Anthology of Ichor III: Gears of Damnation (42 page)

He said, “ this is our stage, okay it’s not the Palace but it’s a job, Dikon and everyone has a job to do.”

All Dikon could think was finally words, even if they were sort of the same words he mouthed off about jobs earlier at Union Square. Doesn’t this cat ever think about anything else?  He wondered when he took another look in his eyes and he was sure he did. Virgil was just playing the boss man now.  He had to wait till he eased in and things got comfy. Virgil would tell him thing things that would unravel the riddles in his head. He had to because the puzzles were getting too complex. His head was getting too heavy; he needed to play, to release.

Why don’t you step up here, “Virgil said, pointing again to the stage,” bring your sax, get nice and cozy. More folks will be here later. It’s early yet, so don’t worry if you mess up in front of these people.”

Dikon said, “I don’t mess up when I play. When I play everything’s connected.”

“
I know, I just thought it being your first day. Anyway, later I’ll introduce you to the other players. In the meanwhile if you want something to drink Sid at the bar here will get you something.”

Dikon looked at the bar; he didn’t see a bartender, no one that looked like a Sid. Sitting at the counter he spotted  more nondescript faces appearing in shadows on the stools, but there was no one behind the bar.

Then Virgil called, “Oh I forgot to tell you Sid is a midget, you’ve got to look down further.”

Suddenly he saw a glass pop up on the top of the bar, and he heard a gruff voice plow out. “Gin and tonic.”

Dikon just smiled to himself,
natch,
when the thought occurred to him, it was something Virgil said before about meeting the other players. What did he mean players? Like in a band? He was a solo act. He turned around to ask Virgil and he was gone.

Then from behind the bar he heard Sid say “well, aren’t you gonna play something,
Music Man?”

“
Yeah sure,” Dikon muttered under his breath as he took his sax out of his case. Then he stepped onto the plank of wood that Virgil called a stage, and he thought, a stage is a stage, and he pulled the instrument to his mouth. He paused looking out over the small crowd, at the dark tables, the dark faces. He took in the dusky feel of the room and he trembled a little inside because he couldn’t feel the music in his head. Something was throwing him off, this place was all wrong, he knew, when suddenly he had it. He regained it and he let out a single note, an E flat, and he held that one note a long time. The shadowy faces stared across the room in anticipation and then he slid right into Gershwin’s Summertime from Porgy and Bess;
Summertime and the living is easy
. He wailed it out like he was crying, like the world was crying, and the faces just stared, Dikon thought in awe, and he knew he had them, had it. Had the crowd in his hands, when suddenly out of nowhere it seemed, because he didn’t know where he went. He didn’t think he was behind him, but suddenly Virgil tapped him on his back and said, “That’s enough.”

Dikon’s head spun around. What did he mean
that’s enough
?  He just played the mother fucking life out of that song; he played it to the top and all Virgil could say was
that’s enough
. He saw a pattern developing, was this how it was going to be? Some mysterious dude just whipping out short orders at him, where was the rest? Where was the whole? When was it all going to enfold?  There was a reason he was in this strange place. Everything happens for a reason. What was it? What was going down, he thought, as he stared into Virgil’s eyes hoping for some kind of answer, some kind of something.

Virgil squinted back at him and said, “That was real good, real good, Dikon, but save it for later when she gets here.”

She who? What was Virgil conjuring up?  Was  this she someone special, a rich lady, maybe a celebrity?  His mind began to churn. The puzzle was getting harder. And in the pit of his stomach he felt a sudden  urge to scream out loud to the world  
stop!
Then his thoughts returned to the expected stranger. Why would anyone rich or famous come down to this dark street to this sad dark club? He wondered when he turned around because the room felt too quiet, and when he turned his head all the tables were empty.

 
The faces in the crowd, everyone was gone. He spied around the room, the tables stood vacant like they hadn’t been used in ages. The chairs sat on top of the tables like they do in restaurants when they’re preparing to close. The cocktail glasses were gone. It was as if he dreamt it, but he didn’t because there were people sitting there enraptured with his performance just moments ago. 

The saxophone fell out of his hands and onto Virgil’s stage when Virgil said, “They all went home. You know, things to do, preparations, not that there’s anything one can really do, but it makes them feel better to prepare for what’s happening.”

The mystery was unfolding.  He was certain the whole would come pouring over him like little sparks of light that would lift the sand in his head with Virgil’s next words.

With anticipation, with confusion he said to Virgil. “Prepare for what, prepare for what?”

Virgil walked to the end of the bar and pulled a glass from the counter. The mysterious dark man seemed to be becoming even more elusive just at the moment he was certain the riddle would be solved.

Dim light fell over Virgil’s head as he held the glass in his hand up to the source of the light, a simple bulb that hung above the bar, and he said. “You know what people are preparing for  C’mon Dikon, it’s time to put your head in order, you have a job to do, your job is to play soon, when all hell breaks loose, when the shit hits the fan, when the…”

Virgil’s’ words broke off because they were both starring at the door. The light in the room seemed to bend towards the door, and then the she that Virgil spoke of entered slowly, dressed in white, with wings, like an angel, with light hair and eyes intense and black. Dikon thought she must be an angel. He must have died and he was playing for an angel. This run down club on the darkest street in the world must have been some kind of ironic bizarre entrance to heaven.

“
Do you see her Dikon?”Virgil said, still holding his glass up to the light bulb, “now, like I was about to say, when the lights go out.”

When the lights go out? Dikon wondered anxiously, what did Virgil mean
when the lights go out?
It was too strange. Everything was becoming too strange. His head began to ache with mystery because the answer he needed seemed to be racing further away.

He just stared at Virgil again as the she, the woman entering the room, drew nearer and the light surrounding her grew brighter.

“
What do you mean,” Dikon shouted,” the light, the light is growing brighter, not darker!”

“
Now you know what’s going on,” Virgil turned to Dikon and softly said, “you’ve heard the reports. Everyone knows the sun is dying. It’s going to burn out in a glorious burst any moment now. You know that, you know that, glass will break glass will break everywhere.

Glass will break, glass will break everywhere.
God, those were his words, his thoughts! Dear god he knew, he knew, he knew what was happening. Suddenly he felt warm, very warm; his body could feel the extreme heat his mind had been shielding him from.

His eyes slammed towards the bar. Virgil was gone. The angel was gone. The tables were empty. Then suddenly he heard it; glass crashing everywhere, everywhere he could hear and everywhere he could see, he heard it shattering, slicing, falling to the earth in shards and unbearable thuds and blasts. Everything inside him awakened for his death. There was never any Virgil. Virgil was a man he created in his mind to protect him from the light, from the crash, from the end.

He fell to the ground and grabbed his sax. The sax lay on the sidewalk. He wasn’t inside a bar. He was never inside a bar. There was no bar named Virgil’s. He made it up in his crazy head. He finally saw it, the great realization, when a flash of light filled his vision.

He felt bright hot light surround him, surround everything, for what seemed like just a second, and then everything that ever was disappeared, the earth, everything. Everything was gone. Before him only space, black space, but for a reason beyond his comprehension he still had his sax in his hand. Instinctively, he pulled the instrument to his mouth when he heard a far off voice say in a whisper. “Blow, Gabriel blow.”

IMPERFECTION

by

Michael B Fletcher

“
Bring the light nearer, damn you!”

Gren edged closer and cautiously extended the candle over the thin right shoulder of Alchemist Bodick. The flickering light pushed back the shadowed edges of the large copper illuminating the pale liquid mass within.

Gren watched mesmerised as the long white fingers of the Master wriggled through the substance like maggots fighting for bloodless flesh. He shuddered. A single drop of molten wax broke away from the candle and fell. Its descent seemed slow, almost slow enough for him to reach out and capture it before it caught Bodick’s attention. But it was a fleeting thought, a half hope only.

He hunched, cringing, still keeping the light steady, not allowing his master’s work to be enveloped in shadow.

“
Arrgh! You idiot!” Bodick spat at the youth’s feet.

“
So…rry,” stammered Gren still concentrating on the candle. “Sorry.”

“
Pah!”

The youth ignored the ache in his arm and focussed on keeping the pool of light steady -
white hands in white fat
.

The odours from the copper were neutral. He found it strange that human fat carried almost no scent. The body had stunk for days as it was rendered down, but now nothing - even the smell had fled the remains.

Gren’s stomach grumbled, disconcertingly loud, loud enough to break the Master’s concentration. He pushed a fist into his midriff, up into his empty belly horrified that he could even think of food in the close and noxious workshop. The movement jiggled his hand. A drop of molten wax fell.

“
Urgh,”

A white hand grasped his throat, greasy fingers pressing hard into his windpipe. His head was slowly tilted back until he looked into glittering eyes staring out of the dissipated face, teeth clenched in an uneven line. Gren gurgled as the fingers, trailing lines of tepid fat, slipped up and over his chin.

“
You...you imbecilic bastard!” A spray of nauseous breath gusted over his face. The long thin fingers splayed out, digging into the hinges of his jaw. The pressure forced Gren’s head back until he crashed into the cluttered wooden shelves lining the stone wall. The hiss of Bodick’s exertions came through the clang of metal implements hitting the floor.

“
Finish scouring the bones then clean this up!” Bodick pulled the youth’s head down with surprising strength before swinging away in a swirl of cloak and rancid sweat.

Gren peered up from under a tangle of untidy hair while his master relit the candle and propped it up where it could light his work. The youth slowly got to his feet and slipped silently out through the door to the cellar stairs. He pulled his dirty shift up and rubbed furiously at fat that clung to the stubble sprouting unevenly across his face.

He stood quietly for a while in the dim light, sighed heavily and then reached to take the guttering candle supported in a sconce at the head of the stairs. He felt with his work-hardened hands for the security of the rough stone wall before descending in slow, trudging steps.

The smell that rose to greet him was unpleasant. It caught, acrid and harsh at the back of his throat as he approached the long tin bath set on the floor. As he lifted the candle the light seemed to shrink away from the black liquid filling the bath. A bubble forced its way through the surface and popped flatulently. He gagged and half turned then shook his head, turned back and reached up to jam the candle into a waxed covered sconce on the wall.

The bath farted noisily.

Ribs, long thigh and arm bones, linked fingers and toes, vertebra still held together by connective tissue were gripped by
the wooden tongs. Black fluid ran off as Gren lifted them onto the rough sacking spread alongside the bath. Several were re-immersed and shaken to dislodge the last shreds of meat and gristle. Occasionally bones twisted loose and fell back into the viscous liquid, but soon a glistening, almost complete skeleton was heaped on rough sacking next to the bath. He paused, scrambled to the foot of the stairs and took several whooping breaths before sinking onto the worn treads. Air shuddered into his body, cold fingers tracing the stone.