The Mussorgsky Riddle

by Darin Kennedy

  The four of us tumble down the other side and land at the base of the bridge in a tangle of bodies. The monster’s roar and the witch’s frantic screams fill the air. Before I can take another breath, the drawbridge shudders at the force of a monstrous blow.

  “She’s still coming for you.” Modesto extricates himself from our twisted knot of arms and legs and runs to a large barrel-shaped device wrapped in chain. “The windlass got stuck as I tried to lower the bridge. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get it back up.”

  Tunny and I scramble to our feet and rush to Modesto’s side. Our efforts to get the windlass working are futile. Dark movement catches my eye. Trilby screams as the monster’s enormous claw clamps down on the base of the bridge. The wood groans like an old tree in a hurricane.

  I grab Modesto’s sleeve and point to the giant pincer. “Isn’t that monstrosity supposed to protect your castle?”

  “Once.” Modesto strains at the unmoving crank. “The witch controls it now.”

  Though better than a foot thick, the section of timber deepest in the creature’s claw snaps like a twig as the bridge continues to splinter in its monstrous grasp. Trilby squeals and runs to my side.

  “It’s getting through.” Tunny grabs the other handle of the windlass crank. “Pull, Scheherazade, with all you’ve got.”

  In a flash, the answer comes to me. “Modesto. Tunny. Stop.”

  “What?” Modesto says. I can’t decide which of the three appears the most shocked.

  “The witch. She runs everything here. She controls the creature. Who’s to say she’s not in control of the bridge as well?”

  “But the bridge is meant to protect us.” Trilby runs to my side. “Isn’t it?”

  Another timber snaps in two as I drop to one knee and take Trilby by the shoulders. “The bridge didn’t keep her out before and that was before she had a bus-sized lobster at her command.”

  “What would you have us do, then?” Modesto throws his hands up. “Lie down and die?”

  “No. The opposite, in fact. I’m here for a reason, and she knows it.”

  Tunny turns and looks at me. “And what purpose is that?”

  I rise and take Modesto’s hands, more to get him to abandon the useless windlass than any other reason. “Remember when I was here before and we were running from the witch?”

  A lone eyebrow rises. “How could I forget?”

  “You showed me a stairwell before, one that leads to the Catacombs.”

  At the sound of the word, half the drawbridge tears clear, revealing the witch riding atop the monster’s armored carapace.

  I pull Modesto toward the hall. “Take me there, now, before it’s too late.”

  We sprint from the windlass room across the courtyard and back to the keep, slamming the ten-foot double doors behind us for all the good that will do. The witch, mounted atop the clawed nightmare, has already covered half the distance from the front gate, and the doors to the keep are no more substantial than the two-foot thick timbers the monster splintered moments before.

  “Quickly,” I whisper to Modesto. “The stairwell.”

  “It’s this way.” Modesto grabs my hand and pulls me down the same grand hallway as before. “Just a little farther.”

  “Wait.” Tunny jerks his thumb in the opposite direction. “We can’t leave him in here with the witch and that monster.”

  “Leave who?” Trilby asks. “Who are you talking about, Tunny?”

  It takes a moment for my mind to make the connection. “Of course.”

  Tunny leads us down the hallway to the left as the monster’s first blow lands upon the door to the keep. The corridors twist and turn more like an amusement park ride than any structure a sane person would design. Finally, at the end of a narrow section of hallway, we come to another stairwell, this one leading upwards. We rush single file up three flights of winding stone and step off into a room decorated with rich tapestries and fine carvings.

  “He’s here?” I ask.

  Tunny nods as he steps past me and pulls back a tapestry decorated with lion and unicorn, revealing an arched doorway similar to the alcoves of the Exhibition. There, in the hidden room seated on a satin pillow and eating some sort of porridge, Antoine glances up at the four of us and lets out a gasp.

  “Lady Scheherazade,” he stammers, his Tuileries accent even more pronounced than before. “You came back for me.”

  “Yes, Antoine, I came back for you.” I offer him a hand and help him to his feet. As he joins the others by the door, I lower my gaze to meet Tunny’s sad eyes. “For all of you.”

  In the distance, the series of blows against the door to the keep grows faster, louder. The crack of splintering wood fills the air.

  I turn to Modesto, his face frozen in a rictus of fear. “The Catacombs. Take us there. Now.”

  For once, Modesto remains quiet and does as he’s told. The five of us sprint back down the stairwell leading to Antoine’s tower and back out into the main hall.

  “This way,” Modesto shouts. “Hurry.”

  As we rush past the intersection, I chance a glance to my left and find the doors to the keep demolished. Atop the monster, Yaga barrels down the corridor at us, the floor fracturing beneath the thing’s clawed feet.

  “Move, Modesto.” I slide the dagger from its sheath, for all the good it will do against such a beast. “She’s inside.”

  “I noticed,” he grunts as he picks up his pace for the far end of the hall.

  Seconds later, the five of us arrive at the doorway Modesto says leads to the Catacombs. Cool humidity and the musty scent of damp earth float up from below as if from a waiting grave. One by one, we take the spiral stone staircase that leads down into darkness, a series of flickering torches all that lights our way. I take some comfort in knowing the narrow staircase may allow the witch to follow but not her monstrous steed.

  As if the laws of physics matter in a place made of dream.

  At the end of what seems an eternity of descent, we come to a stone landing and a small, round door.

  “Shall we?” Modesto asks.

  He opens the studded door and steps through, beckoning me to follow. I stoop as I pass the circular portal and sheathe the dagger as my eyes adjust to the dim. The unsteady incandescence of eight torches barely illuminates this octagonal room that appears hewn from solid granite. Across the way, at the center of the far wall, another door of similar dimensions rests slightly ajar.

  “The Catacombs, Lady Scheherazade, as requested.”

  “Fantastic,” I sprint for the other door. “Let’s go.”

  I’m halfway across the room before I realize I’m alone. I look back. Tunny, Modesto, Antoine, and Trilby all stand staring at me in the dim light at the bottom of the stairs.

  “What are you all waiting for? We’ve got to get out of here.”

  As one, their gazes drop to the floor.

  “What is it?”

  Modesto steps forward. “We may bring you to the Catacombs, Scheherazade, but none of us may enter.”

  “It is forbidden,” Tunny adds.

  Antoine, so happy just moments before, stands sullen and silent while Trilby bites at her lip and refuses to meet my gaze as she fidgets with her hair.

  “Forbidden?” I ask. “By who? The witch?”

  “Who else, dearie?” Yaga’s voice echoes through the space as she steps through the door behind the others and closes it behind her. “For all your bluster, these four still know who runs the show around here.” Trembling, Modesto and Tunny part, allowing the witch to pass between them. She looks me up and down before turning her attention to the dimly lit room. “I should have imploded this place the last time I was here. Would have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

  “But you can’t.” I continue to back toward the opposite side of the room. “You talk a good game, but destroying the Catacombs is beyond even your power.”

  The witch glares at me, even as her lips pull back to reveal her iron smile. “And
why exactly is that, Lady Scheherazade?”

  “Because the truth lies here. Despite your best efforts to keep me out of your Exhibition and away from this place, here I stand on the precipice of discovering whatever it is you’re so desperate to hide.” I echo her smile. “The truth, it seems, cannot be bricked up.”

  “So very clever,” Yaga says, “but as always, your knowledge is incomplete. You think a visit to the Catacombs will give you the answers you seek, but beyond that doorway lies only death and pain. Pain for you, for me, for all who call the Exhibition home. You’ve seen what I can do in this place, but I assure you my influence pales in comparison to what you will unleash if you go through that door.”

  “More empty threats, Baba Yaga? More scare tactics?”

  Unlike the last time, she doesn’t even blink at the utterance of her name. “I speak only the truth. Pass through that door if you must, but be warned. What you learn there may prove your undoing and that of us all.”

  I retreat the last few steps, never taking my eyes off the witch’s bent form, and rest my hand on the door handle. “I’m willing to take that chance.”

  “Farewell then, Scheherazade. Pass the portal and face your destiny, but forget not that you were warned.”

  I weigh the witch’s words even as the despondent gazes of the four I am forced to leave in her foul presence bore into my soul. Riddled with indecision, the tear coursing down Antoine’s face reminds me of where and who I am. I spin and jerk the door open and the musty dampness of death fills the room. I glance back to wish the others well and find the room empty.

  “Dammit.” Simultaneously defeated and victorious, I turn back to the door. Etched into the wood with what appears to have been someone’s fingernails, three words are barely visible in the dim light.

  CATACOMBÆ SEPULCRUM ROMANUM

  Before I can even mouth the words, gravity shifts sideways and I fall through the open doorway. The door slams shut above me. I tumble through utter blackness and land on smooth, cool stone. All around me, murmurs fill the air, just below the threshold of understanding. In pain but uninjured, I rise from the floor and strain my eyes, trying to pierce the veil of darkness. To my left, I spot a flicker of yellow incandescence down what appears to be a long passageway. I move toward the light, the whispered voices around me growing louder with every step.

  I walk for what seems a mile in the gloomy hallway, finding my way by touch as much as sight. Water drips down on my head from above, each chilling rivulet like a dead man’s finger tracing the line of my scalp. At times smooth and at others jagged, the walls feel as if they are constructed of thousands of individual stones, all placed with such care it makes following the passage relatively easy. Only as the light in the room increases do I discover what I’m feeling aren’t stones at all, but human skulls.

  As I approach the flickering light, the whispering grows louder. The language sounds foreign, but as before in Tuileries and The Marketplace at Limoges, I can somehow understand what the voices are saying.

  “Sounds and ideas are hanging in the air. I am devouring them and stuffing myself.”

  The words are Latin, though I hear them in my head in English complemented by of all things, a Russian accent.

  “The creative spirit of the dead Hartmann leads me toward the skulls, invokes them. The skulls begin to glow softly from within.”

  “The dead Hartmann?” I whisper. “What does this place have to do with him?” Answered only with the sound of dripping water, I add, “Or Anthony for that matter?”

  “Everything, I’m afraid.” The voice deep and resonant, the Russian accent comes across as almost comical despite the gruesome surroundings. A stout man with a thick black beard and unkempt hair steps from the shadow of a column to my left. “I can only assume you are the Lady Scheherazade that has been causing all the uproar along the Exhibition.”

  “That would be me.” In this place of the dead, I had assumed I would finally meet the lovely young woman whose secrets rest at the center of this mystery. Why I thought anything in this madhouse would occur according to my expectations is beyond me.

  The man’s face is nothing like the pictures I’ve seen on Anthony’s records. Still, I know his identity immediately. Tailored black suit. Formal manner. Wise eyes that have seen everything. “And you must be―”

  “Your instincts speak true, Lady Scheherazade. They have led you to this moment and you now speak with the composer of this Exhibition.” He takes a slight bow. “As you have no doubt guessed, I am Modest Mussorgsky.”

  ussorgsky gazes upon me with an even mix of curiosity and amusement. Though I understand I am merely meeting another aspect of Anthony Faircloth, the true composer of this symphony of pain, I take a step back, not out of fear but a strange reverence.

  “Why are you hiding down here in the dark?” I ask. “The Exhibition is your place, your creation. You should be out in it, enjoying it, living it.”

  “Ah, dear child, would that I could. Once I roamed the hallways and alcoves above, admiring the various pieces, reveling in the harmonies that poured from each framed canvas. Music and tranquility ruled the Exhibition, that is, until the Dark Day.”

  “The Dark Day?”

  “The day everything changed. The day the pictures came to life, left their canvases and walked the halls alongside their creator. The day she assumed control and banished me to the one place in the Exhibition she dare not go.”

  “You speak of Baba Yaga?”

  Mussorgsky winces. “You say that name so freely. She cannot come here, and still I will not speak her name. You are brave, storyteller, though more than a bit foolhardy.”

  “I’ve faced the witch more than once and survived, yet everyone in this place is terrified of her. Is she truly deserving of such awe and fear?”

  “You, perhaps, can saunter around unaffected by the witch’s influence, but you are an outsider and not subject to her whims. Those of us who call the Exhibition home don’t enjoy such freedom.” He takes a hesitant step toward me, the shadows across his face briefly hiding the sadness in his eyes. “I’ve not seen it myself, obviously, but I’ve heard through various channels about the destruction left in the wake of her many encounters with you. Other than the witch’s own, do any of the pictures remain untouched?”

  “The last one, I believe.” Without understanding why, I hang my head in shame. “I have yet to see The Bogatyr Gates.”

  “Then all is lost.” Mussorgsky slinks past me and rests his forearm and head against one of the skulls. “As best I know, the Gates no longer exist.”

  “They don’t exist?”

  “There are whispers, particularly down here among the skulls, that The Bogatyr Gates once rested at the end of the hall, past The Hut on Fowl’s Legs where the witch resides. However, no one along the gallery, including me, has ever come upon the final canvas of the Exhibition.”

  “But you’re the composer.” I fix Mussorgsky with a confused stare. “Didn’t you create everything here?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow your question.”

  Magical landscapes. Odd friends. A witch all that stands in the way of going home. And the man who supposedly has all the answers as clueless everyone else.

  “This must have been how Dorothy felt.”

  Mussorgsky’s brow furrows. “Who is this Dorothy of whom you speak?”

  I ponder how it’s possible Anthony, who has apparently seen every movie under the sun, doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Then, in a flash, it becomes clear. Mussorgsky died years before L. Frank Baum put pen to paper on his most famous work, and over half a century before the movie hit the silver screen.

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Anthony Faircloth, it’s that the boy is a stickler for detail.

  “Another time, oh great and powerful Oz.” I offer a devilish smile, taking some comfort in knowing at least one thing the composer doesn’t.

  He levels an even gaze at me, his lips turning up in a slight sm
irk. “So, Scheherazade. I have explained why I hide in the Paris Catacombs, but you have not explained your own presence down here amid the darkness and skulls of the long dead.”

  The answer is on my tongue in a second, though the over-arching “why” behind my actions eludes even me. “The Catacombs picture was blocked from the Exhibition proper. I figured anything the witch was so eager to keep hidden was something that needed to be brought into the light.”

  Mussorgsky’s robust laugh echoes through the space. “Other than the last and only refuge of a once great composer, I’m not certain what you hope to find here.”

  “Maybe nothing.” I jump as a skull falls from the wall and shatters on impact with the stone floor. “There is one thing you can answer for me, however, if you will.”

  Mussorgsky strokes his beard. “And what might that be, my child?”

  “This Dark Day. What happened to cause such a calamity to your Exhibition?”

  The composer’s piercing stare freezes me to the spot. “Why would you care about that?”

  “I wander your Exhibition for more than merely the fine art and music. I seek a boy hidden among the pictures. I’ve found evidence of him more than once since coming here, but each time it’s been no more than an echo. A shadow, if you will. I believe the circumstances of your Dark Day and his whereabouts are somehow intertwined.”

  “What is this boy’s name?”

  “Anthony Faircloth.”

  A flicker of recognition twinkles in Mussorgsky’s eyes. “Anthony. A strong name. Derived from the Latin, I believe, as would befit this place. A name shared by generals and artists alike.”

  I stare at the composer sidelong, studying his eyes. “Do you know where I might find him?”

  “You already have the answer to that question.” He circles me like a curious lion, his unkempt mane and dark beard adding to the illusion. “Or at least knowledge of where you must go to find the answer.” At my baffled stare, he adds, “Tell me. Who seeks to keep you from learning what events transpired on this Anthony’s Darkest of Days?”