In July 
A member of the S.V.D.- (squadra volante Defpotec), the reputed inheritors of the Flying Suit technology made famous by the eminent adventurer/scientist Commander Colby because, 1: the apparatus worn by the S.V.D work, and 2: Commander Colby's lab assistant Christala Agastino spent the latter part of her life residing within the DEFPOTEC INSTITUTE.It is believed that Mr. Hammercastle joined the S.V.D. as a young man. However, being a "masked man" with Wild Talents, his body's reaction to the passage of time may be unusual.
Who he was before he came to the DEFPOTEC INSTITUTE is entirely speculative.
But a case can be made for an account made by one L. Bell, assistant to The Mystifying Alexander , in amongst her papers disclosed posthumously at her own behest. Bell was a known Fabulist*, so her account should be taken with some reservation. Many of the salient facts can be confirmed by history. The newspaper article does exist, and all of the persons mentioned were real. Here is the relevant excerpt:
" It was during our last tour through the Urals that Joan joined the company as a dancer. She and the other girls would go on while Alexander and the technicians got things set for the next act. Alexander married Joan at the end of our Asiatic tour. It had taken Alexander months to notice her. For such a smart man he could be very stupid. What Joan's life was like before she came to work with us is unclear. She never spoke of it, but she insisted Alexander not take her if the show ever went through the Urals again.
"When we got the news that she was to have a baby, everyone was so happy for her.
"I had been sent to San Francisco that November to examine an apparatus for Alexander when I received word that Joan had become ill. I called Alexander who said she was getting better and not to worry.
"Once I returned, I could see Joan wasn't getting better. She was delirious and everything but her stomach was wasting away.
I confronted Alexander that evening while he was checking some papers, and he finally told me he had conjured a remedy on his own to help Joan.
I could not believe what he was telling me! He was not a doctor! The alchemical devices he had, and any actual magic he knew, were for the show. He had no right to invoke things like that! He said the risk was not too great and everything would be fine. I left him there in his study. I think he really believed what he said.
"That night I slept badly. In the morning I went in to check on Joan. The light in the room was feeble but I could see that she was dead. Her limbs were a nightmare of angles. The bed-clothes, the floor , everything I could see was soaked with blood. The blankets at the foot of the bed were moving.. A thing crawled out from under them, a repugnant orangutan thing. Its hair was matted and slippery with gore. Its loathsome movements and the smell of that horrible room were too much for me. I wanted to smash the awful thing, but what it did next made me freeze: It smiled me. With it's canine mouth it smiled at me it's eyes were human. And I had seen those eyes before!
"I was screaming when I realized Alexander had come into the room and was pushing me to the door. As he sat me down in the hall, he told the chambermaid to send for someone, I thought for a doctor. Men who said they were the police arrived, cleaned the room ,and discretely removed Joan's body. There were no reporters and I saw no doctors. Joan was gone and Alexander said, "The baby is healthy. He has his mother's eyes."
"I went back to my flat and waited. In a couple of days I got word that Alexander was retiring and all his equipment was to be dropped into the Marianis Trench.
"I heard nothing of Alexander for 15 years, until I saw him in the audience at the Mignola and Gold's circus and he looked so old.
"The act he was watching was a Wildman-acrobat-strong-man called Nemo Lombard. Lombard was made up like an ape, and he sang as he capered about on a web of tightropes nearly at the top of the tent. Then he ran down a tent pole to the ground, where he wrestled three alligators at once, followed by balancing a girl on a horse on his head.
"With a start, I suddenly realized that Nemo Lombard was Joan's baby. That ape costume was not a costume at all!.
"I knew the circus’s veterinarian and was admitted around back where I found Alexander with Nemo Lombard. Alexander introduced me to him and I said I was an old friend of his mother.
"During my career I have worked with a menagerie of grotesque people. So when I say that I felt this boy was absolutely the most hateful monster I'd seen outside a laboratory cage you must believe me! When he spoke, he said he remembered me. I excused myself and had just enough composure to not run away.
"A few weeks later, this headline was in the Telegraph Gazette Interlocutor.
The Beast Nemo Executed.
"It seems Lombard had attacked a young woman who lived on a farm near the fairgrounds outside Baton Rouge where the circus had pitched its tents. She had three brothers who fought Lombard off. He killed all three of them. A posse managed to capture him. Most of the posse were hospitalized, and two of their horses had to be put to sleep. The trial was swift. He was found guilty and electrocuted the next day.
"I can not explain why, but I had to know what happened to the girl. So I went to Baton Rouge and found the farm the newspaper had mentioned. The family were little better than the animals they kept. They had banished the girl for being pregnant with Nemo Lombard's child. "If she stayed she would have brought shame on us all!".
"I caught up with the circus and spoke with my friend there. He told me: “ Alexanders the one who caught ‘ëm. He used a kind of spell . Scorched the ground for nigh about fifty feet all round and ruined any animals there abouts for performin’. A few of the clowns were there. Made ‘ëm quit the circus. Can't be a clown if nothin's funny no more."
"I found Alexander where I had left him fifteen years earlier at the home he had shared with Joan. He had the house opened and brought the girl that Nemo had attacked to stay with him. She said her name was Ruth.
"Alexander looked ancient. He felt responsible for all the horror, and he would take charge of Ruth and her child. I expressed my concern for his health and the girl's. He said the child would need singular attention, and he would not make the mistakes he made with it's father a second time. I told him that I would stay, and he could not deter me. This tired old man before me had no fight left, and I moved my things in that week.
"The next weeks were happy ones. Ruth showed none of the signs Joan had exhibited. Alexander spent most of his time quietly meditating in the garden. I had retained the services of a discreet midwife who would deliver the baby. And on May eve Ruth went into labor. Nemo Lombard's son was born at midnight. His body was normal but when his mouth was cleared, he howled once, then fell silent. Aside from that the boy behaved normally, though during the full moon he was very restless.
"When the boy was three I was called away to the island of Patmos where my brother lived. He had found a lost city and was getting married to its queen, and since the singular attention that had concerned Alexander had never been really necessary, I was sure my trip wouldn't be a detriment.
“That All-Hallows' eve, Ruth dyed. She had fallen down the stairs, but the medical examiner found that she had died of fright before the fall.
Alexander was by now too feeble to care for the child, and his mind was so weak that instead of calling me he called his old colleague Bill Schloss. Bill had denounced men like Alexander for their use of alchemical automatons in their acts before the war, but that was a long time ago and he could not turn his back on an old magician. I found this out after my return.
"I arrived at Alexander’s house where he was sitting quietly on a bench in the garden. He was dead. His eyes were open and when I touched the lids to close them, his body collapsed in on itself. He was only skin and bones. The skin was made up to look natural. Under the make up it was metallic. Later it was examined and proved to be gold and his bones were silver. How long he had been this way, I do not know. The forces he had invoked exact a heavy toll.
"I have been to the DEFPOTC INSTITUTE a number of times since then, sometimes on business, and sometimes to see Ruth's son. I do not believe he has seen me. They have told me his Wild Talent corresponds to the phases of the moon.
" He has given himself the name Mr. Hammercastle. I think it somehow references the cinema. Rather than becoming a Magician or taking his skills out into the world, he joined the S.V.D. I understand the S.V.D are good people but they are eccentric. When they're not away form the institute running errands or on assignment they stay to themselves. You might meet one at a lecture or one of the institute's gymnasiums but more often than not they’re in one of the tower eyries.
"In making this testimonial I put my mind at ease and go to the grave with a heart unburdened. I pray Joan's grandson will be the end of the horrors Alexander set in motion with his innocent remedy. And I trust my executors will exercise caution in their treatment of these papers.
L. Bell
*Adherents of the Fabulist philosophy follow the motto "Better Truth through Fiction."
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