Ink

by Hal Duncan

  “You get your Eyn,” he says to her. “Samuel's notes should be…”

  He doesn't bother finishing, just flicks his hand and starts into a jog as the Enakite leader nods and grabs Pechorin by his collar. She drags the blackshirt round in front of her and shoves him out across the courtyard, heading for the cell. Jack chambers a bullet in Pechorin's Luger as he reaches the corridor to the offices, hears a rasping sound. He crouches by a guard's dead body, ducks a glance in through the open door and out again. He takes a deep breath, leaning against the doorjamb. Merciful Christ. He's seen worse, he reminds himself; it was worse than this in France. He thinks of a grenade exploded by accident in a dugout—we was just fooling, sir, just having a laugh and, Jesus, but it just slipped out of his hand, sir—and he had to stand at the entrance as the poor bastards detailed to clean up wiped their comrade off the wall and hated him for the order.

  That doesn't help a bit.

  Jack tries not to picture the carnage happening as he picks his way through the aftermath, slipping on the slick of blood and bile. He tries not to imagine how the red splatters and shreds of skin and cloth sprayed across the walls and ceiling got there. Instead he just quietly steps over the survivor—the thin guard, it is, curled up on his side, knees under his chin, crippled by nausea, retching and gasping and retching again—and pushes open the door into Pechorin's office.

  We watch you stop in the doorway, gaze into the crawling chaos of us covering every inch of floor and wall and ceiling with our scribbles of sentience. We see the flash of fear, incomprehension on your face, and so we scatter, skitter to open a path for you straight to the table where Hobbsbaum's notes sit waiting in their neat piles, sorted by thread or theme: here all the journals of Jacks of this world and that world, other futures, other pasts, but all dealing with the death of Tamuz; there all the transcripts of Anat's folktales as told to your friend, your mentor, Samuel; here all the histories of von Strann's role in the salvation or destruction of Tell el-Kharnain; there all the fictions of that fiery apotheosis, radio plays and movies, books and Bibles.

  You walk slowly into the room, up to the table, and reach out to gather up these pages—and we rush then, ripple in as a swirl of whirlpool, back to the pages we're unbound from, to the hand that touches them, to the heart with the hatch-work graving. So fast, so fleet, so flighty we are, O Jack, even you, quick as a flash, aren't fast enough to snatch your hand away before the room is barren of us, and your heart full.

  You feel us now, within you. You know what we are and whatj/OM are, Jack. You pick up the pages of us, shove us down into the saddlebag and sling it over your shoulder. You look round at the blank walls of the room. We are not there; we are inside you now. You hear us in your heart.

  This is our story now, we tell you. Ours, our friends, our splintered Jacks of every trade, you myriad of mortal men miscast as heroes in a play.

  And you know what you have to do.

  WISDOM, JUSTICE AND MERCY

  As Ab Irim said to his servant Eliezer, an old man if he has truly lived should have wisdom, justice and mercy for with years come wisdom, and there is no wisdom that does not rest on justice, and there is no justice that does not rest on mercy. But with old age also comes blindness, and those who cannot see must act on faith. And with old age also comes weakness, and those who cannot resist the strong must obey them. And with old age also comes deafness, and those who cannot hear the cries of others cannot know their suffering.

  So it was that as Ab Irim grew old in years, for all that he grew wise and just and merciful, his vision and his strength and his hearing began to fail. So when his wife did not bear a child he took her maid impatiently, blind to the pain he caused her. And when his wife gave him a son herself and said that he must send the maid and her child away, he did not have the strength to deny her. And when the maid begged him not to send them out into the desert with only a little food and a skin of water, he did not hear her pleas, deaf to her misery. And so Ab Irim, on that day, was not wise or just or merciful. But on the day he told this to his servant Eliezer, Ab Irim wept for what he had done.

  And so it was that as Ab Irim grew old in years, for all that he was wise and just and merciful, when the Lord called on him to take his wife's son who he loved above all others, to go to the region of Moriah, and there upon a mountain sacrifice him as a burnt offering, for all that this act seemed mad, unjust and cruel, Ab Irim agreed.

  In the morning, then, he saddled his donkey and cut wood for a burnt offering. He took his son and two servants, one to carry the fire and one to carry the knife, and they traveled to the region of Moriah. They traveled for a day into the desert, and when they camped that night, the son turned to his father.

  Father, he asked, where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

  The Lord will provide, Ab Irim answered.

  They traveled for another day into the hills and when they camped that night, the son turned to his father.

  Father, he asked, where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

  The Lord will provide, Ab Irim answered.

  They traveled for a third day into the mountains and when they camped that night, the son turned to his father.

  Father, he asked, where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

  The Lord will provide, Ab Irim answered.

  Then Ab Irim took the wood for the burnt offering and gave it to his son to carry, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. They left the two servants and the donkey, and the two of them went on together until they had reached the proper place. Here Ab Irim stopped and built an altar and arranged the wood upon it. He took his son, bound him, and laid him on the altar as a sacrifice. He reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son, but as he raised the knife above the boy, a voice called out to him from the bushes:

  Do not lay a hand upon the boy. Do not do anything to him. I know that you are blind and trust your Lord. I know that you are weak and fear your Lord. I know that you are deaf and hear only your Lord. But look at the knife you hold over his heart, take strength from the love that is in your own, and with that same heart listen to his cries for mercy. Do not lay a hand upon the boy.

  Then Ab Irim looked up and there in a thicket he saw a man whose face was like an angel's, and who wore the skins of animals. He had upon his head two horns like those of a ram or a goat. Ab Irim asked him:

  Where, then, is the lamb for the burnt offering?

  I am Ishmael, said the man, and I also am your son, the son you sent out into the desert. If you must make a burnt offering to your Lord, then I will die upon the altar. Do this and your seed will not die out. Do this and your sons will be as many as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Do this and your sons will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed.

  And Ab Irim bound Ishmael and sacrificed him as a burnt offering in the place of his wife's son, and the seed of Ab Irim lived on and multiplied, and became great. But it is said that the Lord was angry with the sacrifice of Ishmael. It is said that the seed of Ab Irim is both blessed and cursed, that even as it multiplies and becomes great, his sons as many as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore, one day the Lord will claim what is his. It is said that one day Ab Irim's seed, all of them, will lie upon the altar of the Lord, and there will be no voice this time to stop the knife.

  TRAPPED IN STYLE

  The militiamen haul in their prisoner in a straitjacket and ankle chains, snarling and spitting like a cat half in a bag, his head whiplashing side to side, limbs jerking wild against the straps. Strangely, it strikes Arturo, he seems to be struggling as much against himself as against his captors; Arturo recognizes a certain madness in the eyes, a mania of despair. The man whirls on the archivist, glaring—don't even try to read me, fucker. He opens his mouth to spit hatred, then stops, laughs. He smiles, lowers his head, mutters a word of Cant under his breath, and the world shimmers round him. The straitjacket fl
ickers, shifts … settles.

  “Jack Flash,” says the Duke.

  The prisoner grins at the Duke now, shrugs smugly in his paisley-patterned velvet straitjacket. He's still trapped, right enough, bound by the leather straps and buckles of steel… or by the gravings stitched and scored in them, at least. But at least he's trapped in style.

  “Fuck it, mate,” he says, “you've got me banged to rights. Jack Flash, avatar of chaos, angel assassin, fairy fury, yah-de-yah and blah-de-blah, at your service.”

  He runs the tip of his tongue around his lips, bats his eyelids, blows a kiss. But there's something in his tone of voice that's not quite right: under the cock of charisma, a certain coldness that Arturo recognizes every bit as much as all the fiery rage. The scientist looks at the archivist.

  “That is confirmed, isn't it?” he says. “This is our man?”

  “Compatibility positive on all morphologies,” we say blankly.

  And Joey Narcosis looks at us from deep inside the glamour of Jack, so drenched in the soul-juice of our saucy favorite that even we can only just make out the dark outline of him, the here-and-there hints of a hollow man, in the edge of cruelty to his manic grin, the black of pupils behind a glint so gleaming with the power, the glory of our luscious lad.

  Even his wink at us is just so exquisitely Jack.

  Arturo makes a twirling motion with a finger; technicians burst into activity, unlocking, levering, cranking. A section of the gantry underfoot swings up and away, and a sarcophagus of metal glowing with a color too cold to be gold, too hot to be silver, rises upright through the empty space in the grillework. Featured with the smooth face of a Tut headdressed in stylized dreadlocks, sulcate in its gravings like scales or feathers, like a package wrapped in palm fronds, the sarcophagus speaks of shabti and karibu, of ancient graves and their guardians.

  “Peachy keen,” says Joey Narcosis. “An Adamantium Maiden.”

  The Duke Irae strides over to him, leans in close to pierce him with his gaze. He clamps a hand over the prisoner's mouth—shut up—only to pull it away with a start, wiping slobber off on the shoulder of the straitjacket. Joey Narcosis licks his lips.

  “Salty,” he says. “You been fiddling with yerself?”

  The Duke's upper lip twitches in disgust.

  “Arturo,” he says, “I assume you're ready.”

  “Absolutely.”

  A flick of Arturo's hand, a clack of a lever, and the latches of the sarcophagus unsnick, seals hissing steam. The sculpted face levers up like a helmet's visor. A seam opens down the front, and shoulders roll back, metal cloak unfurling up and out, splaying wide into eight sets of wings, petals of a metal orchid blossoming to reveal red silken innards … all framed by the obsidian sphere of the Echo Chamber behind it. Arturo motions and the militiamen drag their prisoner backward into the coffin. Joey still plays the arch anarchist as they clunk and click him into place.

  “Don't I get a last request then? A final fag? A grand soliloquy on your scheme for world domination?”

  The Duke paces back and forth like some caged beast, a single word resounding in his thoughts: glory. He looks at the prisoner, then down through the grille-work to the chaos beneath their feet.

  “All you get is oblivion,” he says. “Do it, Arturo.”

  And the coffin curls its cold embrace round Joey, hissing sealed and rising up and back toward the Echo Chamber, the black sphere of us. We wait, eager for his emptiness to touch us, to enter us, so we can understand it truly.

  The Answerers and the Answers

  If the city was in rout and riot when the Turks arrived, now it is simply this: revenge. Everywhere the Enakites are striding, cloaked in their whirlwind song of anguish and rage. Everywhere the Turks and Palestinians, Europeans, Jews and Arabs flee, these players of the great game, these pretenders to an empty throne in a holy land of milk and honey, oil and blood, salt and ink. The sons of Sodom have returned to claim their city and we, we are the words of their wrath, the dust under their feet rising to cloak their coming, the fire from their mouths smashing the walls. The buildings fall, masonry crumbling as the chorus of the Enakite voices thunders like a waterfall, like a thousand rivers roaring.

  In the courtyard of the prison, Phreedom, Inanna, Anna, Anat-Ashtarzi Al-hazred raises her fist and we come streaming in around the Enakites, over the rubble of defensive wall, through shattered gates, down streets and alleyways, reflections on windows, shadows in doorways. From the north, the south, the east, the west, whirling in over the prison roof and down toward her graven arm, we come, the answerers and the answers to her call.

  Palm open, arm outstretched, she utters a word of Cant and we obey.

  The blast punches a hole wide as a barn door all the way through to the street outside. A Turkish soldier scrambles to his feet among the dust and rubble, turning in horror. A quiet word from Anat, and he stops dead in his tracks. His body shudders, cracks, falls limp and lifeless to the ground, blood trickling from his ears and eyes. She leads them out over the rubble, stepping coldly over the soldier's body, drags Pechorin staggering behind her, hands bound, blindfolded, stumbling like a beast led to the slaughter. Von Strann, his arm over MacChuill's supporting shoulder, limps behind. And Jack—with Tamuz in his arms, with Tamuz always in his arms, his body cold and warm, alive and dead, eyes open and closed—Jack follows, cradling his featherweight burden.

  Where did he find the boy? you ask.

  Everywhere.

  They walk out through the city, through a thousand folds of it, where Tamuz lies on this street, that street, here or there, slumped in a doorway, crumpled by a wall, shot, stabbed, blasted and broken. Everywhere Jack looks, he sees the boy, ghost images from other threads of time, the endless shades of this eternal victim. Everywhere the boy is dead, except held in his arms.

  Uncertainty unleashed onto the quaking streets, we rip a path for them to walk, a world, a fold, where Tamuz will not die, where Jack will not bloody let him die, his will unspoken but graven in every muscle that he uses now to hold this single flickering specter of… a possibility.

  They walk north, through the panicked mob and raging Enakites, toward the Jericho Gate and the airfields beyond. They walk out onto the North Road, into the vanguard of the Enakites, and, as they do, a band of seven of Alhazred's people fall in behind, moving in a group, a circle of six with another in their center, carrying a wooden box. It is not the Ark of the Covenant, not the ark of any Covenant. It is not Pandora's box, the punishment meted on humanity for their audacity in taking from Prometheus his gift of fire.

  It is all of these and more.

  “The time has come,” says Anat.

  She calls the carrier of the Book out of the circle of his comrades, and the warrior steps forward tentatively. She takes the box from him and turns to Jack, who lets his gaze flick from Tamuz's face just long enough to note her standing over them, the boy laid on the ground, Jack crouching over him.

  “We know that Lord Curzon will hold Basra,” she says, “but that if you try to take the Book to him you will fail. But we know also that the Eyn is not fated to die here with us, that you will get him out alive. You understand?”

  Jack nods. She smiles at von Strann.

  “You must do what Captain Carter says, my friend. Trust him. We can trust you, yes, Jack Carter?”

  Jack looks along the North Road, thinking of the airfield. He looks at Reinhardt, who seems stronger now, as if the chaos of the city has made him more… determined. He looks at Tamuz. At the box.

  “I give you my word,” he says, “I'll keep your Eyn alive. And the Book will be taken care of.”

  And Tamuz, he thinks. Above them all, Tamuz.

  Anat crouches beside him, and he turns, puts a hand up to his chest, and then to hers, the Enakite oath more binding in its silence than any words.

  THE LAMBS OF GOD

  […] so […] stood there with […] pipe forgotten in […] hand, staring at this wild woman of the desert, listening as
she laid it out to […]. And if the blood of one generation is so powerful, she asked […], what then of the blood of thousands, millions, of this chosen people? […] was speechless for a second before recovering […] enough to say that this was only one of the many possible futures written in the book, many pasts. Surely there must be some way to know what's true and what's false within the Book.

  Perhaps, she said. But we have studied the book for many generations, and we do not know this thing. A long time ago, we did, but…

  She shook her head. This was knowledge too dangerous to remember.

  That was when […] decided that […] would, if […] life depended on it, discover that knowledge for […].

  We can change it, […] said to her. There are ways to change the text, to modify an accent here or there, to make a note between two words or in the margins, a single stroke of ink that can change the whole meaning of it. She sighed.

  Many millennia ago, she told […], there were those who tried to change the Book. They thought they could prevent that single act of horror, that five-year massacre, that holocaust. They failed.

  Surely this one thing could be changed, […] insisted. Surely this one thing could be stopped. […] refused to accept that in every one of the countless different futures written in the Book, in every godforsaken one of them, the same result always played out.

  And that is when […] decided to steal the page, to alter it if […] could, and if not then to destroy it.

  As long as neither Heaven nor Hell has the Book, then both are bound by it; their lives are written, sealed. The Enakites know this from the demons that they guard. And they know more; they guard another dreadful truth.

  There is no God, she has told […]. There never was. Only gods.

  They have learned this from these prisoners of the War in Heaven, how they were brought in chains before an empty throne, told of the plan to bring peace to the world, sort out the wheat from the chaff in the threshing mill of history. Promised eternal peace at the end of it all. Those ruined creatures in the cave are those who chose not to submit, intransigent rebels, warmongers and tyrants who would never be persuaded to give up their little kingdoms as gods on earth.