Incubi - Edward Lee.wps

by phuc

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  CHAPTER 21

  "Father of the Earth," spoke the Prelate, "we live to serve your will."

  "Hail, Father, hail," responded the Surrogoti.

  "We give you flesh through blood, we give you body though spirit."

  "Flesh through blood," came the antiphon. "Body through spirit."

  The Prelate kissed the dolch. The cloaked Surrogoti stood at opposite points of the Trine. The Prelate turned to face them.

  They joined hands. They looked down and they prayed.

  "Walk with us, Father."

  "Protect us."

  "Bless us, Father, and deliver us. Give us strength to do your will in this holy time, we your unworthy servants. Let us walk unseen and speak unheard so that we may give to you again.

  Bless us and come among us, Father."

  "Flesh through blood."

  "Body through spirit."

  The Prelate felt risen. He closed his eyes and looked. Show me, he prayed. I beseech thee. He saw black like onyx and endless chasms of flesh and loss. The sky was red beyond the stygian terrascape; lattices of distant fires pulsed slowly throughout the chasms' rough clefts like glowing veins, and the merged black mutterings of chaos deafened the endless gorge. It was beautiful.

  The Prelate swept down into the abyss, no longer a man but a great svelte bird. Down and down, into lovely chaos, into the grace of the tumult. Visions soared past, dark blood colors and movements of things barely seen. Each crevice of the vale wound through oozing slabs of rock, escarpments and catacombs, riven earthworks and bottomless pits. Carry me away, thought the Prelate upon gorgeous black wings. The void's screams flooded his bead-black eyes with tears of joy, the fury of truth, its quickness and its infinity. The gorge descended further into tenebrae, leading him to some inverted pinnacle older than history. A mile or a thousand miles off he could see the blessed summit, but below the chasm's gushing black, movement began to reveal itself beneath the sheen of sulphurous smoke. Beaked scavengers picked through piles of twitching bodies; sluglike excrement-dwellers sloughed flesh off bones. Gaping holes in rock disgorged corpses charred to sticks, billowing smoke sooty with human fat. Beautiful, dreamed the Prelate.

  Figures less than human emerged from gaseous cracks: faceless, indescribable ushers that pawed at the pitiable human horde, drinking up their screams, inhaling their blood. Naked shapes in swarms struggled throughout slime and shit only to be trod upon by the chuckling attendants of this place. Bodies squirmed with vigor as skulls were cracked apart and plucked of their pink meat. Limbs were torqued out of sockets, spines were yanked out of backs, bodies were slowly and methodically squashed and gazed upon as bones snapped and organs burst. One usher sunk huge genitals into a squirming woman's rectum while another curiously twisted her head around and around till it came off. Other bodies were skillfully flensed by nimble claw-hands, dismantled piece by piece. Faces were shorn off living heads, fingers and toes were nibbled as tidbits. Grotesque genitals rose to plunder any orifice in reach. Inhuman hands pulled open scrotums to expose raw testicles to flames. Needle teeth sunk into glans, bit off nipples and breasts, hands and feet, ears, noses, scalps. The ushers rejoiced in their determined work, peerless in their execution. There was no end to the workings of their beauty. One of the ushers forced a man to eat parts of himself; others directed children to dissect their mothers alive, then themselves. Whole tangles of writhing human bodies were submerged into pits of steaming excrement, held under until they drowned, and huge, misshapen feet plodded systematically upon carpets of pregnant women till their wombs disbirthed. Placentae and fetuses were set aside upon hot rocks, to cook.

  Here was recompense. Here was truth.

  The Prelate looked for the day when he, too, would join the ushers in their holy onus.

  The earthworks led on. The Prelate glided serenely over turning fire and smoldering pits. The screams, like beautiful music, faded behind. Plinths studded the precipice, black cenotaphs and dolmens old as the world. Higher and higher the Prelate sailed, and down and down until soon there was no sound at all, only the serenity of this lightless, ancient place. He could feel the beauty of its presence, he could almost touch it, for it was coming...

  Closer, closer...

  The Prelate stopped.

  He hovered in infinity, staring.

  Before him stood the Father's obsidian throne, and in it:

  The Father.

  The Father of the Earth.

  "Aorista!"

  «« »»

  "To you we give our faith forever," wept the Prelate down into the Trine.

  "Flesh through blood," chorused the Surrogoti. "Body through spirit."

  The Prelate turned and held up the jarra. "My love, Father. My gift to thee." He held up the dolch.

  "And your gift to us."

  The Surrrogoti raised their arms.

  "Give us grace, O Father, to fulfill your destiny."

  "Baalzephon, hail!"

  "Aorista!"

  The cement floor, around the Trine, grew warm.

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  CHAPTER 22

  Veronica looked up from her worktable. She heard footsteps. But when she peeked into the hall, the stairwell was empty.

  The footsteps had sounded misplaced. They hadn't even sounded like they were coming from the stairs.

  It must be my brain thumping, she thought. Her work lay before her. The basic sketch was done.

  Yesterday's sketches had lacked something, but today she realized what.

  The sketches had lacked her.

  Last night's dream of the burning man had been the most detailed yet. The Ecstasy of the Flames, she thought. The Fire-Lover. The vacant space at the flame-lover's side needed to be filled.

  Veronica had filled that space with herself.

  Thus far her only attempts at self-portrait had been deeply expressionistic. This would have to be different, though; she would need to paint herself not in abstraction, but in a physical reality.

  She'd never done that before. The prospect excited her, but it was also a little bit scary.

  What if she failed?

  Sudden voices distracted her. Now she was sure people were in the hall. How could she have missed them when she looked a moment ago? The voices spoke in French. Marzen and Gilles were easy to tell apart. She got up again and listened through the door.

  Gibberish composed the entire exchange. Then a third voice spoke, in English. It was Khoronos.

  "She is tainted. I made a serious error."

  "Ja," Marzen agreed. "Vut do vee do?"

  "It was my error," Khoronos said. "I will assume my state of accountability."

  "Tomorrow?" Gilles asked.

  "Tomorrow night," Khoronos instructed. "But don't worry about it now. You must go."

  Gilles and Marzen departed down the hall. Veronica peeked out the door. Both men were dressed in sleek, dark suits. Marzen seemed to be carrying something. A black pouch?

  A door clicked shut to her right. That's where they'd been, in the room made of mirrors.

  Khoronos had called it his "muse room." What did he do in there? Veronica could picture him sitting in the silver room all alone, contemplating his wisdoms.

  She heard Marzen and Gilles leave out the front door. Then a car started up and pulled off.

  What had Khoronos said? She is tainted. Who did he mean? She shrugged it off. "Who cares?"

  she muttered, and meandered back to her table. It had been another blurred day. She'd sketched obliviously from noon, and now it was 10 p.m. Time seemed to have no meaning here, no weight.

  Now her mind wandered. Ginny and Amy must have worked the day away too; Veronica hadn't seen or heard them. She wondered if she would sleep with them again tonight but immediately answered No. She was finished with exploratory sex. The next person she slept with would be a man.

  What now?

  The sketch was finished. She used sketches only as outlines, much like a novelist. The sketch would not be part of t
he actual creative product. Khoronos had provided several sizes of canvas frames a good brand too, Anthes Universal, which was double-primed and suitable for any paint base. She chose a 24"x34"; she hated easels, preferring a Trident brace-frame, which Khoronos had also surprisingly provided. And he'd provided equally good paints, Gamblin oils, among the best in the world, and Pearl brushes.

  It was all here, but she still didn't feel ready to start. She still had not yet figured something out completely.

  Me, she thought.

  That was it. She didn't feel ready to paint her own likeness.

  The sketch looked all right, but it was just a sketch, a rudiment. It wasn't her. Suddenly she felt frustrated.

  I know, she thought just as suddenly.

  She rushed to the hall. Khoronos was here for them, wasn't he? Would he be mad if she disturbed him now, at this hour? She stood for a moment before his door, paused, then knocked.

  "Come in."

  "I'm sorry to dis " but then she stopped just inside. Khoronos sat shirtless in a lotus position. He was meditating.

  "I'll come back later," she said.

  "No, stay." He raised a finger, eyes closed. "Just a moment."

  Standing there, behind his back, discomfited her. She felt like an intrusion. Then he stood up and turned. The mirror-walled room was full of him, a thousand reflections at myriad angles.

  "It may seem wildly eccentric, or even exaggerated."

  "What?" she asked.

  "This room."

  "No, but..." she glanced around. "It's a little weird."

  "This room helps me think. It inspires me. When I'm here, alone, I feel as though I'm sitting in the lap of infinity."

  Veronica looked up and down. She saw her upturned face. She saw herself looking at herself between her feet. Even the ceiling and floor were mirrors.

  "I didn't mean to disturb you."

  "You're not. I'm here for you."

  Now she looked at him. He was slim yet crisply muscled, well-tanned. He wore white slacks and powder-blue shoes. His silver-blond hair hung like fine tinsel to his shoulders.

  "Your work is going well. I can see it. Am I right?"

  "Yes. Well, sort of."

  "But you've come upon a stumbling block."

  Veronica nodded. All that remained in the room now was the single chair made of chrome wire.

  Khoronos sat down in it and looked at her.

  "Tell me."

  How could she start without sounding stupid? "I'm painting my dream," she said. "I've got it all worked out now, but "

  "You are in the dream, correct?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "And you don't know how to render yourself?"

  "No, I don't. I have no idea. It's scary."

  "That you might not paint yourself well? Or is it merely the idea of painting yourself that scares you?"

  "The latter, I think."

  Khoronos subtly smiled. "Re-creation is often scary, particularly when we must re-create ourselves with our own hands. The possibility always exists that we may falter, and hence "

  "Destroy ourselves," Veronica finished.

  "Exactly." Suddenly he looked stern. "But had artists never dared to challenge themselves, then there would be no art."

  Veronica glanced down. "You're disappointed with me."

  "No," he said.

  "I don't know what to do. I don't think I've ever been this excited about a painting before. I want it to be good."

  "Then you must look into the face of your fear, grab it by the teeth, and accept the challenge."

  The room nettled her nerves. There was nowhere she could look without seeing herself look back. Each wall extended as a vanishing point of her own doubt. "I don't think I'm looking at myself right."

  "You are correct," Khoronos said.

  "Sometimes..." Her voice diminished. "Sometimes I don't think I've ever really seen myself at all."

  "But the impetus of all art, Ms. Polk, is seeing. You've learned to see many things. You merely have not yet extended your perceptions to the necessary extreme."

  "What's the trick?"

  "Transcension," he said.

  She thought about that, aware of the mirror-faces watching her. The faces seemed hopeful, expectant.

  Then Khoronos said, "Define art."

  Her expression confessed her desperation.

  Khoronos laughed. "Not an easy question, I know."

  "But you have the answer," she felt sure. "What?"

  "Art is transcension. There can be no other answer in the end. Art redefines all that we see, and without that redefinition, nothing has meaning, Ms. Polk. Nothing. To the entire realm of creation, the artist is but a vehicle of redefinition. Creation, in truth, is re-creation. Do you understand?"

  "I guess so," she said, but she didn't really.

  "Art is nothing more than the act of transcending the physical into the spiritual. That may sound cold, but it's also the greatest power on earth. We each assume our place in life, and the artist assumes his or her place too, merely in an exalted relativity."

  What is your place? she wanted to ask.

  He smiled as though he'd heard the thought. "The level of the success of any art depends on the success of the artist's power of perception. The power...to see."

  Now Veronica felt swamped. She felt drowning in a lake of riddles, reaching out for something to hold on to.

  "Do you understand now? Everything is meaningless until we give it meaning. Including ourselves."

  Veronica stared not only at him but at what he'd said.

  "But there's one more function, one more piece that makes art ultimate."

  "What?"

  "Transposition."

  The word buried her at once. None of you are ready yet, Gilles had told them last night. And Marzen: Not yet ready to transpose.

  She repeated the word in her mind. Transposition. It sounded echoic and vast, like a word spoken by a spirit.

  "There," Khoronos said. "Art is transcension, and transcension, ultimately, is transposition. Art transposes something small with something great. It becomes something else of itself, something more than what it was."

  Transposition, she thought again. The word now made her whole life, and all that she'd created in life, insignificant.

  "Now." Khoronos rubbed his palms together. "You are creating a specific work, a definition of your dream. But you can't move on for one obstruction. The obstruction is yourself. Do I have it right so far?"

  "Yes," Veronica said.

  "The dream is the paradigm of the project, and you are an ingredient of the dream, which means that you must not only redefine the dream, but you must also redefine yourself as a component of the dream. You must turn your creative instincts upon yourself."

  "How?"

  "By looking at yourself more completely than you ever have. Truth is the veil, Ms. Polk. You must look at yourself in truth."

  She felt sweat begin to trickle under her arms. It was what he'd said earlier that scared her most of all the challenge. It was easy to challenge ideals, it was easy to challenge concepts, insights and politics. But it was not easy to challenge oneself in the same light.

  "Look now," Khoronos commanded.

  She turned to a mirror panel and looked. She must look at herself as more than a woman; as an object of transposition. She knew that now, and that was how she tried to see.

  But... Nothing, she thought.

  "Tell me what you see."

  "Nothing."

  It was just a reflection, a simple, physical replication in glass of nothing more than she was in life.

  "Take off your clothes," Khoronos said.

  In the mirror, her eyes widened at the brash request. Khoronos stood up. "I'll leave if you're modest," he said.

  "No," she whispered.

  She stripped quickly, casting each garment aside like pieces of things no longer wanted. She tried to avert her eyes but couldn't. No matter where she looked, her own face was there, looking b
ack.

  Naked, she stood up straight. The reflection showed Khoronos appraising her in the silver background. He wasn't appraising her body, though. He was looking straight into her eyes.