The Singularity Cycle 02 Song of the Death God

by William Holloway

  Wilhelm hadn’t been so thirsty in all his life. He quietly and quickly retreated to his room, and very shortly, the bottle of scotch was empty.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Wilhelm opened his eyes and found himself in his old bedroom in Munich. He had hoped to wake in his flat in Paris, to discover that it was all a bad dream, a parable of a bad person and a poor brother who should learn his lesson and move onto a life of usefulness.

  But when he opened his eyes, he was still in Munich.

  He closed his eyes again and considered how long it would take him to get dressed, eat breakfast, and be away from this madhouse. He was disgusted with Uli, with his sisters, and with himself. He was also certain that Carsten was climbing another tree entirely and wasn’t sure he wanted to know anything about it.

  In his time in Paris amongst the artists, he saw performances of pseudo religious occult themes, mainly regarding the transcendent aspects of alchemy. He hadn’t spoken his opinion because it would have been unfashionable, but it was utter nonsense. Somehow Carsten had become a dupe for that kind of thing, probably while translating that old book.

  That stuff, as far as Wilhelm could see, was a harmless conceit for those who could afford harmless conceits. He found it disappointing that his brother was given to such thinking, but he couldn’t blame him. It was a fascinating and mysterious subject. Hopefully, once he discovered that he couldn’t transmute lead into gold, he would get bored and move on.

  Wilhelm didn’t regret spying on Uli. What he saw completely revealed the mania that controlled and consumed his brother. He decided to seek a doctor for him, perhaps one of these new analysts.

  He was ashamed of himself for violating Carsten’s privacy, strange as it might sound. Wilhelm was a person who lived by his own terms and had turned out badly. Carsten, even though he was unconventional, was doing well in his studies and would make them all proud or envious. Secondly, he regretted letting his shock drive him to drink, when he knew he needed to stop.

  So he sat up, determined that today he wouldn’t drink. He would find a doctor for Uli, and he would tell Carsten how proud of him he was. He stood up, he bathed, he put one foot in front of the other.

  He left his room and walked down the hall. He passed the entrance to the large living room, and he saw it.

  It was in front of the fireplace, under the painting of their grandfather, the one replaced in his nightmare by the horrid painting of the front of Carsten’s old servants’ quarters.

  An easel with a large canvas covered with a painter’s drop cloth.

  Uli had left it there, that much was obvious. And Wilhelm knew it could be for no one but himself.

  All of the ideas drained out of him, he looked at it as he would a big, dangerous, angry dog.

  He stood staring at it for what felt like hours.

  Then he pulled the drop cloth off and fell to his knees.

  Uli had somehow painted Wilhelm’s nightmare, the one he’d had before he spied on Carsten. In the center of the painting was Wilhelm in profile, viewing the painting of the front of Carsten’s servants’ quarters. This image was surrounded by a halo of concentric footprints in dust, each in sets of two circles going one way, then two circles going the other way.

  ***

  Wilhelm came to on his knees with his chin on his chest. He must have fainted at some point. He didn’t recall losing consciousness.

  Ava stood above him, looking down on him in concern. “…Mr. Ernst… Mr. Ernst, are you all right? Shall I send for a doctor, Mr. Ernst?”

  He looked at her wide-eyed as he came back to himself. “Ava? Ava? Do you see the painting?”

  Ava turned and looked at the painting. “Yes, one of Uli’s… a good likeness, as Carsten would say!”

  Wilhelm continued staring at her, stunned. She said, “I went to Uli’s room, and he said I should take this and leave it in the living room for you. I attend to Uli every morning… he takes his meals in his room so that he is never disturbed.”

  She smiled brightly. “May I help you up? Some breakfast for Mr. Wilhelm, perhaps?”

  Wilhelm allowed himself to be led into the kitchen while Ava chatted merrily about coffee and pastries. He didn’t speak the entire time.

  Wilhelm ate wordlessly, thinking. He thought terrible things. One thing Wilhelm Ernst didn’t tolerate was anyone fucking with him. He didn’t tolerate being made a fool, even though life had shown him he was a world-class fool. What he felt now was anger. He didn’t know how it was being done… but he was being fucked with.

  Now he was in the living room looking at the painting. It was uncanny. It was surreal. It was here.

  Here were elements plucked right from a dream—himself looking at the painting of the front of Carsten’s servants’ quarters, surrounded by an element he had seen afterward, the double concentric circuits Carsten made around Ava in the ritual, but they were footprints in dust… which was from the first part of the dream, nightmare, whatever it was.

  He began to have doubts, and that made him even angrier. The past days had been nothing but doubts and fears, nothing like the usual way Wilhelm had chosen to live his life. He saw himself as decisive and sure, not this milquetoast shadow in this godforsaken house of mirrors.

  Before he knew it, he was throwing the glass of scotch across the room to shatter against the wall, smashing the wooden frame of the painting until the canvas was a rag in his hand that he beat against the floor. He was red-faced with fury.

  He stormed down the hall to Uli’s room and threw the door open, casting beams of light across the sickly Uli, twisting like a worm on a hot sidewalk. Wilhelm pulled him squirming out of his bed and tossed him to the floor in the sunlit hallway.

  Uli crashed painfully to the marble floor, his head connecting with a thocking noise. His body crashed to the floor behind his head in a clatter of bones with no cushioning on them. He was skeletal, he was sickly, he was cadaverous, and Wilhelm hated him. Wilhelm cocked back one leg to punt Uli down the hallway, but Uli put up his hands and made a mewling noise too wretched for even Wilhelm to kick.

  Uli looked into Wilhelm’s eyes, and he saw his true horror. This man had one foot in this world and another in hell. Wilhelm understood Uli may be mad, but there was no plotting, there was no scheming, there were no designs other than surviving another day so the demon that rode him at night may have a beast of burden.

  His posture softened, but his confusion remaining, he barked, “What in the hell is that painting, Uli? What in the hell is going on here, you madman?”

  Uli just groaned and covered his eyes from the pain of the light. His breathing was strained and wheezing. He was in bad shape.

  Wilhelm pulled him to his feet. Uli’s legs gave out several times and Wilhelm had to carry him.

  As he laid his brother down on the bed, he asked him where the painting came from. “Just like all of them, the angel comes to me. I cannot resist the angel. This is my penance, I have been chosen…”

  “Uli, do you know what I dreamed last night? I think you do…”

  Uli closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know anything about your dream, Wilhelm.”

  “I was on an endless featureless stone plain, the sky was covered with thick black clouds, that looked like they were boiling…”

  Wilhelm stared at Uli and saw him nodding his head—he understood.

  “There was only one thing on that endless plain… it was this house. I kept finding myself in the same spot on the plain. I would run to the house, sometimes I would make it, sometimes not before I woke up.”

  Wilhelm continued, “But I would fall back to sleep and immediately be back on that plain, and start running back to the house; finally I made it back to the house, but it was empty, old, ancient, no people, no furniture, just dust… and in the dust there were footprints. One time, I followed them to your room, one time, I followed them to Carsten’s room, but no one was there… then I walked out to the living room, and I looked above the mant
el and there was one of your paintings. It was a painting of the front of Carsten’s little study in the old servants’ quarters…”

  Uli gasped, he choked, made gagging noises. He gazed wildly around in confusion and fear. Wilhelm grabbed him by the shoulders and said, “That painting you made is of me in my dream looking at your painting!”

  Uli let out a piteous wail of lament. He sobbed and choked on tears that could not come. He said, “I’ve been there for an eternity!”

  Wilhelm shouted, “What does that mean, Uli? What does it mean, damn you?”

  Uli blubbered, “I left those footprints, I am the ghost in that house, this house, in that place… and I will be there until the end of time!”

  Wilhelm sat there, stunned. This talk of Uli’s was madness, but it was chilling madness, just like his paintings. He felt vertigo at the very notion of what Uli was saying.

  Uli said, “I was not haunting you… you were haunting me, and the angel came to me and forced me to paint it.”

  Wilhelm whispered, “What is the painting over the mantel? What is so important about the front of Carsten’s little study?”

  Uli went catatonic and fell over onto his side on the bed. His eyes were fixed, but his lips continued to move. Wilhelm ran over to him and put his ear up to his brother’s lips. Uli said, “It’s different there, time is different. Before, after, all exist at the same time; it does, but it doesn’t…”

  Wilhelm whispered back, “Why are you there, Uli? Why is the painting of Carsten’s little house there?”

  Uli answered, “Because that’s where it started. He put me in there.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Wilhelm was beyond bewilderment, beyond confusion, beyond fear. His understanding of the world had been shattered. Uli was rendering his dreams onto canvas with paint made from bodily fluids. And this was because Uli existed in two worlds at once, one that Wilhelm visited in dreams, and this one, like the two faces of a coin. And this resulted because of something that was done by Carsten, of all people.

  Wilhelm left Uli in his bed, shivering in terror of some certain fate. His lips moved, but no words came. His were the eyes of the damned.

  Like anyone facing the inexplicable, Wilhelm’s instinct was to leave, just leave. Wilhelm couldn’t verbalize it, but there was something unbelievably wrong here. Something malign, something invisible and silent. And it was growing stronger—or he was growing weaker, becoming more susceptible to it. The word that kept coming was haunted. Yes, this place, this house, was haunted. Not haunted by a ghost, but by something else.

  Wilhelm didn’t even pretend, he didn’t struggle, he just resigned himself to it. He had to drink. He had to drink, quickly, and pass out. If he didn’t drink, he would pack his bags and flee. And he couldn’t do that. For the first time in his life, he was frightened for his family. He couldn’t leave them to this thing.

  So Wilhelm Ernst went back to his bedroom, found a bottle of scotch, and drank it.

  ***

  When Wilhelm emerged from his torpor, it was night again. He felt terrible, but he hadn’t dreamt. His head pounded, his heart beat too fast, his hands shook. This was a bad way to prevent himself from escaping back to Paris, a bad way to prevent himself from sleeping at night. But if he didn’t sleep, he wouldn’t dream, and perhaps Uli would be spared his macabre visions. He just wondered how long he could keep this up.

  He had to get up, go to the kitchen, avoid his harpy sisters and eat something. He needed to eat to maintain himself. He would drink wine to put off the shakes, but stay away from the hard stuff to prevent stupidity.

  As he walked down the darkened hallway toward the kitchen, he could hear his sisters shouting from upstairs. They were preparing for their nightly shallow excursion. He shook his head and smiled ruefully. Years ago, that was him, and up until this last year, it was Uli. He was forced out of town under legal threat from the Munich police. He had gone too far, even for a person of his social caste; he had badly injured a man, and for nothing.

  Uli would wake soon, and Carsten had been secluded in his study since getting home. Wilhelm shuddered at spending any time with Uli. He was concerned for his brother, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to watch him paint with blood and shit. Now was the time to wait, wait for whatever the witching hours were to bring.

  After an hour or so, his sisters departed, and after several hours, they returned. He heard them laughing and staggering up the stairs. He heard Karl stabling the horses.

  He began to investigate this house and its terrible new condition.

  Wilhelm crept from his room and listened. Not a sound except his own breathing. He’d never heard such cavernous silence before, never been so acutely aware of the tiny sounds living in the house’s titanic belly. Even though he wore no shoes, it sounded like his bare feet were waves booming on a rocky shore. His breathing increased, he could hear his heart, he could hear the liquid courage slapping around in his glass. He tried to smile in this darkness, to be amused at his own expense. He forced out one pathetic laugh, and it echoed throughout the house.

  He finally reached Uli’s hallway. It felt as if time slowed and the hallways extended in length. But here he was, finally, after spending what seemed like an hour trying to be silent to get here.

  He looked through the keyhole and saw the same terrible ordeal as before: his brother as an ugly marionette, contorted by the experience forced on him. He was a nightmare vision. He looked like he was being operated, a vessel for something trying to build itself a church here, so as to make here into there.

  Sweat poured, eyes bulged and goggled. Muscles corded mechanically under skin stretched drum tight. Bones angled and veins pulsed. It was a mockery inflicted on the human form. Wilhelm wanted to kick the door open and knock his brother out so this obscenity could be averted, but Wilhelm stayed himself. In a silent prayer, he apologized to Uli for allowing him to endure another second of this, but to stop this thing, he needed to know more. And now, more than ever, Wilhelm knew this was one of the many faces of a single thing, hell-bent on some terrible agenda.

  After a few more moments of this, Wilhelm pulled himself away from the keyhole and walked to the living room, where his dream showed him Uli’s painting of Carsten’s building.

  He looked at the painting of his grandfather above the mantel. He looked like he understood the world and the things that happened there. Wilhelm doubted he could explain what was happening now.

  As quietly as he could, he opened the back door and crept out into the garden. It was a cloudless night, and the trees, flowers, and fountains were touched by the faint glow of moonlight. He had never seen the garden this way. He had never heard the wind in the trees like this. This was a night where the barriers between this world and whatever other world felt like they could become transparent.

  He made his way to where he could see Carsten’s little house. There was a light coming from underneath the door, but something was different. The door was slightly open, and he heard his brother’s voice.

  Carsten was behind the little house, further back from the gardens…

  Wilhelm snuck quietly off the path and into the cover of the pine trees, hoping to find a better angle to see what his brother was doing. He was definitely not translating anything from Latin or any other language. Wilhelm walked a wide arc around to where he suspected his brother would be.

  Their grandfather, the same one from the painting on the mantel, and his grandmother, were buried back here in a small but ornate site.

  Carsten had drawn three circles in white powder on the ground. All three circles touched inside a larger triangle. Carsten stood in one, Ava lay in another, naked and blindfolded, not moving at all. And something else was in the third circle.

  Wilhelm couldn’t clearly hear the words, but Carsten spoke a series of terms in Latin, or what sounded like Latin. Wilhelm moved closer when the wind picked up, but didn’t wish to go any closer. The thing in the third circle was a very old man, hanging s
uspended in the air with no visible means of support. And it was transparent. It was their grandfather. Carsten had a human skull in his left hand. He held it above his head and spoke commands in Latin:

  In nomen of ancient auctorita, ego to order vos oro!

  Ego precor nomen of formidonis, manus manus of rutilus, mens of

  infinitus, ego to order!

  In nomen of ancient auctorita, ego to order vos oro!

  Wilhelm froze in fascinated disgust and terror. In a few short days, his entire worldview had been torn asunder, but that upheaval hadn’t compared to this. This was the destruction of his understanding. Whatever happened with the paintings and the dreams could have been resolved by going back to Paris and staying drunk for a long time. There would be no cure for what he was seeing now.

  He was sweating like Uli, his muscles clenched in agony, his breathing rapid and shallow. He wanted to scream but couldn’t; he wanted to run but couldn’t. He stood as still and silent as a statue for the next hour.

  He watched as Carsten attempted over and over to get the shade to speak. All it did was hang there, motionless. Eventually, he spoke words of banishment and the thing melted into a luminous steam that fell back to the earth and was drawn into their grandfather’s grave. He watched as Carsten roused the naked Ava, who appeared to be drugged, and carried her back to the house.

  Wilhelm stood in the trees across the clearing from his grandfather’s grave until the sun came up. Only then did he feel safe to return to the house.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Wilhelm looked out the back window at the garden. Beyond the garden lay Carsten’s lab, or church, or whatever it was. Even further beyond that lay the graves of their grandparents in the small and dignified plot his father had laid out for them.

  He turned his head and stared at himself in the mirror. His eyes were red and puffy from tears. It was a shell-shocked man who looked back at him. He realized he was starting to look like Uli, like a man consumed by madness. He laughed out loud at his terrified visage in the mirror. How many madmen had he sneered at in the streets of Munich and Paris? Now he was joining them.