by Damien Love
Completely absorbed in the ceremony, his tingling senses singing sharply at the nearness of the robot, Alex started violently as his grandfather nudged him. Looking up, he saw the old man was grimacing and holding his nose, wafting his other hand just beneath.
The tall man was walking very slowly, singing mystifying words in a loud, sonorous voice, disappearing in and out of the mist pouring from the casket.
Alex’s grandfather put his mouth to his ear, an urgent whisper:
“Getting close. Going to have to make our move. Timing is everything. Now, listen carefully. When I tell you, quietly as you can, move back to the end of these shelves. Get as near to the door as possible without being seen. Then be ready to move. And be ready to catch.”
“Catch?”
“Our toy robot. We have surprise on our side. They’re too wrapped up in what they’re doing to even be thinking about anybody else. So, when we’re ready, I’m going to jump out and grab it. Then I’ll toss it over to you. And then, you know, you just scoot down the ladder and, eh, run away. Fast as you can.”
Alex blinked at him. “Grab it and run away? That’s the big plan?”
The old man pulled at his lip and shrugged. “Best I can come up with.”
“We won’t get three feet!”
“Well, you never know. Stranger things have happened. Now, when you’re ready—wait . . . Hang on.”
He broke off, listening hard.
The tall man was chanting louder, more insistently. Halfway through his seven slow circles, his rising singsong had taken on a blissful, rapturous tone. Behind him, at his heels, a faint, thin line of white light was now shining up from the floorboards, tracing out the path he walked, steadily brighter.
“Something’s wrong,” Alex’s grandfather muttered. “Something’s not right.”
He sat listening and watching a moment longer. His face darkened.
“No, no. Something’s wrong,” he said again. “Ah, stay here, Alex, there’s a good chap.”
Before Alex could stop him, his grandfather was on his feet. Striding boldly out from behind the shelves, he stepped into the center of the attic, in full view of everyone.
XXII.
WHITE LIGHT
BECKMAN AND THE GIRL were staring mesmerized at the tall man inside his ever-growing circle of light, blind to anything else. Von Sudenfeld was the first to notice Alex’s grandfather. He gave a strangled squawk of alarm from his position by the door. At the sound, Beckman spun, fumbling at his robe, and leveled a small gun at the old man. The girl quickly reached out, pulling down his arm.
“But,” Beckman whined.
The girl shook her head.
The tall man ignored them all. The wall of light around him and the coffin was waist-high, growing taller, pulsating.
Alex’s grandfather stood on the edge of it, just beyond the head of the casket. A beating, silvery light strobed his mask.
“You need to stop,” he called urgently.
The tall man kept walking and singing. Completing a circuit, he was now coming toward Alex’s grandfather, only inches away from him inside his glowing arena. The same height and build, they stood with the light between them like reflections on either side of a weird mirror lens. As their eyes met, the tall man’s chanting grew faster. He sounded ecstatic, triumphant. Behind the shelves, Alex winced as he caught another glimpse of the face in the hood, running with sweat, set in a delirious grimace. An ugly face to see.
The tall man completed his fifth circle around the golem’s coffin.
The wall of light stretched up, bent in to meet itself, forming a shape like a bell jar over him and the casket. Its pulsing quickened, the light fading to a dim milky glow, then blazing blinding white, until the man inside seemed only a disintegrating shadow. A noise started up, a sound like wind whistling around the distant chimneys of a very old, very dark city on a very dark, very stormy night.
“Listen to me,” Alex’s grandfather was shouting. “Forget everything else. You need to stop. Something’s wrong. D’you hear? Something’s wrong.”
Still chanting, the fraying figure in the light began his seventh circle.
Alex’s grandfather spun to the girl.
“I’m not lying. Listen. Please now. You have to stop him. For his own good. Look.”
He pointed to the base of the cocoon of light. The intense white was broken in places by small, thin black lines, reaching up like infected veins from under the floorboards. Alex saw they were wriggling, branching toward one another, trying to link up.
The girl folded her arms. She smiled. “Too late.”
Alex’s grandfather turned desperately again. “Stop!” He swung his cane hard, uselessly, at the light. Without a sound, he was thrown instantly, violently back, landing hard in a heap among the paper mounds against the wall. Alex felt something inside him lurch out toward him.
The seventh circle was complete.
The tall man stood over the coffin inside his flickering dome. The whistling noise fell to silence. There came a great cracking, like something huge and made of stone breaking open infinitely far away.
The thunderous storm sound slammed down again, louder now, a deafening howl. The room vibrated to the noise, shifting, changing.
Alex looked up, felt his mouth fall open. The roof was gone, ripped away.
Vaults of clouds towered above, lit silver by the moon, stretching up into forever. The clouds were moving, ranks of them slowly circling around a single, small black point. Now they moved faster, as though being pulled into this lightless center, murky water draining upward into the plughole of the universe. This black whirlpool was growing, reaching down over them, a wormy tunnel descending through the night sky.
Far, far up there, flashes of white-blue lightning lit its swirling edges. Higher up, Alex thought he could see things moving, tiny in the distance. Flying things, things with wings, black flocks passing over.
In the room, the dome of light started stretching up to meet the lowering vortex. The nature of the light changed again, the translucent wall growing increasingly transparent, glassy. Inside, the hooded man stood erect, arms raised. Tongues of white fire played over his robe without burning it, hundreds of living flames licking over his skin. More of the stuff leapt from the coffin.
He stretched out an arm, reaching one flaming hand through the near-invisible barrier toward the girl. As his hand emerged from the light, Alex saw one of the thin black lines shoot hungrily up from beneath the floor, looping in a delicate, snaking circle around his wrist.
The girl raised the old robot. Hard light blazed out through its eye sockets. Forgetting everything else, Alex was on his feet, moving toward the end of the shelves, driven by a powerful desire to grab the toy.
She lifted the key.
“No!” Alex’s grandfather cried from where he lay. He seemed unable to move. Beckman lifted his gun, pointing it straight at the old man. Alex halted in his tracks. His longing for the old toy, his thoughts about the tall man, all washed away. All that mattered was saving his grandfather. His head was ringing. He had no answer.
The girl turned the key, seven times.
The tin robot’s little chest opened, folding back in a series of concertina panels. Alex caught sight of a complicated skein of thin silvery wires uncoiling before he had to shield his eyes from the glare of white light that came blasting from inside.
The girl picked this light out from inside the robot, dropped the toy to the floor, forgotten. The tablet blazed between her fingers. Flashing a victorious glance at Alex’s grandfather, she held it high, touched it to her forehead. For a second, it was as if she was lit from within, the light pouring out of her. Then she handed her prize reverently to the tall man. He pulled the tablet inside his circle, blindly drawing some threads of blackness with it.
The ancient clay burned brighter and colde
r in his hands, like a piece of a star brought into the room. Raising it to his forehead, he began chanting again, words long unheard. As he closed his eyes, thin black veins uncoiled from his wrist and wrapped around the tablet, unnoticed. He bent over the coffin, reaching down. He brought his hands back empty.
The casket blazed. White flame burned all around the tall man, all over him.
And then it was burning him.
Alex smelled it before he saw it. Singed cloth. The man’s robe was properly on fire, in the humdrum, earthly, lethal way. The howling sound stopped. Something made Alex look up. The vortex above was slowing, dissipating, falling apart. The darkness at its center came falling, forming into a single long black line, plummeting down. At first it fell loose, tangling, like a rope that had been untied and let go, but it was growing solid as it fell.
The tall man looked up in confusion, to see what was now a great spear of darkness streaking down upon him. As he raised his arms in defense, it struck, breaking over him in a blinding wash of black light that rippled through the room in silent, concussive waves, knocking everyone to the floor.
“My face!”
The tall man was shrieking, writhing on his back. The flames on his gown swarmed eagerly over him, seemed to move with a single will, pouring inside his hood.
“My face!”
The old attic was suddenly very ordinary. The roof was there above them again, fully intact. With a cry, the girl grabbed a coat from the floor and ran to the tall man, now curled in a ball, clutching and slapping at his hooded head, screaming terribly. She bent over him beating out flames, wrapping his head in the coat.
“You,” Beckman hissed, lifting the gun to Alex’s grandfather.
Bursting from behind the shelves, Alex was upon Beckman before anyone realized he was there. With a savage chop, he knocked the gun from his hand, saw it skidding off among the ancient piles of paper. In the same movement, he shoved the little man, sending him staggering, cowering, in the other direction.
His grandfather was on his feet, already moving, heading toward the attic door.
“You,” the old man said to Beckman as he passed, “would be better off helping put that out.”
He pointed back with his cane. The papers on the floor around the tall man and the girl had caught fire. Drawn by deep instinct, Alex began moving toward them to help.
“Alex,” his grandfather’s voice halted him. “Come on.”
The old man was at the door. Von Sudenfeld cowered on his knees there, hands over his face, gibbering.
“It touched me . . . It made me see . . . The things it made me see . . .”
“Alex,” his grandfather snapped, stepping out the door. “No time to waste. Chop-chop.”
“Where are we going?”
“After the golem, of course.”
“What?” Alex spun back to the casket.
Beckman was stamping desperately at flames around the old box.
The coffin was empty.
Alex looked back to see his grandfather’s hat disappearing down the ladder. He scrambled after him, stopped, turned back. The girl sat staring vehemently at him, cradling the tall man’s head in her lap.
For a second, Alex hung torn. Then he bent to pick up the discarded toy robot and its box, stuffed them inside his jacket, and threw himself down the cold iron rungs, after his grandfather, back out into the dark Prague night.
XXIII .
TO CATCH A MONSTER
A METAL LADDER had been placed against the synagogue, beneath the iron rungs in the wall. At its foot, the old man stood leaning on his cane, studying the snowy ground.
One of the bald men lay close by. He didn’t move. The snow around his head was red.
The night had grown stormy. Snow stung Alex’s face as he jumped from the ladder. His grandfather pointed with his cane. Huge footprints led off into the shadowy alleyway.
“I didn’t even see it,” Alex said. He trailed off, gestured up toward the attic. “I didn’t even see it.”
His grandfather crouched, examining the tracks. The feet that had made them had been blocky, almost rectangular, the toes stubby and crudely shaped. Straightening, he placed a foot inside one of the prints. It looked tiny by comparison.
“Yes, well,” he muttered. “Quite a lot going on.”
“What happened in there?”
“Hmm? Oh, combination of things, I suppose,” his grandfather said. “For one thing, I rather suspect he wasn’t quite as pure in spirit as he thought. For another, he might have made a certain mispronunciation saying the name. And for another, well . . . you, I think. Your blood, anyway. Tablet’s been corrupted. Or claimed. Something like that. Ah, no offense, Alex.”
Alex looked at the man on the ground. Both eyes were open, sightless and unblinking. Snowflakes landed on them without melting. Alex turned away.
“Is he . . . ?”
“Ah, yes. Yes he is.”
“Did you . . . ?”
“Not me.” The old man shook his head. “Come on.”
He strode off quickly, following the prints.
Rounding the corner, Alex stopped in fright. Seven life-sizers hulked in the dimness of the alley, ranked from one wall to the other. The nearest robot’s head had been smashed to a flattened circle.
His grandfather seemed unfazed.
“Don’t worry about those.” He lifted his cane and pushed gently at one of the machines. The robot rocked, then toppled backward, crashing to the ground with a resounding clang.
“No one telling them what to do. For the moment. Now.”
He nodded at the ground. The tracks led the other way. He set off after them at a jog.
The night raged high above. Snow bit at them as they ran through old, empty streets. The moon appeared in a brief, hazy break in the clouds, beaming bright, full, and cold, then it was gone. Dark buildings loomed in, a black jumble of twisting angles. The place was a maze. The footprints led the way through it.
At the end of one street a huge chunk of rubble lay in the road. Opposite, the corner of a building bore a scarred dent the same size and shape, as if the stone had been ripped out of it.
They crossed an empty bridge. Black water ran high and fast beneath, restless with broken reflections of the lamps along the banks. Into another warren of alleyways. Back over another bridge. Many lampposts had been torn up, lay scattered across the road. Others had been bent to precarious angles. Another pile of debris at the corner. Snow swirled. The few working streetlights flickered in the flurry.
Coming out into a larger thoroughfare, the old man stopped.
“There.” He pointed.
Off ahead, Alex could see a junction where another road cut across the street they were on. Something stood in the middle of the crossing.
Something big, shining pale gray under the streetlights.
His grandfather set off at a sprint. At his heels, slipping in the snow, Alex stared at the creature. From the corner of his eye, he saw the hoods of several parked cars had been crushed.
The golem stood motionless ahead of them. It was shaped more or less like a man, but not quite finished. It looked around seven feet tall, limbs blunt and thick, skin puttylike. As they drew nearer, Alex could see it was blurring at the edges, its shape changing slightly all the time, rippling, in flux.
A movement to the left drew his eyes away from the thing. A lonely late-night tram coming along the other street, windows glowing warmly. A few sleepy passengers inside. It was heading straight for the golem.
The golem didn’t move.
The tram kept coming. Nearer. Nearer.
Suddenly, the golem did move, and quickly: running straight at the tram.
As Alex watched in horror, it grabbed the front car with two enormous trunk-like arms, wrenching the vehicle up off the tracks.
Alex felt hi
s grandfather grab his arm, pull him down behind a parked car. Lifting the tram, the golem tossed it away with a single heave that sent it sailing into a building across the street from them. Shop windows smashed. Showers of sparks fell over the tracks, cascading among the snowflakes like snowflakes on fire. The other tram carriages were sent scattering across the road.
A migraine chorus of shop and car alarms went up. The golem ran, disappearing down a side street.
Alex and his grandfather sprinted through the wreckage. Passengers were staggering from the battered tramcars, dazed and shocked, some bleeding, reaching out to one another for support.
Alex could see faces appearing in the dark windows above, curtains pulled back, blurry hands rubbing bleary eyes. A new sound joined the howl of alarms: sirens, coming closer.
“No one can see this,” the old man said as they ran. “No one. We have to get to it. Get it away. The golem, it’s wrong. The ceremony, it shouldn’t have worked, but somehow it has—but it’s wrong.”
They rounded another corner. The footprints led down a flight of stairs. The old man took them two at a time. Alex’s lungs burned, but his grandfather ran easily, spoke without even seeming to breathe heavily.
“The thing is quite mad, I should say. Insane. But it’s still not fully here, you see, not properly awake. Our one hope is we can get to it before all its energy and power come together. It could tear this city down, and that wouldn’t be the worst . . . Oh.”
He pulled up short. Sheltered by the buildings above, the narrow street they stood in had largely escaped the snowfall. There were no footprints to follow.
Smaller streets led off left and right. In the sudden still, they could hear alarms wailing in the distance. As his grandfather paced around, searching for a clue to the golem’s direction, Alex bent over, retching for breath. His head began to clear. Began to tingle weirdly. He looked up and panted:
“Left.”