by Alex Duncan
Henry looked at the sword.
‘But Rosie, it’s wooden, it’s another of Sam’s stage props!’
‘Even better,’ Rosie smiled, holding the blade of the wooden sword over the burning torch.
The large circle of nightmares was now closing in, slowly pacing one foggy foot in front of the other and their cries could have split the ears of Henry, Zanga, Rosie and Sam as they stopped, trapped in the exact centre of the cave.
‘H-o-w-l-a h-o-w-l-a!’ the cry went on, louder and louder the closer they came. ‘How-la-la how-la-la!’
‘What are you doing?’ said Henry, staring down at his daughter.
‘You always said anything from the other side of the door had to obey our rules, remember?’
‘You mean, if something from the other side door is on our side of the door, yes, I remember saying that. What of it?’
‘Then let’s see how they deal with this.’
The sword finally caught alight from the burning torch and turned into a great blade of fire that Rosie swung around her in a blazing arc and with the wild howl of a trapped animal she lunged for the first nightmare.
The burning sword cut into the vaporous beast and the fire and the smoke mingled and blackened and split and with one piercing cry the nightmare fell and dissipated into nothing.
Zanga could have cheered aloud for the young lady as she turned back to them and smiled her most menacing smile.
‘Keep out of my way.’
She raced forward and fought like someone possessed. Each white, wispy figure that went down was replaced with a dozen more, but she didn’t stop. The blazing sword sliced through the smoke and air and she carved her way through the nightmares like corn through a field at harvest. It was a maddening dance of fire as she thrust her sword at every attack and moved through the figures with all the grace and ease of a practiced waltz. Henry could only look on in wonder as she did her work, her expression unmoving and tight. If he didn’t know her better, he would have sworn that she was having the time of her life.
The stench was foul and the air was cold as the great onslaught went on, but there was no reprieve for the nightmares as Rosie continued with a growing vigour. They couldn’t be swayed from their insistence to spread their fear or return to the other side of the door, but were matched by Rosie’s blade. She showed no signs of fatigue or weakness, quite the opposite in fact, she was reinvigorated and enlivened by the fight. She felt a tremendous surge of life well up inside her as the fiery blade cut through the smoke.
‘We’re going to live, damn you!’ she yelled, hacking and slashing yet more. ‘We’re going to live…even…even if it kills us!’
The dance went on and the blade burnt its path through the nightmares and soon enough the only smoke that filled the air came from the pyres above all their heads and Rosie stood alone, panting and exhilarated, the flames of her sword dying down, leaving her with a blackened charcoal stick in its place.
The howling had ceased and only the gentle crackle of the fires echoed in the cave. Bodies of fallen guards were spread over the floor and all was still, but for the far side of the cave where Henry saw, walking their way, Mr Monk, his mouth hanging open as he gazed down at the battlefield.
The pasty man’s lips didn’t move but the vile throaty voice of Olkys came from nearby.
‘My, my, my, what a girl you are, hmm. You are indeed your father’s daughter and no less.’
Henry pushed away from Zanga and Sam, past Rosie, catching her breath and holding her side, and walked out to face his sometime enemy.
‘Where are you Olkys?’ he shouted, leaning down on his cane. ‘Show yourself so we can put an end to this nonsense. I’m tired of chasing shadows. Where are you?’
Monk stood scratching his scabby head and adjusting the cuffs of his dark frock coat, shaking his head and chuckling away to himself.
‘Haven’t you figured that out yet old man?’ he muttered. ‘You used to be as sharp as a tack, perhaps it’s old age that has blunted you.’
Henry lifted his cane and pointed it at Monk, clicking back the open mouth of the bronze dragon grip. Rosie thought the sound reminded her of the cocking of a pistol.
‘No more games Monk,’ he whispered, aiming the tip of the cane at the ugly man’s head.
‘You wouldn’t dare…’
Henry squeezed the mouth of the dragon, pulling the trigger, and a loud crack broke though the cave as a ball of lead left the barrel of the old man’s cane and struck Monk squarely between the eyes. Monk’s head knocked back with the impact and he swayed from side to side as he struggled to get his balance, but he soon stood up straight once more and looked at the four of them.
Monk was once ugly but now he was a monstrosity. His face had caved in and there was a coin-sized hole in the centre of his forehead, clearly showing the other side of the cave wall behind him. He fingered the hole angrily.
‘That,’ he said, ‘was not very polite.’
‘What devilry is this?’ Henry whispered, dumbstruck. When no answer came he cocked his cane-pistol once more, ready to fire again. The injured Mr Monk saw this and ran to meet him, reaching for the old man’s weapon.
The two of them grappled with the cane and Zanga was about to race over to interrupt the scuffle when Henry tripped on the legs of a dead guard and they both went down. Monk landed on top of Henry and there was another loud crack as the second shot went off, straight upward. A cloud of dust rained down on them from the high, curved ceiling where the shot had hit and Monk pushed himself up and off the old man, clutching his middle.
He staggered back a few paces and inspected the new wound, a clean hole in his chest, again showing the far side of the wall.
‘Oh, that’s twice!’ he moaned. Henry, Rosie and Zanga stared at one another in bemusement.
More dust fell down and Monk looked up at the great ceiling as a drop of water splashed down onto his face. This was followed by another and another. Perhaps he had somehow punctured some underground course of the river, Henry thought, as he watched the drops of water rain down on Monk from above them all.
It was then that something happened that none of them could have expected.
The water fell onto Monk and his muddy skin seemed to melt away, like clay. He put his hands to his face and pulled it apart like some disused jug on a potter’s wheel.
Rosie gasped as Monk let his frock coat fall from his shoulders and he continued to undo his shirt, letting the water drip down over him. His figure distorted, shrank and creased together into a filthy, muddy mess as he drew his hands over himself, pulling lumps off and letting fingers and hands fall to the ground, leaving muddy stumps in their place.
Gradually, out of the dirty remains, what was left was a man, not three feet in height, brushing the filth off his brightly coloured coat and waistcoat and smiling a malevolent, sharp-toothed smile at them all, a figure that Henry immediately recognized. His heart quickened as he realized that he’d been played at his own game.
‘It’s you,’ he hissed at the small man. ‘Olkys. Of course, I should have noticed it before. It’s so obvious. Mr Hugh Monk was a homunculus.’
‘A what?’ bleated Rosie.
‘A homunculus, a figure carved into the likeness of a man out of clay and mud and dirt and old magic. A very old trick indeed.’
‘Well, you didn’t do a very good job,’ Rosie said to Olkys. ‘Monk was as ugly as sin.’
‘Come now,’ the small man sighed in his raspy voice, shining his sharp smile. ‘None of you are that surprised are you, hmm?’
◆◆◆
‘Now I for one am very surprised you’re reacting badly to this,’ said Apollo, laughing gaily and wiping his brow on his sleeve. ‘After all, this could be considered a valuable experience for all of you.’
The figures had stepped out of their chains and were all slowly, ominously, walking towards him.
‘I…I mean, you have been employed to use your skills, that’s always a bonus in this d
ay and age, don’t you agree?’
None of them answered him as they moved closer, blocking him in from all sides. He ran a finger through the collar of his shirt and swallowed.
‘And you have all been kept in…reasonable living conditions.’ His back hit a rickety desk and the iron shackles jangled loudly in the cramped room. ‘All right I confess it, the conditions could have been a little bit more…humane, but we fed you, you have to admit that we fed you, there’s no doubting that, granted it may have only been gruel and stale bread, but it’s better than nothing. Some people would be more than happy with a little gruel and stale bread, for some people that might be a banquet.’
He was faltering now and everywhere he looked there was a face smiling back at him. He was reminded of his room of painted faces, the room he would rehearse his speeches in, before everything went wrong. He rubbed his sweating palms down the front of his nightgown and stuttered on.
‘We could cut a deal,’ he laughed, willing to try a new tactic. ‘Yes, we could cut a deal. You could all…er…take the house, my manor house, it’s very comfortable, it has a ballroom, well three ballrooms actually, and many dinning rooms and I don’t know how many bedrooms, but a lot of them, I don’t really need it. It’s yours, take it, I hope you’ll all be very happy there. And I’ll throw in some gold as well, plenty of gold, enough to keep you all in great luxury for the rest of you days. It’s a deal yes?’
Apollo felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to face a man of his age and height, dressed in little else but a loincloth with a large cut down one side of his face.
‘No deal,’ the man said.
‘Oh, come on. Egad! Surely you can all understand what has happened here, it’s merely a failure of communication. You should have told us that you were not happy. We would have listened…probably, perhaps, maybe. It was all for the greater good, don’t you see that? Mr Monk, Olkys, said that you wouldn’t care one jot. You’re only ideas after all, you’re not even human, you’re only what someone has imagined. You’re not real, are you? You’re not real!’
‘You made us real when you brought us over from the other side of the door,’ said the man, moving in to him.
‘It was Olkys, it was his fault, not mine, I’m innocent I tell, innocent!’
‘Don’t lie.’ All the voices said as one, and Apollo knew in his heart of hearts that they were right. A sigh rattled in his chest and his head dropped down to his chest.
‘What are you going to do? What’s going to happen to me?’
‘We know what happens, we have seen it.’ They all said.
‘What then? What happens?’ He felt a strange sense of vertigo as he asked. He didn’t want to know but didn’t want to wait any longer.
Their faces swamped his vision and their voices filled his head fit to bursting.
‘Wait and see.’
◆◆◆
‘Olkys, you white livered pip-squeak, what are you doing here?’ rasped Henry, backing away from the small man.
‘Having the time of my life, hmm,’ he smiled, dragging his nails through his perfectly quaffed periwig. ‘It’s good to see you Henry, I see the years have been…(cough-cough)…kind.’
‘You fiend!’ the old man growled through his clenched teeth. Zanga held out an arm, forcing him back.
‘Do not go Henry Versatile. He looks as dangerous as a plague.’
‘Worse I’ll have you know,’ Olkys added proudly, dusting a little snuff onto the end of his forefinger and sniffing it up through each nostril.
‘I have heard others speak of him, some called him Malice and some called his Mischief and many other names, but they never mentioned him without distaste and displeasure.’
Olkys sneezed loudly on his snuff and delicately dabbed his nose with a handkerchief.
‘I’m so glad you’ve heard of me. Notoriety is so soothing a reputation. I should be mortally wounded if I retained any anonymity. People are not half so scared if they’ve never heard of you. Not like you though Henry, hmm?’ he said, cleaning his talon-like nails. ‘You’ve always preferred to wander round, unrecognised and unheeded, so very dull of you, hmm.’
Henry didn’t rise to the bait. He bit his lip and stood by Zanga, clutching the handle of his cane so hard his knuckle had turned as white as bone.
‘How did you get here Olkys?’
‘Hmm,’ he murmured, blowing the dust of his nails and brushing down the remaining mud from his colourful frock coat. ‘Oh, it’s very simple, truth be told. When a man wants something, I mean really wants something, through and through, from his tipy-toenails up to the little curls on top of his head, I’m always there in the back of his mind, waiting. You know all this of course, you’ve felt me in the back of your mind, you’ve come looking for me in the past, haven’t you, hmm?’
Henry huffed as Rosie looked from one to the other, and felt the heat between them.
‘In this instance,’ Olkys continued, ‘Brash, Apollo I should say, wanted power and finery for himself and wealth and civility for all, nothing special (we’ve all been there). And to begin with he was very honest and hardworking, decent and law abiding and, inevitably, achieved absolutely nothing. I waited patiently and soon enough he knew he needed to do more to get what he wanted, he knew he needed to murder and mutilate and manipulate. And he came searching for little old me.’ He embraced himself affectionately and laughed aloud. The vile sound echoed around them in the fiery cave.
‘And how did you find me?’
‘With a lot of difficulty,’ he answered. ‘I knew that all it would take was to invite you to something that might tickle your taste buds, but who was I to know where you were residing nowadays. Fortunately, I am quite a dab hand with the quill so I endeavoured to write and send out an invite to every lodging house or inn or tavern or boarding house in the entire country. I hope you’ll admire the time and effort that took, I had hand cramps for a week from all that scribbling.’
A piece of the jigsaw fell into place in Henry’s mind as he remembered the invites he had found in both the town and the Hope and Charity all exactly the same and all addressed to him.
‘I thought I’d send out two invites to the event, and a handful of young Apollo’s money, just in case your baby had grown up and decided to follow in papa’s footsteps. And, what do you know, all the hard work paid off, it worked like a charm,’ he giggled. ‘I had to work with Apollo, the annoying whelp, for a few months, but I soon got used to being Mr Hugh Monk and now you’re here, the sacrifice was certainly worth it. Oh, the look on your face when you realized it was me…priceless!’
‘Well,’ said Henry. ‘I praise your efforts, I really do, but now we’re going to have to send you back.’
‘Not quite yet I’m afraid,’ Olkys chuckled, spinning around like a marionette. ‘And not without that clever little stone ring you made. I’ve gone to all this trouble to get you here and I mean to have it. It’s so much fun here you see, larks, larks wherever I turn.’ He did another pirouette around the fallen bodies of the guards.
Rosie had no idea what to do. She gripped the hilt of the blackened, wooden sword for comfort and looked over at Sam, still stiff and dull eyed. He was of no use. She turned and watched the small man, spinning and hopping away from them and knew how dangerous he was. Here before her was the cause of so much misery, dancing amongst the dead like a diminutive jester. Olkys had taken her mother, cursed her father and left her without a single nights rest free from gruesome nightmares knocking at her sleeping mind. Here was her unhappiness made flesh. But what could she do? She had no fight left in her.
‘Everybody’s gone Olkys,’ said Henry. ‘There’s nobody left. Your plan has failed.’
‘My plan, hmm?’ he said, finishing his dance and turning their way. ‘Oh no, no, no, it wasn’t my plan. It was Apollo’s plan. I’m far too simple for that, I’ll happily admit. It goes against my very nature to be so calculative and mischievous and downright devious as to devise some complicated plan to watch e
very mind in the country. How perverse! Only a man could concoct such a scheme, far too much trouble for me. I, however, am not a man, I am an idea, and I merely came along for the ride. I can’t get enough of this place you see, I love it here, it gives me so many opportunities to dabble in areas…more to my private tastes, don’t you think, hmm?’
None of them spoke a word as he licked a finger with a sharp tongue and smoothed his eyebrows.
‘In fact, I love it here so much I want to be able to pop over as often as I please, in and out of the door whenever I wish. That’s why I need your stone ring. You were so clever to make such a thing, no one thought it could be done, from either side of the door, and yet you Henry Versatile managed to do it. You made a key between this real world and the world of imagination. You should be applauded!’
‘There’s nothing more that you’ll have from me Olkys,’ said Henry, pushing Zanga’s arm aside and stepping towards him. ‘Have you not beaten me? Have you not shot at me? Have you not conjured nightmares to hunt me? There is nothing more you can throw at me and there is nothing more you shall take from me!’
‘We’ll see,’ Olkys giggled.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Boy,’ Olkys called across to Sam. ‘Can you hear me?’
Sam, blank faced, obediently turned his head towards him.
‘I can hear you,’ he said in a far away voice.
‘And will you do as I say, hmm?’
‘I will.’
‘Then do me a favour and kill the girl.’
‘Kill…?’ Henry began and as he turned he caught sight of Sam, who quite calmly, and without any faltering, drew a dagger from inside his boot and span it into a sound grip.
Everything seemed to slow down as Henry saw what was about to happen.
The old man barged past Zanga as he dropped his cane and ran across the cave floor, avoiding the corpses at his feet, in an attempt to reach Rosie and intercept Sam. By the time he had taken barely three steps he knew he was too slow and would be too late.