Burton’s expertise with the blade astounded his fellows. Weaving a web of steel about himself, he sliced, blocked and stabbed with such speed the weapon became nothing but a blur. Like a scythe through wheat, it carved a path before him. He battled his way to the mouth of the right-hand hallway and—while those equerries that avoided him fell to his companions’ bullets—moved into it. Severed limbs fell and twitched. Heads bounced to the floor. Blue flame, spurting out of lacerations and stumps, arced around him, following his blade, and to Swinburne, the Romantic poet, it looked like his friend had been enclosed within a shield of light, as if the ancient gods had bestowed upon him magical protection.
A crowd of equerries was coming from behind now, descending from above. Despite the excessive results of Swinburne’s ill-considered grenade, Trounce now resorted to another, firing it above them so it landed at their backs. The ear-splitting detonation sent dismembered torsos, pieces of banister, segments of armour, and shredded carpet raining down. Burton was far enough into the hallway to be protected from the blast, but Trounce, Swinburne and Wells all went down beneath the falling bodies.
For a moment, Burton was fighting alone.
He slashed upward from his right hip, cleaving off an equerry’s face; barged into the creature and, as it collapsed, cut horizontally back to the right, chopping off another’s head; then brought the sword swinging up and downward into the skull of a third. Momentarily, the flow of his movement was interrupted as the weapon jammed in his victim’s hard plastic cranium. A stilted figure slapped its hands to either side of Burton’s face and started to twist, attempting to break his neck. “Unauthorised!” it yelled. A hole appeared in the middle of its blank face. The hands slipped free as the figure fell.
Suddenly, there was peace.
The king’s agent wrenched his blade free and stood panting. He saw Wells, on his knees, lowering his pistol.
“Much obliged, Bertie.”
“Pardon? I’m deaf as a stone.”
Swinburne emerged from beneath a quivering cadaver. “What did you say? I can’t hear you. My ears are full of bells.”
“Exploding bullets,” Trounce grumbled as he pushed himself up. “Remind me to tell Penniforth to tone them down a little.”
“A tipple?” Swinburne responded. “I should think we’ve earned one!”
An equerry tumbled down from the shattered staircase above. It struggled to its feet. “Intruders!”
“At your service,” Trounce said. “Head. Kill.”
Climbing over the fallen, the three men joined Burton. The chrononauts were all bleeding from superficial wounds, all feeling the effects of their exertions, but also all intoxicated by the heat of battle.
Burton pointed along the corridor. Through ringing ears, the others heard him say, “To the end and turn right.”
Two equerries came leaping around the indicated corner. Swinburne and Wells shot them down.
The clamour in the chrononauts’ ears died away.
Swinburne, surveying the massacre, said, “I’m not sure we’ll find sufficient beds under which to conceal this lot.”
His friends gave barks of amusement.
They moved on, senses alert.
Twice, equerries appeared behind them and were instantly dispatched. After that, a silence fell upon the palace, bringing with it a threatening air of expectation.
The chrononauts moved forward, past closed doors and countless portraits and statuettes; Jessica Cornish repeated over and over.
Wells observed, “What a grand obsession. As a monument to a single woman, even the Taj Mahal can’t rival it.”
“The Taj Mahal speaks of a dedicated heart,” Swinburne said. “This of a magnificently sick mind.”
They reached the junction with the next hallway and turned right. Ahead, the passage dropped a level, and as they went down steps to the lower, they saw tall double doors ahead of them and heard muffled voices.
“The House of Lords,” Burton said.
“The plan?” Wells asked.
The king’s agent shrugged. “Barge in. Assess in an instant. Shoot if necessary. Rescue Tom Bendyshe. Identify the prime minister. Don’t kill him. Find out where the Turing Fulcrum is.”
“That,” Swinburne said, “is the best plan I’ve heard all day. What could possibly go wrong? We’ll be back on the jolly old Orpheus in time for breakfast.”
With his hands low, Burton raised the sword blade until it rested against his shoulder. “I’ll cut down anyone who jumps at us.” With a jerk of his chin, he indicated that Swinburne and Wells should prepare to thrust open the doors.
“It sounds like there’s a crowd in there,” Trounce said, as his fellows took hold of the gold-plated handles.
“No one with any sense would be up at this time of night,” Swinburne replied. “So they’re undoubtedly politicians. Ready?”
With his left fingers wrapped around the base of his right hand, Trounce raised his pistol, holding it poised to one side of his face. “I am.”
Burton said, “Go.”
The two smaller men threw their weight against the portal. The doors hinged inward. Burton and Trounce ran forward with Swinburne and Wells at their heels. The entrance swung shut behind them.
Their senses were assaulted.
For a moment, Burton could make nothing of the bedlam that surrounded them.
Piece by piece, it came together.
The sharp tang of ozone.
A babble of voices protesting, “Bah!” and “Boo!” and “Bad form!”
For a moment he thought himself in the midst of angry sheep.
A storm overhead. A big blue dome of crackling lightning, its jagged streaks snapping a concave course from the perimeter to the apex before streaming down into the top of a silhouetted bulk suspended in the centre; a black mass of indeterminate form.
Below the tempest, beneath Burton’s feet, a round stage-like expanse of tiled floor, unsteadily and dimly illuminated by the hissing and spitting energy. In the middle of it, an X-shaped frame to which Thomas Bendyshe was tethered, and encircling the area, row upon row of benches occupied by a braying crowd, the seats rising until they vanished into deep shadows that appeared to be immune to the strange blue illumination.
“By God!” Wells cried out. “What kind of arena is this?”
“Father!” Swinburne and Trounce yelled. They ran to Bendyshe.
A loud knocking caused Burton to spin, and he saw, on an ornate wooden chair over the door, a willowy and rather bird-like individual who was banging a gavel while shouting, “Order! Order!”
Uncertainly, the king’s agent moved to join his companions.
“Order! Order!”
The crowd quietened. A woman, three rows back, stood up. She was dressed in tight brocades, with fluffy epaulets extending from her shoulders and a conical hat upon her head.
The gavel-wielder bellowed, “Dame Pearl Marylebone, Minister for Amusements and Daily Gratifications.”
Raising her voice over the incessant sizzling from above, the woman said, “My Lord Speaker, may I, on behalf of the House, express dismay at this unwarranted intrusion and demand to know the identities of these—these—horrible ruffians!”
“Hear! Hear!” the crowd cheered.
The woman sat, a satisfied smile on her face.
Lord Speaker banged his wooden hammer again and blinked his large black eyes at the chrononauts. He pointed at Burton. “You, sir. Announce yourself.”
Burton stepped backward until he was beside Bendyshe. Without taking his eyes from the Lord Speaker, he said to the Cannibal, “Are you all right?”
After giving a nod and moistening his cracked lips with his tongue, the prisoner managed a slight smile. “Hello, Sir Richard. It’s good to see you again after all this time, though I—” He gasped and winced. “Though I regret that you find me in such a dire position. Be careful. They are all insane.”