Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe (23 page)

There is a stairway. It climbs crooked up the side of total darkness. Yet its outlines are visible, like a scribble of lightning engraved upon a black sky. And though standing unsupported, it does not fall. Nor does it end its jagged ascent until it has reached the obscure loft where Voke, the recluse, has cloistered himself.

Someone named Veech is now mounting the stairway, which seems to trouble him somehow. Though the angular scaffolding as a whole seems secure enough, Veech appears hesitant to place his full weight on the individual steps. A victim of vague misgivings, he ascends in weird mincing movements. Every so often he looks back over his shoulder at the stairs he has just placed his weight upon, for they feel to him more like soft clay than solid material and perhaps he is expecting to see the imprints of his soles on their surface. But the stairs are unchanged.

Veech is wearing a long, brightly colored coat, and the splinters on the railing of the stairway sometimes snag his bulky sleeves. They also snag his bony hands, but Veech is more exasperated by the destruction of expensive cloth than injuries to his undear flesh. While climbing, he sucks at a small puncture in his forefinger to keep from staining his coat with blood. At the seventeenth stair above the seventeenth, and last, landing—Veech trips. The long tails of the coat become tangled between his legs and there is a ripping sound as he falls. At the end of his patience, Veech removes the coat and flings it over the side of the stairway into the black abyss. Shabby clothes hang loosely upon his thin body.

At the top of the stairs there is only a single door. With widely splayed fingers, Veech pushes it open. Behind the door is Voke's loft, which appears to be a cross between a playroom and a place of torture.

The darkness and silence of the great room are somewhat compromised by noisy jets of blue-green light flickering spasmodically along the walls. But for the most part the room lies buried in shadows. Even its exact height is uncertain, since above the convulsive illumination almost nothing can be seen by even the sharpest pair of eyes, never mind Veech's squinting little slits. Some of the lower beams of the crisscrossing rafters are visible, but the ceiling is entirely obscured, if in fact Voke's sanctum has been provided with one.

Somewhere above the gritty floor, more than a few life-size dolls hang suspended by wires which glisten like wetted strands of a spider web. But none of the dolls is seen in whole. The long-beaked profile of one juts into the light; the shiny satin legs of another find their way out of the upper dimness; a beautifully pale hand glows in the distance; while much closer the better part of a harlequin dangles into view, cut off at the neck by blackness. Indeed, much of the inventory of this vast room appears only as parts and pieces of objects which manage to push their way out of the smothering dark. Upon the floor, a long low box thrusts partway into the scene, showing off its reinforced edges of bright metal strips plugged with heavy bolts. Pointed and strangely shaped instruments bloom out of the loam of shadows. They are crusted with age. A great wheel appears at quarter-phase in the room's dimness. Other sections, appendages, and gear-works of curious machines also complicate this immense gallery.

As Veech progresses through the half-light, he is suddenly halted by a metal arm with a soft black handle. He backs off and continues to walk about the chamber, grinding sawdust, sand, perhaps pulverized stars underfoot. The dismembered limbs of dolls and puppets are strewn about everywhere. Posters, signs, billboards, and leaflets of various sorts are scattered around like playing cards, their bright words disarranged into nonsense. Countless other objects, devices, and leftover goods stock the room, more than one could possibly take notice of. But they are all, in some way, like those which have been described. One wonders, then, how they could add up to such an atmosphere of . . . isn't
repose
the word? Yes, but a certain kind of repose: the repose of ruin.

“Hello,” Veech calls out. “Doctor, are you here?”

Within the darkness ahead there suddenly appears a tall rectangle, like a ticket-seller's booth at a carnival. The lower part is composed of wood and the upper part of glass. Its interior is lit up by an oily red glare. Slumped forward on its seat inside the booth, as if asleep, is a well-dressed dummy: nicely fitting black jacket and vest with bright silver buttons, a white high-collar shirt with silver cufflinks, and a billowing cravat which displays a pattern of moons and stars. Because his head is forwardly inclined, the dummy's only feature of note is the black sheen of its painted hair.

Veech approaches the booth a little cautiously. He seems to be most interested in the figure within. Through a semi-circular opening in the glass, Veech slides his hand into the booth, apparently with the intention of giving the dummy's arm a shake. But before his own arm creeps very far toward its goal, several things occur in succession: the dummy casually lifts its head and opens its eyes . . . it reaches out and places its wooden hand on Veech's hand of flesh . . . and its jaw drops open to dispense a mechanical laugh—yah-ha-ha-ha-ha, yah-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Wresting his hand away from the dummy, Veech staggers backward a few steps. The dummy continues to give forth its mocking laughter, which flaps its way into every niche of the loft and flies back as peculiar echoes. The dummy's face is vacant and handsome; its eyes roll like mad marbles. Then, from out of the shadows behind the dummy's booth, steps someone who is every bit as thin as Veech, though much taller. His outfit is not unlike the dummy's, but his clothes hang on him, and what there is left of his sparse hair falls like torn rags across his bone-white scalp.

“Did you ever wonder, Mr. Veech,” Voke begins, parading slowly toward his guest while holding one side of his coat like the train of a gown. “I say, did you ever wonder what it is that makes the animation of a wooden dummy so terrible to see, not to mention to hear? Listen to it, I mean really listen. Ya-ha-ha-ha-ha: a series of sounds that becomes excruciatingly eloquent when uttered by the Ticket Man. They are a species of poetry that sings what should not be sung, that speaks what should not be spoken. But what in the world is it laughing about? Nothing, it would seem. No clear motives or impulses make the dummy laugh, and yet it does!

“‘But what is this laughter for?' you might well ponder. It seems to be for your ears alone, doesn't it? It seems to be directed at every part of your being. It seems . . . knowing. And it is knowing, but in another way from what you suppose, in another direction entirely. It is not you the dummy knows—it is only itself. The question is not: ‘What is the laughter for,' not at all. The question is: ‘Where does it come from?' This in fact is what inspires your apprehension. While the dummy does terrorize you, his terror is actually greater than yours.

“Think of it:
wood waking up
. I can't put it any clearer than that. And let's not forget about the painted hair and lips, the glassy eyes. These, too, are aroused from a sleep that should never have been broken; these, too, are now part of a tingling network of dummy-nerves, alive and aware in a way we cannot begin to imagine. This is something too painful for tears and so the dummy laughs in your face, trying to give vent to a horror that was no part of his old home of wood and paint and glass. But this horror is the very essence of its new home—our world, Mr. Veech. This is what is so terrible about the laughing Ticket Man. Go to sleep now, dummy. There, he has gone back to his lifeless slumber. Be glad I didn't make one that screams, Mr. Veech. And be gladder still that the dummy, after all, is just a device. Am I getting through to you, Mr. Veech?”

“Yes,” says Veech, who seems not to have heard a word of Voke's monologue.

“Well, to what do I owe your presence here today? It is day, isn't it, or very close to it?”

“It is,” Veech replies.

“Good, I like to keep abreast of things. What's your latest?” Voke inquires while sauntering slowly about the clutter of his loft.

Veech leans back against a vague mound of indefinable objects and stares at the floor. He sounds drowsy. “I wouldn't have come here, but I didn't know what else to do. How can I tell you? The past days and nights, especially the nights, like icy hells. I suppose I should say that there is someone—”

“Whom you have taken a liking to,” Voke finishes.

“Yes, but then there is someone else—”

“Who is somehow an obstacle, someone who has made your nights so frosty. This seems very straightforward. Tell me, what is her name, the first someone?”

“Prena,” answers Veech after some hesitation.

“And his, the second.”

“Lamm. But why do you need their names to help me?”

“Their names, like your name, and mine for that matter, are of no actual importance. I was just maintaining a polite interest in your predicament, nothing more. As for helping you, that assumes I have some mastery over this situation.”

“But I thought,” stammers Veech, “the loft, your devices, you seem to have a certain . . . knowledge.”

“Like the dummy's knowledge? You shouldn't have depended on it. Now you just have one more disappointment to contend with. One more pain. But listen, can't you just stick it out? In time you will forget all about this Prena. Why become involved in that madness. It's something to consider.”

“I can't help myself, doctor,” says Veech in a plaintive voice.

“I understand, but first hear me out. I hate to see you like this, Mr. Veech. Believe me, I know whereof I speak. I was not always as you see me. But you know what they say:
Body and soul are both undone when two by two they become as one
. Or perhaps I made that up. My memory is blissfully bad. In any event, let me give you one final nugget of advice: forsake the world and cling to the shadows.”

“I am my own shadow,” Veech replies.

“Yes, I can see that. Then all I can say at this point is that you've been warned. So let us speak hypothetically for a moment. Are you familiar with the Street of Wavering Peaks? I know it has a more common name, but I like to call it that because of all those tall, slanting houses.”

Veech nods to indicate that he, too, knows the street.

“Well—and I promise nothing, remember, I make no pledges or vows—but if you can somehow manage to bring both of your friends through that street tonight, I think there might be a solution to your problem, if you really want one. Do you mind what form the solution takes?”

“I just want your help, doctor. I'm in your hands.”

“You really are serious, aren't you?”

Veech says nothing in reply. Voke shrugs and gradually fades back to his point of origin within the deepest shadows of the room. The red light in the booth of the Ticket Man also fades like a setting sun, until the only color left in the room is the ultramarine of the flames burning on the walls. Veech folds his hands and gazes into the upper reaches of the loft, as if he can already see the slender rooftops hovering over the Street of Wavering Peaks.

•   •   •

By night, the façades of each edifice on either side of this narrow street seem to be fused together, as if they are bonded by shadows to one another. Aside from their foundations and a few floors with shuttered windows, they are all roof. Splendidly they rise into the night, often reaching fantastic altitudes. At angles they sway a little against the sky, undulating at their pinnacles like tall trees in a gentle wind.

Tonight the sky is a swamp of murky clouds glowing in the false fire of the moon. From the direction of the street's arched entranceway, three approaching figures are preceded by three elongated shadows. One walks ahead, leading the way but lacking the proper gestures of knowledge and authority. Behind are the shapes of a man and a woman, side by side with only a slice of evening's soft radiance between them.

Toward the end of the street, the leading figure stops and the other two catch up with him. They are now all three standing outside the loftiest of the street's peaked buildings. This one appears to serve as a place of business, since there is a sign hanging above its door. Muddled by shadows, it swings ever so slightly in the wind, squeaking softly. On either of its sides there is a painted picture of the goods or services sold there: a pair of tongs, or something similar, laying crosswise upon what is perhaps a poker, or some other lengthy implement. But the business is closed for the night and the shutters are secured. A round attic window high above seems to be no more than an empty socket, though from ground level—where the three figures have assumed the tentative postures of somnambulists—it is difficult to tell exactly what things are like up there. And now a fog begins to cut off their gaze from the upper regions of the Street of Wavering Peaks.

Veech looks vaguely distressed, apparently unsure just how much longer they should loiter in this place. Not being privy to what is supposed to occur, if anything, what action should he take? All he can do at the moment is stall. But soon enough everything is brought to a swift conclusion.

One moment Veech is drowsily conversing with his two companions, both of them looking sternly suspicious at this point; the next moment it is as if they are two puppets who have been whisked upwards on invisible strings, into the fog and out of sight. It all happens so suddenly that they do not make a sound, though a little later there are faint, hollow screams from high above. Veech has fallen to his knees and is covering his face with both his hands.

Two went up, but only one comes down—a single form suspended an arm's length above the stone-paved street and twisting a bit, as if at the end of a hangman's rope. Veech uncovers his eyes and looks at the thing. Yes, there is only one, but this one has too many . . . there is too much of everything on this body. Two faces sharing a single head, two mouths that have fallen silent forever with parted lips. The thing continues to dangle in the air even after Veech has completely collapsed on the Street of Wavering Peaks.