Heraclix and Pomp: A Novel of the Fabricated and the Fey (32 page)

Al Mahdr approached the door and knocked with three solid, measured raps, a code of some sort, Heraclix thought. The door opened a crack, but Heraclix could see no more than the hand of the one who held the door open. A brief conversation in hushed tones took place between Al Mahdr and the doorman. Heraclix and Al’ghul tried to approach. But Al Mahdr, without missing a word in his quiet delivery, held up his hand to stop the golem and the boy, both of whom halted in their tracks. After a few more words were exchanged, Al Mahdr’s hand waved them toward him, then he disappeared into the building’s interior. Heraclix, entering last, nearly crawled to fit through the doorway.

Beyond the door, they walked through heavy silk curtains of a green so dark it was almost black. The walls, ceiling, and floor of the room were also adorned with the green-black silk, as if they had walked into the silk purse of some gargantuan pagan god of wealth. The silk was cut in strips six feet wide that reached from the apex of the ceiling to the nadir of the floor. Each strip was connected to the two next to it by a series of copper circlets in
the form of long, bent bones connected end-to-end so that the curtains formed a silken globe within the cube-shaped room. From each circlet dangled a two-inch-high copper skull, which reflected the dancing lights of the dozens of candles that were set atop brass candlesticks throughout the room. Smoke rose from small censors filled with pungent incense scattered about the silken bubble. Beyond one pair of silk curtains, in a far corner, something cast a strong light from above.

The one who opened the door, Heraclix saw, was a young man, probably somewhere in his twenties if the ashen veneer of weariness could be wiped from his face. He had that far-off look in his eyes common to the opium addict. His skeletal frame and a slight nervous twitch in the arms led Heraclix to further believe that the young man was, indeed, an addict.

The young man tried to gently clear his throat, but quickly slid into a coughing fit before gathering himself enough to speak properly.

“My masters bid you welcome, Agha Beyruit Al Mahdr, and our guests . . .” He held out his hand to the others, nodding in an effort to prompt them to state their names. Heraclix looked around the room but could see no one else—only piles of cushions and throw pillows scattered haphazardly around the room.

“Al’ghul,” said the younger.

“Heraclix,” the other.

“Al’ghul and Heraclix,” the young man said.

Heraclix noted that his pronunciation of both Al’ghul’s and Al Mahdr’s names seemed stilted and foreign. This man wasn’t from around here, though the golem couldn’t quite tell where the servant was from through the drug-induced slur. There was something familiar about the man’s face, but Heraclix couldn’t quite place his or the Serb’s finger on where or in whom he had seen that subtle something before.

His thoughts evaporated as the Shadow Divan materialized. Seven figures slipped between the curtains and into the room like columns of smoke that coalesced into the forms of men. All were dressed similarly, though not exactly the same. Most were very tall for men, one notably so, though a pair were quite short, and one of these rotund, like a bipedal toad dressed in black. In fact, all
were dressed in black. Or perhaps it was the same green as the silk curtains lining the walls—it was difficult to tell in the faint light.

Many things were difficult to tell in that dimly lit room with its undulating walls and tinkling skulls like tiny bells. It didn’t help matters that all seven members of the Shadow Divan wore masks that obscured their faces to one degree or another. The tallest wore a black raven’s face. The short, fat one wore a veil over his nose and mouth, like the Muslim women, while the short skinny one wore a gray and white leather skull mask. Two of the tall ones wore black masks carved into demonic visages, another wore a simple black hood with a pair of eye holes, while the last wore a long-nosed black Scaramouche—the kind that was popular during the Renaissance. All wore hats, most of them tall conical hats of black, while the Demon-twins wore gold-embroidered black bishop’s mitres in the Eastern Orthodox style, and Skull-face wore a blood-red fez.

The Raven stepped forward and bowed, while the others sat or lay down on the pillows piled on the floor.

“Come, sit, my guests,” the man said in a voice rough in texture, smooth in delivery. His accent was neither Turkic, Germanic, nor Slavic. Spanish, perhaps, or Portuguese? Heraclix wasn’t familiar enough with those tongues to know, so he could only speculate.

The guests sat. The Raven, still standing, spoke.

“You have need of our aid, else you wouldn’t have come here and presented the key words that allow ingress into our stronghold,” he said to Al Mahdr.

“They came from afar,” the soldier said, pointing at Heraclix and Al’ghul. “They came bearing the token words. We are obliged to give aid.”

“Indeed we are, but first, we are very curious about our guest,” the Raven said, looking directly at Heraclix. He walked around the giant, in much the same way that Al Mahdr had done earlier, examining him up and down. His compatriots soon followed, getting up from their seats to circumambulate the golem. They moved slowly, but in a regular cadence, all eyes on Heraclix. Al’ghul was all but forgotten to them.

“We are here because I think that you might have information relevant to my search for the sorcerer Mowler.” Heraclix said to
the Shadow Divan, for he knew that these were they, a dark mirror image of the sultan’s Divan but completely uninterested in the politics of man. They were wholly dedicated to unraveling the great mysteries of life, death, and life beyond.

At once, in the same fluid movement, each member of the Shadow Divan withdrew from his robes a parchment, a small ink pot, and a quill. Then, as they walked, they feverishly took notes, drew charts and graphs, and made scratch mathematical calculations. Their celerity and economy of motion seemed inhuman. No man he had known could ever write or draw intelligibly with such speed, especially as they walked in circles around the object of their studies. He thought they might be writing down gibberish in an effort to put pressure on him as he spoke, a tactic to cause him to reveal ulterior motives or to inadvertently catch himself in a lie. He had to admit that the pressure was intense—the sound of swirling, scratching quills was annoying to the point of distraction. He lowered his voice only to have them lean in closer, straining to hear him.

“I think I know something about you.” His voice stepped down with each word until he spoke so softly that neither Al’ghul nor Al Mahdr could hear him. “And I think that something has a great deal to do with my past, which I intend to learn more about in the coming days.”

He settled into a whisper. He was smoldering with anger now and the noise of the quills was almost louder than his whispered words. They crowded him now, stooping, walking in a sideways crouch like crabs, continuing to take notes, tilting their heads this way and that in order to get a better look at him, some silently pointing their quills at his eye, his hand, the wound on his chest, as if showing a thing of interest to his companions. They were like wolves stalking a wounded deer or vultures circling over a dying man—watching, waiting, seeking weakness, herding, watching, ever watching.

“Enough!” Heraclix yelled so loudly that his observers stopped in their tracks. Some fell backwards and scrambled to their pillows.

All except the Raven, who remained standing by Heraclix. “Of course,” he said, unshaken. “How rude of us. I’m afraid that we aren’t very good hosts. And it
is
rare, very rare, that one of
your . . . makeup should venture to visit us. We will ask questions of you later and, in exchange, you may ask questions of us. That is only fair. I think we have much information that is of mutual interest. You’ll find us honest and reliable, will he not, Agha Beyruit Al Mahdr?”

The soldier smiled and nodded. “Please forgive their mannerisms, Heraclix. They don’t often get visitors.”

Heraclix remained guardedly silent for fear of being silently interrogated again, but the other members of the Shadow Divan were too busy comparing notes and debating their observations to be of any immediate threat to him.

“Come,” said the Raven. “I will show you upstairs. I think you will find this place of great interest, as one who has seen what I suppose you have seen and experienced.”

He turned to the servant. “Keep Al’ghul and Agha Beyruit Al Mahdr entertained down here. I wish to show our facilities to Mister . . . Heraclix.” Heraclix noted the near-error, storing it away for future use in any potential upcoming negotiations.

Heraclix followed the Raven over to a corner of the room. From there, a light glowed—far brighter than the candles. The Raven parted the curtain in that direction, and Heraclix saw clearly for the first time the embroidered scenes of heaven and hell that adorned each pillow and cushion in the room. The Norse Valhalla, Jewish Gehenna, Muslim Paradisiacal Oasis, Dante’s nine circles of Hell, visions of Buddha sipping from the cup of Enlightenment, Arthur reaching for the Holy Grail, and many more scenes that he couldn’t identify, all met his glance in a moment. Then he was beyond the bone-clasped, skull-guarded curtain, ascending a ladder through an opening in the ceiling, from which the light poured.

When Heraclix pulled himself up through the opening, the Raven had his back to him, hands on hips, gazing about the room as if he had just discovered a thing of wonderment. An immense cylindrical bookcase filled the center of the room from floor to ceiling. Each of the four walls was also fitted with a bookcase, peaked on the outside ends like a pair of wooden horns. These also stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Four crescent-moon-shaped tables surrounded the center bookcase, their concave edges
facing the round. Were they not scooted out from the center, they would have embraced it, fitting like puzzle pieces. Eight tall, padded chairs sat empty against the convex side of the tables.

“The Eye of Knowing, that which sees all mysteries,” the Raven said, quite proudly. “We know that all the mysteries of the secrets of life, death, and being are either contained in or referenced here. It is the search for the Key of Keys to those mysteries that consumes us.”

This was obvious to Heraclix. The room might perfectly resemble an eye, were it not for the stacks of books and papers that were piled atop the tables and the random piles of readings and notes that lay in mounds on the floor, and this all despite the fact that every inch of space in the bookshelves was occupied by arcane volumes, whether properly standing spine-up or, in many cases, lying flat atop the other books. Pathways had been made throughout the room between the tables and at the foot of the bookcases.
Still, this place is treacherous
, Heraclix thought. Pull the wrong book and the necromancers might have to find some way of extricating themselves from the ranks of the dead, having been buried under heavy tomes and grimoires. Heraclix wasn’t quite sure where the bright illumination in the room came from, but he thought it best not to ask so banal a question, given the Raven’s vainglorious boasting.

“Come!” he said, beckoning Heraclix to follow him up another ladder in the far corner. Heraclix followed, stepping as carefully as his giant body would allow so as not to upset any book piles.

Heraclix stepped off the ladder into a room whose walls were lined with mirrors and candles. A fireplace burned along one wall, with two immense censers burning sandalwood and lotus incense on either side. Each was the size of a small cauldron and was mounted atop tripods wrought in iron to represent three cloven feet. Various knick-knacks lay scattered on the floor: strange metal puzzles; crystal balls of varying sizes, clarity and color; and a dozen or more kaleidoscopes made of everything from ivory to olive wood to silver.

He walked over to a waist-high (mid-thigh for him) stone circle—a well, which must have continued down through the floor into the center of the circular bookcase on the floor below.
He ran his finger over the surface of the shining liquid that filled it, confirming his suspicion that the well wasn’t filled with water but with quicksilver. He stared into the mercury, watching his reflection warp and change to show him not as a patchwork of sewn-together flesh, but as a whole, unified man. His face was unscarred, his eyes both blue and healthy. A short, balding, plump man smiled warmly back at the monster staring down at him.

“This is where we come to meditate, to gain focus, in preparation for that which is above.”

Heraclix turned to look at the Raven, from whom he expected further explanation. When it appeared that none was forthcoming, he turned back to the reflection, but it showed only a molten image of himself as the golem he was.

“Come,” the Raven said. “I will show you that which is above.”

They climbed yet another ladder, which had been hidden by a tall mirror in a corner of the room. The reek of incense grew stronger the closer they came to the opening above. Just when Heraclix thought he might choke from the excessive smoke, the air cleared and he found himself on a rooftop open to the sky, though a thick fence of tall poplars ran the perimeter of the roof. One couldn’t see out, but one could see up.