Wilde Stories 2018

by Steve Berman

  The creatures stepped away, revealing heavy manacles on the child’s wrists and ankles. A metal collar seemed to weigh the boy’s neck down.

  “How?” Benson said.

  “It’s as if they forged them from the dirt.”

  They watched one monster pull the boy on the end of a chain. The other two continued their patrol.

  “Where are they taking him?”

  Wilde did not respond right away. Then, softly, he said, “The mines. And I wager that’s where the rest of the populace is, too. Which mine is largest?”

  “I have no idea. There must be hundreds of different shafts. Maybe thousands.”

  “Surely you have some idea of which—”

  “I’m a gardener! Don’t act like I’m supposed to know anything about the mines.”

  “Of course not,” Wilde said, holding out his hands in a placating gesture. “I only wish I’d paid more attention when I made my descent in Leadville. My guides were eager to explain the process and procedures of mining, but I was too enthralled with the poetry of their bodies to care much about the prose of their labor.”

  Benson clamped his teeth down against a gasp at such frankness. Wilde flashed amusement but graveness soon returned, and Benson stepped back as the Irishman straightened to his full height. His hair was damp and the beads of sweat on his forehead looked unnatural. Sweat belonged on Wilde’s broad white brow about as much as sea foam should be found on a cactus.

  “I’ve been puzzling over why the creature should speak in German. It makes me wonder about something, Benson. I said sulfur was the Devil’s odor, and that’s so. But perhaps it’s the scent of other monstrosities as well.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not sure there is anything to understand yet. How far away is Mr. Bruckner’s house?”

  “Five blocks.”

  “Then we must hurry. He might be there if he is as reclusive as you say. These patrols are either poorly sighted or not very thorough if a boy could have eluded them this long. They might not expend the energy on a solitary old man.”

  They again broke into a pace of quick but careful steps that nevertheless rang like alarm bells in Benson’s mind. He imagined his tread sending tremors into the earth, identifying their location. Any moment the earth would open up in a personal sinkhole to hell.

  They reached the house and stood in astonishment.

  “You, sir, are a most remarkable gardener.”

  In any other circumstance, Benson would have cherished the remark. Instead the words chilled him by confirming his eyes weren’t playing tricks. The front yard blazed with blooms of yellow, purple, red and blue. The clusters grew so thick it was as if the yard had been seeded with flowers rather than grass.

  “This…this is not my doing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think I’d know! My own garden is my own garden,” Benson said. “I don’t even recognize these plants. Most of my focus was on asters. They seemed to do the best for the soil and climate. But they shouldn’t be blooming until months from now.”

  “I have a small knowledge of flowers, Benson. These aren’t asters.”

  “No.”

  He bent to touch one. Wilde told him to stop, but he ignored the caution. He pinched one golden bloom and received such confusion from his fingertips he jerked his hand away.

  “What is it, Benson?”

  “It’s cold—icy. And the texture…”

  “Go on.”

  “The petals felt hard—like metal.”

  He heard a distinct cry from the upstairs window. Benson’s attention riveted upon the front door. “William,” he said automatically, and raced onto the porch. Wilde caught him.

  “We must be cautious!”

  “To hell with caution. William screamed—”

  “Or someone impersonated his scream. But we are past such cautions now. The cry came from upstairs. The bedroom, I take it?”

  “I know nothing about Mr. Bruckner’s bedroom.”

  “Do you not sleep here as well?”

  “I’m Mr. Bruckner’s gardener.”

  “Then one wonders at the strange alchemy turning Mr. Bruckner into William and back again so rapidly in your thoughts.”

  “You dare—”

  “Yes, Benson, I dare many things. Let Socrates huff away about the unexamined life. Since the invention of neighbors and newspapers, such examinations are easy to come by. But the unchallenged life is solely one’s own fault—and the true impetus for all my actions.”

  He took out the blank check, tore it in half and let the separate pieces fall on the ground.

  “We must have honesty or our endeavors here will fail. Come—lead me upstairs either to your bedroom or to Mr. Bruckner’s—for I know they are one and the same.”

  Benson trembled, his heartbeat now so fast it seemed undetectable in his chest. He led Wilde into the house and up the steps. The bedroom door was closed and Wilde drew his Webley.

  “Bruckner?” he called.

  William’s voice answered, feverish and rambling snippets of German he did not comprehend until suddenly—clearly—he perceived a key phrase:

  “—mein liebster freund—”

  He turned the knob, found it locked, and threw his shoulder against the door. Wilde joined him. The heavy wood shook as its frame creaked and splintered. Then it gave way and they stumbled through.

  Two figures rested on the bed, apparently oblivious to the assault on the door. One was William—or some approximation of him. Benson’s attention focused on the second. Something decrepit clutched William to its bosom. Grinning, gloating, a living sickness caressed William’s left cheek with clawed fingers and drew the feverish sweat of his brow to taste in a lipless mouth.

  William tried to sound out a word, but made only the same stutter—“Koh—koh—koh—”

  “Kobold,” Wilde said, and as if his voice gave the first indication of their presence, the nasty creature that cradled William snarled as it rose to a stature no less terrifying for its unimpressive height. In the confines of the room, the creature’s body odor became stifling, a stench of crushed earthworms in loose, wet, stagnant soil. Its mottled skin reminded Benson of how his hands looked after digging in the garden, the natural paleness stained dark with heavier motes of dirt clinging in his hair like little moles and blisters.

  “Kobold,” Wilde repeated, stepping forward with the Webley raised. “My suspicions are confirmed. I know exactly what your kind is now.”

  He shot, and the creature sprang up, taking up a pickaxe Benson had not noticed. In a blur it swung the head around and Wilde’s bullet deflected off it in a cascade of white sparks. The brief flare made the creature grimace and gave Benson his best look at William’s face.

  Only half of it remained human.

  My God, what has the thing done to him?

  Wilde kept the Webley trained on the monster. “Shall we duel, Kobold—the wonder of your magic versus the marvel of my gun?”

  The thing leapt to the challenge. Wilde fired. If the gun hit the creature, the bullet had no effect. Benson dove as the pickaxe swung, narrowly missing his face. He looked up just as Wilde shot point blank into the fiend’s head. The impact sent it staggering against the foot of the bed. There it slumped. Benson’s experienced a moment of exultation—the thing was dead. But reality would not be denied. The creature reached up and pulled the bullet from the wound, holding it up before its eyes. “Köstliches silber.”

  It popped the bullet into its mouth like a date and chewed.

  “My earlier assessment is confirmed, Benson,” Wilde said, backing off fast. “Wonders are much superior to marvels.”

  The creature held its pickaxe up and followed. Wilde raised his hands in a last ditch effort at self-defense as the axe swung at him.

  “Hör auf damit!”

  William’s voice. Benson saw him on his knees, reaching out toward the monster, which had frozen its attack. He went on speaking in German and t
he foul, misshapen dwarf answered back. Then it grabbed Wilde’s right arm and began to drag him.

  Wilde shouted and beat against his captor to no avail. Benson moved to help but William squeezed his shoulder with his transformed right hand. The claw-like fingers dug into his muscle.

  “He’s beyond your reach, Ben.”

  “He’s here to help us!”

  “Why are you here? I told you to run. I gave you the check to draw upon all my assets.”

  “I gave your check to him. I just wanted to get back here.”

  The remaining human half of William’s face showed despair. “One person? Even an army won’t help Georgetown now.”

  “What’s happening? What was it Wilde said?”

  “Kobold.”

  “That creature knew it.”

  “It reacted to its name. Kobold is all of their names. And it’s my name.”

  Benson shook his head. “You’re human, no matter what that thing was trying to do to you.”

  “It wasn’t trying to make me wear a mask, Ben. It was trying to rip off the one I’ve been wearing.”

  “William, no—”

  “I can’t expect you to understand. I’m—the last of my kind. Or so I thought. How can I even attempt an explanation? I woke in darkness. I lived in darkness. There were none like me. When I hungered, I chewed rock and ore and was content—but so alone.”

  “William, you’ve lived in Georgetown more than twenty years. You’re an engineer. You came here from Germany—”

  He laughed bitterly. “Deep below it.”

  Benson’s thoughts became a chaos. William worked his way out from under the blanket and sheet, revealing how his transformation extended further down his body. The sight provoked a sharp inhale from Benson, who turned his face to the wall.

  “I’ll never believe you’re one of them.”

  “I deserve your rebuke and your hatred. What’s happened is my fault. I did not realize the consequences of my actions.”

  William got out of bed. His right leg had shriveled up to a stumpy length, essentially leaving him an amputee. He balanced on his left foot, left hand bracing him against the wall. Benson saw this in his peripheral vision and William’s struggle goaded him into standing too.

  “What are your actions? How can you be responsible?”

  “I encountered my first human in 1845—a young man adventuring on his own. I did not realize then that I lived deep inside a mine that had been abandoned many years. This man had become lost and I heard his terror and came to investigate. When I stepped into the light of his lantern, he shouted, ‘Kobold!’ and fled. Not understanding, I gave chase and captured him. He told me what I was. A creature of the dark, a spirit of the mines. I kept him with me despite his pleas, not understanding how his needs differed from mine until he died. Then I knew sorrow—and loss—and bitterness. Above all I had understanding and vowed to quit the darkness. I found I could take his shape, and I walked into the sunlight in his clothes. I have lived the life he might have lived. But the mines pulled at my heart. I had to be near them. I put an ocean between myself and my origins and came here, to this place where the humans seemed so very much like me in their core. I tried to help them. I made my furnace—and it was my undoing.”

  “The smell of sulfur.”

  “Yes. Horrible to you. But to me it was like the scent of myself, the whiff of memory. And I knew there was something about the ore these men mined. Some trace of my own being—my own people. For many years I fought the urge to investigate. And then I met you.”

  Benson’s lower lip trembled. “What could I have to do with any of this?”

  “You gave me love. I thought I could give it back—”

  “You did!”

  “No, Ben. I tried. But—I was always lonely, but it grew worse in your company. This is not your fault. In a fashion, you and I have both been in a search for our own kind. Your strength convinced me to indulge a suspicion that more like me existed, but incorporeal and trapped within the rocks themselves. I altered my furnace in an attempt to bring them forth physically. And so I have—to this world’s peril.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Seven. More than enough to subjugate Georgetown.”

  “Seven against ten thousand!”

  “You saw the effects of your friend’s gun. The bullet is meaningless. But these kobolds are not the same as me. They are vengeful and malignant. I tried to plead with them but they wouldn’t listen. They say there are thousands more of them awaiting their freedom, and only my furnace can do it. They don’t know how to operate it though. That’s the only reason my defiance hasn’t brought death. They must be stopped.”

  “But how, if even guns won’t work?”

  “Help me downstairs. Help me—into the garden.”

  “The flowers,” William said, pointing to the deceptive blooms of cold metal. “Those are your weapons.”

  “How am I supposed to kill your people with flowers, no matter how strange they are?”

  “They’re not mere flowers, as you’ve already guessed. I forged them from the earth with the help of a power the kobolds don’t comprehend—the power of your intention. You have thought your labors pointless and futile, but every bead of sweat you let fall into the soil was a seed of hope, and that hope carries into the blooms. Wield them as a dagger is wielded. Drive the petals into their backs.”

  Hesitating a moment, Benson knelt and gingerly pulled at a stem. It came free of the soil with a metallic sound, like a sword exiting a scabbard. The flower had almost no heft to it and yet he sensed tremendous power in the blooms.

  “Quickly now. Gather your bouquet. Seven at least. No—eight. There must be eight.”

  “Why eight if there are seven of them?”

  William stared at Benson until he understood.

  “No,” Benson said.

  “You must, Ben. I’m not sure I know myself. I’m not sure this remorse I feel will last. I hear the mines calling to me more than ever. I hear the song of my people, and even if I am against them now, they are my kind. Take the eighth bloom. There. Now put it in the vase of my heart.”

  The ground began to tremble.

  “Hurry, Ben! They’re coming for us!”

  He stepped forward. As he did, a sinkhole appeared on the spot he’d just occupied. He lunged forward into the embrace of William’s human arm. It wrapped around his waist. His clawed hand took Benson’s wrist and raised the flower to his chest.

  More sinkholes appeared. The house itself shook, the roof starting to buckle.

  “Now, Ben!”

  Crying, he drove the stem against William’s chest, still convinced it would simply bend and break. But William’s mouth opened in a silent scream, and blood that was not red poured forth.

  Then the sky sank out of sight.

  He picked himself up and clutched the bouquet, as the sound of people crying grew louder. Benson scarcely believed the scene in front of him. A subterranean kingdom was being constructed, and the men, women and children of Georgetown labored in chains to expand its borders. They had no tools other than their fingernails.

  A kobold stood glaring at him, its pickaxe raised. The creature charged him, swinging his weapon as he went. Benson drew a yellow flower and held it out, unable to help feeling foolish.

  Until the bloom began to glow.

  It flashed like the sun, and the kobold groaned and stopped, squeezing its eyes closed. Benson shot forward and plunged the bloom against the kobold’s throat. At once the thing howled and the bloom burst into flames. The kobold pulled back, taking the flower out of Benson’s grip. He watched the monster tugging on the stem but the flower only sank deeper into its throat.

  The kobold fell forward onto its face and lay motionless.

  “Benson!”

  He spun and found Wilde at the entrance to a new shaft, laboring under heavy chains. Several cuts marked his face. He looked so worn and beaten Benson could not believe he’d been enslaved less than t
hirty minutes ago.

  “I feel like I’ve been digging for days,” he said, holding up his fingers. Wilde’s nails were splintered and dark. “I think time must be experienced differently in the dominion of the kobold.”

  “How did you know their name?” Benson said as he tried to break the shackles.

  “As I said, my German governess taught me both her language and its stories, particularly fairytales. And as I’ve learned in my travels in these states and territories, everything has an American cousin. Can you free me?”

  Benson regarded the bouquet. He separated one flower from the rest and touched it against Wilde’s collar. The invincible iron turned to dirt and Wilde’s eyes gleamed. His wrists and ankles were freed in minutes.

  “If civilization survives the kobolds, I’ll have to add a segment to my lecture tour about the power of flowers. May I?”

  He took three stems and held them up for inspection. “A wonder and a marvel. Let’s get to work, Benson. The war of the roses demands a sequel!”

  When it was done, they led the people of Georgetown out of the mines and into the light. From their condition and reaction, Benson figured Wilde’s assessment was right: time must have moved differently in the mines. The men looked grizzled, their hair exceedingly long and filthy. Boys and girls no longer fit into their clothes. Everyone staggered as if not encountering sunlight in a year.

  But they were alive.

  Wilde said as much as the two of them trekked back to the ruins of William’s house. When they arrived, they found the wondrous flowers were gone. There was only William, dead, his human disguise entirely ended.

  “It’s a shame you must remember him like this.”

  “I remember the person I loved. Nothing else matters. But no one else must know his identity.”

  “I shall be happy to help you bury someone so noble.”

  “No,” Benson said, wiping his eyes before bending to take the small body into his arms. “I will do this alone.”