Heraclix and Pomp: A Novel of the Fabricated and the Fey

by Forrest Aguirre

  “We discovered early on that there was much tumult in the regions round about. An irregular army of Serbs had the notion that there was something for the taking there. But it was a poor region, and it remains so. The Serbs found little by way of wealth, but they were already mobilized, so they took all that was left: dignity, virtue, and life, usually in that order.

  “The Serbs had set up checkpoints along many of the major roads, so we crept along back roads and mountain paths, hoping to avoid them until we could find refuge in a more civilized area, in a city. But in the mountains, not far south of this place, we found trouble. Or, rather, trouble found us.

  “My parents heard the horses approaching and told us to run into the woods off the pathway. We did, but didn’t go far. We watched. We saw what they did to our father, then to our mother. I don’t remember the men’s faces. I only remember their taunting voices, their laughter, their grunts.” Vadoma held up the bone: “And their hands.” She looked at Heraclix’s left hand, the hand that was once the Serb’s.

  “One of them was that hand, Heraclix. ‘Osvetnik,’ ‘Avenger.’”

  “I . . . I am truly sorry,” he said.

  “There is no need for sorrow. You are a victim as much as my parents. Besides, I have had enough of sorrow and pain.

  “That day, he saw me. He was one of the last to leave my parents’ violated, murdered bodies on the road. My sister or I had made some kind of noise, I suppose, so he looked over into the woods where we thought we were hidden. We were not so well hidden. He saw me directly, looked straight into my eyes. At first, I was terrified. Then a strange numbness came over me. My parents were dead. We had nothing. I felt nothing. This was my way of dealing with the moment. When he finally tore his gaze from my own, he walked away with a puzzled look on his face. I wept. We wept, my sister and I, into the night until the wolves howled and we huddled around a small fire, protecting our parents’ remains from the scavengers.”

  “I am truly sad for your loss,” Heraclix said.

  Vadoma looked hard into his eyes. “Yes. I think you are genuinely sad for me. That big chest of yours is full of compassion.”

  “I am finding that it was not always so.”

  “No one remains the same, Heraclix. People are more complex than that. People change over time. That is why I’m here.”

  “Because you changed?”

  “Partly. But mostly because he changed.” She held up the bone again, running her fingers along the squared-off edge where the hand had been removed.

  “The man I knew,” Heraclix said, “wasn’t the man you knew.”

  “No, the man you knew was the man that had grown out of the one I first knew. Not a different man, a changed man.

  “Many years later I had the chance to meet him again. We were traveling through Bozsok. My sister was very sick. I thought she might die. None of the cures my grandmother had taught me could help her. While in the village, we overheard some of the villagers talking about the hermit who lived in the mountains. Some said he was a madman. Others said he was a miracle man. I thought we might as well seek out this person, which we did. We found him both a madman and a miracle worker.”

  “You recognized him?” Heraclix asked.

  “Not at first. As I said, I didn’t remember the faces of my parents’ killers. But when he laid his one hand on my sister, I recognized that hand. It all came back to me full force, the memory did. But he healed my sister. It was as if he drew the very sickness out of her body. She fully recovered in a matter of minutes.

  “Curiously, he never recognized me. Or, if he did, he didn’t let on about it.”

  “My sister thanked him, and we left. She hadn’t seen the man when our parents had been killed. She had no idea who he was. But she was cured. I didn’t feel the need to tell her the truth of the matter.”

  “So when you examined my palm . . .” Heraclix said.

  “Yes, I recognized Porchenskivik’s hand. The overwritten tattoo didn’t fool me. I would have known it anywhere.”

  Heraclix became aware that he had involuntarily moved the hand behind him. The sense of shame that he felt indicated that the hand wasn’t acting autonomously. He had hidden it, even if semiconsciously. He tested the indication by forcing the hand out from behind his back. It came naturally, a willing part of him. But the shame remained. He felt he should keep the hand visible, however, as a sort of penance.

  “You don’t have to hide that,” Vadoma said.

  “But it must be as painful for you to see as it is for me to show it. More so, even.”

  “When I read your palm, Heraclix, I saw that the hand no longer belonged to Porchenskivik. The lines on the palm are distinctive. Past and future were radically different.”

  “Then the lines determine my fate?” Heraclix asked.

  “No. You make choices that determine the lines, my friend. Fate has little to do with it.”

  “You don’t think it was fate that brought us here?”

  “No. I followed you, remember? Now I . . . wait a moment.”

  She knelt down again and examined a corner of unburnt paper that was sticking out of the very edge of the ash heap. She carefully pulled the paper out of the ashes. She discovered that it was actually a pair of papers, loosely rolled together. The outer paper was surprisingly intact, browned from heat but not consumed. It adhered to the other page slightly, until Vadoma peeled them apart. The mirror image of some hastily scrawled, illegible writing showed on the inner paper, where the two were stuck together. The author had been in a hurry to wrap one paper inside the other, so much so that the ink had not even dried on the outer manuscript.

  The outside document looked very familiar. It was a rough diagram of Porchenskivik’s hand. Not as detailed as the one that Pomp had discovered at Mowler’s apartment, but very similar to it.

  The inner document was made of sturdy parchment with handwriting in a florid script, carefully crafted in a formal manner. The words were faint, but Heraclix and Vadoma could make them out, just barely. Heraclix read the words out loud over Vadoma’s shoulder:

  Most honorable Pasha,

  I gratefully received news regarding your acceptance of the terms set forth in my previous communication. You should be prepared to act in full force by next winter. This will give you more than adequate time to be ready, though events have been progressing more swiftly than I could have ever hoped. Soon, sooner than you expect, you will be called a hero by the subjects of the Ottoman throne. Remember our agreement. We are confederate.

  Truly,

  Graf Viktor Von Edelweir.

  “Fate or chance, this letter makes my arrival in Vienna even more urgent. I must be swift! Vadoma, farewell!”

  “Wait!” she called out. “I want to help. How can I help?”

  Heraclix thought for a moment. “Go toward Istanbul. Ask until you find the Agha Beyruit Al Mahdr. Tell him of what we have discovered here. He will know what to do next, I’m sure.”

  “I will make haste,” she said.

  On his way toward the trapdoor, Heraclix stopped. “I had all but forgotten about him,” he said, looking at the assassin’s body. He bent down and picked up the scimitar, turning it in the candlelight.

  “It’s coated with silver,” he said. He removed the sheath from the man’s body, sheathed the sword, and slid it under his belt. “He knew what he was doing.”

  “And we know what we must do, friend Heraclix. Make haste!”

  CHAPTER 27

  Pomp has to go home to warn them of what’s coming. Her falsified “Mowler attacks!” is not false anymore. He will attack, and she must raise the alarm!

  The city shimmers, folds, gives way to the flower-painted hillsides of Faerie. Nothing has changed, except for the absence of Doribell and Ilsie, who will never return to these fair meadows.

  Gloranda is there, as beautiful on the outside as she is ugly on the inside. Pomp doesn’t much like her anymore. Gloranda is, after all, an ignorant, possibly uncaring fairy.
But she is family, and that is why Pomp is here now.

  “Gloranda!” Pomp says with as much enthusiasm as she can muster.

  “It’s me, Pomp. I have come to warn you of danger.”

  Gloranda looks at her sister, then starts to laugh almost uncontrollably, rolling on the ground, holding her sides. Even the mirth has become painful, Pomp thinks. “Oh stop, my sister,” Gloranda begs, “That was a very funny joke!”

  “It’s no joke,” Pomp says.

  Now Gloranda doesn’t make a sound. Not because she is taking Pomp seriously. Because she is laughing so hard and so suddenly that she can hardly breathe.

  Finally, she gasps her words out. “Ah, such good fun. Where are the twins?”

  “The twins won’t be coming back, Gloranda.”

  “Did they go to find another bat?”

  “No, Gloranda. They are dead.”

  This is too much for Gloranda, who flies up into the air and cries out: “Come see Pomp! She is funny!” She then floats down and sits beside Pomp. “What is ‘dead?’”

  But Pomp doesn’t respond. She is silent, waiting for something.

  And something comes. It is big, like an ocean, but comes in many small parts, like drops of water. A buzz of wings sounds out here, then there, then here again. The buzz becomes a low throbbing as a few small groups of fairies appear over the hills all around her.

  “Tell us a joke, Pomp!” one yells.

  “Do some tricks!” shouts another.

  “Dance! Dance!” orders a small group.

  “This is not going to be easy,” Pomp says.

  “Sure it is!” Gloranda says. “You’re funny!”

  “But this is serious, coz’,” Pomp says to Gloranda. Gloranda falls on the ground again, laughing.

  “Tell us more!” jibes a silver-haired, freckle-faced sprite.

  “I am telling you, this isn’t funny!”

  Which is funny to the fairies. Some of them laugh so hard they fall from the air into a heap of giggles.

  “Oooo!” Pomp shakes her fists in frustration.

  The fairies shake with laughter.

  Pomp knows it is hopeless to talk. Words will only make things worse. She needs action.

  She looks at Gloranda, still on the ground, holding her sides, barely able to breathe through her smile.

  Then Pomp knows what to do.

  Quickly, with a series of intentionally clumsy movements to keep them laughing, she traces a circle in the dirt around Gloranda. Gloranda stops laughing long enough to see what Pomp is doing. She reaches out to touch one of the sigils, but Pomp slaps her hand. Gloranda falls again on her back in hysterics.

  Pomp draws. Pomp remembers. Not everything, but maybe enough. She feels something in the air, an unpleasant tingling that makes the hairs of her neck stand up, like flying through a ghost. She draws some more, remembers more, again feels the sorrow of losing Doribell, the pain of Ilsie’s absence.

  Then, the circle is complete. Or almost complete. She isn’t completely sure. Only Gloranda’s actions will tell if she got it right. And Gloranda will stay on the floor laughing if Pomp continues to draw.

  So she sits. And waits.

  The laughter dies down. A few bored fairies at the edge of the crowd fly off. Some punch each other in the shoulder for no good reason. Others make fun of Pomp.

  Pomp simply waits.

  Eventually, Gloranda recovers from her fit and stands up in the middle of the circle. She takes a step toward Pomp, but her left leg is stuck. It is rooted to the floor so securely that she thinks Pomp has pulled a trick on her, which she has. Gloranda pulls and yanks and almost spins in a circle, but her ankle doesn’t go that way. She tries to fly, but her wings won’t work. She jerks against gravity and gravity jerks back.

  Now it’s Pomp’s turn to giggle. Then she remembers why she is here, that she has serious business.

  “I told you,” Pomp says to Gloranda, “Doribell and Ilsie are dead! Mowler killed them!”

  Gloranda thinks her cousin is still joking. “Dory and Ilsie are away to play, back another day!” A few of the remaining fairies respond with laughter.

  Pomp paces, it’s so hard to think sometimes, think of what to do, what to say!

  “Gloranda. You are stuck, right?”

  Gloranda tries again to free herself.

  “Stuck, all right.”

  “Mowler’s spell stuck you there!” Pomp says.

  “No, Pomp’s spell stuck me here.”

  Pomp pulls at her own hair in frustration. There seems to be very little left to try. How will she ever get through to them?

  “Remember Cimbri!” she calls out to the crowd. “Remember Cimbri!”

  “Huh?” says one fairy after another.

  “What is remember?” one calls out.

  “Remember is . . . no, never mind . . . I can’t explain . . .”

  She paces even more frantically, fluttering her wings in worry. Time is running out!

  She thinks she has one last chance.

  “Cimbri is saving us! Pomp is saving us! Mowler attacks! Fight Mowler!”

  The crowd, somewhat agitated, looks around for the miscreant wizard. They have heard of him, heard that he is unhappy and angry since he left Faerie. He likes to snatch fairies away from their home.

  But Gloranda isn’t believing it.

  “Pomp isn’t saving us,” Gloranda says. “Pomp is talking. I’m bored of talking.”

  “Me too!” someone says in the crowd.

  “Let’s go find some fun,” says another.

  “No, wait!” Pomp yells in her tiny voice. It is lost among the buzzing of wings as the fairies, all except Pomp and Gloranda, begin to take off.

  “Wait!” Pomp says in a little voice.

  “Wait!” she squeaks.

  “WAIT!” she booms louder than any noise she thought she could make. Her voice sounds different now, too.

  “WAIT!” the voice booms again. It isn’t her voice. Many voices, actually. Many loud voices falling on them from above.

  Like a shadowy wheel, something dark made of twelve flying somethings circles overhead.

  “Whoo, whoo, wait!” the many voices call out.

  The Armory owls are descending on the fairies.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” says one fairy.

  “And fun!” says another.

  “No fun!” the quorum of three-faced owls bellows below. “Pomp is saving us! We must fight Mowler! To arms!”

  “To arms!” the mustered fairies respond to the call, “To arms!”

  Pomp, mission accomplished, flies on.

  She navigates herself to the Armory, now empty of owls, who were too busy marshaling troops to guard an empty grove of trees. She prepares to make the transition to the mortals’ world. She remembers, all too well, the smoke and confusion that met her last time. She holds her breath and plunges forward.

  Pomp flitted through the shredded veil between worlds, first catching mere glimpses of the mortal realms, like windows into the world of men, then emerging fully into it. She had to find Heraclix as quickly as possible. She knew that he wasn’t at Vienna, but supposed that he would be coming back before too long. So she headed back along the road toward Bozsok, intending to return to Szentendre, where she had left him.

  The fires had extinguished themselves a long time ago, but the place still reeked of smoke. A recent rain exaggerated the stench even more, swelling the air with ashen memory. The trail leading up to the Serb’s castle was quiet. The ghosts had all burned up. The only sound came from a single raven cawing high above among the scorched tree limbs.

  Pomp would have ignored the bird outright if it weren’t for the glint of something caught in the dim sunlight. It shimmered near or on the bird; Pomp couldn’t quite tell which. She had never heard of a shiny raven before, and she found it odd enough to distract her, momentarily, from her quest to find Heraclix.

  It was small for a raven. On close examination it proved not much bigger than a
common crow. But this bird was far from common. Its thick beak was made of pure silver, as were its eyes, and it wore a crown—a very familiar looking crown, one Pomp had seen in a much larger size in a much more Hellish place.

  “You’re an ugly bird!” Pomp said.

  It turned to her with fiery eyes blazing.

  “Go, go away!” it said.

  “Why should I?” Pomp said.

  “Kill, kill, die!” the bird-demon warned.

  “But you’re just a bird!” Pomp taunted.

  “No!”

  “Not a bird?” Pomp asked.

  “No!”

  “Do you have a name then, un-bird?” Pomp mocks the creature.

  “Caw, caw, phony!”

  “Cacophony?”

  “Caw, caw, phony!”

  “How appropriate.”

  The bird-that-is-not-a-bird’s attention suddenly turned away from Pomp. Something was moving below. Something large. There was no secret to its arrival. Branches snapped, then fell to the ground in its wake.

  Caw-Caw-Phony pushed off its perch, gliding momentarily, then diving almost straight down.

  That breathing from below, the raspy intake of air, Pomp knew that rasp.

  “Heraclix!” she yelled.

  “Kill! Kill! Die!” Caw-Caw-Phony squawked.

  Pomp dove after the bird, which was diving straight for the golem below.

  “Heraclix!” Pomp yelled again. She hoped her friend could hear her.

  “Caw! Caw! Ph—” the devil-raven stopped short.

  Pomp nearly flew into the creature’s back, it had stopped so suddenly. She also nearly skewered herself on the scimitar blade that protruded from the bird’s back. A glowing yellow-green ichor dripped from the tip of the blade.