afar.
The door opened and a man stood silhouetted by gaslight.
“Yes?”
“Am I late?”
“Yes. We've been waiting.”
“The riot-”
“I know. Come in. Leave your hat and cane on the stand.”
Burton stepped inside.
“Put this on. No names. You know the rules.”
Burton was handed a black crepe mask. He placed it over his eyes, knotting the ribbons behind his head. Inwardly, he sighed with relief. Now his disguise was more secure.
The man closed the door and turned, revealing that he, too, was masked.
“Follow me.”
The king's agent was led through a reception room and into a large parlour. A dense stratum of blue tobacco smoke floated just above eye level. There was a big round table in the middle of the room with seven chairs arranged around it. Two men stood by a bureau, three by a fireplace. All were dressed in the Rakish manner. All wore masks. They turned as he entered.
“Gentlemen, we can start,” the man who'd answered the door announced. “Please lay your drinks aside, extinguish your cigars, and take your places at the table.”
Each man did as directed, while the host turned down the gas lamps until the room was in near darkness. His guests moved to the chairs, seeming to sit in preselected positions. Burton hung back until it became clear where he should place himself. He sat.
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the ticking of a grandfather clock.
“I shall begin this meeting as I have begun every meeting,” the host intoned, adopting a low and rhythmic manner of speech, as if beginning a ritual, “with a statement of purpose, for we are undertaking a great work. Those who would flinch from it must remind themselves that what we do, in the fullness of time, shall be for the greater good of mankind.”
“The greater good of mankind,” the gathering echoed.
Burton's jaw muscle flexed. He was going to have to anticipate these repetitions and join in.
Don't get it wrong!
“Our watchword is freedom.”
“Freedom!”
“Our object is liberation.”
“Liberation!”
“Our future is anarchy.”
“Anarchy!”
“Join hands, please.”
Burton reached out and felt his hands gripped by his neighbours.
“True freedom comes not from rights granted in the courts of law but from the complete absence of law. True freedom cannot be imposed from without but must flower from within. True freedom is not the prerogative to do something but the right to do anything. True freedom knows no bounds, no reason, no moral centre, no belief, no time, no place, no status, no god.”
“No god,” they chorused.
“Gentlemen, rules must be broken.”
“Rules must be broken.”
“Propriety must be challenged.”
“Propriety must be challenged.”
“The status quo must be unbalanced.”
“The status quo must be unbalanced.”
“Though each of us here occupies a privileged position, we must each be willing to sacrifice it that the human species may progress, for the cycle of ages turns and a time of transition is upon us.”
Burton stifled an exclamation. Again, those words!
“Each has a part to play in the great upheaval that is to come. Each part is essential to the whole. Do not waver. Do not doubt. Do not question.”
The room was suddenly heavy with a presence, sensed but not seen.
The clock stopped.
A strange tone entered the host's voice; it was as if another person-female-was beginning to force her own words through his vocal cords.
“We shall go forth this night, as we have done before. We shall carry the vibrations of change to the people. We shall guide them to true liberty.”
“True liberty!” the group chanted.
“Urk!” the host said.
Burton stared at him. The man had suddenly thrown his head back and opened his mouth. A bubbling, shifting, globular substance was rising into the air from deep within his throat-the king's agent could see the sides of the man's esophagus undulating as the matter rose up through it.
Ectoplasm!
Possessing the qualities of both a liquid and a gas, the strange material rolled and twisted upward into the cloud of tobacco smoke. Burton squinted, unsure how to interpret the scene that unfolded before him. It appeared that the layer of smoke was glowing slightly and bulging downward over the centre of the table.
The female voice now filled the room. It wasn't coming from the man any longer, but reverberated, it seemed, in the very atmosphere itself.
“Send forth your astral bodies, my sons. Undertake our great work. Walk abroad and touch the souls of the unenlightened.”
The bulge in the smoke rapidly congealed into the shape of a woman's head and shoulders, hanging upside down from the cloud. A swirling, wispy arm reached out and a vague finger touched one of the Rakes on the forehead. Burton watched in amazement as a ghostly form detached itself from the man's seated figure. It hovered behind him for a moment before blowing away on an unfelt breeze, dissolving into the gloom of the chamber.
“Go forth, apostles, and liberate the downtrodden and the oppressed.”
She had a Russian accent.
The woman's finger touched a second man and a wraith emerged from him and vanished.
She turned until she was facing the Rake sitting on Burton's left. Her eyes were jet black, glinting in the smoke like gemstones.
Lady Mabella. The murderer of Sir Alfred Tichborne.
“Travel through the astral plane, my child, and-”
She paused.
Her eyes swivelled to Burton and fixed upon him.
“You!”
He jerked back in his chair and gasped, tried to stand but couldn't. Pain gripped the back of his head as if a cold hand had clamped down on his brain.
“Intruder! Spy!”
She had not spoken aloud. Her voice was now inside his skull.
The host twitched and choked as the ectoplasm continued to flow from his mouth. The two men whose astral bodies had departed sat blank-eyed and motionless. The three other men turned their heads and regarded Burton. One of them said something but no sound emerged. There was no sound in the room at all; a profound, unnatural silence had fallen.
Everything slowed and became motionless. Only the ghostly woman moved.
Something wormed its way into Burton's mind.
“Who are you?” she hissed.
He flinched and fought against her intrusive probing. Get out of my head!
