The Festival of Bones: Mythworld Book One

by James A. Owen

  He was at a newsstand, scanning the periodicals and considering whether he should risk calling his daughter, when a phrase caught his eye. He grabbed it and looked at it for a minute, then a wild theory began to form.

  Dropping some change in the startled vendor’s hand, Michael ripped the page from the magazine and took off at a dead run.

  * * *

  “Damn it, I know he’s in there!” Michael said to Galen’s secretary. “I just need to see him for a minute! Just one minute!”

  “I’ve told you sir, the Rector is preparing for a very important trip …” she said primly.

  “I know that, Nora! I helped plan it, remember? Just …”

  The door suddenly opened, and Galen motioned him inside. “It’s all right, Miss Bitter,” he said placatingly. “I’ll see the professor.”

  “Thank you, Galen,” Michael said as he threw a half smile at the secretary and entered the office.

  Galen motioned for him to sit, then sat himself on the edge of the desk. Only one day had passed, but he looked as if he had aged ten years.

  “Galen,” said Michael, “are you all right? You look …”

  Galen cut him off. “I’m fine. I’ve had a lot of reading to do, that’s all. What do you want?”

  Michael unfurled the crumpled page and placed it on the desk next to the Edda. “Take a look at this.”

  “What? Explain what I’m looking for, Langbein.”

  “It’s an article about Phineas Gage,” said Michael.

  “So?”

  “So look at the name of the railroad company he worked for.”

  Galen sighed in exasperation, then read through the article. His brow furrowed, then he read through the piece again. “Rutland and Burlington’s? The same as …”

  “The same as the nightclub owners where Obscuro performed—the same men who found the Edda when it was lost. It can’t be a coincidence.”

  Galen considered him a moment, then crumpled the sheet and tossed it in the trash. “Everything is a coincidence with Jude,” he said, sitting in his chair. “I don’t see what it means.”

  “Jude said everything is either contact, or interpretation, right? Well, I’m wondering if he might have had anything to do with the incorrect numbers in my acquisition files.”

  “Why should he want to do that?”

  “I … ah …” Suddenly Michael’s brilliant hypothesis turned to so much mush. Why had he been so certain Jude had a hand in his dismissal?

  “He doesn’t mess around with his paperwork,” said Galen. “Just this morning I signed the largest discretionary account the University has ever had to the Mathematics Department, and I have no doubt that Jude will justify how he spends every penny.”

  Michael suddenly remembered the other item he wanted to talk to Galen about. He pulled a Mylar sleeve from his coat and put it on the desk. In the sleeve was the Uppsala Dance.

  Galen’s face grew red as he realized what the document was. “You dare?” he said to Galen, “after what happened here yesterday, you’re now stealing?”

  “Actually, I’m returning it,” said Michael. “I had it at the house while I did some work on the Edda. Please, Galen —just read it through. I think it may relate to what’s happening here in a way I didn’t expect.”

  Galen fumed a moment, then picked up the expensive artifact. There were six groupings of four lines each. He stared at it, then scowled when he remembered he couldn’t read ancient Icelandic.

  “Here,” Michael offered hurriedly, “I’ll translate, The only one of real significance is the fourth one:

  Ancient waters keep the treasure’s heart, the dragon

  Lives among us, unseen. A raven speaks

  The waters go down, Ymir greets Yggdrasil and the roots

  Choose the heavens

  As he finished, Michael looked up—but was completely unprepared for the expression on Galen’s face. The man was absolutely terrified.

  “Where did you get that?” He cried. “Did Jude give you this? Answer me, Langbein!”

  Michael took a slow breath. “Easy, Galen. The Dance has been here at the University all year, remember? You were one of the administrators who approved its acquisition.”

  Galen seemed to regain his composure, then turned and looked out into the courtyard. “So what do you propose?”

  “I think we should talk to Jude.”

  * * *

  The walk to Jude’s office took five minutes. They spent four times that long looking around in shock at the room, which had been completely stripped. The desks, machinery, scientific equipment, filing cabinets, everything—almost.

  In the back of the room, sitting unobtrusively on a small utility table, was the Anabasis Machine.

  Michael looked at Galen, who looked at Michael before they both looked back at the machine.

  “Got a screwdriver?” Galen asked.

  * * *

  “I’m still not sure we ought to be doing this,” Michael began, but Galen had already wedged the small, wooden-handled screwdriver they found in the next lab underneath the top plate of the device’s center. Grunting, he pried up first one corner, then, edging the flat blade sideways and along the seam, the other, and pried back the stiff layer of metal.

  Michael had already begun to step forward when he heard Galen’s astonished gasp and saw the screwdriver clatter to the floor.

  “Well, I’ll be…” said Michael.

  “It’s a trick,” breathed Galen. “It has to be.”

  Where they had expected to find coils and wires, or little objects spinning and whirling, or a gremlin, or at the least something along the lines of nuclear-grade plutonium, they saw instead empty space.

  It was empty. There was nothing inside the machine at all.

  * * *

  They stormed back to Galen’s office at a much quicker pace than before, and the Rector had a fire in his eyes that Michael couldn’t decide was a good thing or a bad thing.

  If nothing else, the attention of the day had certainly shifted off of Michael’s supposed financial instabilities, although he still wasn’t sure he’d like it any better if the magnifying glass were switched to Jude, which by the appearance of things, was imminent.

  Galen strode through the office doors too quickly for Michael to sneer at the secretary again, but turned on a dime and whipped back out into the foyer when he realized who was sitting in the waiting area chairs.

  It was a courier—special delivery. And he had in his hands an envelope with the emblem of the Wagner Festival emblazoned on it.

  Galen snatched it away, and tore it open as Michael tipped the bewildered courier. Then, time stopped.

  Galen froze, and sent ripples outward which froze everything around him. He was cold marble, not a sheen, but marble to the core, and just as suddenly, great cracks of fire split him into shards, screaming, which pushed through the door and out the building like a sandstorm of fury and madness.

  As Galen’s secretary ran after him, Michael picked up the letter from Bayreuth and read in it a death sentence on Galen’s sanity.

  The directors of the festival thanked him politely for his offer to commit funds to them, but regretfully declined to accept. It seemed that a private company called the Eidolon Foundation had just bequeathed to the group The Friends of Bayreuth a sum sufficient to fund the festival for several years—on the sole condition that Mikaal Gunnar-Galen, Rector, the University of Vienna, never be allowed to participate in the planning, execution, funding, or any aspect of the festival other than that of ticketed spectator.

  The letter went on to say that it was an unusual request, and they did not wish to accede, but that there was no way the gift could be refused, and they hoped he was still a friend of the festival….

  Michael crumpled up the letter, threw it in the trash on top of the article about Phineas Gage, and went home.

  * * *

  The next day, Galen didn’t show up at his home, or his office; nor did he show up the day after t
hat. Jude was nowhere to be found, and Michael fully expected that he had seen the last of the mathematical prodigy until early the morning of the twenty-sixth, when the phone exploded in his ear.

  “Hello?” Michael said, fumbling for a light.

  “Greetings and salivations.”

  Michael’s head cleared instantly. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Preparing for the inversion—where did you think?”

  In the emotional roller coaster of the last few days, Michael had completely forgotten about the inversion—somehow, his belief in it faded when his life went into a tailspin.

  “What do you want, Jude?”

  “It’s Galen. He’s abandoned the school, and I’m afraid he’s broken completely.”

  “Maybe he’s just having a bad week,” Michael said sarcastically, “in case you hadn’t heard.”

  “I did.”

  “The news about the Wagner Festival would have made anyone upset, but I think given his interests, he’s got a right to be royally pissed.”

  “It’s more than that,” said Jude. “Can you come to his office?

  “At the University?” Michael said, eyeing the clock. “Okay, sure. I’ll be …”

  The receiver was already buzzing. Jude had hung up.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Michael stepped into the lobby of the building where the Rector’s office was, and saw that no one was there. Where the devil was Jude?

  “I’m over here,” he heard a voice call from across the courtyard. “My mistake—I meant his old office in the music building.”

  Michael trotted over and together they scaled the stairs. “What is going on, Jude? What’s happened?’

  “Something bad.”

  The mathematician refused to elaborate until they reached the office at the end of the corridor, where he opened the door to the formerly austere space and revealed chaos.

  The piano and desk were splinters, the books and shelves, torn to shreds. There was no sign of the Edda.

  The only intact object in the room was the bust of Wagner, which was sitting in the center of the floor. Around it, beginning at the base of the bust, and spiraling outwards in ever widening circles which spread over every square inch of the room, was a single scumbled message written over and over and over again—I am Hagen.

  “Sweet Christ,” said Michael.

  “Indeed,” said Jude. “As I said, very bad.”

  Michael crouched, feeling the graphite on the floor with his fingertips, and closed his eyes. He considered his options, then, with a finality which was surprising to him, made a resolution.

  Michael stood up and walked to the door.

  “Professor,” said Jude, “where are you going?”

  “Where I go this time every year,” Michael replied with a weary grin as he disappeared out the door. “I’m going to Bayreuth.”

  ***

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Versimilitude

  How does one get to Bayreuth?

  If, in answering one follows the similar line of thinking wrought by the question “How does one get to Carnegie Hall?” the answer is “Practice, boy, practice.” Thus implying that anyone wanting to get to Carnegie Hall is seeking the fame and prestige which accompanies performing there, rather than a seat in the audience. The gist of the joke, of course, is that to be able to perform at Carnegie Hall, one must be a musician of world-class ability, and the average person is more likely to be asking for directions than career advice. Anyone can get a ticket to see a performance, but not just anyone can perform.

  Lots of people tell this joke in New York, but it never happens in Bayreuth.

  It never happens because in Bayreuth, it takes years of training, and interviews, and networking, and often sheer luck …

  … and that was just to get a ticket to watch.

  But to perform—to perform at Bayreuth was unthinkable; utterly out of the question. Only a very few, not merely wheat winnowed from chaff, but perfect golden kernels winnowed from the choicest single stalk of wheat to exist—only these may have the privilege of stepping foot onstage at Bayreuth.

  Michael wondered what the reaction of the town burghers and directors of the festival would be if a kernel once considered golden suddenly decided that it was going to be on that stage, this night, no matter what price there was to pay—and he feared that Galen, however he planned to do it, was very likely to pull it off.

  Michael had attended the festival many times over the years, but he could not recall ever having left for one in such haste, or with so much fear and apprehension. Hurriedly, he stuffed a change of clothes into a bag, grabbed his wallet, and more out of habit than anything else, reached into the bookshelf near the door for something to read on the plane.

  He overreached, and instead of grabbing the Stephen King novel he wanted, instead knocked a two-foot stack to the floor, scattering them around the room.

  “Shoot,” said Michael, as he noticed one of the larger books, the Caxton Pennyroyal Bible, had cracked across the spine. “At least it’s the spare,” he muttered as he picked up the damaged book, and doing so, saw the sheet which had been tucked in the book flutter to the floor.

  It was the first page of the Prime Edda—the one he had soaked in absinthe, which had been forgotten in the whirlwind that followed.

  “I’ll be damned,” he whispered to himself, looking at the fragile sheet. It had dried long ago, but the Palimpsest was still visible, and the Bragi and Wagner texts still clear and legible. For a moment he considered taking it with him, then, out of left field, an unusual option stuck itself in his head. The more he considered it, the better he liked it, though he couldn’t put his finger on why. What would Jude say? Go with the flow, or some such Zen platitude, probably, which sounded just fine to Michael.

  On the way to the airport, he stopped at a postal center and addressed a large envelope to his daughter Meredith, care of The Ontario Daily Sun. He had no idea if or when she’d get it, but he knew that at that moment he wanted more than anything in the world to send something to his daughter, and the sheet from the Edda was all he had. Handing the parcel to the clerk, he left the building and made a beeline for Bayreuth.

  * * *

  In Bayreuth, for the Rector of the University of Vienna, many exceptions can be made regarding a great number of things, most of which would be unthinkable requests from an ordinary person—especially considering that he was once a respected suitor of the town, even if the relationship was never consummated, and particularly since the town elders had only just dealt him a personal blow which would be considered insulting at best.

  Restrictions such as the advance purchase of tickets may be waived; seats sold to other well-to-do patrons may be reassigned. He would be, on no notice, invited to dinner with the elite of the world, and any resultant bills would be shredded by whatever establishment they dined at, in gratitude for his deigning to grace their facility with his presence.

  Those responsible for the festival itself would even allow it if such a man, on this, the seventh day of the festival, during the performance of Gotterdammerung, chose to get out of his seat, walk to the front of the Festspielhaus, and climb onstage. They didn’t realize they would allow it until it actually happened, but by then it was too late to do otherwise without a great holy mess.

  The audience was willing to put up with this in the hopes that it was some innovation in the performance, which at best would be something to talk about during dinner, and at worst would probably still be better than that bad stretch of performances during the 1970’s.

  The performers put up with it, because they really had no choice—until Galen revealed the sword, and they decided that moving their version into the wings to make room for whatever he meant to do would be perhaps the best bit of improvisation they’d ever come up with as a troupe.

  Galen had never been to Bayreuth—he had sworn a vow to never set foot in the town unless it was onstage at the Wagner Festspielhaus as
a performer. And now, after all the years of yearning, here he was. He was a bit disoriented, unsure how he had come to be there. In his memory, he remembered vaguely getting into a car and driving to Bayreuth, where he was greeted politely if not totally enthusiastically, and there were handshakes, and aperitifs, and then here he was, at the Festspielhaus.

  What were his lines? He could scarcely remember. It seemed odd that he would forget—had he not been preparing for this role all his life?

  He remembered the papers he had brought with him, the translations—the true Ring. Pulling the papers from his vest, he looked them over dispassionately, until a familiar name caught his eye, and then he remembered.

  Hagen. He was Hagen.

  * * *

  “I’m telling you, you’ve got to let me in,” Michael said again to the defiantly proper official at the door. “You really don’t understand what’s going on, here.”

  The official checked his cuticles, then looked at Michael as if he’d just asked him for sex. “I’m sorry,” he sniffed,” but there is no way the performance can be interrupted once it has begun. The doors,” he said with finality, “stay closed.”

  Michael slumped against the wall and considered trying to force his way in, but dismissed it an instant later—such a move would cause more trouble than would be prudent, especially considering he had no idea what Galen’s state of mind was, nor what his ultimate plans were.

  He was about to resort to simple bribery when the un-openable doors opened, and another officious looking mendicant stuck his head through. Michael’s heart sank—it was a breach of protocol to open the doors during a performance, so whatever was going on was probably a security issue, and the buck was being passed.

  A hurried flurry of whispering ensued, interspersed with raised eyebrows, widening eyes, and at the end, several quick glances at Michael.

  The conversation ended, and official number one sends official number two running to the festival’s offices. He then grabbed Michael by the lapels, and passed the suspected buck.