Octoberland (The Dominions of Irth Book 3)

by A. A. Attanasio

  "Dogbrick—I am Dogbrick," he began to chant the next day. His voice startled birds that chattered and burst into the dawn like gusts of ash from the chimneys of his dream.

  In the wild silence that followed, he tried to resurrect his memories from the dark pit of sleep. Nothing more emerged. "I am Dogbrick ... I am."

  He wove fire in the air again. The others could not do this. And he thought perhaps that in the fire he might see something true to his identity. He stared at blue and green flames swirling over rotted logs and pulpy clusters of mushrooms. He stared until the whiskery flames took on an intensity of detail—luminous filaments braiding into translucent veils of fire. And still, he found nothing of himself.

  Frustrated, he kicked the old log to sawdust, and the wispy flames danced away like fireflies. "I am Dogbrick!" he shouted, and nothing in the dirty light of dawn or in the cold wind disputed him.

  He stopped weaving fire, stopped talking, and just wandered the woods, obscure to himself, content to drift among the sun-filled galleries. When silver storms appeared above the forest canopy, he sought shelter among high rock crevices and watched rain blowing off the eaves of the forest. He ate leaf and root and what berries he could find.

  Then the others returned as silently as they had disappeared. They appeared in the forest around him. Their smoky scent opened, dry in his nostrils. He gave them strength. He balled it between his palms and tossed it casually to each of them. Glad for that, they led him to the secret coves beside the running streams where fish waited in the chill water.

  They crossed through dark spruce forest, climbed the dry beds of small creeks, and sat on shale ledges under cirrus streams. They peered out over immense gray weather and endless woods.

  Down rocky slopes patched with heather, they loped. Basking under moonlight in their nakedness, they danced. Amorous with animal passion, they rutted. He watched disconsolately, moved to sadness that possessed him with a vague sense of treachery. He did not belong. None would dance with him, not the way they danced with one another.

  He began to feel that his forest life betrayed Dogbrick and his dream of the cliff-city under the many moons.

  One dismal morning they found a star of ash on the ground. The others fled at once, flitting away like shadows. The pitchy smell, the tar stink that frightened the others intrigued him. He crouched over the cold ashes of rain-smothered fire and touched depressions among the pine needles where something had squatted and tended these flames.

  Frosty-soul.

  He recognized this harsh scent. It stirred untouchable memories. He stood and looked for the others. They had walked off into sprawling fog. If he went after them at once, he might find them again.

  The oily smell held him fast. He knew then that Dogbrick needed to find the animal of this perfume, the fire maker.

  "I am Dogbrick," he said to the swirling mists where the others watched unseen. "I do not belong with you. I must go now. Thank you for your welcome. I leave you in the light."

  He turned and walked away. He went where they feared to go, so they would not follow. Drifting sun streaks among the fog led him through the forest into thinning underbrush and smaller trees.

  A restless sun swirled inside high mists. Wasps simmered over vines that wrapped slanted trees. Another exhausted campfire charred the ground with ash and husked walnuts.

  Farther on, patches of sky grew larger, and clouds turned fleecy. At nightfall, under the dim green of a lucid star, he heard voices singing and laughing. He approached through the colors of twilight to where a fire twinkled.

  And then the wind turned and carried to him on the wood smoke a smell he recognized from another world.

  The Magical Beast

  All night, Dogbrick watched the campfire and the silhouetted figures around it, ashamed as a thief yet afraid to draw closer. The others feared these fire makers. Yet the scent of them—like pitch, like coal oil, like tar smoke—reminded him of the earlier time he could not remember.

  With first light, he crept closer, to see them more clearly.

  Dogs barked, yapping angrily. He crouched in the wet grass, paralyzed to his eyes—immobilized by the familiarity of these creatures—these people. A man and a woman and with them two pointy-eared red dogs.

  The man spied him first and leaped from his sleeping bag with a shout. Dogbrick started and tried to scurry backward, deeper into the grass, hoping to hide himself. At the man's shout, the dogs jumped toward him, snarling.

  Dogbrick threw sleep at them. The weariness that had pooled in his limbs during the night compacted easily enough between his palms, and he threw it directly at the hurtling dogs. They collapsed at once, and he leaped up and turned to flee. The man pointed a stick at him. No! A weapon! A firelock! Memory jolted him the same instant a needle cartridge slammed into his thigh.

  He pulled the stinger from his leg and cast it away as he spun about and ran. Almost at once, chill dullness spread through his leg and forced him to a limp. By graceless effort, he staggered into the underbrush among the trees. His limbs had become vacant. No matter how hard he willed, they would not move.

  He shut his eyes, looked inward, and met the incandescent smoke of the drug. It roiled through the red channels of his body. And it took all his attention to begin to unravel it, to untangle its paralyzing knots so that his body could stir again.

  The man loomed over Dogbrick, pointing the rifle. Unthinking, Dogbrick swung out, surprised that his arm could move and so swiftly.

  The blow caught the man across the jaw and hurled him to the ground, where he lay motionless. Dogbrick watched from the center of his being as the woman came running.

  She was old. Her wrinkled face registered alarm. With frantic hands, she grabbed at the younger one, the felled man, and reached for his throat, then began to pound his chest.

  The man's soul had left his body. Dogbrick could see it lying on the leaves, pulsing like a purple ember from a dying fire. No pounding would put it back. He shredded the spellbinding smoke from his throat and rasped, "Stop hitting him. Get his soul."

  The old woman sat back on her heels and nearly toppled backward. Alarm widened her stare toward shock.

  Dogbrick realized that she did not understand. She had heard him, but she did not see the soul.

  "I will get it." He tore away the last of the smoke inside him and rose to his knees. With both hands, he gathered the purple soul, throbbing like a giant amoeba, and placed it atop the inert man. It soaked into him, and the body convulsed and gasped for air.

  Dogbrick did not wait for the man to sit up and reach for his gun. He backed away into the trees and fled. From among morning's broken light, he watched the man and the woman hugging each other. Later, they stirred the dogs.

  A red wagon came for them late in the day—a vehicle on black wheels that crawled speedily over the grassy fields. After much gesticulating by the driver and the man, the wagon drove off with the driver, the man, and the dogs. Only the crone remained behind.

  She talked for a while into a slender block box. "An aviso," Dogbrick said aloud, retrieving another memory. "She is in contact with the others."

  She prowled the forest at a slow, arthritic pace, searching for him. He kept out of sight. At night, he climbed a tree and watched her in the amber glow of her campfire.

  After the raveled flames dimmed, and she crawled into her sleeping bag, he threw her his weariness. He waited until certain that she slept deeply before he approached. From her side, he removed the rifle and the aviso and hid them among the mossy rocks and underbrush.

  At dawn, when he gave her strength and she woke to find him sitting in the silver fumes of the spent fire, she sat bolt upright, rigid with fright.

  "I won't hurt you," he said, softly as he could.

  Her mouth trembled, arduously shaping words yet making no sound, until she found herself saying aloud, "I understand you." Her shivering fingers pulled her red plaid shirt tighter about her. "How? How can I understand you?"

 
; "I am talking to your soul," he answered and splayed his large hand across his furry chest. "Your soul understands me. I don't know why. The others did not."

  "Others?"

  "In the forest. The big ones. Hairier than I."

  Her face brightened. "Sasquatch. You've been with Sasquatch? Are you not a Sasquatch yourself?" She gestured excitedly at the rucksacks leaning against a tree. “That's why we're here. We came looking for Sasquatch..." She began fumbling with her bags, looking for her camera and her recorder.

  "I am not one of them. Anyway, you won't find them down here." Dogbrick jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “They're much deeper in the forest. They keep to themselves. They won't let you see them."

  The crone's face tightened, squinting as if to study him more clearly. "Who are you?"

  "I am Dogbrick," he replied with certainty, then shook his long head. "I—I don't remember more than that. The others—the Sasquatch—they found me. About twenty days ago. Can you tell me where I am?"

  "Canada." She found the recorder, and her shaking fingers checked for the tape cassette.

  He gawked about at the stands of birch and morning's adept yellow clouds. "I don't know this place. I think I'm from somewhere else."

  "I think so, too." The old woman's thick-jointed fingers struggled to push the buttons on the recorder, and the machine slipped from her grasp. Her cheeks puffed in exasperation, and her wide eyes shrilled at him. Flustered, she crossed both hands over her chest. "I'm Mary Felix. I'm an anthropologist—someone who studies societies, peoples of every culture. But I've never seen anyone like you. May I—may I touch you?"

  Dogbrick extended his hand. When they touched, she felt his wet fur and knew she did not dream.

  He felt her as well, the life of her, the warmth in the same ash of their creation. He sensed her heart giving out from her swollen longings. "You've lost someone—your husband."

  She snapped her hand away. "How—how do you know?"

  "I don't know—I feel this must be so." He rubbed his hands together. "He died of a blood-burst in his brain, not long ago, less than a thousand days. You are lonely..."

  Mary Felix stood up. The bony legs in her green denims shook. "My husband died of a stroke two winters ago. How can you know so much about me and not know yourself?"

  Dogbrick lifted his fierce face toward morning's brightening lavender. "I want to know. I want to remember." His orange eyes fixed on her. "Will you help me, Mary Felix?"

  "I don't know that I can." She edged closer to him, and once past the screen of wood smoke she smelled his strange scent—akin to jasmine, silken, tropical. "This is truly an extraordinary discovery for me. Do you understand? You must. Please—come with me. Let me show you to my colleagues."

  "No, Mary Felix." Dogbrick shook his mane, and the balmy redolence that wafted from him made her sit down under a weight of rapture. "I have felt through your soul to the sickness of your world. I will not go there."

  The Coven

  Octoberland. The name of the coven asserted itself. Even in July, the meetinghouse smelled of leaf smoke. Yellow and red leaves strewed the inside perimeter of the circular room. Its shagbark boards and floor of knotty planks had been rubbed smooth by many seasons of round dances. Corn-silk poppets hung from rafters along with bines of ritual herbs. Chains of faces, carved into apples and shriveled to totems, stared about with anguished visages.

  Crimson paint precisely outlined a large circle around the room and a pentagram within. A waist-high block of obsidian stood at the center. Pentagonal in shape, the altar displayed swaths of tattered moss partly overlaid by fabric of midnight blue.

  An urn squatted atop. Flanked by fat black candles, a silver knife smiled, bound to an ebony haft with copper wire corroded green. A stave of knobby wood leaned against the altar, cankerous with galls, resinous cracks, and gills of scalloped fungus.

  No windows penetrated the walls of furry bark. When the ram's-head knocker sounded and the door opened, the skyline of Manhattan gaped. Dim wails of sirens and bleating car horns drifted up.

  The meetinghouse had been crafted from the interior of an abandoned water tank atop a thirty-storey building in midtown.

  Nox, the coven leader, entered in robes of black taffeta and hood mounted with the fanged face of panther. At the altar, hands like burnt spiders folded back the cowl and exposed a long, bald, age-blackened skull.

  His mummified face consisted of a charred twist of nose, hollow cheeks, and fluted lips stretched taut to a permanent sneer. His antique teeth, tiny and discolored as maize kernels, snapped sharply. Adder eyes split light in agate bands, and vertical pupils flexed to watch the twelve coveners file in and close the curved door behind them.

  The coveners dropped their colorful, heraldic mantles and stood naked before their lord. Six affluent couples, consisting of three individuals from each of the four Adamic races—Afric, Aryan, Asian, Amerind—all in their prime, received from Nox their glowing health and physical pulchritude. That was the gift of their lord—a bounty of beauty and wealth. That was why they served him.

  Each had been less before coming to Octoberland. Each had a story of impoverishment, loss, and despair. Nox had healed each of them. Now they flourished. For this privilege, they served Nox with utter devotion.

  The coven lord asked little of them. Once a month, at the dark of the moon, they came to the meetinghouse late in the afternoon and danced for their lord, singing barbarous chants he had taught them. Nothing more.

  That—and the secrecy. None breathed a word of Octoberland to anyone outside the coven. If any violated this oath, Nox knew. Within the month, the violator and those who had heard the secret suffered terrible accidents. They did not die. They survived to suffer lingering malignancies, mute of all but their anguish.

  Nox had won this power over generations—centuries. He had begun as a cupbearer in the temple of Tiamat among the fig-tree terraces on the river Tigris seven millennia ago. He had learned his magic from the steppe wanderers, the nomads of the Baltic highlands, wayfarers of the star plains. They had mapped the celestial byways and first trapped heaven in a circle.

  The Baltic nomads had inherited their knowledge from horizon walkers of earlier millennia, the builders of the stone circles of the far north. There, they culled the cold fires, the auroras, from the sky during the long nights. They trapped the cold fire in amber at first, which they hid in secret precincts, at the sacred places, the first shrines.

  Using that ancient understanding, Nox and his occult workers—mathematicians, astrologers, magi—discovered again the long-forgotten power of twelve. Hieratic scholars, they relearned how to divide the circle of the sky into twelve houses. And they assigned the circle the 360 stations of reckoning.

  They also differentiated the day into twenty-four hours, the hour into sixty minutes, the minute into sixty seconds. All this to better control the magic inherited by them from the builders of the first shrines, the masters of stone, who had learned how to trap the cold fires and direct them by the power of will.

  Nox mastered the energy of the planet's slow turning through the starry dark. With the help of others, he became adept at gathering the cold fire and circulating it through his body. He and the others became immortals—of a sort. They aged more slowly. Disease could not touch them, for the cold fire burned away all illness.

  Only accident—only the blind god Chance—remained immune to their power and occasionally betrayed them to the blind god Death. One by one over the millennia, the others who shared his magic had died, slain by freak accidents.

  Chance had not left Nox unscathed, either. Seven thousand years of exposure to the random batterings of the sun's fire had damaged him. Slowly, slowly he had aged, so that he shriveled to a ghastly black skeleton. Hairless, his flesh appeared scorched and dry ligaments rended leathery, crackling sounds with each movement.

  No pain touched him. The cold fire in his bones radiated power that fused him to the very aura of the planet. The magnetic mi
ght of the spinning world itself sustained him. If he continued his magic rituals, he would never die.

  In time, he would wither to a disembodied wraith divorced from physical contact—a fate of immortal sentience and hopeless hungers that reared up before him more frightful than death.

  To avoid this diminishment, he had founded Octoberland several centuries earlier. His dancers helped him circulate the cold fire in the ritual manner that extended his awareness into the deep sky. He searched across spacetime for magicians of other worlds.

  Nox knew that such magi existed, because such a one had appeared on Earth much earlier when Nox approached a thousand years old. Duppy Hob arrived as an exile from a higher order of magic, a realm at the very beginning of time.

  Nox had learned much from him about the Abiding Star and Charm—but Duppy Hob posed dangerous challenges, full of strange and unpredictable knowledge. He doled out to the kings the mysteries of science so that he could build his enormous Charm-accumulators: at first, the pyramids and obelisks and then the cities themselves—colossal amulets designed to harness power for that vengeful exile.

  To protect himself, Nox had avoided the marooned magician yet stayed alert to his whereabouts. He knew that in time others would come from the Bright Worlds. Eventually, he would win from them the Charmed magic to amplify his power and help him discard his flesh rags and reclaim his youth.

  And so, each month he called together his dancers, wove the cold fire into bodies of light, one for each of the chosen. These personal angels watched over Nox’s acolytes and worked magic for the coven. And each of the coveners took turns observing the heavens, watching the Gulf.

  Thus, he saw at once when the others came for Duppy Hob. They disappeared with the devil worshipper, back to the radiant worlds in the fiery glare of creation.

  One remained behind. Lost or forgotten, that one wandered the northern wilderness—and Nox resolved to learn more of him.