Chapter 164: Ancient Fire (3)
Old love, and the smoldering embers of Buddha Fire, grow hot again.
-British Proverb-
“Watson. Would you wait outside for a moment?”
I knew it by instinct.
Things had gone wrong.
“After bringing me all the way here, what are you saying? As your assistant, since I’m already present, I’ll stay with you to the end.”
Watson said that and then shut her mouth, resolute.
“…If that’s your choice. Very well.”
So she had no intention of listening.
I had promised not to exclude her from the work last time, so I had no right to argue. “If I refuse, you’ll turn London into a sea of fire, is that what you’re saying?”
The Tsar said nothing.
He simply gazed into my eyes.
Silence, at times, conveys more than eloquence.
Facing him now, I could tell. There was not a single lie mixed into his words.
“…How very vicious.”
I gripped the handle of the Heavenly Demon Cane and tapped the floor twice with its tip.
High-speed thinking began.
My brain, sensing clear danger, began grasping for countermeasures.
If I accepted the Tsar’s proposal right here, could London escape the crisis?
How did Alexander III intend to burn London in the first place?
He hadn’t brought the Russian army. Only four Kung-Fuists were with him.
And yet, the eyes fixed on me held a powerful certainty.
‘What is he thinking?’
To be honest, I couldn’t even imagine it.
He was the Tsar of Russia.
But this was an empire without night, ruled by a Queen.
An emperor may wield absolute power only within his own domain.
In this country, Alexander III might qualify for treatment as an honored guest.
But he had no ‘right’ to burn London.
No.
Not even this country’s kings and queens had ever been granted such authority.
He wouldn’t be ignorant of that, so how could he predict London’s future with eyes so calm?
Not a year, but three days.
The Tsar proclaimed the ruin of a great city in a future so near it bordered on unreal.
Worse, he said London would burn ‘if I refused his offer.’
If his words were true, then the lives and property of London’s citizens hung on my single answer.
‘How did it come to this…?’
The Tsar was not a man who asked. He was a man who made others listen to his demands.
Men like that were skilled at keeping their cards hidden, shrinking their counterpart with fear, and achieving their aims.
It was true my attention was drawn less to the awkward question itself and more to ‘London becoming a sea of fire’, but whether I accepted his demand or refused it, what I needed was detail.
What I must do is always the same.
Listen to reason, make the correct judgment, and then carry it out.
“Is ‘London becomes a sea of fire’ a metaphor with a bit of poetic license?”
“I detest repeating myself.”
“Do you mean a dreadful rumor spreads and the citizens riot?”
“If you do not help me, London will burn to ash in three days. Just as it did a hundred years ago.”
“The Great Fire of London…”
In my mind rose the Doric column near the north end of London Bridge.
The Monument to the Great Fire, raised to remember the blaze that began in a bakery on Pudding Lane one hundred and fifteen years ago, burning countless lives, homes… and warms of rats.
Fortunately, with time, the city that had lost eighty percent of itself was rebuilt and gained new life.
But the terror was recorded, and it still casts a shadow over the history of glorious Great London.
It was no wonder that when the great fire struck Chicago across the sea ten years ago, Londoners couldn’t help but sympathize.
‘What is this man hiding?’
London now was not the London of the 1660s.
Kung-Fu was far more widespread, and the number of masters had increased beyond comparison.
On what confidence did the Tsar believe he could burn such a powerful, immense city?
If I did not discover it, then even accepting his demand now would ensure I’d be dragged around in the long term.
Above all, I had not the slightest intention of becoming his subordinate.
I had a mission. To send Moriarty to the heavenly tribunal.
To complete it, I had to operate without anyone’s interference.
And yet, I also did not wish to see a tragedy like the Great Fire repeated.
If the Tsar wished to burn London, he would have to burn me to ash first.
‘Even if I refuse, the Tsar will not try to kill me. The problem is what happens after…’
The man before me was not a thug who forced unwilling men into servitude.
But I could not believe he would simply release me after giving such an ominous prophecy.
At the very least, until he left Britain, he would try to confine Watson and me.
“Hm…”
The calculation was complete.
I had three choices before me.
If I attempted to flee from here, what was the probability of escaping the hotel alive?
Not mine, but Watson’s.
If I were alone, I could use Diablo Step and slip away through a collapsing building at leisure, but escaping while carrying Watson, with her injured leg, and shaking off five strong foes including the Tsar, would not be easy even with Mycroft’s help.
Therefore: flight was impossible.
Then what of a frontal clash?
I had heard what Kung-Fu the Tsar used.
That the House of Romanov wielded a fierce ice art comparable to the Northern Sea Ice Palace.
And the greatest feature of ice arts was that their power shone more indoors than out.
Even if Mycroft joined in, we would be three against five.
Judging by his presence alone, the Tsar did not look weaker than the Zion Clan priest we met at the royal ball.
‘Difficult…’
As I finished that thought, the ink beyond the window shifted shape.
<
Don’t Move Like Jagger, Sherlock.>
<
What matters now is information. We must learn the Tsar’s hand before it’s too late.>
Respecting the opinion of the brother who had reached the same conclusion, I folded my arms and spoke calmly.
“Allow me one question. Why do you hate this city so? If you must burn it all to feel satisfied, you must have piled up quite a grudge. What, exactly, did London do so wrong?”
I knew well enough what relations between Britain and Russia were like.
A clash between the superpower that ruled the world’s seas and the empire named as its potential rival.
But that rivalry existed through ongoing restraint and checks, without spilling into direct confrontation.
And yet the Russian Emperor crossed alone to London and spoke of burning the whole city.
This was not behavior one could summarize with words like bravado or arrogance.
If one insisted on a fitting word, it was madness.
Yet somehow, Alexander III looked nothing like a madman to my eyes.
Therefore, I had to confirm it.
What was it that this man was hiding.
“…You seem to be under a misunderstanding.”
And then—
“Since when did you—”
The Tsar’s answer veered far outside my expectations.
“You were mistaken, thinking ‘I’ would set London on fire, weren’t you?”
“…?!”
He was right.
He had not once said ‘he’ would burn London.
“London becoming a sea of fire would certainly be welcome to me. But wasting ‘that power’ on burning a mere city would be a pity. Recovering it, and using it for its proper purpose, is the reason I came here.”
Hearing him, I understood.
At first, I thought he had lost a precious treasure and, in anger, had demanded the Queen find it—going so far as to invoke war.
The stolen object must be invaluable (and though I already knew it was a Fabergé egg), the Tsar ought to have shown at least some anxiety.
Even if he knew the thief was Irene Adler, there was no guarantee he could recover it.
But speaking with him directly, I understood.
The Tsar had nothing to regret even if he failed to reclaim the Fabergé egg.
If he failed to retrieve it, then only the capital of the rival British Empire would be ruined.
If the egg returned to his hands, he could use the unknown power that would burn London for a ‘proper purpose’ (whatever that might be), which was a gain. Even if he did not retrieve it within three days, he would not be the one losing anything, so there was no need for him to risk danger beyond an assassin’s attack.
“Then the reason you meant to hire me is—”
“Did you not already know?”
So that was it. I had wondered why they ushered me to the Tsar without even properly verifying my identity.
“I learned who you were after meeting you at the tailor shop. They call you a Super Junior who has captured Queen Victoria’s full attention. You have a knack for solving troublesome cases, they say. Your Boss would have summoned you before you came here. Am I wrong?”
“You are well-informed.”
Only four attendants, yet he had an independent intelligence network?
He gathered what he needed faster than I had imagined.
Still, it was understandable.
Russia was a great power. It would not be strange if they had planted spies in Whitehall and even Buckingham.
If this were Moriarty, I would already be a dead man.
Thankful that Moriarty had not yet begun operating in earnest—at least by the timing. I let out a breath of relief.
<
We’ll have to set counterintelligence in motion and flush out the rats.>
Mycroft, eavesdropping, seemed no less rattled as his ink-written letters wavered.
“I do not mean to blame you. I know well to whom Britons give their loyalty.”
“Even so, in this matter at least, I can assist Her Majesty. If the culprit is Irene Adler, I can certainly recover the stolen treasure.”
“You speak as though you know that woman well.”
“I know a few of Irene Adler’s secrets that Her Majesty does not.”
The Tsar fell silent as though weighing it.
Even if he was not the one to burn London, the need to identify the power that might cause the tragedy did not change.
In any case, persuading him was urgent.
“However, even if we know the culprit, I need more concrete information to retrieve the treasure. For example, the nature of the fire that will burn London.”
“……”
Alexander III looked between Watson and me, then lowered his voice.
“…The fact you hid your meeting with me from your Boss means I may trust you, yes?”
“It is our policy not to disclose a client’s information without permission.”
“Good. I will tell you.”
At the Tsar’s nod, Pavlov brought over a canvas that had been set upside-down against the wall.
On the canvas was a Fabergé egg, rendered with meticulous detail.
As I looked at it, the Tsar’s lips revealed the truth.
“It is inside that.”
“What is, exactly?”
“Russia’s future.”
“…?”
“The most ancient flame, the one that will melt the frozen earth.”
“It’s already been months since he said he’d come to collect it…”
The Mistress of Green Willow, Irene Adler, sat on her estate’s balcony, seething.
Having suppressed her killing intent toward the Church of Asteroid’s leader and accepted his commission, Irene had been waiting for the message that never came.
“What on earth is this, that he’d pour money into it like that? Honestly…”
In her hand, Irene examined a golden egg painted white with enamel, turning it slowly.
Stealing it from Alexander III had been one thing, but because the cult leader vanished from London without warning, she still hadn’t been paid.
“Since it’s come to this… should I just sell it off?”
It was then.
Her nail caught on a thin seam running through the middle of the egg.
-Click-
In an instant, the golden egg split open.
As Irene saw what was inside, a foolish sound slipped from her lips.
“Huh?”
With thumb and forefinger, Irene pinched the hidden item and lifted it toward the sun.
“…This is…”
It was, by any eye, an ordinary egg.
A fertilized egg, with a chick inside.
“What sort of joke is this supposed to be?”
A vein pulsing at her forehead, Irene smiled sweetly and called for her butler.
“Wilson.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Know how to cook a chick?”
“A dish or two.”
Irene was certain she had been mocked by Moriarty.
Just as he had played the previous leader of the Afternoon Tea Party, he meant to make her clash with the Tsar, corner her position, then tighten the leash.
“Prepare it for lunch tomorrow.”
“As you command.”
At worst, she thought, it was merely the egg of a spiritually-grown chicken or pheasant, so she might as well nourish herself while giving the cult leader a taste of humiliation.
Of course, she had no idea what consequences that judgment would bring.