The Empire of Ice Cream

by Jeffrey Ford

  “Baston ferried me home in a hired cab, and I took to my bed, sleeping straight through for three days. This time was not fallow though, for while I slept I dreamed constantly of my messenger, following him through his days, his comings and goings on the street, drinking in the ale house, quietly jotting notes for his future interview, and wooing a beautiful young woman named May. Funny thing, this figure of May was the same as the schoolteacher whom I’d supposedly murdered in the earlier dream. ‘Soon, very soon,’ I promised the messenger as he went about his mundane life.”

  “May?” said August quietly, staring at the wall behind the floating head.

  “A common enough name,” said Larchcroft. “And so the time finally came to intermingle my inner light with that of the universe.” Here, he cleared his throat and waited for the young reporter to snap out of the sudden trance.

  “Very good,” said August, looking back at Larchcroft and applying his pencil to the notebook.

  “On a gloriously bright day in December, I dressed warmly—mittens and scarf, leggings, three shirts beneath my coat—and stepped out onto the second-floor balcony of my home. There, I lay down on my back in the direct sunlight, unstoppered my head by removing the emerald, and fell into a deep sleep. As soon as my first dream coalesced, I caught sight of my messenger, notebook at the ready, heading down a long alleyway toward that door, which was no longer black but now a bright green. He had a look of determination upon his face and his stride was all business. As he approached the door, it swung open and a bright light filled the frame. He stepped through, into the light of the universe, and from that point onward I was filled with the most excruciating sensation of ecstasy.

  “I awoke on the balcony after dark, shivering so badly I could barely fit the emerald back into the hole in my forehead. No matter all of the clothes I’d put on; while I’d slept, the temperature had dropped drastically with the onset of night. My joints had seized from the cold, and it was a struggle just to get to all fours, open the balcony doors, and crawl into the warmth of the house. A half-hour later, once the more temperate conditions of the upstairs parlor had a chance to work on my bones, I was able to get to my feet. I struggled to be sure, but the only thing I could think about was going back to sleep, locating my messenger in the dream realm, and discovering what revelations he’d brought back from his interview.

  “Once I’d removed all of my extra clothing and had a small glass of rye, I began to feel the effects of my foolish tactic of lying outside all of a winter’s day. Although I was wide-awake, I felt feverish, and regardless of how well my plan had worked, a vague sense of depression and angst gathered around me like an autumn fog. To clear my mind, I decided to work on my accounts, the simple process of seeing which of my patrons had paid up and which had not, but I found the light of the candle I worked by irritated my eyes to the point where I couldn’t concentrate. Instead, I retired to a dark corner of my office along with the bottle of whiskey.

  “I drank in order to quell the rising sense of foreboding and to again achieve sleep. The former was undaunted and the latter was reluctant to come. I sat in a stupor until the sun showed itself through my office window, and the sight of it frightened me. I fled slowly to my bedroom, pulled the blinds down, the drapes over, and lay in darkness. I tossed and turned for another eight hours or so, shivering and sweating, before sleep finally descended.

  “Once in dreams, I searched for my messenger—by then this process had become second nature—and found him, his collar turned up, walking along a cobblestone lane at night, toting his notebook beneath his arm. A wintry wind blew from behind and pushed him down the street along with old scraps of newspaper and dead leaves. I saw him stop and spin around to listen intently. Behind him, from the shadows, came the sound of footsteps. He turned and doubled his speed.

  “There followed a period of time where the dream was unclear to me, and then it returned and I saw him again. He’d reached the front door of his boarding house. Opening it, he entered and quietly, as to not disturb the other boarders sleeping in their rooms, took the two flights of steps to his own. He entered and locked the door behind him. Once his coat was off, he lit a candle and sat at his desk, the notebook in front of him. He turned back the cover and a few blank pages, and at this point I was able to swoop down behind him and look over his shoulder at the results of his interview. To my surprise, and I could tell to his as well, the pages were perfectly black, as if covered from margin to margin with a layer of soot. He cursed loudly and slammed the notebook shut. The slap of it closing woke me.”

  “Something had gone wrong,” said August, ceasing his writing for a moment.

  Larchcroft nodded and his countenance became stern. “Oh, something had gone wrong, all right. The worst of it wasn’t blackened pages, I can assure you. When I woke from that dream, I stumbled out of bed and left my room. Out in the hallway, I was struck by the sunlight coming in the large window in front of me and I let out a cry like a dying animal. The pain was intolerable, all over, and especially in my head where it felt like my brain was on fire. I ran, growling and whimpering, down two flights of stairs to the cellar. There, in the darkness, I huddled in a corner trembling. It was as if I’d awoken from a dream into a nightmare.

  “There I stayed. The thought of the merest spark of light filled me with paroxysms of fear. I slid to the floor and remained, passing in and out of consciousness. Baston, who had been searching for me, finally came to the cellar door and called down. The light that seeped in from the upper floors of the house clawed at my eyes, and the pain brought me around. I screamed at him to shut the door quickly. He brought me my meals down there. And it was only once the sun had set that my mind returned to its usual abilities of cogitation.

  “After I’d eaten my dinner and drank two cups of strong coffee, I began trying to cipher out the meaning of my transformation. Retracing the events of the previous days, I believed I finally understood what had happened, and the realization, though in a way marvelous, was also quite disturbing. During my attempt to send the messenger of my dreams out into the world of light, I’d left the aperture in my head open too long. Night had fallen, and some creature of darkness had crawled inside of me, like a mouse through a split in the clapboard on a winter’s day, looking for warmth. Yes, the dark was inside of me, and it was growing, taking control.

  “If any proof of my theory was needed, it was provided by the current plight I found my messenger in when I fell into a fitful sleep later on. The day had broken in his dream world, but I found him and the other citizens of his town frantic, because although the sun shone there, a sinister phenomenon had occurred. Pitch-blackness, darker than night, had encircled the town and was closing in. The things it covered were not merely cast in shadow but were consumed. People had been swallowed, buildings negated, the landscape blotted out.

  “Upon waking, I thought a cure might be, no matter how painful, removing the jewel from my forehead and subjecting my mind to an antidote of unfiltered sunlight. The problem with my plan soon became evident when I tried but found I could not command my hand to perform the task. The creature of the dark had insinuated its tentacles into the mechanisms of my brain and would not allow itself to be destroyed. I fell into the most abject depression and was powerless to conceive of any thought other than that of suicide. I cringe now at the thought of revealing this to you and ultimately your readers, but I actually began banging my head against one of the cellar’s wooden beams, hoping to do myself in through severe head trauma. Ridiculous, no?” Larchcroft shook his head, smiling.

  “Not at all,” said August. “A desperate situation, I understand.”

  “Bless you,” said the Man of Light. “I managed only to knock myself unconscious and back into the dream of my messenger. I found him at a bizarre juncture. Hand in hand with May, he ran through the streets of town. A crowd of those who had not as of yet been taken by the dark also fled to the center of the ever-diminishing circle of light. I watched this all with a pl
acid sense of disinterest. At first I thought the young man and his girlfriend were running for their lives, but it soon became clear to me that he had a destination in mind, for he was searching the addresses of the buildings they passed.

  “I realized he must have found the place, because he and May rushed up a set of steps and inside a dilapidated old structure of five stories and crumbling brickwork. As they ran past the entrance, I read the chipped and fading sign: THE WINDSOR ARMS. I tell you, my interest was roused. Without stopping, they ran through the empty lobby and took to the staircase. Up three flights they sped and came to a halt outside a familiar green door. The messenger knocked, and there was no answer. Without hesitating, he turned the knob and pushed open the door. Inside the dimly lit room, they found a dream-world Frank Scatterill sitting in a chair, puffing away at an opium pipe, a blue cloud surrounding his head.

  “What followed next was difficult to discern, as it happened in a blur. There was a great commotion out on the street, a chorus of abbreviated screams of anguish. Then total silence. The young woman, May, for some reason had disrobed and was standing, shivering, in the cold off to the side of the operating area. The messenger was reclining in the barber chair, importuning Scatterill to hurry. The dreary addict fumbled with some tools on his work-table. I believe I was the first to notice it—the dark began flowing into the room, like water, from the space beneath the door.

  “‘There’s no time for that,’ said the messenger just before he lay back and fell instantly asleep. May cried once and was consumed by the dark, which was filling the room. Scatterill lifted something off the table. I only caught the glint of it in the light from the single remaining candle. By this point he and the messenger on the chair were enclosed in a mere bubble of light. The surgeon held his hand out, aiming at the young man’s forehead. I saw he held a derringer. As the dark’s five hundred tentacles began to wrap themselves around Scatterill, he pulled the trigger, and his death cry was masked by the report of the weapon. A neat, bloodless, smoking hole had appeared in the center of the messenger’s forehead.

  “The dark closed in, but before it could eradicate the young man, a bright beam shot forth from the hole in his head as if his cranium had become a lighthouse. This brilliant light gathered itself together into a human figure without features. Its powerful glow pushed back the dark. The dark, for its part, sent forth a large glob of night, which also quickly took the form of a human figure but remained connected to the greater darkness by a kind of umbilical cord. The light and the dark then came together and met in combat.

  “My experience of this battle was hallucinatory, to say the least. Even in sleep I could feel my mind buzzing, my skull vibrating. I don’t know how long the match lasted, but it was a brutal struggle for victory. Finally, after they had each managed to get the other in a stranglehold, their bodies thrust so tightly together parts of them appeared gray, there came an audible pop, and a moment later all was returned to normal in the dream world. I looked out the window of Scatterill’s room and saw a placid twilight. The dream citizens below on the street were passing to and fro on their normal business. The messenger awoke then, even though the bullet wound remained in his head. He sat up, and, when he looked around, I could tell he was actually seeing me. He scrabbled forward to the floor and found the surgeon’s derringer, aiming it at me. I put my hands up in front of my face. He must have pulled the trigger then, because I heard a click. The weapon only carried a single shot and that had been spent, but that distinct sound woke me. I called for Baston, and he helped me up the stairs and into the light of day.”

  “A perfect ending,” said August, and reached inside his jacket. Larchcroft’s eyes flashed, following the reporter’s movement, and his mouth tightened. The young man slowly drew a handkerchief from his inner pocket and applied it to his forehead. Larchcroft gave a sigh of relief.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to inspect your notes,” said the Man of Light.

  August held his notebook forward. The head leaned closer, and there appeared a green-gloved hand against the back cover of the book as it was lifted away. As Larchcroft flipped the pages, evidently reading, he passed his other green-gloved hand once over each page as if giving his blessing to what had been written there.

  “You never did get the answers to your questions, did you?” said August.

  The eyes of the Man of Light remained focused on the pages, but he answered. “I gained answers to questions I never conceived of asking.”

  “May I inquire as to what you learned?” asked the reporter. “Or do you count this information a trade secret?”

  “I learned that light is not the sole proprietor of the universe. One must count the dark as equally powerful. Knowing this made me more expert at my work than any specific answers the messenger might have returned with. If you want to know the truth about the light, you must ask the dark. Since this incident, I’ve become a willing student of the night, of shadows, of the cavernous recesses of my own mind. Terrible things lurk there, but terrible beauty as well. All this has made me the lightsmith I am today.”

  “The dark is half the story then,” said August.

  “Yes,” said Larchcroft, “it’s a willing teacher. All it asks is the occasional sacrifice.” He let go of the notebook then, and it fell to the floor in front of August.

  The reporter did not reach for it, as he was too deeply immersed in trying to encompass all he’d learned that night. Thought led onto thought and drew him spiraling down into his imagination. He couldn’t tell how long he’d sat contemplating the struggle between light and dark.

  “This interview is now ended,” said Larchcroft, bringing August back to full consciousness. The reporter looked up to see that the room was now filled with the early light of day.

  “What type of sacrifices?” August asked the visage.

  “The dearest kind, my boy,” said Larchcroft, laughing as a beam of morning sun shot through the single window across the room and struck him full in the face. He stared momentarily into August’s eyes and then abruptly and completely disappeared. The laughter lingered for a brief time, quickly diminished to a whisper, and then vanished.

  August grabbed his notebook, stood up, stretched his aching legs, and left the room by the way he’d come in. As he walked the hallways toward the front entrance of the mansion, the sound of his footsteps echoed throughout the stillness of the massive building. He wondered where Larchcroft and Baston and the servant had gone. When he reached the door, he noted with a smile that it was bright green, something he’d not remembered from the previous night upon his arrival.

  August walked the entire mile and a half from Larchcroft’s estate into town, and when he arrived at the office of the Gazette, he found it already abuzz with the day’s activity. Because of the interview he now carried in his notebook, he felt none of the usual hesitancy in approaching his boss. He rapped on the old man’s office door, and a gruff voice commanded him to enter.

  “Where were you last night?” asked the editor. There were dark pouches beneath his eyes, and what hair he possessed was askew with wispy eruptions. It was unusual for him to be seen without jacket and tie, but August noticed both were missing. His white shirt was rumpled and ink-stained; one sleeve turned up in a sloppy cuff as the other was turned down and unbuttoned.

  “I had the interview with Larchcroft,” said August. “I’m sure you’ll want it for the front page.”

  The boss shook his head, his expression grim. “Sorry, kid, but you’ve been trumped.”

  “What do you mean?” asked August.

  “Early in the evening last night, just after dark, a young woman was murdered in town. The third floor of a dump over on Paine Street. The Windsor Arms. Nobody was around, I couldn’t find you, so I had to go. Brutal. Somebody opened a hole in this girl’s head, right here, and poured in a pint of India ink,” said the old man, pointing to the center of his forehead. “Blood everywhere.”

  August sat slowly down in the cha
ir across the desk from his boss. “What was the girl’s name?” he asked.

  “May Lofton. We don’t know much more about her yet.”

  “Was she a schoolteacher?” asked August.

  “She might have been. She definitely didn’t seem to be the type to frequent a place like that. Why, you know her?”

  “No.”

  “The constable found something interesting near the body, though. Maybe they’ll catch the killer …” The editor closed his eyes and stretched. “I could fall asleep right now. Anyway, what did you get?”

  August reached across the desk to lay his notebook in front of the editor and then sat back into his chair. “This still might make the front page,” said August. “A long and detailed recounting, basically a confession from the Man of Light.”

  The editor sat up straight and leaned over the desk, drawing the notebook to him. He yawned wearily, opened the cover, and flipped past the first few blank pages. A moment passed, and then his eyes fiercely focused, as if what he was reading had fully awoken him. He turned two pages. “Fascinating,” he said. “You see this?” He lifted the open notebook and turned it to August.

  The young man’s jaw dropped and the color drained from his face as the editor flipped slowly through the pages for him. Each and every page he’d committed the interview to was covered from top to bottom, side to side, with pitch-black, not the least speck of white showing.