Through the Doors of Oblivion

by Michael G. Williams

  Mammon chuckled abruptly. “Well, officer, glad you could join us.” Mammon rolled his eyes with melodramatic flair. “I’m glad to see you’re only that far behind.” Mammon pulled back the sleeve of his tacky sport jacket and looked at the four different gold watches on his left wrist. “Anyway, time, as they say, is money. So let’s cut to the chase, Norton. Are you going to let the witches play you like a fiddle? Or are you going to refuse to be suckered like that?” Mammon spread his hands and smiled in the applied-pressure body language familiar to anyone who’s ever been sold a questionable used car. “Just think what we could do together against them. I seem to recall a time when you were more my devotee than almost anyone else in the city. You didn’t know that, of course, but those earliest few of your many years as a San Franciscan, when you were one of the richest men of the city? Before you decided you couldn’t hack it anymore as a businessman and set off on this Quixotic quest for enlightenment?”

  Mammon had gotten to within a few feet of them now and spoke in a measured, conversational tone though his voice retained undertones of stone and steel and the rattle of money pouches. He made the denigration of Norton’s reign - the Emperor’s personal quest for a kind of dignity measured in the betterment of his city and its people rather than bank balances and accounts receivable - seem like an objective assessment and not a personal insult.

  Norton appeared to shrink the more the demon spoke. Mammon wasn’t a big, showy, cinematic monster out of myth. He wasn’t fire and leathery wings and the reek of seared human flesh, or one of the improbable entities from the paintings in the museums Biggy had visited. Mammon had a much more insidious kind of presence: the weight of millennia of human vice, of people taking advantage of one another for petty personal gain, of every time hearts were broken over something so ordinary as a little cash.

  Mammon’s presence, Biggy realized, caused a specific quality of dissonance: the depressing certainty of loss whispered in a minor-key chord with the promise one will almost surely win next time. Mammon was the embodiment of the sad and anxious optimism that keeps a player at his dice until there’s no money left for food or lodging. Biggy thought of a man locked up in a tuberculosis sanatorium, up the coast from San Francisco, who went mad and couldn’t stop eating. The poor bastard had to be confined lest he eat himself literally to death. The walls of a cell might keep the man from that awful fate, but no one knew how to halt what he described as constant pangs of anguished hunger. He would devour a meal good enough for anyone then spend the whole night wailing about how starved he still was. That must be what it’s like to serve this thing, Biggy thought. And if Norton once did, wittingly or otherwise, that hunger must gnaw at him still.

  Norton stirred, finally, and somewhat to Biggy’s surprise the little man rose straighter, puffed up his chest, opened his mouth to speak and -

  - and two sets of hands appeared out of nowhere behind Norton and grasped his shoulders and upper arms.

  “Has he got it?” Biggy heard what sounded like the voice of a young woman.

  “He’s got it!” The second voice was distinct, confident, but defied easy categorization. “Pull!”

  The hands yanked Norton backward through a hole in the world, a shocked expression on his face.

  The tear in reality snapped shut.

  Biggy looked at the light in his hands, then back up at Mammon. The flame-orange glow outside grew ever brighter.

  Mammon blinked at the space where Norton disappeared, then turned to Biggy. “Well, I’ll be goddamned.”

  Tucking the light into his belt, Biggy drew his sidearm and pointed it shakily at Mammon. “Halt,” he said, voice a little shaky, “In the name of the law.”

  Mammon’s face was blank for two of Biggy’s heartbeats, then the demon broke into an earthy and unironic laugh. “On what charges?”

  Biggy thought of all the corruption in the city: a dirty political boss, who in turn controlled a dirty mayor, a dirty Board of Supervisors, and on and on and on. Just that morning, he heard rumor of a cop who shot a looter in the back only to pick their pocket. The policeman screwed his courage to the proverbial sticking place. “Conspiracy,” he answered.

  Mammon laughed again. “And to what do I conspire?”

  “I’m still working on that.” Biggy’s hand shook a little. “But I reckon to rather a lot, all told.”

  Mammon fluttered his lips with a dismissive sound. “Please. Biggy, you’re not going to arrest me. I’m a supernatural creature. You literally cannot arrest me.”

  Biggy considered for a moment. “Maybe you’re another looter, and I chased you in here, and only one of us walks back out.” Biggy’s voice gained the hard edge of courage discovered when the only other option is panic. He was alone with a monster out of lurid books read to him by old nuns who didn’t consider him smart enough to do the reading himself. Biggy was one of the few honest cops in a city whose every organ seemed turned to the benefit of monsters like this instead of to that of the people. He felt distinctly unprepared for this moment, and yet here he was.

  Mammon smiled, but this time it was more condescending than before. “Biggy, I’ve gone and researched you. You’re a known historical figure, renowned for fighting corruption. You are not the sort to kill and then cover it up. Your name rang a bell, so I went back to a time when we have search engines and read all about you.”

  Biggy’s face wrinkled in confusion. “I’m a what?”

  “Don’t try to understand.” Mammon waved a hand. “But take a good long look. You will see me again.”

  Mammon checked his many watches again and walked away.

  To Biggy’s eyes, the demon simply faded out of existence.

  To Mammon’s, the future rushed forward to become the present.

  Switching to a one-hand grip, Biggy pulled out the flashlight, turning it on like Norton had showed him, and waved it around to search the darkness. He saw nothing but display cases and busts and potted plants. He stood there pointing his gun at empty space until he could smell smoke.

  “Move, Biggy.” He spoke aloud, his voice hoarse. “Move. The… the Emperor said the building goes in the fire. Move it.”

  Biggy was a block away and running fast when Pioneer Hall caught fire and blew itself apart.

  Modern Day

  Iria drove a nail into the wall, and then another, and with great ceremony hung the Bear Republic flag above and beside the altar. It stood to one side of Norton’s poster like an honor guard. Lighted only by candles, the room was significantly cozier than Norton remembered it. Before it had seemed plain and messy and crowded, and in that regard, he realized he found it an unpleasant reflection of his own drab and disheveled lodgings at the Eureka when he passed away. I wonder what became of my papers, Norton found himself thinking, and he opened his mouth to ask Iria and Madge, but an entirely different question came out.

  “Have you heard of an Officer William J. Biggy?” Norton asked it of Madge. She sat beside him on the floor, watching Iria hang the flag. Madge and Iria originally told Norton they needed to “cleanse” the space, but that had been a spiritual activity more than a literal one. The incense and the small “broom” made of twigs and their quiet chanting put Norton in the mood of a church service at night, and his voice was correspondingly low.

  Madge turned to Norton and blinked at him. The witches had asked almost nothing about his trip. That surprised him at first, but of course, no one ever asks the maid how it went when she cleaned the clothes. He decided a similar thought had just occurred to Madge and surprised her, too.

  “No.” Madge shook her head. “I’m afraid I haven’t.”

  Iria finished hanging the flag and came over to join them, bringing with them an old-fashioned breakfast tray. On it was a plate covered in crispy little square crackers and a mason jar filled with red wine. Beside them stood a smaller glass filled with something thicker and darker purple. “Who?”

  Norton sighed very softly. “He helped me before Mammon arrived. He h
ad the sort of spirit I would hope would be rewarded or remembered. I had a…” Norton smiled faintly. “A hunch, if you will, that Biggy was a person of import.”

  Iria’s eyes widened for a moment. “You… you saw Mammon?”

  Madge’s phone was already in her hands, her thumbs typing away. “Biggy as in, like, b-i-g-g-y?”

  Norton nodded at her before addressing Iria. “Of course. He knows all about what you are doing. Did you not know that?”

  Iria’s eyebrows furrowed as they peered closer at Norton. “No. Tell us everything. Now.”

  Norton was slightly offended at Iria’s commanding tone - and slightly gratified he did not feel compelled to obey it. That was certainly of interest to him. He didn’t take time to comment on it, though. It might be wise to keep that card in his sleeve. “Biggy was a policeman who thought me a thief.” Norton paused and flushed ever so slightly. “Which I suppose I was. After I explained the situation, he helped me. Mammon appeared on the scene as I was taking down the flag. He tried to convince either or both Biggy and myself to join him. He said you need four keys because you’re actually working two rituals with overlapping sets of keys: a trio of keys to rid the city of Mammon and a trio of keys to keep me bound to you when that task is completed. Is that true?”

  Iria blinked.

  Madge’s head jerked up from her phone with the expression of someone who has just seen the answer emerge in a crossword puzzle. “Uh, Iria…” Madge sounded something between annoyed and embarrassed. “Is that true?”

  Iria raised one eyebrow. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you understand magic – or that you can believe the word of a demon. Is that clear?”

  Madge glared at Iria. “Do we need to talk in private?”

  Norton’s gaze was steady, his lids narrowed. He had been the butt of jokes many times in his life. He knew the sound of someone caught trying to pull one over. The histories may have recorded the city as Norton’s benevolent and gracious hosts during his life, but the histories did not record the small and entirely routine injuries to Norton’s pride. The Emperor had chiseled every one of those injuries on the stone tablet of his heart. He could remember still the sting of having strangers mock him. He could remember the frown of pity from those he thought he could call friends. Humiliation eventually lost its teeth with Norton, as it must for him to survive the path he paved for himself, but that didn’t mean it could not try to bite.

  “It is true.” Norton possessed utter certainty.

  “Yes.” Iria blushed a deep purple. “It’s true.”

  “You told me he would be working toward freedom.” Madge leaned back, away from both of them. “You told me we would be returning him to the Summer Lands so he could move on in the cycle of reincarnation. That was the ritual I told you to design.” In their limited interactions so far, Madge struck Norton as the one who was kind, in contrast to Iria’s ambition. Madge shifted smoothly from that to harder and sharper than anything Norton had heard so far.

  It was very clear Madge was the teacher and Iria the student, and Madge would discipline her charge when they stepped out of line.

  Iria looked up at Madge and spread their hands. “And I told you I summoned up the idea of Norton rather than Norton himself. Look, he’s not real, okay? He’s not a ghost. He’s a thoughtform. The idea isn’t to make him a slave, it’s to give him strength. If we don’t reinforce the deal, reinforce his connection to us, eventually he’ll fade away. Worse, he might go rogue and start wreaking havoc. We have a responsibility to keep that from happening. He is our creation.”

  Madge’s glare was the loudest thing anyone had said the entire time, and it nearly echoed in the ensuing minute of silence.

  Norton stared out the window. Iria stared at their phone. Madge stared at Iria.

  After that long minute, Norton stood. “I am going to walk my city.”

  Iria, to their credit, did not try to stop him.

  San Francisco is an ocean city, but its many hills provide any number of heights from which to gain a view well above sea level. The Twin Peaks, Mount Sutro, Telegraph Hill, Nob Hill: the list runs into the dozens. One of the most picturesque is today known as Corona Heights Park. In Norton’s mind, however, it was Rock Hill or, as most called it in his time, The Fist.

  The Fist is a rocky outcropping of brick red chert bedrock jutting out over the city like a clenched hand five hundred forty feet up.

  Corona Heights Park closed at dark, in theory, but, like many public spaces in San Francisco, that isn’t so much a closure as a shift change. Souls who are daring or desperate - or both - can find a way into the park at night. The steps up to the peak are not for the faint of heart: no handrail, no lights, and a decidedly fatal descent should they falter. Intrepid trespassers were rewarded with the very best view of the city anyone in San Francisco could ever have. At one end of the field of vision is the Bay; at the other, the Twin Peaks and Sutro Tower. If Titans were ever to play tennis using San Francisco’s geography as their court, The Fist would be the perfect vantage point for any lucky spectator.

  Norton sat on the knuckles of The Fist, his stubby legs dangling his feet over the edge. He had no particular thoughts except that, sitting where he was, on a feature of the city largely unchanged since his time, he could pretend for a moment he was sitting in his San Francisco and looking out at theirs.

  The sound of twigs snapping as Iria approached did not startle Norton. They very carefully joined him on the rocky edge, and the two of them sat together in silence for long minutes of contemplation.

  “I’m sorry.” Iria’s eyes did not move from the dancing traffic of Market when they spoke. Far below, traffic climbed ponderously down Castro from Dolores Heights.

  “You are not sorry.” Norton spoke clearly, firm but not angry. “You may apologize, but you are not sorry. And anyway, one must never apologize for speaking truth.”

  Iria opened their mouth. “I’m… not sure I see the distinction.”

  “I realize you mean it your way, and I accept it in that spirit, but in my time ‘sorry’ meant something more like ‘shameful’ than ’ashamed.’ It was a statement of judgment, not the condition of regret.” Norton turned to them but didn’t smile. “You have no reason to be ashamed. You spoke the truth. I am a creation. At least, that is what makes the most sense. Whether you have created me out of whole cloth or fashioned a marriage of who I was with who I am remembered to be, I do not know, but clearly I am not entirely and simply the Imperial personage. That isn’t the point, though. The point is that you have done nothing more shameful than speak truth. I would be hard pressed to hold that against someone.”

  “I lied to you,” Iria said. “So shut up and let me apologize.”

  Now Norton smiled very slightly. “You are not the first to take advantage of me, Iria.”

  “That…” Iria let out a long gust of breath. “That doesn’t actually make it better or easier.”

  “I did not know it was my task to make it better or easier for you.” Norton smiled a little more widely.

  “Okay.” Iria pointed at Norton in frustration. “This is not going the way it’s supposed to go, so we have to start over.”

  Norton raised both eyebrows and turned his head this way and that in surprise. “You ache to be in command, don’t you?”

  Iria raised one eyebrow, very slowly, but met his gaze when he turned back to them. “Who were you, when you were alive? Were you like this? Did you constantly tell people what to do when they least anticipated you being the one to give orders?” They were not smiling.

  Norton considered the question for a long time and then shook his head once to either side. “No, hardly anyone did what I said. I published edicts galore, none of which were enacted. I commanded a display of respect from the city police, yes, and I kept the courts fair when dealing with my poorest subjects by personally attending the decisions affecting them, but…” Norton held his breath a moment before saying difficult words. “But much of the cooper
ation of my subjects was acquiescence and, I fear, some small part of it was pity.” Norton’s voice fell. He sounded much sadder and much older than mere moments before.

  “So I guess,” Iria said, “That’s why you recognize that desire for control in another: you’re so acutely aware of it in yourself.”

  Together, they gazed out on the city for another minute.

  “Okay.” Iria clapped their hands on their thighs to break the silence. “I lied. It’s all out there, so to hell with it. The more you do for us, the more of your own treasury notes you ‘earn’ from us, the more tightly bound to us you’ll be. You could buy your freedom, sure, but by then you’ll have been so shaped by our command over you it’ll be almost impossible for you to do anything but work for us.” Iria frowned as they spoke. “So it probably won’t even occur to you to, I don’t know, go off and do whatever spirits go off and do. You’ll just sort of mindlessly stay with us. And we’ll be able to control you more easily than ever before. I apologize for lying. I apologize for giving you the false impression this would culminate in some sort of liberation.”

  Norton did not turn away from the city but spoke rapidly and with confidence rather than trepidation. “What sort of tasks do you intend to set me when we have finished driving out Mammon?” Norton paused. “Assuming we are successful.”

  “I haven’t got a clue.” Iria’s voice was light, the weight of dishonestly lifted from their shoulders. “At that point, we discuss it as a group. My guess is you’ll get what the finance bros call ‘equity.’”

  That was something Norton understood. “I will become a partner and not a slave?” Norton sounded surprised.

  “Exactly. We’ll be bound together, but here’s the thing, Your Majesty: we aren’t just binding you to us. We’re binding ourselves to you. It’s those treasury notes, see? The more we swap them back and forth, the more bound we become to one another. It isn’t as simple as you being our slave.”