The Devil's Workshop

by Donnally Miller

  “Hello, darling.” Venus turned to him and smiled.

  Stuart fell trembling to his knees. “I adore you. I worship you. I would do anything for you.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Time, patting him on the back. “We know you would. Here,” gesturing to the blindfolded youth, “is her son Cupid.”

  Cupid, unable to see, smiled and waved awkwardly in the wrong direction. “Nice to meet you.”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” said Stuart.

  “And this charming fellow,” said Time, pointing to the idiot in motley, “is Folly.”

  Folly gave a large fart.

  “The four of us, as you can see, are playing a game, and this is a thrilling moment because you are one of the pieces in the game, and it’s not very often that the pieces know where to find us.”

  “But . . . I didn’t know where to find you,” said Stuart.

  “You knew the key to open the gate.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes. Well I did help just a little, it was my turn you know.” Time looked at Stuart, and despite the mask’s fixed expression, he gave Stuart the feeling something was expected of him, something like the answer to a difficult riddle, perhaps. Stuart, however, had no idea what the riddle was. “It was those seven steps backwards, that’s what opens the gate.”

  “Seven steps backwards?”

  “You don’t remember them, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you took them, and now you’re here. You can’t argue with that.”

  “I’m here.”

  “Yes.”

  “But where is this?”

  “This place? This place is nowhere.”

  “I see. It’s nowhere. But nowhere is not anywhere at all. Where actually is this place? And how did I get here?”

  “I told you, you opened the gate and came in. And this is the precise spot where nowhere is located.”

  “Nowhere is here?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can that be?”

  “The universe is infinite in extent, so it follows that it must include all places, even places that don’t exist.”

  Stuart was silent, trying to grasp this concept.

  “Furthermore, it also follows that every place in the universe is the exact center of the universe. So the one place that can’t exist is the one place that’s not the center of the universe, which is nowhere, where we are now.”

  “We are?”

  “Yes. And don’t get me started on now.”

  Stuart thought this over. Then he asked, “Is there any possibility I will ever get back to where I was? You see, it’s very important that I get to San Dorio.”

  “I think San Dorio is no longer, as they say, in the cards. Please understand, you’ve arrived at just the right moment to help fix a terrible problem.”

  “I have?”

  “Yes. The Son of Light was killed. I know, it’s not your fault. And it didn’t seem like such a bad idea at the time, but ever since, all the love affairs have been going wrong. Why is that a problem, you ask. Personally, I don’t care, but Venus and Cupid do and they work as a team. I know, don’t say it, that’s against the rules, but try telling that to the two of them. And all they care about is love affairs. That’s why there are always so many damn love stories. Love stories are the cockroaches of the human narrative; there’s just no getting rid of them. And those two are getting a bit miffed. We tried making another Child of Light, but that’s gone wrong too and now they’ve said if they don’t get the Son of Light back they are going to pick up their pieces and go home. And that would be it. The game would be over before it was finished. Well, we can’t have that, can we . . .? Can we?” This second ‘can we’ was spoken a bit more insistently.

  Stuart realized the question was not rhetorical. He’d been caught off guard looking at the mask with its expression of constant unchanging joviality. “Oh, of course not.”

  “No, of course not. Any simpleton could see that.”

  Here Folly farted again.

  “Is that all he ever does?”

  “Oh, you can’t imagine. When it’s his turn he never does anything sensible. Of course not. He’s forever shoving dirt up his nose or setting fire to his socks. One turn he tried to set his shirt cuffs alight and the sparks got into the game board and caused no end of trouble.”

  At this Folly gave a big smile. The effect was slightly macabre.

  “And his card play is actually worse than his manners if you can conceive of such a thing. Actually I think he eats the cards more than he plays them. You can see several that have been chewed on. The Pique Dame has recently gone missing and I suspect I know what’s happened to her.” Here Time placed the monocle firmly in his eye and screwed it in, so that it actually remained in place longer than a few seconds. He glared at Folly, who quickly wiped the smile from his face. “It’s disgraceful. But to return to what we were talking about, it was just recently my turn and I used that turn to bring you here. You see I’ve devised a plan to help us with this problem. But first it’s Venus’s turn. Let me give her the dice while I explain.”

  He handed Venus the dice. She raised them over her head, giving them a vigorous shake and then, shouting “Snake eyes or bust!” rolled them on the table. There were a number of dice, none the same size or bearing the same number of sides. Some displayed various numbers of spots while others depicted what resembled alchemical symbols. All the players, excepting the blindfolded Cupid, leaned over and scrutinized them. Venus then drew a card from one of the piles at the edge of the board and laid it down. It bore a picture of a coven of witches gathered round a large bubbling cauldron at a crossroads in the middle of a blinding thunderstorm at night. Underneath were the words, ‘The Witches’ Sabbat.’ Venus now turned her attention to an area of the Forgotten Forest and as she looked at it, without its becoming any larger, it grew more detailed till it seemed to fill the entire room, and in it they could see a clearing in the woods and Deirdre standing on a raised dais. Around her were gathered many witches. She upheld her arms and spoke.

  “Sisters, the hour of our triumph is upon us.” This was met with many screeches and much wailing. “God is to fall from his pedestal, the Devil will triumph, and all will be free!” A number of small, menacing horned demons were popping into and out of existence around her where she stood.

  “This is the sort of thing Deirdre gets away with now the Son of Light is no more, and there’s nothing Venus can do to control her,” Time whispered in Stuart’s ear. “Sometimes these game pieces suffer from delusions of grandeur, which at the moment are not appearing particularly delusive. So we’ve got to bring him back. And you’re the right one for the job. You were practically on the spot when he was done away with.”

  “I was?”

  “Do you recall purchasing a nosegay to present to Stephie Eliot the night you’d arranged a tryst?”

  The sudden change of subject caught Stuart by surprise. It took a moment. “Yes. I acquired it from Madam Fortunata. Something of a hedge witch, but I’d heard good things about her.”

  “Just as you were making that acquisition the Son of Light was being done away with round the back of her cottage. So we’ve got to go backwards in time and see that that doesn’t happen. But now it’s Cupid’s turn. Let’s see what he does.”

  Cupid felt around the surface of the game board till he’d gathered a fair number of dice. He shook them and tossed them in the air. They landed all over, some on the table and some on the floor. Everyone except Cupid kneeled down to find the scattered dice and then carefully preserving the side that had landed on top, placed them on the game board. When they reemerged from under the table they saw that the card Venus had placed earlier had changed. There was now a man they hadn’t seen before dressed in a scarlet coat with silver buttons. And the words at the bottom of the card had also changed. Now they read, ‘The Devil’s Workshop.’

  “Oh, I just hate it when the cards change on their own, don’t you?” It w
asn’t clear whom Venus was addressing. Stuart just stared into her eyes and was overcome by a wave of awe and adoration and the certainty that the whole purpose of his life was simply to do anything for this woman.

  Time brought him back to earth by muttering, “Look at the board now.”

  He saw that next to Deirdre there was a short man in a broad-brimmed hat and a youth with red hair. The man was addressing the witches. “It’s been a great deal of work and the time it has taken has been far more than I’d have thought. The seeds of compassion and human empathy had grown roots deeper than one would have believed possible, but they’re pretty much torn up by now. This is the time when we—“ He suddenly looked up as a shadow passed overhead. Venus had waved her hands over where the traveling man was standing and a huge bird of prey was descending, its talons thrust out to grab him.

  “She’s cheating!” shouted Time. “It’s not her turn! She always does that. And she’s not even doing it to help herself. She does it to help her son.”

  “Well he needs the help,” said Venus. “He’s blindfolded.”

  “You see,” declared Time, “she always does that. The two of them gang up. It’s not fair.”

  Meanwhile, on the game board, the large bird of prey was now accompanied by other smaller birds on the lookout for quarry of their own. The short man ran off grabbing for his hat as it blew away. A great gusty wind from the flapping of the wings rippled through the trees and the witches’ robes. Fergus dashed off and mounted his black stallion, tearing away into the trees to escape the birds pursuing him, but the traveling man, under the shadow of dark wings, had no such luck. The great bird of prey clasped him in its talons, then flew away across the sea, out of view of the players. In the place where he’d stood there was now a man in a scarlet coat with silver buttons. It was almost impossible to look at him because he was coming apart and falling together all at the same time. He strutted majestically in front of the witches, making artful gestures with his hands.

  Cupid flapped his wings, rising above the game board. He reached for an arrow in his quiver, but became entangled with the chandelier. He attempted to lower himself while placing an arrow in his bow. His wings flapped more slowly as he revolved in the air, the arrow pointing at one person after another as he rotated counter clockwise. When he’d reached a point where the arrow pointed at the coven he released it. It struck one of the witches in the breast. She immediately turned to the witch next to her and embraced her. Cupid took more arrows and shot them also at the witches. When the witches were struck they would gibber deliriously and fling themselves wantonly into their sisters’ arms, or run to fall breathless at the Devil’s feet in a bacchanal of Satanic lust.

  Meanwhile, Time picked up the thread of what he’d been telling Stuart earlier. “You’d be surprised all that goes on round Madam Fortunata’s cottage. That’s our major pivot point for controlling what happens down below.”

  “You mean Fortunata is actually a powerful witch?”

  “Oh, no, she’s just an old fraud. It’s Henry we rely on. He’s a good chap and he’s been around for years and years. Very dependable.”

  “Henry . . .? I don’t recall any Henry. There wasn’t a man around.”

  “No? An old man with a large nose and spectacles, bent over, wearing a gray coat with long tails and –“

  “Oh, Henry! That’s her parrot. He’s just an old, dirty parrot. He doesn’t do anything.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “All he does is sit on her shoulder and repeat the gibberish she speaks. Honestly, I don’t know why she keeps him.”

  “Oh . . . Well I suppose that explains a few things. But now it’s Folly’s turn. Let’s watch.”

  Folly picked up the dice. He tried putting one or two in his mouth. Time slapped his hand away. “None of that. Now roll.” He turned to Stuart and said, “You see what I have to put up with. What with Venus’s cheating and Folly’s imbecilities it’s amazing the game hasn’t fallen into an absolute mare’s nest long ago. It’s a good job everyone can rely on me to keep things moving steadily along. However I’m afraid we’re going to have to throw a little crimp into that too.”

  “But I don’t see any sign of you actually doing anything,” Venus stated angrily. “We’re not going to stand for it forever. We said we’d leave and we mean it.” She took Cupid by the hand. “Come, honey, we’re going. This has been the worst game we’ve ever played. Amor vincit omnia my ass.” She snatched her cards together and then went about picking up some of the pieces. Just then everyone was startled by what sounded like a drum roll of ominous thunder, but was only Folly letting loose a mighty fart as he picked up three of the dice and tried to juggle them. He was unsuccessful and the dice fell to the table. Once again everyone except Cupid leaned over to scrutinize the throw.

  Folly said, “Horse piss,” and then laughed uncontrollably. Stuart started to say something but realized what he’d been about to say was meaningless. He sounded the words he was going to speak in his mind, marveling at how the intonation went up and down, sometimes accompanied by a breath of air or a clicking of teeth, straining to catch at what the significance of it all had been. Folly gave a big grin and snapping his fingers produced a spark setting one of the cards alight. On the game board, the people were deflating, as if the air had been let out of them, sounds running down their sides like candle drippings, their eyes and mouths sinking into their faces. Folly lifted the burning card to his head, as if trying to set his cap on fire. Some untidy locks escaping from the cap’s edge began to sizzle. Trees near the Devil started to burn. Shadows just beyond the edge of the board grew deeper and shifted, taking on shapes, eldritch, cruel, deformed beyond imagining. He felt giddy and he gripped, as figures toppled, tumbling lengthwise along the ground, spinning inside veils of congealed lightning, vanishing in dust – they were on top of him, hitting with hammers, hitting him crashing against the ground – the veils rode up – howling with beautiful rage stepping on and crushing – running to a high spot, turning around, the silence broken by the voice, “And just in the nick of time, if I do say so myself, it’s my turn.” Dice rattling like the choreography of ritual combat, he reared high above the trees and knocked them to one side – the faces of all the dice were completely blank. Dragged by shoulders like a toy soldier, away from the vanishing board, roaring in clouds, ahead the walls of the world buried in sudden darkness, a dimly lit tunnel, stamping of colossal feet. All the vacancies inside him reared up becoming monstrous buildings – impression of traversing vast distances – diamond-tufted gardens flicker past, minarets of foam. Swept up masses of discarded time huddled against the wall of the tunnel, dead things, skeletons shrouded in cobwebs, but he couldn’t see any of them distinctly enough to be certain. Also, as they moved further from the game board the sounds started to become intelligible. Stuart realized there was some meaning associated with the changes in modulation given to the various hoots and whistles Time was making. He realized Time was talking about something, something that mattered. He was talking about how to go back in time, and he was giving directions. Stuart tried to listen closely since he was sure this was all very, very important.

  “. . . and I hate to do it since one of the rules of the game is that you can’t go back in time, but I’ve found, the longer I play, that you don’t actually know what the rules are until you’ve obeyed them, up till then the rules aren’t real rules, they’re only rule-like.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Stuart.

  “Well that means, it’s kind of hard to explain, but I’ll try. You see, when we started this game there were five players, not four. The fifth was my daughter. Would you like me to tell you a story about her?”

  “Yes, please.”

  There was a rather long pause. Stuart saw that the walls of the tunnel were changing. Now there were windows through which he could see rows of poplars and elms laid out with grand paths between, and marble fountains spraying jets of crystal water into bright,
sunlit air. Then Time asked, “So, do you understand?”

  “Understand what?”

  “How we go back in time.”

  “I thought that’s what you were going to explain.”

  “Well, that’s the best explanation I can give. You see I can get to any instant in the past or the future. The only instant that’s really tricky, that I seem to keep just missing, is now.” Time gave him a wink. You’re probably wondering how he did that. So was Stuart. “Here we are in Madam Fortunata’s cottage.”

  Stuart turned around and there was Madam Fortunata presenting him with the nosegay for Stephie.

  “Be certain to give this to her the moment you meet, and have her wear it on her collar.”

  “I will do so. Here’s your payment.” He handed her a silver guinea.

  “Oh, and a very handsome payment it is. For this you can be sure the effect will be everything you could wish for.”

  “Thank you.” He saw Henry on his perch in the background.

  “And now,” said Time, “instead of exiting through the front door as you did on that occasion, I am going to lead you to the back door. Just one slight change, and it effects so much.”

  “I didn’t know there was a back door.”

  “Oh, but there is. This is one of the most important things in life. There must always be a back door. Even front doors aren’t required in all cases, but a back door always.” Time was now leading him down a stairway into a cellar. He could see chains and hooks hanging from the ceiling.

  “Isn’t this going to create a big muddle? I’d imagine changing things in the past would be very dicey. If you’re going back to change something that’s already happened, that would mean that part of the past is now in the future, or it will be in the future, or – oh, I think I’m getting a headache.”

  “Don’t worry. Everything’s been taken care of.”

  “And now I’m going to be here in the past, which is now the present, instead of in the future where I belong. Won’t that cause problems?”

  “I told you not to worry. I can assure you everything will be alright.”