“Your aunt, the one who worked for the Brickstaffs…”
Lissandra hadn't thought about the woman in years, not since the night that she'd watched her changed into something that could have no longer been considered her aunt. She had watched Mr. Brickstaff sacrifice the creature her aunt had become, and had run from that evil house forever. “The Brickstaffs were somehow in league with your friends and this supernatural study.”
“I'm sure my confirming that doesn't come as a shock. There are humans scattered all about the world who work for us in one way or another. In some cases, they know what they're doing. In other cases, they just do what they're told, and take the wealth offered them if they play and experiment like the good little pets they're encouraged to be.”
“What do you hope to gain out of all of this?”
“Well Lissandra, you can't very well maintain order with things going bump in the night, now can you?”
The gypsy watched the cavern floor draw ever closer. Moon pointed into the lights and snapped her fingers, and one of her soldiers focused his goggles in on the lights.
Moon gripped the railing as she raised her body back to full height. “And you can't effectively kill things if you don't understand their habits, hopes, and desires.”
“You built them a supernatural zoo?”
“Best definition I can think of to describe this place.” Moon began slipping into her gloves. “What do your cards tell you about where we are, and what we should expect?”
Lissandra shot Moon a look. “I wouldn't know. You stole my cards.”
“Of course you know.” Moon intertwined her fingers and pushed her gloves up tight. “Those cards are a crutch, just like every crystal ball and magic talisman imaginable is a crutch. You don't need those pretty painted scenes of death, destruction, regret, and hope to tap into those energies. How many times have you shuffled your grandmother's cards and studied every line painted on them?”
Lissandra could see every image the cards could offer in her mind's eye. “More times than I could begin to count.”
“No reason to literally count; that would be another useless act, meant more for razzle-dazzle and putting on a good show for me. I'm unimpressed with your toys and the symbology painted on them, I'm impressed with what you see now. The images you hold in your mind are far stronger than any you'd receive if I were to hand you that deck and let you fall back into familiar and boring patterns.”
Lissandra looked up the cliffside and watched the towers of rock rise higher than skyscrapers, becoming lost in complete and unyielding pitch.
“There are no stars in this forsaken place, Lissandra. You've nothing more at your divination disposal than that which you can see and know within you.”
“Pain.” Lissandra closed her eyes; the headaches had begun again, she had just been too distracted with the fantastic and impossible environment to realize it. “All I feel is pain.”
“That's not a message from beyond, that's your body telling you that it's been pushed beyond the lazy threshold you normally set for it. What is beyond the pain?”
Lissandra gripped the railing and tried to put her aches and pains in the same box she had locked the cold and hunger within. She could see the deck shuffling in her mind and closed her eyes tighter than she had when she had been scared she might be turned to stone.
The cards were arranged in a high tower, one atop the other, which rose over the image she held of herself as a little girl. The pictures on the cards shifted and blurred in and out of focus. The Lovers moved in for a kiss and the Hanged Man swung slowly back and forth from the rope about his ankle — it was all too much movement and chaos for her to keep up. The projection she held in her brain, of the little girl she had once been with the wide eyes and the dangling curls, struggled for focus.
“You're not a little girl anymore.” Moon was whispering in her ear, but to the little girl watching the cards come to life through their little theatre windows, the voice of Moon sounded like the echoing boom of a distant thundercloud. “Grandmother has sailed on to the next life, she won't be coming to tutor you.”
Lissandra saw her own face staring back at her; the face of the woman she had become replacing the avatar of the child she had once been. When the mirror image of herself turned back to the cards, they were no longer cards.
“They are thirsty for blood. They haven't witnessed the light from heaven beaming down judgment on them in so long. They are hungry to make anyone pay. They need nothing from us beyond the sport of tearing at us — ripping muscle and flesh from bone.”
Moon was standing next to the image of Lissandra that she held in her mind. “That is good, but simply hearing the word demon would let both of us know what they would like to do with our bodies if they could have their way. What is beyond their base desires? Look past their hunger and tell us both what it is that they want more than anything. What is the desire which fuels their frustration?”
Lissandra opened her eyes as the lift came to a shaking stop at the bottom of the cliff. She looked to Moon and understood — not guessed — but truly understood.
“Imprisonment is only torture to them because they are endless, and the gift of their endless nature is as well a curse. Their disdain for being trapped in this place is simple: they are wasted when they are forgotten. They desire above all else to be useful again.”
Moon nodded. “Of course that is the right answer.”
“And of course,” Lissandra spoke with the realization that she no longer felt the cold, the hunger, or the throbbing pain in her head, “you knew the answer all along.”
“I needed to hear you say it, Lissandra. To realize it for yourself.” Moon watched as the soldiers raised the gate in the center of the yellow railing. The first of them stepped off the lift to fan out in the fashion in which they were trained. “Important realizations have begun for you this night, lucky girl.”
Moon followed the soldiers off the lift and motioned in the air for Lissandra to come along.
Lissandra stared at the alien place she had found herself pulled into by the Moon. “How is it that I'm so lucky, Moon?”
“You are lucky because you are taking the baby steps towards becoming the only constellation whose divine instructions you will ever follow.”
Lissandra stepped off the lift. The ground beneath her shoes was coarse, black sand —lava rock. She took another more confident stride to once again find herself at Moon's side.
Moon pointed the way towards the fires. The group marched forth in earnest when she spoke. “You are extra lucky in that now I don't have to leave you down here for a lifetime as you ponder towards enlightenment all alone.”
~26~
THE EXPLORER
God make sky, devil paint black
God make bird, devil make bat
God make garden, devil grow fruit
God make eye, devil take tooth
God make rain, devil make flood
God make man, devil want blood
—Diary entry, untitled lyrics, blues singer Walter
“Hoof Scratch” Hatchet, 1937
THE EXPLORER STOOD ABOUT THE STONE of the richly accented terrace at the base of the castle. From here, he could easily see the sprawl of the city below him as it crept out towards the shore. Three fine ships sat in the harbor. Even from so far away, it was no strain to his eyes to see the men who clung to the riggings — the great ladies of the ocean overtaken with their ever-moving labors, as if the vessels were children's toys which had been placed upon an ant hill. Hundreds of men had been working without rest for weeks once the Royal decree had been announced.
The Explorer would have his tiny armada, and his days of crossing the vast ocean would soon begin. Once her ladyship's words had been trumpeted through the streets, there was no stopping the cycle of events set in motion. One would have had better luck trying to lasso the sun from the sky.
The waters stretched from the harbor to ultimately blend with the sky, blue marrie
d to blue. As the slow clouds rolled overhead, so did the thick waves below. Each to their own fevered labors, and only meeting to become one at the place where most men's gaze succumbed to the horizon. The explorer knew better; that place did not exist — there was no end.
Though the sky was calm this day, and the clouds bore no omen of rain, the Explorer never saw things in such a way. When he looked upon the great ocean, he always saw it as it had been that night. He always relived the storm which rocked that ship and the flashes of cold clarity the lighting strikes gave.
Slices of a memory, of men clinging to anything they could grasp for their lives, kegs and cannons rolling across the deck to become resident of the depths… of how the rain had coated her soft skin…
The look on her face when the Explorer's grip could no longer hold her… the broken promise he had made to her that he would always keep her safe, and that the god of the great ocean would not steal her for his own.
“You are pleased with the preparations?” The words of the Court Minister were at his back. The Explorer turned from the past and gazed into the eyes of the man who had championed his future.
Tall and gaunt, draped in the official maroon robes of the house of his Lord and Lady, the Minister would have done well in another life as a long-necked sea bird, towering over things with his draped arms extended and sunken buttonhole eyes.
“My officials at the docks say that we are days ahead of schedule.” The Minister was proud of himself as he relayed the information, as if it were he himself who was flying from one mast to the next and chirping out a work song.
“I am ready to begin.” The Explorer did not meet the gaze of the Minister, and looked above him and his gaggle of apprentices as he spoke. The crows were always thick upon the castle walls. Thousands, like an unwelcome black snow, clung to the parapets and could not be melted away, no matter how bright and hot the sun rose into the sky. “I am ready to make good on my claims, Minister. All worlds flow into the next, and the trade routes are no different.”
The Minister extended his delicate crane of an arm, and all set into motion to follow the path of the palazzo into the gates of the palace garden. The Explorer followed; he would have plenty of time gazing at the sea soon enough, and the eyes of crows were disheartening to him, a bad omen at the beginning of a long journey.
“We have business, before you set off.” The Minister walked first into the garden and past the guards.
The Explorer knew where he was; this was the entrance to a place which was known only to the Queen herself. The legends of the beauty of her personal gardens in her hidden corner of the castle were legend. There was hardly an old woman who would not lie and say that she, at one time or another had been one of the Queen's flower tenders. The blooms of the roses were said to grow larger than the faces of smiling children, and tribes of bees were said to war with one another for the honor of caressing the petals.
The Explorer was uneasy with it all. It seemed a blasphemous act to step so close into the very heart of his royal benefactor.
True uneasiness set in once the crow-guarded gate had been crossed and the Explorer let his eyes wander the garden — or what had at one time surely been one. Nothing grew here, not even weed or wildflower.
The earth to either side of the path looked to have been shoveled out of a pauper's hearth. Dead clumps of ash and soot were barely packed about decayed stalks of grayish twig and vine. Trees were rot and fallen limbs decorated the garden floor. Stone angel statues which had once blessed this place could no longer look upon what had become of it all — their faces had cracked and fallen to join the dead soil at their feet.
The Minister thought nothing of this, and the royal apprentices that followed him held close to one another as they walked through. No one spoke; all were as quiet as if they were watching a wagon filled with the dead glide past. The crows were in the air over this place, and the Explorer saw the great windows which sat high above the garden had all been bricked up.
How could such a place, that had once been so beautiful, now be abandoned so intensely that masons had been dispatched to seal the view of it from within? Was the thought of it more horrible than the look in her eyes as she slipped into the waves? All the masons in the world would never be able to build a wall vast enough to hide the fear in those eyes, or to make him forget.
The Minister walked straight to the vast door which led into the palace. Two royal guards, on either side of the door, stood motionless with heavy armor and pole-arms in hand. Those apprentices with the Minister all whispered to one another when the Explorer approached. With heads down, they turned to walk past him towards the way they had come. The Minister placed a golden key into the lock of the door.
“Minister, is this not your Queen's private chambers?” The Explorer stood his ground and looked to one of the guards, as if in wonder that he would be allowed to step within. The guard made no movement to stop either of them as the lock clicked. The great door broke from its hold to the frame and began to slowly swing in.
“What we must discuss before your voyage is of the most sensitive of natures, and is kept ever close to Her Highness.” The Minister let the door stop its motion and then moved into the dark room.
The Explorer slowly followed.
There was not a window in the chamber which did not have glass replaced with stone, and heavy red drapes still hung to frame the blinded apertures. A sconce in each corner of the room and a hanging iron candelabra provided adequate light. But as the guards closed the heavy door, the world went from daylight to dusk in an instant.
The Minister walked to a five-sided ornate table, a wood of burnished oranges and reds that the Explorer did not recognize. The Explorer followed to stand across the table from the Minister.
At the Explorer's back was the door from which they had come, and escape back to the world of light. At the Minister's back were four guards, similarly armed and armored as their companions outside. They framed the double doors which held the personal crest of the Queen's family. Beyond those double doors lay her private apartment and bed chambers. Surely few men had ever gotten so close to her — and surely these secrets which the Minister felt so urgent were very delicate if they were guarded along with Her Highness.
The eyes of the Minister held firmly the eyes of the Explorer.
“Are you loyal? Are you pleased with the grace bestowed upon you by our Queen?” The Minster kept his words thick and spoke slowly.
“I could not ask for a more generous benefactor than your Lord and his Queen.”
“Perhaps. Regardless, it is time to expand the known world.” The light fought dark to shadow across the Minister's face.
“Trade, good Minister. We merely mean to find the most efficient way to the Indies. I'm not foolish enough to think that it is any more or any less fantastic than that.”
The Explorer was sure of these things that he said.
“That is where you are incorrect.” The Minister placed his hands upon the table. “It is so much more than that.”
The Explorer's eyes followed the arms of the Minister down to the table. It was an odd shape, having five sides, and the Explorer could not say what metaphysical significance this might have had to the Queen.
In his mind, it had always been a suspicious number. Christ, the savior, had received five wounds leading up to his death. Yet the book of Psalms had five parts, and they had provided some comfort to him in the years since the storm. The ancients believed in the five elements: earth, fire, air, water, and ether. Water had ruled the Explorers fate since he was a child, and its ever-presence could not be ignored.
The glyphs carved into each of the five sections of the table did not seem to correspond with the elements; not in any way that seemed reasonable to the Explorer. The symbols were easy enough to ascertain as the Explorer took them in one by one: a flower, the moon, an owl, a broom, and a key.
The Explorer ran his fingertip into the glyph before him, the broom. All the while, th
e fingers of the Minister took hold of one of the two things which sat atop the table — a large rolled parchment. The bony fingers of the Minister broke the seals and then began the labor of rolling the parchment out to lie flat on the table. The Minister's fingers stopped the unrolling when he reached the edge of the map, and they came to rest by the other article upon the table with five sides — an ornate box of similarly exotic woods.
The Explorer leaned in far; before he even realized he was moving, he was being pulled by wonderment. The parchment was a map, but it was like no map that the Explorer had ever seen before.
Surely, it was no map that any man under heaven had ever seen before.
The Explorer feared touching it with more than his eyes, but he did so, regardless of his fear. He traced the world, the known world — and his fingers stopped upon the land on which he stood, the port city of the Queen. He then began to trace his finger over the ocean, along the route he meant to take to the Indies.
Yet, the Explorer's chosen path did not lead to the Indies at all. It led to lands which should not have existed. Lands of which the Explorer had never dreamed.
“What madness has overtaken this house?”
The Explorer didn't look to the Minister; he could not stop staring at the new world.
“You should never trouble yourself with that question again. More to the point, you should never again speak it into the world where God can hear you question.”
The Explorer traced over mountain ranges and rivers and lakes. The map was marked with cities and tribal lands, there were structures drawn onto the map in the southern lands, great mountains of stone, not forged by God, but by man.
“What is this place, Minister?”
“It is where you venture.”
The Explorer didn't believe the words. “Impossible.”
Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five Page 25
