Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe

by Thomas Ligotti

  Beyond the window at the back of the two figures, something seemed to be at watch. Neither man took note of the image, which was so obscure as to be nearly invisible. Some would call it a face, yet its features were translucent such that not even the sharpest eye could read them clearly. Nor could any eye outside that room where Faliol and the mage sat quietly conversing suffer to behold such a vision.

  III: ANIMA MUNDI

  While the revelers in the streets of Soldori remedied their discontents by throwing off the everyday face of orthodoxy, those attending the masquerade at the duke’s palace found their deliverance by donning other faces, other bodies, and perhaps other souls. The anonymity of that night—no unmasking was expected to be held—enabled a multitude of sins against taste, from the most subtle to the most grotesque indiscretions. The society of the court had transformed itself into a race of gods or monsters, competing at once with the brightest and highest of stars and the strangest of the world’s lower creatures. Many would undoubtedly spend the succeeding days or weeks in darkened rooms behind closed doors, so that the effects their disguises had wrought on their bodies might be known to none. For a few rare spirits, this by necessity would be their last appearance in the eyes of the court before a final seclusion. All were quite clearly arrayed as if something unparalleled, and possibly conclusive, was to occur that night. Musicians played in several of the palace’s most sumptuous and shimmering halls, glittering glasses were filled by fountains of unnaturally colored wine, and maskers swarmed about like living gargoyles freed from the cathedral’s stone. All, or nearly all, were straining for some unheard-of antic, suffering the pleasures of expectancy.

  But as the hours passed, hopes dissolved. The duke—in essence a simple man, even a dull one—took no initiative to unloose the abundant possibilities of the masquerade; and, as if instinctively aware of these perilous directions, he restrained the efforts of others to pursue them and thereby digress in a wayward manner from the night’s steadily unwinding course. No petitioning could sway him. He allowed several odd witticisms to pass unacknowledged, and he feigned that certain dubious suggestions and proposals were abstruse to his mind. Unnourished by any source within the duke’s character, every attempt at innovation curled at its colorful edges and died. The initial strangeness of the masked gathering went stale. Voices began to sound as though they were transacting business of some tedious sort, and even the sight of a jester, albeit one with darkness within the eyes of his mask, offered no special merriment to this sullen assembly.

  Accompanying the jester, who made no lively movements, was a knight out of armor, dressed in radiant blues and golds, a crusader’s cross emblazoned upon his chest, and over his face a white silk mask of blandly noble expression. The odd duo progressed from room to room of the palace, as if they were negotiating a thick wood in search of something or someone. The knight was manifestly nervous, his hand too obviously ready to go for the sword at his side, his head patrolling with skittish alertness the bizarre world around him. The jester, on the other hand, was altogether composed and methodical, and with excellent reason: he knew, as the knight did not, that their purpose was not a difficult one, as they would enjoy the complicity of Wynge himself, whom the knight had called the Sorcerer but whom the jester knew to be the wise man mage in disguise. With this advantage, Faliol might easily assist the knight in escaping Soldori. Not that such heroics were any longer of concern to Faliol, who was merely serving the mage in a machination to break the duke. The alchemical transformation that the ruler desired would indeed take place, though not precisely as promised. What reserves of wealth the duke and his sorcerous conspirator possessed would tonight undergo, per the plan of the mage, a reverse alchemy that would leave them paupers. And then his work would be done in Soldori, such as he could accomplish what he set out to do.

  The knight and the jester now paused at the arched entrance to the last, and most intimate, of the masquerade’s many rooms. Pulling at the knight’s golden sleeve, the jester angled his pointed, sneering muzzle toward a costumed pair in the far corner. The indicated figures were appareled as monarchs of the old days, a king and queen in ancient robes and stoles and many-horned crowns.

  “How can you be sure they are the ones?” whispered the knight to the buffoon at his side.

  “Approach and take her hand. You will be sure. But say nothing until you have led yourselves back through these rooms and to freedom.”

  “But the king might well be the Sorcerer in disguise,” objected the knight. “He could have us both executed.”

  “Do as I tell you, though I cannot tell you all. You will see me greet the king and caper about as his jester. Believe me when I say that he is no sorcerer, only one who does what he can in this world against powers that can never be undone. And he has been working for your cause even before you knew of its troubles. Trust me that all will be well.”

  “I do trust you,” said the knight, as he furtively stuffed a jeweled pouch twice the size of the first into the belt of the jester, though Faliol cared nothing for the copious reward.

  The two characters separated and merged with the murmuring crowd. The jester arrived first at their destination. From a distance he seemed to speak a few words into the king’s ear and then suddenly leaped back to play the fool before him, hopping about wildly. The knight bowed before the queen and then without ostentation led her away to other rooms. Though her mask covered the expression beneath it, the manner in which she placed her hand upon the knight’s appeared to reveal her knowledge of his identity. After they had gone, the jester ceased his antics and stood close to the statue-like king.

  “I shall watch the duke’s men around us, who may have been watching you, wise man.”

  “And I shall see that our two little babes find their way through the forest,” replied the mock-monarch, who abruptly strode off.

  But that was not part of your design, thought Faliol. And neither was the king’s roguish voice that of the solemn mage. The dark eyes of the jester’s mask followed the movements of the impostor until he became lost in the throng. Faliol had just started in pursuit when a strange commotion in another part of the palace educed much talk on all sides.

  It seemed that something unheard-of had finally occurred, though it did not gladden any of those who had hoped for a unique happening on that carnival night.

  The disturbance originated in the centermost of that labyrinth of capacious rooms composing the arena of the masquerade. To the surrounding as well as the more peripheral rooms, including the one in which Faliol was now caught by the crushing crowd, there first traveled what sounded like cries of amusement. These quickly transformed, however, into ambiguous outbursts of surprise unto the edge of shock. Finally, the uproar took on the character of intense horror—all voices in alarm and confusion. Tidings passed rapidly, though less and less reliably, from mouth to mouth, room to room. Something terrible had happened, something which had begun, or was initially perceived, as a fabulous hoax. No one knew exactly how it was possible, but there suddenly appeared an outlandish spectacle in the midst of the most congested room of that night’s affair. The matter of the event was that two participants in the masque, without being spied by those around them, had donned costumes which went far beyond the most gruesome seen beforehand at the palace gathering. Among some persons, word circulated about semblances most closely akin to giant leeches or worms, for they did not walk upright but writhed along the floor as if absent of bones. Others heard that these prodigies of disguise possessed countless tiny legs, and thus more properly resembled centipedes of some type. Still others averred that what was now in their company were not masqueraders but things inhuman in nature, having many-taloned claws, reptilian tails, serpent faces, and an overall composition of fantastical beasts which could not be dissembled by man nor woman. But whatever may have constituted the true substance and form of these beings, at some stage they affected the crowd with a panic past all r
eckoning. And however subsequent actions were construed to transpire, the consequence was that these bizarre intruders were hacked and torn and trampled owing to an unreasoning revulsion for their aspect, or many aspects.

  Tragically, once the massacre was accomplished, it was not the slaughtered remains of two uncanny monsters that the masqueraders, their masks removed, looked down upon. Instead, it was two of their own—a knight and queen of the old days—whose blood was spreading across the ornate designs of the palace floor. Their bodies, which they had feared would be lastingly parted, were now all but indistinguishable from each other.

  Throwing off his jester’s face, Faliol worked himself near enough to the scene to view the horror with his own shaded eyes. A tragedy, yes, but not such that would return Faliol to his furies. For the image he saw immediately took its place among the seamless and unending flow of hellish eidola which constituted Anima Mundi and which, in his vision, was a monotonous tapestry of the terrible ceaselessly unfurling itself in the faintest shades of gray. Thus, the appalling tableau was neither more nor less sinister in his sight than any other which the world might show him.

  “Look again, Fa-fa-faliol,” said a voice at his back, as a forceful boot propelled him toward the carnage.

  But why was everything painted with such brilliance now, when a moment ago it was all so insipid? Why did every piece of mutilated flesh pulse with color? And why was Faliol wholly benumbed by these red-smeared forms and their unhappy fate? He had been charged to save them and he could do . . . nothing. His thoughts were now careening wildly through crimson corridors within him, madly seeking solutions but falling at every turn into blind corners and flailing in vain against something immovable, impossible. He pressed his hands over his face, hoping to blind himself to the scene. But everything remained invincibly there before his eyes—everything save his spectacles.

  Now the duke’s voice broke the brief lull of the dazed and incredulous assembly. The enraged sovereign shouted orders, demanded answers. How justified had proved his misgivings concerning the masquerade. He had long known that something of this nature might occur, and had done what he could to prevent its coming to pass. On the spot, he outlawed all future occasions of this kind and called for arrests and interrogations, the Torture of the Question to be liberally implemented. Exodus was instantaneous—the palace became a chaos of fleeing freaks.

  “Faliol!” called a voice that sounded too clear, within all the confusion, to have its origin outside his own mind. “I have what you’re looking for. They’re with me now, right here in my hand, not lost forever.”

  When Faliol turned around, he saw the masked king standing some distance away, unmolested by the frantic mob. The king was holding out the spectacles as if they were the dangling head of a conquered foe. Fighting his way toward the unknown persecutor, Faliol would chase him down and reclaim sanity, though not before he had barbarously dispatched the fiend. Yet he could not catch up to this figure which led him through all the rooms where the masquerade once flourished, and then deeper into the palace. At the end of a long silent corridor, the gaudy, flapping train of a royal robe disappeared through a doorway. Faliol followed the shape and at last entered a dim chamber with a single window, before which stood the mummer who taunted him. The spectacles were still held by the velvet fingers of a tightly gloved hand. Watching as the dark lenses flashed in the candlelight, Faliol’s eyes burned as much with questions as with madness.

  “Where is the mage?” he demanded.

  “The mage is no more.”

  “Then tell me who are you before I send you to hell?”

  “You know who I am. But say I’m a sorcerer if that is well with you.”

  “And you killed the mage as you did the others.”

  “The others? How could you have not heard that rattling pantomime, all those swords and swift feet? Did you not hear that there was a pair of leviathan leeches, or something in that way, menacing the guests? True, I had a hand in the illusion, but my hand contained no gouging blade. A shambles, you saw it with your own eyes.”

  “In their fate you saw your own future. Even a sorcerer may be killed.”

  “Agreed, though I think not by your hand.”

  “Who are you to have destroyed the mage?”

  “In fact, he destroyed himself—a heroic act, I’m sure. And he did it before my own eyes, as if in spite. As for myself, I confess that I am disappointed to be so far beneath your recognition. We have met previously, please remember. But it was many years past, and I suppose you became forgetful as well as dim-sighted once you put those pieces of glass over your eyes. You see why the mage had to be stopped. He ruined you as a madman, as my madman.

  “But you might recall that you had another career before the madness took you, did you not? Buh-buh-brave Faliol. Do you not remember how you were made as such? Do you not wish to remember that you were Faliol the dandy before we met on the road that day? It was I—in my role as a charm seller—who outfitted you with that onyx-eyed amulet which you once wore around your neck. It was that bauble which made you the skillful mercenary you once were, and that you loved to be.

  “And how everyone else loved you that way: to see a weakling become a man of strength and of steel is the stuff of public comment, of legend, and of diversion in general. And how much more do they love to witness the reverse of this process: to see the mighty laid low, the lord of the sword made mad. This was the little drama I had planned. You were supposed to be my madman, Faliol, not the imperturbable fool of that magician. You were supposed to be a real lost soul of torments in red and black, not a pathetic monk chanting silent psalms in pale breaths. Do you not understand? It was Wynge who ruined you, who undid all my schemes for your tragic and colorful history. Because of him I was forced to change my plans, which are many and touch the lives of all. Yes, it was your mage, who had wrested his soul from me and believed he could do the same for you. Blame him for the slaughter of those innocents and for what you are about to suffer. You know my ways. We are not strangers.”

  “No, demon horror, we are not. You are indeed the foul thing the wise man described to me, all the dark powers which we cannot understand but only hate.”

  “Poor Faliol. How wrong you are to contend that the one who stands before you is hated, whatever few enemies I may have. Do you hear those rhapsodic voices in the streets below? They are not filled with hate. Even when I excruciate them, they make excuses for me. They could not possibly hold a greater love for what gives them all they have, however little it may sometimes come to. But I would never go so far that they would turn against their own perpetuity. Only as they live do I live on. And the exceptional destinies of heroes and magicians, of kings and queens, saints and martyrs—these have special roles to perform in my scheme. From the highest to the lowest, they are all my children, and through their eyes I see my own glory.”

  “You see but your own foulness.”

  “No, the foulness is yours alone to lay eyes on, my dear Faliol. For those enamored of their continuance, no foulness exists. You have worn these spectacles too long and, to my disappointment, still see too much. You have seen me as others have not, if that pleases you, and for that you must come to an end. This is a privileged doom for those such as yourself. A type of consolation.”

  “You have said enough.”

  “To be sure. My time is precious. And yet I have not said what I came here to say, or rather to ask. You know the question, do not deny it, Faliol. The one you dreamed in those mad dreams I sent you. The torture of the question you dreaded to hear asked, and dreaded more to have answered.”

  “Demon!”

  “What is the face of the soul of the world?”

  “No, it is not a face . . . it is only—”

  “Yes, there is a face, Faliol. And you will see it,” said the masked figure as it peeled away its mask. “But why have you hidden your eyes that way, Faliol?
And why have you fallen to your knees? Do you not appreciate the vision I have shown you? Could you ever have imagined that your existence would lead you into the presence of such a sight? Your spectacles cannot save you now. They are only so much glinting glass—hark to my grinding them underfoot upon the cool marble of the floor. No more spectacles, Faliol. And I think, too, no more Faliol. Can you understand what I am telling you now, jester? Well, what have you to say? Nothing? How black your madness must be to make you so rude. How black. But see, even if you will not, how I have provided these escorts to show you the way back to the carnival, which is where a buffoon belongs. And be sure that you make my legions of admirers laugh, or I will punish you. Yes, I can still punish you, Faliol. A living man can always be punished, so remember to be good. I will be watching. I am always watching. Farewell, then, fool.”

  A glazen-eyed guard on either side of him, Faliol was dragged from the duke’s palace and given to the crowd which still rioted in the streets of Soldori. And the crowd embraced the mad jester, hoisting his jingling form upon their shoulders, shaking him like a toy as they carried him along. In its scheme to strangle silence forever, Soldori’s unruly populace bellowed a robust refrain to Faliol’s sickly moans. Into an onyx-black night his eyes gazed and his mind vanished.

  But there must have been some moment, however brief, in which Faliol regained his old enlightenment and which allowed him to accomplish such a crucial and triumphant action. Was it solely by his own sleeping strength, fleetingly aroused, that he attained his greatest prize? If not, then what power could have enabled his trembling hands to reach so deeply into those haggard sockets, and with a gesture brave and sure dig out the awful seeds of his suffering? However it was done, the deed was done well. For as Faliol perished his face was flushed with a crimson glory.

  And the crowd fell silent, and a new kind of confusion spread among them—those heads which were always watching—when it was found that what they were bearing through the streets of Soldori was only Faliol’s victorious corpse.