The Nightmare Factory (24 page)

But why was everything painted so brilliantly now, when a moment ago it seemed so dull, so unspectacular? Why did every piece of severed flesh quiver with color? And even more vividly than their red-smeared forms did the horrible fates of these unhappy beings affect Faliol’s mind and feelings. He had been hired to save them and he could do…nothing. His thoughts were now careening wildly through crimson corridors within him, madly seeking solutions but falling at every turn into blind corners and flailing hopelessly against something immovable, impossible. He pressed his hands over his face, hoping to blacken the radiant scene. But everything remained invincibly there before his eyes—everything save his spectacles.

Now the duke’s voice broke the brief lull of the dazed and incredulous assembly. It shouted orders, demanded answers. It proclaimed the ruler’s prophetic misgivings concerning the masquerade and its dangers: he had long known that something of this nature might occur, and had done what he could to prevent its coming to pass. On the spot, he outlawed all future occasions of this kind and called for arrests and interrogations, the Torture of the Question to be liberally implemented. Exodus was instantaneous—the palace became a chaos of fleeing freaks.

“Faliol!” called a voice that sounded too clear, within all the confusion, to have its origin outside his own mind. “I have what you’re looking for. They’re with me now, right here in my hand, not lost forever.”

When Faliol turned around, he saw the masked king standing some distance away, unmolested by the frantic mob. The king’s hand was holding out the spectacles, as if they were the dangling head of a conquered foe. Fighting his way toward the unknown persecutor, Faliol continued to remain several steps behind him as he was led by this demon through all the rooms where the masquerade once flourished, and then deeper into the palace. At the end of a long silent corridor, the gaudy, flapping train of a royal robe disappeared into a doorway. Faliol followed the fluttering bait and at last entered a dim chamber with a single window, before which stood the mummer in a sparkling silk mask. The spectacles were still held by the velvet fingers of a tightly gloved hand. Watching as the dark lenses flashed in the candlelight, Faliol’s eyes burned as much with questions as with madness.

“Where is the mage?” he demanded.

“The mage is no more. Quickly, what else?”

“Who are you?”

“Wasted question, you know who I am. What else?”

“What are you?”

“Another one like the other. Say I’m a sorcerer, very well?”

“And you killed the mage as you did the others.”

“The others? How could you have not heard that rattling pantomime, all those swords and swift feet? Didn’t you hear that there was a pair of leviathan leeches, or something in that way, menacing the guests? True, I had a hand in the illusion, but
my
hand contained no gouging blade. A shambles, you saw it with your own eyes.”

“In their fate you saw your own future. Even a sorcerer may be killed.”

“Agreed, even a sorcerer with three eyes, or two eyes, or one.”

“Who are you to have destroyed the mage?”

“In fact, he destroyed himself—an heroic act, I’m sure—some days ago. And he did it before
my
own eyes, as if in spite. As for myself, I confess that I’m disappointed to be so far beneath your recognition. We have met previously, please remember. But it was many years past, and I suppose you became forgetful as well as dim-sighted once you put those pieces of glass over your eyes. You see why the mage had to be stopped. He ruined you as a madman, as
my
madman.

“But you might recall that you had another career before the madness took you, did you not? Buh-buh-brave Faliol. Don’t you remember how you were made that way? Don’t you wish to remember that you were Faliol the dandy before we met on the road that day? It was I—in my role as a charmseller—who outfitted you with that onyx-eyed amulet which you once wore around your neck, and which made you the skillful mercenary you once were. That you loved to be.

“And how everyone else loved you that way: to see a weakling transformed into a man of strength and of steel is the stuff of public comment, of legend, of the crowd’s
amusement
. And how much more do they love to witness the reverse of this magical process: to see the mighty laid low, the lord of the sword made mad. This was the little drama I had planned. You were supposed to be
my
madman, Faliol, not the placid fool of that magician—a real lost soul of torments in red and black, not a pathetic monk chanting silent psalms in pale breaths. Don’t you understand? It was that Wynge, or whatever his name was, who ruined you, who undid all my schemes for your tragic and colorful history. Because of him I had to change my plans and chase you down to this place. Blame him, if anyone, for the slaughter of those innocents and for what you are about to suffer. You know my ways, we are not strangers.”

“No, demon horror, we are not. You are indeed the foul thing the wise man described to me, all the dark powers which we cannot understand but can only hate.”

“Powers? At least the magician spoke of me as a being, albeit a type of god or demon. But I might even be regarded as a person of sorts, someone who is just like everybody else, but not quite like anyone. I honor him for his precise vision, as far as it went. But you’re wrong to contend that no one understands me; and as for hating the one who stands before you—nothing, in truth, could be farther from truth. Listen, do you hear those brawling voices in the streets beyond the window. Those are not voices filled with hate. In fact, they could not possibly hold a greater love for me. And reciprocally I love them, every one of them: all I do is for them. Did you think that my business was the exceptional destinies of heroes and magicians, of kings and queens, saints and sinners, of all the so-called great? Such extravagant freaks come and go, they are puppets who dance before the eternal eyes of my true children. Only in these multitudes do I live, and through their eyes I see my own glory.”

“You see but your own foulness.”

“No, the foulness is yours alone to see, Faliol. You see something that, for them, truly does not exist. This is a privileged doom reserved for creatures such as yourself. A type of consolation.”

“You have said enough.”

“Liar! You know that you wish my speech to go on, because you fear what will happen when I stop speaking. But I haven’t said what I came here to say, or rather to ask. You know the question, don’t deny it, Faliol. The one you dreamed in those dreams that were not dreams. The torture of the question you dreaded to hear asked, and dreaded more to have answered.”

“Demon!”

“
What is the face of the soul of the world?
”

“No, it is not a face…it is only—”

“Yes, Faliol, it is
this
face,” said the masked figure as it peeled away its mask. “But why have you hidden your eyes that way, Faliol? And why have you fallen to your knees? Don’t you appreciate the vision I’ve shown you? Could you ever have imagined that your life would lead you into the presence of such a sight? Your spectacles cannot save you now, now that you have seen. They are only so much glinting glass—there, listen to how they crunch into smaller and smaller fragments upon the fine, cool marble of the floor. No more spectacles, no more magic, no more magician. And I think, too, no more Faliol. Can you understand what I’m telling you now, jester? Well, what have you got to say? Nothing? How black your madness must be to make you so rude a buffoon. How black. But see, even though you cannot, how I’ve provided these escorts to show you the way back to the carnival, which is where a fool belongs. And be sure that you make my favorite little children laugh, or I will punish you. Yes, I can still punish you, Faliol. A living man can always be punished, so remember to be good. I will be watching. I am always watching. Farewell, then, fool.”

A glazen-eyed guard on either side of him, Faliol was dragged from the duke’s palace and given to the crowd which still rioted in the streets of Soldori. And the crowd embraced the mad, sightless jester, hoisting his jingling form upon their shoulders and shaking him like a toy as they carried him along. In its scheme to strangle silence forever, Soldori’s unruled populus bellowed a robust refrain to Faliol’s sickly moans. And his blind eyes gazed up at an onyx-black night which they could not see, which his vanished mind could no longer comprehend.

But there must have been some moment, however brief, in which Faliol regained his old enlightenment and which allowed him to accomplish such a crucial and triumphant action. Was it solely by his own sleeping strength, fleetingly aroused, that he attained his greatest prize? If not, then what power could have enabled his trembling hands to reach so deeply into those haggard sockets, and with a gesture brave and sure dig out the awful seeds of his suffering? However it was done, the deed was done well. For as Faliol perished his face was flushed with a crimson glory.

And the crowd fell silent, and a new kind of confusion spread among them—those heads which were always watching—when it was found that what they were bearing through the streets of Soldori was only Faliol’s victorious corpse.

DR. VOKE AND MR. VEECH

^T
here is a stairway. It climbs crooked up the side of total darkness. Yet its outlines are visible, like a scribble of lightning engraved upon a black sky. And though standing unsupported, it does not fall. Nor does it end its jagged ascent until it has reached the obscure loft where Voke, the recluse, has cloistered himself. Someone named Cheev is making his way up the stairway, which seems to trouble him somehow. Though the angular scaffolding as a whole is secure enough, Cheev appears hesitant to place his full weight on the individual steps. A victim of vague misgivings, he ascends in weird mincing movements. Every so often he looks back over his shoulder at the stairs he has just stepped upon, as if expecting to see the imprints of his soles there, as if the stairs are not made of solid wood but molded of soft clay. But the stairs are unchanged.

Cheev is wearing a long, brightly colored coat. The huge splinters on the railing of the stairway sometimes snag his bulky sleeves. They also snag his bony hands, but Cheev is more exasperated by the destruction of expensive cloth than undear flesh. While climbing, he sucks at a small puncture in his forefinger to keep from staining his coat with blood. At the seventeenth stair above the seventeenth, and last, landing—he trips. The long tails of the coat become tangled between Cheev’s legs and there is a ripping sound as he falls. At the end of his patience, Cheev removes the coat and flings it over the side of the stairway into the black abyss. Cheev’s arms and legs are very thin.

There is only a single door at the top of the stairs. Behind it is Voke’s loft, which appears to be a cross between a playroom and a place of torture. No doubt Cheev notices this when, with five widely splayed fingers pushing against the door, he enters.

The darkness and silence of the great room are compromised only by noisy jets of blue-green light flickering spasmodically along the walls. But for the most part the room lies buried in shadows. Even its exact height is uncertain, since above the convulsive illumination almost nothing can be seen by even the sharpest pair of eyes, never mind Cheev’s squinting little slits. Part of the lower cagework of the crisscrossing rafters is visible, but the ceiling is entirely obscured, if in fact Voke’s sanctum has been provided with one.

Somewhere above the gritty floor, more than a few life-size dolls hang suspended by wires which gleam and look gummy like wetted strands of a spider web. But none of the dolls is seen in whole: the long-beaked profile of one juts into the light; the shiny satin legs of another find their way out of the upper dimness; a beautifully pale hand glows in the distance; while much closer the better part of a harlequin dangles into view, cut off at the neck by blackness. Much of the inventory of this vast room appears only as parts and pieces of objects which manage to push their way out of the smothering dark. Upon the grainy floor, a long low box thrusts a corner of itself into the scene, showing off reinforced edges of bright metal strips plugged with heavy bolts. Pointed and strangely shaped instruments bloom out of the loam of shadows; they are crusted with…age. A great wheel appears at quarterphase in the room’s night. Other sections, appendages, and gear-works of curious machines complicate this immense gallery.

As Cheev progresses through the half-light, he is suddenly halted by a metal arm with a soft black handle. He backs off and continues to shuffle through the chamber, grinding sawdust, sand, perhaps pulverized stars underfoot. The dismembered limbs of dolls and puppets are strewn about the floor, drained of their stuffings. Posters, signs, billboards, and leaflets of various sorts are scattered around like playing cards, their bright words disarranged into nonsense. Countless other objects, devices, and leftover goods stock the room, more than one could possibly take notice of. But they are all, in some way, like those which have been described. One wonders, then, how they could all add up to such an atmosphere of…isn’t
repose
the word? Yes, but a certain kind of repose: the repose of ruin.

“Voke,” Cheev calls out. “Doctor, are you here?”

Within the darkness ahead a tall rectangle suddenly appears, like a ticket-seller’s booth at a carnival. The lower part is composed of wood and the upper part of glass; its interior is lit up by an oily red glare. Slumped forward on its seat inside the booth, as if asleep, is a well-dressed dummy: nicely-fitting black jacket and vest with bright silver buttons, a white high-collar shirt with silver cufflinks, and a billowing cravat which displays a pattern of moons and stars. Because his head is forwardly inclined, the dummy’s only feature of note is the black sheen of its painted hair.

Cheev approaches the booth a little cautiously. He fails to notice, or considers irrelevant, the inanimate character of the figure inside. Through a semi-circular opening in the glass, Cheev slides his hand into the booth, apparently with the intention of giving the dummy’s arm a shake. But before his own arm creeps very far toward its goal, several things occur in succession: the dummy casually lifts its head and opens its eyes…it reaches out and places its wooden hand on Cheev’s hand of flesh…and its jaw drops open to dispense a mechanical laugh—yah-ha-ha-ha-ha, yah-ha-ha-ha-ha.