Steam Submarine Zelf Read online

Steam Submarine Zelf

  Gryphonomicon Steam Submarine Book One

  Copyright © 2014 Robert Denethon

  The wolf will live with the lamb, the panther lie down with the kid, calf, lion and fat-stock beast together, with a little boy to lead them. The cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together. The lion will eat hay like the ox. The infant will play over the den of the adder; the baby will put his hand into the viper’s lair. No hurt, no harm will be done on all my holy mountain, for the country will be full of knowledge of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea.

  Isaiah 11:6-9

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Quote

  Proloup – Reflexion of a Wolf

  Interloup One- Amnesiac, Past Unknown.

  Interloup Two - Secret Agents & the Electric Telegraph.

  Interloup Three - In The Shadow of the City.

  Interloup Four – Finding Food

  Interloup Five - A Ride in a Taxi-Cab.

  Interloup Six - Finding Fuel For the Steam Submarine.

  Interloup Seven - A Surprise in Bedlam Hospital.

  Interloup Eight - Refrigerated.

  Interloup Nine - In the Steam Submarine

  Interloup Ten - Into the Darkness and Then...

  Interloup Eleven – Noble Wolf

  Interloup Twelve - Captive Held

  Interloup Thirteen – Things Seen and Unseen

  Interloup Fourteen - Faun Supremacists

  Interloup Fifteen – Trying to Find Where Zev has been

  Interloup Sixteen – Wolf Lady

  End of Book One

  Dedication

  Preface - The Troubling Fountain of All Mythology

  Proloup: Reflexion of a Wolf

  Wolf Lady

  There was no sound but for the steady murmuring of the drizzling rain pelting the submarine’s hull.

  In the shiny brass dashboard she caught a glimpse of her own reflexion. Bright golden eyes stared back at her, and in the shadow of her grey cape she glimpsed the grey and white fur on her muzzle and ears, and the wet black nose of a wolf.

  She bared her teeth at her own visual echo and growled a deeply satisfying growl.

  In this realm, she was the monster.

  If she was caught they would surely kill her, or even worse, in this strange world of vivisection and animal experimentation, she would end up in a laboratory somewhere, being prodded by sticks and pricked with needles and cut apart by knives, so that human scientists could see what it was that made her different from everything else.

  In her home, in her cubhood the monsters in the fairytales and stories were all humans: evil hunters with their guns and bombs and bad knights slashing and killing with swords and pikestaffs; crazed, savage, barbaric men.

  In the Red Riding Hood story in her world, the heroine was a wolf cub, and her grandmother was killed by a woodsman who lay in wait in Red Riding Hood’s bed for her to return, lying there inside her grandmother’s skin that had been flayed from the poor unfortunate old wolf matriarch. It was not a comforting story, and it did not end nicely, not in the version she knew. She did not like to think of the end of it - that one was not a story for cubs. But she had to admit that, despite its gruesomeness, there was a grain of truth in it.

  Hmph.

  In the Fallen Realms, she thought to herself, something is broken in the very fabric of the world - fruit and vegetables are no longer nutritious enough to sustain life - Zelf had almost died of malnutrition before she finally relented and ate meat, and only because she would not have been able to fulfil her mission if she had died.

  Hunting was not a pleasure for her; it was a sad necessity. She always killed her prey quickly and cleanly, and only took what she needed.

  What strange perversion of the soul made the humans so indifferent to animal suffering? A swift death - is that so much to ask? Treat others as you would like to be treated - that was what one of their prophets said, wasn’t it?

  It’s the Leviathan.

  That usurper lurked in the very warp and weft of this world, like a stain of rottenness at its core. His nasty, El-forsaken servants sat on the humans’ shoulders and whispered in their ears all the time, nasty, evil words, told them to do bad things, or made them despair, or worse, caused them to become proud of themselves, when they tried to do good deeds.

  It was time to try to get home again - if she could face the shame of it. She must leave the Fallen Realms. She would tell the head Alpha, Tharek, everything she had found out about the humans - perhaps then they would excuse her shame, forgive her for the terrible, unmentionable thing.

  The Disgrace.

  The real reason she had left.

  The only problem was, the vital component in her submarine, the Ætheric Detector, was broken. Without it she could not leap the branches of the World Tree, for she would not be able to find out where the Ætheric tunnels were.

  Without that component she was stuck in the Fallen Realms, prisoner in the land of humans, a place where she could trust no one.

  But she had found out something that might help. She knew that these humans who called themselves English had made an Ætheric Detector. Perhaps she could get one from them.

  She took the wheel and carefully guided the craft into the shelter of the dock.

  She would have to make alliances, she had taken that fact for granted when she had come here, but even among her allies there were few, very few humans that she even half-trusted.

  She would have to contact them soon. She sighed; it came out almost like a howl and it wasn’t even the full moon.

  Alpha of Alphas, help me, Ellulianæ aiohiCwa, she whispered, not completely sure if it was a prayer or an oath. Help me.

  Pah. Madgwint had been right - she ought not to have come here. She ought not to have even set foot in this world. It was a bad, bad place.

  Interloup One- Amnesiac, Past Unknown.

  The Amnesiac Young Man.

  “My dear boy, it is Nineteen hundred and thirty five. And what would you be? Thirteen years old? Fourteen, fifteen, perhaps? It sounds as though you have missed out on eighty years. Or perhaps you are wondering if you might be slightly... delusional?”

  The gentleman was stroking his chin and looked at me as though he thought the second alternative more likely. We were in a coffee shop in the Strand.

  For a moment I had hesitated, for I hadn’t understood the word ‘delusional’. But when I realized what it must mean - someone in the grip of a delusion, a fancy, a false impression of the mind - I knew that I had to make my move.

  He reached forward towards me as I leapt up from my seat, but I flinched backwards, out of his grasp.

  He lurched forwards again and grabbed for my hand as he blurted, “I might know some people who can help you!” But I wasn’t standing there waiting for someone to lock me in the madhouse. I wrenched my hand out of his control and leaped away from his grasping, greedy fingers...

  That’s how I had ended up where I was now...