by Mal Peet
Minerva then experienced one of those most unwelcome moments of lucidity that occur when terror changes gear. Between the shadow and the act. Just before the upraised axe descends, or the windscreen implodes. Or just before your star client reveals himself to be a hopeless shitwit.
She had long known, of course, that opposite extremes of passion tend to result in similar facial expressions. Certain of her lovers had appeared, in the climactic seconds of physical ecstasy, to have glimpsed the horrors of premature burial. But what she understood now, glancing about her, was that it was all about context. Expectation.
On stage, Philip stood gaping like someone coshed but yet to fall. His mouth opened and closed silently. The slump of his face and every angle of his posture suggested an instantaneous onset of moronism. And the audience loved it. They resumed applause and combined it with knowing laughter. Because – context and expectation – it was an act. A class act. Philip Murdstone, veteran of talk shows and award rituals, had abandoned his worldly persona and, before an audience of his peers, was beautifully enacting the role of the yokel who has inadvertently plucked the sword from the stone. Of the stammering Claudius who finds himself declared Emperor. The applause and the laughter increased when he made a helpless gesture and turned as if to depart.
There were cries of ‘No! Speech! Speech!’
Minerva groaned loudly and, when Gloria Rowsel glanced at her, disguised it as a belch and covered her face with her hands. Through the slits between her fingers she saw the Learned Doctor seize Philip’s arm with one vast hand and raise the other in an imperious gesture that would have silenced a swineherds’ saturnalia.
‘As you doubtless know,’ Paragus intoned, ‘the recipient of the Nutwell Prize benefits from a small, yet I trust, not entirely insignificant, pecuniary enhancement. In addition, he or she traditionally receives a unique and cunningly wrought artefact, not to say trophy, which we – my fellow judges and myself – hope will outlast the, er …’
‘Money,’ someone called hoggishly.
‘Indeed. And tonight this, ah, keepsake, will be presented by an Oscar-winning thespian who has flown in from New Zealand where, as you know, Dark Entropy is being translated onto the cinema screen. Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome that cynosure of all eyes, Miss Arora Lynton!’
Gasps, murmurs, swoonish cries, and another atonal fanfare, this one with a certain erotic charge. The blue curtains parted upon a slender yet curvaceous shape silhouetted against pinkly backlit mist. A gentle adjustment of the lighting revealed the American actress costumed for the role of Mesmira at the moment of her exile from the Realm. She wore, beneath a night-blue mantle, a skin of silvery diaphanous mail which, perversely but bravely, left much of her fabulous frontage exposed to all manner of harm. Her pale exquisite face was framed by swoops of raven-dark hair; she seemed made of moonlight and midnight clouds.
She approached Philip (who, Minerva shamingly observed, was actually goggling) with her eyes lowered, her hands held in front of her, cupped so as to conceal what they held. When the two were face to face she murmured something which, even in the electrical silence that had descended, only he could have heard. He continued to gape at her, so she murmured again.
At last he lowered his head, and the actress parted her hands, revealing some sort of medallion on a chain which she looped over his head. Philip did not move. Minerva thought she knew why. As did other members of the audience, to judge from the wavelet of titters and envious murmurs that swept through it. In his position, he had to be relishing a close view of the famous Lynton breasts and, quite possibly, depending upon the subtle architecture of her costume, whatever wonders lay shadowed below them. That, certainly, was what the Utopian professor from Gateshead imagined; above his narrowed eyes his brow was pearled with moisture like the sweat on warm cheese.
Arora took Philip’s head in her hands eventually, and lifted it. As he straightened, the medallion swung and settled against his shirt front. He clapped his left hand over it, pressing it to his breast in a possessive and protective gesture. Then Arora kissed him on both cheeks and took her leave, retreating into the mist from whence she had emerged.
There were renewed calls for a speech. Minerva closed her eyes, hoping to find in private darkness the courage to endure her imminent humiliation. When she opened them again, her mouth quickly followed suit.
Philip had taken up a somewhat Dickensian position at the lectern, grasping its ledge with his right hand while his left remained clasped upon his chest. By some trick of the lighting, he seemed to fit his clothes. The expression on his face might have been that of a benevolent khan or king called upon to bless a peasant wedding. He then delivered a speech, without notes. (There were no notes. Minerva knew that. She’d frisked his clothes and found none. She’d said, ‘Where’s the sodding speech, Philip?’ And he’d said, from the bath, ‘Same place as the sodding book, Minerva, for all I know.’)
He spoke for thirteen and a half minutes in perfect, complex and unfaltering sentences. Minerva didn’t understand the half of it. Not then, nor later when the speech was reproduced verbatim in the London Review of Books, nor when it appeared – with copious footnotes – in RIM.
He began by thanking the judges by name (despite, Minerva knew, not knowing who they were). Next, he praised, with analytic precision, the other books that had made the shortlist (despite, Minerva knew, not having read any of them). Indeed, so incisive and concise was his praise that it left their authors feeling grateful for so little and thankful there was no more. Then he embarked on an erudite yet passionate defence – no, a celebration – of the Fantasy genre. Like a magnificent intellectual animal he ranged across its entire landscape, pausing to browse on Ovid and Pliny, on Frazer’s The Golden Bough and Bettelheim’s nourishing study of fairy tales, on the rich truffly delights of Tolkien, Lewis and Le Guin, on the sharp juiciness of Carter and Lanagan. He sniffed appreciatively at Pratchett – ‘absolutely sui generis’ – Hoban and Garner, but passed them by unsampled. Replete, he spoke with icy disdain of the moral relativism that characterized so much of contemporary ‘realistic’ teenage fiction, of its obsession with squalid domestic arrangements, of its obsequious trendiness, its feigned concern for the hobbled and the disadvantaged, its fear of transcendence. Only Fantasy, Philip risingly asserted, could lead children into that magical grove where the deep human myths were gathered, and there arm them with the weapons and the means to confront and exorcize those Grendels, those Smaugs, those Megrums that daunt the unfolding soul.
When he finished speaking there was a silence as when the sea waits to surge; and when the tidal wave of applause broke it lifted Philip from the stage and bore him as if on wings of sound back to his seat beside Minerva.
‘Where the fuck did all that come from?’ she asked, reasonably enough.
Some of the familiar glaze returned to Philip’s features. He touched his chest where the trophy hung.
‘From here,’ he said. ‘I think.’
3
In the station car park at Exeter St David’s, it took Philip some time to find his car, despite the fact that it stood among the lesser vehicles like some huge and warlike pachyderm. (Even after all this time, he still found himself searching forgetfully for the horrible old Ford.) When he at last he found the beast, he saw that the letters WANKA had been inscribed into the coat of reddish dust that filmed its rear end. He stood for a moment or two studying this Japanese-looking word while he rummaged for the keys with their laser fob. At the second attempt the Lexus bleeped, winked its lights, and unlocked itself with a sound that he still found thrilling. GerSchlunk.
He climbed aboard and allowed himself to enjoy the gentle arse-clasp of the leather seat, the subtly lit array of magical switches. Leaning back against the sculptured headrest, his gaze rose to a tower block perched on the hill (when terrible lizards roamed Mesozoic Exeter it had been a sandstone sea-cliff) that overlooked the river and the railway. This horribly inappropriate building
– it was a college of some sort – was, in this late afternoon, adorned by a pearly light that made it look almost delicate, insubstantial. Then someone inside his head said, ‘Time’s got its boots on,’ and Philip pulled the seat belt across his body.
Instantly, there came again that pulsing grasp on his chest that he had first experienced at the prize ceremony: a sort of crab nebula coming into being on his skin, reaching its electrical tentacles into previously unknown crevices, filling him with words, with cinematic visions. In his ear, deep in it, nibscratch and hoarse distorted whispering.
Beyond the windscreen, some sort of vast suction took place. The car park, the busy road beyond it, the magenta-uplit Premier Inn and the boarding houses that climbed the hill vanished and were replaced by a slope of rugged wilderness in which invisible but awful violence thrived. The college tower now stood jagged and burning against a green sky. Vampyrical shapes poured from its upper windows and formed an immeasurable spiral in the smoky upper air like a murmuration of gigantic starlings.
Something breathtakingly telescopic happened to Philip and he found himself closer to the conflagration. He felt its furnace breath on his face, felt wetness pooling in the V of his collarbone, but could not turn away. He had dreamed the massive portal of the College before, recognized the ancient inscriptions above it. He also knew, somehow, that the great doors were about to open; and now they did, slowly, releasing a spreading red glare that forced him to screw his eyes shut.
When he dared to open them a figure of the direst authority, cloaked in swirling silver and green, had emerged. Even in the violent and uncertain light Philip could make out the predatory handsomeness of the face within its aureole of fire-tipped hair, the depthless glitter of the eyes.
Despite the heat on his skin and the foul smell of burning alchemicals in his nose, Philip had assumed he was a detached and invisible witness to this fiery cataclysm. But now, in a bowel-loosening moment of realization, he knew he was not. He was a part, a vital and unprotected part of it. For Morl had seen him. The necromancer raised his left hand, and with index and little fingers extended, uttered Philip’s name followed by incomprehensible words in a voice so sonorous that the roar of burning paused to listen.
Philip found himself unable to turn, to run, to move at all. He could only watch, numb with dread, as behind Morl and within the very matrix of the inferno, hideous forms assembled. Swelts. Hulk-shouldered, tusked, deformed, they lolloped out of the flames and gathered behind their master; then, at some unspoken command, they advanced upon Philip. Simultaneously, the sky above him was riven by howling. Looking up, he saw winged Swelts descending, plaintive with blood-lust, their leathery cockchafer bodies trailing thorny legs. A thin wail of terror came from Philip’s throat and he threw himself forward onto the ground in final and abject submission.
His head struck something firm but cushioned and there was a slithering across his chest. It was the seat belt recoiling into its socket.
He sat for perhaps a minute with his forehead on the steering wheel, and eventually his breathing became almost regular. He raised his head when he heard a hesitant tapping. Turning, he saw that he was being studied by a young man with a polystyrene food carton in one hand and a mobile phone in the other. Philip turned the ignition key a notch and lowered his electrical window.
‘Yorl rye, mate?’
It took Murdstone a second and some effort to peel his tongue from the roof of his mouth. ‘Yeg. Ahgghum. Yes, I’m OK. Thanks. I’m fine.’
‘You don’ look it, mate. I fort for a minute … well, I was finking I might have to call a hambulance.’ He held his mobile higher, as if to demonstrate that he could indeed have summoned the emergency services.
‘No,’ Philip said. ‘That won’t be necessary. But thank you. I’ll be fine.’
‘Or rye, mate, if you say so. But you mind how you go.’ The man stepped away from the window. ‘Nice motor, vough. XL3SE4WDTDSi, innit?’
When the man had gone, Philip eased open the top buttons of his shirt and removed the Amulet and stowed it carefully in the CD storage compartment. Then he lifted his eyes unto the hill where the sunlit tower block stood perfectly crass and intact. After a while he switched the engine on and tapped the number three on the radio console. Wagner, halfway to tumescence.
As he squeezed the Lexus through the barrier, two leering hoodied goblins with low-slung crotches appeared from nowhere and mimed frenzied masturbation in his wake.
The frowsty odour of desperation still lingered in the living room, but instead of throwing open the window Philip drew the curtains across it and lit the table lamp. He laid the Amulet in the pool of light.
Until now, he’d not had an opportunity to study it closely, in private. Secretly. The thirty-six hours since his speech – not a word of which he could recall – had accelerated into a sort of flickering delirium beyond his, or anyone else’s, control. His memory of it consisted of random clips and stills. The last was of Minerva, in a bedroom mirror, wearing improbable underwear. Except that her thing, her thong, was not where it should have been; she was wearing it as a blindfold. He lifted his face like a parched man hoping for rain, but could not remember what had happened next. After several useless attempts to urge the movie onward he sat and focused his attention on the Amulet.
It was nothing special to look at. Not quite square, maybe five centimetres by four. It was thick enough to be hollow but he couldn’t find a seam in it, any sign that it might be prised open. When he shook it close to his ear he could hear nothing. He couldn’t tell what it was made of. It was quite heavy, dark greenish grey and slightly mottled, as a kind of stone might be. Soapstone, was that what he was thinking of? But it felt more like metal. Very smooth, but not as though polished by age. It warmed rapidly when he cupped it in his hand, but was ice-cold within a moment of his releasing it. At the corners of the slightly shorter side there were eyelets to which the chain was attached. The chain itself was clearly nothing to do with it. Nice enough: an expensive bit of silverwork but obviously modern, from Aspreys or somewhere. Originally, he supposed, the thing would have hung from a leather thong.
Thong. Why had she? To not see what? God, he’d give anything to remember …
On the Amulet’s surface was a design carved, or cast, in shallow relief. Earlier, in stolen moments when he’d glanced at it, he’d thought it represented a holly leaf. Or maybe a stylized pointy-winged figure. A bat, perhaps. Now, the angle of the light falling onto it revealed something quite different: the backs of two hands with their index and little fingers extended, the fingertips of one hand touching the fingertips of the other. In a moment of recognition that was similar to a small electrical shock, he remembered Morl’s gesture as he emerged from the burning College of Thaumaturgy above St David’s station.
Now he saw something else, something etched into the symmetrical space formed by the folded fingers of the two hands. Peering closer, he made out what looked like a compressed figure eight. There was a dot inside one of its flattened loops. He turned it in the light for a better view and it disappeared. Puzzled, blinking, he rotated it slightly. Nothing. He moved it again, and again. Nothing, and nothing.
He gave up and stood up. He turned away from the table and felt that he was not at home but in a cave.
He groped for light switches and lit the place up.
He fiddled with the controls for the recently installed central heating until he heard the boiler go whumph.
He found the remote for the new flat-screen telly and pressed a button at random. Scary girls in bondage wear dancing to terrible pop music. He hit mute and spent a minute marvelling at the eroticism of unattainable girls squirming in silence.
He touched the answering machine and it said: YOU. HAVE. THIR. TEEN. MESSAGES. MESSAGE ONE.
He stopped it there and went into the kitchen and selected a can of soup at random. He opened it and tipped the contents into a pan, then licked the inside of the lid to see if he could tell what flavour it was.
He ate the soup without toast because his bread was speckled with tiny blue flowers of mould and he couldn’t remember if that was OK or lethal.
Before he’d emptied the bowl he went and ran the bath because he couldn’t bear the thought of any gaps of inactivity between things.
He finished the soup and poured himself a large glass of whisky and went into the bathroom and tipped Cranberry Body Milk into the hot water and took his clothes off and lowered himself into the pink amniotic.
Less than a minute later he climbed out and went downstairs to fetch the Amulet, terribly shocked that he’d left it lying unguarded. As he picked it up the phone rang. He stood undecided with the Amulet dangling from his right hand and vitamin-enriched foam dripping from his penis. The answering machine clicked in and he listened to his own voice and then Minerva’s.
‘It’s just me, cheri. Again. Thought you’d be home by now. Are you OK? You looked magnificently raddled this morning … Philip? You’re not there. Are you at that dreadful pub? Darling, I can’t remember anything I said last night, but there is one small matter we must talk about, OK? So give me a call the minute you’re compos mentis. Ciao!’
He plodged upstairs and hung the Amulet on the hook on the bathroom door. Then he slumped back into the water, took a slug of whisky, closed his eyes and tried to think rationally about things that made no sense.
It was the Amulet of Eneydos. There could be no doubt of that. ‘You’ll know it when you’ve got it,’ Pocket had said. And he did know. How it had come into the possession of Doctor Paragus and his/her prize committee he could not imagine, and would not bother trying to.
According to Pocket, in Dark Entropy, the Amulet had the power to bring about those things most earnestly desired by those who wore it. Which was good. Depending, of course, who was doing the desiring. Obversely, the results could be unpredictable. For one thing, what the wearer thought he desired might not be what lurked furtive in his heart. Thus had the saintly and virginal Prester Nullus died, raving and desiccated, in a knocking-shop staffed by insatiably concupiscent hermaphrodites, after being entrusted with the Amulet for less than a week. It was after a sequence of comparable disasters that, for the duration of the reigns of the Third and Fourth Fractus Lux, the High Scholars had sequestered the Amulet, spellbound, in the scriptorium below Farrin.