The House of Nameless

by Jason Fischer



  The House of Nameless

  By Jason Fischer

  Copyright 2011 Jason Fischer

  Discover other titles by Jason Fischer at https://jasonfischer.com.au

  This story originally appeared in "L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XXVI", and is used here with permission from the publisher, Galaxy Press.

  ******

  The House of Nameless

  The date had been going well, all things considered. No girl in her right mind ever thought she would sit down to dinner at a minotaur’s house, but then again no-one knew that Raoul could cook up a storm.

  ‘I’ve been saving this for a special occasion,’ he said, bumping open the kitchen door with his broad hip. He had a freshly baked pavlova resting across the palm of one broad hand, his free hand proffering a bottle of Sauternes that was pinched between his enormous thumb and forefinger.

  He stopped short. The girl was sitting rigid in her seat, gripping the edge of the table and trembling. There was a stranger in his house, standing right behind her, resting his hands upon shoulders made bare by her evening dress.

  He was a patch of murk and drab, and Raoul found it difficult to look directly at him. His eyes seemed to slide off the intruder’s shape, as if he were too greasy to hold light and form.

  Raoul growled. His horns were sharp enough to pierce an engine block, but he hesitated. There were measures in place to keep weak minds out of this house, and this intruder had bypassed them all.

  The man stank of rot, and was sniffing at the girl’s scalp, long and lovingly. The intruder was blurred around the edges, not a definite shape so much as a smudge. He moved in jerky fits and starts until he stood before Raoul.

  ‘I knew you, back in the One-Way-World,’ the stranger said. ‘You were Mithras then.’

  ‘Get out of my house,’ Raoul said. ‘Now.’

  ‘I will undo all of your works,’ the man said, turning sideways and inside out till he was gone.

  Raoul hushed his weeping date. He gently licked her forehead with his broad flat tongue, massaging the incident out of her mind. The minotaur sent the blank-faced girl safely home, realising with some embarrassment that he had already forgotten her name.

  #

  He checked and refastened every door, even the basement door that led out into the cold vacuum of space. With the girl gone he let the subterfuge drop, and the true nature of his domicile asserted itself.

  Gone were the chandeliers, the immaculate mosaic flooring, the tapestries and hangings. His rats-nest of an apartment emerged, complete with flaking stacks of periodicals, weight sets, and mismatched furniture that had started to buckle beneath his weight.

  The only true thing to appear in Raoul’s spiderweb had been Picasso’s Minotaur Kneeling Over Sleeping Girl. An original, and the lurid drawing had made his date a little nervous, but ultimately curious. He thought it only fair to give her some hint of what his true intentions were, and it was an ice-breaker if nothing else.

  ‘You looted this,’ she had said, arching an eyebrow. She touched his arm as she took in the image of the virile bull-man, lurking over the innocent girl, waiting. The date had been going very well, before something with the power to break through his safeguards had appeared in his house.

  Raoul didn’t believe in phones, but he had a battered old note-pad on the counter, propped up against a grimy kettle. It had an elaborate sketch in ballpoint on the cardboard backing, a puppy curled up and sleeping.

  If someone phoned him, their words appeared on the topmost page. Raoul found that he preferred to wander around in his squalor and think for half-an-hour or more of what to say, then to write a suitable reply underneath the words of his caller.

  This came over on the phone as if he had said the words himself, and the pacing of his speech seemed quite normal. The minotaur liked having the advantage of hours of thought, a chance to reference his various books, or the means to outthink his various lady-friends if one of them happened to call and he was with someone else.

  Specifically, he’d invented the device to deal with Lune.

  ‘Hello, it’s me,’ he wrote.

  ‘You’d best be scribbling out an apology,’ her words appearing in her own neat hand. ‘I know you just had a visitor.’

  Long minutes of thought. He knew she was cunning enough to keep eyes on him, jealous enough to wish him harm. Powerful enough to deliver it.

  ‘I had more than a visitor. Someone broke into my house.’

  ‘Into your house?’ came the writing, cramped together in an excited scrawl. ‘You’ve gone to great efforts to keep everyone out. Including me.’

  ‘Please, Lune. This man, this intruder, he stank of the old ways. Aren’t you concerned?’

  ‘If it’s to do with the One-Way-World, I suggest you go see Nameless. I’m done talking.’

  Her final sentence underlined itself several times, indicating that Lune had terminated their conversation with extreme prejudice.

  #

  Raoul visited the house of Nameless. In truth it was the echo of his family home, a sagging mansion full of ghosts and sour days. There was a beach and a caravan park below the cliffs, but these places and the happy sounds that floated up from them were only there to torment Nameless.

  ‘Come in,’ he told Raoul. The minotaur stepped over the muscle-bound ginger tom that was sometimes one cat, sometimes a dozen resting on every surface, snarling. The cat/s were scared of Raoul now, having attacked him only the once.

  They went through the kitchen, past the dining table set with plastic place-mats for a family that would never eat together again. There was room after room full of memories and photographs, and the sunlight drifting through the windows was pale. It was always dusk here, and Nameless would not turn on the lights.

  ‘Up here,’ Nameless said, and they climbed the stair. There was an old child gate at the bottom, busted now. Up and up, winding, and there were more floors than it looked from outside. They climbed until Raoul snarled impatiently and terrified Nameless into giving him the top floor, the little den of Father.

  ‘I’ve got this video,’ Nameless said, and hands shaking he slipped the cartridge out of the paper case. “THE FUNNY TAPE!” the label read, and he fed it into the guts of a big chunky VCR.

  They sat on the dusty couch, the minotaur and the little nothing-man. There was a photo of his family on top of the TV, and everyone but Nameless had their backs turned to the camera.

  The tape started, and it showed a young Nameless, back when he had name and life and love. He frolicked on the beach with friends, turning cartwheels to impress the girls.

  ‘Is this how you waste your days?’ Raoul asked, knowing the answer. He could taste it in the air, the funk of a house where each day was a hundred years of dusk and loneliness.

  ‘There’s more,’ Nameless mumbled, but stopped the video, cheeks flushing.

  ‘So, given eternity, you would sit here and stew over your misspent youth,’ Raoul said. ‘Enough. I would have your thoughts on a matter.’

  Nameless ejected the tape, reverently sliding it into its case. He rested it on the coffee table, lined it up within its boundary of dust.

  ‘I had a visitor, in my house,’ Raoul said. ‘Uninvited.’

  ‘In your house?’ Nameless pursed his lips, frowned. ‘That’s tricky.’

  ‘Stank of the Old Ways, and that from a man who was hardly there. He spoke of the One-Way-World.’

  ‘Ah.’ Nameless drifted into a powerful memory, and Raoul was caught on the edges of this thought, almost drawn into the reverie. The minotaur stood up and with one hand flipped the sofa, knocking Nameless onto his back.

 
‘Why?’ the man said, winded. He got up, blubbering and clutching at Raoul’s thick furry legs.

  ‘There’s enough of the One-Way-World in your head to cause trouble,’ Raoul said.

  ‘I’ve been good,’ Nameless whined.

  ‘You’ve dragged more than one fool into that mind of yours. Now tell me what you know.’

  ‘The man. That blurry, secret man,’ Nameless whispered. ‘I thought of him today, when I was making a sandwich,’ and Raoul knew he was lying, there was never a scrap of food to be found in this house.

  ‘The truth, NOW,’ Raoul said, and put enough god into it that the knick-knacks on the windowsill bounced around and the window shook. ‘Or I will turn you out and close this house to you.’

  ‘I was reading my high-school yearbooks,’ Nameless said, terrified into truth. ‘I was reading the names, and when I saw a photo I thought of the man.’

  ‘Show me,’ and Nameless was hauling a carton out of the nearest shadow. It was brimful of curios and memories, a lifetime of hoarding every encounter, every word. There were lovenotes with the folds worn away, the ink nearly read from the page. Scout badges, speeding fines, broken condoms, the whole box and dice.

  Nameless produced the yearbooks, and gave a guilty grin.

  ‘Meant no harm by it. Just looking.’

  ‘You were trying to find your name,’ Raoul said. ‘Try, it’s not in there,’ and surely Nameless must realise that every mention of it was gone. Excised throughout the whole universe, from his birth certificate onwards.

  ‘Show me the photo,’ and Nameless was flipping through the pages, past the photos of the formal and the signature page. He stopped at a class shot, rows of kids grinning or scowling at the lens. It was Nameless’s class.

  Nameless got the faintest of connections to Raoul’s intruder, and Raoul carefully captured the very edge of this thought. He had a trail now, and tore the page out of the book.

  ‘Finally, you’re useful for something. I’ll leave you to it,’ Raoul said, tapping the video case with his massive sausage fingers. Nameless sat still as Raoul left by the front door, moving only when the wake of the minotaur’s far-travel had settled.

  Sliding the Funny Tape into the machine, Nameless howled. Raoul had replaced his precious memories with an aerobics programme, and an infomercial for a fruit juicer.

  #

  Raoul appeared on the deck of The Cheerful Misogynist. The ship was the size of a city, a party boat mounted on wheels and rollers and treads. It was driven by sail, fans, balloons and oars, and rumour had it that a FTL drive could be found deep in its innards.

  There was a girl here, Imogen, under his protection.

  As could be expected from his entrance, there was a fuss. The sudden appearance of a minotaur can hardly factor into the average fetish, and most of the debauchery stopped wherever he passed.

  There wasn’t a crew as such, but there were those who liked to think they served the ship, hauling on ropes and scrubbing at the ancient decking when someone yelled at them. The Captain himself appeared, straightening his epaulettes and setting his cap level.

  ‘Milord,’ he said, offering a lazy salute. ‘Captain Aurora Luca, if you please.’

  He wasn’t in charge the last time Raoul visited, but the position seemed to be up for grabs whenever the predecessor got bored with it.

  ‘I seek my ward,’ Raoul said, and for a moment Captain Luca was confused. But the ship itself filled him in and understanding dawned in his eyes.

  ‘Young Imogen,’ he said, fingering his salt-and-pepper beard. ‘She’s belowdecks, and well cared for.’

  ‘I would see her,’ the minotaur told the man, who shrugged, leading him to a hatch. It was a tight squeeze but the minotaur climbed down the ladder, following the Captain along a cramped passage. When his horns scraped the ceiling beams the ship grudgingly grew to a more reasonable dimension.

  ‘Not welcome, Raoul,’ Luca said suddenly, now as the voice of the ship. ‘Do your business and go.’

  They passed a thousand fantasies, every kind of fetish and whim, hearing the low sobs of those who were meant to cry. Raoul had spent his mandatory season on board The Cheerful Misogynist and had no wish to open any of these doors.

  Luca led him into an elevator, the clanky old kind with levers and a sliding cage door. After a gut-twisting descent, the door opened onto the Hieronymous Bosch wing, acre upon acre of purgatory. There were other horned beasts here, and he was barely noticed. Luca took them through the yawning mouth of a fat slavering worm.

  After a moment of darkness and intense heat, they were climbing a set of stone steps. There was a crude wooden door, and Imogen was behind it.

  ‘Raoul,’ she said, throwing her arms around the minotaur’s waist. She was filthy, her hair matted into thick dreadlocks. ‘I want to leave this horrible place.’

  Raoul looked down at Captain Luca, who held up his hands, shrugged.

  ‘She didn’t like our games, didn’t want to join in,’ he said. ‘Her greatest desire was to be left alone, we only gave her what she wanted.’

  They’d been keeping her in solitary confinement, halfway between a monk’s cell and an oubliette. There was a rotten straw pallet with one ragged blanket, and a toilet bucket tipped over in the far corner. They’d nailed a banner to the damp stone wall, higher than she can reach. It read SUIT YOURSELF, YOU STUCK-UP BITCH.

  ‘I’m not happy,’ Raoul rumbled. ‘Our agreement was quite clear.’

  ‘Keep her safe,’ Luca said, speaking as the ship. ‘Keep her hidden from her old lover. That is all.’

  ‘Splitter of hairs,’ Raoul said. ‘You have wronged me. The girl did not want this.’

  ‘You forget, Raoul,’ said the ship through the man. ‘Your precious free will does not apply onboard us. We generate our own laws here.’

  ‘I’m leaving with the girl. Be glad I take this no further.’

  ‘Of course. Still, there is the – simple matter – of our bargain,’ Luca’s lips moved. ‘You owe us, little cow-god. We want your horns.’

  Luca blocked the doorway. He was no threat on his own, but Raoul could feel the presence of the ship in him, the weight of centuries of malice. True, he himself still had some power here, but would it be enough?

  ‘You want these?’ Raoul said, reaching up and touching the tips of his horns. Luca nodded for yes.

  ‘A deal is a deal,’ and then the minotaur was upon Luca, goring him and flinging him about like a floppy toy. Imogen was screaming at him, telling him to stop, but he had the rage in him. He cast the broken man to the floor and became all feet and fists, before sense returned, the knowing that the ship would now do its best to destroy them. He heard the stones moving, felt the ship flexing and ready to bear down upon them.

  ‘Get the Captain’s hat,’ he ordered the terrified girl, and the stone wall opened before his horns as if it were paper. They were through and running, even as her prison became fire and wrath and unmaking.

  Raoul snatched Imogen under one arm, the better to charge through the walls. The ship was squeezing like a fist, trying to trap them, but Raoul outpaced the changes, ran through desert and castle and future metropolis. Perverts scattered in terror from the roaring bull-man.

  Finally they reached the hull, a curving mountain of fitted planks that stretched upwards into a false sky. The hull didn’t give for Raoul on the first go, so he set Imogen down on the floor. Taking a few steps back, he charged at the wall, his horns lodging deep. Gouging and twisting he pierced all the way through, till a tiny hole let the daylight inside. Thrusting both hands into the hole, the minotaur stretched out the edges like clay. It was a great wound in the belly of the ship, one that wouldn’t mend easily.

  ‘Be ready!’ he told Imogen, sliding his bulk through the tear. He was out and hit the ground with bone-breaking speed, rolling to one side as an enormous wheel missed him by inches.

  The city-ship wa
s powering along at a terrifying rate, crushing a suburb into rubble. Raoul kept pace and snatched the plummeting Imogen before she could break upon the ground. A hundred hatches opened along the side of The Cheerful Misogynist and there was a barrage of cannons, even a trebuchet swinging its great lazy arm. Death rained all around them.

  The minotaur veered from the ship’s destructive path, legs burning as he cleared white-picket fences and vaulted over cars in drive-ways. When Raoul escaped the shadow of the looming boat he entered far-travel, charting an impossible distance.

  #

  ‘I made a mistake,’ Raoul said. ‘It was wrong to leave you with the ship.’

  They were standing in his squalid living room, both covered in dust and scratches. Raoul was panting like his lungs were about to pop.

  ‘You killed him,’ Imogen whispered, shaking. ‘You killed Luca.’

  ‘Hush, love.’ Raoul held her gently, aware that his furry hands were caked with the Captain’s blood. ‘It takes a great deal of effort to kill someone these days. I doubt that he is dead.’

  He steered her over to the formica dining table, sat her down on a battered art deco chair. She wouldn’t look at him, so he busied himself with boiling water on the gas-ring.

  ‘I don’t understand you, Raoul,’ Imogen finally said. ‘There’s rumours about you, about what you are. Yet you choose to live here.’

  He knew it was a pig-sty. He liked the piles of dirty dishes, the stacks of mouldy books lining the walls. He went to great pains to collect this clutter and arrange it just so.

  ‘It really smells in here,’ she emphasised, and the minotaur smiled. He put a warm cup of instant coffee on the table, next to Captain Luca’s hat.

  ‘We are defined by our ephemera,’ he said. ‘Without clutter and junk, we aren’t really alive.’

  ‘Raoul, this place is a disaster. At least Nameless has an excuse for hoarding rubbish.’ She played with the hat, and went to put it on her head.

  ‘Don’t,’ Raoul warned. ‘Do not put that on.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you will become the Captain of The Cheerful Misogynist, and you will bring that murderous boat into my house.’