The Liberators

by Philip Womack

  ‘What about our parents?’ said Felix roughly. ‘They said they were drugged and bound. We have to find them!’

  ‘They aren’t our first priority,’ snapped Hunter. ‘If we don’t deal with Julius now, everything will be lost.’

  ‘Well, I don’t care. I’m going to find them.’ Felix turned and sprinted off. Miranda made to go after him, but Hunter said quietly, ‘You’ll die if you go with him. Stay with us.’

  Miranda gulped. She was numb. ‘OK.’ She nodded. ‘Just . . . just tell me what to do.’

  ‘Good girl,’ said Hunter.

  ‘They’re not . . . they’re not human, are they?’ It was Jago. He put the back of his hand to his forehead and leaned against the wall. His carefully slicked-back hair had fallen forwards. His features had softened. He put a finger to his right temple. Ivo looked behind them. Hunter was keeping guard. ‘I’ve been mad,’ Jago said. ‘I don’t want this. I never wanted to do this.’ He righted himself. He looked at Ivo keenly. ‘Do you know how to stop them?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ivo, and once more he felt the sharp edge of power inside him.

  They ran straight into the gallery where the dining tables had been laid out. It was a cacophony of brayings, commotions, people spilling wine, knocking over glasses with their elbows, rocking back on their chairs, dropping napkins; a dowager with a diamond necklace guffawed, spraying her neighbour with crumbs; an old billionaire who’d pulled himself up by his bootstraps put his arm companionably around the young man sitting next to him, whispering to him the secrets of success; everybody was intent upon their own pleasure, so nobody noticed when the four of them skidded in.

  They stood in the wide arch, the red chasm of the gallery yawning in front of them like a mouth, white-jacketed waiters flitting here and there, nymphs shimmying between tables, still part of some performance, still looking as if they had no idea they were in twenty-first-century London.

  ‘Look,’ whispered Ivo to Jago, pointing at the walls surreptitiously with his elbow.

  There, for all the world like footmen, were more Acolytes, waiting for their moment. Ivo couldn’t tell if they were armed or not. He knew now that many of the nymphs and fauns and satyrs amongst the performers were Acolytes too. He wondered if any of the guests were.

  ‘What is he going to do?’ whispered Jago.

  ‘He’s going to Liberate them all – and us if we stay here . . .’ said Hunter.

  ‘And you mean we’ll all become like Strawbones?’

  Hunter nodded. Ivo empathised with the terrifed look in his uncle’s eyes. But not me, he thought, remembering the riots. I will stay sane, and I’ll be torn apart if I cannot escape.

  ‘You’d better go back to your seat,’ Hunter whispered to Jago. ‘Wait there. Defend yourself, defend your loved ones. Don’t give in.’

  Jago nodded. He turned to Ivo, and put his hand on Ivo’s shoulder. His tie had come loose, and the top button of his waistcoat was undone. He was sweating. ‘Ivo . . . I . . . I’m sorry.’ He bent down and kissed Ivo on the forehead, and then turned swiftly and paced back to his table. Ivo saw him sit down and nod to Lydia, who looked at him enquiringly.

  There was a pinging noise, of a spoon being rapped against a glass, and the whole room was suddenly quiet, apart from the odd cough, and one person who continued to tell a joke until he was shushed by the people around him. The noise of the spoon grew in volume until it seemed to fill the whole room, and as it died, Julius stood up slowly, magnificently. Somewhere some clocks started chiming midnight.

  All eyes turned towards Julius. Unobtrusively, a few of the Acolytes made their way to the exits, taking up a stand in the middle of the archways. Hunter, Miranda and Ivo slid over to a pillar and ranged themselves around it.

  ‘The Thyrsos,’ said Ivo, a sickening feeling in his stomach. Julius was holding it casually in his right hand.

  ‘Your Royal Highnesses,’ said Julius, bowing in the direction of the Prince of Wales and his Duchess. ‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming here for such a worthy cause.’ All the tables erupted in applause. Some people cheered, one or two got to their feet and raised their glasses. ‘It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all here.’ His voice took on an avuncular tone, as if he were a priest giving a Sunday morning sermon. ‘I suppose you’re all wondering what you are doing here, really, are you not?’ He threw the question out, and there was a puzzled silence, broken by Julius laughing.

  ‘It is a question that haunts us all – what is it that brings us to this strange rock of a world, spinning for eternity in blackness?’

  There were murmurs in the crowd, neighbours whispering to each other; Ivo heard a man saying, ‘What’s he on about? Can’t we get on to the port?’

  ‘Well, your Royal Highnesses, ladies, gentlemen . . .’ he said, a wicked grin on his face. He raised the Thyrsos. ‘Tonight I will show you why . . .’

  A bloody, enraged figure emerged into the gallery from the side, knocking aside some Acolytes. Strawbones advanced, his mouth dripping with blood, his clothes ripped. He was laughing, a horrible, high cackle. He strode up the centre of the room. Lydia saw him, and put down her glass. Her neighbour bent into her. ‘Some kind of performance, eh, Lydia?’

  A man, emboldened by wine, stood up as Strawbones walked past. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  Strawbones stopped, and turned very slowly on his heels.

  ‘What?’ asked Strawbones.

  The man said, louder this time, ‘I said, what do you think you’re doing?’

  Strawbones tossed his head, so that his long hair rustled and shook. He snapped back around, and waved the man away dismissively. The man advanced. Two Acolytes came forwards and grabbed him by the arms.

  ‘Lydia,’ said her neighbour, ‘going a bit far, isn’t it?’

  Lydia sat, her eyes reflecting the green lights. Trembling, she knocked over her wine glass and a dark stain spread over her dress.

  The Acolytes pushed the man back down into his seat. A roar of sound spilled from the tables. People stood up, knocked over chairs. Through the hubbub, Strawbones marched, tall, terrifying, alien, up the middle aisle, and stood by his brother.

  Strawbones, crimson, and Julius, white, stood, each with a hand on the Thyrsos.

  ‘What is going on?’ Ivo heard Lydia’s voice rise above the rest. ‘Julius? What are you doing?’

  ‘Silence!’ shouted Julius. The voice was so loud, so full of hellish authority, that, after the last echo had rung out, the room was totally quiet. ‘Do not try to leave. The exits are secured. If you do not cooperate, you will die.’

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ shouted a dowager. She stood up, sheathed in silk, diamonds crowning her head. Ivo saw that she supported herself on a cane. ‘Impudent man!’ she cried.

  ‘Yeah!’ came some cries of support. ‘Is this some kind of a joke?’

  In answer, Julius merely inclined his head. A shot rang out, and the dowager crumpled, as if she had been no more than a slender white sapling blown over by a gust of wind. Screams rang out around the room, but everyone was too frightened to go to her aid.

  Ivo barely noticed the explosion. He had gone into a sort of trance. His mind was fixated upon the two figures standing tall and strong. This was his destiny, this was his fate; he was reaching out his hand and he was taking it. The rest of the room was a blur around him, as if it was happening in another dimension. He slipped away, glinting silver in the light, like a fish under the surface of a stream.

  ‘Ivo!’ whispered Miranda after him, and made to follow, but Hunter held her back. Hunter had seen the look in his eyes, and she thought that she understood. Ivo dropped to the floor.

  ‘None of you can get out,’ said Julius, his voice normal now. ‘I was telling you why you were here. And you should all listen to me, because
tomorrow you will all be thanking me – no, more than that, you will be adoring me for what is about to happen.

  ‘How do you all do it?’ he continued. ‘How do you all fill your lives with the petty things that you do? Trundling, ever and on, to school, to work, being polite, being kind. You know you have to do these things. You know you don’t want to. You know that if you really could, you would be freed from all that. Imagine it!’ he said, his tone growing louder. ‘A world without restraint . . . a world in which each and every one of you was liberated from that voice in your head which stops you from doing things. Every thought that you ever suppressed, every action that you didn’t fulfil, you will now be able to revel in.’

  Ivo was crawling along the carpet, under the tables, avoiding people’s feet. The Koptor was glowing and burning, tucked into the waistband of his boxers. He was moving swiftly, mechanically, full of an energy that wasn’t his. I will give them freedom, he thought. I am the Liberator, I am and I always have been. I hold destruction in my hands.

  ‘So, my friends, ready yourselves,’ exclaimed Julius. He began to chant, in a language unknown to Ivo, and Strawbones intoned with him, though he was speaking different words; their voices joined together in harmony. It was like before the riot in Oxford Circus; ivy began to grow out of the cracks of the building. Hysteria was overwhelming the guests; Ivo could feel the rumbling of their laughter as he neared Julius and Strawbones.

  He came out from under the table nearest to them. The Thyrsos was glowing, emanating a strange and deviant light that glistened and filled the room, casting everything into a deeper hue, making everything look hyper-real, as if he were hallucinating or dreaming. The carpet beneath his hands felt richer, thicker, the breaths he took sent oxygen through his blood faster. He took out the Koptor and watched as it grew into the thin, blade-like weapon, coruscating in the light, its spark and shine reflecting the thousands of little flames that gleamed in the chandelier above, and showing back to him his own face, distorted, devilish, deathly.

  A glass crashed beside his hand. He watched it shatter, spilling wine over the floor. He brought himself up, slowly, to his knees, so that his head was bowed; he looked as if he were about to be knighted. His own mind was immune to the ancient song of the Liberators. He moved as if he were wearing armour, ponderous but lethal.

  The two brothers were so intent upon their chanting that they did not notice as Ivo got to his feet, feeling the Koptor in his hands as if he had always been meant to use it, as if he had all his life known that this was what he was meant to do.

  He walked up to them, the Koptor gripped tightly, so tightly that he felt blood trickling down his hand; he held it horizontally, feeling it break the air as he moved, feeling it sense its prize near.

  The brothers were now so close to him that, if he had wished, he could have sliced their heads off; it was then that Julius saw the glimmer of the Koptor and, faltering, stopped chanting; Strawbones did too, and the light from the Thyrsos dimmed.

  ‘What is this?’ screamed Julius. ‘What is this? How dare you! Get back!’ His hair was lengthening, his eyes becoming green, his civilised mask falling away.

  Julius lashed at Ivo with the Thyrsos, but Ivo neatly sidestepped the blow, like a dancer, his body fast and light. It was as if he could anticipate everything that Julius might do, as if he could interpret the future. His mind was singing, as clear as crystal and as cold as ice.

  ‘You have forgotten something,’ said Ivo, speaking slowly and formally. ‘You who think you are indestructible, you who think you are gods. You have forgotten that you can be destroyed, and by one who is weaker than you. Or maybe you have always known,’ said Ivo, as Strawbones lunged at him, teeth bared. Ivo jumped out of the way, the Koptor whistling through the air.

  With the Thyrsos dimming, the crowd were coming back to their senses. A commotion broke out. Acolytes pressed in.

  ‘Ivo!’ It was Lydia’s voice. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Stay back!’ said Jago, grabbing her. ‘Leave him.’

  ‘But how are you going to take it from me, Ivo?’ sneered Julius. He leaped up on to the table, crushing a plate beneath his feet, and held the Thyrsos above his head. ‘There’s only one of you, Ivo. And look around – see my Acolytes! See how they will obey my every word . . . there are a hundred of them, Ivo, all around the edges of this room, outside the building, amongst the guests, waiting for me, all ready to do my bidding. How can you stop us?’

  Strawbones, like a gazelle, as fluid as water, joined his brother on the table, and grasped the other end of the Thyrsos. Once more it began to crackle and shimmer with light, once more the faces of the people in the room took on a hyper-real sheen. The song of the Liberators filled the room with the heady scents of green forests, wine and feasts.

  Ivo’s body was hardened, his mind a rock. This is not what is meant to be, he thought. There is a pattern in the world; there is a way into the future. He glanced around him and saw the beginnings of frenzy: he saw a man ripping his jacket apart; he saw a woman screaming; a man jumping up on to a chandelier; faces distorting, sneering, yelling. The man leaped off the chandelier, crashing into a table, sending wine bottles flying.

  And he saw, coming towards him, Miranda, Felix, Jago and Lydia, and he saw that they were walking towards him, and his heart began to quail, for there was madness in their eyes; but as they neared, he saw something else in them and in his heart he smiled. Hunter appeared out of nowhere and took out two Acolytes in front of Julius.

  Julius looked to his right, and in an instant, Ivo jumped on to the table and advanced towards the shouting pair. Ivo barrelled into Julius, knocking him over and Julius lost his grip on the Thyrsos. Strawbones held it close to himself, clutching it between his hands. He snarled at Ivo. All trace of humanity had left his face.

  Miranda arrived at the table, and Ivo saw in her eyes the same madness that was in his own: fury, desperation and determination to survive. She looked at him and a wild exultation passed between them; she leaped up and sat on Julius, and Felix came up behind her and held Julius’s arms. More shots rang out.

  Ivo moved to where Strawbones had positioned himself, the Thyrsos held out like a weapon.

  ‘Ivo,’ said Strawbones, his voice like honey, ‘why are you doing this?’

  Ivo looked into Strawbones’s eyes. The face was returning to its human state, the hair becoming long and blond again, the eyes blue and kind. ‘Don’t you remember?’ continued Strawbones.

  ‘Don’t give in to him!’ It was Felix. Julius lay limp, apparently having lost all effort of will. Ivo sensed around him a full-scale battle. He saw, dimly, the Prince of Wales sheltering behind an upturned table, a film star whirling a champagne bottle around her head; he couldn’t tell whether the hysteria had gone or not, or who was winning, the Acolytes or the guests.

  ‘Ivo . . .’ Strawbones spoke again, weakly this time. Out of his waistcoat pocket appeared the small gleaming head of his garter snake. Strawbones picked it up gently, and held it in the light in front of Ivo. ‘Don’t you remember?’

  Ivo watched the snake slowly sliding in and out of Strawbones’s fingers. A champagne glass smashed at his feet but he didn’t notice.

  ‘You cannot destroy the Thyrsos,’ said Strawbones. Strawbones walked carefully, gently, towards Ivo. ‘Come here, my boy. Come here, Ivo.’ Strawbones was breathing very slowly. Ivo relaxed his arm a little. The tip of the Koptor wavered. And Strawbones lunged, but Ivo sidestepped him, and Strawbones tripped past Ivo.

  Ivo turned swiftly to face him and spoke: ‘You’re wrong. You have always been wrong. The pattern is finished, the mesh has been made.’

  His heart thumping inside his chest, his breath coming in ragged gasps, Ivo edged towards Strawbones, nervous as a hunter approaching his first kill.

  The Koptor was alive, and it was him too, it was a part of him, an extension
of his mind, as he took aim at the staff that Strawbones held; the arc of his arms was as taut as a bowstring, his movement as swift as a leopard; he sliced through Strawbones’s right wrist.

  The hand clutching the Thyrsos fell to the table, and Strawbones fell too, pulling the cloth with him. Lymph and thick purple blood spurted out of the stump of his arm, his mouth open, nothing coming out of it; and Lydia and Jago strode behind him and held him, Lydia heedless of her dress, Jago’s white waistcoat spattered with bloodspots.

  Ivo knelt, the Thyrsos on the table in front of him, and held the Koptor above it. ‘This is for Blackwood,’ he shouted. ‘This is for all those you maimed, tortured and killed. I am the real Liberator. I am the one who will free you.’

  He shifted his weight, and brought the Koptor down upon the Thyrsos with a force that made his arm judder.

  It was as if a shock wave emanated from that blow. Ivo was thrown on to his back, as was everyone immediately around him; the room shuddered, paintings fell off the walls, a chandelier swung dangerously, little glass droplets falling from the ceiling.

  Ivo yelled, a yell that was wild and free, a yell of the mountains, of the woods, of the forests and the hunt. A huge energy was released, as the Thyrsos split in two with a sound that was deep and old.

  And then, there was nothing for a moment, except stillness, and silence, silence like an ocean; then, gradually, sound returned to the room.

  People got up and dusted themselves off, helped each other up; Lydia, Jago, Felix and Miranda got to their feet.

  ‘Look!’ said Miranda. She pointed. Ivo looked.

  Julius and Strawbones had raised themselves and were facing each other. The energy from the destroyed Thyrsos was pouring into them. But now they could not control it; now they were turning in on themselves. And they began to scream, to release into the silence the syllables of their power; they encircled each other, overtaken by madness; they went round and round like boxers in a ring. Suddenly Julius leaped and lunged, and Strawbones lunged back; Ivo watched in disgust as Julius tore off Strawbones’s arm, showing nerves, bones, blood pouring out in a black, viscous trickle. Strawbones looked down at his arm and picked it up; then he threw it, without seeing where it went – Ivo heard a scream as it landed in someone’s lap – Strawbones prowled forwards, and the two brothers met. Strawbones was biting Julius on the neck, and then Julius was tearing at Strawbones’s hair, which came off in clumps. They both shrieked, howling like banshees. And then Strawbones had Julius in a grip with his remaining arm, and he grabbed hold of Julius’s leg, and with a strength horrible and supernatural, he tore off Julius’s leg at the knee. The sound of the bone breaking made bile rise in Ivo’s throat; he put a hand to his face. Julius, as Strawbones roared in triumph, got shakily on to his front, and crawled towards Strawbones; with a burst of energy he landed on him and began gouging at his eyes.