PRINCESS STEEL (3)
By:
August 5, 2025
W.E.B. Du Bois wrote “The Princess Steel” between 1908 and 1910; it remained unpublished during his lifetime. As usual, the author was exploring philosophical and sociological views — in this case, about the pitfalls of industrial capitalism and the possibilities of revolution. The story was originally titled “The Megascope,” referring to a device allowing one to see through time and space. (John Jennings has named his comics imprint Megascope in honor of Du Bois’ novum.) HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize the story for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5.
“Those are the hills of Pittsburg,” cried the hollow voice of the old man. I laughed. The idea of seeing Pittsburgh from Broadway! And yet I strained my eyes. In the pale but glowing light that waxed more and more brilliant I could see distinctly, above the hills, the forming of a vast bluish radiance of silver hair, a pale blue face crowned with silver light, radiant like the rising of the moon. On went the rolling waters, the land around seemed to quiver, even the great crags. And the castles were not castles, they were mills — Mills of the Gods, I whispered. Everywhere were moving things, first I thought them men, women and children — I even caught the babel of voices — but no — they were, I came to feel, but the things of this New World, the World of Steel; they came down the waters, they rolled along the land, they followed the silvery threads and came on and on until all seemed to choke through a great crag-like narrowing in the river, above which beetled the tallest and most sinister of the castles that seemed, with its great whirling wheel, a mighty Mill for some new metal.
As yet I had seen nothing really alive, only the moving of Things until, looking narrowly, I saw below the castle just at the portcullis, where the great drawbridge stretched across the narrow throat of the gorge, the form of a huge armored knight. His visor was down and he sat on a horse, vast and silent, watching the ever moving mass of things that rolled past him down the gorge, through the great hopper of his mill where they left their Souls — while their Bodies went whirling drunkenly on. Sometimes the things choked in the grinding, and the water roared and foamed on the rocks, but then he would strike his spear angrily on the great Wheel and with frightened roar it whirled the faster as the stream moved on and the pile of ground and bolted Souls grew higher.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“An Over-man — Immortal — All Powerful,” came from a disembodied Voice. “Rhythmic with youth and age just as earth is with night and day, and yet never dying.”
“Look,” I said, “See!” Across the plain beyond came tripping four armored knights. Their visors were down, their spears couched, their horses careering madly and their bannerets lying. The first knight threw a shrewd look over his shoulder, turned and gathered his arms. His eyes flashed darkly beneath his helmet. The clash was coming — there was fury in the air — when suddenly I heard the Voice:
“Listen! You cannot understand this conflict until you hear of the story that goes before. This man here is the Lord of the Golden Way and what he has done and how he came to be here, commanding the silver threads and keeping toll over the Great River of Things, I know not, but I ween and so I have constructed in my own way a tale of his past which my little viewing and measuring of his life makes plausible. Listen. Once upon a time there lived an Over-man, Sir Guess of Londonton. He was a man of thought and study and ever his eager brains were pounding at the riddles of the world. As he wondered and wandered he found and captured the black Witch Knowal. Fearful she groveled before him. ‘My husband is the Ogre, Evilhood, and if thou dost me no harm and bringest me to his cave I will make him tell thee a secret, a marvellous secret of a captive maid whom thou mayest loose and have.’ So Sir Guess of Londonton took her to the Ogre and the Ogre said in thanks: ‘To westward lie hills, and in the hills the Pit of Pittsburg, and in the pit dwelleth captive the dark Queen of the Iron Isles — she that of old came out of Africa. But she hath, said the Ogre, ‘a secret of which men have not dreamed. One of the greatest of the world’s great secrets but not the greatest. When the Queen was captured she was heavy with child by the Sun-God; and when that daughter was born, fearing lest daughter like mother should be slaves to men, she hid the child, enchanting it, in her arm; but if thou goest, and callest her up from hell and strikest her right arm with the Golden Sword, then the enchanted daughter may be yours, she and her Treasure. More, too: if she be burned then and there, in the fires of Hell, she will become immortal and be the most wonderful princess of the princesses of the world, the Princess Steel!’ ‘She and her Treasure,’ but she said not what the Treasure was. ‘Where is the Golden Sword?’ cried Sir Guess of Londonton, but Evilgood and Knowal were gone.
“So Sir Guess hastened away westward toward the Pit, seeking as he went word of the Golden Sword wherewith he might strike the right arm of the queen. Now the Golden Sword belongs to the Lord of the Golden Way and the Lord warding the way of his winding river (a pitiful dwindling river in those poor days) saw the young wanderer and wormed his secret; he was amazed and interested and spoke sweetly to the young man and said, ‘I will follow and help you, and when we have gained the Princess Steel, she shall work for us.’ ‘Nay, nay,’ said Sir Guess, ‘the princess herself shall be mine, but her Treasure I will give you’; and the Lord of the Golden Way gladly consented. So he unlocked the Golden Sword (now the Story of the Golden Sword has not been told as yet) and they traveled over great waters and wild lands, hills and vales and faced westward ever westward, until one twilight time they came to the Pit of Pittsburg. Great clouds hung over it, dashed with the red of the dying sun, strange murmurs rose from the earth, black smoke and yellow fire. They felt the very ground beneath them tremble and groan; almost they were afraid to enter, yet Sir Guess never doubted and followed by the Lord of the Golden Way at midnight they climbed the hill and crawling, climbing, squirming, dropped into the bottom of the Pit.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.