and would have been as uncommonly quiet as the fog-shrouded land outside if it hadn’t been for the clicking of the deathwatch beetles.
Saying nothing, we continued along the church’s longitudinal west-east axis. Like a bridesmaid, Cliticia walked a few feet behind. Mr Kirchner, who once more hefted the carpetbag, accompanied her. Negotiating our way past the latticework screen that separated nave from chancel, we eventually came to a halt before the altar and the great east window that loured above it.
His lordship took up the lecture from where Mr Kirchner had left off. ‘The loss of the galleries, the side entrances, and the steeple ornaments has damaged Christ Church—in purely aesthetic terms, somewhat irreparably. Nevertheless, it remains compelling, do you not think?’ He raised his arm and swept it through the air. ‘Does it not meet Vanbrugh’s criterion, that churches should have “the most solemn and awful appearance without and within”?’ I followed his gaze. Flattened arches, massive recessed walls, the huge flat ceiling, and the tripartite eastern window that seemed illumined with a strange, black light, all seemed designed to overwhelm with intimations of dread. The church was consecrated to some intangible force; I was surrounded by the monumentality of its dark purpose. ‘Yes, Vanbrugh would have been pleased. Christ Church retains its Dionysiac lines. And more importantly, it remains functional.’ ‘My father has spoken at Christ Church Hall, in Hanbury Street,’ I said, as if I could allay my anxieties by summoning up a spectre of my own: the spectre of normality.
‘Ah yes,’ said his lordship, ‘a platform for Radicals. Annie Besant, I believe, has spoken there, too.’
‘There was another Annie,’ said Mr Kirchner, ‘who frequented Hanbury Street.’
The air, already chill, seemed to grow colder. ‘We won’t talk of that,’ said his lordship, somewhat acidly.
There was a dull thud. Mr Kirchner had tossed the carpetbag towards the altar, and it had come to rest beneath the antependium. I looked up, studying his lordship’s face for some indication of what might now transpire. Ignoring me, he disengaged his arm from my own, and then walked forward and deposited his own bag—the little black bag that so resembled a doctor’s—on top of the altar-cloth. He opened it and retrieved a big, pear-shaped jewel. He held the jewel aloft and I saw that it glinted and sparkled like onyx, or some other variety of dark, semiprecious stone.
Cliticia fixed me with an amused, knowing gaze, and then quieter than before, but just as insistently, began to sing:
‘I kissed her twice upon her lips
I wish I’d done it thrice,
I whispered Oh, it’s naughty,
She said—’
But Oh, it is so nice. The flagstones began to rumble. Vibrations coursed through the soles of my boots and up my legs. And then the church filled with a desperate, harsh noise, as if a thousand steam engines such as had been used at my interview had been stowed in the crypt and fired-up at a moment’s notice. I put my hands over my ears. Then I heard nothing. Felt nothing. The black light that seemed to fill the east window grew brighter. It flooded the altar, the chancel, and the nave, filling me and flowing through my blood, spinning me like a whirligig and drowning me in shadows.
And all my senses were eclipsed.
Part
Two
Chapter Eight
The planet, or rather the urbanized portion of landmass that I stood upon—a supercontinent constituting three-tenths of its otherwise watery surface—was a conglomerate of ruins overrun with blue vegetation and enveloped in a deeper, midnight-blue shade.
It was night. In Babylon, world-city consecrated to the goddess of the moon, it was always night. Moreover, it was always the night of a full moon. The moon gave Babylon succour; it was the lantern that illumined the indigo depths of its perpetual shadows. And it was moonlight, blue as Arctic ice, but
Saying nothing, we continued along the church’s longitudinal west-east axis. Like a bridesmaid, Cliticia walked a few feet behind. Mr Kirchner, who once more hefted the carpetbag, accompanied her. Negotiating our way past the latticework screen that separated nave from chancel, we eventually came to a halt before the altar and the great east window that loured above it.
His lordship took up the lecture from where Mr Kirchner had left off. ‘The loss of the galleries, the side entrances, and the steeple ornaments has damaged Christ Church—in purely aesthetic terms, somewhat irreparably. Nevertheless, it remains compelling, do you not think?’ He raised his arm and swept it through the air. ‘Does it not meet Vanbrugh’s criterion, that churches should have “the most solemn and awful appearance without and within”?’ I followed his gaze. Flattened arches, massive recessed walls, the huge flat ceiling, and the tripartite eastern window that seemed illumined with a strange, black light, all seemed designed to overwhelm with intimations of dread. The church was consecrated to some intangible force; I was surrounded by the monumentality of its dark purpose. ‘Yes, Vanbrugh would have been pleased. Christ Church retains its Dionysiac lines. And more importantly, it remains functional.’ ‘My father has spoken at Christ Church Hall, in Hanbury Street,’ I said, as if I could allay my anxieties by summoning up a spectre of my own: the spectre of normality.
‘Ah yes,’ said his lordship, ‘a platform for Radicals. Annie Besant, I believe, has spoken there, too.’
‘There was another Annie,’ said Mr Kirchner, ‘who frequented Hanbury Street.’
The air, already chill, seemed to grow colder. ‘We won’t talk of that,’ said his lordship, somewhat acidly.
There was a dull thud. Mr Kirchner had tossed the carpetbag towards the altar, and it had come to rest beneath the antependium. I looked up, studying his lordship’s face for some indication of what might now transpire. Ignoring me, he disengaged his arm from my own, and then walked forward and deposited his own bag—the little black bag that so resembled a doctor’s—on top of the altar-cloth. He opened it and retrieved a big, pear-shaped jewel. He held the jewel aloft and I saw that it glinted and sparkled like onyx, or some other variety of dark, semiprecious stone.
Cliticia fixed me with an amused, knowing gaze, and then quieter than before, but just as insistently, began to sing:
‘I kissed her twice upon her lips
I wish I’d done it thrice,
I whispered Oh, it’s naughty,
She said—’
But Oh, it is so nice. The flagstones began to rumble. Vibrations coursed through the soles of my boots and up my legs. And then the church filled with a desperate, harsh noise, as if a thousand steam engines such as had been used at my interview had been stowed in the crypt and fired-up at a moment’s notice. I put my hands over my ears. Then I heard nothing. Felt nothing. The black light that seemed to fill the east window grew brighter. It flooded the altar, the chancel, and the nave, filling me and flowing through my blood, spinning me like a whirligig and drowning me in shadows.
And all my senses were eclipsed.
Part
Two
Chapter Eight
The planet, or rather the urbanized portion of landmass that I stood upon—a supercontinent constituting three-tenths of its otherwise watery surface—was a conglomerate of ruins overrun with blue vegetation and enveloped in a deeper, midnight-blue shade.
It was night. In Babylon, world-city consecrated to the goddess of the moon, it was always night. Moreover, it was always the night of a full moon. The moon gave Babylon succour; it was the lantern that illumined the indigo depths of its perpetual shadows. And it was moonlight, blue as Arctic ice, but
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