Heraclix and Pomp: A Novel of the Fabricated and the Fey (35 page)

Heraclix wasn’t sure that he liked the way “this” sounded.

“A simple matter,” said the Veiled One, taking a seat next to Heraclix. “It will only take a matter of a minute or two in order . . .” The Veiled One stopped suddenly. “Shh!” he ordered the already-silent Heraclix. “Vincenzo is about to begin the summoning.”

Scaramouche had taken a spot on the opposite side of the circle, facing Heraclix. He knelt, raising his hands from the floor of the roof up to the sky, palm up, then back down again palm down. His fingers fluttered like rising smoke followed by falling ash.

Heraclix looked around him to see where the sudden glow around the group had come from. Not the moon, nor the stars. Not the candles nor the incense sticks, though there were many of each. Then he looked around at the circle of telescopes that surrounded them and realized that their eyepieces reflected back the green flow of magical energy. The lenses of the telescopes also glowed brighter and brighter as Scaramouche’s chanting increased in tempo and intensity. The Demon twins, the Hooded One, and Skull-face joined in the ritual, adding their voices to Scaramouche’s. As their voices chimed in and grew louder, the telescopes glowed brighter until, at a point when the necromancers were nearly shouting at the un-heeding stars, green beams of light shot forth from the cylinders, piercing the night sky with a bristling array of green glowing beacons.

Then, another light shone. It was red, like the embers of a fire, and grew out in veins from the center of the magic circle, like a tree spreading its roots. The glowing crimson veins pulsed like something alive, then grew out to the edges of the circle, where they stopped spreading horizontally and began growing vertically up and up until a shape—a short, winged shape familiar to Heraclix—took shape. Its lattice wings unfolded before Heraclix’s eyes. The creature apparently had its back to Heraclix, if the golem had properly gauged the orientation of the thing’s bird-like taloned legs.

Heraclix soon understood the reason for the profusion of incense that the Divan was burning. As soon as the faint scent of brimstone wore off, the stench of rotting meat poured forth out of the creature.

“What iz it you want of me?” questioned the devil-fly in a pitiable buzz.

“We will ask the questions, Bozkovitch,” Scaramouche said.

Heraclix barely caught a view of the thing’s immense hooked nose, but noted with a touch of humor the similarity of the face of the interrogator with what he could see of the interrogated.

“How do you know my name?” the devil-fly asked.

“We extracted it from you last time we talked,” Scaramouche said. “And no more questions or we will extract much more from you.”

“Ah, yes. So sorry, my memory izn’t what it uzed to be. My senze of time iz fled.”

“Of course it is. You are a denizen of eternal damnation. Which is precisely why we want to talk to you,” Scaramouche said.

“Thiz iz fine. I am glad to get away from my master for a time. He iz in an ill-humor lately.”

“Is the Lord of Flies ever in a good humor?” asks Scaramouche.

“No. But he iz particularly sore with me, since I alerted him to a recent infiltration of hiz realm. I waz only trying to be helpful, but . . .”

“Infiltration?”

“Yes. To be honest, it iz not my master’z displeazure I am so glad to be away from.”

“No?” Scaramouche asked.

“No. I am glad to be away from the infiltratorz.”

“Why is that?”

“Becauze I knew one of them, in part.”

“In part?”

“Yes, in the eye, particularly.”

“I am confused,” Scaramouche said, but in an attempt to not appear too soft, he snapped, “I do not like to be confused. So explain yourself, and quickly!”

“Az I said, my memory iz not so good anymore.”

“Perhaps if I let information leak to your master that you let information leak to me—”

“I understand!” the devil-fly said.

“And yet, I do not,” said Scaramouche. “What did you mean that you knew of one of the infiltrators in part, in the eye, particularly.”

“One of the visitorz, well, he waz not all himself.”

“Do make yourself clear, or I will be contacting your master. Do I make myself clear?” Scaramouche said.

“Yes sir. You see, it iz hard to explain. This . . . man?” the word dripped with doubt. “He, well, I can’t say he waz one man.”

“There were more than one?”

“Yes, well, one of them. The other waz no man. Az I waz saying, one of them looked like he had been patched together from pieces of other men.”

Raven and the others looked at Heraclix, but the devil-fly, whose back was still to Heraclix, was too focused on Scaramouche to notice.

“And so,” Scaramouche asked, “you knew one of this man’s eyes?”

“In very deed, yes!”

“There are millions of eyes on the faces of men. How could you recognize one eye among so many?”

“Oh, there iz no miztaking it. You see, or perhaps you do not,” the demon said, “that eye, in its former life, in my former life, waz mine!”

“You are sure of this?”

“As sure az I am of the image burned into it.”

“What image is that?” Scaramouche asked.

“The face of the girl that I killed with my own hands.”

Heraclix started to get up, but the Veiled One sitting next to him put a plump hand on the giant’s arm, urging him to refrain from interfering. Heraclix sat back down.

“You never fail to disgust me, Bozkovitch,” Scaramouche said flatly. “And this is the source of your condemnation?”

“Yes, though even in Hell my sinz follow me.”

“What do you mean?” Scaramouche asked.

“Everyone knowz everyone else in Hell. It iz part of the condemnation, to know who iz and who iz not there, alzo condemned. They say absenze makes the heart grow fonder, but it also cauzez great torment to be away from thoze you loved, to be with thoze you hated and who hated you. I learned that one who hated me had come to Hell.”

“And who was that?” Scaramouche asked.

“The father of the girl I had killed.”

“Surely she was innocent. Could a loving father be condemned to Hell?”

“She waz innocent, but he waz far from it. He sought to betray natural law, just az you do,” the devil-fly wagged its finger.

“Your impertinence will be rewarded with further tortures, Bozkovitch,” Scaramouche said flatly.

The devil-fly shrank back a half step.

“Az I waz saying,” it continued, “a man whom I had never met, but who hated me with all the passion he could muster, had come to Hell. I didn’t know where he waz, so I did my best to avoid him, which was a kind of torture itzelf.

“He didn’t find me, at least not then. But another did find me, a man from among the living. He sought my victimz father and questioned me about hiz whereaboutz.”

“In Hell?” Scaramouche asked.

“In Hell. He did not summon, he visited. A rather courteous gesture, I might add, for one practicing the sorcererz’ artz.”

“And why did this man seek the father of your victim?” Scaramouche asked, either missing or ignoring Bozkovitch’s implication.

“He said that he had come to retrieve the man’z soul from Hell, but not to save him. He said that he had a special torment reserved for the father, who had somehow wronged him. Hiz torture waz to be so exquizite and demeaning that it must take place among the living, that even the eyez of Hell would avert their gaze for the shame of it all. He said ‘that man will long to sojourn among the damned. For the punishment I have in mind for him iz more powerful than anything Hell or its minionz can contrive.’”

“And what was this vengeance-hungry sorcerer’s name?” Scaramouche asked.

“Why, of all people, you should know! It waz Mattatheus Mowler!”

Heraclix felt the hair on the nape of his neck rise as a numbing sensation washed over his back, then reached around to curdle his guts.

“Did this sorcerer, Mowler, find his man?”

“Yes. At least I think so. Or I thought so.”

“Don’t speak in riddles, Bozkovitch. You know what happened last time you played games with our time,” Scaramouche said.

Bozkovitch shrank back, holding its arm up in front of its face to shield it from the memory.

“What I mean to say iz, yes. The father’z prezence waz soon gone from Hell. I felt him leave. The sorcerer had found his man. But . . .” It stopped with a sharp gasp, realizing it had made a strategic error.

“But what, Bozkovitch?” Scaramouche said

“But he, the father, not the sorcerer. Ah, it iz all so confuzing.”

“What is?”

Bozkovitch breathed in heavily and exhaled with a buzzing sigh. “Not long ago, az the living reckon, another vizitor came to uz from among the living. An impossible vizitor. A man that never existed az the man he waz. I don’t mean to speak in riddlez. I cannot help it. I am a devil, after all.” It began to sob in a low, throbbing buzz.

“Bozkovitch, just tell us what you mean. Who was the visitor? What did he look like?”

“He waz hideous and gigantic. I thought he might be a demon of some importanz. But I sensed that he waz alive, or at least not altogether dead. He waz an abomination, a pasted-together puzzle of men. When I saw him, one thing stood out to me: that eye,
my
eye, with the Hellish image forever burned into the pupil, the image of that poor, innocent girl that I had killed with my own handz. He had brought her there to me in Hell! I sensed, I knew, that this waz the girl’z father, with flesh of my flesh sewn onto hiz own, like some reminder to both of uz of what had happened in another life. You see why it waz all so confuzing?”

“Bozkovitch!” Scaramouche raised his voice.

“Yes, master.”

“Turn around.”

The devil-fly slowly shuffled around and bowed its head, exposing its shoulder to an anticipated lashing.

The Veiled One reached up and slipped Heraclix’s hood from his head just as Bozkovitch raised its eyes.

“Aaah! No! Not you!” the devil-fly screamed.

Heraclix recognized it as one of the devils he had seen in Hell.

“Send me back!” Bozkovitch begged. “That eye, I cannot look at it! Pleaze send me back!”

“First,” Scaramouche yelled, “you must tell us the name of the man whom Mowler sought to take from Hell. What did Mowler say his name was?”

“It was him!” Bozkovitch shouted, pointing at Heraclix. “He iz the man, he iz the father!”

“His name, Bozkovitch!”

“Ah, Okto something, ah, Octavius! Octavius Heilliger!”

Heraclix’s mind shot back to the memory of his own hand inscribing a book, the book that Pomp had rescued from the ashes of Mowler’s apartment:
The Worm
. He reached into his pouch and took hold of the book. But the glimpse into his past evaporated with the buzzing, rattling screams of the devil-fly, Bozkovitch, the man who had killed his daughter.

“I did what you asked. Now send me back! Send me back! Send me b—”

The voice was cut off in a puff of brimstone. The circle of candles extinguished all at once as the air exploded in the vacuum where the demon had vanished.

The Shadow Divan quickly stood up, but Heraclix sat staring at the empty circle. The Veiled One and Skull-face each put a hand under Heraclix’s arm to help him up. He stood, but showed no vigor, staring vacantly, as if he were weary of himself.

“These revelations are hard to take sometimes,” Raven said. “How can we help you?”

Heraclix retrieved
The Worm
from his pouch and handed it to Raven. “I think that knowing something more about the author of this work will help.”

The Raven took the book from Heraclix and carefully examined it, spending an uncomfortably long time staring at the title page. The others filed off downstairs.

“Come,” said the Raven, “we will go down to the meditation room so you can have some time to process your thoughts.”

But his thoughts were beyond his head. His mind roared like a gale through dry autumn leaves. Snippets of lucidity parted the maelstrom only long enough for him to reach out and take hold of a thought before being batted out and sucked up again into
the mind-numbing whirlwind. He moved, but not consciously. He may have even spoken, but the words that left his lips and reached his ears were not his own. They were a faint shadow of what was real, a whispered lie spoken by that being on the surface of his soul, the one that interfaced with the outside world, or had done so since his rebirth. Deep inside that Hell was the real man, divided asunder between the evil that surely was and the good that he thought was his true essence, at least until now. A battle had begun within him. The standoff was over. The horsemen were making their charge. Like a mercenary bent on self-preservation, he vacillated between allowing himself to be led by the good person he thought he had been in this second life and submitting to the evil one he had been in the first. Confusion then took hold when he realized that both before and after his rebirth he had been both good and evil, that the idealistic dichotomies that would have made choosing so much easier were simply not so clear. This, then, was the fog of war that clouded his mind when he found himself standing at the edge of the quicksilver pool.