by Duncan, Hal
A Fun-for-all Wake
The hollow ways of gallowries & hallways echo with his footsteps, echo empty as the void, the void, the void he would avoid. If duty is to be fulfilled, he thinks, does that not mean it’s empty? Oh, but there would be talk. The court’s darkartist is a role that brings suspicion as it is. Student & scholar, poet & painter, devil’s advocate in matters of debate, he’s made few friends since his ascent to the rank. If he were not to play the role of the begrieved to their content, not show his face to all the mourning mass, to satisfy their empathy & sympathy, their empty sim of pity, their suspicions would become…
— Open, he calls.
•
He strides into the modern marble temple of authority, vast valour hall of unkin, the regal court filled with the city’s lords, the senators & centurians of the soul. The high echelons of the empyreal city form a complex system of blooder dynasties & house vendettas, notable in the tableaux of tables but refractured & confugued by a more subtle politics of individuals intermingling in covert & overt companies & corps, alliances & betrayals, here a huddle of young warriors from different houses, there a clique of grand dams sat together. To ignore it is to let it win but then to challenge it is to be drawn in. Out in the streets the rebels reject all rule, rise up in revolution, but… to fight the Empyre is to become it. The darkartist knows there has to be another way, some way away.
•
From high vaults of an artificial sky, cerulean light sheens down upon a full feast slain out on the silk-draped tables. A zodiacal mandala of snow-white chariots & cherubs, radiant signs & sigils, wheels across the ceiling, a living cornicing of cloud. Walls of tall mirrors alternate with weights of azure draperies & intricate screens, fractal tapestries of ever-changing details. It’s a vivid, velvet room with all its scents of banqueting, its sounds a bold & bawdy rabelaisian rubble, sunk in cacophonous ruin. The unkin drown their sorrows in lush liquid light. They fight the night with vibrancy of painted glamour.
He remembers his blooder’s ascension to lightprince, the glory of the sun that shone in his words when the craftsmith stepped back & he rose, the new graving burning in him, & gave the call.
•
A summary of all he sees, then: a hall of Babylon’s barbarians; a fun-for-all wake of chaos; & above it all the table of the Seven, the high table where the warduke & the craftsmith & the lawscribe, the songweaver boy & wildhunter girl, sit waiting. There are two seats empty still, his own to the far left, the other to the right. The seats of the darkartist & the lightprince.
The masque goes on, a neverending feast of celebration, low but loudening laughter. Howls & hails sound at his entrance as they rise to meet him, greet him. But he knows foul well that even as they welcome him they cannot look him in the eyes; they cannot like him in the role.
Well, fuck you all for being here, he thinks.
The Velvet Gauntlet
Into the seeming chaos of the company, he strides, thru all the angels of the secret kingdom, thru the belohim & cainan, the damnonii & athenatoi, the stonebuilders, truthmillers & soulfishers, all the leaders & officiates of the houses, castes & guilds, the sweating, seated, standing, sobbing, sodden mass of them, all gathered in this place by the new names that bind these gods of history now to one grand host, all here to show their loyalty to the slain. He walks the velvet gauntlet of their opulent & splendorous show of dolour.
He sees it on their faces, how they hate that he’s the only choice to take the role—the craftsmith & the lawscribe both too old & the songweaver just a boy. The wildhunter would have worn the glory better but she’s needed now to lead them in the hunt. He doesn’t like it any more than them, but this is how it is, how it has always been.
•
One brave steps out into his path.
— M’sire, our hearts are with you. Will you ride with us to hunt the killers? When the glory’s yours, I mean?
He remembers the change in his blooder, turned from songweaver to lightprince, stepping into the identity the present warduke filled before him.
Don’t look so glum, he’d said before the ceremony. I’ll still be me; it’s just that my song will be light on steel and stone instead of… shapes in the air. You know I think revenge is… ugly. That won’t change.
It had.
— Blood for blood, m’sire, another youngblood says. We are all broken on this day. There must be blood for blood. Have you scried your blooder’s murderers, m’sire?
Tell me, his blooder had said to the old darkartist as he stood there, newborn in the glory. Have you scried the old warduke’s murderers?
And they’d all turned—even the warduke, one-time lightprince, grey & silent in his new authority of resolve rather than action—towards the old darkartist, who had laughed, broken & bitter.
Who do you fucking think put that old dog out of his misery?
•
They stand across his path now & he hears the testing in their voices. Not all darkartists fall so fully & so finally as his predecessor, but it seems to be a risk of the role, in trying so hard to understand the twisting logic of the bitmites, to become twisted oneself, to turn. They want to hear his sorrow as a proof of innocence.
Voyeurs & vultures, keep your misery, he thinks. Spite in my face, with honesty.
He shakes his head. His voice is forced but firm.
— Not all deaths are murders, he says. It was an accident.
He sees suspicion flicker in their faces, incomprehension of his mood of speech, the soft restraint of spartan tenderness with something of violence underneath, intense in its tension. They have no shadows in their words. Desolumn-eyed, he simply stares down both the braves in front of him; one first, & then the other, they lower eyes, step to the side.
•
They will not face the features that resemble all too finely the fair figure of his golden blooder. Slight & sleek, he almost carries the same grace, but he is pale against the memory, dark night to his other’s day, winter to his summer, ice to his fire. Still, when he was blooded, when his sweet blooder sang the Cant that graved a new truth in his soul—join us; you’re unkin—something of the other’s self passed into him, it seems, rewrote him as a dark reflection; & the comparison of appearances disturbs them all.
He is the ghost at his blooder’s wake.
— Come ride with us in raptor’s rapture, calls another from behind him as he walks on thru the hall. Come fight with us. Come claim your right.
He doesn’t even turn.
— It was an accident, he says.
A Bowl of Ash
His blooder met the truth he was looking for all his afterlife, as angel warrior, as songweaver, & at last as lightprince, out in the fields, far out into the Hinter. Blinded by sunlight & his golden hair, the wildhunter had told them weeping, he stepped out where the cool sleek silver chrome of a synthe bolt from a disruptor took him down. A haunting accident. Three young men out in search of fun & game, burning the road of all dust with their ruptors, hounding thru the grain. The Hinter had built up a thirst though, & his blooder’s gathering made rain, warm rain.
The killers fled, & talk of murder bred.
•
He stands at the high table now, ready to take his seat.
— Harpies, furies, valkyries await your call, warns the wildhunter. A whole armoury of angel anger calls you out. If you deny your loss… the murdered future, murdered past… the blood cries out. They call you out into eternal now, to slay, to ride with them in wild infinity. It is the way it’s done. For every one of us they kill, we slaughter one in ten of them.
He sits down in his blooder’s chair. They need fire in the Hinter’s night. There has to be a lightprince. So, to end the wake, after his eulogy, the craftsmith will bring out a vial of bitmite ink & grave the glory on his chest, right down into his heart. If they can find it. Then…
He remembers watching the old darkartist’s slaugh
ter from his seat down with the annunaki, seeing his blooder’s haloed face look out at him, a hint of doubt in his decision. But still he’d said it:
Decimate the daimons.
•
His mouth dry of all saliva, he chews without appetite on harvest hog, forestalling the inevitable, the toast & what comes after. He feels almost feverish, knowing what he’s about to do. His mind blanks out the sounds of banquet in vin blanque & rich red wine, stonebuilders’ talk of how the rubble must be crushed to dust, truthmillers’ talk of sifting grain to sort it from the chaff, to grind it, leave no seed to spread the weed, soulfishers’ talk of casting out lines of inquiry, talespinners’ talk of weaving webs to trap the killers. Dreamwhores’ & heartweighers’ talk of seductions, small transactions of the soul, of weights & balances & reckonings.
— Name these animals who killed him, the wildhunter says. I’ll send my best to bring you back their heads and hides from the most intimate of slayings.
She leans in close to speak only to him.
— Don’t fight what has already been decided.
He dips a finger in a bowl of ash that sits to one side of his plate, the remnants of a funeral pyre that burned so high, so bright.
•
— We do not need to kill them, says the craftsmith. Once you’re lightprince… there are tools to take these men apart and make things right, if this is what you want.
The darkartist looks at him. Of all of them, the craftsmith seems the only one with any grasp of… what you are, we whisper to him, only humans raised to flesh fears & desires, servant divinities.
— Enough, the warduke says.
The hall falls into silence. It is time to make his toast, smear ash across his face. The others hold their hands poised over their own bowls, ready to join the howling of his sorrow. He scrapes back his chair & rises, bowl of ash held in one hand.
In the empty hall, his voice echoes, a growl.
— My blood is dead, he says. I wear the customary black, & join this gathering of grief. What more is there to say? Should I wear words for you as well? Or should I strip my soul to satisfy your doubt? Write your own elegies.
He raises up the bowl of ash. Turns it upside-down over the feast.
— All I will say is that this is a hollow hall without him.
A Rebel Bound Less Than His Captors
The court roars outrage, rising cries & toppling chairs. He listens to the drums of fists on tables, watches angels stagger drunkenly towards him, pointing, shouting at his insult to the dead. He tears a fistful of carved meat powdered in ash & throws it out at them, as scraps of flesh to feed upon, scraps of sorrow thrown to dogs, to beggars, with disgust. He fiends, he fends, he finds in his new attitude a power that makes them stop short of the table. Contoured by tragedy, he cuts a razorhewn new silhouette, standing before them as the scheming bastard.
Only one of them steps forward.
— There are those who say our enemy is among us, he says.
Or your emnity within you, thinks the prince. He leans forward, fists upon the table, full of haught & deigning dignity.
•
— Say it. Speak what every one of you is thinking. Say it.
The unkin comes to stand in front of him, an old warrior, old guard. A veinous scar carves slaughter in the left side of his face, from forehead over missing eye & down to beard.
— There was a cry, he says. And with his death, with his last breath, they say he called your name.
The condemnations muttered thru the crowd mix with confusion, consternation. They don’t know his name, cannot; such things are guarded secrets in the city of the soul, where words are binding. His blooder would know it, yes, might even speak it at his death, but who would know who he was calling on? The darkartist scoffs.
— Who says this?
— This! a second voice calls out. This… thing. We found it at the scene and bound it. You should hear it sing.
•
The choreography is perfect, planned precision, accusation waiting in the wings for this old fucker’s wave of hand, & now the doorway facing him is opening & closing, & a path is clearing in the hall. The young jack struggles as he’s brought before the table. Flame-haired, sky-eyed, dressed in drab of khaki epauleted jacket, he cocks a sneering grin, a rebel bound less than his captors. The prince of end times pushes his chair back & walks around the table, unmoved by the warduke’s silent judgement, the wildhunter’s gaze of satisfaction. The one who found his blooder. All of this, he’s sure, this trap, is her undoing of him. He wonders if the man is in her pay or if she actually believes him; either could be true. The prisoner is shoved down to his knees in front of him.
— M’sire, he says.
A strange tone in his voice. The stranger takes his hand as if to kiss his ring in supplication, but then twists it in his grip to give a tender sensual press of lips to skin of inner wrist. The prince jerks his hand back, grabs the fucker’s chin to raise it. Echoes, shadows, memories of scents. He slips his grip down to the larynx, muses, pictures the neck snapped between his fingers, the throat torn, the skull cracked on the marble floor.
Heads fall, hang heavy in silence in the hall.
•
— Stand, says the unkin prince. You say you heard the lightprince’s last word?
— An invitation to you, says the prisoner. Come out and play.
There’s whispers underneath his voice. Laugh. Love life with me in the fields. We’ll wild our bodies, glory in the dance, as idolescent & anubile ancients come of age, invernal in our grace. We must recover the sexual idyll of our race.
He steps back in shock to clear the wild, weird resonances from his head. The Cant. The man is unkin, rebel unkin, unbound to the court. This isn’t the turned treachery of a darkartist, but bloody freedom in a rogue graved only by his nature, unimaginable in this city at the end of everything, inconceivable. He glances back at the wildhunter. There’s no way she can know this. There’s no way that any of them can. No way.
A way, we hiss his thought. He gathers himself.
— An invitation? says the prince. Addressed to me by name?
— Invitation? Accusation? All I know is he desired your company in his death.
Light Coiled in Upon Itself
The crowd murmurs this confirmation of suspicion thru it as a ripple of grim certainty, proud nods & noises. The stranger simply waits for the next question, a wild god playing some game unknown, so the darkartist walks round him to face the others of the broken Seven in their seats at the high table, the lawscribe at the warduke’s ear, the craftsmith studying the wildhunter who looks out at him, inscrutable. The poor songweaver’s eyes dart this way, that, the nervous observations of a boy trying to take his signals from his elders.
All of them will fall.
— He called my name then, did he?
Straking fingers thru his crowblack hair, the prince turns back to prowl around the stranger. Damn it, but there’s something so familiar to his cocky grin, that kiss. In an eternity of lost lives, could they once have known each other? Could he know the name that the darkartist wears still under all the layers of graving? The man matches him step for step, daring his judgement with a taunt, a taint of innocence both steady & seductive.
— He called it loud and clear, he says. Trust me; you’ll know it when you hear it.
•
— Say it, then, the prince says.
Underneath the sinuous surface of this, he’s aware of a strange sexual alchemy at work, a necromance between his own rage & this other’s appetence. They circle, fastenated in harmonious tension, as if searching for a chance, enwrapt, in hate or lust. Smooth in luxurious detachment, sleek, there is something about them of felines stalking, poised to pounce in animal uncoiling leap, to fight or fuck. Two panthers in the skins of men, caged for an emperor’s delight. The darkartist tries to remember who he was before, before the Ca
nt called him out into the Illusion Fields.
— Say it, he says.
The stranger drops his grin, purses his lips as if to whisper, spreads his arms wide to his audience & says:
Nothing.
The cold truth slowly settles on the court, as one by one they realise that they’re waiting for a word that will not come… all but the prince of end times who knows all too well this silence in his soul.
•
The craftsmith’s needle graves the glory in his chest. The rebel kneels, his right hand on the floor, the other twisted back & up behind him by a warrior with blood upon his knuckles. More youngbloods stand around him, spatters on their white shirts, smears across their faces. Red streaks the prisoner’s face, seeps from a gash above his eye, spits from his mouth with cracktoothed grin & cut lip, trickles from his broken nose to drip from chin to marble floor. They would have killed the stranger there & then if he’d not called for them to grave the glory on him now & let the fucker face a student reborn as a soldier. From the wildhunter’s nod, her mouthed at last & curt command to hold the rebel liar, he understands now that her trap was only aimed at this, at pushing him to break, surrender to the role, the rebel simply goad or bait.
But as the craftsmith’s needle writes that new role on his chest, as sunlight dances on his golden skin, & bone & flesh & hair & eyes, even the blood of him, shifts & reshapes beneath the graving of the glory, he studies this stranger who still grins thru his red mask of ruin, his bloodied eye closing & opening, a wink.
