Murder Mysteries a Play for Voices (9781466109827) (4 page)

RAGUEL THEN

What was his current project?

PHANUEL

I'm not sure that I can tell you. All the
new concepts are considered sensitive and confidential, until we
get them into the final form in which they will be Spoken.

RAGUEL NARRATION

I felt myself transforming. I am not sure
how I can explain it to you, but suddenly I wasn't me -- I was
something larger. I was transfigured: I was my function.

RAGUEL THEN

(treatment -- transfigured)

I am Raguel, who is the Vengeance of the
Lord. I serve the Name directly. It is my mission to discover the
nature of this deed, and to take the Name's vengeance on those
responsible. My questions are to be answered.

PHANUEL

(Shaken)

Yes. Yes of course. Carasel and his partner
were researching Death. Cessation of life. An end to physical,
animated existence. They were putting it all together. But Carasel
always went too far into his work -- we had a terrible time with
him when he was designing Agitation. That was when he was working
on Emotions...

RAGUEL THEN

You think Carasel died to -- to research the
phenomenon?

PHANUEL

Or because it intrigued him. Or because he
followed his research just too far. Yes.

(beat)

I trust that you will repeat none of this to
any unauthorised persons, Raguel.

RAGUEL THEN

What did you do when you found the body?

PHANUEL

I came out of the Hall, as I said, and there
was Carasel on the sidewalk, staring up. I asked him what he was
doing and he did not reply. Then I noticed the inner fluid, and
that Carasel seemed unable, rather than unwilling to talk to
me.

(beat)

I was scared. I did not know what to do.

The Angel Lucifer came up behind me. He
asked me if there was some kind of problem.

/SFX/ SLIGHT ECHO OVER THIS: A TINY
FLASHBACK TO ADD SPICE TO THE NARRATIVE...

LUCIFER

...kind of problem, Phanuel?

PHANUEL

Indeed. Yes. This angel. Carasel. A bad
thing has happened. A very bad thing.

PHANUEL (CONT’D)

(present narration)

I showed him the body. And then... then his
Aspect came upon him, and he communed with The Name. He burned so
bright. He said...

LUCIFER

(voice treatment -- transfigured)

I shall fetch the one whose function
embraces events such as this.

PHANUEL

--and he left -- to seek you, I imagine.

As Carasel's death was now being dealt with,
and his fate was no real concern of mine, I returned to work,
having gained a new -- and I suspect, quite valuable -- perspective
on the mechanics of Regret. I am considering taking Death away from
the Carasel and Saraquael partnership. I may reassign it to
Zephkiel, my senior partner, if he is willing to take it on. He
excels on contemplative projects. Look, can we hurry this up --
there are dozens of angels waiting to talk to me. I’m extremely
busy.

RAGUEL THEN

Mm. Who did Carasel work with? Who would
have been the last to see him alive?

PHANUEL

You could talk to Saraquael, I suppose -- he
was his partner, after all. Now, if you'll excuse me...

(to angels, under...)

Hmm -- I rather like those, photons are
they? but we’re going to have to make them a lot smaller. Now, who
has the giraffe patterns...?

RAGUEL NARRATION

He returned to his swarm of aides: advising,
correcting, suggesting, forbidding.

/SFX/ LA STREET SOUNDS. CRICKETS.

RAGUEL NOW

Hey, did you see that?

NARRATOR -- LIVE

What?

RAGUEL NOW

Over there. By that car. A jackal. Coyote.
Damned if I know what they come into the city for.

(beat)

Good story, huh?

NARRATOR -- LIVE

I’ve never heard anything like it.

/SFX/ GHOSTLY CITY OF ANGELS NOISES UNDER,
BUT THE LA NOISES REMAIN...

RAGUEL NOW

Yeah? Okay. So I went to talk to the Dead
angel’s partner. Saraquael was in the highest of the mezzanine
galleries that ringed the Hall of Being. As I said, the Universe
was in the middle of the Hall, and it glinted and sparkled and
shone. Went up quite a way, too...

NARRATOR -- LIVE

The Universe you mention, it was, what, a
diagram? I don’t quite understand...

RAGUEL NOW

Not really. Kind of. Sorta. It was a
blueprint: but it was full-sized, and it hung in the Hall, and all
these angels went around and fiddled with it all the time. Doing
stuff with Gravity, and Music and Klar and whatever. It wasn't
really the universe, not yet. It would be, when it was finished,
and it was time for it to be properly Named.

NARRATOR -- LIVE

I’m sorry. I really don’t see...

RAGUEL NOW

Don't worry about it. Think of it as a
model, if that makes it easier for you. Or a map. Or a -- what's
the word? Prototype. Yeah. A Model T Ford universe.

(satisfied chuckle)

You got to understand, a lot of the stuff
I'm telling you, I'm translating already; putting it in a form you
can understand. Otherwise I couldn't tell the story at all. Look,
you want to hear it or you want to keep asking questions?

NARRATOR -- LIVE

(keeping the peace) I want to hear it.

RAGUEL THEN

Good. So shut up and listen.

/SFX/THE TOP GALLERY OF THE HALL OF BEING --
SLIGHT ECHO...

RAGUEL NARRATION

So I met Saraquael, in the topmost gallery.
There was no-one else about -- just him, and some papers, and some
small, glowing models.

RAGUEL THEN

I've come about Carasel.

SARAQUAEL

Carasel isn't here at this time, I’m afraid.
I expect him to return shortly.

RAGUEL THEN

Carasel won't be coming back. He's stopped
existing as a spiritual entity.

SARAQUAEL

He's dead?

RAGUEL THEN

That's what I said. Do you have any ideas
about how it happened?

SARAQUAEL

I... this is so sudden. I mean, he'd been
talking about... but I had no idea that he would... well, take it
on to the next step...

RAGUEL THEN

Take it slowly.

RAGUEL NARRATION

He stood up and walked to the window. There
was no view of the Silver City from his window -- just a reflected
glow from the City and the sky behind us, hanging in the air, and
beyond that, the Dark. The wind from the Dark gently caressed
Saraquael's hair as he spoke. I stared at his back, and
listened.

SARAQUAEL

Carasel is... no, was. That's right, isn't
it? Was. He was always so involved. And so creative. But it was
never enough for him. He always wanted to understand everything --
to experience what he was working on. He was never content to just
create it -- to understand it intellectually. He wanted all of
it.

RAGUEL THEN

All of it?

SARAQUAEL

Yes. That wasn't a problem before, when we
were working on properties of matter. But when we began to design
some of the Named Emotions... he got too involved with his work.
And our latest project was Death. It's one of the hard ones -- one
of the big ones, too, I suspect. Possibly it may even become the
attribute that's going to define the Creation for the Created: if
not for Death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with Death,
well, their lives will have meaning -- a boundary beyond which the
living cannot cross...

RAGUEL THEN

So you’re saying you think he killed
himself?

SARAQUAEL

I know he did.

(beat)

That’s him, isn’t it?

RAGUEL THEN

Excuse me?

SARAQUAEL

The white and red dot on the sidewalk, down
there. Is that Carasel?

RAGUEL THEN

I believe so.

SARAQUAEL

How can they just leave him there like
that?

RAGUEL THEN

Someone will clean up the mess.

SARAQUAEL

Who?

RAGUEL THEN

I don’t know who. But there will be an angel
whose function it is to remove things that are unwanted. My
function is discovery and vengeance. So how do you know that
Carasel killed himself?

SARAQUAEL

How? There’s no other possible explanation.
Look, recently he'd begun asking questions -- questions about
Death. How could we know whether or not it was right to make this
thing, to set the rules, if we were not going to experience it
ourselves. He kept talking about it.

RAGUEL THEN

Didn't you wonder about this? Weren’t you
concerned?

SARAQUAEL

Not in the slightest. That is our function
-- to discuss, to improvise, to aid the Creation and the Created.
We sort it out now, so that when it all Begins, it'll run like
clockwork. Right now we're working on Death. So obviously that's
what we look at. The physical aspect; the emotional aspect; the
philosophical aspect...

RAGUEL THEN

So that was what Carasel was working on?

SARAQUAEL

That and the patterns. Carasel had the
notion that what we do here in the Hall of Being creates patterns.
That there are structures and shapes appropriate to beings and
events that, once begun, must continue until they reach their end.
For us, perhaps, as well as for them. Conceivably he felt this was
one of his patterns.

RAGUEL THEN

I see. I think. Did you know Carasel
well?

SARAQUAEL

As well as any of us know each other. We saw
each other here; we worked side by side. At certain times I would
retire to my cell, across the city. Sometimes he would do the
same.

RAGUEL THEN

Mm. Tell me about Phanuel.

SARAQUAEL

(confidentially -- gossiping)

The boss? Honestly? He's officious. Doesn't
do much -- farms everything out, and takes all the credit.

(intimately)

To hear him talk, you'd think that Love was
all his own work. But to his credit he does make sure the work gets
done. Zephkiel's the real thinker of the two senior designers, but
he doesn't come here. He stays back in his cell in the City, and
contemplates; resolves problems from a distance. If you need to
speak to Zephkiel, you go to Phanuel, and Phanuel relays your
questions to Zephkiel...

RAGUEL THEN

(interrupting)

How about Lucifer? Tell me about him.

SARAQUAEL

Lucifer? The Captain of the Host? He doesn't
work here... He has visited the Hall a couple of times, though --
inspecting the Creation. They say he reports directly to the Name.
I have never spoken to him.

RAGUEL THEN

Did he know Carasel?

SARAQUAEL

I doubt it. As I said, he has only been here
twice. I have seen him on other occasions, though. Through the
window over there. In flight. On his way somewhere.

RAGUEL THEN

Where was he going?

SARAQUAEL

I.... I don't know.