“When Ambrose glimpsed the true nature of reality,” Van Diem said,
“he wanted to use it to gather power and women”—his face twisted in revulsion—“and money, of all the filthy things.”
Lang could imagine. Ambrose was the kind of man who, given three wishes, would wish for more wishes. And given control over his personal reality … Lang wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what he did with it.
“He refused to let me guide him or heed my warnings. Now he teeters on the brink of perversity.”
A chill slithered up Lang’s spine. “Why not leave him alone?”
“It is not just his reality he will shape. Once he exhausts his dark fantasies here, he will return to Oceanview and make your hospital and its patients his playthings. Then he will take your world.”
The chill in Lang’s spine crystallized into solid icy fear.
“And stopping him is a task that now falls to you, doctor.
“Me?! Why me?”
Van Diem sighed and looked weakened by the weight of his words. “I have tried to enter his mind,” he said, “and failed. I do not understand its dark passages. He and I come from different times and worlds. And even if I did eventually confront him, how could I defeat such a man? I would challenge him to an honorable duel. Do you think him gentleman enough to oblige me?”
Lang knew the instant Van Diem turned his back to count out ten paces for a Victorian duel, Ambrose would shoot him.
“No.”
Van Diem held out his meerschaum pipe. “I no longer need this. Take it.” He plucked three butterflies from the air and set them upon Lang’s cloak. “Besides,” he said, “you have another reason to find Dr. Ambrose? Some legal matter?”
“Yeah, I suppose I do.”
Lang took Van Diem’s pipe. It was still warm and the instant he touched it, his fear melted. He knew he’d have to face Dr. Ambrose. Alone.
The elephant carved into the meerschaum seemed to grin at Lang.
Lang pushed past the golden dragon door and into a hotel lobby. Loose floorboards creaked and overhead timbers shifted as if the entire place might collapse if he sneezed. Hallways led in every direction: passages lined with mirrors, tunnels that were pitch dark and cobwebbed, and corridors of stone that flickered with smoky torches.
The lobby had one occupant, a shaved gorilla in a red and silver robe. The creature stood blocking Lang’s path. It reeked of musk and High Karate aftershave.
“How may I serve you, O Wise Master?” the simian growled. Its massive hand rested upon a sheathed scimitar as long as Lang was tall.
Lang repressed the urge to back away from the monstrosity. Then he recognized the hawk nose of Ambrose upon the creature—as if it were his long-lost Neanderthal ancestor.
He knew the rest of its face as well; he’d seen it in his nightmares. It had appeared in Lang’s dreams at tax time, encouraging him to cheat, and when he had to choose between a practice in lucrative plastic surgery or geriatrics. The gorilla’s name was Greed.
Lang inhaled, gathering his bravado.
“It’s not you who can serve me,” Lang said as he struck a match and lit the pipe. “It’s I who will help you.”
Lang searched his childhood for pirate stories and treasure chests filled with doubloons.
One of the three butterflies upon his cloak fluttered free and spiraled into the fire. It burned in a flash of flame and pink smoke.
In Lang’s left hand, he felt the weight and cold of coins.
He offered them to the robed ape, who expectantly held out both hands.
“A little something for your retirement fund.” Lang spilled the doubloons into its grasping palms. “Now, if you can point the way to Dr. Ambrose?”
“Of course, sir,” it grumbled and nodded to a stone tunnel.
The coins in the ape’s hands overflowed. For every one he dropped three more appeared, clattering and rolling across the floor.
It crouched to pick these up, but more appeared. The ape shifted its hoarded coins into the lap of its robe, but this only caused more to spill—and more coins appeared, until he was knee deep in the metal, struggling to hold it all.
Lang left it there to drown in his riches, and entered the tunnel.
The black basalt passage sucked the light from the torches set every six paces into its walls.
Lang looked back and saw the entrance seal behind him. A spike of smothering claustrophobia stabbed him, making him dizzy and nauseated.
He knelt and put his head between his knees and took a few deep breaths.
There he saw tracks in the dirt: loafers, size thirteen. They could have been Ambrose’s … but they faded with every step until they vanished.
Lang brushed the dirt away and found a gray tile, and then a blue one. Another gray and another blue made an alternating pattern. It was the floor from Oceanview.
Lang stood and set his feet firmly upon the gritty tiles, shuffling forward.
Surrounding him he heard the grinding of stone over stone, but he didn’t focus on that. Instead, he closed his eyes and imagined the smells of Mercurochrome and bedpans, the sounds of heart monitors and the whispered gossip of nurses.
Lang bumped into something, opened his eyes, and saw the service cart he had knocked into earlier that evening. It still held plates with half-eaten creamed chicken, rice, and lime Jell-O.
Lang spied Ambrose’s office and eased toward it, ducking around the open door.
The room was empty, dust in the corners, and the windows painted black.
Not here? Where would he be? If this were Lang’s fantasy, he’d have taken the corner office upstairs, the one with the million-dollar view of the coast. The office of the Chief of Staff.
Lang crept to the stairs and plodded up three flights to the administrative floor. The halls were deserted. The odor of burning tar lingered in the air.
The door to the Chief of Staff’s office was shut, but beyond the frosted window Lang saw shadows and the flicker of flames.
He eased it open.
The walls were red daub, the floor dirt. A hookah powered by greasy pumps and rusted steel chambers sat in the center, taking up most of the space in the once-executive office. Ambrose sat cross-legged before it and sucked without joy or appreciation, chewing the end of the tube. His skin was sallow and drawn tight, and his hair had fallen out and lay scattered about him.
Lightning flashed and Lang’s attention was drawn to the window. The glass had been shattered, and outside black frothy waves clawed at the coast. Lightning lanced the towering waves and he thought he caught a split-second glimpse of tentacles the size of skyscrapers rising from the water.
“I thought someone might figure it all out,” Ambrose croaked. “I’m glad it was you.”
Beetles covered Ambrose, crawling over his scalp and into his ears. There were fat ruby-red ones, slender green ones, black behemoths the size of his fist with rhinoceros horns, and ladybugs with heart-shaped speckles. They crawled on the floor, walls, and ceiling,
A yellow scarab landed on Lang’s arm and he brushed it off.
Ambrose grasped a plump red beetle and set the squirming creature into the bowl. He incinerated the thing, inhaled, and exhaled an oily smoke. “Better you than the police, some hospital administrator, or the old man. You, at least, might be able to understand me.”
“You have to stop,” Lang whispered.
“Why?” Ambrose coughed a laugh. “I’ve just started.”
Lang hefted Van Diem’s pipe. “I’ve just started too,” he said.
That had been a threat, not a statement, and Ambrose understood his intent perfectly.
Ambrose narrowed his watery gaze. “We’ve had our differences in the past, Lang, but you have the talent to appreciate what’s at stake. We can split the universe. Not fifty-fifty, of course, but with you as a”—he considered—“a junior partner. Think of all the things we can do. All the things we can take!”
Lang wondered if he could use the power and
not be twisted by it. He could end war, rid the world of famine, cure the sick … .
“Let me show you how it’s done,” Ambrose said. He inhaled and his chest purred, thick with phlegm. His eyes were solid black and fixed upon Lang.
… and if it had been anyone other than Ambrose, he might have been tempted.
“I don’t think so,” Lang said.
Neither Ambrose nor Lang moved for a heartbeat.
Ambrose’s lips quavered about the nozzle of the hookah in a half-formed smile. He then snatched a beetle from the air with inhuman speed and crunched it into the bowl.
Lang grabbed for his box of matches, fumbled them open … and the matches and meerschaum pipe dropped to the floor.
Flame popped from Ambrose’s index finger and he lit the insect; it screamed. He drew smoke into the hookah’s chamber, and then sucked the smoke into his body.
The daub walls stretched and pinged into black metal and spikes extruded. Iron Maidens dangled from hooks.
Lang smelled blood and charred meat.
“Too slow,” Ambrose cooed. “I win. Now we have fun.”
Lang wasn’t scared, though. Fire boiled in his blood. Ambrose won? Not in a million years would he let that happen. If he wanted a real fight, he’d get one—and not a fair duel like Sir Eustace Carter Van Diem would have offered, either.
No, this evening, Lang fought to win.
“Split this fifty-fifty.” Lang drew his flintlock, cocked it, and squeezed the trigger.
In another reality, an old man by the name of Van Diem passed on in the middle of the night from natural causes. And in some other reality, Dr. Lang shot and killed Dr. Ambrose, was subsequently tried, convicted, and sentenced to the gas chamber.
But those were realities Dr. Robert Lang, Chief of Staff of the Oceanview Senior Care Center, did not care to pursue. There were more important things on his mind.
He paused to admire the half-finished oil painting on the easel. It was a fantasy of the ocean, a city floating off the coast with mermaids and dolphins splashing in the surf.
It was silly, but it made him smile. He’d have to visit the place one day.
In the meantime, he had rounds to perform and sick patients to comfort. He also had tea scheduled this afternoon with Van Diem … and after hours, who knew what they’d discover in their explorations?
He lit his meerschaum pipe and inhaled a rich vanilla smoke.
Outside the picture window of his office, monarch butterflies swarmed against the glass, struggling to get in, their fluttering wings in the sunlight looking like jewels.
Perfection
BY LYNN FLEWELLING
Lynn Flewelling is best known for her two fantasy novel series: the ongoing Nightrunner books (Luck in the Shadows, Stalking Darkness, and Traitor’s Moon) and the Tamír trilogy (The Bone Doll’s Twin and Hidden Warrior, with the concluding volume forthcoming in 2006). Set in a politically complex mythical world, Flewelling’s tales blend the classic elements of high fantasy with cloak and dagger mystery, gender and sexuality, the supernatural, and more than a dash of humor. Flewelling’s books have been translated into more than a dozen languages and her articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest, Speculations, and several books.
Flewelling thinks mostly in novel lengths, but she does manage the occasional short story. “Perfection” is set in a far-off corner of her fantasy world, but differs considerably from her usual tone. The idea for the story came to Flewelling after rereading some of Edwardian satirist Saki’s short stories. “I love his wry twists and turns, subtle sarcasm and unexpected revelations,” she explains. “I’m also fascinated by ancient technologies. It’s amazing, the gadgets and engineering marvels people came up with in what we consider pretechnology societies. The idea for ‘Perfection’ just took root one day and pulled all these elements together.”
Lynn Flewelling lives in East Aurora, New York.
Looking into the Emperor’s face for the first time, Myriel knew the rumors were all true.
In deference to her age and reputation, she had been allowed a low chair below the golden dais. The master builder bowed deeply, then sat and rubbed absently at her aching knees. He will begin as they all do, she thought, and was not mistaken.
“In my youth, Mistress Myriel, I visited the temple you designed for Queen Arclia,” the Emperor told her, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “I remember the mechanical birds you created, that sang at dawn each day.”
Myriel found herself staring at his hands as he talked. He was a lean, sharp-eyed man, scarred from years of conquest, yet his hands were large, fine, expressive. Hands that might just as easily have been trained to the artist’s brush or chisel.
“During my first great campaign I captured the pleasure gardens you laid out in Lower Ankgar,” he went on. “More recently, I passed the hot weeks of summer in the new palace you built for the King of Zengat. Some claim you are a wizard, the way you force stone to your will.”
“It takes no force, August Majesty, merely an understanding of the nature and limits of my materials,” she replied.
The Emperor’s ministers frowned and whispered behind him, shocked at her audacity, but the Emperor smiled knowingly. They were both masters of their chosen crafts; a show of false modesty would be pointless.
“Is it right, do you think, that the kings who serve me should be better sheltered than their emperor?” he asked.
“Certainly not, August Majesty.”
“Then build me a palace, Mistress Myriel, one such as the world has never seen! Create devices and delights that will illuminate the memory of my reign through the ages. The wealth of the Empire and her finest craftsmen are at your command, in return for your greatest work. Give me a palace that will never be outshone. Give me—perfection!”
Such naked vanity in that long face! She saw it in most of her patrons. “Make mine the best, the largest, the greatest!” they all demanded, like children clamoring at a baker’s booth. But there was more in this man’s eyes than mere ego. The public buildings he’d commissioned during his reign were unparalleled in grace and opulence, and spoke of an artist’s soul.
This devourer of lands and kingdoms went on, using his fine hands to paint images on the air—joists and buttressing, incised plasterwork, hypocausts, atriums, and gardens. He understood perfectly how a well-conceived structure created its own unique magic without any wizardly tricks. A fine house influenced the people who dwelt within its walls. The placement of a window, the color of a frieze, or the curve of a newel post—every element touched by eye or hand touched back, shaping the soul.
This grizzled warrior understood her work as no other patron ever had, yet there lay the irony. Such passion combined with such avarice and lust for power in one heart—it was like yoking a colt to an ox; they could not pull true.
It was an open secret that many of the artists and craftsmen whom the Emperor had patronized had not lived long to enjoy the glory. Every apprentice knew the legend of King Iregi, who’d put out his master builder’s eyes after the completion of a magnificent temple, only to have the man dictate the plans for a greater one to a drafting scribe years later. Apparently the Emperor knew this tale, too, and meant to improve upon it. The great muralist Sartin had fallen from a scaffold the day his work at the Temple of the Solstice was completed. Mikos of Dardia, whom Myriel had loved like a son, had sickened and died within a moon’s turning of his final chisel stroke on the Emperor’s portrait statue. And there were others, so many others.
“Will you build me such a palace, Mistress?” the Emperor asked with disarming earnestness. He knew she could not be commanded to great work.
I am a very old woman, she thought, rising to her feet and bowing. The gods honor me, placing such a commission in my path, even if it is to be my last. “Most Exalted Majesty, I accept the commission.”
“How long, Mistress Myriel? How long until I can walk the halls of my palace?” And there it was again, that spark of greed marr
ing the fine soul.
“With your resources, August One, five years.” Time enough to arrange her affairs, and to groom and safely disperse her disciples, who would carry on her methods far from this decadent court. “The creation is yours, August One. I am but the instrument which gives it form. I will accept no other commissions and oversee every detail myself. I promise you what you have asked. This shall be a palace like no other.”
This pleased the Emperor very much indeed.
Myriel had never had such riches at her disposal, and the work began well. The site chosen was atop a rise just outside the capital. From here the Emperor could see for many miles on a clear day—south across the water to the island nation of Tyrime, whose capital he’d razed and salted after an uprising ten years earlier. Only sheep roamed that island now. To the west, just beyond the execution grounds, lay rolling acres of fine vineyards, tended by legions of slaves bearing the brand of the Emperor’s Vintners on their thighs.
The ground was rocky and solid, offering a sure foundation. The lay of the land allowed exact east-west alignments that would ensure health and prosperity for future occupants. The building site was well watered, too, and Myriel and the Emperor spent many happy hours designing pools and waterfalls for the gardens.
The man’s taste was impeccable; conservative of ornament, but lavish in materials. The first year he enslaved a small principality to the south, securing their famed quarries of pure white marble. The following year, after subduing the tiny kingdom of Irman, he crucified most of the male population but spared their exceptional craftsmen, transporting one hundred of the best tile glaziers to the workers’ camp.
The capital prospered and poverty virtually disappeared, for anyone with a strong back soon found work at the new palace.
It took seventeen months to lay the sewers, drains, wells, and foundations. After that the walls seemed to sprout up like living things as the huge white blocks were laid in row upon row from dawn to dusk.
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