I reach a plateau of sand-colored earth tamped mostly flat. It reminds me of the skin of a cake. In the direction of the mountains, long tendrils of golden steam float not far from the ground, while, in the other direction, the day is clear and windy. Copses of trees with gleaming white trunks toss their round heads, full of tiny, glittering leaves, in color winds that set them off now bright yellow and dark blue, now scarlet and green, now breaking them apart in opal flakes and now clotting them together again in tawny bunches like the coiled haunches of lions.
Ahead of me, there’s only a deepening bank of fog, lit from within. Isolated figures here and there, and the one nearest me is the Empress, looking worn out. She’s standing by a tall table that’s as high as her chest, a marble disk the width of her hand standing on a thin iron stem which curls apart into an inadequate-looking little tripod. Black ink, in a luminous white cup. She seems to need the stimulant. It does her good I’ll bet. She’s gearing up to admonish me.
“Not you again,” she says, without looking at me.
“At your service,” I answer, straightening up smartly. I must look like I’ve just crawled out from under an exploded building.
“Do tell.”
She takes another sip and sets the cup down exactly, before turning to me. She wears a diaphanous golden vapor that hangs heavily down on her, and there’s a train which plunges into the distance behind her, perhaps to melt far out of sight. It’s like she’s at the end of a long sleeve.
I exhibit the bottle.
“You drank it,” she says mournfully, in the tone of someone learning that the forlorn hope she’s been numbly, and not even firmly, holding, has failed.
“Is this wrong?”
“Some messenger you turned out to be.”
“Well, why wasn’t there a label or something? Do not drink.”
She’s starting to walk toward the trees. I follow, at a respectful distance. Her train curves behind her like a huge boa constrictor.
“What should I do with this?”
“Throw it away,” she says, unhappily.
At first I think I’ll do it, but, as she isn’t looking at me, walking with her head and arms hanging down, I tuck it back into my shreds.
“Let me make it up to you...” I say, hurrying to keep up with her. Although she moves slowly, with the same ineffable air of radiant authority, she covers a lot of ground.
“Ha. You’re the worst messenger I’ve ever seen. Not one message,” her voice rises here with incredulity. “You did everything wrong.”
“Of course I did everything wrong! Nobody told me anything!”
“You didn’t ask anyone anything, you idiot!” She turns her head and spits the insult at me, half screened by her hair.
“I felt that asking was giving too much away. Why couldn’t you have told me?”
“Because there isn’t enough time in all of the universe for all the explanations you seem to need! You’re a bottomless pit for explanations! And you got yourself no end of explanations from everybody else anyway! And you never listened! You don’t even listen to yourself! What’s the use wasting explanations on someone like that?”
“I listen to myself all the time! I just don’t trust what I say to myself, any more than what anyone else would say! How am I supposed to know what’s going on inside me? And,” I counter relentlessly, “what’s the use in employing someone like that? Why not cut me loose, if I’m so crappy? Can’t you tell when someone has to get everything wrong?”
“A member can’t be cut loose! There’s no ‘cutting loose.’ Chorncendantra is the game. For human beings. There are other games for others, if there are others. Space is vast and empty.”
“So who’s human? I didn’t want to be human. That’s what my practice was all about. That was why I was able to see that—the one who had the bag before me.”
“Not wanting to be human is the essence of the human game,” she says flatly, as if she were repeating something self-evident.
“Then I should have fit in perfectly!”
Abruptly turning on her heel, the Empress stops striding toward the trees and faces me for the first time.
“Exactly you cretin!” she explodes. “You’ve gotten everything wrong! Absolutely everything! You stupid! And you still don’t understand! Even now you don’t understand! You idiot! Your story was supposed to be something else! Time after time you were handed opportunities, obvious signs, obvious guidance, and what did you do? You went off on your own and did whatever you wanted to do! Any crazy nonsense! And we, all of us, who were in this with you—did it ever occur to you to think what your failures were doing to us, all the planning and preparation gone utterly to waste, and then the desperate efforts to salvage something of them, and somehow get them back together again, at least in part, all blown because yet again you didn’t have the faintest idea what you were doing, what would have been so beautiful, and of the utmost advantage to you, all ruined again and again, and for no better reason than that you had your own ridiculous ideas about what was going on and what you should do?”
Her words dash over me in waves, and I stand here, humbly taking my medicine. It does me good. So much good. I was never the kind that wanted to be punished; I always got off on being the one who evades a punishment he knows he deserves, and enjoys unfair exemptions, unearned for him by a charm.
Even now, she’s trying to explain. She really thinks my understanding this matters.
The other figures up here are not so nearby that they could overhear any of this. They move about, a little smudged by the mist, which brightens as though the break of a day of very clear light were coming, neither hurrying nor lagging, like unworried people who are confident of their purpose and that it will be brought about in good time.
One in particular catches my attention: a younger man, with longish hair, trots along a coiling, serpentine path, keeping a ball rolling just in front of him with deft little kicks. In the movement of his head and shoulders, there’s something off—too stiff and jerky. He may not be very tired, but I get the impression he’s been rolling that ball along now for a long time. The ball is just an ordinary ball, nothing interesting. I’ve never understood the appeal of doing that. Just going along, kicking a ball like that. What’s the point?
“You’re not listening to me!” the Empress cries.
END
Glossary
the Artificial Planetary System -- a massive, fantastically old structure of forgotten origin, a kind of cosmic basement or utility closet for the rest of the universe. The system is located in a part of space at or near the "location" of the big bang. As all light has already fled from this spot, the system itself is therefore invisible to any other object in space. The center of the system is the contact sun, which consists of two electrically charged objects that spin together and then apart again at intervals of several hundred earth years, and following a labyrinthine and semi-aleatory pattern that cannot be predicted. These two objects are the contacts; the contact sun is the spark that springs up between them as they draw near each other again and their atmospheres meet. This spark produces faint light and intense heat, but it also induces power to flow through a network of gas tethers that connect the contact sun directly to the planets in the system. The tethers attach to the planets by tension of hypo-surfaces. There are thirty two planets orbiting the contact sun, all at the same distance, arranged in sixteen opposed pairs whose circular orbits form a sphere. Each planet has a single custodian. When power is restored to the electric planets, they come back to life, and reanimate all the other living things on that planet.
the Artifact -- aka the Large Construction Project -- a neverending construction project that runs from horizon to horizon like a wall dividing the world, enshrouded in tarps and scaffolding, it is impossible to see or to guess its outlines. Occasionally seems to exhibit signs of mechanical activity, particularly sounds. Yunis Runamile leads expeditions to climb it. The Artifact is apparently a time machine, that is, it's
the machine that runs time itself for this cosmos. It is also a kind of gambling machine.
Bachelorization Energy -- a form of magical energy created when potential energy is caused to move, and which behaves sometimes like a broadcasted chemical reaction and at other times like a circulation of mass in a disproportionate ratio of space to time or time to space.
the Castle of Beasts -- a place on one of the artificial planets.
Censors -- agents of the Stationery Office.
Centrals -- these are coordinators, who organize the various players of the game. They are ranked according to the scope of their coordination. Clare Guerrero is a planetary central. Centrals originate on the planet of radiant lozenges.
Chorncendantra -- the current phase of the cosmic game originating on the artificial planetary system; the game is played by two arbitrarily determined teams across many planets. Chorncendantra is the universal systemmechanism. It is the human game.
the Chorncendantramantra -- “The greater part of this will be explained again. Assemble in the mind’s eye the full extent of the workings of the universal machine over all time. Concentrate the attention on the functioning of Chorncendantra within the discovered order. Find the self within Chorncendantra. The self is now growing toward ever greater participation in Chorncendantra.”
Couriers -- bearers of spells and prizes; in Chorncendantra, it is strictly forbidden to meddle in any way with a courier. Couriers are equipped with special bags endowed with extradimensional properties. The bags contain either microworlds or dimensional holes to other worlds, and anyone in possession of such a bag can travel at fantastic speeds, ignoring all obstacles. Couriers are repugnant to varying degrees.
the Doctor Everybody Talks To -- a High Rational charged with making explanations.
Emitters -- normally invisible or semi-visible elemental creatures of no fixed shape that are released when the flow of bacherlorization energy through a scene is not modulated at the right time. Proteids, created by the Planetary Megalomitochondrion Relay, and information based life forms. Their improvement has to be monitored by the Galvophones to keep Chorncendantra from malfunctioning. Only High Rationals and those associated with them can see Emitters under normal circumstances.
the Empress -- one of the most important players, from the planet of Peppermint Boulders.
the Festival of Technical Laborers -- an Operational holiday, celebrated by working triple shifts.
Fibrokinetic Harness -- a device worn on the neck which wires the nervous system to a fan of prehensile monomolecular filaments which can then be used as a kind of all purpose extra limb; as the filaments are invisible to the naked eye, the manipulation of objects by this means looks like telekinesis.
Fugue Screen -- a kind of spatiotemporal gap surrounding a person.
Galvophones -- these are players who must look after, or recode, the Emitters. Galvophones, also known as proteid officers, wear suits covered in thick black fur with tire treads down the front and back, so that they can form themselves into loops and roll along on their treads. Galvophones carry special tape carbines with large tubular metal frames.
the Hag -- the custodian of the Operational planet.
High Rationals -- these are the planners, they originate on the planet with the embedded moon. They are characterized by a tendency to say "this is." Darren says that High Rationals don't have families. Meetings of High Rationals are called rationalizations.
Honfefs -- the place Thanks claims to be from.
the Lightning House -- a palatial building on one of the artificial planets, close to Peppermint Boulders.
Mnemosems -- many meanings; the term can refer to an actualized fictional character whose self-fictnosis is a kind of magic.
Model One -- a kind of tape gun. Every courier bag comes with a pistol One. Galvophones are equipped with rifle Ones.
The Newest -- the current Planetary Megalomitochondrion Relay on the planet with the artifact.
Number One -- a divinity, represented as a gargantuan white snail with a head like a chandelier and two rows of women’s breasts running down its front like caterpillar legs. Elongated cones of frosted glass sprout from portholes in the top of the shell, and glow with vivid pastel colors.
Operationals -- these are the workers; they originate on the Hag's planet. Operationals absorb so much heat when they sleep that they run the risk of freezing to death in ordinary weather.
Operational Certification Services -- this is the organization that certifies Operationals for various kinds of technical work. Also bestows what are known as pneumatic certifications, for religious work.
the Orbiters -- these are relays who transmit directions between planets engaged in Chorncendantra, and pass them on to the planetary Centrals. there are also personal orbiters which take the form of a random object and accompany or anticipate a particular individual.
Peppermint Boulders -- a location on one of the artificial planets, close to the Lightning House.
Perverters -- these are the players who disrupt or undermine the normal operation of the game, as part of the game.
the Planetary Megalomitochondrion Relay -- the Newest is one of these. A coordinator for the synthesis of proteids on a given planet, each of which will have a single one. Large, self-building machines.
Proteids -- artificial protein beings.
the Returner of Life -- the orbiting machine that resurrects life on the Operational planet by flying down to the city and communing with the Hag.
Stargrinding -- the process of extracting star jelly
Star Jelly -- substance the large construction project was intended to harvest, supposedly. The rot of the stars, star water.
the Stationery Office -- another dimension of Chorcendantra, whose purpose is unclear, but which seems to be involved in paperwork.
Tape Guns -- guns that fire tapes of written parchment by squeezing together two powerful cylindrical magnets.
Umpire's Bureau -- they wear uniforms indistinguishable from those of the rebukers of couriers, except for a barely discernible silver stripe on the left bicep; Loring refers to the Bureau as "outmoded."
Wa-Zo-Li-Ring -- alien beings made entirely of ribbons. They live on the smoke planet. They seem to serve a shamanic purpose, possibly as psychopomps or totems.
About the Author
Michael Cisco is the author of novels The Divinity Student (Buzzcity Press, 1999, winner of the International Horror Writers Guild award for best first novel of 1999), The Tyrant (Prime, 2004), The San Veneficio Canon (Prime, 2005), The Traitor (Prime, 2007), The Narrator (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2010), The Great Lover (Chômu Press, 2011), and Celebrant (Chômu Press, 2012). His short story collection, Secret Hours, was published by Mythos Press in 2007.
His fiction has appeared in Leviathan III (Wildside, 2004) and Leviathan IV (Night Shade, 2005), The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases (Bantam, 2005), Cinnabar's Gnosis: A Tribute to Gustav Meyrink (Ex Occidente, 2009), Last Drink Bird Head (Ministry of Whimsy, 2009), Lovecraft Unbound (Dark Horse, 2009), Phantom (Prime, 2009), Black Wings I (PS Press, 2011), Blood and Other Cravings (Tor, 2011), The Master in the Cafe Morphine: A Homage to Mikhail Bulgakov (Ex Occidente Press, 2011), The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (Harper Voyager, 2011), Dadaoism(Chômu Press, 2012), The Weird (Tor, 2012) and elsewhere. His scholarly work has appeared in Lovecraft Studies, The Weird Fiction Review, and Iranian Studies.
Michael Cisco lives and teaches in New York City.
Praise for Celebrant, also from Chômu Press:
“With Michael Cisco doing things like this, sometimes it feels like the rest of literature might as well get up and head home.”
China Miéville
“…this fusion of surrealist travelogue and journey of self-discovery is an impressive work of weird fiction, and its images and ideas will resonate with readers long after the novel ends.”
Publishers Weekly
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For more information about these books and others, please visit: http://chomupress.com/
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