The Fall of the House of Cabal (10 page)

‘So is it here or isn't it?' asked Zarenyia. She was dressed in a summer frock of beguiling blue, unbesmirched by even a grain of dust, untroubled by any iota of feminine glow. Devils sweat when they want to, but it seemed like a lot of unnecessary work to her.

‘I
thought
I had explained this before.' Cabal had, indeed, explained it before, but every explanation had been drawn down conversational side roads by Zarenyia not actually caring very much, or they had been distracted by attacking bandits, or giant ants.

‘The empire of Prester John never existed
per se
. It is a chimera of a place, lent form by the optimism—they might have characterised it as “faith”—of hundreds of thousands of fools.'

‘Christians?'

‘I believe I implied that.'

Zarenyia, whose view of humanity was necessarily alloyed by lengthy experience, nodded. ‘I see. So, who's this “Percy”?'

At which point the conversation meandered once more.

*   *   *

The locals, wisely, shunned the strangers, although that wisdom was likely a function of a general distrust of a pair of white people, as if white people had ever done anything reprehensible in the continent of Africa. This suited the Caucasians in question admirably, as—in fairness—they comprised of a necromancer and a soul-devouring (albeit well-spoken) devil, and they were up to matters philosophical and bordering on nefarious, as so much philosophy does.

‘This is where the African location of Prester John's capital was assumed to be by the gullible of Europe,' said Cabal as they surveyed a small town, bounded by low hills on one side and an arid plain to the other. It did not seem to be much of a seat of anything, least of all government: scrubby trees, utilitarian buildings, bands of bush across the hills so darkly green as to be almost black, and a dusty pale red sand that coloured everything.

‘Scenic.' Zarenyia seemed disinterested in the civic aspects of the place; the citizens drew her attention far more strongly. She regarded any passing man with an unwavering stare, the gaze of a praying mantis weighing up her prospects. The men started by walking by, and ended by scurrying out of sight, unsure why they felt so uncomfortable. ‘Scrawny creatures, aren't they? Still, a soul's a soul.' She sighed. ‘I am making myself
ever
so available, and all I'm getting for my troubles is a lot of frightened looks and scuttling. Haven't they ever seen a gorgeous woman before?'

‘Perhaps, perhaps not. But if they have, I suspect that encounter involved blinking.'

‘Blinking! I'm such a fool. I keep forgetting to do that.' She slowly closed her eyes and opened them again. ‘There, perfect.'

‘Perfection indeed, Miss Zarenyia, if only performed approximately twenty times faster.'

‘So critical. I do it easily enough when I'm more
myself
. I'm concentrating so hard on not falling over when I'm forced onto two legs, I forget those little details.'

‘Blinking.'

‘Blinking. Breathing. Bipedal locomotion. That's just repeatedly interrupted falling over, you realise?' She smiled suddenly, her mood mercurial but rarely melancholy for longer than it takes to say ‘melancholy'. ‘So, onwards! To adventure, excitement, and oodles of delicious murder. How do we progress from this dusty town?'

‘This dusty town is our destination, madam. I thought I had impressed that upon you many times during the journey here?'

‘Oh, probably. But you do that thing and I get distracted.'

Cabal favoured her with a blink only slightly faster than her own. ‘That thing?'

‘You know.' He clearly didn't, despite her flapping one hand at him impatiently. ‘That thing when you talk.'

Cabal considered. ‘When I
explain
?'

‘That's it! I just go, “Ooh, another explanation!” and then…' She passed the previously flapping hand across her face. Before it arrived, her expression was vibrant and engaged. After it had passed, her face was slack and her eyes rolled up. She held this for a moment before life returned. ‘It's like magic! Hmmm.' She looked at him inquisitively. ‘Are you
sure
that you're a necromancer? You might be a tediumancer without realising it.'

‘Very well,' said Cabal. The very definition of ‘a losing proposition' was to try to imbue Zarenyia with any sense of gravity or seriousness. ‘No more explanations.'

‘Unless I ask. And then make them snappy with lots of hand gestures so I don't suddenly pass out.'

‘That is hardly me, madam. You describe an Italian. Nevertheless, I shall be brief. You will have to imagine the hand gestures. This'—and here he indicated the town—‘is a mundane location lent arcane significance via—'

And here he was interrupted by Zarenyia's eyes rolling up, her jaw drooping, and a loud, pantomimish snore ratcheting up out of her throat as if she'd swallowed a ripsaw.

‘It's a magic gate,' said Cabal.

Zarenyia smiled.

*   *   *

The necromancer and the devil processed through the court of Prester John with great aplomb born of ennui in the former case and a degree of playacting in the latter. Cabal walked steadily, his face stony, disregarding the fabulous sights of the most fabulous court the world had ever known, but that it had never been more than a phantasm of desperation. Before a stern throne of ebony curled around with what seemed to be the tusks of mastodons, Prester John looked down serried rows of lesser kings, plenipotentiaries, lords, and recanted sultans. Cabal ignored them all. Zarenyia waved, and smiled, and complimented people on their hats.

‘Well, this doesn't seem so bad,' she said in a stage whisper.

‘They cannot hear you,' said Cabal in his usual tones. ‘They do not exist. They have never existed.'

‘Hush! You'll upset them.'

But Cabal did not upset them, because they were entirely insensate to the presence of the interlopers. It was an endless moment of glory: the greatest Christian emperor—never defeated in war and bane of the infidel Mussulmen—accepted the same envoys, the same gifts, gave the same solemn nods of acknowledgement and acceptance, for all eternity, a gorgeously rendered painting from an improving book for Western children that lived and moved but never progressed.

‘Oh,' said Zarenyia. ‘Perhaps you won't upset them.' She crossed her eyes and pulled a horrid face in front of an emissary of the tsars. Beneath his fur hat, which must have been uncomfortable in that environment, he did not spare her a look, nor react in any way, or even sweat. She tried patting his face, but the solid flesh flowed around her fingers like motes in a shaft of sunlight and reformed quickly and perfectly. The emissary did not seem aware his cheek and jaw had temporarily been wafted into dust, but carried on as he always had.

‘This is nothing,' said Cabal. ‘At the always-present risk of boring you, I must emphasise that this is only a gateway. What lies beyond it will be far more solid, more reactive, and infinitely more dangerous.'

‘Good-oh!' said Zarenyia.

*   *   *

Cabal opened his ubiquitous Gladstone bag and removed the small tripod with the telescopic legs from which depended the silver plumb upon its silver chain. He set this up beneath the gaze of Zarenyia, who regarded it all with the least possible interest, saving her attention and commentary for the wardrobes of the assembled spectres of those who had never died, having never lived.

Cabal in return ignored her notes upon that man's novel fez with the mechanical mice peeking from it, or that bishop's mitre of golden crystal, or that near-naked slave's natural charms. Around the throne of the emperor, and the subordinate thrones of 7 kings, the ranks of 62 dukes, of 256 counts and marquises, 12 archbishops and 20 bishops, Zarenyia wandered, and none escaped without some comment, her well of observation proving bottomless, her expression boundless, her conclusions pointless, but diverting for all that.

It was only when Cabal produced a syringe that her interest was piqued by the business in hand.

‘Oh, narcotics! How very exciting. What will that do to you?'

Cabal regarded the syringe, then her, and decided this was going to become unnecessarily complicated. In this, he was perfectly correct.

‘The drug will dull my mind, allowing me to enter the light trance necessary to precipitate the creation of a portal to the first of the pocket realities we must explore.'

‘Dull your mind,' repeated Zarenyia, calculation upon her mind. ‘A light trance.' She crouched by Cabal and looked him in the eye. ‘You only had to ask, darling. You don't have to resort to polluting your pretty little body to manage that.'

Cabal didn't like the way the conversation was going at all. He sought respite in technicality. ‘The technique is recognised. Indeed, I have experienced entirely satisfactory effects…'

‘I'm sure you have, and now it's time for some new satisfactory effects.' She gently knocked the barrel of the syringe to one side with her index finger. ‘Now hush and let me take care of you.'

‘Madam Zaren—'

She lifted the same finger and placed it to his lips. ‘
Hush,
' she said with a subtle change of emphasis, taking it from a suggestion to an imperative too compelling to require anything so gross as an exclamation mark.

‘—yeeuhhhh…' managed Cabal, the last syllables of her name turning to molten butter on his tongue, a process his mind seemed to be emulating. Cabal had, upon his first acquaintance with the devil some years previously, wondered how a woman with eight legs made such an infallible seductress given the prevalence of arachnophobia amongst the common people. He had subsequently seen her practise her wiles, which—although educational in its own way—had not sufficiently clarified why her lovers and victims (a tautology) so signally failed to appreciate that physical congress with a diabolical half-spider monster might not conclude with any sort of happy ending that they could later appreciate.

Now, and accepting the point that she was currently passing for human, he understood all too well. Back in the days when he ran a carnival, one of his hellish crew had belonged to the same order as Zarenyia, and she had carried a troubling air of incipient control around with her, too. On that occasion, however, he had never had the displeasure or otherwise of having that mien exerted upon him.

‘There,' said Zarenyia in little more than a whisper. ‘There you go. Easy to become stupid for me, isn't it?'

Part of Cabal was outraged by this assertion. It was positing explanations for the effect he was currently experiencing. Pheromones, perhaps. A supernatural hypnogogic agent exuded from her skin, and thence through his lips into his blood. A magical effect. As he considered these, his small internal committee grew smaller and quieter, until there was near silence in his mind. It was blissful.

‘Now,' said Zarenyia. She straightened back to a stand and looked down upon him with that habitual, small smile on her lips. ‘Now you're all dull, just like you wanted. And no nasty drugs. Say “thank you”.'

Cabal made two small grunts that certainly sounded like ‘Thank you' when they left the speech centres of his brain, but which seemed to have turned into syntactic porridge on the short run to his larynx, tongue, and lips.

Still, they sufficed. ‘You're welcome.' She gestured vaguely at the court of ghosts. ‘Now perform your wonderment, Johannes. Take us where we are supposed to be.'

Cabal lowered his eyes to the dusty stone beneath his knees, and his mind twitched in a reflexive, simple way that was far too mundane for him to cogitate in the normal run of affairs. The silver plumb weight swung violently upon its tripod, so violently that first this foot then that lifted. Then the tripod fell over as if kicked, the contraption tumbled onto its side, and the slight musical tinkle it made as metal tapped against metal seemed to raise the curtain upon an entirely new theatre.

The mirage that was the court of Prester John flicked away in that moment as if it were merely a reflection cast upon the glass of a deeper reality. A truer, hidden reality. A terrible reality.

It takes a great deal to frighten a devil, and Zarenyia was frightened. ‘Johannes!' she cried. ‘What have you done? Look where you have brought us! Pandæmonium!'

*   *   *

Angular plains crouched incipient and frangipane beneath a sky full of everything. If one took a surrealist of the first water, dosed him upon the most efficacious hallucinogens available, then took him to sit in Cthulhu's parlour for an afternoon, and finally gave him art materials to express the resultant inner landscape, it would still have looked like Market Rasen High Street on a wet bank holiday afternoon in comparison to Pandæmonium, and surely this locale was just as pandæmonius as all that?

Yes, but no. It certainly
seemed
like Pandæmonium, Hell's parliament eternally adrift in the spoil heap of the Abyss where Satan dumps his mistakes. But as awareness returned to the briefly enfeebled mind of Johannes Cabal, so did his rationality, and he was able to settle Zarenyia's mind just as easily as she had previously dulled his.

‘No. Calm yourself. Pandæmonium possesses no natural ground, only the floors within the building proper. I grant you, there is a superficial similarity, but that is entirely due to the state of the sky, and that in turn is a result of an unfinished creation. It is a cousin of the Abyss, I admit, but it certainly is
not
the Abyss.'

Zarenyia looked around, trying to bring herself back under control. Cabal wondered what had happened since the last time he met her, that the Abyss had gone from a mild concern to a consuming terror.

‘You're sure?' She looked at him seeking confirmation as a drowning man reaches for a straw.

‘Madam, have I turned into a fish?'