The Fall of Eva Pryor Ch. 06

I have mentioned once before that I am cursed with an active imagination. This also holds true when I sleep and especially while travelling, when I find my dreams clearer than usual. Even so, the visions I beheld the night of our arrival in Constantinople were sharper and stranger than anything I have ever known. Perhaps there was opium in the hookah I'd smoked in the Sultan's Red Room, as poppy dreams are famed for their vivid, terrifying qualities -at least, if the accounts of the English Opium-Eater Thomas De Quincey are to be believed. I would not doubt it now, for in my sleeping mind's eye, I saw Eva abducted and subjected to...well, let me tell it all out.

In my dream, I had gone to fetch Eva in the night so that we could flee from the palace together. It seemed vitally important that we get away. However, I arrived too late. I reached her room only to see her being carried from her chamber by two men in steam-suits that rivalled the Commander's. The cold light of the moon shone through a wrought-iron gate so vast and intricate that it cast shadows on her body in patterns which almost seemed to be words -messages of warning and prophecy that I struggled to read across her flickering limbs. Then she was taken away into shadow, and I was irresistibly drawn to follow, though I had no power to intervene but was like a ghost or spirit witnessing it all. They brought her onto a gilded mechanical platform that lowered down into a secret chamber in the zenana. The doors were guarded by eunuchs whose limbs were strengthened with steam-driven armour, and whose heads were covered by golden helms in the forms of exotic animals: lions and rhinoceri and long-horned oxen with glinting ruby eyes. Though I was invisible, I feared to pass by them, as if their gemstone eyes might have the supernatural vision to see me. Still, I gathered my courage and slipped past them in pursuit of Eva.

Inside the room, I found a kind of machine shop or laboratory filled with myriad devices of unknown purpose: elevated tables rimmed with dozens of vises, cages crowned with flywheels, hoists with chains strong enough to lift a bull or a tank or something even more unimaginable. I could see no walls or ceiling but only a bewildering array of things all around, iron-dark in the shadows, steel-blue where the moonlight pierced through. The shadows in that room were beyond description.

Eva was laid out on an operating table, restrained hand and foot by bands of thousand-fold Damascus steel tempered even beyond her ability to break. There was a click and a hard-edged shaft of iodine light fell over her, illuminating her from head to toe. She was dressed only in a cotton nightgown without even her harness or engine on, though the struts of her framework were still in place at her throat and hands. She was gagged with the sash she'd worn at dinner. Her eyes were closed tightly against the light that shone down from directly above her. Though blinded and bound, she still tossed her head rebelliously, spilling her long black hair like ink on the white-sheeted table.

For a moment Eva lay alone, bosom heaving, on the white table. Then from out of the tortured shadows stepped the one I knew was behind it all: the Sultan Abdul Aziz. His eyes were alight with desire -not carnal desire, but the cold possessive zeal of a man fanatically devoted to Science. I realized that it was not her body but her mechanical framework that he most wanted to possess. It had been so all along. He was a technophile and a modernist, hungry for the knowledge that was the salvation of his people. I just couldn't make him understand that Eva's framework was her body, and to touch it was to violate her.

Like a surgeon, the Sultan held out his hand. A guard placed a knife into it. Somehow we were now in an operating theatre. Calmly, dispassionately, this Sultan-turned-Surgeon cut away Eva's nightgown, exposing the fullness of her framework to his avid gaze. The struts embraced her, tracing down her neck in the back to support her spine, circling around to follow her ribs, running underneath her high, small breasts, and joining together at her sternum. Another metal brace circled her hips and ran between her legs. There was a little hinged door there, between her legs, presumably for her bodily functions, though it hinted at other possibilities. Attached to her waistband were braces that followed her thighs and calves down to her feet, with circlets at the ankles. The entire framework was bronzed and oiled and polished smooth. Even just looking at it, I could tell it was warmed to blood temperature with the heat of her flesh, which quivered below the metal like a rose under its thorns.

Eva, I never saw you so vulnerable in life, not even that time on the airship when I walked in on your private pleasures. But I know this is how you were, or could have been, underneath. It's why I always tried to protect you: this compelling fragility underlying your strength.

The Surgeon held out his hand again, and this time a dull bladed tool, like a chisel or a screwdriver, was placed into it. With this he began to methodically undo the joints of Eva's framework. He disassembled her, piece by piece, removing her armour and even her bonds until only her bare flesh remained, twitching spasmodically now and then with effort but unable to move to resist him. He examined every mechanical part he had removed from her with fascination, making notes now and then, learning how everything fit together. Then he turned back to her body.

I could see his hands on her, casually at first, as he asked her in his polite, persuasive English to tell him why she had come to Constantinople.

"Who is your scientific contact?"

"Who sent you here, really?"

"What are your intentions in the Ottoman Empire?"

His hands stroked her, not yet hurting her, but letting her know he could. His tone remained silky, almost dreamy, as he questioned her. Eva was angry at first, angry enough to defy him outright and refuse to tell him anything. She would have spit on him if she could. She did all she could with words to strike at him. When he didn't respond she became deliberately provocative, daring him to do what he would to her. Bizarrely, as this went on, she almost seemed to beg for it, to demand he do to her that which she could not withstand: to push her to her limits and beyond, as she had always secretly wanted.

The Sultan himself took her first, and then his Vizier, and then the Commander with his steam suit, pinning her, breaking her down with pleasure and pain commingled, making her gasp and moan, until finally in an unendurable paroxysm of sensation she called out the words that would make them stop: the name of her contact, Fatima Aliye.

After her confession she was languid. She was not defeated nor broken, not yet, but something had been...discharged from her, as if some vital resistant energy had been sapped away. Her captors gave her respite for a little while, but they would not permit her to slip away into unconsciousness. Not yet.

The women of the zenana, all varied in race but equally beautiful in their scarlet silks and golden chains, were summoned to tend to Eva in her hazy half-swoon. They gave her water and reviving potions. Some of them even dared to teaze and stimulate her, slipping their long, graceful, ring-covered fingers between her lips and her legs. Eva responded at first with weak resistance, but then with increasing eagerness for their gentle, pleasurable touches. They brought her back to full awareness of every part of her body, only so that she could be forced to confess again. I knew the Sultan and his men would make her explain how her suit was made and demonstrate it for them so that they might learn how to build their own miniaturized steam suits and make an army of their market-place beggars and cripples. I knew she would submit to their every demand eventually. They had seduced her with force into becoming their collaborator, turning our lies of defection into truth. Indeed, I was no longer sure in my own mind of what was truth or fiction, coercion or desire, dream or reality.

To my shock, it was precisely at this moment of confusion that I felt a hand close over my mouth. I gave a strangled yell, astonished to find that I was solid and present in the world again. Had the masked guards found me at last? I fought against the hand that held me in reflexive terror.

"Shhh!" a voice hissed. "It's me!"

My eyes opened to behold Eva's face surrounded by a dark robe that covered her hair. My expression must have been like a madman's, as Eva looked shocked to behold it.

"Benjamin, it's Eva. I came to get you. We must find Ulupi and leave tonight. We are not safe here. There was something strange in the food or drink, something to undo our senses."

I nodded vigorously in agreement. When she was sure I had control of myself, she let go of my mouth.

"Eva, I have seen such things-!" I began. But I could not tell her what had been done to her in my unconscious phantasy. Instead I looked around unsteadily. "Is this truly waking life?"

Eva nodded. I noticed a sheen of sweat on her brow.

"I've had some ill effects as well. We can't stay here. They want to-I don't know how to say it-"

Her face took on an expression of anxious paranoia. I clasped her hand, wondering if her visions had been similar to mine.

"I know. You don't need to say it. Let's go. How did you get past the guards outside your suite?"

"I traded places with a servant girl. She seemed to think it a game. Or maybe she felt sorry for me and pretended to make light so I would not feel badly." Eva frowned. "What will happen to her when they find her? I half thought her another vision."

I shook my head, trying to clear images of the ladies of the zenana from my mind.

"And the guards at my door?"

"Unconscious."

"By your hand?"

Eva nodded.

"Then we must escape tonight indeed, before they are found. Do you have any idea as to where Ulupi might be? Any direction we can head?"

"Well, I know that she resided near the University. But I doubt she is in the same quarters now given the loss of her translator, and we never set a specific meeting point. All she wrote was that we should come to meet her here."

I closed my eyes, summoning memories of the pages Ulupi had written. They came to me, like my dreams, with uncommon clarity. I could see the textured parchment and the aristocratic script upon it. Her poetic classical Persian, her striking metaphors, her mixed languages...

"Eureka!" I exclaimed, lapsing into Greek in my excitement. "She did tell us where to meet her. She said to return to the source, but she did not write it in Persian, she used French, 'la source.' In French, une source can also be a wellspring or source of water. Is there any famous spring here in Constantinople, or perhaps a fountain fed by a spring?"

"Yes! She wrote to me of it herself, not too long ago. She said that she was working on a new project to restore a fountain from Roman times, the Nymphaeum Maximum. It used to be fed by an aquaduct, but they used a distance strike directed downwards and tapped the water-table to bring fresh water to the surface. It is to be the centerpiece of the main hall of the University, which is built over a square where the fountain once stood. A man-made spring, waters reborn--"

"La source."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our escape from the Palace of the Filled-In Garden was slipshod to say the best. Eva was still disguised as a servant-girl with her engine poorly hidden under her robes. I disguised myself as a guard -equally poorly, I might add, since the smaller of the two men Eva had incapacitated still wore clothing several sizes larger than mine. I refused to stumble around in his giant's boots but opted instead for my own much-worn brown knee boots, into which I slipped Eva's private papers. We were hardly convincing upon close examination.

On top of that, the two of us were still half-addled by opium. I found myself shying away from the patterned shadows cast by balconies, certain that the Surgeon of my nightmares would emerge from them at any moment. Eva scolded me more than once for veering out into the full moonlight to get away from shadows. However, she too had moments where she simply stopped in her tracks and looked all around with wide eyes, as if trying to grasp a world gone out of perspective. Still, we made it away despite our impairments. Perhaps the guards expected us to be deep in drugged slumber, and so were not on high alert at such a late hour.

Finding the University in the middle of the night proved to be somewhat more of a challenge. Neither of us had ever been to Constantinople and all our maps were left behind in the Vimana. The darkened city hulked around us, preventing us from spotting anything that resembled an institute of higher education. Eva, in the grip of her paranoia, was against asking even the most lowly beggar for directions; she claimed we would surely be sold out by them the moment the palace guards started searching for us. I argued that we needed to ask the way so that we could reach Fatima before the guards were abroad. It was a much longer debate than it should have been, but finally I prevailed. So that we shouldn't appear such a suspicious pair, I left Eva to wait just around the corner as I sought a guide. The first person I came across was an old woman clad in rags who was shambling down a side-street. Keeping a careful distance, I asked her the way to the University in polite Turkish.

"I don't speak your accursed tongue, palace dog," the woman muttered in Greek.

"Which way to the University, grandmother?" I tried again, matching her dialect. She looked up at me in surprise. Then a mischievous grin spread across her face.

"Ah ha! A white sheep in wolf's clothing!" She chortled. "Where is the woman?"

"Er...what woman?"

"There is always a woman, Englishman. Bring her and we go."

Together we followed the crone through the nighttime streets of Constantinople to the University. I cannot say now if the school was old or new. It seemed to be still under construction, though perhaps it was just undergoing renovations to suit it for the Steam Age. Either way, it was clearly not in use, being barred off by an ugly fence with vicious metal spines at the top to stop thieves climbing over. I was relieved at that, for I knew iron would present little barrier to Eva's strength. I wished I had a coin to press into our Greek oracle's hand before sending her on her way, but the pockets of my stolen uniform were empty. We were poorer than beggars in a foreign land. To my surprise, it was the old woman who gave us a gift in parting.

"Here. For luck." She closed Eva's hand around something. Then, without another word, she vanished (or so my addled mind made it seem.)

"What is it?" I asked.

Eva opened her hand. A round blue eye stared back at us: a glass-bead charm to ward off the Evil Eye.

"Keep it," I whispered. "'Tis a good omen."

She tucked it under her robe. I heard it clink against something hard -the lodestone, I guessed, since Eva did not carry a pistol.

In a trice, Eva had the bars bent just enough that we could slip through onto the University grounds. From there it was much clearer which of the buildings was the main Hall, since it was the grandest and the one most surrounded by the debris of construction. We made our way in through the casement of a window without glass. Inside we found the fountain, dry for now, but so opulently carved of Carrara marble in the Romanesque style that it was impressive even without water.

"There, do you see it?" Eva asked, pointing. "Look. A phoenix amidst the nymphs."

Indeed there was a magnificent carving of a phoenix with its fiery tail flared up and spread like a peacock's.

"The phoenix builds his pyre..." I murmured, remembering Ulupi's letter.

Without hesitation, Eva climbed into the fountain and began to feel around the carving. After a few moments she located a lever built into the tail-feathers. Pressing down on it caused an opening to appear in the fountain's massive central pillar . A spiral staircase lead down into darkness.

"A secret passage-way built into the fountain! Astounding!"

"Too many novels, Benjamin. It's just the service hatch."

I must admit, there was a certain utilitarian quality to the passageway when I looked more closely. But I tried not to let it dampen my spirits, which were roused by our success. I grabbed a torch that was mounted to the wall of the passage, lit it with a Lucifer match, and boldly gestured forward with it.

"To the depths!"

Eva tossed her head impatiently, but she was smiling too, with that wry, beautiful smile she had.

"Yes, yes, the depths. Go on, then."

She pulled another lever next to the sconce and the doorway closed behind us. We descended the staircase. The passage down was dark and narrow, smelling of damp stone and, very faintly underneath that, of mould or rot. I held my torch aloft but could not see the bottom. We had no choice but to go step by step into the unknown. The damp fungal odour grew stronger the deeper we went. The air was cold enough that our breaths condensed and mingled in the light of the torch. Every so often there was a landing with a heavy wooden door barred with steel, likely for different service platforms. I could not help but imagine that they harboured dungeons, each crammed with its own torturous devices. I do not know what they all held in truth, for every one was locked, until the one that was not. Six doors we tried, without success. It was the seventh that opened for us. And inside...oh!

Dear Reader, please forgive me the 'Penny Dreadful' prose. We stepped inside and I gasped, but it was not in horror. Rather, it was surprise to find that here was a fully furnished space that looked in truth rather cozy. There were rugs on the floor to ward off the chill and an oil lamp turned down low but still alight on a table piled high with books. The low ceilings were gracefully vaulted in red brick, creating a warren-like sense of security. Incense burned to cover the smell of mould.

I had barely taken in these sights when a round-faced woman some twenty-five years of age peered into the room from an inner archway. She had been holding something behind the wall to use as a weapon, but she threw it down immediately and flew to embrace Eva with open arms.

"Arjuna! You have received my message! You came!" she exclaimed in French.

"Ulupi, yes, I am here!" Eva replied in passable French. Her eyes flashed with mixed irony and fondness at use of their pet names. But just as quickly, she sobered.

"My friend, we have been through quite a bit to make it here, and I fear we may bring danger to your door. The two of us have just escaped from the palace."

Eva indicated me with a nod of her head, and then realized that while I knew of Miss Aliye, she had no idea who I was.

"Ah, Fatima, may I introduce my dear friend and collaborator, Benjamin D'Aville. Benjamin, Fatima Aliye, esteemed authoress and researcher."

"Enchante, Mademoiselle," I added with a courteous bow.

"You are French, Monsieur?" she asked.

"English, but a linguist. Your French is very good. La source, it was well-conceived."

"Thank you, I have studied French from a young age. I was not permitted to go to school, but still I learned on my own. French, Arabic, Classical Persian..."

"Yes, we may all get to know which languages we speak over tea and scones later, should we survive." Eva cut in. "But for now, we must plan quickly. Fatima, what on Earth is happening in Constantinople, that you summoned me here?"

"That is a tale longer than I can tell. But in brief, the three of us must work together to stop a war."