by Alexis Hall
We went, but I did not take her arm and she did not seem offended. In retrospect, I wish that I had accepted the gesture. I did not realise at the time how infrequently Ms. Haas made such overtures to people she was not intending to seduce. In the moment, however, my thoughts still very much on my homeland, my sense of decorum prevailed.
Mise en Abyme was located in Wax Flower Hill, a fact which did not surprise me, given what I had heard about both the establishment and the area. Like many parts of Khelathra-Ven, its history was somewhat obscure. To the best of my knowledge, wax flowers had neither grown nor been made there. At the time of our visit, as today, it was a tangle of narrow, sloping streets, accommodating a mixture of galleries, theatres, and garrets of dubious provenance, all primarily occupied by artistic persons in either the ascending or descending phases of their careers. These establishments (along with others, the nature of which I shall not discuss) made the region popular with a certain class of student, a certain class of aristocrat, and, if I may speak freely, a certain class of charlatan.
The building itself was an unassuming, rather ramshackle affair with shuttered windows and overhanging eaves. The words Mise en Abyme appeared in faded yellow paint above the door and a poster, with peeling edges, announced that tonight’s performance would be The Moste Lamentable and Bloodie Tragedie of the Laste Wyfe of the Madde Duke Orsino.
“As you can see,” said Ms. Haas, “du Maurier’s tastes are quite tediously lurid. Expect strapping stable boys, dewy innocents, sundry beheadings, and at least one wholly unnecessary ravishment.”
While I found many of the strictures of the Commonwealth to be gratuitous and stifling, I was beginning to think that the ban on theatre had its merits. “Could we not simply speak with Mr. du Maurier without attending this production?”
“No, the man is impossibly vain. And will give audience only to those who endure his, for want of a better term, art.”
A small, fashionably attired crowd had gathered in the street outside. The air was sticky with anticipation as we waited with varying degrees of patience for the doors to open. When they did, we were ushered into an already darkened atrium by a sylph-like youth and an (I presume) equally appealing young lady. A moment later, a shaft of brilliant light shone down from above, illuminating a hitherto unseen figure. It was a tall, somewhat bulky man, whose age I could not quite discern beneath his stage makeup. He was dressed in black velvet in a style that vaguely suggested the past without being tied to any specific era and surveyed us with hard, kohl-darkened eyes.
“I . . .”
Here he paused for a duration I assume coincided with the conventions of this medium.
“. . . am the Mad Duke Orsino. And you, gentle guests, are soon to bear witness to the treacherous, murderous, and lascivious misdeeds that I shall visit upon my lovely new bride.”
Another light blossomed, this time revealing a raven-haired beauty in an inappropriately diaphanous white dress. She brought a wrist to her forehead in an exaggerated gesture of sorrow.
“But worry not,” continued the Duke, “for ours is a most moral and improving tale that warns most correctly of the dangers that await those who indulge in vices, iniquities, and debaucheries. Rest assured that bloodiest retribution shall fall upon every evildoer and that no detail of this just and proper punishment shall escape your virtuous eyes.”
Ms. Haas moved her mouth close my ear. “I cannot believe I engaged in connubial activities with this gentleman. But I suppose I was very young.”
As a matter of record, I should add that the words “engaged,” “connubial,” “activities,” and “gentleman” were not, in actuality, used by Ms. Haas at this juncture, but I have taken some licence in representing her use of language in order to protect the sensibilities of my readers.
The Duke extended an arm as if plucking fruit from an imaginary tree and held the pose. “One small matter more, gentle guests. Our most marvellous and most wondrous theatre straddles the border between this world and another. If you are to go safely in this most mysterious place three rules must you obey without fail.”
“This bit”—Ms. Haas elbowed me sharply—“is actually important. Be careful.”
“One: never must you look across your left shoulder. Two: never must you look into the eyes of your own reflection. Three: should a voice call you by name, on no account should you answer. Should you break but one of these most vital prohibitions, disaster beyond imagination will befall you. Now . . .”
He gave another of his, to my mind, somewhat excessive pauses.
“. . . follow me into the castle of the Mad Duke Orsino.”
Then came a crack of lightning that made the audience gasp. In the brief flare of white, we saw a door at the back of the room, through which the Duke was swiftly vanishing. The crowd pushed excitedly forward to follow him.
Ms. Haas’s hand closed about my arm with surprising strength. “I should probably have mentioned earlier that we’ll be separated. But keep your wits about you and don’t break any of the rules.”
I very much wished that she had, in fact, mentioned it earlier. It was, however, too late to inform her of this as the press of the crowd carried me through the door and I found myself quite alone in a hall of mirrors.
CHAPTER NINE
The Castle of Mad Duke Orsino
Taking our host’s warnings very much to heart, I stared fixedly at the floor in order to avoid even inadvertently catching the eye of one of my many reflections. I could hear voices from deeper in the maze and decided that this entire affair would be most swiftly resolved if I moved towards them. As I progressed the mirrors fell away, and I stood instead in a vast and shadowy castle such as might feature in the sort of sensational pamphlets they sold from street corners for a penny. Not that I had ever personally partaken of them. My father would not have approved.
I should clarify, for the benefit of those readers who may not have encountered such phenomena, that there was no means by which the space I presently occupied could possibly have existed within the building I had entered just minutes earlier. I was not without experience of travel to other realities, although I had done so almost exclusively in a military context, and this, combined with the outlandish nature of my surroundings and the unsavoury character of my host, left me wary.
The voices I had heard belonged to the Mad Duke Orsino and his delicate bride. They entered through a heavy oak door, which slammed ominously behind them. Casting off his cloak, the Duke declaimed, “And now, my bride, you shall at last be mine. My pain, my woes, my torments all are thine. Your dreams did end the moment we were wed. For now I take you to our marriage bed.”
The young lady I had seen in the vestibule flung herself wretchedly to her knees. “My lord, I hope that in some tender part. You find a shred of pity in your heart. My life, my soul, my virtue all to save. Or, I, alas, shall plunge into my grave.”
“Nor grave nor freedom shall you ever see,” intoned the Duke, clutching her to him in a manner I found quite unacceptable even in artifice, “but day and night do service unto me.”
My editor informs me that under the Creative Works (Uses, Abuses, and Recombinations) Act, Third Year, Twelfth Council, I am not permitted to share any more of the text of this production. I confess that I consider this very much a blessing. Suffice to say that, for the best part of the next hour, I wandered the halls and galleries of the Mad Duke Orsino’s castle, bearing witness to all manner of ghastly scenes. I did my best to avoid the bloodiest and most lurid but nevertheless saw far more than I was comfortable seeing. I should emphasise, for the benefit of readers in the Commonwealth and other similarly conservative societies, that Mise en Abyme is not wholly representative of the theatre as an art form and I have, in my later years, had occasion to find some plays most enjoyable.
Eventually I came upon a long and winding stair and, ascending, encountered the Mad Duke Orsino a few paces ahead
of me. He was in the throes of a soliloquy about the pleasures he imagined would await him in his lady’s bedchamber when, quite unexpectedly, he stopped and turned towards me. His image shimmered and his face seemed to move out of focus for a moment. When my eyes adjusted, I saw in his place the young actress who had, up until this point, been personating the Duke’s innocent bride.
“Help me,” she whispered. “He’s keeping me here.”
I was insufficiently experienced in matters either of the theatre or of rescuing damsels to be entirely confident that this was not simply part of the production. This left me hesitant to say anything lest I give offence.
She clasped her hands together in a manner wholly unlike the flourishes that had hitherto characterised her performance. “It’s du Maurier. He won’t let me go. There’s a door behind you. That way.” Her eyes darted to her right, as if she feared to give any more obvious direction. “I can’t go through it unless you come with me.”
Just as I was about to look, I remembered the impresario’s warnings and carefully kept my head facing forward, turning my whole body clockwise instead. There was, indeed, a door that I am certain had not been present a moment before. I had, by then, come to the conclusion that either the lady was sincere or this interlude was a part of the play in which I was required to interact with her as though she were. Reaching behind me, I clasped her arm and led her onwards.
Beyond the door lay a disordered room, its edges seeming to flicker and recede as one looked at them. Racks and overspilling trunks of what I presumed to be costumes lay scattered about, alongside tables littered with props, shards of glass, and hastily annotated scripts.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“It’s a kind of staging area. We can speak freely here.”
I turned to face the lady. She appeared to be eighteen, perhaps twenty, and well suited for the role in which she had been cast. “What is du Maurier doing? Are you in danger?”
“Not I.” She gave a slow smile, blinked, and then her eyes were mirrors.
And I saw within them my own startled face looking back at me.
CHAPTER TEN
The Mocking Realm
Even at this point in my career I was not a stranger to the attentions of otherworldly beings that wished to devour me. I was, however, unarmed and wholly ignorant of the natures and the weaknesses of the entities I now confronted. I had gleaned a little insight from my experiences thus far at Mise en Abyme, and Ms. Haas saw fit afterwards to explain a trifle more about the Princes of the Mocking Realm. My editor suggests to me that informing you at this juncture of conversations which can only have taken place after the experiences I presently describe robs the forthcoming narrative of any sense of tension or uncertainty. I personally do not understand this complaint. You, the reader, must surely know that I am writing this book many years after these events and, while it is true that some popular memoirs have been penned by the deceased (Miss Evadne de Silver’s Life Amongst the Bone Cults of Lei being a particularly fine example of the genre), such texts remain a rarity and are normally composed by persons with access to and knowledge of powerful necromantic arts.
In any case, after this encounter (during which you may accurately conclude I did not die) I learned that the Princes of the Mocking Realm are phantasmal beings equal parts illusion, delusion, and memory who build themselves and their worlds from the thoughts and fantasies of mortals. It was for this purpose that they desired sacrifices and it was in their power to offer such gifts as to make the procurement of said sacrifices worthwhile for an ambitious or aspiring sorcerer. When one was drawn into their realm, as I was about to discover, they constructed a feeding ground of sorts shaped from the depths of their victim’s mind.
The moment I inadvertently caught the eye of my own reflection in the eyes of the actress, who I later identified as Miss Katrina de la Martynière, the world around me instantaneously shattered into a thousand tiny and jagged points of light that presently resolved themselves into the image of what was now called Industry Square back in Ey. The scene that the Princes of the Mocking Realm had seen fit to conjure before me was the execution (although this is not entirely the right word, for reasons that should soon become apparent to those for whom they are not already obvious) of the Witch King Iustinian. It was not an occasion that came to mind often but represented one of my most formative memories. I recall to this day the utter silence as a thousand onlookers waited, uncertain what horrifying curse the Witch King might even then be capable of visiting upon his subjects.
The king himself stood upon a platform, impaled on seven spears. The spears were attached to chains bolted fast to the ground. The rings to which they were affixed remain to this day. He was muzzled like a dog in order that he might speak no words of power, but, through heavy-lidded eyes, he watched us with a terrible serenity and an almost unbearable sorrow. On a scaffold above him a searing fire was lit beneath a crucible of soon-to-be-molten iron. The method that had been chosen for the execution was partly symbolic—the Creator is a being of fire and thus flames of all kinds are considered sacred in Ey—but partially in concession to pragmatic concerns. The Witch King is immortal, no wound will last upon his person, and even severed his members will retain life and malice and seek to return to wholeness. Encasement in metal, therefore, was deemed the only practical means by which he could be neutralised. I understand that later he was interred in a location known only to the Lord Protector Thomas Latimer and select members of the Chamber of Regicides.
Having experienced this day once, I was less than enthusiastic about the possibility of doing so again and was thus relieved to observe that the scenario had been presented, as it were, in tableau. Or almost in tableau, for a wind I could not feel stirred the long dark locks of the Witch King’s hair, and I was sure I saw him blink. Elsewhere in the crowd, a few scattered figures moved also. I recognised Latimer and my mother by his side, and some distance from them, my father and a child I knew to be my younger self, though none of us seemed quite as I remembered.
“Welcome,” said my mother, in a voice that was most certainly not her own. “This will be painless.”
“Though not swift,” added Latimer.
The child gave me a sharp-toothed smile. “And not actually painless.”
“Pain is an illusion.” I thought that was my mother.
“Then again,” remarked my father, “so is everything else.”
My family began to close in on me. I could already feel a strange sense of unravelling, as though my thoughts and dreams and self were being teased gently apart. I tried to run. But I did not try to run. I stood like a dreamer, aware of what should be done but unable even to attempt it. Their voices swirled around me.
Hold still—In the Creator’s name it shall be so—It has been so long since we—Perhaps it would be best if you left the Commonwealth—You can rest now—Father, I can’t—
Quiet now—I call you to service and ask only your faith—Be calm—Let us help you—Freedom—Surrender.
A gunshot shattered the haze of whispers. And, suddenly, there was space around me. The Witch King shook off his chains, the spears melting like mist from his flesh, a smoking pistol in his free hand.
Latimer stared up at him. “You are not welcome here.”
“I’m not really welcome anywhere.” I’d never heard the Witch King speak, but I was relatively certain he did not speak like that. “But don’t worry, I’m not staying long.”
My child self drifted forward, the long plaits I remembered infuriating me sliding from beneath the bonnet about which I recalled similar feelings. “You came to our realm. You are ours now.”
“Not this one.” My father caught my young likeness by the arm. “She’s too much bother.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said about me all day.” The Witch King’s image blurred and when my eyes cleared, Ms. Haas, still resplendent in burgundy and sti
ll very much armed, stood in his place. “Now do step away from my companion or I shall be forced to speak the Nine Lies and Five Truths that bind the Dreaming God in the Cyst of Unyielding Recollection.”
“She’s bluffing,” said my mother.
“You wouldn’t dare,” said my father.
Ms. Haas raised a single finger. “That those things which are lost may someday be regained.” She put up a second. “That a lover’s face is a mask of peeling wax.”
The ground shook beneath our feet.
And Ms. Haas’s third finger joined its fellows. “That this world is real.”
The sky began to fall. I appreciate that this phenomenon may prove difficult for some readers to visualise, but I fear that, since I mean it literally, it is hard for me to explain it in any other terms. Flakes of what I can only call firmament descended from above and settled upon the crowd like pieces of blue-tinged, star-dusted eggshell. It was oddly beautiful in the way that only ruination can be.
“That,” continued Ms. Haas, “the Sleeper may dream without knowing and may wake without—”
“Stop.” The cry was a cacophony of many voices.
Latimer shoved me roughly in Ms. Haas’s direction. “Take him and go and do not return.”
“You really think I care about your pissant little subreality?” She caught me by the hand. “Come, Wyndham. We’re done here.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Katrina de la Martynière
Our exit from the Mocking Realm was as abrupt as my entrance had been. We returned, however, not to the castle of the Mad Duke Orsino, nor to the peculiar staging area to which Miss de la Martynière had led me, but to a thoroughly dingy room of quite ordinary proportions. I presumed that this was the physical building housing the liminal space between worlds wherein du Maurier and his company gave their performances. We were, for the moment, alone. And for that I was thankful.