to recall the same hollow comforts . . .
He didn't get the chance. Released of his bindings, the captain departed without preamble. In minutes, a subtle purr signified the Nautilus' engines stirring.
Tom trudged back to his room; he fell into bed without bothering to undress. Immediately, he dropped into an exhausted, dreamless sleep, the first since the departure from London to Africa, the first since the nightmares finally came.
Well, not too much advancement of plot . . but action will come shortly. Also, I have no discernable knowledge of the Bible, so if the quote was inappropriate, please let me know and I will be sure to fix it. Hopefully Tom wasn't out of character; I often struggle with him, for some reason . . .
My muse responds very positively to reviews!
