All Men of Genius

VIII.



LATER that night in the hall of student rooms, the third-year Toby Belch and the second-year Drew Pale were waiting. The initiation of the freshmen had always been run exclusively by the third-years, but Toby was the loudest and most enthusiastic of them, and Drew was his closest friend, so no one minded that Drew was coming along. The other seniors were still unpacking or studying in the lounge, waiting for a signal from Toby that it was time for the festivities to begin. That signal would come when Toby was sure that all the freshmen were asleep.

Toby and Drew spent most of their time in the chemical lab—Toby working on the perfect hangover cure and Drew just enjoying the fumes—so they had turned to Gregory Cheek, the third-year mechanical specialist, for help fashioning a device that would allow them to listen through the dormitory walls to determine when all the first-years were asleep. Gregory had done so happily, and given it to them and explained how to use it hours ago. It looked like a sturdy brass mug with a coil of wire where the handle should be and a small hole in the bottom. It was really a rather lovely piece of work, simple but effective, using the basic properties of sound and enhancing them with a touch of mechanical ingenuity. However, in the past few hours, Toby and Drew had forgotten how to use it.

“You put this end against the wall, and you put your ear against the other end,” Drew said, clanging the device against the wall.

“That’s backwards,” Toby said, taking the device from Drew and reversing it. He pressed his ear against the small tube and the large end against the wall of one of the first-years’ rooms. He heard nothing, and narrowed his eyes. Did this mean the students were asleep, or that he was using the device incorrectly?

“So?” Drew asked.

“I don’t hear anything,” Toby said.

“So they’re asleep,” Drew said, pleased. “Let’s check on the other rooms.”

In the next room, Toby heard snoring through the small tube, and was satisfied that he was using it correctly. Pleased with himself, and gracious, he let Drew listen, as well.

“Which ones are in this room?” Drew asked.

“The little one and the tall one,” Toby answered. Which meant that the last room was the first-year who had somehow managed to reserve himself a private chamber. The private rooms were supposed to be for third-years only. Usually a first- and second-year ended up living together due to the odd number of students in each year, but this year the duke had sent letters to all the third-years asking if they wouldn’t mind sharing with a second year. Toby had written back to say that it wouldn’t be a problem as long as he could share a room with Drew. He didn’t mind, if it got him in the duke’s good graces, but when he found out that it was for some self-important first-year who had refused to share a room, he practically threw the brat’s luggage out the window into the Thames.

Drew pushed his ear against the wall of the final first-year room, not using the device. “I can’t hear anything,” he said. “This is where His Highness is staying, is it?”

“Yes,” Toby said, pressing the device against the wall, and hearing nothing. “He’s out like a little lamb, he is. I hope he changed into his nightshirt before bed.” He snickered.

“Let’s wake the others, then,” he said.

The four other third-years had all been relaxing and catching up with their classmates in the lounge at the end of the dormitory hall, having quickly settled back into university life. When Toby and Drew walked in, a small bronze sparrow flew by their heads, nearly hitting them.

“It’s been flying for over ten minutes,” Alexander said, though the device was clearly not his, as he spent most of his time working with the analytical engines. Gregory, who Toby felt sure had created the sparrow that, even at that moment, seemed to be diving for his head, smiled sheepishly. Toby dodged the mechanical bird again, but Drew was not so lucky. It hit him full on the side of the head.

“Oh dear,” Tim said from his seat by the window.

“Where’s Ivan?” Drew asked.

“Probably in his room, moping,” Alexander said. Ivan was from the East, Russia specifically, and consequently had no sense of humor. Toby was glad to be rid of him. In fact, he could have done without the rest of the students, too: Gregory never spoke, and when he did, was impossible to understand through his Welsh accent. Tim had a perpetually glazed look in his eyes and was so tall and thin he made Toby uneasy. He could have kept Alex, he supposed, though Alex had a tendency to be overwhelmingly optimistic at times, and was constantly feeling sorry for everyone. Even now he was frowning and dabbing at the cut on Drew’s head with a handkerchief. Drew did not look entirely comfortable.

“Let’s go on without him, then,” Toby said.

“Are they asleep?” Alex asked.

“Yes,” Toby said, grinning. “Remember, when you burst in, be as scary as possible, grab ’em, and throw them out into the hall. Drew here’ll blindfold them all, and then we can take them downstairs.” Gregory nodded. Alex bit his lip but nodded as well. Toby suspected that Alex would let the first-years grab whatever they’d like if they asked nicely enough. He’d send him into the room with the fat one, who looked like he could use some sympathy.

“Great,” Toby said. “Then let’s go.”

Toby had been correct in assuming Alex would have pity on the first-years. He shook them quietly awake, with whispers of “Up now, up now, it’s time to prove yourselves!” and let Merriman put on his glasses before leaving his room. Lane and Merriman had heeded Toby’s warning and slept in their pants, shirts, and shoes, but hadn’t thought to actually bring anything.

Toby was pleased to find Roger Fairfax, Earl of Cheshireford, the ponce who felt he was too good for a roommate, soundly asleep in his nightshirt, stocking feet, and even a pointed sleeping hat. With all his energy, he screamed Roger awake and then pushed him, still groggy-eyed and confused, out into the hall, where Drew quickly snapped a black cloth around his eyes.

“What is going on?” Fairfax shrieked.

“Oh, relax,” Jack said as Drew tightened the blindfold over his eyes. He and Violet hadn’t been asleep at all, but had happily hopped out of bed fully dressed when Tim and Gregory had come into the room, their pockets overflowing with tools they thought might be useful. Gregory and Tim hadn’t said anything, just pointed at the open door, which, Jack had thought, was a good deal more frightening than screaming and shouting.

With pleasure, Toby poked and prodded the blindfolded first-years, leading them down the halls with which they were not yet familiar and into the mechanical lift, then pulling the lever and letting it fall perhaps too quickly to the lower basement. There, Toby and the others led the first-years to a large dimly lit room with four archways leading off it and gave each of them a good spin.

No one was really sure why there was a labyrinth in the basement of Illyria. Toby and Drew had explored parts of it and suspected it was a safety measure, a way of keeping the more dangerous inventions from being stumbled upon by a layman who might accidentally destroy London with them. Toby and Drew hadn’t found anything down here that they thought could destroy London, but they suspected that was only because they hadn’t looked hard enough.

With a wave of Toby’s hand, the third-years quietly dispersed, leaving the first-years alone in the darkness.

* * *



VIOLET had no idea where they were, but was terribly excited. Still blindfolded and dizzy, she walked forward a few paces to see if anyone would stop her. Her footsteps were stiff on the stone beneath them.

“Anyone there?” she called.

“Hullo, Ashton,” came Jack’s friendly reply. Violet took off her blindfold. The room they were in was dark, with one small gas lamp flickering on the wall. Lane, Merriman, and Fairfax all stood there, shivering in the dark. Violet smirked to see Fairfax in a long shapeless white nightshirt.

Jack was already exploring the walls. “There are four passages out,” he said, “near as I can tell.” He looked over at the other three students. “Haven’t you lot taken your blindfolds off yet? Come on, I don’t want to waste too much time on this. I’d like to be well rested for class tomorrow.” Nervously, the other three took off their blindfolds and stared around them, blinking vapidly.

“Where is this?” Merriman asked.

“Basement,” Violet said. “Probably lower basement. We dropped far down in the lift, but we didn’t really walk that far, so it has to be the lower basement. I’d wager we just have to find the lift again, and we can go back to bed.”

“How do we do that?” Lane asked.

“With our incredible scientific ability, of course,” Jack said, skipping back to the group. With a flourish he produced a large jar from one of his jacket pockets. Inside was a thick fluid that glowed white green in the darkness.

“What is that?” Fairfax asked with obvious disgust, lifting his feet off the sticky ground one by one. His stockings were filthy, Violet noted with a smile.

“It’s from jellyfish,” Jack said. “There was a whole jar of them in the bio lab. I knew most of them could glow in the dark, so I extracted some of their fluorescent proteins and put them in a jar. We can paint it on the walls as we travel, so we know where we’ve been.”

“Very clever,” Violet said with some pride.

“Thank you,” Jack said with a bow.

“I didn’t bring anything,” Merriman said, looking nearly ready to cry in the soft green glow of the jellyfish jar.

“I didn’t either,” said Lane.

Violet tried not to roll her eyes. They had been warned, after all.

“This is an outrage,” Fairfax said. “I doubt it’s even safe down here. Why, who knows what odd chemical horrors have come together in the wastes of this place? There could be all sorts of dreadful creations stored here.”

“I’m sure it’s only a little dangerous,” Violet said. “The duke said they’d been doing this initiation for years.”

“The duke?” Fairfax asked.

“You spoke to the duke about this?” Jack asked, cocking an eyebrow and staring at Violet.

“Well, he came down to the lab, and I was showing him an invention, so I only mentioned … that is, I mentioned that some of the third-years had hinted at it, and he said, ‘Oh yes, that’s been happening for quite some time,’ or something like that.” Violet shut her mouth before she could stammer further. She could feel herself blushing, and hoped that it didn’t show in the green light. She didn’t even know why she was stammering like an idiot under Jack’s gaze, but she suddenly felt as though she should have kept her private moment with the duke a secret. “Look!” she said, remembering the device that had prompted the conversation. She held it up and pulled the trigger, causing a bright beam of light to shoot forth.

“Most excellent!” Jack exclaimed.

“Amazing,” Merriman said.

“It’s really not that impressive,” Violet said, knowing her modesty was false. Finally, she was among other bright young minds, and they were impressed with her inventions!

“I couldn’t do anything like that,” Lane said.

“Maybe it’s just not your field,” Jack said. “Ashton here is a mechanical genius.”

“I do feel more at home with chemical experimentation,” Lane confessed. “I synthesized a formula that, though it started as a small amount of paste, would gradually evaporate into breathable air. That’s how I got in.”

“That’s marvelous,” Violet said. “Why, you could use that to breathe underwater.”

“I suppose,” Lane said.

“Why didn’t you bring it?” Violet asked.

“Do you think we’ll be going underwater?” Lane asked. But before Violet could reply, Fairfax let out a horrid screech. She quickly shot a beam of light at him, but could see nothing the matter.

“What is it?” Jack asked.

“Something brushed against me,” Fairfax replied.

“There wasn’t anything there,” Violet said. “There’s nothing around.”

“Probably one of the cats,” Merriman said.

“What?” Jack asked.

“My father works for a family whose son was a student here a while back, when the school first opened. The son said that the chemical professor back then was working on an invisibility potion, and fed it to some cats and kittens to test it. Apparently it worked on most of them—but then he couldn’t find them to change them back, so now invisible cats roam the college.”

“How marvelous!” Jack said.

“Your father is a servant?” Fairfax asked with palpable condescension in his voice.

“He’s a gardener,” Merriman said softly. Fairfax scoffed. Jack clenched his jaw.

“I think it’s best we try to get out of here, rather than stand about talking,” Violet said before Jack could hit Fairfax. “Fairfax, you can stay here if you don’t feel dignified traveling with a gardener’s son or, for that matter, an estate manager’s son. We’ll send someone down for you if we remember.” Fairfax sneered, but followed as Violet started walking, Jack painting the walls with jellyfish protein as they went. She didn’t care where they went, as long as they went somewhere.

They walked in silence for a while, the group following Violet, who chose which twists and turns to follow at random, not pausing to let anyone else speak for fear it would result in an argument. The labyrinthine basement seemed to be used mainly for storage. Blank, unassuming doors lined some of the walls. Violet used her skeleton key device on a few of them, but after only finding boxes of salt and jars of ether, decided they were all dead ends.

“They just leave the doors open?” Fairfax said, his arms crossed.

“I used this to open them,” Violet explained. “It’s a mechanical skeleton key.”

“I didn’t realize Illyria trained thieves and servants. Perhaps I should have gone to Oxford after all.”

“I’m sure that would have made all of us very happy,” Jack said. Violet laughed and heard others chuckling in the darkness as well, probably Lane and Merriman.

She stopped walking and held up her hand. “I don’t think we’re alone.”

“Another cat?” Jack asked hopefully. He clearly wanted to study them, or was thinking of various pranks to pull with them. He reached into his pocket and took out Sheila. She woke from a peaceful sleep to look around at her new surroundings.

“You brought the ferret?” Violet asked, seeing it in the darkness.

“They have a great sense of smell,” Jack said. “Maybe she can catch one of the cats!”

“Cats are twice the size of ferrets,” Violet pointed out.

“I’m sure Sheila can hold her own,” Jack said.

“Anyway, I don’t think it’s cats.… I think there are people somewhere around.”

“Oh, yes,” said Jack. “Looked like the older students who warned us about the initiation. I spotted them a while ago. I assume they’re just keeping watch on us to make sure we don’t get into too much trouble so they don’t get blamed if we do.”

“Ah, well, if that’s the game, then that’s all right.” Violet said, and went back to pondering which direction to go next.

“My year, we were already safe in our beds by now,” Toby said, stepping out of the darkness, Drew right behind him. Violet raised an eyebrow at his coming out of hiding. “Well, if you know we’re here, no point us stumbling around in the shadows, is there? May as well just walk along with you.” Violet raised an eyebrow at him. “But, you know, my year, we were already safe in our beds by now.”

“Why don’t you just show us the way out?” Fairfax snarled.

“That wouldn’t be much fun, now, would it?” Toby said.

“This isn’t fun,” Fairfax responded.

“I didn’t mean fun for you.” Toby grinned. Drew chuckled.

“Well, I’m having a good time,” Violet said, “and I bet Jack is, too.”

“I am,” Jack said, “though I wish it had been an invisible cat you heard.”

“Well then, first-years,” Toby said with a wave of his hand, “lead on.”

In truth, Toby was a bit worried. This was a part of the basement he had never explored before. In previous years, one of the students had always had a compass on him, and it had never taken long for them to reason that the elevator must be on the great gear wall, so they just had to head toward the river to find the lift. This group seemed like it contained nothing but geniuses with no forethought for little things and people who didn’t take initiations seriously. He hoped it wouldn’t land them in too much trouble. Just a little while longer, he thought; then he’d take out his own compass.

At the end of one of the corridors there was a door that was very different from the others. The others had been simple wooden affairs with brass knobs and locks. This door was tall—it nearly reached the ceiling—and made entirely of brass. More curiously, there was no knob, handle, or visible way of opening it. But most striking of all wasn’t so much the door as the various figures lying around the wall in front of it.

“Skeletons?” Drew asked in a high-pitched voice. Violet swallowed. It seemed the older students hadn’t come this way before, and the shadows ahead did indeed look like skeletons.

“Possibly for research,” Jack said in a weaker voice than usual, “in the biology laboratory.” Violet nodded and shot her light at them, half-wondering if they would come to life. However, the light reflected back not white bone, but brass mechanics.

“They’re automata,” Violet said with wonder. “But why are they all just lying here?” Indeed, some of them had fallen from their leaning positions and lay in a heap at the end of the corridor. Violet, curious about their design, stepped forward and touched the first one. It was a thin figure, with long bonelike limbs that had at first made it look like a skeleton. But where the rib cage would have been was a large centerpiece with a clockwork key sticking out of it. And where a skull would have been was a smooth, featureless head but without eyes or mouth. It seemed oddly familiar to Violet, but she couldn’t figure out what she thought she recognized.

It was when she headed past the first figure to examine the second that the first came to life. She gasped, watching as its head straightened itself on its thin slumped neck and its thick heavy feet steadied themselves on the ground. Each movement made a squeal of metal. The thing’s hands, which had seemed simple three-pronged claws, stretched out, revealing sharp razors under their outer layer. The razors popped forward with the sound of knives being sharpened, and suddenly the hands were frightening talons that were reaching out for Violet’s neck.

Violet stood frozen in horror for a moment. A scream rose in her throat, but wouldn’t release. Her body was both cold and hot. Her brain shouted so many things at once that she couldn’t listen to any of them. All she could do was keep her eyes focused on the sharp glinting blades that were about to rend her head from her body. How sad it was, she thought, that she would never actually get to attend a class at Illyria.

Suddenly, Jack jumped forward, put his arm around Violet’s waist, and pulled her back out of the automaton’s reach. The other students had begun running as soon as the thing had come to life. Now Violet and Jack followed them, not looking back to see if the automaton pursued.

They caught up with the other students a few yards ahead. They were all panting from fright and the sudden exercise. Violet listened for any clanking to indicate that the creature was still chasing them, but heard nothing.

“Thanks,” Violet said to Jack.

He grinned, his face a little pink from the running. “Not a problem.”

“Okay,” Toby said. His panting was heavier than the others’, probably due to his general lack of physical fitness. “That’s enough fun for one night. Let’s get out of here.”

“No, wait,” Violet said, standing up straight and catching her breath, which her chest bindings made quite difficult. “We can do this without help.”

“I dropped the jellyfish jar when I grabbed you,” Jack said. “We won’t know where we’ve been anymore.”

But Violet wasn’t listening. She was gazing through a nearby archway. A dim light came through it, which Violet thought shone on something very interesting. Slowly and carefully, she walked up to the archway, and then stepped through it. The room beyond was huge, nearly as large as the Great Hall, but lit only by two dim gas lamps.

“It’s real,” she said softly. The rest of the students had followed her. They all stood on a large platform, staring at a small train car and a dark openmouthed tunnel in front of it. They could hear the sound of rushing water from the tunnel.

“Where does it go?” asked Drew.

“I don’t know,” Toby said, staring, “and it’s quite the find. But tonight is not the night to figure it out. I’m exhausted, and you may have noticed that we were attacked by skeletal automata. So unless it takes us back to our beds, which I very much doubt, I don’t see the point of riding it.”

Violet bit her lip and nodded. “You’re right,” she said, resigned. “Let’s go back. I think it’s this way,” she said, pointing down a corridor outside the archway, her shoulders slumped.

Toby took a compass off his belt and consulted it.

“I have a compass, too!” Lane said, seeing Toby looking at his.

Violet stared at Lane. “I thought you said you didn’t have anything.”

“Well, it’s just a compass. Not a mechanical torch or a jellyfish jar.”

The rest of the group sighed. “Oh, right, it’s just a compass. Which was created to show direction, help lost people, that sort of thing,” Jack said. “The Thames is to the west, I believe. The elevator will be that way, too.” He led the way, laughing long and loudly in the darkness.