Capeworld Comics

The company’s treasurer had allocated Mr. Carter funds for a buggy to take him to Blackwall so that he could bring his business directly to the doorstep of Ernst, Morton, and Glass.

The buggy, however, was a horse drawn buggy, which Mr. Carter felt was not at all appropriate transportation given how dire circumstances were. The ghosts were moving off the stage. Who knew when they would be out in the streets, waking up the living in the dead of night?

Mr. Carter wanted to rent a new horseless, mechanical buggy. The Americans had invented them during their brief civil war, though some would say “reinvented’ was more accurate.

Like many inventions of the modern age, horseless buggies came about from engineers studying reports thaumaturgists made concerning the machines of the Dyeus culture. The thaumaturgists, when deep in meditation, sent their minds journeying through memories of the distant, pre-human past. These memories were said to be within the mind of a great, slumbering being named Abramelin, who was old when the Earth was young and who was neither man, nor animal, nor ghost. In the memories of Abramelin, the thaumaturgists saw the machines of the Dyeus, and when they awoke, they drew what they saw and wrote how they moved.

Robert Lumen, one of the more public thaumaturgists, though that wasn’t saying much since the thaumaturgists had become notorious for isolation since they folded Paradial into the sky, once described the Dyeus Civilization as a “superscientific” civilization. With only drawings and notes to go off of, modern engineers weren’t able to recreate the mechanical marvels which pranced across the earth and soared through the sky as if they were living beings, but they were able to glean enough information to make something that rolled on the ground without the need for a horse.

The mechanical beasts of the distant past had the grace of fawns and falcons, but the mechanical beasts of the present had only the grace of snakes and beetles–for now.

The modern mechanical buggy was known for being a bulky, jerky, lurching thing that stopped and started with each belch of steam, but it was also known for being fast, and that was what was important to Mr. Carter.

Mr. Carter did his best to impress upon the treasurer the importance of renting a mechanical buggy for its speed. He went to his office, cap in hand, and calmly and thoroughly explained his need.

The treasurer told Mr. Carter to take a horse drawn buggy, and if he wanted more speed, to take one with more horses.

And so, Mr. Carter had to use his own money to rent a mechanical buggy.

Such was the life of a stage director, he thought, always needed, rarely appreciated.

Mr. Carter was only somewhat surprised the treasurer threw him under the proverbial cart. The treasurer did not like him. The treasurer had never liked him, and the feeling was mutual. The treasurer once read in Illustrated Phantom Stories how a theater in Scotland became haunted by phantom players–and turned those players into lucrative stars. While many feared so much as laying eyes on their theater, there was a dedicated portion of the populace who couldn’t get enough of Macbeth with ghosts.

“Carter, they look at you, and when they look at you, they give you more attention than any of your flesh and blood actors!” the treasurer told him. “So why don’t you talk to them? Give them orders, don’t make them go away! We can monetize this!”

But of course, the treasurer couldn’t be bothered to face the ghosts himself.

To think, he had the nerve to tell him to just “talk to them,” as if one even could talk to beings that leered like the souls of the damned at any sudden sound. How did the treasurer know that their blank stares meant “Give us stage directions, Mr. Director?” and not “Give us your blood, weak mortal?”

Mr. Carter made arrangements with Mercury Transportation, a subsidiary of National Reclamation, the company that ran the steam beasts that were building Blackwall and rebuilding London, for a man with a mechanical buggy to pick him up next evening. Even if Mr. Carter could have teleported to the door of Ernst, Morton, and Glass, he wouldn’t have. He was exhausted from the haunting and needed to rest. He figured it was only fair. The ghosts that haunted the Gnome theater were inactive during the day, so why shouldn’t he be as well? He slept until noon, but found much to his frustration that upon waking he was just as tired as when he had laid down.

He tried coffee, and cigarettes, but he just could not put energy back into his body. Then he decided to go for a walk to the post office, partly because he hoped a brief walk would revitalize him and partly because he was curious about the recently installed electrograph.

Mr. Carter wanted to see if it was possible for him to send an electrogram to Ernst, Morton, and Glass, but even if he could send an electrogram, he wasn’t going to rely on it solely.  He didn’t want to send an electrogram and then have to wait for Ernst, Morton, and Glass to send a reply. The back-and-forth of electronic communication could take days, and by the time Ernst, Morton, and Glass physically appeared at the Gnome theater, the ghosts would be performing in the streets. In addition, there were rumors that electrographs didn’t work half the time they were used. People said that messages sent by electrographs, electrograms, were often swallowed by the air, especially if there was a thunderstorm. The thunderclouds attracted the words like a magnet attracted iron filings. It had something to do with the principles of electromagnetism, so they said, but Mr. Carter wasn’t really sure of the exact mechanics.

When Mr. Carter arrived at the post office, he learned that in order to send an electrogram, he had to dictate his message to a young woman named Elizabeth who worked as the post’s dedicated typist. He couldn’t do that. Young women always talked, and he didn’t want people to talk about the ghosts. He asked if he could type the message himself, but that proved to be an impossibility. It was a liability issue. Electrographs were new, expensive, and rare. They couldn’t risk someone walking in off the street and breaking off a key by handling it the wrong way.

And so, disappointed, both by his inability to send an electrogram and by the looks the staff gave him (God only knew what they thought his reticence indicated), he trudged back to his home and fell asleep, managing an additional twenty minutes of sleep that didn’t make him feel the slightest bit rested.

The mechanical buggy driver honked an air horn to get his attention, but he didn’t need to. Mr. Carter heard the engine loud and clear as it idled outside his home.

The mechanical buggy was just as rough a ride as people said. It was controlled from the front by a burly man named Teddy who tamed the bucking beast with a series of levers and a wheel. Mr. Carter thought Teddy looked like a man hard at work in the world’s smallest industrial factory.

If the unevenness of the ride wasn’t enough to prevent Mr. Carter from falling asleep, Teddy proved to be chatty–very chatty. He told Mr. Carter all about the history of the mechanical buggy, all the things Mr. Carter would have gladly gone his whole life without knowing. Teddy told Mr. Carter how the Confederate States of America developed the first models and how those models helped hold Confederate supply lines even as the Union captured their railroads. Teddy was enthusiastic about mechanical buggies. He could talk on and on about them–and did so, even as Mr. Carter closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the thinly cushioned headrest and tried his best to block out the world.

Teddy explained that he himself had been a mechanical buggy operator under the command of General J.E.B Stuart, which Teddy pronounced as one word: Jeb. It seemed to Mr. Carter that the Yankees gave themselves strangest names.

Teddy spoke worshipfully of Jeb Stuart, who apparently knew a great deal about cavalry warfare and invested a great deal in mechanized cavalry, which he saw as one day replacing the regular kind. In the same breath, Teddy cursed the name of General Jubal A Early, who undercut Stuart’s push for mechanization. Teddy placed more blame upon Jubal Early for the CSA’s defeat at Shenandoah–wherever that was–then he did the Federal army. If J.E.B Stuart was Teddy’s God, Jubal A Early was his Devil. But Teddy was certain that, even with the detrimental influence of Jubal A Early, his side would have eventually trampled the Union beneath the wheels of their mighty mechanical buggies had not the Ror Raas intervened in 1863 by placing a great fire in the sky over the Battle of Shiloh. That brought an end to the Federal invasion of Confederate land, as well as the practice of slavery for both the Union and Confederacy.

Like the ride, Teddy went on, and on, and on…

Mr. Carter rested his head on the stiff cushion of his seat and drifted on the border of sleep, never once crossing over, but coming close several times. As he felt himself start to grow comfortably numb despite his surroundings, Teddy began to talk about how the CSA was so ingenious that towards the end of the conflict they were crafting buggies that were sealed up like coffins. These buggies not only shielded riders from rifle fire but could travel underwater like a whale. The CSA had plans to send a team of such coffins up the Mississippi to burn Washington, but it never came to pass, and now the point was moot. The CSA was fracturing under economic pressure from the North, and as the Ror Raas forbade martial retaliation, the component states of the Confederacy were gradually returning to the Union to avoid ruination.

Teddy’s talk of rolling coffins brought to Mr. Carter’s sleep deprived mind the ridiculous but disturbing image of men fighting on a battlefield in actual coffins. In his mind, he saw Confederate soldiers paddling down a river in coffins. When they reached the shore, their coffins dragged themselves across the beach, scooting along like baby sea turtles in the sand. Then, when a Federal bullet smashed through the soldier’s skull, he fell back, and his coffin clamped shut over him.

But that was not the end. Mr. Carter saw inside the closed coffin. He saw the soldier’s eyes, open and blank and staring up at nothing in the darkness.

That reminded Mr. Carter of his ghosts.

Mr. Carter bolted upright.

He panted. He felt wet with sweat.

Teddy chuckled. “Bad dream, sir?”

“I wasn’t dreaming.” Mr. Carter answered. “It doesn’t count as a dream if you aren’t sleeping, and I can’t do that with all the shaking and the sound of…that infernal motor running.”

He almost said “and the sound of your talking.”

“So if you were not dreaming, were you going off into vision-worlds like the thaumaturgists, sir?” Teddy asked.

“No. My mind was just going off into nonsense.”

“Would that nonsense happen to be related in any way to ghosts?” Teddy smiled at the look of annoyance on Mr. Carter’s face.

“Ah, I see you were, in fact, daydreaming about ghosts, sir!” Teddy said.

“I said no such thing.” It was just his luck. Teddy was nosey as well as talkative.

“Yes. But sir, consider the circumstances. I’m no Holmes or Dupin, but I know a little of that reduction thing, that deduction, induction, whatever it is, I know it, A man rents my buggy in the wee hours of the morning. He shows up exhausted. He’s heading to Blackwall, and everyone knows what’s in Blackwall–Ernst, Morton, and Glass. It seems to me, sir, if I may be so bold as to suggest it, that you have a ghost problem. A haunting, as they say.”

“And if I do? Is a haunting really so uncommon nowadays?”

“Oh, it’s common and it’s getting more common. It’s just that  I’ve noticed you’ve got one. You aren’t the first person with a ghost problem in the back of my buggy and you certainly won’t be the last. But I’ve had many, many passengers who have had many, many different kinds of hauntings. Would you like to talk about your kind of haunting, sir?”

“Yes. That’s why I’m seeing a professional consultation in Blackwall.”

“I once had a passenger who was a historian, a man of great learning and distinction sir, with a seat at the heights of academia.” Teddy either didn’t understand the hint or he ignored it.

“He was haunted by the ghost of a Roman soldier who marched on London back when it was called Londinium.” Teddy said. “The ghost claimed to be his honored ancestor Secundus Tuccio, though that was just a lie, sir. Secundus Tuccio just wanted to be under the care of a historian who knew a little of what it was like to live back in ancient Rome. He pretended to be related to the historian just to get in man’ts good graces. And for a time, he as in the man’s goo graces, because who doesn’t want to be nice to his ancestor’s ghost? If its’ a faux pas to kick grandma out of the home, it’s something mighty taboo to kick grandma’s ghost out of the home. But ancestor or not, Secundus Tuccio got on the bad side of the historian by being far too talkative.”

“You don’t say?”

“He wanted to know everything about anything that was new and modern to him, and after several centuries that added up to quite a lot of questions about quite a lot of different things! And this Secundus Tuccio, sir, he could talk a man’s ear off from what they say about him.”

“Oh, how dreadful.”

“It could have been a lot worse sir, a lot worse but the historian couldn’t stand Secundus Tuccio and so got in my buggy, got to Blackwall, and called up Ernst, Morton and Glass, and they set the haunting right like they always do. They struck a deal with Secundus Tuccio, you see. They got him to leave the historian alone and in exchange they made him this big, wide, stone called a sinataph…cynotaph…no, a cenotaph! Yes, a cenotaph!”

“What on Earth is that?” Mr. Carter asked.

“It’s like a gravestone, but without a grave. You see, the Greeks would send their boys off to battle in Europe, they would die, and it was considered a terrible fate to die on alien soil, sir, it was said the ghost couldn’t rest in that state. Of course, we know better nowadays. But the idea was that if you built a cenotaph, you could honor the ghost without the body being present.”

“ You could have just said it was a shrine for a ghost.”

“A shrine! Good word, I’ll have to remember that! Shrine! Anyway, that cenotaph got Secundus Toccio under control. He liked being honored. And the historian would sometimes miss his old faker ancestor and come by his cenotaph and talk to Secundus Tuccio–though never for long! Anyway, sir, is that what your problem is? Do you have a ghost talking to you in the middle of the night, keeping you awake, sir?”

“No. They never say anything to me.”

“What do they do then, sir?”

“They just…stare. They stare at me, blankly, as if they were looking through me, but their eyes always follow me, so I know they’re looking at me.”

“Have you tried talking with them? If someone’s staring at me, sir, I would think they were doing so because they expected me to say something, or do something.”

“No, I have not tried talking with them.”

How on Earth had this become a conversation?

“Why not, sir?”

“Because I don’t know how they’ll answer. I don’t know anything about them. They don’t look like anyone I know. They don’t act like anyone I know. For all I know, the moment I open my mouth to say something, they’ll attack me.”

“But you don’t know, sir. Maybe the ghosts simply want to hear you say something, because they’ve gone a long time without hearing a living voice?”

“I don’t like gambling on uncertainties, Teddy, and ghosts are nothing if not uncertainty embodied.”

“No sir, I don’t believe they are.” Teddy said. “Have you ever read Nesbit’s Guide To Manesology?”

From cover to back, twice.

“No.”

“I highly recommend it sir, and Ernst, Morton, and Glass do as well. It’s a nice little layman’s guide to ghosts. But it says something, and I do paraphrase here sir, but the general idea should come across clearly, that ghosts are impressions left by the mind and body upon the Astral. That’s the big thing around everything else, like a big cloud. You go down to the beach, you press a coin in some wet sand there you go, that’s a ghost, more or less. Nothing uncertain about that.”

“That says nothing about individual ghosts, and it’s the individual variations that make ghosts such uncertain creatures. One ghost looks like a man and acts like a man. Another looks like a man, but acts like a living storybook, moving back and forth, doing the same things again and again. Another looks like nothing, and spends his time smashing anything that gets near him with Herculean strength–that was the Brute of Epping, remember him?”

“Yes sir, he was one of the first cases of Ernst, Morton, and Glass–or rather, Ernst and Morton. They hadn’t recruited Dr. Glass yet.”

“The powers and behaviors of an unknown ghost are always a mystery, so when I see those ghosts leering at me, my mind is filled with questions–Do they just want to talk? Do they expect something of me? Do they think I’m someone I’m not? Do they want to hurt me? This is the uncertainty I speak of.”

“I would think talking to them would have cleared up some of that uncertainty, sir, surely, and without being too much of a risk. If a ghost was mad enough to want to hurt you just for saying “Hello, how are you, what do you want from me?” then I would think he would be mad enough to want to hurt you just for being seen.”

“Perhaps. But who can account for the behavior of ghosts, anyway?”

“Who can account for the behavior of men? After all, sir, ghosts come from men. They say ghosts are mankind’s children.”

“At any rate, I’ll leave the accounting to the professionals.”

“You trust Ernst, Morton, and Glass, sir?” Teddy asked.

“Of course I trust them.” Mr. Carter replied. “Who wouldn’t? Illustrated Phantom Stories prints success after success after success for Ernst, Morton, and Glass.”

“I see, I see. Mr. Carter, are you one for hearing rumors?”

He absorbed them like a sponge.

“Not particularly…though I suppose it depends on the rumor. You mean like, rumors about ghosts? I’ve picked up a few, here and there. One can’t help but pick up rumors about ghosts. Everyone talks about them. I take it that you, with your outgoing nature and mechanical buggy business, have picked up some rumors about ghosts?”

“I’ve heard a few.”

Mr. Carter leaned forward. “Such as?”

“Well, there’s a rumor started by a preacher-man by the name of Putnam…”

“Oh.” Mr. Carter slouched in his seat. “Him.”

“Good to hear you aren’t a friend of the preacher-man, because I’m not either.”

“No one with even an ounce of sense is. Putnam is a malicious little demagogue. I’m not sure why he wants to convince people that ghosts are demons. Maybe he likes the power that comes with people hanging off his every word? Maybe he’s a madman? Regardless, he’s a fiend.”

“I think he just got disturbed by there ending up being things inside us.” Teddy said. “A lot of people got disturbed back when Edward James published that paper of his back in 1861. Silas Putnam just got disturbed real bad.”

“I do remember being a little uncomfortable myself about the revelations, yes.”

“Oh, it made my blood turn cold, sir!”

“I remember reading excerpts from Multiple Intelligences in those broadsheets the government printed to spread the news. At first I thought “Oh. So we have souls. Well, everyone knew that already, if they weren’t pagans.” Then I read more and learned that these thaumaturgists, these modern wizards who hated to be called wizards, were talking to their souls. That was unexpected. And so I thought, “Oh. These things that aren’t us, but are part of us.””

“They’re just fellow passengers along for the ride.”

“So they are. Well said, Teddy.” Mr. Carter supposed that even Yankee fools had their moments of wisdom. “I always liked that one line from the forward to the second edition of Multiple Intelligences–”A man is his mind. His soul is his ghost.” It made it all seem so simple, even if it wasn’t. But my point is, we all were unnerved by the discovery of ghosts–the whole world was. But if that’s what made Silas Putnam miserable, there’s no reason for him to spread that misery to others.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Teddy, I hope you have better rumors to share besides Putnam’s so-called Abyssal Theory of ghosts?” Mr. Carter asked.

“I do, sir. Have you heard the rumor that the gods of old mythology–Thor and Zeus and all those characters–were really the ghosts of ancient kings, and that one day modern ghosts will become the modern versions of those old gods?”

“Yes I have. But that’s not even a rumor, really. That’s a hypothesis put forward by Dr. Ernst. But I understand the confusion, Teddy. People share it around and discuss it as if it were a rumor.”

And Teddy probably didn’t even know what a hypothesis was.

“Have you heard the rumor, and I’m sure that this is a rumor, sir, that ghosts are the reincarnations of the Dyeus culture? According to this rumor, ghosts aren’t coin-in-sand impressions made by the human mind touching the Astral, instead, they’re the Dyeus. Of course, the Ror Raas has said that the Dyeus left Earth for the Astral a long long time ago, but that’s just what those mind-images of the past show them, and they’ve admitted those mind-images aren’t complete. The idea, sir, is pretty interesting. It’s that the Dyeus wanted to–”

“No, no, no, Teddy, that’s another hypothesis, and a fairly common one.” Mr. Carter smiled. “I overheard my Ophelia discussing it with my Gertrude just the other day. I believe it was first proposed by Dr. Sheridan.”

“You know quite a lot of rumors, Mr. Carter!”

“Actors are a very sociable lot. They share everything with you.”

“But have you heard the rumor about Ernst, Morton, and Glass?”

“Are you talking about there being tunnels under Blackwall that they use to meet with clients that fear their hauntings will become public knowledge? Because everyone knows those are real, it’s just that the insurance companies can’t prove they’re real, which is for the best, really. It’s so awful what they do to people just for knowing a ghost.”

“No sir, I’m not talking about the tunnels. I’m talking about…who the manesologists really are.”

“Come again?”

“Or another way of putting it, sir, what they are.”

“Oh, now this is something you must  share with me, Teddy.”

“The rumor deals not only with Ernst, Morton, and Glass, but all manesologists.”

“Stop drawing it out, man! What’s the rumor?”

“The rumor, sir, is that all manesologists are ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” Mr. Carter smirked. “Oh, Teddy, that’s…well, that seems a very…parochial rumor. Ghost-men must be ghosts, I take it? Is that how the rumor works?”

“There are well-developed arguments behind the rumor.”

“Such as?”

“Well, consider how different ghosts are from humans, sir. They have memories, and false memories, and half-remembered memories. They have bodies, and half-there bodies, and not-there bodies. They’re uncertain creatures, as you yourself said, sir. Wouldn’t an uncertainty be best understood by another uncertainty?”

“Hm…” Mr. Carter was surprised that there was substance to the rumor, after all. “…perhaps.”

“And considering how old and wise some ghosts are, wouldn’t they make great manesologists? I mean, manesology is a young science, but it’s steeped in old philosophy, and they’d have the pick of the ancient world to choose from, the best and brightest!”

“That is true…but if the Ror Raas wanted ghosts to be manesologists, wouldn’t they have just made them so? General Geoffrey Barton said that the Ror Raas were the uncrowned kings of the world.”

“Recall London, sir.”

“That’s a good point. People are still nervous about the candles even when they’re in human hands.”

“So you see how it’s possible that they’re ghosts?” Teddy asked.

“It’s…possible, but unlikely.”

“But possible, sir!”

“How is it supposed to work, exactly? Manesologists are people with history. Dr. Glass was a student of thaumaturgy before he became a manesologist. Dr. Morton was an alienist. Dr. Ernst was an anthropologist. Is the idea that the Ror Raas murders talented people so they can recruit their useful ghosts?”

“No. The idea is that they first recruit talented people to turn into thaumaturgists. But it doesn’t work out. Are you aware of the goal of thaumaturgists, sir? Do you know what they seek at the end of their instruction?”

“Isn’t everyone? They strive to awaken and commune with their own soul.”

“Without themselves dying, however.”

“I see. So manesologists would be those who stirred their souls but perished in the attempt?”

“Dr. Glass got closer than most, which is why he has his dogs and other little magical things. But he failed, in the end, as they all failed, poor modern heathen wizards. Tell me, sir, would you still trust Ernst, Morton, and Glass with your business if they were, in fact, ghosts in dead, human bodies?”

‘I wouldn’t speak to them at all if they were ghosts.”

“Because you can’t trust ghosts, sir?”

“Yes, but also because the evasion speaks ill of them. Even with what happened to London still looming large in everyone’s minds, why lie to people? It has such a sinister undercurrent!”

“Perhaps they would lie about them being ghosts in human bodies, sir, because people would have your response to the revelation?”

Guilt made a sudden stab at Mr. Carter’s heart.

“Hm. I did not consider how the situation would look from their side.” Mr. Carter said.

“From the ghosts’ side?”

“If they are ghosts…but I doubt it.”

Still, the thought lodged itself deep in Mr. Carter’s mind. They could be ghosts. He could be going, right now, to talk to people who moved their bodies like puppets made of sinew and bone…

Mr. Carter shivered.

“They aren’t ghosts, and I’ll tell you why.” Mr. Carter said, partly to Teddy but partly to himself. “The very reason people have manesologists to begin with is because it shouldn’t be a normal person’s job to talk with some unknown person freshly materialized onto their property just because someone buried a locket under the foundations or something like that. Ghosts are too frightening for normal humans to deal with. That is why I’m certain they’re humans. The Ror Raas are distant, aerial men, but they’re wise. They would certainly know that a human needs a human to talk to about hauntings.”

But Mr. Carter still wondered…

“But wouldn’t, by the same token sir, a ghost need a ghost to talk to about hauntings?” Teddy asked.

Mr. Carter opened his mouth to say something, but found he had nothing to say, and so he sat in silence for the rest of the ride.

He was certain he was right about the manesologists…fairly certain…

A few moments later, the mechanical buggy lurched to a stop that sent Mr. Carter plunging forward, nearly taking him out of his seat.

“Oh, that’s a rough stop, Teddy.” Mr. Carter said. “It’s almost bad enough to warrant someone installing straps in this thing!”

“Sorry sir, but I doubt people would want to ride in a mechanical buggy if they had ot be tied down like luggage. But anyway, welcome to Harwood street, sir. The office of Ernst, Morton, and Glass are just a little ways down. It’s the really big building, you can’t miss it, and there’s always people in front of it.”

“You couldn’t have brought me any closer?” Mr. Carter asked.

“I could have, sir, but I stop down Harwood street a little ways from the office as a courtesy to my customers. You see, one time, I dropped a lady off right at the door, and sir, she did complain that I did so to Mercury Transportation later on, and how did she complain!”

“She had a bad experience at Ernst, Morton, and Glass?” Mr. Carter asked.

“I would say so, sir. She ran screaming from the premises and ran right into a jellied eels stand, got spiced broth all over her nice clothes. She blamed me, said I forced her to confront the horrors of Ernst, Morton, and Glass before she was suitably prepared. So now, I drop my passengers off at the end of Harwood street as a courtesy, just in case they decide they want to make a run for it.”

“I see.”

Mr. Carter slowly opened the door–slowly because it was a large, heavy door, and because Teddy’s story was creating hesitancy in his mind.

“Hope they’re able to help you with your haunting, sir. Have a good evening!”

The door to the mechanical buggy shut on its own. Mr. Carter wasn’t aware they could do that. It was incredible how animated automata were these days.

Mr. Carter watched the buggy roll down the street, turn, and vanish from his life.

He was left alone in Blackwall.

Blackwall. They called it London’s ghost, not only because it inherited London’s people, but because it inherited London’s spirit. It was dark and wet. The streets were slick with moisture. The steam beasts sprayed mist into the air as they pulled up earth and rooted buildings in the resultant holes. When Blackwall cooled in the evening, the steam condensed into what people called “Blackwall dew.” This made the city wetter and colder than foggy London ever was, and moldier. Mold was a major health concern, and the government kept trying different chemicals to kill it, which often contributed in their own way to the poor health of Blackwallians.

Mr. Carter looked up, craning his neck all the way back.

The steam beasts were more emblematic of the city than the dam which gave Blackwall its name. They reminded Mr. Carter of many different kinds of animals. Their bodies were rotund like whales. Their necks were long like giraffes. They had four thin legs like deer, legs that seemed far too gracile to support their massive bodies, and yet the steam beast were able to do their work while carefully stepping through the congested streets on their thin legs. Not once did they step on a building, though they sometimes left scratches in the street.

The steam beasts were plated like a tortoise, if a tortoise’s shell covered its entire body. Through the plates’ seams, blue light, the shade of deep ocean water, could be seen, though what was burning inside the beasts to produce such a light, none could say.

Their operators had been given the steam beasts to control and care for, but that didn’t mean they knew how they worked.

The steam beasts loomed over the city. Their shadows were strips of midnight cast over the gray evening. Even in the brightest morning, wherever the shadows of the steam beasts fell, there was midnight. It led to a few lawsuits against the city. Several civilians argued that the steam beasts were positioned in such a way as to deprive them of access to natural sunlight relative to other Blackwallians. The litigation was still making its way through the system, but it was expected that the city would win. The claimants proposed that their lack of sunlight had negatively impacted their health and mood, but the city countered with a small army of scientists that claimed that the shade provided by the steam beasts prevented their skin from being damaged by too much sunlight, and who could argue with scientists?

The steam beasts were awe inspiring creatures. Mr. Carter couldn’t understand how anyone could stand to live in a place where giants watched over them. Mr. Carter felt that at any moment, a steam beast could lower its head and pluck him off the street like a stork fishing a minnow out of a stream. Only the thaumaturgists knew how they worked, but even that was an assumption rooted in the fact that they created them. But when it came to magic, it was entirely conceivable they made the steam beasts without understanding them. They could have wished the steam beats into existence with all their cryptic innards and functions assembled by the hand of the universe. There were also rumors that the steam beasts were ruins of the Dyeus culture dug up somewhere in Egypt or India, repaired, and put to use. Other rumors said that the thaumaturgists reached through time itself and traded with the Dyeus culture for the steam beasts, though what they gave in exchange, none could guess.

SPAK!

A steam beast far above spat a white cloud of steam into the air. In the light that poured from its seams, Mr. Carter saw the droplets disperse, sparkle, and vanish into the evening dark.

Mr. Carter felt like he was inside a giant, living creature. Its bones were the buildings, tall and strong. These bones were not  built out of bricks like in other cities but sheets of metal. Its heart was the Blackwall dam, which gave the city its name, built along the Thames, which sent fluid coursing through the many tunnels beneath the city. And its lungs were the steam beasts, ever working, ever wet.

Blackwall was a phlegmatic city, Mr. Carter observed.

Mr. Carter strongly disliked the city. It made him feel small, like a little morsel caught in Blackwall’s digestion. He pulled his coat close around himself to shield against the cold and damp and looked around. Just as Teddy said, it was easy to find the office, it was indeed the biggest building on the street, three times the size as any other horizontally and vertically, and as Teddy said, there was a crowd of people in front of the building.

And the crowd was runnin

Mr. Carter stumbled out of the way of the crowd. They were shouting something about a dog.

Below the awning of a building that advertised itself as Gaskell’s Manesological Books, Mr. Carter watched the crowd flee into the night. Not a single one looked back.

Silence chased after the fleeing crowd, and in the silence Mr. Carter could hear heavy footsteps. In but a moment he was confronted by the giant who made those footsteps–Dr. Joseph Morton.

“Ah, Mr. Carter! “We’ve been expecting you!” Joseph exclaimed, and increased his pace to bring him face-to-face with Mr. Carter.

How Joseph Morton knew his name Mr. Carter couldn’t even guess.

“Please excuse that rambunctious display by some of Blackwall’s local color. We had a little disagreement outside our office, but it’s nothing for you to be concerned with.”

Mr. Carter could feel himself trembling as the giant approached and put his arm around his shoulder.

“Follow me, Mr. Carter!” he said.

And Mr. Carter did. He didn’t dare disagree.