The Kingdom of Shadows

by K. W. Jeter

  A scuffle in the surgery’s doorway broke into his slow thoughts. He took his eye away from the viewfinder and looked behind him. Two of the guards had a struggling Lazarene male between them, his arms twisted into the small of his back; the man was young and strong enough to slam one guard against the door with a sudden thrust of his shoulder. The other guard swung a fist across the Lazarene’s face, stunning him, blood spattering from his nose to his ear. The Lazarene sagged between the guards, though he was still conscious; drops of red spotted the white-tiled floor as his head lolled forward. Pavli could see who the man was now. It was his brother Matthi.

  “Over here.” Ritter already had the hypodermic in his hand; he set the vial of yellowish pink liquid next to the tray. “While you have him quieted down.”

  “No -” The one word from Pavli’s mouth echoed off the surgery’s hard surfaces. The last one – he knew what that meant now. He stepped from behind the cine camera and laid his hand on the doctor’s forearm. “Don’t – you promised -”

  Ritter looked at him in astonishment, as much as if one of the devices, a tripod or the table on which the tray of instruments rested, had suddenly addressed him. “‘Promised?’ What are you talking about?”

  The thoughts tumbled inside Pavli’s head, making it hard to put together any more words. “My brother… you promised that you would never… you would never touch him…”

  “Get away!” The Scharfuhrer raised his arm, palm outward to push Pavli back from the dissection table.

  “It’s all right. I’ll take care of this.” Ritter smiled as he turned back toward Pavli. “I’m afraid our good photographer has gotten confused. Perhaps it was something you dreamed.” He tilted his head, the smile even more kindly now. “You dreamed I promised you something… and now you think that was real. Is that it?”

  For a moment, Pavli wondered if he were dreaming now. The surgery seemed to fold in on itself, a space too small to breathe in, with Ritter’s smile at its center. “No -” He shook his head. Beyond Ritter, he could see Matthi raising his bloodied face, his dazed eyes looking toward him. “You did promise… I remember…” Ritter must have gone mad, that was the only explanation. Pavli saw that he believed what he had said.

  “How could I promise something like that?” Ritter’s voice stayed patient. “I’ve told you – I’ve told you so many times – that each one is important. I need every one of them. For my research.” The voice curled inside Pavli’s ear, as though he and Ritter were the only ones in the room. “How can we find out otherwise? What we need to know… their secrets… everything. That was what I promised you. That you and I… together… we’d find out.”

  The words spun inside Pavli’s head. He couldn’t remember which were true and which were Ritter’s lies. What Ritter had promised him… and what he had imagined, dreamed, what he wanted to have been true.

  Matthi hung suspended between the two guards, the blood twisting a line around his throat. The blow had taken the fight out of him, made him see – as the others had seen before him – how useless it was to struggle.

  The last one… thank God…

  A wordless shouting rose inside Pavli’s skull. It must have been true, Ritter must have promised him; why else would he have spared Matthi until now? Until all the other Lazarenes had been taken, their skins and stigmata separated from the wet red things inside. Until there was none of them left, none at all; only the last of them, the last of the Lazarenes. His brother Matthi, the one Ritter had promised to him -

  A promise that Ritter was breaking now. All along, Ritter had been lying to him, so he would make no protest, would go on doing his work behind the cameras and in the darkroom.

  Or else he had dreamed it, imagined it. Ritter could never have promised anything like that. Pavli had just wanted it to be that way.

  He didn’t care anymore which was true. There were more lying words coming out of Ritter’s mouth, but he didn’t hear them. The doctor smiled and led him away from the dissection table, back to his position behind the cine camera tripod. Even as Ritter was doing that, Pavli saw that he had gestured to the guards; they lifted Matthi higher between them and dragged him forward.

  Pavli cried out his brother’s name. With both fists doubled together, he struck Ritter across the chest, hard enough to stagger the doctor back. Ritter’s fall, arms flailing behind in an effort to catch his balance, toppled the stand beside the table; the scalpels and other instruments clattered across the floor as Ritter’s shoulder struck the white tiles. Pavli had already hurled himself past Ritter, his fingers clawing toward the arms and faces of the guards, to pry their grasp away from his brother -

  He didn’t reach them. Something caught him by one ankle, bringing him down hard upon his chest and hands. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs. He rolled onto his side, vision blurring, and could make out Ritter behind him, the doctor’s hand locked upon his foot and shin. At the same moment, the Scharfuhrer kicked him in the head, the point of the glossy boot hitting just above his ear. The surgery, that had shrunk so small, now exploded, the walls rushing outward, the floor giving way beneath him. Above, he could see the Scharfuhrer landing another kick, into the side of someone with his face. Herr Doktor Ritter, now standing up and straightening his white laboratory coat, watched for a moment, then gestured to the other guards. Pavli saw his brother Matthi, the shirt torn away to reveal the tattooed wound, and the hypodermic in Ritter’s hand. Then a third kick seemed to separate Pavli’s head from his body. It rolled into darkness where nothing more could be seen.

  ***

  Thunder… it sounded like thunder. As if time had broken open, the pent-up days spilling out, the first rainclouds of spring mounting on the horizon. Pavli could even feel the heat against his face and chest, as though the sunlight were pressed its weight upon him.

  “Where are they?” A voice shouted, close enough that he felt across his cheek. “The other photographs, the films… where have you hidden them?”

  Why were they shouting at Matthi like that? Pavli could see the figure held up between the guards, the legs bent limp and dangling, head slumped forward. And why had they brought him from the surgery into the darkroom? It didn’t make any sense – Matthi wouldn’t know anything about what happened here.

  The Scharfuhrer grabbed the figure’s hair, pulling the head back. Pavli saw that it wasn’t Matthi’s face, and at the same moment, realized that what he could see were two reflections of his own bruised and bleeding face, caught in the black mirrors at the center of the Scharfuhrer ’s eyes. There was no Matthi in the darkroom; he was the one held up now by the guards’ hands, the Scharfuhrer gripping his hair.

  A fire burned in one of the darkroom’s deep basins; the heat Pavli felt against his skin came from there. Black, acrid smoke billowed upward and spread across the ceiling as one of the guards dumped more photograph prints and negatives into the flames. Loops of cine film spilled over the basin’s edge like nesting snakes, the heat twisting them into spirals as though they had come alive.

  The thunder sounded in the distance outside the asylum. Pavli heard it for only a moment before the Scharfuhrer slapped him across the face. “Where are the other photos?”

  Pavli shook his head. “I don’t… I don’t know what you mean…”

  “Liar!” The Scharfuhrer brandished a book in front of Pavli’s eyes; he recognized it as Ritter’s leather-bound research journal. “Every procedure the doctor performed is noted; you photographed every one – and now we can find less than half of what should be here!” He twisted Pavli’s head to one side. “Why are you hiding them? You think the Americans will be interested in them, don’t you? A neat little bundle of evidence to show your liberators, proof of what was being done here!” Fury reddened the Scharfuhrer ’s face. “All the better to hang us with – that’s what you want, isn’t it!” He landed another blow across Pavli’s jaw, then bent down and scooped up the journal he had dropped at his feet. He threw the book into the basin fire. �
�Search everywhere,” he ordered the other guards. “Anything you find is to be burned.”

  The guards let go of Pavli. He sprawled on the darkroom floor, unable to stand, his vision a blur of red and the dancing black that threatened to swallow him again. It’s not thunder – he lay still, hoping the guards would forget about him, step over him as if he weren’t even there. The distant booming that came from outside the asylum, the rumbling in the ground that shook the walls – he’d realized what the sounds were. Not thunder, but the roaring of great weapons, the vomiting forth of the shells and bombs that tore open the earth like a giant’s hand. They’re here. Time had started again, had broken into the asylum’s timeless world. That was why the Scharfuhrer and all the others were so agitated. The war itself had arrived on their doorstep.

  He could hear glass shattering, could smell the photographic chemicals splashing onto the floor. His eyes could focus enough when he opened them, to see a guard sweeping the butt of his rifle along the shelves that lined the darkroom. The others had flung open the cabinets, gathering up the contents in their arms and dumping them into the basin. The fire sank under each new load, then burst upward again, ashes laced with sparks. Smoke had covered the room’s ceiling, low enough to roll out the open doorway into the corridor.

  One guard pulled the cot from the far wall and threw it onto its side; a moment later, he had toppled the stacks of empty crates away from the wall. Pavli saw him begin to turn, then hesitate. He had spotted the loose board covering the hiding place. With a sharp tug, the guard snapped the board loose and flung it behind him; Pavli’s breath stopped as the guard reached inside the hole.

  “Look at this.” The guard displayed the only thing he found there. “The photographer’s secret love.” The frayed newspaper clipping, the actress’ image fading from grey to brown, received only a glance from the Scharfuhrer before being snatched away, crumpled into a ball and tossed into the fire. The dry paper flared immediately, tumbling upward as it was consumed.

  A blast of heat washed across Pavli; he could see the sudden explosion stagger the guards backwards. The darkroom filled with a churning orange glare. “ Schei?! ” – a guard batted the rush of smoke and flames away from himself. A spark from the basin had landed on the spilled chemicals; the fire raced across the floor and licked up the walls. The fumes ignited in the petrol can that the guards had brought in with them, a jagged edge of metal ripping across one man’s shin, exposing the red bone beneath the knee. He howled in pain and fell, clutching his hands around the wound.

  “Get out of here!” The other guards were already fighting their way out to the corridor, coughing and covering their eyes, as the Scharfuhrer slung the injured man’s arm over his shoulders. “Leave everything!” They stumbled in tandem toward the doorway.

  Beneath the smoke, Pavli crawled away from the flames. The corridor’s windows had been broken out; the rush of cold air into the asylum filled his lungs.

  The guards had forgotten about him; no one saw as he raised himself onto his hands and knees. Yards away, the guards pulled Ritter from his office, wrapping his trench coat around him. The doctor looked confused; he fought weakly against his rescuers, as though he were trying to return to his private sanctuary.

  “You don’t understand -” Ritter pushed vainly at their arms. “I can’t leave now – I’m so close -”

  They overpowered him. The war’s thunder shook the building, closer this time. Ritter fell to the press of the guards; Pavli saw only the doctor’s hands, raised imploringly above the men’s heads, as they bore him toward the stairs at the end of the corridor.

  Pavli looked over his shoulder. The darkroom was engulfed in fire, the flames threading the smoke pouring through the doorway. He got to his feet, the wall hot to his palm as he balanced himself against it.

  Other things had been forgotten. He felt his way toward Ritter’s office. He leaned inside, hands out to either side of its doorway. The fire had broken through the wall between the office and the darkroom; papers swirled from Ritter’s desk, charring in midair. Pavli lowered his head and pushed through the smoke.

  The electrical generator had failed; he could barely see in the surgery’s dim space, the only light that from the burning office. He stepped forward, hands outstretched.

  His fingertips hit something wet and yielding, warm not from the fire, but from the heat still fading from its core. “Matthi…” He whispered the name aloud, though he knew it was not his brother, only the red thing left behind by Ritter’s scalpels.

  Blind, he turned and bumped into a wheeled cart, the one he had seen so many times before through the camera viewfinders. He heard liquid slosh inside a shallow basin; it smelled of chemicals as well, but different, the preserving ones that Ritter had used on the valuable part of his subjects. Wetness, warm as blood itself, soaked through Pavli’s shirt and spread across his stomach. He reached forward, the fluid lapping up to his wrists. He felt something soft beneath his fingertips, something that floated and drifted in the basin, like a suit of some delicate fabric that had been discarded in a pool of ocean water.

  His hands raised, palms upward. Draped across them was a sleeve of silk, empty now of any other substance. A long incision, the work of Ritter’s scalpel, ran along its length, curving at its narrowest taper, where the hand, a vacant glove, rested its fingers against Pavli’s. The fire’s glow brightened in the surgery’s doorway, and he saw the tattooed wound at the wrist, the stigma black in the partial light.

  The last one… his brother. He brought his face down toward the mute object, as though he could lay his cheek against it, to comfort his grief. Still submerged in the basin, Matthi’s face, eyeless, mouth parted, watched him.

  Pavli…

  Beyond the roaring of the flames, trembling of the earth under the asylum; and closer, past the hissing of the liquid spilled over the heated instruments – he heard his own name spoken.

  Go… you cannot stay here. His brother’s face, beneath the preserving fluids, gazed up at the smoke mounting against the ceiling. You must go now…

  The surgery fell to silence, the hidden walls drawing away from the dissecting table. Pavli listened but heard no more. His heart slowed from its panic. He felt as if he could close his eyes and his brother would wrap him in embrace, arms things of flesh again, rocking him to sleep in the bed they had shared so long ago.

  Go…

  He tilted his hands, letting the wet silk slide from them. It drifted in the water ghostlike, the motion of the fluid swelling the hollowed chest, then letting it sink once more. He turned away from the basin.

  The smoke in Ritter’s office had become so dense that he could barely feel his way through. Coughing, eyes watering, he found the desk and stooped down. The object he sought was still there, left behind by Ritter. He grasped the handle of the leather bag and stood up with it.

  In the surgery, the flames had grown bright enough for him to see by. He set the open bag next to the basin, then reached into the preserving chemicals. The weight of his brother’s skin, as he raised it from the fluid, surprised him. It hung awkwardly from his grasp, the torso with its rib tattoo dangling between his hands. The shoulders, neck and face at one end, and the empty legs, splayed by the incision flaps at the ankles, at the other, draped into the basin. The fluid ran down to Pavli’s elbows as he lifted the skin higher. He didn’t know how much the chemicals had already done to preserve the thin tissue; it had been only a few hours at most, since Ritter had carefully peeled it away from the flesh beneath. The fear of damaging the skin seized Pavli, a vision of it shredding to tatters in his hands, rags that bore no human resemblance.

  He managed to lay the face and neck at the bottom of the bag; the preserving chemicals seeped out into the black leather. Then the shoulders, folding them toward each other to fit them into the cramped space. The flaccid arms and hands slid across his as he placed them inside. The torso, the hips and groin, followed; Ritter’s deftness had rendered the skin into a pliable substan
ce. At last the legs, folded at the knee. The final layer came close to the top of the bag; Pavli carefully closed it up, drawing the strap across and snugging it tight with the metal buckle.

  The delicate task had required all his attention. Now he turned and saw how the fire had swallowed the office, the doorway filled with smoke. He tucked the leather bag under his arm, lowered his head and ran toward the flames. His breath scalded his throat; he found the door and stumbled out into the corridor. There the walls were charred and blackened as well. He gulped in air at the broken window before pushing his way through the smoke toward the stairs.

  Outside the asylum, he fell onto the muddy, snow-patched ground. The wetness cooled his singed face and hands. The buckle under the bag’s handle raised blisters on his palm; his clothes smelled like scorched wood and paper, overlaid with the chemical scent still dampening his sleeves.

  Pavli raised his head and rolled onto his back. The glare from the burning asylum washed over him. Through its windows he could see the second floor, the corridor down which he had run just a few moments ago, give way. The heavy beams, crawling with flames, crashed into the darkness below with a explosion of sparks. The fire had spread through the levels above, the roof breaking open to spew out the reddening clouds of smoke.

  Knees trembling, he stood upright. The gates of the barbed-wire fence had been left open; through them, he could see the shadows of the surrounding forest. In the courtyard of the asylum, the trucks and other vehicles had been left behind by the fleeing guards. The earthshaking thunder and flashes of light came from the direction in which the narrow road curved. The guards hadn’t wished to be caught between the approach of the Allied armies and whatever German divisions were still in the area. Pavli could see the guards’ bootprints in the trampled snow, heading for the refuge of the dense trees and brush.