Heraclix and Pomp: A Novel of the Fabricated and the Fey (21 page)

“This place is beautiful. And I sense that my realm is close here,” Pomp said to Heraclix, who absorbed her words in reverent silence.

They stopped a passing herdsman and inquired where they might find the local church. He hastily directed them to a low, long hill crowned with a semicircle of trees with a trembling finger, then ran off so quickly that his lambs had difficulty keeping pace. In the midst of the opening between the trees sat a conglomeration of five stone buildings. The central, and largest, building was surmounted by a large granite cross. The stone from which it had been hewn must have been hauled from some distance away, judging from its size and the absence of a quarry nearby. Several stone gargoyles hung from the eaves. Pomp, energized by the proximity with Faerie, playfully flew from fanged mouth to fanged mouth while Heraclix knocked at a door in one of the buildings.

“We’re out of bread,” a man with a dullard’s voice declared.

“Not everyone who knocks wants bread,” came another man’s voice, this one much higher-pitched.

The door opened.

“Oh!” said the man with the high-pitched voice in a note of surprise. “You are” the man looked stunned, at a temporary loss for words “. . . rather tall,” he said to Heraclix. This man was dressed in the simple brown robes of a monk. He wore a tonsure above his long, skinny head. “Forgive me,” he said, “but I was surprised by your stature.” He took a deep breath. “How may I help you today, sir?”

“I am looking for the graveyard.”

“The graveyard,” the man looked at him suspiciously, “Yes, it’s by the old church.”

“The old church?” Heraclix asked.

“Yes. This is the new church. The old church is on the other side of this hill.”

“Thank you, sir,” Heraclix said, turning to go.

“Ah, may I interest you in buying some of our fine bread?”

“We hain’t got no more bread!” the dullard shouted from a back room.

“Perhaps tomorrow?” the monk said.

“Perhaps tomorrow,” Heraclix said, then walked on.

“The old church,” the monk called out, “it was burned down by a madman years ago and is not much to look at.”

“Neither is he!” the dullard said.

Heraclix stopped and turned.

The thin monk sputtered out an apology “Oh, I’m very sorry, you see, he is an utter—”

“No, no,” Heraclix reassured him that he had no intent to harm. “The old church, burned down by whom?”

“I don’t know the name. Lost his family, lost his faith, lost his mind. Poor chap. You know the story.”

“I just might,” Heraclix said.

“I think his family’s gravestones are in the cemetery there, but I can never remember which name goes with which story. His grave is the empty one. They put a stone there in case he ever returned.”

“I see. How many years ago did this happen?”

“Oh, two, two hundred-fifty years ago. Lots of people say its haunted, so they avoid it. You’ll be okay, though. You’re such a big boy . . . sorry . . .”

“Apology accepted,” Heraclix said, then set off again.

The other side of the hill and the little valley it overlooked was covered in golden grass as high as Heraclix’s waist. A few small trees with wide black branches sprouted up here and there. At the base of the hillside was a large pile of burnt stone and timbers smoothed with years of wear. He approached the ruins, stooping down to break a small piece of charcoal off of one of the timbers. He crushed the charcoal in his fingers, then sniffed the pungent powder. As he smelled the burnt wood, an inexplicable feeling of guilt washed over him. He thought he saw a vision of flames shooting out of windows, but the phantasm passed almost as soon as it had appeared.

“This must have been the church,” he said, then quickly turned away, shaken. Then a quick gust of wind blew across the hills, drawing his attention away from his thoughts. He focused his efforts on finding the graveyard.

Heraclix and Pomp combed through the tall grass until they found a low mound in the valley where the grass grew higher, greener, and darker. Tall yellow meadow wildflowers grew upon the mound, setting it apart from its surroundings even further. Here Heraclix stubbed his toe on a grave marker, so the pair did their best to mat down the grass and flowers to expose any other gravestones they might find.

Pomp flew from stone to stone, unable to read them but able to infer that the size of the stone meant something either about the interred person’s age or importance in life. Most were set apart singly or in pairs.

One was a trio.

“Heraclix! Is this it?” She made herself visible so that he could see where she was.

He hastened to the spot at which she pointed: a line of three gravestones covered in lichen, each larger than the one to its left. Carefully, he scraped the lichen away to clear the weatherworn grooves that indicated faint lettering. The carving on the smaller two stones was crude, the sloppy shape of the letters suggesting a job hastily done. The third, and largest, bore no inscription at all. There were no dates on the stones. The smallest read R
HODA
H
EILLIGER
.

“Rhoda . . . and Elsie . . . Then my memory wasn’t a fabrication. This,” he held his immense hand to the smallest stone, then the second, “is all that remains of them.” He looked at Pomp, deep pain showing in his red eye. The blue left eye twitched of its own accord, darting around like a chameleon’s eye, frantically looking for . . . something.

“I am very sorry,” Pomp said.

“For what?” Heraclix asked curtly.

“For your feelings.”

“That’s just it, Pomp,” his voice was more aggressive toward her than it had ever been. “I should be devastated, disconsolate, or at least saddened. But I feel nothing, not even the self-loathing I think I ought to feel for not mourning their loss. Perhaps I should be surprised by my lack of reaction, but I’m not even surprised by that. I feel absolutely nothing. This is a day like any other day in a place like any other place. It is no different to me, and I am not different for having been here.”

“My heart hurts for you,” Pomp said. Her tone indicated sympathy and sincerity, but this had no effect on Heraclix.

“Maybe I have inherited the memories of another man,” he said, ignoring her. “Or the old man is truly dead and gone and though I know something of his history—maybe even share a piece of his soul—I am a new man, unconnected with the old.” Heraclix was smiling, almost laughing, but Pomp didn’t think he was really happy. “Perhaps my very existence is moot and my quest to know my history is a buffoon’s folly—running around in chronological circles to no end except a great cosmic joke for whatever power truly controls the universe.”

Pomp isn’t laughing. She is crying with sadness, frustration, anger, fear. “He is a good man,” she whispers to herself. “He should be happy for his goodness. Mowler has caused this unhappiness.” She thinks of how she had met Heraclix, the tortured servant, how he had freed her, saved her life, tended to her, been her companion, patiently tolerated her adjustment to the realization of her own mortality. She thinks of those horrible devil-flies and how, being susceptible to death, she might become one of them: stupid, loathsome, selfish—if she didn’t do some good in the world. She already
had the wings, after all. Was she closer to being condemned to Hell than she knew? She might be, if she didn’t set some things straight. She is in no better shape than the Serb who raced against the end of his life to repent for the wrongs he had done. There was only so much time in this world, and Pomp feared that hers might run out if she didn’t do some good, and quickly! Time was short.

Pomp knows that Mowler is still alive. But where is he? Wherever he is, he is surely dangerous. Pomp must be ready to face him, to help Heraclix. Perhaps she should arm herself. No, not perhaps. She will yet. She will now. Now! She flies for Faerie!

By the time Heraclix had roused himself from his vigil in the graveyard, the sky had darkened. The stars and moon shined down on the road leading back to Szentendre. Bright firelight lit up the open doorway of a tavern, inviting him in from the cooling night. He entered boldly, not caring about the whispered remarks of the locals or the murmured insults of a quartet of what appeared to be traveling dandies who glared at him as he walked in. What did it matter what they said? Had he not already been through Hell, and couldn’t he break their necks like twigs, should he choose? He had nothing to fear, nothing to regret. Nothing really mattered anymore.

He spent and drank liberally and was surprised that, after a quarter cask, the alcohol began to have some slight effect, relaxing him and adding to his carefree attitude a touch of warmth and good cheer. “Huzzah!” he yelled with the crowd as a pair of mountebanks took the stage, juggling and jostling each other in an act that swiftly devolved into comedic violence before the two were removed from the stage by hook to a chorus of good-natured jeers.

A bawdy cabaret followed, which sent the bar’s customers into a frenzy until the stage manager came out onto the stage to calm and shush the crowd. The manager was pelted with insults and rotting fruit. Still, he calmed the crowd and spoke in an exaggeratedly soft voice:

“My friends, I beg your indulgence for silence. You see, my next performer is up past her bedtime . . .”

“Pervert!” someone yelled.

The stage manager shot a stabbing glance at the miscreant, who slid back into the shadows.

“She is very young and sensitive,” the man continued, “but I assure you that your patience will be well-rewarded. For she is a virtuoso who, it is rumored, is soon to be invited to the imperial court to perform before the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II, himself.”

One of the dandies started to laugh, but his mirth ended in a weak chuckle under the collective glare of the audience.

Tiny footsteps sounded across the stage as a young girl with straw colored hair and blue eyes, wearing a light blue dress, entered from behind a side curtain. She looked innocent but confident, ignoring the baseness of the crowd, determined to beautify this place with her voice, despite the circumstances in which she found herself.

Any tension in the crowd melted away as the girl began her song, an old French lullaby. Heraclix was unsure who in the crowd understood the plaintive words, but they listened in a respectful silence that was only broken by the occasional sniffle. A longing sadness filled the room as she sang. Even the dandies nodded their approval.

Heraclix knew the song.

He remembered another voice singing that song, a voice from long ago, a voice arising out of the melding of his own and that of his beloved wife. Rhoda had sung that song, her voice airy and full of gladness . . . to be alive.

He held the baby close to his chest, his back to the wind, sheltering the infant from the weather. Rain blew past them toward the pall-bearers, who carried their grim cargo ahead of the funeral party to the hillside graveyard.

“Don’t cry, Rhoda. I’ll take good care of you.”

Behind him, a light snow fell on a small, freshly-filled grave; in front of him, the church vomited flame into the night sky. Shouts came from the road at the bottom of the hill. He disappeared into the blackness before the townsfolk arrived.

Beyond the hooded figure, the man who had claimed to be able to speak with the dead writhed in a stinking alleyway, clawing at his moon and
star tattooed throat with bejeweled fingers.

“That man was a charlatan,” the hooded figure said, “a purveyor of parlor tricks. But I,
I
can teach you where
real
power lies, Octavius.”

He handed over a scroll.

The writing was unlike anything the recipient had seen before, strange, alien. But a feeling of anticipation soon overpowered any fear that he might have initially felt.

“We should talk,” the hooded man said.

“We should talk,” Octavius repeated.

He took one last look back at Szentendre, then faced east. The road ahead of him seemed to contract as he walked. He traveled a great distance as if in a moment and soon found himself in the midst of a city of white, plaster walled buildings that reeked of incense and hookah smoke. High above the buildings, the sky was pierced by bulbous minarets. The doorways of the dwellings were laden with silk curtains and brass lamps.

The smell of the sea was on the air.

His ears tickled with the sound of a language he had never before heard, a tongue that he thought would hold the promise of being able to tease out secrets from beyond this Earth, and possibly even beyond the veil of death.