Cosmocopia

by Paul Di Filippo

  Finally the finished effigy thudded to the floorboards, big and solid enough not to be harmed by its uncushioned impact.

  Lazorg dropped his tranches and himself fell to the floor in exhaustion.

  As he had hoped, the seeping, radiant interstitial doorway remained open, so vast was the nacreous wound and withdrawal of plastic matter.

  Lazorg pushed himself up and began to wrestle with the statue he had created, until he managed by superhuman effort to stand it up on its base.

  Here was his dead wife, all in nacre.

  Face-naked, Crutchsump directed a tender frozen smile on her family. This world had its first portrait. Let Arbogast and society make of it what they would.

  Lazorg approached the interstitial wound. He poked a foot over the threshold and into the nacre. There was some resistance, but not insurmountable. No evil sensations threatened his bodily integrity.

  The wound was closing. He gripped both edges and held it apart by main force, just wide enough to squeeze through.

  Something bulled past him, into the nacre.

  Pirkle and Slug!

  Lazorg hurled himself after them, disappearing into the pearly billows.

  The wound cemented its edges invisibly together, and the studio was empty of life.

  Crutchsump’s statue continued to beam beatifically.

  Light. Unbearable light filled all his senses. He could taste and smell and hear the seductive nacreous light. He breathed it, and it breathed him. Now the radiance threatened to drown him as if in numinous sperm, swallow him whole, dissolve his identity.

  But Lazorg summoned up all the experience he had garnered as an ideator, bending the nacre to his will. He pushed against the omnipresence, sought to disentangle himself from the interstitial medium.

  Pirkle? Slug? No time to worry about them now!

  Slowly, the nacre retreated, Lazorg’s will pushing it back in all directions, so that after an immeasurable time he found himself floating at the center of an egg-shaped vacuity not much bigger than himself.

  He paused at that time, and the glowing walls of the hollow stayed constant. He corralled all his strength and purposefulness, building up his interior vibrational prana until he felt nearly ready to explode.

  At the point of intense painfulness, he thrust out his arms in a broad gesture of defiance and cried out, “Let there not be light!”

  Instant and total transfiguration!

  Born from his seed syllables, a nearly infinite landscape prevailed, of varying shades of non-blinding whiteness, with enough tonality to define transition between its parts.

  Beneath Lazorg’s feet stretched a perfectly flat ivory plane. Above his head curved a pearly sky. The two met at the distant horizon.

  Slowly Lazorg spun about. Sameness, sameness, jagged color—

  Pirkle and Slug!

  The wurzel, infant clasped to its flat back, was already moving toward him. Lazorg trotted forward to meet them.

  “Poppa!”

  Lazorg bent down and relieved Pirkle of his burden. He made no useless chastisements. In truth, he was rather glad not to be alone in this wan, white desert. He took off his shirt and fashioned a sling out of it. Now Slug rested secure against his bare bosom.

  Motion beneath his feet snagged Lazorg’s attention.

  The impenetrable plastic floor of this interstitial world had gone translucent, revealing that the cubic volumes below it were stuffed with vague shapes: men, beasts, artifacts, structures, plants—all lazily swimming as if moved by currents or tides through a subterranean ocean, so that some objects gained more distinction as they approached nearer to the surface, while others drifted downward, deeper into obscurity. A million different incompatible paradigms informed them.

  Recognizing little, Lazorg watched the kaleidoscopic show with deep fascination, as if creation were offering him a revue of its fecundity, and daring him to match it.

  Was this a natural phenomenon, or some willful boast by the Conceptus? Lazorg did not want to encourage his enemy by bestowing admiration. …

  The ground tremored beneath Lazorg’s feet, nearly toppling man and wurzel. More judders followed. Lazorg threw himself down onto his back, arms folded around Slug, while Pirkle hunkered down with limbs tucked inside.

  Multiple eruptions everywhere!

  Many of the things seen below the crust were manifesting, as the land itself assumed a complex topography!

  Grass peppered the friable soil of a moderate slope beneath his back. Fully mature trees shot up around him, a veritable instant forest. Lazorg prayed no sharp object would rise up from directly below and impale him.

  After some duration, the remaking of the world ceased.

  Shakily, Lazorg got to his feet.

  A million shades of white and grey colored the objects that had manifested.

  Lazorg and Pirkle stood in a thick forest devoid of underbrush, all its odd herbaceous and barked trees as pale as mushrooms. Bloodless birds fluttered from limb to limb. Rodent-like animals of milky coloration scurried, bearing blanched nuts.

  Only the three intruders retained any hues.

  Now that the interstitial world had assumed what appeared to be its stable semblance, Lazorg could focus again on his quest.

  To reach the murderous, reckless, heedless Conceptus and demand justice and payment for the insults associated with life.

  But how?

  Probably not by simply standing here.

  Lazorg took a step in a random direction. “Let’s go, Pirkle. We are walking to the Cosmocopia’s end.”

  Pirkle seemed agreeable.

  The large graceful house loomed in the middle of a clearing, a beacon of security and welcome and companionship. Lazorg paused at the edge of the forest to observe it. The residence looked familiar, but he could not place its provenance within his memories at first. This uncertainty irked him.

  Beside him, standing as tall as Lazorg’s waist, Slug, neatly formed now along anthropic lines, reached up timorously for the man’s hand.

  “What is it, Poppa? I’ve never seen anything like it. …”

  “It’s a house, Slug, a place to live.”

  “Does anyone live in it now?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  Both man and boy—and wurzel—had been bleached as pallid as the rest of the environment, due to ingestion of the interstitial food and water over the indeterminate weeks and months they had traveled the world. During all that time there had been no signs of higher intelligence or civilization, just wildlife and variable geography: savannah, mountains, valleys, seacoast. The climate across these multifarious terrains remained temperate.

  Lazorg had almost forgotten why he traveled. The speedy maturation of his smart and inquisitive son demanded much of his attention and resources.

  As a hybrid child, blended of maternal and paternal genomes, Slug possessed a nose that was not an introciptor, but not precisely a normal human nose either, more like a tapir’s snout. He also had male genitals, like his father. Lazorg thought him rather handsome, but that might have been parental prejudice.

  Lazorg had had to impart Slug’s whole biography to the boy. He tried to give an accurate portrait of Crutchsump and her sacrifice. He wasn’t sure how much Slug comprehended. The youth seemed content with the world at hand. After all, it was all he knew. Lazorg wished he could feel the same. But the goad of his losses still drove him.

  The bipeds survived in large part only thanks to Pirkle’s hunting abilities. The wurzel bagged plentiful small game, which they learned to savor raw and bloody. Additionally, Pirkle could sniff out plants and roots, berries and nuts that were safely edible.

  Life in the interstitial realm had assumed a certain monotonous, organic self-sufficiency.

  Until this moment, when the house intruded.

  Lazorg studied the structure for a time. No inhabitants emerged, no activity could be seen through the windows. Wh
y was this place so familiar…?

  A millipede big as a vacuum cleaner ran harmlessly over Lazorg’s bare foot. Pirkle set off after it.

  Slug exhibited restlessness. “Are we going to stand here all day, Poppa? Shouldn’t we be moving on?”

  Slug’s philosophy seemed to be travel for travel’s sake, letting the unrolling of the land beneath their feet carry them effortlessly. Lazorg had tried to instill larger goals in the boy, but without much success.

  “Hold on just a little longer, son. This place could provide us with some useful tools. Maybe clothes too.”

  Lazorg’s trousers were ragged. Slug, having long ago outgrown his onesie, wore Lazorg’s ripped adult-sized shirt like a gown.

  Lazorg studied the house another minute, then announced, “You wait right here. Pirkle should be back soon to companion you. I’m going to scout.”

  There was no cover in the clearing, so Lazorg, crouching, ran a zigzag course to the front door of the house. Why he suspected danger, he couldn’t say. He looked back to make sure Slug was doing as he had been instructed. The boy crouched behind a shrub, plainly enjoying this silly game.

  Keeping below the level of the windows, Lazorg circled the house to the back. Less chance of being seen there, perhaps. …

  At a rear window, Lazorg cautiously raised his head to peer inside.

  He regarded a kitchen. Inside, an older human woman talked to a man fussing at a stove.

  Lazorg thought he knew these people. But from where?

  Of course!

  This was his house! His employees!

  Lazorg tapped on the window and called out in low tones: “Anna! Brian!”

  The people inside jumped, startled expressions on their faces, then looked at the window. The older woman put a hand to her mouth, then raced to open the window.

  “Mister Lazorg! What are you doing here! Do you want him to catch you!”

  “Who? Who’s going to catch me?”

  The chef, Brian, had come up to the window. “Rokesby Marrs. He owns this place, ever since you left. We’re all his servants now. Me, Anna, Dean and Roy. He drives us hard, Frank—hard.”

  The chef lifted his shirt and turned, to reveal fresh welts and scars on his back.

  At the sound of his hated rival’s name, Lazorg experienced a seething in his blood.

  “I’ll kill him!”

  “Oh, no, Mister Lazorg, you couldn’t! He’s a giant.”

  “A giant?”

  “Twice as big as you or I. Strong, and mean, too.”

  Lazorg felt a sense of helplessness. “What can I do? This is my house! I want it back!”

  His housekeeper studied the situation a moment before answering thoughtfully. “You might visit the witch. She’s very smart.”

  “A witch? Where?”

  “Not far from here, just follow that trail over there. She might be inclined to help.”

  “All right, I’ll do it! Don’t despair, I’ll be back. …”

  Lazorg rejoined Slug. Pirkle was feasting on the millipede with a joyous crunching.

  “Son, we have to visit someone now. Come along.”

  Slug seemed slightly disconcerted by this announcement. “Another person? I’ve never met another person before.”

  “It’ll be fun, you’ll see. C’mon now!”

  Father and son circled the clearing’s perimeter inside the tree line, the contented wurzel following, until they reached the path indicated by the housekeeper. They set off down the trail.

  Before too long, insofar as could be measured amidst the constant illumination from the whitely smoldering sky, they came upon a small cottage, snug and well-kept.

  Lazorg strode right up to the front door with Slug in tow, and knocked. He was answered shortly.

  In the open doorway stood a slim young woman whose hair was the darkest shade found in this land, and whose complexion was the palest. Her face tickled Lazorg’s memories.

  That student journalist—

  “You—you’re Nia—Nia Hemphill.”

  The woman smiled. “That’s correct. And you are Lazorg. Come in.”

  Lazorg entered with Slug, while Pirkle chose to remain outside. That the wurzel seemed trusting of the witch reassured Lazorg.

  The interior of the cottage featured plain and simple accoutrements. Nia had them pull up cane-bottomed chairs to a wooden table. Slug seemed unable to take his wide eyes off this woman, only the third person beside himself and his father whom he had ever seen.

  “What can I do for you, Lazorg?”

  Lazorg explained his dilemma.

  “So you wish to be big as the giant then?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You’d fight him, and kill him, and regain your estate?”

  “That is what I intend.”

  Nia smiled coyly. “How will I benefit?”

  “I don’t know how right this minute. But if you help me, I won’t forget you. I promise.”

  “Fair enough. Come with me. then. Slug, have this bun and wait, please.”

  Nia gave the boy a roll hot from the oven. Slug seemed entranced by the hot, refined food. Its aroma tantalized Lazorg as well.

  Nia conducted Lazorg to a back room and shut the door. She began to disrobe. Her body was boyish, slim, muscular and tight, but still quintessentially female. Lazorg felt himself becoming aroused.

  “Don’t dally!”

  Lazorg hastily stripped.

  A big bed received them somehow.

  Lazorg found himself between Nia’s alabaster thighs, his rigid penis like a stick of chalk.

  Sex enveloped him. Her cunt, so different from Crutchsump’s introciptor—yet somehow akin. It seemed eons since he had last savored the familiar thumping coitus. He had been old and feeble in one universe, then lost amidst strangeness in another. But now he was almost home—

  Lazorg climaxed, then flopped insensate.

  Waking, he found himself alone in the bed. His feet and arms hung over the edges. He stood up, and his head bumped the rafters. He had almost to double over to get out the door. Naked, since his old clothes were like doll clothes now to him.

  In the front room where the oven loomed, Nia and Slug were playing with manikins, making them enact adventures on the tabletop. Slug seemed to be fully at ease, and thoroughly enjoying himself.

  Lazorg thought, What a fine mother she’d make.

  Nia interrupted her play. Slug looked around and saw his father. The boy’s eyes widened.

  The witch’s bold gaze carried frank admiration. “You’re certainly big enough now to meet your enemy. But build up your strength first with something to eat.”

  Nia produced a seemingly limitless supply of hot rolls from the oven, and colorless sweet butter. Lazorg wolfed them down. When he felt replete, he announced, “Now I’ll set out.”

  “And we’ll come with you, of course.”

  Lazorg had to squeeze and twist to get out the front door. When Pirkle saw him, he stilted up comically with startlement, like a jack-in-the-box.

  Lazorg, naked, set off down the path back to his house, his huge strides causing the others to hurry behind him. Eventually, he lost sight of them in his haste to confront his foe.

  Lazorg entered the clearing surrounding his rightful home. He came close to the house and bellowed out his challenge.

  “Rokesby! Come out and fight!”

  The frightened yet hopeful faces of the help appeared around the edges of curtains. From the window of an upper story roared an answer.

  “Go away, old man, I’m busy painting! I have to satisfy all your old clients!”

  Lazorg let out a wordless howl. He raced to the front door and burst it down. He dashed upstairs, elbows and knees smashing furniture along his path, and into his studio.

  There stood the detested Rokesby Marrs, naked also. The man wore a foolish-looking goatee. His hair was long and secured in a ponytail. An earring glimmered in o
ne earlobe.

  The studio was filled with Rokesby’s putrid imitations of genuine Lazorg creations—and he was in the process of covering over one of Lazorg’s original canvases with gesso!

  “Get out—now!” yelled Lazorg.

  “You’re already dead, old man. You should be the one to leave!”

  Lazorg wasted no more words, but hurled himself at Rokesby.

  The two nude titans grappled like Olympian wrestlers. They staggered around the room, sending easels crashing down, toppling plinths that held statues, smashing their feet and elbows into canvases.

  They each lost their balance at the same time and went down, still locked in battle. Writhing and searching for winning holds, their huge muscles straining, they rolled across the floorboards until they slammed against a wall with tremendous force, Rokesby’s body interposed between Lazorg and impact.

  Rokesby’s grip necessarily loosened. Lazorg managed to slither away and get to his feet. He picked up Rokesby around the waist in a surprise maneuver, and threw him out a wide window whose twin panes of hinged glass were already opened outward.

  Rokesby landed with a muffled thud on the grass, and lay still. Lazorg raced downstairs and outside.

  Rokesby Marrs was dead, his neck snapped, his head twisted at an unnatural angle.

  Lazorg found himself surrounded by his staff, as well as Nia, Slug and Pirkle. They awaited his victory speech.

  Lazorg grinned. “Now we begin to live properly.”

  Lazorg lay dying in his bed, somehow older than he had ever been, his body withered, his mind dull and querulous. Nia and Slug stood by him.

  Slug was a man now. Nia the witch remained as young as she had always been.

  Lazorg’s stature had diminished to normal the very next day after he had vanquished Rokesby Marrs, and subsequent sex with Nia Hemphill did not result in future incidents of gigantism. And there were many such occasions, since Nia moved into Lazorg’s home, and became a wife to Lazorg and a mother to Slug.

  Lazorg did not resume painting. He found he had no taste for that artform any longer, especially when limited to shades of grey. The pure power and control he had experienced when creating ideations had spoiled him for the cruder technics of paint on canvas.

  He had not in fact pursued any art all these long years in this interstitial land, but been content to live out his daily life in enjoyment of food and drink, the raising of his and Crutchsump’s child, and the company of those few souls around him.