Heraclix and Pomp: A Novel of the Fabricated and the Fey

by Forrest Aguirre

  The girl’s mother, Chandra, was wed to one of the three merchants, namely Hezrah, while the other two old tradesmen, Jubal and Mehmet, were distant cousins of the wedded pair, through Hezrah. It was unclear to Heraclix how Al’ghul or Kaleel were related, if at all, to the rest. Perhaps, he thought, he would pursue the question over dinner, which Jubal had informed him would happen after they had properly buried Hamad.

  That night, after hours of exaggerated, if heartfelt, weeping, the women, along with Al’ghul, prepared a dinner of spiced porridge and rabbit. Heraclix, who neither felt hunger nor had the physical need for food, still ate as a courtesy to his hosts. His taste buds were apparently still functional. He particularly enjoyed a sort of hot spiced cider or tea. He had felt a touch of autumn on the wind coming down from the mountains to the south, and the drink warmed his insides.

  Conversation flowed freely around the fire, though the travelers sat across the fire from Heraclix. His appearance obviously discomfited them, but they never remarked rudely or showed open contempt. They were the hosts, and Heraclix was their guest, no matter how ugly he was.

  Jubal, a consumate storyteller, related how the little caravan was traveling from Sofia to Pest to sell their wares when they were set upon by the Russian Cossacks. Hamad and Kaleel had fought well, but were outnumbered. Al’ghul had “slunk off to hide, as a coward, until he could backstab one of the highwaymen and claim victory,” Jubal said with disdain.

  Al’ghul retreated from the fire, glowering at the others, especially his cousin. But Kaleel was occupied with staring into the eyes of the soft and genteel Fuskana, who seemed happy to return Kaleel’s attentions.

  After the boy had departed, Jubal spoke in a low voice. “‘Al’ghul’ means ‘the ghoul’ or ‘the demon.’ It is, of course, not the boy’s given name. We, the older ones, dare not tell him his true name. Nor does he know that Kaleel,” he spoke quietly enough that the fawning young man wouldn’t be distracted from the girl, “is not, in truth, his cousin”.

  “And was Hamad his brother?”

  “Indeed, he was. It was Hamad, in fact, who nicknamed the boy ‘Al’ghul’ not long after their mother died in Erdel at the hands of a band of raiders. The younger boy was only three years old at the time, but the trauma took hold. He wasn’t like other children, after the things he had seen. And he’s still not like other children. He’s given to outrageous fits of jealous rage. I don’t know what he recalls of his parents, but it’s apparent that the memories—whether of loss or otherwise—have left him scarred for life. But, though he is an orphan, he must learn to be a man, and this we . . . myself, Hezrah, and Mehmet, vowed to teach him when we found the orphaned boys on our travels. We had done well with Hamad. For Al’ghul, I hold less hope.”

  “The boy is dangerous, headstrong,” said Hezrah.

  “Still, we vowed to teach him,” Mehmet said.

  “You are to be commended,” Heraclix said.

  “We are to go to sleep,” Jubal said. “It is late and tomorrow we head back past Sofia to Istanbul.”

  The men retired to their wagons, careful to keep Kaleel and Fuskana separated.

  Heraclix lay by the dying fire, staring up at the stars. He knew that at some point in the past he had memorized all the constellations, the transits of the planets, the specific pulsations of the stars. Now, though, he couldn’t recall any of the specifics nor, most importantly, why he had taken such an interest in them before his death and reanimation. It was more than a mere pleasure in their twinkling mystery or a quaint hint of nostalgia. No, he had known the stars, mapped their meanderings, and there was some deep purpose to it all, an intent that he couldn’t explicitly state, but that held as its ultimate goal some sort of grim power and arcane knowledge.

  Heraclix was so consumed by his brooding puzzlement that he failed to realize that he was being watched until Al’ghul appeared, like a wolf, on the edge of the dying firelight. The embers cast a red glow upon the boy, giving him the appearance of his namesake.

  “Aren’t you up a little late?” Heraclix asked.

  “That’s what Jubal and Kaleel would say,” the boy said.

  “You are lucky to have Kaleel with you,” Heraclix said.

  “Lucky? He is a curse.”

  “He seems very brave to me,” Heraclix said.

  “I am brave!” Al’ghul said. “I killed one of the bandits myself!”

  “No one is doubting your bravery, young one.”

  “Jubal doubts it.”

  “Jubal wants what is best for you.”

  “He withholds what is best for me, just as he withheld it from Hamad.”

  “And what would that be?” Heraclix asked.

  The boy hesitated a moment before answering.

  “That which Kaleel has, that which he holds, without fear, without shame, in the presence of Jubal and the others.”

  Heraclix thought about this for a moment, then stifled a laugh only with great difficulty. Jubal’s assessment of the boy had been right on.

  “So, this is about Fuskana?”

  “This is about nothing!” the boy said sulkily, “this conversation is over!” And with that, Al’ghul disappeared into the night.

  Heraclix looked up at the star that shared the boy’s name. He wondered if it was fiery youth that kindled Algol’s flaming light. Had jealousy ever fueled his own actions in his lifetime, the life before this one? He wondered all night, to the turning of the starry sky and the sound of barley in the breeze, until the sun drove away all other pretenders, blinding the heavens and burning them all away, banishing them to outer darkness.

  The men arose and hooked the horses up to the wagons. Hezrah and Kaleel guided the first, Jubal piloted the second with Heraclix as his bench-side passenger, while Mehmet and Al’ghul steered the last wagon. Fuskana and her mother must have been within the wagons, but Heraclix wasn’t sure which one, or even if the mother and daughter shared the same carriage. It seemed that the men were very careful to hide the women while traveling. Heraclix could see why.

  As the monotony of the grasslands stretched out in all directions, save that of the mountains on the horizon ahead of them, Heraclix took surreptitious glances behind him, watching as Mehmet lectured young Al’ghul. The old man pointed to the heavens and expanded his arms wide, as if to encompass the hemisphere of the sky. The boy seemed genuinely interested, even cracking an occasional smile at the old man’s comments.

  “Mehmet and Al’ghul seem to enjoy a good relationship,” Heraclix remarked to Jubal.

  “Mehmet was also an orphan, for a time, until my father took him in.”

  “Then the two have much in common.”

  “In terms of their familial experience, yes,” Jubal clarified, “but there the similarity ends, mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Well,” Jubal said with a hesitancy that indicated that he was weighing whether or not to divulge a sensitive piece of information, “Mehmet and Al’ghul do both tend more toward the morose and pessimistic,” he said, with some reluctance. “But they are very different in other ways. Mehmet is exceedingly intelligent and well-read on a number of subjects, whereas Al’ghul is a bit dull. Ambition is a word that the boy wouldn’t understand if Socrates himself explained it to him, while Mehmet has his sights set high. Of course, this is reflected in a third difference: Mehmet is strictly disciplined, while Al’ghul is rather lazy.”

  “So Mehmet is a good mentor for the boy,” Heraclix said.

  Jabal smiled. “Why do you think I have them ride together?”

  That night, in the mountains, they hitched their horses up to the point of a long line of trees that outlined the spur of one of the ridges over which they had trekked. Clouds had formed as the evening progressed, and Heraclix, who rested outside while the merchants and their kin slept inside the covered wagons, worried that he might have to sit in the rain. His concerns were realized as a gentle mist began to blanket the place with a damp film.

  The weather rumb
led into a gentle storm, the sort of atmosphere that soothes those somnolescents lucky enough to be indoors as it gains a little strength. Not a tempest, but a soft, if wet, quilt falling over the land.

  Heraclix sat up against one of the wagons, pulling the hood of his cloak over his head and wrapping its collar tight around his neck. Distant rolling thunder muffled the other sounds around him, except where a trill of water spilled and splashed off the roof of one of the other wagons.

  But it didn’t completely mask the sound of one of the carriage doors opening, specifically that of the wagon that Al’ghul and Mehmet had steered earlier that day. Heraclix leaned forward, trying to see who exited, but the rain-veiled gloom was almost impenetrable. He stood and slowly made his way over to the wagon to investigate. He listened at the door, but could not discern a sound with the rain plip-plopping on the puddles that had collected outside. He looked to the ground and thought he spied muddy footprints, but there was no way to be absolutely sure. The rain fell more quickly in larger drops, melting away any evidence of footfalls.

  Suddenly, the wind picked up, as if blown into a fury by the gods, Zeus himself awakening to first lazily toss a few thunderbolts down, then becoming more and more adamant until mad with the spirit of destruction. Again Heraclix searched by lightning light, but was unable to see footprints. He had heard no unusual sounds in the wagon, so he judged all to be well, if rather noisy, in the tempest. He pushed against the ever-increasing wind and returned to his soggy seat beside his own wagon to wait out the storm, fearful of being separated from the others by the confusion of the gale.

  The few trees within eyesight were struck and splintered by lightning, a separate bolt for each trunk. In the smoking afterimage that burnt into Heraclix’s eyes, he thought he beheld the sharp silhouette of a man, head reared back in laughter or ecstasy, with both hands raised to the sky. But the image vanished when he blinked, wiped away, as if it had never existed.

  Heraclix stood up and slowly began walking to the rise on which the phantom may or may not have been standing. Lightning continued to fall all around him, cascading down on the veritable waterfall of rain that poured down from the sky. His body tingled. What hair he had stood on end. The air was full of crackling electricity.

  Or was it? He soon came to the sickening realization that the crunching sound he heard hadn’t come from above, in the air, but from underfoot. As a bolt of lightning again revealed his location, he saw that the ground around him was completely covered with large earthworms, each a full six inches long and as big around as a man’s finger. The worms stretched as far as he could see. They each pointed toward and converged at his feet, as if he was a magnet inexorably drawing the glistening carpet directly to him, a fleshly shrine to the megadriles before which the things had come to worship. With every step he took, the worms corrected their direction, always aiming for him, the involuntary God of Wormkind.

  The lightning continued flashing all about him. He noticed that the worms were hauntingly familiar and peculiarly abnormal—not your normal annelids. They were, he realized, Hellspawn larvae, Lumbricus Hades, the souls of the damned beginning their migration through eternal torment. He saw their visages, millions of them bearing the face of their former selves, though the condemned wouldn’t recognize themselves if held to a mirror, not at this stage. And even after they had grown back into an understanding of their past lives and sins, they would be unable to recognize their own reflections, having been so twisted and mangled by the mutations and excruciating torture inflicted on them by other souls further along in their “progression” that their appearance and voices would only remain as a pathetic mockery, a caricature of the person they had chosen to become in mortality.

  He picked up one of the larvae to examine it more closely and recognized the face almost immediately. The high-cheekbones, carefully waxed mustache, stiletto beard, and smoldering eyes that, with a simple squint, had commanded whole armies and condemned man, demon, and (almost) flesh golem, to death. The face, which seemed to recognize Heraclix and snarled with rage, gnashing its teeth in an effort to bite the giant’s hand, was that of Graf Von Helmutter!

  The giant dropped the worm, startled into a fear that soaked into his skin as a paralyzing dread. Was Mowler nearby? Who had summoned these quasi-demons? And why did they continue to surround and harangue Heraclix? What were the implications of this weird pilgrimage?

  Questions stopped instantly as the lightning, which had been cast all around the giant, finally found its mark in Heraclix’s head. There would be no more answers that night, only a brilliant flash of light, followed by sudden darkness.

  CHAPTER 16

  Pomp flies with haste. The air is turning cold. Autumn is coming on. The leaves are starting to change color. Good. Mowler won’t want to travel so much when winter sets in, if he’s like most people she has seen. Then again, Mowler is not like most people. Not at all.

  Szentendre is small, compared to Prague or Vienna, and it doesn’t take long to realize that Heraclix is no longer there. She searches the burned-out church and graveyard, though the smell of burnt wood has become distasteful to her. He is not there, either, so she traces their steps back to the glade where they fought the Hell-spawned pig-demons.

  Pomp can see no better than a man, but, as one of the Fey, she can sense a magical aura. And here she finds her first clue as to where the pig-demons have gone. It’s not much, but it might be worth pursuing. The path leads her toward Prague. If the demons followed Heraclix and Pomp here, might the trails of their magic not lead to Heraclix now? She must try to find him, though her instinct, like that of most faeries, is to return home and ignore the world, and the problems, of mankind.

  But she is not like most fairies. Not now. She knows the value of patience, the value of life. Pomp lives and thinks at a different pace than Gloranda, Doribell, Ilsie, or even Cimbri. She flies to Prague with great haste. She will find Heraclix, then, together, they will have vengeance on Mowler. Along the way, she will be the golem’s eyes and ears, his scout.

  Even with this newfound patience, she is amazed that while so much is at stake, Prague’s citizens go about their daily duties without a care for the danger that threatens society. Mowler is a hawk, and anyone who comes in contact with him, king or beggar, is in danger of losing not only their life, but their very soul. He could be anywhere, anyone, disguised as a friend, neighbor, family member. Pomp doesn’t know how she will find him. But she must start somewhere.

  She starts at Caspar’s apartment. Not the clean, well-ordered family flat near the castle, but the derelict, squalor-ridden hole somewhere in the maze of the Jewish quarter. The home of the entrance to Hell.

  She is wary as she enters. The door isn’t where Heraclix left it after it fell off its one good hinge. It is propped up against the wall that was once adorned by a shattered mirror and an old man’s dead body. Someone, obviously, has been here since they pursued Georg into Hell.

  This thought makes her approach the door very cautiously. There is a scrap of sky blue cloth hanging from a nail, as if someone had snagged their clothing in a hurried effort to leave. It might be a shred of a soldier’s coat. She approaches the door from the side, sliding along the wall, fearful to see the tunnel behind it, but knowing that she might just have to go back down to that place in order to find Mowler. Her bow is strung and drawn, ready to fire a sleep arrow into whatever might peek around the corner. Hopefully, it will have some effect. Can the dead, sleeping already, be put to sleep again?

  She probes into the darkness behind the door with an arrow, then swings around, still aiming the arrow at the shadow behind the door, ready to contend with whatever Hell throws at her, whatever rushes up that tunnel.

  But there is no tunnel. Only a brick wall and a floor littered with broken glass. Dried blood trails across some of the shards and another tatter of blue cloth lays nearby. Pomp sidles in between the door and the wall for a closer look. A sliver of sunlight peeps into the apartment, allowing her t
o see a little better.

  The bricks are of a different color than the wall around them, and the mortar looks fresh. There is little of the dust that smothers the rest of the room. This wall was built where the tunnel once was, and built recently. But who . . . ?

  The door behind her is buffeted. The air in the room goes suddenly cold. The hairs on Pomp’s neck stand on end, and she shivers, whether from fear or the change in temperature, she cannot tell. She turns around, back against the wall, and draws her bowstring back again, this time sliding out from behind the door to see what caused the noise. Then another, more insistent bang shakes the door, causing the bottom to slip out away from the wall.

  Pomp flies out just in time to avoid it as it slides down the wall where she stood and crashes to the floor, sending up tidal waves of dust that fill the chamber to the rafters, where she takes refuge.

  She waits for the dust to settle, hoping to see whatever it is that is causing such a ruckus in this forsaken place. But the dust hasn’t cleared before she hears grunts of effort and an unbridled scream of combined frustration and malice.

  “Yeeargh!” screams the voice, the last syllable drug out like an angry brogue.

  Then, with a clarity that she thought she wanted, but now no longer desires, she sees it. A ghost, by the milky glow, hammers its head and fists against the wall, backs up, rushes the wall, is repelled by it, backs up, repeats, repeats, repeats, screaming the same perturbed battle cry as it slams into the wall and bounces back, time after time.

  Pomp cannot help but chuckle at the ridiculousness of it all. At least her sense of humor is returning, she thinks.

  Her laughter is cut short when the ghost stops, momentarily, and looks straight up at her.

  “Aaah!” the ghost screams, flying up to shove his face into hers.

  Pomp recoils, recalls her ineffective attempts to go invisible in the land of the dead. She knows the ghost sees her.