The Harlequin Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans by Raymond St. Elmo

Author:Raymond St. Elmo [St. Elmo, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-27T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

The Unity of Blood

Midnight in a haunted house. Haunted by the ghost of the previous house. For a proper home is a living thing. Warm hearth for a heart. Walls for bones, windows for eyes, door for mouth. Basement for bowels, attic for memory. All the rooms and halls and stairs making paths of thought for the domestic mind. A mind that dreams by night, heart-fire sunk to embers. Clock ticking, mice scurrying, floors creaking with no foot upon it. A living house sleeps and rises, laughs and cries, sings and sighs with those within. And grows old as they so grow, worn by wind and repetition of the days. Till at last it dies; in gentle collapse or sudden consuming fire. And when the house has passed, what dreams will come?

Bah! Poetic nonsense. A house is mere practical box of wood and brick, a shell to huddle within from wind, wolf and world. I sat in the library of my new home, counting dismal clock chimes. Listening to new walls creaking, new foundations settling, pretending to hear the ghostly whispers of my previous house. If a spirit of the dead building remained, it did so within my mind.

Clearly a mistake to rebuild a memory. I glared at the floor where I’d found Elspeth. Fresh new planks now. No blood stain upon the bright rug. Yet turned away, ever from the corner of my eye I spied her shadowed corpse.

I set teeth, focused on the papers before me. Preparations for the Chartist gathering at Echoing Common. Lists of wonders promised by Zeit-Teufel to cast magic glamour upon the dull drone of political speech. I puzzled over the items of wonder. I did not question his Clockwork Giant. The name encompassed the thing itself. If a man should say ‘a clockwork giant is at the door’, his fellows will comprehend.

But what the devil did Teufel mean by ‘Planetary Cannon’? Weaponry to bombard Mars? What of his ‘Flame Calliope’? Would it provide beautiful music, or decimate armies? What horror awaited the revealing of his ‘Lightning Spiders’?

I envisioned releasing glowing insects upon the gathered guilds and speakers, the protesters and the preachers… It had appeal. Simple. Modern. Mechanical and pointless, probably murderous. Perhaps therein lay the future.

“And Balloon Dancers?” I asked. “Has he taught Montgolfiers to waltz with his dragon? We risk associating the Charter with lunacy, not progress.” I needed Elspeth’s opinion. She had a sharp kitchen wisdom that butcher-knifed nonsense. I weighed asking her. If I turned I’d see El lying with head upon outstretched arm, staring thoughtful at the curtains…

Enough. I put down pen, took up lantern. Pushed back chair and strode to the spot. Fresh smooth boards, polished till I could near see my face. No shadow of murder, no stain of blood. No ghost, no girl.

Another bah. Here was no haunting. Behold my own mind mocking me. I sighed, strode to the fireplace. Above the mantel hung the carved tabletop from Dealer’s shop. Here at least was something new.

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