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

by Forrest Aguirre

  She looked down at Heraclix, but her expression remained unchanged.

  Al’ghul put his hand on the girl’s shoulder, and she moved with him, like a puppet under the puppet master’s hand.

  “Come,” he said with disappointment. “Get back into the wagon. You’ll be warmer in there.”

  The lid closed, trapping a tiny cloud of the boy’s breath. It disappeared in the darkness before diffusing across Heraclix’s face. It was the only warmth he would feel for days.

  A shot rang out near the wagons. The echo that reverberated through the air indicated that they must be in some sort of canyon or up against a range of mountains.

  The wagon stopped, but the sound of hoofbeats didn’t. Someone was approaching. Many someones, Heraclix thought Pomp might say if she was here. He couldn’t tell how many, not even when their horses slowed to a trot, surrounding the wagon.

  “Stand and deliver!” came a shout in a thick Russian accent.

  “Again?” shouted Al’ghul.

  “Again, da! Only this time there will be no saving you.”

  Heraclix thought that this might be true.

  “We still owe you for what you did to poor Yuri. Or, rather, you still owe us!”

  A collective shout erupted from the robbers.

  “Take the girl,” the lead Cossack said.

  Hoofs stuttered, and bridles clanked as the Russians moved to obey their orders.

  Mehmet began chanting in Arabic.

  Heraclix wondered if the old man was saying his last prayers before going to meet Allah in paradise.

  Al’ghul taunted the Russians. “Any closer, and I’ll cut the tongues out of your mouths.”

  The robbers laughed.

  Fuskana screamed.

  A general “huh?” rippled through the ranks of the Cossacks, followed by more specific shouts:

  “Ah! What is that? It stings my bones!”

  “My skin . . . it’s . . . it’s falling off!”

  “What is happening to me?”

  The voices rose into a crescendo of shouts and screams followed by a lone voice, that of a man aged well beyond the dusk of life, that trailed off as the wagon moved on: “Can’t see. Can’t see. What has happened to my eyes? I am blind. No. No! I have no eyes! I can’t see! Where are the rest of you? Someone please help me . . .”

  The voice soon faded to silence behind them.

  “H-how did you do that?” Al’ghul asked.

  Mehmet answered. “In order to fully understand death, one must clearly understand the transitions between states of decay in mortality. Death is merely unfettered decay. All I did was speed up the process. You’ve never heard of a decrepit highwayman, have you?”

  “No. No sir.”

  “And you never will.”

  “But why didn’t you do that to them the first time they attacked us?” Al’ghul asked.

  “These things come at a price, my boy. One doesn’t go about altering one bit of the universal laws without paying for the balance, with interest, in another. Besides, your brother and the giant, as our newly-old friends have inferred, were doing just fine without me.”

  “But my brother died!” Al’ghul said.

  “Careful boy,” Mehmet warned in a low voice. “There’s still a bit of balance owed to me. You are the beneficiary of some of my investment. Perhaps Fuskana there . . . perhaps she would prefer my company to yours?”

  Al’ghul said nothing more . . .

  . . . until the increase of bustling sounds and voices indicated that they had reached a major city, though Heraclix had no way of knowing where they were or how long they had been traveling. He tried to piece his situation together by catching snippets of conversation, but the words melted into an incomprehensible babble. All he knew was that most of the voices were speaking Turkish, with a smattering of Magyar and Serb.

  Al’ghul spoke only enough to receive his orders from Mehmet, and the other responded in kind.

  “How far?” the boy asked.

  “Just past the gate. Park the horses there.”

  “How long?”

  “About an hour. See that the horses are fed and watered.”

  “And what of us?”

  “You’ll be fine. I’ll bring some bread when I return.”

  The air seeping into the seams of the coffin reeked of spices he hadn’t smelt since . . . since a time he couldn’t remember, though the odor was familiar and warm, comforting for reasons he couldn’t fathom. His mind went reeling, searching for a window into these teases of memory that he couldn’t quite resolve, like mirages in the heat of the desert—yet another analogy that he somehow understood, but knew not how. Frustration rose up in his chest, neck, and the wide space between his eyes, but was held still by the immobilization of his body, the urge to scream silenced behind his paralytic tongue. Blood, or whatever it was that coursed through his veins, flushed through his temples, the noise like the sound of rushing waters heard from afar.

  Only when he calmed himself, more or less resigned to his situation, did he hear something other than his own physiological manifestations of anger.

  “Kaleel?” A woman’s voice. Fuskana.

  “No, not Kaleel. Kaleel is gone now. Probably for good,” Al’ghul replied.

  “But . . . why?”

  “That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that you are free to go, and you need to go now, while Mehmet is away.”

  “Mehmet . . . can’t remember . . .”

  “Don’t try. Mehmet is a bad man, a selfish man, a sorcerer. You need to go now, Fuskana, before he returns.”

  “Where?” she asked. Heraclix wondered if the girl would ever be able to make a decision by or for herself.

  “Go north to Sofia. Here is a bag full of Kuruş coins. This will buy your passage and hold you over until you can find your family again.

  “And you?” she said with more concern than Heraclix felt the boy deserved.

  “I will take care of myself . . . and the giant.”

  “I . . . remember . . . the giant, I think.”

  “There is much that you won’t remember. Allah is merciful to take some memories away. Now go!”

  “But I can’t . . .”

  “Go!” the boy yelled loud enough that she jumped in her seat. She then got out of it.

  The girl’s crying fell away as the boy’s rose above.

  Two thumps and a loud crack sounded on the side of the coffin, at the seam, followed by the rush of air into the compartment.

  Tears streamed from Al’ghul’s eyes, falling onto Heraclix’s chest before freezing.

  “You would be right to kill me,” the boy said to the immobile golem. “And you may. I deserve it. Better to die at your hands, though, than to suffer at the hands of a madman, or cause Fuskana to suffer further under his enchantments.”

  He paused, wiping tears from his cheeks before continuing the monologue. “You see, I had Fuskana. But she was not mine. I didn’t earn her. I thought she would love me, if I could have all of her attentions. Only now I know that one cannot fall in love when one is forced into it. I am a fool. Kaleel is now likely dead, or soon will be. I cannot fix either of those things now. But I can, and have, set Fuskana free. And now I shall free you. Do what you will. I have betrayed you and deserve whatever you see fit to inflict upon me.”

  The boy reached down and touched Heraclix’s forehead, scrubbing at the skin, as if to remove a mark.

  “Once I clean the sigils from your head, you will be free. You will be momentarily disoriented, but balance will come to you shortly.”

  Al’ghul continued to rub Heraclix’s forehead, becoming more frantic as time wasted away.

  Then something inside Heraclix snapped. He drew in a sharp breath, his back heaving from the influx of cold air into his lungs and the instantaneous restoration of sensation to his body. He blinked, breathing heavily, flexed his fingers and rotated his ankles. He drew his knees up and a wave of nausea swept over him as the world spun uncontro
llably around him.

  “That should be it,” Al’ghul said, putting a hand underneath the golem’s shoulder. “I can’t lift you. You’re going to have to sit up. Mehmet will be back soon. And if we’re not gone, the consequences will be bad, not just for me, but for both of us. Come, get up.”

  Heraclix hadn’t felt so weak since his rebirth in Mowler’s apartment. The sensations were much the same, though Al’ghul’s explanation of the situation at least provided a context to what was happening.

  He rolled onto his side and pushed himself up. The coffin lid fell clumsily on him until Al’ghul strained with both arms to lift it up off of him.

  Heraclix lifted a leg over the edge and rolled out of the coffin onto the wagon’s footrest. He felt vitality come to him, not to its full strength, but enough to get down from the wagon. Al’ghul jumped down beside him.

  The left hand was around Al’ghul’s neck before Heraclix could even think.

  “No!” the giant yelled. “I won’t let you do this!” Al’ghul thought his life had, indeed, ended at that moment. But he didn’t realize that Heraclix wasn’t talking to the boy, but to his own hand. The golem poured all of his energy into controlling the hand, willing it to release the boy. Al’ghul, thankful to be alive, massaged his own neck and gasped in shallow breaths. “Though I have every reason to kill you,” Heraclix said decisively, “you are young and impressionable. I understand what it means to love deeply and the lengths to which one will go to secure the one you love. It might be too late for my own redemption, but for you, so young, there is still time to learn patience, the true measure of love. Come,” Heraclix said, grabbing the boy by the scruff of his shirt. “Which direction?”

  Al’ghul pointed. Heraclix walked with the boy in tow.

  “Wait!” Al’ghul protested. “The horses.”

  Heraclix immediately saw the wisdom of what the boy was hinting. The pair unhitched the horses from the wagon. Al’ghul took some blankets out of the wagon and put them on the horses as makeshift saddles. After quickly rigging up the bits, the pair were off.

  “Where are we?” Heraclix asked as they wound through the streets.

  “Edirne,” the boy croaked.

  “What did Mehmet plan to do here?”

  “I don’t know what he wants here. We were headed to Istanbul. He had arranged to sell you to a group of mystics.”

  “The Shadow Divan,” Heraclix said, the memory coming unbidden. “You spoke a part of their creed back in Sofia. I take it you learned it from Mehmet?”

  “I did, I suppose,” the boy said. “Though I was only parroting what Mehmet had taught me.”

  “Careful where you parrot, and to whom,” Heraclix said. “How well can you ride a horse?”

  “As well as anyone.”

  “Then ride fast!”

  The pair galloped out through the southeast gate, toward Istanbul, nearly knocking the city guard off their feet as they passed.

  “We will meet the Divan,” Heraclix shouted above the rushing wind, “on our own terms! Mehmet won’t like the results, I think.”

  Al’ghul smiled for the first time in what felt like weeks.

  CHAPTER 18

  Frau Kretzer goes through a door. Steam and the smell of baked bread pour out as she walks into the kitchen. Pomp has a hard time finding a perch that isn’t uncomfortably hot, and she sits as far from the steaming pots as she can so that her view is unobstructed by anything but the sweat in her eyes.

  The maid pulls up a stool and lights a meerschaum pipe, exhaling her exhaustion in a puff of tobacco smoke.

  “Still don’t like him, do you?” an old man’s voice crackles from another doorway, startling the maid.

  “Must you always be lurking?” she says.

  The old man’s soft chuckle turns to a coughing laugh. “Not always,” he says, “I’m sure I won’t be here much longer to lurk around anything but the cemetery and your memories.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Frau Kretzer asks.

  “I’ve seen the end from the beginning. The graf is back and healthy, mentally and physically. I worked for years trying to keep this house together, teaching the young Lady Adelaide how to take care of family affairs. I feared that she would never learn, so I put all my efforts into running this house efficiently. Then, when the graf came back, I felt it leave me.”

  “It?”

  “The desire and energy to be in charge. I’m an old man. I’m ready for my final rest. But I cannot rest. I will work myself to death and be satisfied.”

  “You can’t leave without my permission,” Frau Kretzer jokes, though a certain soft sadness has entered her voice. “Besides, I still don’t know the full story behind how the graf came back, and he is a closed book.”

  “Very well, but the story won’t make sense unless I first tell you about the boy who grew to be a man, of sorts.”

  “Of sorts?”

  “In some ways, young Viktor Edelweir was quite mature. For instance, he was a likable boy, easy to engage in conversation—the sort of person who makes you feel important when he asks a question of you, no matter how trivial. In other ways, he was overtaken by whims and fancies far into adulthood.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as the sort that made his chosen avocation a trap.”

  Frau Kretzer’s face contorts in confusion.

  “Let me explain,” the old man continues. “The boy, emerging into manhood, learned to read. He was quite gifted in reading and language. Of course, he knew German, a great deal of Magyar, even some Russian. But his real love was Arabic. I remember him spending hours by the fire in winter reading Arabic poetry and philosophical texts. I’m sure that, in his mind, the snow-covered hills became sand dunes; the evergreen trees, palms; and the family horses, camels.”

  “A dreamer, then?” Frau Kretzer asked.

  “A dreamer, but one whose reality moved in accord with his dreams. This fancy had a powerful influence on him. So much so that he dared cross the border into Ottoman territory, claiming to be an emissary of good will, which he was, in his own foolhardy way. Now the Turkish guards suspected that he was a spy. And they weren’t about to give him access to their empire, else they find their heads on a pole over their own guard tower. At least that was their resolve until he spoke. He recited a poem about a man’s love for his camel with such passion and candor that the Turks became interested in him. Being such a gregarious young man and so knowledgeable about Ottoman culture and philosophy—not to mention Arabic literature—he soon had their favor, and they let him enter, though he was, no doubt, watched closely, given the tensions that existed back then between the Ottomans and our Holy Roman Empire.”

  “Still exist,” Frau Kretzer says.

  “Not to the same extent. Things were much more likely to ignite into open war at that point than they are now.”

  “So, continue,” she says.

  “So Viktor Edelweir disappeared into the Turkish lands. At about that time, his cousin, Lady Adelaide, was born.”

  “Our Lady Adelaide?”

  “The same.”

  “Twenty some years ago,” Frau Kretzer confirms.

  “Twenty one, to be exact, though the number of years isn’t important. What is important is that both Lord and Lady Edelweir had desires to go find the man-child, to rescue him, but they were unable to undertake such a quest due to the fact that the Lord and Lady Adelaide had died under mysterious circumstances, leaving our Lady Adelaide in their care. And, though they had servants who might have raised the young lady, the Edelweirs couldn’t bear to leave her out of their direct charge until she was mature enough to run the place herself.”

  “They must have been very protective,” Frau Kretzer says. “Yes! Ten years they waited, until the tensions between the two countries had abated a bit, and they could leave their niece in charge of the house servants. Oh, and there was the matter of the letter, as well.”

  “The letter,” Frau Kretzer states, as if she already knows of the
document.

  “The only item remaining after the Lord and Lady were killed by a wandering band of rogue Serbs. The barely-legible, barely-intelligible missive: ‘Need money. Opium is killing me, keeping me alive. Owe debts to brothels and creditors. Please send money. With my love and regret, Viktor.’”

  “Now why would someone write such a thing? Why admit all those things?” Frau Kretzer asks.

  “Repentance? The need for frank admission that would allow forgiveness for a prodigal son? Perhaps a drugged plea for help? Or maybe Viktor didn’t write it at all. Maybe it was a ruse, a ransom demand for a dead hostage. Whatever it was, it drew the couple to their doom.”

  “And here we are,” the maid says. “Viktor Edelweir has returned, and is set to marry his cousin, the Lady Adelaide.”

  “And there you are,” a new voice says.

  Pomp looks to the outside doorway and sees a stout man in a fine black wool coat. He is short and bald and fat and wears a pair of round-lensed spectacles. He looks like a smiling, scholarly bulldog.

  “Lescher! You scalawag!” says Frau Kretzer. Pomp cannot tell if she is serious or just teasing.

  “Frau Kretzer! Such language! It burns my little ears!” Lescher feigns pain, covering his ears with his fists.

  “I’d tear those little ears from your head if they didn’t belong to your lord,” she says with force. Pomp is convinced that she isn’t merely teasing.

  “. . . who will be arriving at any moment,” says Lescher.

  “What?” says the old man.

  “What, indeed,” Frau Kretzer says. “Are you asking us or telling us?”

  “I am telling you,” he said, dipping his head condescendingly. “He is coming and will be here soon.”

  “Well, at least one of our guests will brighten our day,” she says.

  “Still stinging from the potato liquor incident, eh, Frau Kretzer?”

  The stool screeches as she dismounts from it and stomps toward the doorway. The old man intercedes and is nearly bowled over by the maid, who obviously isn’t trying to get to Lescher to congratulate him on his cleverness.