The Big Book of Modern Fantasy

by The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  The guard wrinkles his cyan face: “Enter!” As he steps aside, it is noted that his only weapon is a hurdy-gurdy.

  Darktree has difficulty wriggling down the tunnel. It is impossible for Hannah, who can only fit her nose into the gap. Her master turns and consoles her. “A footpad operates on his own hooves, Hannah dear. I have no need of you here. Wait outside for my return.”

  Hannah sheds a salty tear. It splashes on the ice, making a pockmark as deep as an olive, but she cannot weep enough to widen the whole tunnel. While she lingers, blocking the entrance for the Warrior-Chefs, Darktree loses his patience. “Flee, you equine ass! Footpadding is a pedestrian’s work, you’ll only slow me down. Begone mare!”

  With a melancholy snort, Hannah trots away, not looking back, while Conrad and his men rush to the gate and force the cooking utensils along the passage, hammering them through with mallets and clubs designed to break the necks of cheeses and the ribs of pumpkins.

  When they are all through, they dust themselves down and glance all around, overawed by what they see. Darktree is amazed by the vista: high above, the roof glitters and steams, filtering the twilight outside into a crimson shimmer. He feels like an alcoholic diver in a sea of wine, as if this glow has weighed his boots with corkscrews, making his movements slow and unsteady. At the same time, he feels a curious exultation, numb comfort in this icy palace. Stalactites descend from the ceiling, some of them almost touching the gables of the tallest houses. The waves of cold wash down from above: Darktree and friends shiver and beat their arms on their sides, stamp their feet and dance.

  From the myriad smaller stalactites there is a constant dripping of very cold fluid. It mocks the ceiling’s purpose: instead of shutting out the rain, the roof has merely redistributed it, spreading a year’s worth of random storms over the city like hermetic marmalade. Slow and utterly relentless, the droplets splash the noses of the travellers. It makes an objective appreciation of the scenery more taxing than it should be; not that anything remains untaxed in Chaud-Mellé.

  Darktree has never seen a city quite like it. It reminds him just a little of London, a compressed and folded version of that great capital, as if a subterranean convulsion had squeezed together Greenwich, Kilburn and Highgate. The buildings are crumbling and have been hastily repaired with string and bent nails; the streets are narrow and carpeted with all kinds of litter, stiff newspapers and frosty leftovers, including frozen dogs; the air is full of manned balloons drifting between the glittering daggers of ice. With the clock towers, which knife upwards, these fabric vessels resemble cherries in the jaws of a crocodile. Darktree points to them and wonders aloud at their function.

  “The Post Office,” explains Conrad. “The streets are too tangled to negotiate on foot, so the postmen fly between addresses. Chaud-Mellé was once the hub of a renowned international service, but since the erection of the ceiling, this has been discontinued.”

  “I note the vessels are made from female undergarments. But how are first and second classes differentiated?”

  Conrad lowers his voice. “Hydrogen and helium.” Then marching along the nearest cobbled street, he calls back: “Let us find the Festival and set up our equipment. It’s too cold to linger! I want a stove to warm my hands over and an apron to wrap my abdomen in!”

  Darktree adjusts his sandbag on his shoulder and follows the troupe of Warrior-Chefs down the alley. They pass a ruined asylum, the Hospital of St. Scudéry, according to Conrad, who seems to know the cartography of chaos. He has never been here before, he insists, but made sure to study the Rough Guide to Chaud-Mellé before leaving Otranto. This guide book filled him in on all the important details, such as budget accommodation and techniques to minimise becoming lost, a hazard even for the natives. Darktree asks where the Festival is being held.

  “Hauser Park,” answers Conrad. “The city’s only open space. Used to be green, before the sunlight was disconnected. Chiliad Festivals happen once every thousand years, but as Chaud-Mellé wasn’t founded until 1313, this is the first. Consequently, we expect it to be the best to date; we are determined to excel ourselves in every area of culinary expertise. I plan to titillate with an occult recipe!”

  As they walk, Darktree casts his eye for victims. Who will have the honour of being the first? He has no conscience in the matter. He thinks of himself as a kindly force, helping others to appreciate the arbitrary nature of existence. Nor does he fear for himself, bruised body or inner ghost. The wages of sin are death, but Darktree is a professional sinner and does not earn wages. He is on a salary.

  There is nobody suitable out at this moment. There are laughing and gibbering folk, surely escaped inmates from that asylum, who huddle deep in the shadows and converse in unknown tongues. They probably do not own so much as a sundial. More prosperous citizens speed past in trams, like fleas in a hollowed armadillo. They are unassailable; by the time he has swung his sandbag, the tram has clattered around a corner. Suppressing a mounting frustration, Darktree decides to be patient. At the Festival he will have the perfect opportunity to barter.

  Conrad leads them down a labyrinthine cluster of streets. They pass over stone arches and climb steps onto the sagging balconies of stooping tenements, peering down at the broken tiles of other houses. Often these shortcuts lead them in a circle: emerging from a courtyard, Darktree is alarmed to collide with the least fit Warrior-Chefs, the stragglers, who are still picking their way along a street he traversed an hour earlier. But it is not quite hopeless; as Conrad maintains, travel in Chaud-Mellé is a question of infinitesimal gains over the skill of the original city planners, a committee of drunken Scotsmen.

  At last they join a main thoroughfare, in the rotund shadow of what is the strangest building Darktree has ever seen. A black sphere lacking windows, it is larger than a bullet in the eye.

  “The Opium-Arsenal,” shouts Conrad. “The storeroom of narcotics and gunpowder, mixed up due to misadministration! Now I really know where we are! Do not smoke in this vicinity!”

  With its coating of frost, the edifice reminds Darktree of puddings and muffins. He emits an involuntary seasonal cheer. Ignoring it, Conrad suggests: “We can follow Bernières Avenue right into the city centre and then listen out for the Rue Discord.”

  From Bernières Avenue, they make their way to the Stenbock Ring and then over Werther Bridge, with its marzipan gargoyles, to a street which sounds like an orchestra of cats playing frog marimbas. Even here, where they are inaudible, clock towers stretch upward, crystalline and bright, the nails in the bed of a gigantic utopian fakir. At the coda of the Rue Discord is the amnesiac Hauser Park. The trees have shrunk back into the stale soil. As they approach one of the lofty timepieces, encrusted with dials and spinning thumbs, it begins to whistle. Conrad and chefs launch themselves on the ground. The eruption is muted but lethal; steel spines shower down like a spear monsoon. Slick with oil from the clockwork, the long shards impale pedestrians, marking their bones with grease: a final tattoo on the low seas of life.

  Darktree discovers that a fragment thinner than a monkey’s hair has sliced off the toe of his left boot. Now his unwashed sock must face the chill alone. Like a puppet, he limps after the Warrior-Chefs, whose pace has increased in the excitement of reaching their destination. Rigid and posh as inverted goblets, a mob of tents crowds the park. Clustered amid the marquees, portable kitchens boil and steam and roast an unimaginable variety of foodstuffs. The air swirls with exotic spices; cleavers catch the reflection of massive beards, used to strain broth; ladles and forks fight duels on cluttered stalls. At the same time, the combined rumbling of a thousand stomachs adds a moody percussive background to the sautéed activities. Chop and grumble, stir and curse, toss and simmer, grate and taste. Nostrils are engaged in trencherman warfare. It is a landscape in preparation, waiting to be garnished.

  The Warrior-Chefs of Otranto set up their own equipment in the a
rea reserved for them. Darktree offers his help, thinking himself skilled in the categorising of cutlery. But the recent explosion has muddled up his senses: he is unable to tell a wok from a whisk. Conrad pulls him aside, ignoring his protests, as if his mouth is already crammed with syllabub. He whispers into Darktree’s ear as if crooning to an oregano bush before snatching its leaves for ratatouille.

  “I have a more interesting job, if you really wish to help. We want to make our mark at this festival. Like I said, I have planned a dish of occult significance. But the recipe involves a protected species and can be considered illegal. I have contacts at the zoo; one of the keepers is a dilettante and experimenter. He will provide us with what we need. Our special sauces will disguise the flavour enough to fool the authorities, but gourmets will appreciate the real nature of the repast. Come with me now and assist in the smuggling.”

  Darktree massages his jaw. “That is an occupation I may adopt in my senility. At the moment, I am supposed to be a footpad. I will accompany you there only if I may rob a panda.”

  Conrad sighs. “It is not that sort of zoo. The animals are those of the imagination. Chaud-Mellé is the final repository of faded myths. The republic collects dead legends like sequins. You will have to steal from baldanders, carbuncles, golems and simurghs. I do not recommend this. If you prefer to leave us and pursue your own agenda, that is acceptable to me. But you will miss the feast, sir!”

  “I’faith! That will never do. My lungs are clogged with paprika and an occult supper might clear them.”

  “Then follow me. If we are successful, I can promise a meal grander than any baked by your mother. My contact is a dour fellow named Joachim Slurp. He watches over the harpy compound. He has promised to secure for me a dozen eggs. These are spherical as knuckles and smooth as livers. I must pay him twelve jaspers in return.”

  “What do you intend to do with the eggs?”

  “Nothing too elaborate, sir. Fairy tales should be scrambled whole. Would you have me stuff them with parsley?”

  “Heavens, no!” cries Darktree, visibly shocked.

  “We can conceal the eggs in your sandbag, where they will be nicely cushioned. Slurp is pretentious as well as dour. I will give him raisins instead of jaspers; he does not know the difference. But we must be fast and persuasive. Will you help?”

  “Lead on, friend! You have my belly’s loyalty.”

  Conrad makes a sign to one of his comrades and then presses his way through the crowd. Darktree ambles behind. Aromas tug at his sleeves and collar. He growls them away, resolving to return later for revenge. Huge stomachs press into him like samovars, boiling his sense of direction. A fog constructed from a thousand steams blocks his view. He can no longer see Conrad. “Wait for me!” he cries, but his voice is too weak among the highly flavoured cacophony of choppers, skinners and tasters. Ladles are cast at his legs to compel his attention. He is drawn hither and thither by rival hawkers. A liquorice lasso snakes from a confectionary tent and loops his neck. He cuts himself free with a fingernail and stumbles deep into the plot of sweets and desserts.

  The fog clears and he finds himself standing before a trestle laden with muffins and éclairs. A cauldron of chocolate bubbles over a mound of fireflies. Darktree’s nostrils set out for his ears, widening to the size of a shotgun’s womb. A bucolic chef whose moustaches quiver in an imported accent, inflicts cruelty on callow flour. So engrossed in this task is he that Darktree ventures a theft. He abducts a muffin with a flick of a wrist. Despite his extreme age, his reflexes have shortened less than the length of a spider’s cravat. He disguises the cake with a beard, rolling it in the fluff at the base of his pocket. Later, he will borrow a razor and shaving cream, clotted.

  As he turns to leave the table, a burning sensation licks his foot. He gazes down to behold a river of molten chocolate crashing against his unarmed sock. A woman crouches next to the cauldron, dressed identically to him: tricorne hat, dirty coat, dark teeth, wistful eyes. The one difference is the handbag slung over her shoulder. She has twenty-three freckles on her nose. If only her locks were redder by an ember, he decides, she might be my love, Lucy Reeves from Epsom. A footpad is not a courtier, unlike a highwayman, but unwashed habits will linger. He bows and offers a hand, which she accepts, though he is quite unable to pull her to her feet. She rises of her own volition, keeping a hold on his thumbs like a slamming door.

  “ ’Sbodikins, sir! So we meet at long last!”

  “I have no idea who you might be, madam, nor why you are gripping a wicked marlin-spike in your other hand.”

  She betrays a flush of anger, but her frown is oily and slides down her face to her mouth, where it becomes a grin. “Come now, sir! You must remember that time in Wales when we held each other up? ’Twas a romantic night without a moon. At the crossroads we levelled pistols and demanded coins or kisses. We could manage neither, so you took my ormolu clock in lieu, and I swiped your spare hat.”

  Darktree gasps: “The highwaymaness!”

  “None other! Clarice McCrook at your service, within reason. I kept thinking about you, sir, after we went our separate ways. I must confess to being smitten by your chin. I’ve been chasing you ever since, knowing a second encounter was inevitable.”

  “ ’Tis all stuff! I am a master of escape. Had you been following me across the planet I should have felt it.”

  “I guessed that, sir, and took measures. ’Twas simple to anticipate your direction and race ahead. I pursued from the front! I lost you near Madagascar but picked up your trail three decades later when you visited a dentist on the Isle of Dogs. I was in Budapest before you. Who alerted the Hungarian authorities to your activities on the puszta? ’Twas me, in a typical outburst of feisty spirits!”

  Darktree trembles before this admission of love. “I am moved by the sentiments present, but you are not from Epsom. Therefore I cannot marry you. But I will accept a caress if you satisfy my curiosity. Why are you drilling into this cauldron? Also: do bears impersonate ghosts? Thirdly, can magistrates be fitted with springs?”

  Clarice bellows: “Fie and junipers! You’ll be my husband, sir, or I shall pummel your lymph. I am also a footpad now!” She lifts the handbag from her shoulder and opens it to reveal a seagull’s weight in sand. She snaps it shut and swings it over her head.

  Darktree is all a-panic: “Muffins! Muffins! Muffins!” But Hannah is not here to save him. He looks up in desperation and just for an instant is comforted by a mirage, the outline of a horse beyond the ice ceiling. Then it is gone and bruises wait for an impact to give them birth. He is being combed by Clarice’s eyes as her handbag spins faster and faster. A city as chilly as this will never allow wounds to heal but will preserve them whole, to hurt drinks in the summer.

  The chef behind the table, the flour abuser, understands Darktree’s mantra as an enquiry. “Four groats for a dozen, signor.” He leans closer and the bag connects with his skull. “My head, it is leaking blood! Does this mean deferment for my entries?”

  Darktree is sometimes very kind. He drags the fellow to a stool. “I suspect your pastries are already fine enough to win an award. If not, a dirge must be composed on the subject.”

  “Has the revolution begun? Did a balloon drop a packet on my brow? Have the Post Office risen up—or down? I feel quite faint, signor. The elevated couriers have been threatening a coup for months, but I assumed it would be a recorded delivery. I signed no papers for this assault. It is an act of unregistered malevolence.”

  “ ’Twas a footpadess. She has bored your pots.”

  The chef cradles his large dome, his tall white hat turning a shade of crimson. “They have a short attention span, signor.” He blinks as the real meaning filters into his beached lobes. “Ah yes, the lady criminal. She has been perforating vessels since the Festival started, pickpotting soup and sauce, broth and gravy. Now look what she has do
ne! My flour is spattered with gore. Useless for brownies!”

  Darktree attempts to be helpful. Clarice has fled into the assembly and he feels more confident. “They eat them like that in Mexico, so I’ve been informed. I once dwelled on an isle ruled like a cake. Permit me to roll up my voluminous cuffs and knead it. There is a piece of bone here, sir. ’Twill be a trifle hard on the tooth.”

  The chef waves him away. “No, it is pointless. I must fetch another bucket of self-raising from my pâtisserie.” He staggers upright, shaking his vision back into focus, and moves off into the crowd. Darktree jumps up behind and supports him by the elbow. “There is no need, signor. I’ll find my own way home.” But Darktree is not one to be easily discouraged. This altruism has a practical topping—Clarice is still at large. If he comes across her again, the chef will double as a shield, having already proved himself worthy in this capacity.

  They extricate themselves from Hauser Park and Darktree relaxes his grip. His sigh is endermic, moistening his pores. They clap down the Rue Discord and soldier through Hašek Lane. The cobbles are varnished with a permafrost which contains the relics of threadbare pockets: doubloons, a key moulded like a locksmith, piccolos and machetes. The chef introduces himself as Signor Udolpho, the pastry virtuoso of Chaud-Mellé. Strolling across Pavić Square, a landscape the colour of tea, with alleys leading off like entries in a fictional dictionary, Darktree questions him about the revolution. Surely it is too cold for putsching? Rebels will have to rub ginger into their chins to succeed.

  Signor Udolpho nods. “That is correct. And the spice now commands a fantastic sum. But it is still available from garage synthesists and the Chiliad Festival is renewing the market. The Post Office is growing more belligerent with the increased availability; they have planted agents in the crowd who collect as much as possible. Also, they have been refusing to deliver the heaviest parcels. These will be converted into bombs when the time comes. A grotesque conflict: the first insurgency to be licked, weighed and stamped with a wrong date!”