“My apologies. I have a regrettable having of wandering alone in the foothills of my thoughts.”
“Whatever.” The blond man clapped his hands and the old ballroom sank into darkness.
“Streater? What’s happening?”
The blond man stayed silent and invisible in the dark.
Gradually, Arthur realized that the darkness was not total. At the far end of the room there was a tiny flicker of light.
The prince moved toward it. To his surprise, as he drew closer, he realized that the light emanated from an old-fashioned oil lamp. Then — an even greater shock. There was someone else in the room. A middle-aged woman running to fat, folds of flesh coiled around her neck, her gray hair curled close to her scalp, a look of disapproval etched indelibly upon her face.
“Hello?” said the prince, determined to act (at least for the time being) as though her sudden materialization might possess some rational explanation. The woman gazed distantly ahead, and now that he was closer, Arthur saw that she seemed to ripple and shimmer, like a film projected onto heat haze. “Madam?” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Outside, the storm was getting worse — rain beating at the windows, wind screeching past the stone walls, trying to find egress — but the woman appeared oblivious to it all.
“Don’t you see the resemblance?” It was the blond man’s voice, maddeningly close.
“Streater?” said the prince. “Switch on the lights.”
“No can do.” He sound insufferably smug.
“You caused this.”
“A giggle in the dark.
“Streater? Who is this individual?”
“Oh, chief, don’t tell me you can’t recognize your own great-great-great- grandmother? Queen of England. Empress of India. Defender of the faith… Albert’s missus. Ring any bells?”
Arthur swallowed hard. His instinct for rationalism was shrinking to a pinprick, but still he struggled to accept the truth of what he saw before him. “How is this possible?”
“She’s an echo from the past, mate. Just a memory. Chillax. She can’t see us. And we can’t talk to her.”
“What is this?” Arthur said, his voice laced with fear and panic. “What’s happening?”
“This,” Streater hissed, “is 1857. The year the Indian Mutiny kicked off. Small wonder the old girl’s feeling a bit tender. Small wonder this was the year it made its move.”
“What made its move?”
There were three distinct knocks at the door.
Streater hushed him. “Watch and learn.”
The doors were flung open and a man — another stranger — strode into the room. Dressed every bit as anachronistically as the woman, he was not yet thirty, pleasant faced and athletic, his collar-length hair still boyishly tufty despite his efforts at lacquering it down. He shared the same quality of mirage and translucence as the woman, and Arthur could see that the stranger seemed half-asleep, aggravating his eyes by rubbing them, fiddling distractedly with his collar.
“This is the man who founded the Directorate,” Streater explained. “This is Mr. Dedlock.”
“Directorate?” Arthur said softly. “I’ve heard mother speak of them. Once, when she was in her cups-”
Streater cut him short. “Chief? Just go with the flow.”
The lady in the chair favored the new arrival with a frosty smile. “Mr. Dedlock. Thank you for coming so swiftly and at so unsociable an hour.”
“No more than my duty, ma’am.”
“What I have to tell you must go no further. Do you understand me? This is to remain a private matter, purely between the two of us. You are here in your capacity as my etheric advisor and I trust that you will honor the sanctity of that position.”
Dedlock murmured something truckingly deferential and the lady went on.
“Last night I had a dream. What is it the poet says? ‘I could count myself a king of infinite space and be bounded in a nutshell were it not that I have bad dreams…’ ”
“I believe that is so, ma’am.”
“You’re looking at me as though I am mad, Mr. Dedlock.”
The man from the Directorate, his face a masterclass in discretion, showed not the slightest flicker of emotion. “Nothing could be further from the truth, ma’am.”
“I do not think my dream was quite as other dreams. That is to say, I do not believe it to have been a product of too much cream at table or an undigested piece of beef. I believe it to have been absolutely real — as real and as solid as this conversation. You understand me? This was more than mere fancy.”
Dedlock smoothly: “Of course, ma’am.”
“Something spoke to me last night while I slept. Something completely outside the field of human experience. And I am bound to say that it was the most beautiful, the most astounding thing I have ever seen. Mr. Dedlock, I think that I have looked upon the face of a god.”
A delicate cough which, to more cynical ears, might have sounded as though it was intended to mask a laugh.
“I had been asleep for barely an hour when it happened. So as not to scare me by appearing in its true form, the god showed itself to me as a great, shining circle of color.”
“A circle, ma’am?”
“Dazzling, impossible shades wholly unlike those that I or any other human being have ever seen before. Colors that surely cannot exist upon the earthly plane. And then, Mr. Dedlock…”
“Yes, ma’am? What happened then?”
“Then it opened its eyes.” Her own eyes grew watery at the memory. “Hundreds of them, shimmering things as though on a peacock’s tail. I heard its voice in my head, deep and ancient, infinitely wise. It told me its name. It is called Leviathan.”
“Leviathan, ma’am?”
“That is the closest approximation in our tongue. Its true name, it told me, would resemble a mathematical formula of such length and complexity that it lies generations beyond even our most gifted logicians. To him, our little lives must seem as the scurryings of ants. But he told me that I had distinguished myself.” Two spots of color appeared on the Queen’s cheeks. “Leviathan has chosen my family for special attention. To him, affecting human life on earth is as simple as moving toy soldiers upon a board. He will guide us, keep us, protect us. Our empire will flourish. He will keep our borders safe and render us inviolate against invasion.”
“It does sound a remarkable experience, ma’am.” Has the prince consort-”
“He is with me in this completely. As he is in all things.”
“Naturally, ma’am. Quite so.”
The Queen looked annoyed at the interruption, at this presumptuous truncation of her zealotry. “From this day forth, my house has a new god and a new religion. Leviathan is the way, the truth and the life.” She broke off. “You look suspicious. Do you doubt my revelation?”
Arthur was watching Dedlock as his ancestor was speaking and he thought he saw the young man bristle slightly at this. “Of course not, ma’am. But I would urge caution.”
“Caution?”
“The Directorate has dealt with such entities before, ma’am, and they are seldom exactly what they appear to be. Tell me, has this creature asked for anything?”
The Queen wrinkled her nose. “Asked for anything?”
