The Ouroboros Lock

by Mark William Chase

  Following the path my intuitive awareness led me, I wove through the mass of bodies laughing, standing, and moving through the amber-lit ballroom. Although Macey still eluded me, Lord Voger was not difficult to find. I caught sight of the bloated oaf dressed in his garish fabrics and bird-faced headpiece, crowned with its gaudy spread of peacock feathers. Two scantily-clothed women fawned at his sides, while another stood behind him, massaging his fat-swollen shoulders. Such a revolting man, whose loutish character and corpulent physique bore such uncanny resemblance to the three least interesting Deadly Sins—pride, sloth, and gluttony. I considered avoiding him, but I knew Macey would not be far from his loathsome master.

  The baron turned to look at me as I approached. “Is that you, Mortimer?” He laughed boisterously, spilling his wine. “Such a mask! The Green Man, is it not?”

  I bowed my head, feigning respect. If only he knew it was my own mystically transfigured visage. “You are correct, my lord. But of all the marvelous guises that dazzle this night, yours is truly without comparison.”

  Voger laughed again. Although I could not see his expression through his obscene bird mask, I could easily imagine the ridiculous smile contorting his bloated face. “I was meaning to ask if you would offer a toast at the feast tonight.”

  “I would be honored,” I said. I could not have cared less.

  Voger seemed pleased with my answer. He lifted his drink as though proclaiming a toast of his own. I gave a polite nod and excused myself, having far better things to do than exchange mendacious pleasantries with a bygone nobleman, lost to the decadence and depravity of his own perverse excesses. I closed my eyes, letting the unintelligible din of the Grand Revel flow over me like crashing waves. My focus narrowed, and I searched through the ocean of senseless yammering for that one voice I both despised and knew so well. In my mind I saw him: a figure in a black-hooded cloak and skull-face mask, almost identical to over a dozen other costumed guests who flowed through the ballroom throng, but whose humorless voice and rigid mannerisms were distinctive to Macey alone.

  I approached the black-cloaked figure and gave a spurious nod. “May Her Shadow be with you and guide you through the Dark.”

  Macey drew himself up, trying to stand taller in light of my marked advantage in height. All I could see of him were his dark brown eyes. “May Her Shadow be also with you,” came my rival’s somber reply, the toothy grin of his skull-faced mask remaining still and lifeless even as he spoke.

  There was no question in my mind that Macey hated me as much as I hated him. In that respect, at least, I considered us equals. Even so, he had succeeded where I had failed, having secured for his lord that singular item that I most desired.

  In the months following my failed attempt to procure the Lock, and Macey’s galling success, I had labored day and night to devise a plan to take back what should rightfully be mine. But the very act of breaking into Voger’s estate was an audacious prospect, even for me. For months I vacillated, pondering whether or not my plan was worth the risk, when, to my surprise, Corbin Guissant had walked straight through the door of my shop. Somehow, Corbin had pieced together enough facts to determine that Macey had stolen his father’s masterpiece, and that it was now part of Voger’s prized collection. More surprising still, he had researched much of his father’s material and had come upon the receipt I had written for the purchase of the Dictionnaire Infernal. Corbin was determined to steal back the Ouroboros Lock, and for that he required the use of a Main-de-Gloire, for which the Dictionnaire Infernal provided explicit instructions.

  Despite his family name, Corbin proved to be utterly ignorant of French, and so, along with the book, I kindly provided him a full translation of the procedure required to craft a Hand of Glory, as well as the spells for its activation. He seemed genuinely horrified by the details, and yet remained determined to carry them out to the letter. I suspected that Corbin would either lose heart before making the attempt or would simply foul up the spell and get himself caught and killed by Mister Macey. Even so, his dilettante meddling could easily complicate my own plans to steal back the Lock from Lord Voger. If he failed, Voger would surely stash the Ouroboros Lock in an even more secure location, depriving me of whatever chance I might have of claiming its power for my own. And so, I resolved myself to appropriate the Lock before Guissant’s dimwitted heir had a chance to make his own blundering attempt. Perhaps, if I was lucky, the fool would leave enough clues to implicate himself, thus absolving me of the perilous burglary.

  On a moonless, rainy night two weeks prior to the Grand Revel, I dressed in black burglar clothes, took the three-fingered Main-de-Gloire, and cautiously entered Voger’s manor on Tappington Hill. Once lit and the spell uttered, the Main-de-Gloire worked to extraordinary effect. Every lock flew open and every occupant of the house fell to fast sleep—or, at least, so I had thought.

  The Main-de-Gloire’s flickering candlelight led me into the manor’s gallery and directly to where the Ouroboros Lock was displayed. I was about to take the device when I heard a noise upstairs—the soft shuffling of feet and the creak of loose floorboards. Impossible! Was someone in the house still awake? How could they have resisted the spells? Could Corbin be here already? Or perhaps it was Mister Macey?

  Acting quickly, I clutched the Main-de-Gloire tight and whispered its spell once more: “Let all that’s hidden be revealed, let all that’s closed now be unsealed! Let those who guard more deeply sleep, let those who thieve their vigils keep. At the spell of the dead man’s make, dream as the dead for the dead man’s sake!”

  The floorboards creaked again, coming from the stairs. I cringed. Whosever it was, he was immune to the effect. Realizing I was out of time, I reached for the Lock, but the device began to tick and whir of its own accord. The gears and mechanisms worked faster and faster, the silver ouroboros spinning until all became an indistinguishable blur of sound, motion, and vibration. A brilliant flash of light erupted around me and I felt my body suddenly thrusting forward at some unimaginable speed. I plunged downward, inward, and outward all at once, falling as though through a limitless void where neither time or space, nor distance or direction, held even the slightest meaning.

  As suddenly as it had begun, the light vanished and the motion stopped, and I found myself exactly where I had been before, with the Lock quietly winding down. I looked around in the pitch-black room, listening intently, but I neither saw nor heard anyone about.

  What had happened? I wondered. What was the flash of light, the jarring motion, and the sensation of falling in every direction at once?

  By then the Lock had come to a stop, and I reached down once again to pick it up. Then I looked at my Main-de-Gloire, noticing that not only had its candles gone out, but the middle finger had now crumbled to dust, leaving only the index finger and thumb!

  I shook off my dismay, seized the Ouroboros Lock, and hurried out of Voger’s manor as quickly and as quietly as I could—my prize in hand.

  It was only the next day that I discovered the truth: two days had mysteriously passed in the course of my burglary. Somehow I had activated the Ouroboros Lock, and the device had propelled me forward in time!

  For much of that morning, I sat in my study examining the device. The Ouroboros Lock had the outward appearance of a mantel clock, but instead of a normal clockface, the wooden casing held a marvelous clockwork complication of delicate gears and gleaming crystal mechanisms. Arcane symbols and intricate sigils had been delicately carved upon the outer case and most of the gears and cogs were likewise engraved in the letters of the Theban alphabet. Circumscribing the device’s central movement was a silver ring shaped like a snake eating its own tail, upon which was etched in Enochian the 72-letter Shem ha-Mephorash of the cosmic symphony. The Ouroboros Lock was truly a thing of beauty—the ultimate expression of ineffable design and powers transcendent beyond the limits of our own limited reality.

  I spent the remainder of the night and much of the following day working to map t
he Lock’s convoluted tangle of gears and clockworks, but the infinite complexity of the device proved utterly baffling. I was tempted to use the Main-de-Gloire to open the Lock again, but now that it had only one finger and thumb remaining, I did not wish to waste what few remaining chances I had without first learning more. But I was only able to study the Lock for a few hours more, as Macey returned to my shop that very afternoon. To my astonishment, he brought an even newer hand, this one missing only its pinkie.

  “A thief broke into the manor,” Macey snarled as he stepped closer. “Twice I might add, and stole an item of great value to my lord on the second break-in.” He then threw the Main-de-Gloire on the counter of my shop, and I saw it was missing only the pinkie finger. “This article was left behind. Look at its posture, its size, the positions of its fingers. There is no mistake. This is the very hand I gave you in October!”

  I could only laugh seeing the Main-de-Gloire Macey had brought me, realizing then what had happened. Macey had indeed been sneaking up behind me during my burglary, but somehow I had activated the Lock with the Hand of Glory at the precise moment when, in a corresponding future, Corbin also activated the Lock using the very same Hand of Glory. Corbin had gone through with crafting the Main-de-Gloire, breaking into Voger’s manor two days after my own break-in, and activated the Lock with the Main-de-Gloire’s power. I had castled with him, just as the rook and king might castle in a game of chess, with Corbin dropping into his past where I had been, and I moving two days into the future and dropping into Corbin’s present.

  The Main-de-Gloire Macey had brought me was only missing the pinkie, meaning it had only been used once, and by Corbin no less, and so I had at last discovered the starting point for the looping timeline the Main-de-Gloire had been following.

  “Your mind is addled,” I retorted. “Can you not see this Main-de-Gloire is fresh? The wicks have been lit but once and it still reeks of decay. The one you brought me last year was missing both the pinkie and the ring finger. Yet, this one is only missing the pinkie. Fingers, as you know, cannot grow back—least of all those on a dead hand. Besides, if I was the thief, do you think I would be stupid enough to leave behind such evidence?”

  Of course, Macey continued to insist that the Main-de-Gloire he had recovered was the same as the other one he had delivered to me, and even made a point about my missing thrall. In the end, Macey took the Hand of Glory and left my shop in a fit of rage. Although he had no real evidence to implicate me in the crime, at least not in the eyes of Lord Voger, in his mind I was the only possible culprit.

  I smiled, relished the thought of his agonizing frustration as I stood facing him on this most glorious Walpurgisnacht.

  “Tell me, how goes your search for the Ouroboros Lock?” I asked, not only taunting him, but baiting him as well. “Has Lord Voger not tired of your continued failures?”

  “There is no hurry, warlock,” Macey replied. His words were cold and without inflection, issuing from beneath the skull mask he wore. “When I catch the deceiver who stole it, I will savor every moment of his slow disembowelment.”

  “Then I wish you the best of luck. If you require anything from me, whether spell, curse, or talisman, my services are always available—at my usual fee, of course.”

  Macey narrowed his eyes and his voice dropped to a hiss. “I have no need for tricks or hexes to bring my quarry down!”

  I could not help but smile at that. Macey was a hypocrite. He despised magic, yet he would use any charm or spell to achieve his goals if it suited him. “Of course,” I answered simply.

  The hour chimed thirteen, interrupting our exchange. The ballroom fell silent and all eyes turned to the modified grandfather clock resounding from the balcony—thirteen bells, marking the first of witching hours at one past midnight.

  One by one, the guests filed into the hall where the great banquet had been prepared. An usher showed me to my chair where I stood with the others waiting for our bloated host to seat himself. The light was dim, for only a few sparse candles placed down the center of the table, and together with the slowly smoldering fireplace they cast the chamber murky ocher light. As my eyes began to adjust, I was able to distinguish the sweet delicacies and savory delights heaped down the length of the richly-adorned table. There were silver trays of red and bloody meat, carefully prepared cuts of crow and owl, legs of goat and marinated lamb hearts, various “cockatrice” dishes of hen and snake, and in the center of it all, a hefty roasted boar glazed in a black sauce and garnished with opium. The servants made their rounds, filling our silver chalices with deep red wine. When they were done, Voger stood at his place at the head of the banquet table and lifted his brimming chalice high. I glanced around through the gathered guests, seeing several attired as Macey was and wondering which of them was he.

  “Brothers and sisters, I welcome you this blackest night. We have gained much this year, but more remains to be done. Many of you have attained prominent positions in Parliament or colonial governments, and our effort to liberate the Old Company from the Whore of the Crown is now well underway. Tonight, we celebrate our successes and pray thanks to Our Lady of Shadows that we may seize the destiny that is rightfully ours!”

  “We praise you, Woe Mother of Shadows,” chanted the half-seen assembly of guests. “Bless us with your crimson tears.”

  “And to Lord Voger, Last Baron of Fellmoor,” I said, raising my chalice, “without whose patronage and support our syndicate might never have been united.”

  “Lord Voger!” answered all, responding like the blind sheep that they were. “Heir to the Kingdom of Shadows!”

  The baron seated himself and the feast began. I partook of the bounty, dining on the sanguine meats and bony flesh of the decadent midnight festival. Though I was more than tempted, I carefully avoided the opium-seasoned meat and other foods that appeared similarly garnished, and I drank only the most moderate amount of the velvety wines. After all, I had no desire to surrender my mind and body to a stupor of intoxicated debauchery. Such gross intemperance was for the weak and lesser minded.

  The clock chimed two and the feast went on, the idle talk between the celebrants growing to a crescendo of fervent revelry. By then, the wild ecstasy of the night had taken hold, and men and women began leaving the banquet hall laughing merrily, two, three, and even four at a time. I moved to the head of the table, where I found Lord Voger babbling incoherently to a tipsy young lady who had somehow lost her entire costume. Macey was nowhere to be found. I frowned, wondering if he had just slipped out with some of the others, but I had paid careful attention to all the departing men who were similar attired as Macey, and none carried themselves with the confidence and mindfulness that he carried himself.

  More troubling still, none of those who were currently in the banquet hall had Macey’s distinctive poise and mannerisms either. Moreover, Macey would not have risked insulting his lord by leaving in the middle of the banquet, not unless he was certain to be forgiven. The Ouroboros Lock was the only trophy for which Lord Voger would gladly absolve any transgression, no matter how perfidious.

  Though I prayed to all the Dukes and Princes of Hell that it was not so, I feared that scheming weasel had gotten the better of me. Thinking I would succumb to an inebriated euphoria like some doltish fool, he had silently absconded using the feast as a diversion. I could only guess how much of a lead he had on me, but already he could be ransacking my shop.

  I pushed through the doors to the ballroom and walked with single-minded intention past the weaving pairs of dream-lost dancers, through the dim, twilight grotto where form, sound, and ecstasy converged in a delirious symphony of mania and melancholy. But there I stopped in the center of the ballroom, watching as three ethereal ladies pirouetted around me, their silk garments flowing like water through the faint and smoky air. One among them was the lady in the diaphanous gown who had come to me earlier; the second was dressed in bright red and wore a grotesque half-Comedy, half-Tragedy mask, while the third wor
e a blue gown and a white opera mask.

  “Dance with us,” insisted the first lady. She held out her hand. “For we shall dance ‘til the sun burns cold and the stars fade from the Heavens above.”

  Had I not been in such an urgent rush, I would have gladly shared their company for the night. “My regrets,” I said in all earnestness. “But I must be going.”

  The woman laughed and rejoined her dancing companions. “Going, going, going, time is ever-flowing! Flowing, flowing, flowing, the dance is never slowing!”

  Thinking them intoxicated, I bowed my head and started away. As I neared the foyer I heard their voices rising above the din of the organ music, its airy note strangely matching the rhythm of their song.

  “Seven, eight, nine, and ten, bad man made a mortal sin. Back he goes and forth again, and now the game shall never end!”

  As nonsensical as their words were, their childish chantey pervaded the whole of my being, filling me with an infusion of bitter black frost. I heard the rhyme repeat itself over and over in my mind, as though echoing in pursuit as I dashed down the halls of Voger’s mansion. The steward attending the foyer bowed as I came near and hurried to retrieve my coat. Not waiting for him to return, I pushed through the doors and freed my horse from the post. The steward called to me from the door, holding my coat in the air, but I was already through the gates, galloping down the road leading back to the city of dreadful night.

  The darkling world raced past, a blur of formless motion that distorted every shape and shadow in the cobalt starlight. Viscid air dampened my clothes, cool yet warm with the sweat of the earth and the rank stench of nearby bogs. I dug my heels into the horse and gave a loud “Heyah!” encouraging the mare to quicken her headlong charge. Hooves pounded the rain-sodden road, splashing muddy and fetid water. Such a sight was I—a figured seated upon a charging steed, dressed in browns and greens, with a face the face of the Green Man and vine-like hair streaming in the wind behind. But none of that mattered. I thought nothing of the consequence and gave no regard to the dangers posed by my heedless haste. There was only the Lock and the grim key that would open the threshold of time and dimension. There was only the fear that Macey had beaten me to the greatest prize in all Creation.