A little Omake to mark 75 kilolikes on SpaceBattles...
"You are certain?"
"I am… almost certain," the old man replied, frowning a little. The expression on the ancient wrinkled face was eerie. William had never seen him look quite that puzzled, the elderly expert in the arcane was normally supernaturally confident, presenting an appearance to the outside world of one who has seen and done it all, including things that you yourself would not care to even contemplate.
Now, however, Markus had a slight but definite air of confusion. William watched him warily. The expression boded ill, but the chances that what he had sought for half his life was finally available pushed his caution to one side.
"Why the prevarication, Markus?" he asked after the other man said no more for some time. "Is it or is it not one of Lemarchand's?"
Markus thought for a little longer, his gaze fixed on the table, before finally raising his eyes and meeting those of his guest.
"I would not swear on my soul that it was, but at the same time, it has to be," he said in a low voice. "The description matches almost perfectly. The intricacy of the construction, the sheer perfection of the mechanism… only one man has ever produced something of that level. But… there are... inconsistencies."
"Such as?"
"It is too old. Much too old. The crypt in which it was found had been sealed in fifteen-twelve and has lain undisturbed since then, to all appearances and according to all records I can locate. That is over two hundred and forty years before Lemarchand created his great works. Yet, it is quite as described in the accounts of the various possessors of the devices throughout the last two centuries. I am unable to account for the inconsistency. Only two possibilities have occurred to me after much consideration, neither one being in my view likely, or so I would have thought before now."
William regarded his old colleague for a moment.
"What are they?"
"One is that the box was placed into the crypt long after it was initially sealed, then all evidence of this was very carefully removed. Possible, definitely, but most difficult. Everything I can locate tends to prove that the crypt was buried beneath the floor of the ancient temple since the date I mentioned. If it was later opened and resealed, it was done with a level of expertise and effort that is truly remarkable."
"You are sure that your detective work is accurate?"
The old man sneered at him. "You are not conversing with a neophyte, William. I am sure."
William dipped his head in acknowledgment of the admonishment. "I meant no insult."
Markus shrugged slightly. "I take no insult, but please do not imply such things again."
"As you wish. What is the second option?"
The ancient expert hesitated for a tiny moment, then let out a faint small sigh. "That Lemarchand did not, in fact, produce the artifact. However, if this is the case… it is so close, and so clearly of the same workmanship… it casts doubt on the provenance of all the other such creations. I suspect that there is a possibility that he did not actually manufacture any of them. It may be that he merely found them and that the true creator is lost to the mists of time. We may never know. If this is indeed the case, it might be that he repurposed the ones we know beyond doubt he had in his possession."
"If that's true… this one could work differently?"
Markus raised a hand, palm up. "I have no way to tell. The only certain way to find out is to solve the puzzle and open the box."
William regarded the other man for close to a minute, the only sound in the small room the hissing of the gas fire in the corner, staving off the chill of the London night.
Eventually, he reached into his pocket and removed a small cloth bag, dropping it on the table. It clinked loudly in the quiet of the room. "I am willing to experiment."
"It may not work, or it may not achieve the goal you desire," Markus warned even as he picked the bag up and opened it, tipping the gold coins into his hand and quickly counting them, before returning them to where they'd come from.
"That is a risk I accept," William said quietly. "I have sought this for too long to give up on the cusp of success. It is my only hope."
"Tales of what awaits whoever is both foolhardy and clever enough to open one of Lemarchand's boxes would suggest that hope may be misplaced." Markus peered at him over his half-moon glasses. "Many have tried and failed. Some have tried and succeeded. It is an interesting and noteworthy curiosity that the latter are never heard from again. Perhaps you should seek elsewhere..."
"No." William shook his head firmly. "I have no time left. It is my choice, Markus."
After a moment, his companion sighed a little regretfully. "It is. Wait here, I will fetch the artifact."
Standing with an ease that belied his nearly eighty years, the elderly man left the room, while William turned his head to look out at the misty night, the lights of London stretching out four floors below him. He could just make out in the distance the taller buildings in the financial district, one of the new post-war skyscrapers half-constructed on the ruins of an entire block flattened by German bombs.
A sound at the door attracted his attention back to Markus, who re-entered the room holding a polished wooden box approximately six inches on a side, with brass fittings on the corners. The man carefully placed it in front of him, retaking his seat.
William reached out a slightly trembling hand, touching the box wonderingly, then operated the latch and opened the lid. Inside, nestled in a cavity in the silk lining the interior of the case, was a smaller cube, this one glinting in the light and betraying a construction of multiple metals mixed with an unknown type of wood. He stared at it for some time, before gently lifting it in his hand and looking closely at it.
The surface was so finely worked he couldn't see even a hint of tooling marks as he turned it over in his hands. Brass, steel, and what he thought was platinum all gleamed under the ceiling light, the surface totally smooth under his questing fingers. "A true work of art," he murmured in awe. "I can't feel a joint anywhere. It's as if it is made in one solid piece."
"Yet it isn't," Markus noted, taking it from him and showing him how parts of it would, with pressure and the right angle, shift and move. As the first section altered the shape of the device from a perfect three inch cube, a faint tinkling music began to play, the melody initially very simple. Each extra change added harmonies, the tune entirely unfamiliar but for some reason sounding like it was coming from much further away that the box between them, and giving each man a feeling of foreboding. "The workmanship is exquisite. Whether it was truly Lemarchand himself, or some predecessor, whoever made this was a genius." He pushed the three segments he'd moved back to their original positions, the eldritch music ceasing as the last part slid back into place with a faint click. "That is all I could discern of the workings, and frankly I have no wish to learn more."
The old man handed him back the cube. "I strongly urge you not to proceed, William. We have known each other for a long time, I should be distressed if an unpleasant fate befell you."
Putting the artifact back into its wooden case, William snapped the catches shut without replying. Standing, he picked his coat off the back of his chair, then put it on, before collecting the wooden box.
He looked at Markus. "Thank you for the concern, and the warning. I will let you know what I discover."
Markus watched as he left the room, the door closing behind him with a soft thud.
"I fear you may well not, dear boy," he sighed, before turning the fire and lights off and going to bed.
Two weeks and one day later, William sat in his study, the artifact on his desk in front of him. On either side were a number of books, most with scraps of paper marking specific pages. He was re-reading, yet again, the notes he'd made on the device, wondering what he was missing.
So far he'd managed to proceed through nine steps of what he thought were probably twelve from the procedure to fully open the box. After the third one, the music it produced took on new overtones, making him shudder despite himself and the things he'd seen over his forty years of life.
By the ninth section, the tune was almost orchestral, but played on instruments far out of his experience. He was used to it by now, as much as one could be, but the alien rhythms were still odd to his ears in a manner he'd have had trouble describing to any other person.
Sighing slightly, he put his notebook, replete with sketches of each configuration of the box, on the desk next to the object itself, then propped his chin on his hand and simply stared at it for some while. There was something missing, something he couldn't quite put a finger on, that had him flummoxed. Each motion to unlock the box led into the next with an elegant inevitability, once you managed to work it out. But that link between the current and next configuration took careful thought and seemed to increase in difficulty each time.
His ability to visualize the next likely move was becoming strained, as was his understanding of how the little mechanism could possibly move in the way that it did. Parts of it seemed to shift out of the way of other parts in a manner that defied what he would have considered normal geometry, although never when he could actually see the effect happening. Nevertheless, it did, the box opening out into something larger than it should have been capable of becoming. Each motion seemed both eerily silent and full of the sound of tiny, impossibly complex gears and other such mechanisms operating, a dichotomy he was entirely unable to explain.
Reaching out once more, he ran through the now-familiar sequence to the ninth configuration with the ease of much practice, ignoring the weird tune the thing started playing. When he hit the point he'd become stuck at, he put the box down and simply looked at it, attempting to extrapolate the next move. Some time passed, the tune repeating over and over, until he sighed again and leaned back in his leather chair, rubbing his eyes.
"Blasted thing," he muttered. "Whoever came up with you was a fiend. How they could possibly have achieved such a thing in the far-distant past is utterly beyond me. I'm sure even today we couldn't make a duplicate."
The box played on, ignoring him, as was only to be expected. Eventually he reached out to pick it up and close it again, blinking with tiredness.
His hand stopped half-way, and so did his breathing.
Staring at the box, he closed one eye, then the other one in turn, before looking away and peering at artifact out of the corner of his eye. Squinting, he moved his hand in front of it, before exhaling loudly.
"That… is remarkable," he murmured, watching as the shape of the device shifted slightly depending on how he obstructed it from one eye or the other, and how fast. "I would swear it is more than three dimensional. Impossible, but..."
Tentatively touching the box, he felt it, then closed his eyes and repeated the action. He could, now that he knew what he was looking for, feel a definite difference through his fingers to what his eyes were reporting.
"How on earth is that done?" he wondered, talking to himself as had become habit during these long evenings of experimentation. "You are indeed a marvelous creation, my boxy friend. Now, let's see..."
It took William more than two hours of patient work to discover the tenth configuration, even with his new insight. The eleventh, which was the result of only another half hour's effort, brought with it new overtones to the ever-present tune, which had become fearsomely complex, and also a distant, but definite, tolling of a bell. The sound sent shivers through him, but he persisted.
When the final shift in the device occurred, he put it down and simply watched as it kept moving, sliding through a number of bizarre shapes completely under its own volition, until it settled down into an oddly prosaic open cube, all four sides flat on the desk, with the top standing vertically. There was no sign of the mechanism by which any of the movement had been achieved, which was extremely puzzling.
Neither was there any sign of how the music, which was now quite loud, was being played. Indeed, the inside of the box seemed completely empty.
He prodded the now-quiescent device with one finger, experimentally. Nothing of note occurred.
"That is… not what I was expecting," he muttered, half-disappointed and half relieved.
The music abruptly and without warning stopped.
It was sudden enough that he actually flinched, before relaxing.
The bell, which had also ceased, suddenly tolled again. Much more loudly, loud enough in fact to make something in the filing cabinet on the other side of the room rattle.
The sound repeated eleven more times, the dull tones fading away as if into a huge space, then stopped.
He looked around, feeling oddly cold. The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to be larger than he remembered.
There was the feeling of something momentous about to happen, causing him to almost hold his breath.
Thirty seconds, as marked by the ticking of the old clock on the end of his desk, passed one after another, until he shook himself. "Well, old boy, that was a disappointing waste of time."
"That would depend on what you were expecting to happen," a smooth male voice said from the corner of the room where the shadows cast by his desk lamp were deepest. William whirled around, shocked, then stared.
"Who are you?" he demanded. A form moved in the darkness, an impression of a tall figure barely visible. Something metallic glinted as the figure turned its head a little. He felt a sensation of fear go through him, wanting to turn the light around to point that way, but at the same time dreading what he might discover.
"I, William?" the voice asked. "I am he who you called by your operation of the clever little device there on your desk. I am one of those who wait for such calls, rare as they are, in eager anticipation for new companions in the never-ending search for sensation and experience far beyond anything you might comprehend."
The figure took a step forward, a pallid face over a black leather-clad body emerging into the brighter light. In the shadows behind it, further vague movement could be dimly discerned, slight sounds of creaking leather and clinking metal on the verge of audibility. The shadows themselves took on an aura of immense, unending depth.
William drew back, suddenly and terrifyingly aware that he had made a serious error of judgment.
The pale-faced man smiled oddly at him. "Why so timid, William? Is this not what you wanted? Not what you have toiled, hour after hour, day after day, to achieve? To unlock the puzzle-box takes dedication and effort, although I will admit it doesn't require all that much intelligence. Merely persistence. I admire that quality in a… new acquaintance."
He smiled, the dozens of shiny metal spikes driven into his skull at the intersections of the raw scars that lined his exposed skin in a grid of exposed flesh reflecting the light as he moved. "Such experiences we will have, you and I. I look forward to all the things I can teach you." The smile grew wider, past the point a man should be able to manage.
William knew this wasn't, despite appearance, a man. Whatever was lurking behind him was even less so.
"May I ask, before we proceed, what your own goals may have been in acquiring and opening the box, William?" the thing looking at him asked, the polite manner overlaid with menace and an air of horrifying assurance. "Merely for my own curiosity, you understand. It will make little difference."
"I..." William licked his lips. "I was seeking a cure."
"A cure?"
The scarified and pierced head tilted. "Ah. An inoperable, slow, and wasting disease. I understand. You ran out of options for a cure by your medical sciences and thought to find such through the box. Not an entirely absurd hope, I must say. Diseases will not be an issue where you are bound. Although you may at first wish otherwise." He smiled again. "That will pass."
Reaching for the box, William put his hand on it. The figure watching him raised a finger and wagged it.
"Too late, William. Far too late. I am here, and I only leave when I have..."
The creature suddenly stopped speaking, without warning, his head still tilted inquisitively. The faint smile that the otherwise impassive face had been wearing faded to nothing. He peered around, for all the world nervously, his sharp gaze penetrating the dimness of the room, until he appeared to slightly relax.
This did not cheer William. Anything that could worry such as was standing in front of him was surely even worse.
"Odd," the thing murmured, its baritone voice sounding ever so slightly concerned. "I thought..." He trailed off. "No matter. Undoubtedly a fading resonance from the box." Pacing forward, while William leaned as far back as he could in his chair, smelling blood and leather and things beyond his ken, the demon reached out for the box on the table, his hand stopping inches away and seeming to caress the air around it. "It is an old one. Not the usual device, one tainted by young Philip so many years ago. How fascinating. This is… pure. Undisturbed. I find myself wondering where it has been, we have never felt the call of this particular box before."
Stepping back, he lowered his hand, the unnerving smile returning to bloodless lips. "You have managed something few have, William. You have gained my personal interest. The reason I came myself, rather than send an associate. We will have much to discuss, and share, and learn, shall we not?"
Opening his mouth, the man in the chair emitted a slight croak from a dry throat. He swallowed, then repeated his attempt at speech. "I do not wish, on reflection, to avail myself of your services. Return whence you came." William swallowed again, harder, at the flash of anger that went through the infinitely deep dark eyes, before the demon smiled more widely.
"As I have said, it is far too late for such regrets and second thoughts. You. Are. Mine." He leaned down a little more with each word, as William pressed himself back into his chair, his heart hammering. "Now, I think I have indulged you far more than is fair. We must go." He straightened up, standing to one side and motioning to the shadows where he had appeared, which were now writhing slightly, the hints of motion more apparent. A slight sound of laughter echoed from that direction, along with what could have been a gasp of pain, as well as a wet sliding sound that made William's stomach churn.
"Come, my new friend, as I take you on a..."
Once more the thing trailed off, then whirled in a blur of motion, his leather robes flaring out, to stare at another corner of the room. William turned his head to see what he was looking at. There was a definite expression present now, one that was akin to… fear?
"You," the creature that was promising him something he was fairly sure he had no wish to experience, despite his looming fate, hissed in a voice containing malice and worry.
"Me," a new voice said, this one female, replied, the odd accent conveying a strange mix of irritation and amusement. "It's been quite a while. You're doing it again. That annoys me."
Behind the first arrival, the motion in the shadows had stopped dead. William would later swear he'd heard a gargling voice say, "Oh, bollocks," in tones of dread. It stuck in his mind as odd considering the likely source.
The latest uninvited, although that might be subject to interpretation, visitor to his study took a step forward, a tiny click of claws on the wooden floor past the edge of the rug sounding as it did so. He took in the details with wide eyes. It was even less human than the first arrival, at which it was glaring in a very annoyed fashion.
William stared at it, wondering what new demon this one could be. It, she, was a tall slender reptilian-appearing thing, wearing what looked for all the world to be a trench-coat, of very high quality, a long tail protruding from the rear. On her head a fedora was perched. He stared at it, then the lizard-like face under it, which was scowling impressively at the pale-faced manlike creature. Folded arms with blue-scaled hands, long talons on the slim fingers, gave the impression of a head-mistress expressing her displeasure to an unruly student.
"This does not concern you, Saurial," the pale man in black leather said, his voice almost sullen now, little of the supernatural assurance present at the moment.
"Oh, it doesn't, does it?" she replied silkily, the hissing accent lending a definite air of menace to the words, somehow dwarfing that projected by the first arrival, who leaned back apparently involuntarily. One claw-tipped finger extended, pointing at the now-quiescent box on the desk. All three of them looked at it. "You know where that came from?"
"I do," the demon said reluctantly.
"You know who made it?"
"You did. I know."
He was somehow managing to look guilty without his expression changing very much.
"I told you last time to stop hijacking the signal from my music boxes, remember? We had words. You and your weird little friends. I don't care what you do when you're at home, but you're not going to use my work to find victims, got it? Or do I have to come and make an example again?"
The leather-clad demon flinched. "That will not be necessary," he said in low tones. "We remember."
"Clearly not very well, or we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place," the lizard-thing snapped.
He dropped his eyes, his demeanor that of someone caught with his hand in the biscuit jar. William watched with amazement and wonder, with not a little fear added to the mix. What was this reptilian thing that it could worry what was clearly a demon of considerable power. Looking between then, he held his breath, hoping that somehow he might come out of this alive.
"Push off back where you came from and close the portal behind you. Leave my stuff alone, got it?"
"Yes, Saurial," the pallid man in black leather said, sounding like he was trying not to sigh in disappointment. The silky tones had been replaced with petulant ones.
"And less of the attitude. You know what I'll do..."
There was a very clear threat present.
He merely nodded this time. She flicked her fingers at him dismissively. "Run along, don't let the portal hit you in the back. Don't do this again, got me? I'll be watching. If I have to come back again you'll really be in trouble."
Turning without another word the creature walked into the shadowed corner and vanished, a certain tension going out of the room immediately. William didn't relax, though. The second creature turned to regard him closely.
"Do you make a habit of playing with dimensionally nested music boxes, or are you just bored?" she asked a little acidly, walking over and picking the device up. Quick motions, almost too fast to follow, reduced it back to its original form as William watched. She dropped it into her pocket. "I've been looking for that for weeks. Damn cultists, they're nearly as annoying a bunch of thieves as those Asgardians are. OK, let's see what we have going on here." The scaled face leaned down, meeting his eyes with her own glowing yellow ones from mere inches away, while he tried to think what to do, and understand what was happening.
Sniffing, she nodded. "Right, I get it. Nasty case of chronic lymphocytic leukemia you've got bubbling away there. Let's sort that out, I have other places to be tonight and I don't want to be late." She pulled a small object out of her other pocket, opened it, and removed a tiny white circle about half an inch across, which she slapped onto his forehead before he could move. The spot it hit went oddly numb as he recoiled in shock.
"What…?" he exclaimed, reaching up. The reptilian female caught his wrist in an impossibly strong grip.
"No, give it a moment to trigger," she commented, her gaze fixed on his forehead. A moment later she nodded, as feeling came back to his skin. "There we go. That should sort you out. You'll feel very hungry for a day or so but you'll be fine."
Letting his wrist go she stepped back, returning the case to her pocket. "Well, like I said, I have things to do and places to be. Nice to meet you, whoever you are. Try not to summon any more demons, a lot of them aren't as helpful as I am." She smiled at him, tipping her hat. "See you around. And thanks for finding my music box, that was a gift for my dad, until those damn cultists lifted it." She looked around, finding the wooden box the cube had been in, which made her look pleased as she picked it up. "Even found the gift case! Wonderful."
With an oddly cheerful wave she walked into the shadows on the other side of the room and vanished.
William sat in his chair for a very long time, looking at where she'd been, before he finally turned back to his desk and picked up his notebook. Flipping slowly through it, he perused the drawings and writing, before sighing heavily, getting up, and tossing it into the fire on the way to the telephone to call his doctor for a checkup in the morning.
He found himself rubbing his forehead absently and smiling a little, though.
Markus would find this interesting, assuming he believed any of it in the first place.