Heraclix and Pomp: A Novel of the Fabricated and the Fey Read online

  “And me!” Pomp said.

  The mayor fidgeted, as if nervous. Then, looking at his trumpeters and Estok, he spoke again, in a restrained voice.

  “Why . . . why iz thiz knowledge of such importance to you?”

  “I am seeking to know what has become of him. I think he might have answers to some questions we have.”

  The mayor looked up at Pomp, licked its lips, cleared its throat, and shook its head quickly, as if trying to regain its concentration after a momentary daydream.

  “And what shall I gain from imparting such useful information? Only I have the knowledge you seek,” it gloated at the other devils. “Such knowledge can be had, for the right price.”

  Heraclix thought about it a moment. He narrowed his eyes and came so close to the mayor that their faces almost touched. “I shall refrain from ripping your nose off.”

  “This is Hell,” the mayor laughed, “Do you think that such a threat can actually frighten me? Especially after . . .”

  “After what?” Heraclix asked, pouncing on the mayor’s pause.

  “After he killed me,” the mayor admitted. It lowered its head. “Of course, I had it coming. You don’t handle snakez without being bitten.”

  “What?” Pomp asked.

  “Mowler. I made the mistake of trying to handle him. I waz young, and he waz already old and experienced when I came on the scene. I immediately recognized that he waz smart and cunning. I knew I wanted him on my side. Who would not want such an erudite, educated man in hiz cabinet?”

  “Not me!” Pomp said.

  “Well then you are not suited for politicz,” the mayor said condescendingly. “He waz a valuable ally, able to divine information that my best spiez couldn’t hope to gain. He waz charizmatic, too. The ladiez loved him, though he gave them no more than a smile and a reluctant kissz on the hand. He had a strange aversion to small, petite women, though, preferring more corpulent female friendz.”

  The mayor looked at Pomp meaningfully, as if expecting some kind of reaction. Not getting any, it continued.

  “Mowler waz a man of great vision in some wayz and very conservative in otherz. He waz not fond of the poor and uneducated. Thiz caused some friction between uz, since I waz, I am proud to say, a champion of the unfortunate and downtrodden, a real enlightened leader. When I proposed that all of the city’z inhabitantz be taught literacy, he balked, even rebelled, though he kept hiz feelingz on the matter hidden until the last momentz before my demize. He iz a great actor, that one.”

  Heraclix stopped the mayor with an uplifted hand. “You don’t have to recount . . .”

  “Oh, but I do! I attempted to argue with him, but waz cut short. It waz a painful death, but interesting, at least. Somehow, he called down lightning right there in my office. He chanted some garbage—I thought it waz a joke, to be honest—then he said ‘Now I will show the ignorant masses real power! Not political power or the holier-than-thou emptiness of the priests and practitionerz of religion, but my power, the power of superior intellect and discipline, the ability to control the very powerz of nature and, in time, the very powerz of Hell!’”

  “‘But you said it was your power,’ I argued, ‘not the power of nature that—’”

  “My train of logic was cut short by a clap of thunder, the echoes of which I didn’t hear. Some of my other counselorz told me, after they arrived here, that the spectacle waz most impressive. The citizenz were awestruck.” The mayor puffed out his chest, “I waz wept for over three dayz.”

  “Three days?” Heraclix asked.

  “Yes, three dayz, the polite amount of time over which someone of my office should be mourned. No more, no less.” It held its nose in the air. “This waz a formality, you see? Etiquette demanded that every good citizen mourn me for three dayz. They didn’t really love me, though I tried to at least provide them a free education, being an enlightened ruler.” The mayor sighed. “No, they were more concerned with my personal life than my policiez. They would rather see me in my bedroom than in my officez. Unfortunately, some of them did.

  “So, since they thought me depraved, they only mourned as much as was required, then they spread the rumor that I had been stricken down by God’s own wrath at my liberal policiez and my bedroom practicez. Though I wouldn’t call them practicez. They were really more like competitionz between my—”

  “Back to Mowler,” Heraclix said, interrupting the mayor’s story.

  “Ah, yes.” The mayor returned to the subject, a tiny bit embarrassed. “Mowler. I later found out that he had tried to poizon me, over time. Thank goodness for tasterz! Though my taster did last a little longer than me. When he arrived here, he told me that Mowler, frustrated by the people’z continued willful ignorance and their lack of recognition at his genius, left Prague for Vienna, ranting and raving about how he would call up the very powerz of Hell and rule the world if he had to sacrifice every living soul in the Holy Roman Empire to do it.” The Mayor paused for a moment. “They don’t have much imagination, those sorcerers. Though they can be a bother.”

  “Where is Mowler?” Heraclix asked.

  “How am I supposed to know?” the Mayor said.

  “He is not here?” Pomp asked.

  “Mowler? Ha! Well, there’s no chance he made it to Heaven. And he’s not here, or I would know about it. No! He iz not dead!”

  “What?!” Pomp and Heraclix yelled in unison, the former shooting up into the air, the latter reeling, then stumbling backwards over a group of devil-flies who had silently sat down in a semicircle to hear the mayor’s tale.

  “Are you sure?” Pomp asked the Mayor.

  “Of course, I’m sure. I’m the Mayor!” it said, holding his hands up exultantly.

  “My people!” it called out. “This little one thinks I don’t know my own city. Haz anyone seen the sorcerer Mowler among us?”

  “We would know!” shouted one of the devil-flies.

  “He izn’t with us,” said another.

  “Never heard of him,” said a devil wearing a wig and tiara.

  “You see?” the Mayor said. “None of my subjects have seen him here.”

  Heraclix noticed one of the devil-flies averting his eyes from the Mayor. This one started to shuffle away from the group, while others, beckoned by the Mayor’s shouts, were flowing toward their Mayor and its strange guests.

  “What about him?” Heraclix asked.

  “You there!” the Mayor said.

  The devil-fly slowly turned around and pointed to himself, mouthing the question: “Me?”

  “Yes, you!” the Mayor said. “Come here!”

  The devil approached them.

  “You have not seen Mowler here, have you?” the Mayor said, puffing his chest out and looking at Heraclix the whole time.

  “Well,” the devil-fly said. “There waz one time . . .”

  “Mmm?” the Mayor looked at his subject with a squint, displeased.

  “To be honest, there waz a time when a man came among us. Not a condemned soul. Not yet, at least.”

  “And you did not tell me?” the Mayor asked.

  The devil-fly looked up at the Mayor. “I had intended to tell, in time,” he turned toward Heraclix. “But I didn’t think it waz time to . . .”

  The devil-fly stopped suddenly. Its humungous trap of a jaw swung wide open, and it backed away from Heraclix as if facing the confessor’s rack.

  “You! Who are you?!” Its voice was full of terror, frantic with fear.

  “I’m very sorry, I’m afraid I don’t understand . . .” Heraclix tried to placate the creature, but it didn’t heed him.

  “You brought her here?!”

  “Brought who?” Heraclix asked.

  “The girl from Szentendre . . . but how, how did you know? She iz not here, iz she?” It looked from side to side, then spun around, looking beneath itself, scanning the rooftops and windows of the surrounding buildings. “Iz she? But they buried her in Szentendre and surely her soul waz not bound for this
place! Surely not!”

  The devil tried to scramble away from Heraclix, clawing its way through the crowd.

  The Mayor was as confused as Heraclix. “Someone calm him down!” he said, motioning for his herald to go take care of the situation.

  But the devil shook its head and said: “That eye! Where izz she? Not here! Please, not here . . . You! I know you! I know why you’re here, but you can’t have me! No, I am Hizz, Hizz forever!”

  “What do you know about the girl?” Heraclix asked. He began to wade through the other devils to get to the speaker. “Tell me about the eye!”

  “No, no, no!” the devil said, shaking. It looked from side to side, trying to find an escape. Then, as if an epiphany had struck, it wrung its four hands together and yelled at the top of its lungs: “Maaazzter! Maaazzter! Intruderzz! Intruderzz!”

  The mayor, wringing his own hands with worry and looking from side to side as if expecting the arrival of an unwanted, very unpleasant guest, tried to calm it.

  “Listen, calm down. No need to bring Him into this when we can handle it ourselvez.”

  “Maaazzter! Heeelp us! Intruderzz!” the big one continued screaming.

  A low throbbing hum, like the buzz of a palace-sized insect, pulsed through the city, vibrating the walls and cobblestones. This was punctuated by a rhythmic booming like low, rumbling thunder sounding in a regular cadence, like a giant’s heartbeat or . . . footsteps! Each muffled crash shook the ground. As it came closer the magnitude of each step increased until windows shattered, and cracks began to appear in the crumbling plaster.

  A great light shone from the direction of the approaching entity. It started like the first slivers of the rising sun on the horizon. Then, as it came closer, the light gradually intensified to the shine of a full moon’s light on fresh fallen snow. They couldn’t help but look that direction, though many of the devil-flies, including the one who beckoned to its master, scattered, running for cover from falling pieces of masonry and whatever was walking toward faux-Prague. The light continued to grow with each ground-shattering step. Then it flashed like a beacon, lighting the ceiling of the miles-high cavern with white fire and temporarily blinding all those who looked in that direction.

  It was practically on top of them when their eyes readjusted and they finally saw it.

  It was hundreds of feet tall. The battered and dented silver crown it wore was itself twice as tall as the spires of Prague’s Saint Vitus Cathedral and no less majestic. Atop the crown, nested in the bent prongs, was a star whose rays cut through the eternal night.

  The demon impassively scanned his domain through two enormous, multi-faceted eyes, which bulged beneath the shining crown. Folded creases beneath its eyes frowned on mock-Prague’s inhabitants.

  It wore a purple velvet doublet of exquisite workmanship. Beneath it, frilled sleeves and collars puffed out, the collar nesting the demon’s tremendous proboscis like a black serpent in a frilly cotton nest. Its arms and hands, all four of them, exactly mirrored those of the devil-flies. In its hands it held a great black scepter, as large as a tree. Set in the head of the scepter was a gigantic ruby the size of a horse carriage, cut long so as to make the device look more like a mace than a representation of royal authority.

  Below the doublet, about its loins, it wore a vast golden kilt embroidered with imagery taken from the war in Heaven. Each act of the story was sewn into a strip of fabric, giving the girdle the appearance of a scintillating chitin-armored skirt. The topmost band showed a group of angels, stunning in their beauty, sitting around a table and colluding over a series of maps, some of which had been pinned to the table with long daggers. The second band was embroidered with an army of white-robed angels, swords held high, marching against a vast white castle whose foundation and lower walls were hidden in a bank of puffy white clouds. Below this, on the third band, was a battle scene wherein these same angels fled, bruised and bloodied, from a cascading wave of bright light. The rebellious angels, their skins now black or red or putrid green, and their features undergoing hideous transformations, were being routed from the realms of heaven on the fourth band. The fifth band replayed the story of the Garden of Eden, the serpent wrapped around the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, tempting the naked Adam and Eve. Scenes of mankind’s debauchery, betrayal, and backstabbing murder dominated the sixth band. The seventh band showed a series of full-length portraits of the dukes of Hell with their diabolical insignia floating over their heads like unholy halos. The demon itself was shown standing with feet planted in the midst of a burning Prague, his wings fanning the flames of the inferno, oblivious to the suffering around him, all powerful in his kingdom.

  It was then that Heraclix realized that this was the true form of Beelzebub, The Lord of the Flies. This wasn’t a mere avatar, as Mowler had conjured in his apartment. This was the duke of Hell in all of his unholy glory. Heraclix looked at the embroidered Beelzebub, then the real one. Though hidden in the skirt’s representation, the golem could clearly see before him Beelzebub’s cloven hooves surrounded by the crumbling remains of the buildings destroyed in its wake. Entire rooftops stripped up and flew through the air as the devil-god lifted its foot to walk toward Heraclix and Pomp.

  The mayor shook its head and lifted its hands heavenward in despair before a gigantic cloven hoof clomped down, destroying half of a street and all of the mayor.

  Heraclix shook off the awe that had fixed him in place and ran. Pomp flew ahead of him. They headed for the equivalent of the stone bridge but found that, rather than a line of saintly statues, the persons memorialized here were traitors and base sinners: Judas Iscariot, Brutus, Cain, a number of corrupted Popes and wicked kings and despotic rulers—some of which might not yet have been born into the world, but would surely make their mark on it.

  Beelzebub’s cloven hoof crashed down on the bridge near the bank they had just fled, sending stones flying. A Hell-quake shook the very foundations, causing the structure to sway to and fro. Several of the stone traitors cracked off their bases and dove into the river, sending out great waves across its bubbling surface. Heraclix was knocked off his feet and onto his back. Beelzebub nearly filled his vision.

  Above the head of the gargantuan fly-god-demon, a black, buzzing swarm composed of millions of dog-sized flies materialized. They flowed around their Lord like living tentacles, then shot down toward the intruders on the bridge. They flew quickly, arriving before Heraclix could stand up.

  Heraclix was buffeted by the flies, barely able to crawl to the edge of the bridge and pull himself over. As he fell toward the water, he saw Pomp flitting beside him, and then he plunged into the river’s black, icy depths.

  CHAPTER 12

  Pomp spins under water, dodging falling pieces of statuary. She doesn’t like the water and uses her wings to swim up toward the surface, up toward the blinding light, up and through the water . . .

  . . . and into darkness.

  She looks around and sees a river below her. And treetops lit by a full moon.

  But no Beelzebub, no burning city, and, best of all, no Estok!

  And there is Heraclix, floating under the water.

  He isn’t swimming.

  He isn’t moving at all.

  But something is moving toward him. A barge piloted by two people, one very old, and one very young.

  “Steer us easy around,” the old one says. “We don’t want to hit him!”

  The old one pokes a long pole into the water near Heraclix, while the young one steers the boat with a large rudder.

  “Easy. Easy!” the old man says. “To the right, just a bit. There you are. And . . . got him!”

  The weight of the giant almost pulls the old man into the river. The barge lists toward Heraclix, but the old man is able to stay on the boat. Through a series of small maneuvers, he brings Heraclix’s head and shoulders up onto the deck.

  The young one comes and helps the old. Inch by inch, they work to get as much of Heraclix as they can up on the
boat. But Pomp invisibly helps, though she can do little more than move her friend’s finger. But every bit helps. They get everything out of the water but his feet. He is too long and just won’t fit that way.

  The old man listens to Heraclix’s chest. He shakes his head, then presses down on the giant’s chest a couple of times. He listens at Heraclix’s mouth, then holds his fingers over Heraclix’s wrist.

  He shakes his head again.

  “Well, Alva,” the old man says to the younger, who has gone back to steering the barge. “There’s nothing we can do to revive him. But we won’t abandon him to the fish. We’ll take him to the city. Everyone deserves a proper burial.”

  The young one nods.

  “You rest now, Alva. I’ll steer.”

  The boy, exhausted, curls up in a pile of blankets and drifts off to sleep.

  Awake!

  Awake?

  Only upon awakening did Heraclix realize that he had been unconscious. But was that even possible? Could the undead sleep? Could the dead wake? Or had a black veil been drawn over all of his senses? He opened his eyes a bit wider and felt gravity pull him from below. That direction, he thought as his sight slowly focused, must be down.

  He was on his back, but whatever he was laying on was unstable, lolling his body with a gentle rocking.

  His eyesight was blurred. He reached up with heavy hands and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear a milky smudge from his vision. The smudge remained. He realized that he was looking up at the sky. The milky smudge was the moon glowing behind the clouds, like a ghost passing behind a thin, gray curtain.

  A ghost.

  He shivered, not from fear of spirits, but because he was wet—no, drenched—and the night air was cool.

  Recollection filtered back into him as water drained off his body, a bizarre trading scheme: droplets and streams for memes and memory. He sat up, water cascading from his skin and clothing, the undead raised from a watery grave.

  Looking around him, he discovered that he was sitting on a flat barge floating down a river. But this was not the River Styx. No, the river into which he had fallen was not this river. Though there must be some sort of passageway between the two, since he had hurled himself into one yet emerged from the other.