by Guy Adams
Walking was difficult. His legs were weak and threatened to give out, his knee joints wobbling with every step. That and the pain in his hands is what first made him wonder whether this actually was a dream. The visions had been disturbing and surreal but at least he had moved through them as a whole man, not this fragile remnant, this snapped twig left behind after the snow had melted.
Just ahead of him he began to sense something. It wasn't a physical object, in fact it was the absence of one. Just inside a building to his right there was a patch of space that whined, like Cicadas in the trees. It was a patch of space about which he could tell nothing and therefore it stood out a mile. He made his way towards it.
Stepping up onto the boardwalk made his hips ache so hard he had to reach out to steady himself. The moment his broken fingers touched the rail by his side the pain in his hip was subsumed and he fell to the ground, holding his hands protectively out in front of him.
"Not a dream," he whispered. "Pain feels different in dreams."
Slowly, he got to his feet and made his way inside the building.
Once in the same room as that impossible space, that hole in his world, its buzzing was all but deafening. He moved cautiously towards it, trying to map it out, define it by the things he could sense around it. No more than the width of two men, it hung there in the air before him.
But what was it? He took another step towards it and felt the hair on his body rise. Whatever it was had power. It was dangerous. It might destroy him. He should certainly not step any closer to it. And yet he did just that. He couldn't say what it was that drew him. In dreams you know the way forward, you cannot help but follow it, however much you might wish to turn another way, your path is predestined, like a train on its tracks. Even though he was sure now that this was no dream, he still felt that sense of destiny; that there was a line he was following, lead where it may, and attempts to deviate from it would be pointless.
He stepped closer still. The proximity to it making him shake on his unsteady legs. In the end he half stepped, half fell into that impossible, buzzing absence and found himself somewhere else entirely.
He was lying on his front, hands pressed beneath him into the cool dirt. This time they didn't hurt. He rolled over onto his back and held his arms up. His hands were fine, he wiggled his fingers in what was cool night air. Cool night air that bore a familiar smell. This was some where he knew well, but he hadn't been here for a long time and the memory was slow to surface.
A short distance away, a fire crackled and there was conversation and the familiar slap of playing cards. He could smell campfire food and animal cages. Canvas crackled in the breeze and with it came the memory of where he was. He was back in Dr Bliss' Karnival of Delights, lying next to his trailer after a long day of separating rubes from their money. He couldn't, in all honesty, say that he had loved his time here but, by dint of the fact that he had never loved his time anywhere, it was as close as he could get to a welcoming place. Especially if...
"I'm afraid she's not here, Henry," said a voice next to him.
A moment earlier he would have sworn to the fact that he was lying quite alone on the grass. Now he could sense the man that had joined him. He could smell the leather of his boots, the sweat caught up in the fabric of his shirt, the whisky on his breath. He thought back to the man who had first told him about Wormwood; the old drunk who had claimed to once rule the midway with his knife-throwing act (arms bound to his sides, fooling the audience into thinking he had none). The man who had, in short, shaped the last couple of weeks of his life.
"Alonzo?" he asked.
"The same," Alonzo replied, reaching forward and patting Henry on the shoulder. There was the slosh of whisky against glass and Henry sensed a bottle moving towards him. "Care for a drink?"
Jones did. Taking the bottle cautiously at first, thinking of his hands then remembering that his wounds were gone, at least for now. This had to be a dream then, didn't it? Either that or a miracle, and Jones was of a mind that miracles didn't happen to godless sons of bitches like himself.
"We'll find Harmonium," said Alonzo, "I promise you that. I know you want to see her, I know there's little else on your mind but that, but I need you to hear me out first, can you do that?"
Jones let a mouthful of whisky run down his throat. It burned all the way through him and he rode the sensation like a man floating on the waves of a river. "I guess I can," he said finally.
"You remember the night I first told you about this place?" Alonzo said. "We were sat out here just like this, sharing a bottle and some stories."
"And you were talking about an old gunslinger friend of yours, and how you wondered where he'd fished up."
"That's right, and I talked about Wormwood and how, if a man was strong enough to find his way there, he could walk right into Heaven itself."
"You told me that if I ever found it I should pass on a message from you to God." "I did."
"Seems to me that you might just have beaten me to it."
"Honestly? I've always been here. I came to you then, Henry, found you in that carnival because I needed you here."
"I don't follow, you telling me it was all a trick?"
"No, not that. At least, not precisely that. I hunted you out. I had heard of you and I knew that there was a place here for you. I wanted you to find that place, to be the man you could be."
"Alonzo, I gave up a lot to get here, everything that means a damn to me."
"No, my friend, that's what I mean. Harmonium can be with you again. You needn't have lost anything. This is Heaven after all. This is the place where everyone turns up sooner or later.
I will make sure the two of you are together again. I can do anything, Henry, if I set my mind to it. Like those hands of yours. They don't hurt now do they?"
"No," Jones admitted, wriggling the fingers again.
"The wounds of the mortal world are flimsy things, easily swept away. Nothing breaks forever, neither a finger nor a heart."
"And what would you want in return?" Jones was no fool, he'd heard enough promises in his life to know that the good ones came with a big price tag.
"Nothing you wouldn't be happy to give," Alonzo replied. "I'm trying to build something here. Trying to make it a better place. And there's a part for you to play in that, a good part, a powerful part. I have a role for you in mind that would suit your talents right down to the ground."
"You want someone killed? That's usually what people want me to do for them." "No! Nothing as trivial as that. Though I'm not promising there won't be blood. I want you to rule somewhere for me."
Jones sat up. He was usually good at being able to test the seriousness of someone's words. When all you had was a man's voice, you got skilled at judging the sincerity of it. Alonzo didn't seem to be lying. Nor did what he say make any sense. "Rule somewhere?"
"This place is a world of two halves, Henry. There is Heaven and there is Hell. The latter has become a chaos, a place of chancers, power struggles and division. What it needs is a strong hand, someone to take control of it, to beat it back into shape."
"You want me to run Hell?" Alonzo laughed. "Yes, my friend, that's exactly what I want."
Chapter Five
DUCK, YOU SUCKER
1.
I RAN OUTSIDE, thinking, I guess, that I could get some fresh air. Of course, the idea of fresh air in a place like that was madness. The atmosphere was heavy and thick, like leaning over a corpse in the desert.
The deck was virtually empty, most people drawn to the pleasures that could be found in side. I walked towards the rear of the boat, where the paddles cut their destructive way through the horror we sailed on. Over the sound of those heavy blades I heard a low moaning and, in the faint red light of the sky, spotted the dancer I'd found myself obsessing on earlier. She was arched back against the rail, legs apart while a balding head burrowed beneath the frilly coral of her skirts.
"Oh," I said, both embarrassed and, quite stupidly,
angry to see the object of a passing affection busy at such work.
The balding man looked up. He was cross-eyed, his salt and pepper beard glistening.
"You want to keep walking, pal?" he said, his voice dreamy but with a clear edge of threat to it.
"We're taking care of business here." I was about to back away when I saw glistening fronds emerge from between the girl's legs’ gelatinous appendages that looked like something you'd find on a sea creature. They wrapped themselves around his head and pulled him back to where his mouth could get on with its work.
"Don't mind him," the girl said. "He thinks he's dangerous. Most men do. They learn."
I tried not to stare at the tentacles that bound him, tried not to think where they had come from.
"Sorry," I said. "I just needed to step out a little."
She tilted her head, though whether it was to get a clearer look at me or an involuntary sexual twitch I couldn't rightly say.
"You getting yourself in trouble?" she asked. "Smells like it... I can pick up the scent of most men, you smell kind of... funky."
"I've been travelling," I said. Now mortally embarrassed that I was somehow still con ducting a conversation with this girl in the circumstances.
"I don't mean that," she said. "There's something different about you. This place is filled with either those who are dead or those who were never mortal in the first place. Somehow you're neither. It's interesting."
"Oh," I replied, "right... that will be... yeah... I had a bit of bad luck at cards."
The bald-headed man tried to yank his face free from its work again. "God damn it!" he slurred."Will you just fuck off?" The tentacles pulled him back and, after mumbling a few more indistinguishable threats, he fell silent again.
"Sorry," she said, "a girl's got to feed when she can."
"Feed. Right. I'll just..." I pointed back the way I had come. "I'll see you again I'm sure," she said, leaning her head back and closing her eyes, "look after yourself strange man."
2.
THE OLD MAN found me at the front of the boat, while I was trying to roll a cigarette. The boat kept rocking and I tried not to imagine it was being pushed upwards by the hundreds of panicked hands beneath us.
"Don't go running off like that," he said, "not here."
"Why? Not as if anything life-threatening is going to happen to me is it?"
He looked pained at that but I'll admit I didn't altogether care. I was feeling sore.
I was also feeling confused. I'll be honest with you, I had been unsettled by what Agrat had said, of course I had, but the idea of immortality still didn't seem all that bad. I had spent the last few days being in almost constant fear of my life, the idea that I wouldn't need to do that anymore was a relief.
Of course, right then, I hadn't really had time for the wider ramifications to sink in. In fact, none of it really had. I was a simple boy who was way out of his depth and just doing his best to keep his head above water.
"I'll do my best to think of a way around your debt," he said, "but to do that I'll need to get over my own current situation. Which means we still need Agrat and what she can offer me."
"Which is? I figure you can start playing a little straighter with me, what's so special about Agrat?"
"She's a powerful figure but one that doesn't hold allegiance to the Powers that Be."
"I'm guessing that we're talking about..."
"I told you before, don't say His name." "Right, yeah... So what can she do for you."
"She can remove my Non Grata status. As it stands I can barely exist here. Nobody can see me or hear me."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"How would you feel if your identity was removed? That's my curse. I have no name and no presence here. I can't interact with anyone except through a mortal like you."
"You pissed him off, yes?"
"That's one way of putting it. He made it so that I could never come home because he saw me as a threat. I was exiled to walk the mortal world, invisible to any of my own kind."
"Having spent a little time with your own kind, did you ever think that maybe wasn't such a great loss?"
"I am who I am, and I want to go home. Agrat can help with that. But she'll only do it if she's forced to do so. We need to have something she wants, we need to be able to trade."
"Well, I'm all out of cash," I said, "and probably about to be kicked off the boat once word spreads that I shouldn't be here in the first place."
"They've got no reason to kick you off," he said. "Even if you were still mortal, that would make you unusual but you wouldn't be breaking the house rules."
"And what are they?"
"Few and far between. Hell is not a place that thrives in a restrictive atmosphere. There's really only one firm rule onboard this boat..."
"Well, look who it is," said a voice, interrupting the old man. The doors to the casino had opened to release both the desperate mixture of rattling chips and chatter and the floating figure of Axionus. "The poor loser." "Don't trust him," said the old man. "He may not look like much but he's a poisonous little shit."
Axionus was flanked by two lumbering heavies. They were both smartly dressed in three piece suits but their faces ruined the effect. Flat and charming as tombstones, they were dominated by the teeth in their lower jaw which jutted out making them look like walruses who had got a job in a bank.
"I was just thinking to myself," said Axionus, "what brings a mortal to The Bristle?"
"I just love a game of cards," I told him, looking to walk off up the gangway and find a bit of privacy again.
"Don't be rude," the baby-faced bastard said, one of his henchman moving to block my way. "I'm just interested in a little chit-chat."
He hovered in front of my face, his gently-beating wings stirring the foul-smelling air and serving it up to my nose.
"I don't meet a lot of mortals," he said, "not these days. Even during The Fastening they don't tend to end up in these parts. They stick to the tourist areas I guess. Here? The Bristle tends to be more for locals, you see the same old minor deities, demonic orders and corpses. So, how did you find yourself beating such an untrodden path?"
"Like I said, I was after a game or two. Nothing more to it."
"And what a game, eh? Didn't work out quite as you hoped, I know. That Agrat, she's a tricksy little thing isn't she?" He fluttered in even closer, an almost overpowering scent of mould and decay seeping from him. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if she had cheated. A big no no here of course but if anyone has the chutzpah to try it and succeed it's her. Still, what are you going to do if you have no proof, eh?" "Live forever apparently."
He laughed at that. It was like a toddler choking on its food. "Live forever, yes. It must seem that way to a mortal, but she won't leave you hanging for too many centuries I'm sure.
From experience, mortals really don't get the hang of longevity. After the first few hundred years they tend to find a cave to go slowly mad in. I'd say you'll be at your financial peak in say... three hundred years time? I'm intrigued though, what was it you wanted from her that was so valuable you were willing to gamble such a fate?"
"None of your business."
"No, no... I suppose not. But I want to know anyway, I am an insatiably curious little thing. Besides, I am not without power you know. Anything you might have wanted from Agrat is likely within my power to deliver. Tell me what it was, maybe we can cut a deal."
"He's lying," said the old man. "He's nowhere near powerful enough to do what we need, he's just fishing."
"That really is between me and her," I said. "Now if you'll excuse me I think I'll go back inside and get myself a drink, maybe watch some of the show."
I tried to push past him but the same heavy that had blocked my path earlier now raised a hefty, cloven hand and pressed it against my chest, pushing me back a foot or two.
"There a problem here boys?"
I looked over my shoulder to see the dancer I had been t
alking to earlier. She was now, thankfully, without her suckling attendant.
"There wasn't," sneered Axionus, "but now there seems to be a foul smell in the air."
"That's no way to speak to a lady," I said, without really thinking. I mean, this particular lady seemed to store aquatic creatures in her nether regions and was fond of airing them in plain view. Still, a mother's training dies hard and I was always taught to mind my ways around the gentler sex.
"A lady?" Axionus laughed again. It really was a godawful noise, like a lunatic pumping bellows into a bucket of snot. "You really are new to our world aren't you? This is no lady, this is a succubus, kid. One of the lower forms. Basically she's a rancid little cooze with ideas above her station. She's also going away now or I'll have one of my boys throw her over the side."
"I really don't like your manners," I told him, stepping between the girl and Axionus, like one of the more tender types of idiot. "And you'll have to go through me if you want to lay a hand on her."
"Mind yourself boy," said the old man. "That's all very sweet but he's right about one thing, that's not some young innocent you're defending the honour of."
"That's not the point," I said, forgetting nobody else could hear him in my anger. "She doesn't deserve to be called a god damned cooze!"
"It's nice that you're looking out for me, sweetheart," the girl said, taking my arm, "though talking to yourself isn't the best way to impress. Besides, this girl can fight her own bat tles."
"Will you run along?" Axionus said, his wings beating in agitation. "I am trying to have a conversation here and your smelly quim is putting me off my point."
"Right," I said, having had more than enough of my time on the boat so far. I'd lost all claim to my own life in a hand of cards, been threatened by a dog-faced freak, talked to by an animated pecker and now a baby with wings was rubbing up against every ounce of chivalry I had in me. Young Elwyn was not a man easily provoked, but he was just about fit to pop. "That's as much as I'm willing to hear from you." That said, I punched him right in his stupid toddler's face. He bounced back against the side of the boat, his wings flapping against the windows hard enough to crack the glass.
