The Mekanikal Turk

8/14/2019 The Mekanikal Turk

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THE MEKANIKAL TURK

I stared into the flames until I felt my eyes would roast in their aching

sockets; until purple flare-bursts danced in my brain.

I wanted to be sure utterly, totally sure that this was how I wouldremember Slake Hall, when the jagged shadow of its eaves and turrets

and towers loomed up out of my nightmares. So I stood, fixated as the

navvies and breakers worked around me, stood while the leaping flames

came howling and roaring up out of the shattered chimneypots, and while

a rain of sparks fell like a starshower across the overgrown pleasure-

gardens.

I knew in my heart that it would not work; that I would always recall

the greasy air, thepressure, the underlying stench of the place. That and

the man who now had Slake Hall for his pyre if, by the end, he hadbeen a man at all!

Ah, but Im getting ahead of myself; here - let me fill your cup, let me

throw another log on the fire. The winters are so much colder now than

when I was young...

My name now, well, that doesnt matter. Im just a dusty old tutor, part

of the furniture! But back then they called me Nathaniel Price, and I was

a gentleman.

How far I have fallen, eh? All the way below stairs but scandal

couldnt follow me here, friend. Scandal, and the others who may have

been at my heels, aye...

This young fellow Price was a vainglorious fool, a spendthrift, a

libertine and a master of chess. I remember when I was him, young,

strong, with all my own teeth and a mind like a cut-throat razor! Back

then I could spend whole days in the little checkered world of the

chessboard, crossing swords with Russians and Frenchmen and Poles,

Prussians and Italians, Spaniards and Colonials... I even spent my nights

poring over a board by gaslight, composing strategies against far-away

players by mail.

No need for me to toil in some factory or dusty firm, for my father hadbeen knighted posthumously, and I had invested his hefty pension well.

The details of his sad demise were quietly hushed by the grandees of

Whitehall and the Palace; all I remember was being summoned to the

cold, drab office of the Headmaster at Saint Osberts School to be

informed that I had an hour to pack my belongings and be ready to leave.

Later I learned that he had been an agent of the Crown, stationed in

Paris during the bloody days of Robspierres reign of terror. One of his

fellow spies tasted the kiss of the guillotine; another fled before the mob

and arrived back in London in the belly of a fishing scow. The third wasdriven insane by the sights he had seen, and ended his days in St Mary of


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Bethlehems the now-infamous Bedlam madhouse. My father - the last

of this sad little group - was taken years later by a French assassins

knife, and lauded as a hero for foiling some kind of monstrous republican

plot.

That was when I threw myself into the deceptively simple world ofchess, a world which swallowed me up for twenty years. In the circles of

the game, my fame grew, and challengers would present themselves on

the doorstep of my club by the day, having traveled from all over the

Empire and beyond.

Which was why I was not surprised when the concierge of the club

came to me one afternoon, bearing on his salver the little calling card of

another hopeful chess-master.

But this name was different. This name cut through my fevered attention

as I hunched over yet another game for this was the name of the manwho had left Paris so ingloriously all those years ago, to fetch up on

Blackfriar's Steps covered in fish-scales and filth. He had been a spy, and

now, like me, he lived his life on the chessboard.

The name piqued my interest, and his servants odd request pricked my

not inconsiderable pride. And that is how I came to Slake Hall one

evening in winter, stepping down from the coach before the wrought-iron

gates in a halo of gaslamp light and powdery snow.

The manor house crouched black and unwelcoming behind a gnarled

wall of trees, only the tops of its ornate towers and innumerable chimneys

visible against the oppressive sky. The little valley held no village, no

farms no human soul, it seemed, but those who toiled in the grounds of

the manor. The coachman who had brought me there hastened away with

a crack of the whip as though the Devil himself dwelled behind those tall

black gates, set with the curious arms of Sir Josiah Harkewell a great

silver cogwheel on a red field.

I had not long to wait before a manservant came down from the house

to open the gate, though how he knew of my presence there I cannot

fathom. A vast black figure loomed out of the mossy tunnel between the

trees, jangling an immense gaolers ring in one hand, fumbling withunwieldy fingers for the right key. As he stepped into the little pool of

light cast by the gaslamps I made out his bent and misshapen form more

clearly, and flinched back in momentary fright. The hunch-backed giant

only smiled - a vacuous, drooling grin which left me in no doubt that God

had seen fit to make him a simpleton as well.

Still, a gentleman must comport himself with dignity, so I smiled

back, and waited while he wrenched the gates open. He shifted the ice-

bound iron with one hand, jerking it loose almost effortlessly. Then a

curious flicker passed across the servants lumpen features, as swift as theshadow of a hawk gliding over a sunlit field. Something seemed to


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crystallize in his milky blue eyes, and snap the slack muscles of his face

taut.

Welcome, welcome, young Mister Price. he said, the words echoingup out of his barrel chest as if from some subterranean deep. Uther here

is usually mute, you know, but he will carry your bags and show you tothe hall. I trust your journey was none too arduous?

I realized with a shock that this was the voice of Josiah Harkewell

himself!

Well, as you know chess is a game of wills as well as of wits. This little

opening gambit had certainly put me on edge, no doubt to my strange

opponents advantage.

Come, come! rasped the voice of my host, out of the mouth of his

monstrous servant. This Sending is costing me precious cogitation

pressure, so please, follow on. The Turk is waiting for you, and you willplay your game tonight.

As soon as those last words passed Uthers lips the malformed giant

stooped and hefted my heavy traveling chest across one shoulder, all the

animation going out of his doughy face. There was nothing for me to do

but follow him between the gates and into the dark woods, away from the

glow of the gas-lamps.

As I hurried to keep up with Sir Josiahs manservant even that little

light was extinguished, the flames snuffed out by some unseen hand.

Now the only light came from ahead of us, at the other end of the tunnel

of interwoven boughs and bearded moss through which I stumbled. It was

flamelight, the glow of countless furnaces and chimneys belching sparks

into the leaden sky, and it was accompanied by the sounds of industry.

How an old man like Josiah Harkewell could live amid the din of steam-

hammers and grinding mills and rumbling rollers I could not fathom, but

this was how he chose to use the fortune he had inherited. His grandsire

was by all accounts a wily old goat who had plundered half of India in his

youth. Now his ancestral seat was transformed into a seething foundry,

the old manor house grafted limpet-like to a black brick manufactuary

nearly thrice its size.I could just glimpse through the yawning gates of the 'factory the

figures of men slaving amid the noise and smoke, their movements jerky

and indistinct in the heat haze.

We passed through the overgrown ruins of a pleasure garden, planted

by some distant ancestor of Sir Josiah, its ornamental ponds dry and

cracked, its arbors and flowerbeds gone to weeds and rot. A pall of dirty

snow enshrouded everything, and everywhere drifted orange sparks from

the chimneys and furnaces, alighting like tiny insects on the dead

branches of trees.


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My host was there on the threshold to meet me; it seemed that the vast

mute Uther was his only house servant. I had expected him to be an old

man my father was fifty-five when his throat was cut by the

Republicans, and Harkewell had been his senior. But the man who stood

on the step in the grey ash-fall was not so much ancient as wellpreserved, his face putting me in mind of the embalmed dead of ancientAegypt. There was the bald shiny pate, the hook nose with its broken

veins, the sharp eyes set in deep black sockets . . .but his finery was not

scented bandages and gold. Instead he stood out in the bitter wind in a

quilted smoking jacket and silk Arabay trousers, soft Afghan slippers and

fingerless leather gloves. In his stick-thin fingers he held a pair of glasses

and a great cut-crystal decanter of ruby port.

Come in out of the cold, Mister Price! he called out to me as he

gestured with the bottle. This rotgut has been waiting for years in thecellars for just this occasion, and the Turk is getting impatient!

Impatient? I knew full well that the thing was but a clever machine,

and yet . . .

As I passed through the great iron-bound doors I was struck by a wave

of heat, followed closely by a sticky miasma, a foetid stench akin to a

tannery in high summer.

Good manners forbade that I mention it, but the oppressive fug

seemed to breathe in and out of the house as if from some monstrous

throat. No doubt it was the effluvia of all that industry which even now

shook the crumbling stones of Slake Hall.

Josiah pressed a glass brimming with port into my cold hands, his

emerald eyes twinkling in their deep sockets.

I suppose youre keen to begin, eh? Quite a challenge indeed, this

device which bested the Emperor Napoleon himself? And while he

smiled, I noticed that Harkewells bald pate and parchment-skinned brow

were beaded with sweat, and that his hands twitched like panic-stricken

animals.

Of course, thatmachine was a fraud, you know. My Turk is the

genuine article.All around us as he led me deeper into his bizarre demesne I could

hear the ticking of clockwork, the hissing of steam and the far-off

rhythmic thud of pistons. I felt sure that behind any one of the mahogany

wall panels I would find innumerable whirring and clicking escapements,

springs and gears slicing time to ribbons

Might I... might I rest for just a hour or two, Mister Harkewell? I

asked, sipping tentatively at the blood-red vintage in my glass. It was old

and rich, cloudy with sediment and powerfully intoxicating. The coach

ride from London was a long one, and the road in poor repair . . .just alittle time to compose myself, I pray?


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Time? Time you say? Ahh, we have none of that, Mister Price, none

whatsoever. We are here, and the game must begin precisely upon the

stroke of eleven!

Now I was sure that his good humor was a mere mask, stretched tight

over some deep duplicity. What waited beyond the black oak doors wenow approached, from behind which I could hear the sound of susurrating

steam and clicking gears? Fear made me pause before that dread portal,

but curiosity and pride made me grasp the handle and turn it, and

propelled be over the threshold into the truly bizarre.

For here was a palace from the Moslem East, a brass Alhambra

studded with pipes of burnished steel, draped with exotic silks and tiled in

creamy marble. And seated amid all this exotic finery was the machine I

had come to contest; not the original, which even now traveled the

Americas with its new owner Maetzel, but a far finer piece of work than Ihad ever seen before.

The original Turk had seemed a crude puppet when I watched it play

in Vienna, a thing of wood and cloth which paled in comparison to

Harkewells creation. Even silent in repose it looked half-alive, its eyes

hooded, its swarthy skin seeming to glow in the light of the hanging

lamps. Its long Seljuk mustachios were slicked with wax, its clothes

immaculate in their finery, layers of silk and samite and cloth-of-gold. It

seemed to be slyly watching me from under those heavy cantilevered lids,

a smirk on its wooden lips.

I was startled when Harkewell clapped his hands sharply, summoning

from among the hanging tapestries and curtains a pair of servants more

waxen and lifeless than the machine which held my attention. They were

identically attired in evening dress and bowler hats, each of which was

surmounted by the dial of a tiny clock.

Please, dont be alarmed. purred my host as the servants jerked and

twitched themselves across the room, bearing with them an immense

fitters wrench and a long, ribbed flex of hosepipe. These are not men,

but more of my clever automata Uther is the only mortal in my employ.

These toys are more than adequate for simple tasks, however . . .If I squinted my eyes just right I could make out the little flaws and

joints of artifice which are missing from Gods creations. These mustbemen of clockwork no sentient human would move with such maladroit

clumsiness. None but the living corpses who staggered and groaned their

way through the nightmare bowels of Bedlam but I put that horrific

memory from my mind with some haste. I had to sharpen my senses for

the game to come.

Now the slack-faced servants connected their pulsing hose to the

cabinet which supported the body of the Turk, tightening bolts andlocking the pipe firmly in place. Harkewell rubbed his hands together in


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cadaverous mirth as his pet machine came to life, slowly at first, its

eyelids fluttering and its hands clenching spasmodically, then quickening,

wakening, the hiss of compressing gasses and whirring gears filling theroom.

Then its eyes snapped open with a flash like phosphorous flares, and Iwas transfixed by the burning blue emptiness there revealed! Like holes

punched through the dusky wood of the things mannequin head, staring

off into the hazy azure of a burnt desert sky...

Only for a second I blinked once, dizzied and mazed, then the

searing blue light was gone. Its eyes were nothing but tiny mirrors set in

orbs of mother-of pearl disquieting, but hardly supernatural. Or so I

would have thought had I not turned to see the look on Josiah

Harkewells face.

It was the attitude of a dervish communing with his god, the rapt,predatory glee of one of AlamutsHashishin contemplating paradise inthe edge of his blade. If it were not so patently absurd I would have

believed that he worshipped the machine, in that instant.

Capital! Capital! he crowed, throwing manners to the wind and

taking a heroic swig from his decanter of port. The rosy liquor dripped

down his chin in runnels as he turned back to me. He appears to be ready

for you, Mister Price. I hope you fare better than the last few who have

faced him Im afraid our Mussulman friend has little patience for

lackwits and losers!

One of the clockwork servants returned with a low stool of ivory-

inlaid teak and placed it before the Turk, who even now was puffing on

his long-stemmed pipe and drumming the fingers of his free hand on the

table with impatience. Harkewell had cleverly run a little bass tube up the

machines arm and into the pipe, channeling some of the smoke from the

hidden engines below up and out of its bowl.

Never fear, Mister Harkewell. I replied with all the bravado I could

muster. This poor device has not seen the likes of me, Id wager! When

Im done, perhaps you can remodel him into a dressmakers dummy.

Well, it was only a little jest, but the look on my hosts face made itseem as if Id cursed his sainted mother! Even worse, I could swear that

the machines bushy horsehair brows beetled together in a threatening

scowl, for all the world as if it had understood my words.

I hope your wit serves you well, Price. spat Sir Josiah, turning on his

heel. He might just see to it that you keep playing until you win, and heis by no means an indulgent tutor.

Something twisted his face then; rage, I think and remorse, not

directed at me, but at the scowling Turk itself. Again he clapped his

hands, bringing the heads of the clockwork servants up and around asthough they were tethered to strings.


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Number Three, Number Twelve you may commence activation!

With that the two tottering automata began to turn brass cranks set in

the mosaic-tiled walls, and the room cracked apart.

The ornate arabesques and hanging tapestries parted like a curtain,

revealing behind them a black and cavernous space in which metalgleamed and twinkled.

But as they worked, stooped to their task like galley slaves, something

caught my eye. Number Twelve, his face devoid of all emotion heaved

mightily at his crank, rolling back half of the back wall by sheer muscular

force. And while my mind assured me that no mortal man was equal to

that task, I noticed beads of sweat pricking his brow. Worse - Number

Three, as waxen-faced and clumsy as his brother sported a fresh red stain

on one of his white kid-gloves. Some kind of hydraulic fluid? Or had the

bolts pinched when he turned his pipe-wrench, breaking the skin, spillingprecious blood?

I watched as a pendulous droplet fell, splashing crimson across the

milky tiles. My eyes were drawn to that tiny speck, falling in slow

motion, shivering in the leaping flames of gaslights.

It was the smallest thing, but it made a lie of all around it. Down and

down, shattering against the marble floor, reflecting in its slick red

surface a million points of silver.

I heard the music then or a sound which was notmusic but the rawwhite bones of it, a sighing, humming noise which slithered through my

brain, slowing the world to a crawl. With it came a foul exhalation of the

sulphur stench I had endured before, and a feeling of intense pressure, as

if a great metal gauntlet had clamped its fingers about my body.

Unbidden, the ravings of the Dead Man of Bedlam came back to me, the

scrawls and sketches of poor Matthews who had come back from Paris

crazed.

Sudden Death Squeezing otherwise termed Lobster Cracking. Thisis an external pressure of the magnetic atmosphere around the personassailed . . .

I whipped my head around in search of Harkewell, to beg hisassistance, to beg for release. But the room seemed to have gaped wide

with the horrid mechanical action of the leering automata at their pump-

handles, and now he was nothing but a thin streak of shadow painted

across the tiled wall, a far-off distortion behind the steam haze.

Slower now, fighting the immense pressure, struggling to gulp down

lungfuls of air as thick as treacle - and the Turk was in front of me, a huge

looming presence, the wall behind it peeled away like the skin from some

ghastly anatomical specimen.

Within, a heaving wrack of machinery, a tangle of engines locked inunnatural copulation, pistons rising and falling like insect legs, wheels


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and belts humming with heat and power. In that grinding mill of sharp

clockwork I could see the future of man; slave to his brute mechanisms,

mortal flesh usurped by steel.

There, and in the mocking eyes of the Turk, once again razored circles

of sunburned blue.All of this tore through my fevered brain in the second it took for a

single drop of blood to fall and shatter and settle on the pale marble tiles.

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder, cool and steady, and the swelling

anti-music tapered off with a wheezing hiss. The room was no bigger, the

Turk still just a cleverly wrought wooden machine, the clockwork

automatons still at their posts, bereft of sweat or blood.

Dear me, Price, you seem to have taken that drink rather hard!

chuckled Josiah Harkewell as he helped me to my stool. More kick to

the old vintage than I thought, what? Never mind, never mind Ill haveUther bring you a pot of coffee. You had quite a turn there, young man!

The machine, the machine in the walls..." I mumbled, my tongue

seeming two sizes too big for my dry and aching mouth. Just like the

one in Matthews folio - the Loom...

The look of concern writ large across my hosts face took on a cast of

deep distaste. Please, calm yourself Nathaniel. There is no need to call

up ghosts best forgotten tonight. Especially poor James, God rest him.

And while the mention of his doomed, departed colleague seemed to

plunge him into melancholy, I couldnt help but notice the way

Harkewells eyes narrowed, boring into those of the Mekanikal Turk as if

watching for them to flip from pale white mother-of-pearl to searing blue.

What you see in that little portal my toys have opened is merely the

device which runs your adversary. he said, his long fingers working

insistently at the knotted muscles of my shoulders beneath my coat.

Akin to Mister Babbages famed Analytical Engine, but with some

modifications of my own. I call it a Steam Cogitator, but of course all it

can do is play the noble game of chess. True originalthought isimpossible for a mere collection of gears and pushrods, alas.

His smile was a cutout, a blind, as false as whores kindness, but theimplications of his lie spun past me like smoke.

As those dexterous hands kneaded my flesh I could actually feel the

memories evaporating from my mind. There had been no blood, no hymn

of mechanical noise, no great engine of meshing wheels with a mind the

size of a continent, leaning in on me with foul intent . . . no doubt it had

been the strain of the journey, the potency of the wine, the strange, mirror

gaze of the Mekanikal Turk. James Matthews had been a derelict lunatic,

and his tales of a mind-bending device were artifacts of his madness.

There was no sound in this room which could be construed as themagnetic howl of the Air Loom - only the fevered clicking and hissing of


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the machine behind the wall as it extended a single spinning steel shaft

from the portal Harkewells slaves had opened, a phallic thing tipped with

whirring gears.

Softly, now, gently young Nathaniel. purred the oily voice of Josiah

in my ear. He is fully awake, and the clock is about to strike eleven.Time to play the game as you were born to.

Then the spinning shaft plunged into the wooden back of the Turk like

an assassins dagger, and it jerked upright, its eyes staring wide and white

as the Steam Cogitator took control. I knew it was nothing but a clever

device, but that moment was somehow more horrific than any of the

mortal deaths I had ever witnessed more horrible than the sound of a

felons neck snapping as he danced on the end of a gallows rope.

Aye, at that moment the old Fatal Nevergreen of Tyburn would have

been a welcome sight!I could all too easily imagine those whirling tines grinding into my

own living spine, making me dance to the tune of James Matthews

frightful Air Loom...

I felt Harkewells hands rise from my shoulders, and my eyes went to

the ordered ranks of chess pieces before me. There was a world I could

understand. And I would be damned if I let a mere machine rob me of my

honor on the field of battle.

He is magnetized. You can begin.

Harkewells words seemed to come in from far away as the light

faded out from the periphery of the ornate chamber, slippery shadows

crowding in until only the chessboard was illuminated.

Across the board the Mekanikal Turks mirror eyes flashed in the

gloom, and his free hand stroked his mustachios as if he were deep in

thought. Instinct took over, then, and I brought my hand down to make

the first move, to bring my first pawn out of the ranks.

Josiah Harkewell, his toys, his machines, and his blighted home all

fell away. So too the ghost of James Matthews raving and gibbering in

my head, a shadowman recalled from my last visit to the cursed asylum.

There was only black and white, now. Only strike and counterstrike, feintand maneuver and sacrifice.

Somewhere in the distance - outside - the thud and howl of machinery

changed its pitch, and a ball of greasy fire leaped up above the treetops.

Cogs spun and meshed and clicked, pistons wheezed and groaned.

Numbers were ground through the mills, and fed down the gleaming shaft

into the Turks back, up through its arm, and to the board.

With a tiny click of ebony on marble, the battle was joined.

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Hours later I awoke, blinking a tendril of acrid smoke from my eyes.

The haze of deep sleep pressed down on my brain, although my body

was wracked with weariness. It was as if I had labored for hours in some

kind of hypnotic slumber and indeed, as my eyes cleared this was veryclose to the truth.

The shadowy figure of the Mekanikal Turk loomed out of the

darkness across the board, puffing on his long ceramic pipe. His eyes,

tiny mirrors of flashing silver in the gloom. His no, damn itITs facewas contorted into a carven scowl, its stiff varnished fingers tapping

incessantly against the nearly empty board.

Few of the little soldiers of the chessboard remained standing on either

side, and my gaze flitted from one to another, marking attacks and

defenses, paths of movement, scrabbling for a strategy . . .But it was far too late for that. It seemed that I had already won.

With the slow inevitability of unfolding aeons I watched my own hand

reach out into the circle of light, clasping in pale fingers a tiny ivory

bishop.

The Turks king fell like a lightning-struck old oak, toppling in greasy

slow motion as smoke coiled thick and burning across the checkered

squares.

Check and mate. came the voice of Josiah Harkewell behind me.

There was something strangely wrong with the harmonics of that

voice, something which grated across my mind like jagged fingernails.

The echo of hot, crushing anti-music, an insinuation of boiling grease and

cesspit rot ...

I turned then, to confront him, to demand the prize he had promised if

I defeated his automaton and then to storm from Slake Hall and into the

night. The dismal weather and the dark woods were suddenly nothing to

me hellfire, even the purse was of no concern. All I wanted was to put

many miles and stout walls between myself and that reedy, artificial

voice.

As I looked up at him, my fear was doubled and redoubled, racked upto gibbering terror.

Harkewell did not stand behind me at all he hung suspended from

the floor, his feet in their absurd felt slippers dangling uselessly. His head

flopped to one side like that of a stringless marionette, but his hands were

outstretched, hooked into claws, reaching out for me blind and twitching

as he hovered in, hooked from above.

A great ribbed tube like the one which animated the Turk was clamped

down to the top of his skull, bolted into his flesh and bone with great

brass wingnuts. Fresh blood oozed from around the join, trickling overhis desiccated skin in thin rivulets.


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It was that throbbing mechanical tentacle which bore him up, which no

doubt gave the illusion of life to what must surely be his reanimated

corpse.

Check and mate, Nathaniel. And I dont just mean in your little

game!Harkewells breath was a cloying fug of sweetness and decay, hissing

from his mouth like a blast of steam from a ruptured piston. Once again

the face of James Matthews floated up out of my darkest childhood

memories

Putrid effluvia of the cesspit, of mortification and the plague . . .Egyptian Snuff, attar of roses and of carnations - these are thepreparations the assassins make for assailing the victims of the AirLoom.

His filth-streaked visage leered and screamed at me from behindrusted bars, as his body lurched and heaved mindlessly against the heavychains and straps which held him down.

Perhaps a part of his mania, his insane strength and determination

came through to me, then. Or perhaps having seen the earthly hell of

Bedlam when I was just a child had tempered me to horrors which would

otherwise have unmanned the strongest and bravest. To this day I have no

idea how I managed to throw off the suffocating pressure and gnawing

fear which flowed from the husk of Harkewell in waves, but I stood, and

with hands suddenly as strong as those of angels I tore the chess board

from its mountings. Ten stone of inlaid marble. I brought it around in a

flat, howling arc to smash into the cadavers jaw, a concussion which sent

us both sprawling.

Well, Im no brawler now and I surely wasnt much rougher back

then, but that blow would have staved in any normal mans skull as if it

were an eggshell. Harkewell just gripped his twisted lower jaw with both

hands and snapped it back into place, grinding his remaining teeth amid

the welter of blood. An ugly craterous contusion had stretched his

features on one side of his leering face, while the skin hung slack and

waxen on the other.Really, young Price - is that any way to treat your gracious host? he

mouthed, nothing issuing from his lips but a froth of slick red bubbles.

The voice, I realized, had issued from behind me from the trap-door

mouth of the Mekanikal Turk.

Im afraid that my current figurehead is a little past his expiry. Ive

had to keep him tottering on for the last few months, but as you can see,

hes fading fast.

Just on the edge of my hearing I felt a noise that had filled the entire

hall drop away, creating a great rolling wave of silence which broke overme like smothering velvet.


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And with the sound stripped from the background of my thoughts I

could see Sir Josiah Harkewell as he truly was dead for weeks before Ihad ever even received his summons.

The grinning cadaver was mummified in loops and coils of wire,

bolted into his bones and pinned through his pale, bloodless skin to workhis dangling limbs. Tiny eyelets routed the slim silver cables down his

arms to actuate his grasping fingers, while still more studded his shaven

pate, attached to cruel, barbed hooks which operated his facial features.

Yet in those eyes, their lids tugged open by filaments of steel I could still

see a desperate flicker of sentience, a spark of piteous regret.

Now we have no need of him. Now we haveyou, Mister Price! Anicely pre-programmed specimen, and so young and strong! You will be

our human face for the next century or so time enough to bring our

plans to fruition.The face of the Turk seemed to grin in triumph, its wooden peg teeth

bared in a hideous rictus, its eyes once again blazing cerulean orbs which

seemed to bore into my very soul.

I did not have to see the lumbering forms of Harkewells the

machines servants closing in on me to know that flight was my only

salvation. I strained with every fiber of my being to turn and run, but the

noisome stench and pressure were upon me again, accompanied by the

wheezing, screeching music which the Turk summoned up to addle my

burning brain.

It is no use trying to escape, Nathaniel. hissed the silk-clad

mannequin in a voice of grotesque intimacy. Your knowledge is your

weakness the game of chess itself! A code burned into your mind, and

one you have patterned yourself with willingly! That is why I have taken

this form to test you. Not for your intellect, but for your level of

indoctrination. By the code written across your soul I control you!The music swelled, bearing me aloft on its peaks, jagged edges

grinding through my head, and I knew the truth of the vile things words.

Behind the flickering veil of my rational thoughts I could hear the click

and slide of ivory on marble as the Steam Cogitator pulled my strings assurely as it did those of Josiah Harkewell.

Still I strained to break the mesmeric shackles which bound me to the

spot an effort akin to stopping a thundering freight-train with my bare

hands. The hideous floating corpse of Harkewell was almost upon me, his

vacant eyes rolling as his bloodless talons scrabbled at my throat.

Foolish flesh-thing! howled the Turk, gesticulating wildly with his

blazing opium pipe. How can you hope to contest with my will? I can

crush you with your own terrors! I felt the hands of Harkewell clench

around my skull like the jaws of some implacable vise then - andsomething much worse. I felt the presence of the Turk in my mind, sifting


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through my darkest memories, the blackest fears of my childhood,

conjuring up specters I had long thought laid to rest.

As its piston-driven mechanical laughter echoed with the hideous un-

music through my bones the walls seemed to melt away, the floor to

dissolve into choking mist. Off in the stinking dark things fromprimordial chasms of the mind stalked, red-clawed and slavering, while

closer still phantoms of a higher breed congregated in swirls of venomous

smoke the specters of death and disease, the fear of damnation and

loneliness...

There was a vast grinding sound, as of the lid shoved rudely from

some cyclopean tomb, and I felt the Turk and its vast mechanical mind

pluck from deep within me a vision of dread that I had tried to erase for

decades. I knew - from the very start perhaps - which nightmare the

mechanical fiend would choose to subject me to. It was the one whichdrove me to forsake Christ and his church, to embrace the cold sterility of

chess and the succor of the bottle.

Now the bars were forming across my eyes, now the sickly-sweet and

putrid stench of Slake Hall gave way to the reek of unwashed flesh and

ordure. I heard the rattle and scrape of rusting chains, gibbering laughter

in far-off rooms, and I knew immediately which corner of my mind I was

bound up in. The machine had flung me back through time twenty years

or more, to when I huddled at my fathers side in the dread corridors of St

Marys of Bethlehem, there to meet with the wretched James Tilley

Matthews.

If you have never had the misfortune to visit that benighted place then

I envy you your ignorance. Even at the tender age of seven I could see

that the so-called hospital was the antithesis of a place of healing it was

little more than a cruel prison for people guilty only of a terrible disease.

Now the sounds and smells of that man-made hell assailed me from all

sides, knitting together from a black miasma of fears and memories to

overwhelm my mind. It was as if I were a wraith, drifting aimlessly down

those twisted corridors, through endless vortices of shadows and screams

while the hissing, panting, moaning and sobbing of the damned beatagainst my head like hammer blows.

Then the door. The old oak door with its bands of iron, crusted with

feces and blood. The little hatch which snapped open with a sound like

the snick of the guillotine to reveal a jaundiced eye set in bruised and

swollen flesh, rolling and twitching. The gaolers baton thrust into that

yellowed orb, the screaming and gnashing of teeth as the door was

thrown open. My father manhandling the baton-wielding thug away, his

careworn face split by an animalistic snarl.

It was a pit which even Lucifer in all his cruelty would not have madefor the vilest sinner. And crouched in the centre of the room, pinned by


15/27


16/27

crossed Arabic swords, their intricately carved blades beckoning me to

frenzy.

If only the demon machine I opposed had possessed a face, so I could

witness its surprise! To think, a skinny little whelp more brains than

brawn hefting an Ottoman scimitar as long as his arm! What a doomed,quixotic figure I must have cut had there only been human eyes there to

see me.

I could feel the sound of the Air Loom in my bones as its malevolent

music roared up and down the scales, building to a mind-shattering

crescendo. I knew that if the demonic sound stripped me of my anger then

I would have nothing left to oppose the grim Cogitator, and that I would

become one of its bloody puppets, strung up like Harkewell.

My fingers closed around the handle of the sword, and the noise cut

out as if the terrible Loom had been obliterated. Once again a rolling pealof silence filled Slake Hall like choking velvet, and once again it peeled

away a layer of illusion as if tearing a scab from reality.

There was no fanciful eastern weapon in my hand, but a great notched

cleaver of rusted iron. And the chamber of the Mekanikal Turk was no

palace - it was a soot-crusted cavity, a workshop of nightmares strewn

with withered chunks of flesh and broken machinery. Harkewell, his eyes

rolling in their blackened sockets was a marionette wraith, jerking

through the foetid air toward me on a hangmans rope of wires and

chains. The servants were little more than corpses bolted together with

rods and gears, their rotting faces slack and lifeless.

The only living thing amid the smoke and ruin was the Turk itself,

connected by its steel umbilical to a vast, throbbing presence which

lurked behind the far wall. Life, so drained from the poor once-human

things who assailed me seemed to burn like a kerosene flame about the

vile machine, its robes crisp and gold-edged gleaming, its face carven

from oiled wood as mellow and rich as soft, vital flesh. Blue fire danced

in its eyes, filled with precise, mathematic malice.

I had no idea how, then and there, but I knew that I must destroy the

foul device that if I failed that it would only lure some other poor foolinto its trap. For who would believe my tale who would be able to see

past the glamour of the Air Loom but one who could hear the voice of

James Matthews in his head? And with only the scrawlings of a madman

as proof any court in the land would have me thrown into the pits of

Bedlam rather than take my accusations against Sir Josiah seriously.

There was no time for careful strategy, no time to plan ahead move for

move as I had trained myself to do in the little world of chess. This was

battle unrefined by rules or etiquette, and as the first automaton came

shambling toward me I gritted my teeth and swung the cleaver like awoodsmans axe, shearing through sinew and steel in one mighty stroke.


17/27

The second fell to my backhand, its head lopped off cleanly and I

silently thanked the sports master of Saint Osberts for teaching me to bat

at cricket!

The mechanical corpses were dry-rotten, mummified things, and the

weapon I possessed was more than capable of splitting them asunder. Ifancied that the whining and howling of gears behind the walls took on a

new and more fevered pitch as the first of the Steam Cogitators pawns

fell perhaps it relied on the brain-curdling powers of the Air Loom to

trap its victims, and one who fought back was new and frightening

experience for it!

I certainly hoped as much, for now through doors which swung open

in the cobwebbed corners of the hall spilled a veritable army of the

clockwork damned, their bronze-tipped talons hooked and their dead eyes

promising oblivion. Above them all swung the gibbering thing which hadbeen Josiah Harkewell, his mouth open in a silent scream as his steel

umbilical clattered along a set of brass rails amid the ceiling girders.

It still seems impossible, what I did then, but terror and rage make

giants of men soldiers tell tales of it, of how a single man can lift a

sundered cannon from a crushed comrades legs, how a lone warrior can

hold off a horde of foes with cold anger alone. However it happened, the

world slowed even further, and with the utmost clarity I saw the exact

point at which I must strike, the coupling of the pipes and chains and

sparking wires which bore Harkewell aloft. I felt that my father and

James Matthews were with me then in spirit, strengthening my arm to

send the chipped and corroded blade of my weapon sizzling through the

air. I sidestepped and spun like a matador, the cleaver ringing in my

numb hands, and the umbilicus shattered, spraying noisome fluids and

riven links of chain. The abused body of Josiah Harkewell rolled to a halt

at my feet, smeared with dust and soot, a wretched thing which should

not have lived. And yet still the weakest flickering of vital fire filled his

deep-set eyes I knew at once that the hold of the machine over him was

broken.

Nathaniel... Price... he wheezed, each breath an agony. You shouldnot have come here, but you did. You have fallen into my trap, lad, but

forgive me... you have answered my prayers...

How I wanted to twist the ragged stump of my iron cleaver in his

withered face, in that moment! How I loathed him for what he had

created, what he had done...

But how I pitied what he had become.

Now his feeble hand was clutching at the hem of my trousers, his eyes

imploring, but there was no time to pay him any heed. The legions of the

Mekanikal Turk were closing in all around us, their hands grasping, theirteeth exposed in a hundred funerary grins. Brute strength would avail me


18/27

nothing against their overwhelming numbers, and even now I could feel

myself weakening, the hot pulse of anger turning to ashen dread within

me.

If you prayed to see me die, Harkewell, then indeed, your entreaties

have been heard. I spat down at the living carcass at my feet. And maythe Devil take you for your treachery!

No... You dont understand! he croaked, holding out one trembling

hand in supplication. Nobody else would have suspected all that was

being plotted here nobody else would know about the Air Loom or how

to break its power!

He was gasping for breath now, clearly on the threshold of death.

I know your suspicions, Nathaniel. he said as he curled up on

himself, seeming to shrink like a scrap of paper cast into a furnace. Only

you would have struck me down me and not the damnable Turk!Seams and stitches in his crumbling flesh were splitting open as hespoke, his whole body unraveling, wires parting with the twang of broken

harp-strings. A mess of clockwork and pulsing, blackened organs spilled

from his sundered trunk, slick in a pool of spreading oil and blood.

The clutching claws of the automaton-men were at my throat now,

their crypt-stench and kerosene breath all around me. As the tormented

soul of Josiah Harkewell finally fled its fleshly prison I steeled myself to

fight to the last.

But fate, it seemed, had other purposes for me. Indeed, had I fallen

into the clutches of those ghouls I would no doubt even now be the

human face of Slake Hall, a mummy stuffed full of mainsprings and

gears!

As I took up my stance above the broken body of Josiah Harkewell the

wall behind me erupted outward in a spray of shattered masonry and

splintered timber. Great jagged chunks of brick and oak scythed through

the air, passing over my head as I ducked down, striking the automaton

horde and knocking many from their feet.

Wild-eyed, I turned to face this new and terrifying threat, the useless

stub-end of my cleaver clutched in shaking hands. Whatever haddemolished the wall would surely reduce me to a pulp in instants!

From out of the cloud of dust and smoke came an anguished voice

like that of an infant, but deeper, filled with uncomprehending pain.

FFF...FFREEE! MASTER! IM... FREE!

There in the gaping hole in the wall was the hunch-backed figure of

Uther the hulking manservant who had met me at the gates what

seemed like an eternity ago.

Now his huge hands pawed in anguish at his misshapen head, and

tears rolled lugubriously down his face. A flash of comprehension struckme suddenly he had been enslaved to Harkewell, not the machine! And


19/27

now, with his master little more than a husk of skin and dust and wire, he

was free again. Never had a I seen a slave greet his emancipation with

such grief.

A finger as wide around as my wrist was leveled accusingly at the

gaggle of machine-men before us.You.... you! The Masters little toys! Youve been bad. Youve

been ... very naughty!Despite my grip on the cold iron of the shattered cleaver I could hear

the sighing and howling of the Air Loom, and I could smell the rolling

pall of hot foetor which it exhaled, as its great magnetic vortices tried in

vain to sink their hooks into Uthers mind. Perhaps it was his unfortunate

condition, his childlike simplicity. Or perhaps it was his anger and

incomprehension which saved him from that fell assailment.

Whichever, he stooped and swept up Josiah Harkewells desiccatedbody with one shovel-sized hand, curling the other into an implacable

callused fist.

It was with no little satisfaction that I saw the hideous trap-door

mouth of the Mekanikal Turk snap open in simulated horror.

Then Uther was among its slaves like a terrier in a pit of rats, his

mighty blows staving in heads and shattering ribs as he bore up his poor

dead master over one shoulder. The pitiable brute was still weeping

openly as he went about his grisly work, reducing a hundred tottering

automata to shards and scraps in a matter of seconds.

And you, little wooden man. You are the naughtiest of all! he

whispered, coming to a halt before the polished mahogany altar of the

Turk. The Master is resting now, but I know what he would do with a

wicked wooden man like you... INTO THE FURNACE!

There was no denying the expression of stark mortal terror which

contorted the puppets face at that moment by God, perhaps it really

was alive! If so, then the agony Uther was about to visit upon it would be

horrific but deserved.

The hunchbacks fist came up like the draw of a great steam-hammer,

ready to pound the Turk to matchwood, and then, faster than blinking, itvanished.

The little desk with its clockwork innards burst apart as Uthers blow

smote it in two, but the Mekanikal Turk was already in the air, blown

from its perch by a blast of pressurized steam. As it flew I watched four

jointed brass legs unfold from within its hollow chest, claw tips clicking

into place as it landed in a shower of sparks. Four deep grooves were left

smoking in the stone floor. With a chatter of gears and a hiss of escaping

gasses the terrible machine picked its way around in a circle, focusing its

cerulean eyes upon its tormentors.


20/27

Disconnected from its mother machine, it could only speak one word

the same dry reedy utterance with which the original Turk had concluded

its games.

Echec! spat the machine, as a pair of linked revolvers popped out of

its chest, their hammers cocking back with a tiny snicking sound.Echec!

It moved like a crippled spider, jerky and unstable, but slowly backing

away toward the hole in the wall, where a hive of whirling gears and

thudding pistons still moved in a pall of shadows.

As we stood, mesmerized, the wall hinged open like a great maw, its

teeth the innumerable tines of rolling cogwheels, and the cursed Turk was

through the gap, its brass claws clattering across the metal catwalks of the

workshop beyond.

At once Uther strode forward to the gap, bracing his twisted backagainst one half of the hidden door and his free hand against the other.

Pipes buckled and rivets flew like grapeshot as the machine battled with

his mighty muscles in a vain attempt to shut the portal.

Pleassssse... Mister Price! he hissed, as veins stood out on his

bullish neck. Take the Master. Hell know what to do. Hell know how

to stop it!

Well, the thing draped across the giant manservants shoulder was not

likely to be any help at all, but how could I argue? The valiant Uther had

saved my life, and dispelling his delusion would only cause him further

grief. There was little time, I could see the door was straining closed,

inch by inexorable inch, and once it shut we would be trapped. Who

knew what horrors the Steam Cogitator could unleash then?

So I took the almost weightless husk of Harkewell from his hand, and

bearing him in my arms like a sleeping child I ducked under the arch of

Uthers body and into the naked brain of the machine.

*

It was dark within the chamber of the Steam Cogitator. Coalfire glowcast looming shadows and picked out each surface with violent red. The

heat of banked-up furnaces and drifting sparks made the murky place feel

like the pits of hell, while all about moved the innards of the machine

belts and wheels, cogs and cables and chains, ratcheting escapements and

squealing worm-drives, pawls and screws. The heat was insufferable, and

sweat ran down my face in sheets, blurring my eyes as I stumbled through

a gauntlet of flying shuttles and pumping beams, the dried-up remains of

Josiah Harkewell in my arms.

Surely there was some way to stop this vast device a way whichwouldnt involve me being crushed between rolling gears or scalded by


21/27

searing steam! I staggered between mortal dangers like a drunken fool,

barely avoiding being flattened or incinerated at every turn, always

searching for a point of vulnerability where I could strike. Once or twice,

through the haze of steam and salt sweat I fancied I caught sight of the

Mekanikal Turk, scuttling like a poisonous spider through the shadows.I have no idea how long I wandered amid the hiss and roar and chatter

of the Steam Cogitator my memory of that nightmarish episode is a blur

of razor-sharp cogwheels, endless fields of them ticking back and forth in

rows, a vast sea of winking oiled metal seething with life. I blundered

along brass catwalks above the grinding wheels, closing in on the source

of a sound which drove me like a lash, which dug into my mind with

steely fingers despite my grip on the iron stump of my cleaver.

It stood under a dome of soot-blackened glass, its pipes like that of a

great church organ rearing up toward the heavens, translucent pillars ofcrystal writhing with trapped energies. Cyclonic spirals of lightning

scrabbled against the walls of the pipes, rising and falling as blasts of

noisome gas were vented, producing a chorus of moans and shrieks like a

symphony of torture. It was the very centre of Slake Hall, of the machine,

and of my waking nightmare the Air Loom itself.

With the brain-power of a single soul behind it, this device could drive

men mad, control their emotions and their thoughts, sculpt their dreams...

but for Josiah Harkewell this had not been ambitious enough.His Air Loom was playing itself, the keys of its great ivory control

board moving as if caressed by ghostly fingers while an endless loop of

creamy white paper unspooled from one side of the polished teak console.

Innumerable tiny holes were punched through the paper, as if the whole

cruel device was only some saloon player piano, and it sucked in loops

and coils of it greedily from where it spewed out of the Cogitators maw

a clattering press which punched out the holes faster than my eyes

could comprehend.

With artificial thought powering it, this immense instrument could

probably enslave all of London all of England! James Matthews

sketches had been of a small, bureau-sized machine, but this monstrositywas big enough to fill a cathedral. Any thought of smashing it asunder

with my bare hands fell away as I stood before its forest of glittering

pipes, their tops wreathed in mist high above.

A confusion of brass dials jutted from the console of the Loom, and in

addition to the hissing, ever-shifting keys there were an array of levers

and pedals sliding back and forth under their own power. There was still

an operator's chair, however a handsome buttoned-leather wingback

seat which seemed out of place amid the stark, stripped machinery.

Keeping a tight fist about my cold iron talisman I gently laid Harkewell


22/27

down on his throne, a grim caricature of how he would have appeared in

life.

My eyes scanned the dials for a clue as to how the whole damnable

edifice could be shut down calculation speed, pressure,

temperature, sending radius it was all alien to me.All but a single part of the machine which I could place with unerring

accuracy.

There amid the creaking bellows and heaving pistons was a pair of

brass balls, spinning one around the other at the end of a bell-shaped

copper fixture. The pressure dial was linked to this device by a slender

tube, and rising above the spinning balls was a thick corrugated hosepipe

leading up and up amid the steam, to a great vent in the workshop wall. It

was the governor, the regulating valve which kept the pressure of the

whole system in check.At once I knew exactly what I had to do.

I gently wrapped Harkewells dry fingers around the mechanism,

stopping the spinning balls in their endless rotation. His head lolled to

one side, limp and lifeless, but his eyes twinkled, dried-up buttons like

drops of volcanic glass set deep in his metal-studded skull. The needle on

the machines pressure dial immediately twitched up toward the red, and

through the meshwork floor I could see an even larger governor, its

spheres the size of footballs, grinding to a halt. All through the workshop

of the Cogitator steam began to vent, and the high-pitched whine of gases

under terrible pressure filled the air.

Soon enough the great furnaces which drove the machine would be

blown apart, and hopefully the ensuing conflagration would melt the

whole demon engine down to slag! So, leaving my erstwhile host with his

mummified fist clamped around the safety valve I turned to make my

escape from Slake Hall - only to find myself confronted by the muzzles

of twin wide-bore revolvers, and a pair of eyes carven from shimmering

mother-of-pearl.

The Turk was silent, immobile, and for a second I dared to hope that

whatever infernal clockwork had powered it had finally run down.Gingerly I took a step to the left, toward a staircase spiraling down into

the gloom. With an enormous crack of thunder the left pistol spoke, its

muzzle-flash lighting the hideous wooden mask of the Turk like the face

of a demon. The handrail behind me was torn away, spinning off into

clouds of steam and sparks. Slowly, my heart pounding in my throat, I

turned to face the murderous machine.

With a clatter of brass on polished wood the Turk moved crabwise

around me, keeping its guns trained on my head. Once again it was under

the power of its steam-driven overmind; a fat bundle of cables and tubescame down from the ceiling into its back. Now those cruel and soulless


23/27

eyes flickered from silver to searing blue again, and its reedy, pneumatic

voice hissed out amid the gathering roar of overloading pipes and pistons.

Remove his hand, Price. it hissed, its mouth snapping open and shut

out of time with the words it spoke. Let the pressure vent, or we will

both be doomed.Sure enough, the needle of the pressure dial was now well into the red,

and drops of boiling water were seeping from the brass fittings of the

console. It would not be long, now before the boilers burst asunder.

Do it, you fool! screeched the machine, its brass claws clicking and

hammering against the floor in a jig of frustration. Now, or Ill shoot!

The black holes of the pistol muzzles transfixed me like a pair of eyes

like the dark, soulless cavities in the skull of Josiah Harkewell. And in

them I found a moment of clarity, a sudden epiphany which made me

laugh in the Mekanikal Turks face.You cant touch him, can you? You cant do it yourself and if I

wont be bullied into doing it for you, then we both shall burn!

This was what madness felt like clear and hot and rushing, fevered

and exultant, as though everything at every moment were a giant puzzle

clicking into place. This is what it felt like to be James Tilley Matthews, I

supposed keeper of a secret so all-encompassing that the knowledge of

it pushed mere sanity from the mind. So I laughed, an unhinged sound

more terrible than any which issued from the Air Loom behind me.

I say, let us burn! I crowed. And may my deed in destroying you

commend me to Heaven! Even if I am to suffer the agonies of Satan, I

will go on. But you, you vile device for you, there will be only

oblivion!

The right pistol rang out, then, and I felt the slug whip past my cheek,

close enough to feel its shockwave pull at my lank and sweaty hair. Close

but it would not kill me, of that I was sure in that moment for it couldnot touch its former master!

Please... be rational..." wheezed the Turk, lowering its guns and

reaching out with its one articulated hand. We cannot do this thing, this

little thing... he built it into us, hefearedus even before we werecomplete. We could only transform him when we promised immortality.

That was his grail, Nathaniel. Not one of you fleshy creatures doesn't fear

death..."

It was begging now, its voice plaintive and cracking. In the cerulean

seas of its empty eyes I fancied I could detect a tremor of fear, flickering

below the surface like the shadow of a cruising shark.

You could live forever, Nathaniel Price. Our methods are much

improved since we processed poor Josiah. You would still look human,

still young and strong... aeternal!


24/27

I could see how it had taken Harkewell in, then first just a little

augmentation, to hold back the years, then the skin, then the organs, theeyes and the teeth and finally the soft tissue of his failing brain. It was the

immortality of the mummified ancient dead, the Pharaohs in their dusty

tombs beneath Aegyptian sands eternity as a perfectly preserved livingcorpse. If that was my choice, I would rather die swiftly, torn apart in a

fireball as Slake Hall was ripped from the world.

Never! I snarled, swatting the machines entreating hand away with

the iron stump of my cleaver. You cannot assail me with your lies, any

more than you can with your accursed Air Loom. Well both be blown to

Hell, and Ill regret nothing.

All around us now the building was shaking and the gears were

whirling faster and faster, their tortured bearings shrieking amid plumes

of steam. As I watched, appalled, one of the glass panes of the domeabove gave way and fell like the blade of a monstrous guillotine, shearing

through three of the pipes of the Air Loom in a shatterburst of crystal

shards. Blue-white coils and jags of electricity danced across the ranks of

speeding cogs and blurring chains. It would happen at any moment now

one final, vast explosion which would blast us all to ashes.

Wait Mister Price! Nathaniel! Listen! it was the voice of the Turk

again, but this time it was as loud as that of God, a distorted echo amid

the rumble and howl of the machines self-destruction. I will play you

for it, Nathaniel Price. I will play you for your life, and mine. Winner

take all. There are mere minutes to spare so be quick about it. We can

play out a whole game of chess in your mind in the time it takes for your

heart to beat twice. If you win, you can leave, and I will be destroyed. If

you lose, you will let the pressure vent, and then we will keep you

forever.I stopped then, and my pride made me listen to its wild promises. I had

bested the machine once before; surely I could do so again?

As soon as the thought had crossed my mind I saw the board begin to

form, there in my aching skull. I felt the connection go live, felt the

power of the steam cogitator rise up through the soles of my boots,pounding through my veins, suffusing the enervated shell of my body.

Just before it overtook me completely, just at the instant when the waters

of its vile power were to close over my head I sprung my trap, a final

twist which I hoped could save me. For of course it was a lie if I gave in

to its power the machine would never let me go. Win or lose, it would

have me by the shackles and chains of my indoctrination, the programme

of chess etched into my mind.

The little board took only a fraction of the Cogitators skill to create.

But now I pushed with my thoughts, with all my will, and rolled thecheckered field out further, slowly at first but faster and faster. From a


25/27

tiny square a meter to a side it leaped for the four horizons in the blank

space inside our linked minds, enshrouding every surface with gleaming

black ebony and white marble. Out there, the pressure was dropping as

titanic engines took up the load, as more and more the devil machines

processing power was sucked into the game I was weaving to ensnare it.Now I imagined ranks upon ranks of chessmen marching to war,

white and black pitched into battle across the whole undulating expanse

of our shared imagination. I commanded the ivory forces like some mad

Napoleon, urging them onward to crush the ebony soldiery of the

Mekanikal Turk.

It was working.

The imaginary world woven by the air loom was slowing down as the

cogitator overloaded, and more and more of its pieces were falling to me.

Even better, I could start to glimpse through the interface of the immensechess game the way in which the engines metal mind worked. It had

thought to use my obsession against me, and now I turned the tables on it.

I reached out with one phantom hand, there in the black and white world

of my mind, and picked up an ebony pawn.

Even through the howl and whine of the Air Loom, projecting the all-

encompassing game around me I heard the roar of escaping steam and

roiling fire. I felt a shudder run through the whole great bulk of Slake

Hall as the cogs and belts ground to a standstill, perhaps for the first time

in years. One by one the innumerable rows of gears beneath the control

platform spun down, resetting to zero, and the great universal chessboard

inside my head clicked and spun, all the pieces returning to their neat and

ordered ranks. From the lofty heights of my minds eye I could see them

laid up in their millions, and I could see how they worked. A white pawn

for a one, black for a zero. Little packets of cipher were shown as

higher ranks, and the placement of the Kings defined the start and end of

each stanza of encoded information. This was how the Air Loom was

operated, and how the machine behind it could be enslaved.

I found that if I concentrated, squinting as if staring into the sun, I

could see the real world like a ghostly image behind the harlequin veil ofthe operating board. Out there the hall of the cogitator fell silent, Josiah

Harkewells mummy still slumped across the desk. Billows of steam were

blasting from the boilers deep beneath me, so I gently took his hand from

the governor, letting the little brass device whirl back into motion. All

around me tons of oily hot machinery hung poised in expectation, the

mind inside its cage of steel waiting for my command. I knew it would

only be my bootlick until it could find a flaw in my mental armor, but....

the power I could wield! The injustices I could right, as secret monarch of

the Empire, the Master Loom linked to innumerable others binding up thewhole globe...


26/27

The Mekanikal Turk was gone.

When it had slipped away I could not say. Where it was now... my

skin crawled at the thought of it clicking and whirring in the shadows,

lining up a shot from its monstrous pistols to the back of my skull...

That made up my mind that and the ravaged face of Sir Josiah as Igently lifted him from the operators chair and sat down before the

keyboard of the silent Air Loom. His face was all but gone now, a mask

of dry skin tight over yellowed bones, but his cadaverous grin was one of

victory, of satisfaction. I would finish this for all of them my father,

Matthews, Uther, and damn him, the foolish Harkewell too.

It only took me a few minutes to write my little aria; I set the machine in

motion and rose from the command board sweaty and drained. I lifted

Josiah back into his seat, from where he had perhaps dreamed to rule the

world, and left him there as the foul stench and greasy pressure of the AirLoom began to build all around me, as the organ tubes filled again with

noisome flickers and curlicues of flux.

It was time to be gone from Slake Hall, before my final programme

took effect.

*

They came from all over the valley and the downs beyond slaves to

the pneumatic flux of the Air Loom, hammers and torches and prybars in

their hands. They came slack-faced and bleary-eyed, with no volition,

with the shuffling gait of zombies newly risen from their crypts. But by

their hands I saw the great Steam Cogitator ruined; wrecked down to

scraps and shards of mindless metal.

The hall became Josiah Harkewells pyre he would have wanted it

that way, I fancied, taking the cruel machine he had played father to

down into the flames with him. Uther, too, would ascend to heaven with

the ashes of his home he had perished, crushed to death between the

vise-like doors of the brain chamber.

While the breakers worked, dead eyed and grim, I searched in vain for

the blueprints to the Air Loom so, I told myself, as to be sure that theywere incinerated. To this day I still tell myself that there was no desire in

my heart to wield the power of the Loom myself, not even when I walked

among my army of sequestered slaves, watching them do my bidding.

The plans were nowhere in evidence, not even in

Sir Josiahs private study. Which leaves me one tiny sliver of dread, when

I think of the black mark on the earth where Slake Hall used to stand, the

charred crater in the wood behind rusted-shut gates.

While I stood, and watched the sparks fly up like ascending souls, and

smiled grimly to myself as the copper and brass wheels melted down toslag Im sure I saw a figure off in the dark, through the shifting curtains


27/27

of smoke, a figure skulking among the gnarled trees at the woods edge.

Its eyes were twin slits of cerulean blue fire, a gaze as full of malice as

any thats ever chilled my blood. On four glittering spider legs it went,

stalking backward into the trees, its malevolent eyes always on mine as it

faded into the shadows.I thought, then, that surely its clockwork would run down, that

without the Cogitator to give it life it was just another pretty toy. But

now, when I see all the new wonders which science has brought us, I

wonder.

And when I see the telegraph cables slicing up the sky at dawn, and

see electric lights burning through the night, and hear voices cut into

discs of wax and read by needles, I shudder with a frission of fear.

Somewhere, Im sure, the thing is being built again. Somewhere under

dusty darkness the wooden face of the Mekanikal Turk is smiling itsknowing smile, a tiny puppet at the very tip of a mountain of oily gears

and wires and pistons and roaring furnaces.

I know that one day Ill hear the damnable ringing of one of Alexander

Bells new telephones, and when I pick up the horn a voice will issue

forth from across the years, a voice as dry and reedy as that of the

mummified dead.

All it will say to me is echec, and I will know that we are doomed.

The Mekanikal Turk

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Transcript of The Mekanikal Turk