“All right...well...do you have anything similar to that?” I felt like I was reliving our previous “conversation”, and hoped he’d be more helpful this time. So far, not so good.
“Are you a collector, Mr. ...”
“Ruby. No, but I’m interested.”
“Well, I have a special collection of extremely rare volumes you might care to look at. I’m afraid they’re behind a protective screen – this is a bit of a rough neighborhood, you understand – and cannot be casually handled, but if you think you might still be interested after you’ve assessed my offering I can show you individual books while in my presence.”
I shrugged. “I’d like to see what you’ve got.”
“Very well, Mr. Ruby...this way...”
The beautifully tailored alien or mutant led me behind his counter, where there was a small back room with one circular table in its center. He drew back a curtain embroidered with intricate Tikkihotto designs of humanoid ancient warriors with eyes like the tendrils of sea anemones, doing battle with devils that looked like big white crabs with sea anemones instead of heads. Behind this tapestry was a series of shutters, and without Dove pushing any buttons that I could see one of these shutters slid aside to reveal a row of obviously very old books, most with crumbling leather spines. They were shielded behind a clear protective screen, as he had said.
“I’ll leave you to your examination, Mr. Ruby. I’ll be right up front should you require my assistance.”
Good. I could browse. “Thanks,” I dismissed him.
Many of the volumes didn’t have printing on their spines, but the titles were projected onto the spines in blue glowing letters by tiny lenses along the shelf that housed them. I still had to angle my neck sharply to read them. My first thought was that a non-scholar like me – without any foreign languages residing in a memory chip implant – would not only need to put these books under a translator scan to read them on my computer, but I would need a translator just to decipher their titles (which weighed as much as the books no doubt did). Why couldn’t the little shelf lenses translate them for me right now?
There were Liber AL vel Legis by Crowley, De Furtivis Literarum Notis by Giambattista Porta, Daemonolateria by Remigius, Kryptographik by Thicknesses.
But there were titles in English as well, thank the Daemonolateria. But the titles seemed just as impenetrable: The Keys of Solomon by S. C. Sargent, The Magus by Barrett, The Metal Book (with hinged metal covers) author unknown, The Book of Awe by Louis Marotta (which appeared to be triangular in shape), The Secret Lore of Magic by Shah, Books of Power by Abdul-Kadir, Visions of Khroyd’hon by William Davis Manly, The Book of the Dominion of Mysteries, The Book of Night, The Zhou Texts...
I had to straighten my already cramped neck. Where to begin in such a tangle of syllables and obscurity? Trying to get a grip on some of the titles reminded me of the garbled spells Gaby had read that night from her palmcomp.
Then Dove was at my elbow, leaning toward me stiffly but gracefully like a butler. He smelled like aftershave, though he had no hair to shave. Maybe cologne to mask a fishy smell. He purred, “So...do you need some guidance, Mr. Ruby?”
“I’m not sure. Which of these might be the most like the Necronomicon?”
“Ohh...well...that depends on your precise area of interest. I have several other books as well, that I feel are of particular interest because they take some of the ideas of Al-Azif further. They concentrate on the geometry, the mathematics, of certain types of formulae found in Al-Azif, and...”
“I was never good at math. But what are they?”
“There is a book by a Choom alchemist, Wadoor, translated as The Atlas of Chaos. And a manuscript by the Tikkihotto author Skretuu, which translates as The Veins of the Old Ones.”
“Varicose veins, then?’
Dove gave a little chuckle to indulge me. “Both books are similar in that they acknowledge the meticulous pattern that exists even in chaos.”
“But are they spell books?”
“Yes. Wadoor’s Atlas of Chaos concentrates primarily upon a god known as the Crawling Chaos, also as the Messenger. You will forgive me if in our conversation I do not name any of these gods directly. Even their names can be invocations...”
So, I thought, he not only sells this dung but he buys it, too.
He continued: “This god is a forerunner of the other gods. They...”
“Is this a bunch of gods, then, like Greek gods?”
“Well...in a way. It’s a polytheistic system. They’re called the Old Ones...or the Outsiders, Mr. Ruby, because the Elder Gods locked them out of our dimension in a battle for power which took place long before the birth of any living sentient race.”
“So these Elder Ones that defeated the Old Gods – are they supposed to still be around?”
“Old Ones. Elder Gods,” he politely corrected me. “No...they departed, to wherever gods go.”
“Is there any historical proof that they existed? Could real alien races have been these so-called gods, and they were simply deified by primitive people?”
“I imagine they could be interpreted that way. As aliens. As beings. But to us – in comparison – they are gods that dwarf the concept of any imaginary deities like the Greek gods you mention.”
“Aren’t all gods invented?”
“Such an atheist, Mr. Ruby!” Dove chided teasingly. “Ancient people worshiped the sun. They might have misinterpreted it, but they didn’t invent it.”
“So...The Veins of the Old Gods...I mean Old Ones...”
“Skretuu took Wadoor’s theories even further. Wadoor used geometric formulae to open windows into other realms. The angles and curves of certain patterns can bend space and time, distort their flow, be manipulated so as to pry open rents in the cosmic fabric.” He added after a pause: “So Wadoor tells us. In any case, Skretuu built upon Wadoor’s idea of mapping these patterns, which exist invisible all around us, waiting to be traced. Waiting to be reconfigured to our desires. His attempt to chart these invisible patterns is the subject matter of Veins of the Old Ones. He was likening his research to the dissection of anatomists.”
“Hm,” I said, nodding like a thoughtful professor in discussion with a colleague. “Um, so these two books are fairly new, not as rare...since they furthered the studies of the Necronomicon, the books are obviously post-colonization...”
“Ah, not so. Both were written before Earth colonized Oasis. The Tikkihotto had come to Oasis already, and that was how Skretuu encountered Wadoor’s book, written a hundred years earlier, but...”
“But you said they read the Necronomicon...”
“No,” he corrected. “I said they took some of its concepts further. Both came upon some of the same concepts of Al-Azif, but independently of it. Some concepts, Mr. Ruby, are universal amongst sentient beings.”
“Well, yeah. Like you said about the sun. Primitive people try to get a hold of their terror of the unknown by explaining it away with superstitions...”
“Mr. Ruby...that is not always so. Some of these books you were perusing contain sheer science of the highest order! May I ask you...you’re so skeptical...what made you come to my shop?”
“My girlfriend is into the occult.” I thought of lying, for some reason. Thought of telling him I was shopping for a present for her. Instead I told him: “I just want to get an idea of what it is that she’s so caught up in.”
“She won’t show you, herself?”
“No.”
“And what materials does she already possess?”
“She has the Necronomicon. On a disk, at least. She...”
“Your girlfriend has a copy of Al-Azif? Complete?”
“Well, I don’t know complete...”
“And where did she get this?”
“From a friend of hers. Maria something. She was murdered, apparently a drug related thing, and my girlfriend took some disks out of her apartment. The Necronomicon was on one of them.”
“
And where did this Maria get it, in the first place?” Dove sounded less dry, less like a butler, suddenly. There was a hint of the collector’s hunger in his tone.
“No idea.”
“How was she killed? Did they catch the culprit?”
“Apparently not. She was decapitated. I guess they never found her head.”
Dove snorted. It sounded like a cynical laugh. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“It’s just that it sounds like a trademark killing by a Hound.”
“What’s that?”
“An alleged extradimensional entity. One that can be summoned by tracing various patterns into the corner of a room.”
“It’s a demon? Because my girlfriend said Maria claimed to have successfully called up a demon with that dung...I mean that stuff that my girlfriend attempted.”
“Demon is an interpretation. As is Hound. Some literalists try to visualize these beings as dog-like, when the moniker is actually more symbolic.” Dove straightened up taller, stiffer, suddenly. “Did you just say that your girlfriend has attempted to summon these beings, also?”
“Yes. Sort of as a joke more than anything else. She messed up her own attempt, so then she played a recording of Maria saying it. But she didn’t draw any patterns on the wall...just said some invocations. Oh, and she burned eight candles in my bedroom. It has eight corners.”
Dove nodded very, very slowly. “Not a Hound summoning, then. But a chant of Opening. Of Reconfiguration.”
“Whatever.”
“I imagine that since she won’t let you see the recording of the Necronomicon, she wouldn’t consider selling it to me. But do you think she would let me copy it, at least? If she doesn’t trust me to handle the disk, she could even copy it herself. I would be willing to pay her handsomely for this, Mr. Ruby. I would even pay you a nice little sum, if you would pursue this acquisition for me.”
“Well...hey, that’s nice, but I don’t know how much luck I’d have. Frankly, we’re not too close all of a sudden...”
“Would you mind giving me her number, then? Perhaps she’ll be more receptive to the idea if I approach her personally. If you can do that much for me, Mr. Ruby, I will still pay you that fee I mentioned. Say one thousand munits?”
One thousand munits! Just for giving a book dealer Gaby’s number, even when she might tell him to go open a door to hell and walk through it? “Sure,” I said. “Do you have a pen?”
I scribbled on a piece of paper he handed me. He folded it up and slipped it into a jacket pocket after giving it a quick, satisfied glance.
“So...how much are these books here, anyway? The prices aren’t listed.”
“Several aren’t for sale, Mr. Ruby, though I do allow the occasional scholar to peruse or even scan them. But those that are for sale vary in range from twenty thousand munits to four million munits, in the case of The Metal Book, for instance.”
“Four million munits? Jesus Weeping Christ!”
Dove held up a gray hand, as if to ward me off. “Please, Mr. Ruby...no names of deities and their ilk. Invocations, remember?”
“Oh yeah...sorry. Well. Wow. Guess I won’t be buying any rare books today.”
“You could still find a smattering of related topics in our general section. But might I ask you, Mr. Ruby, what brought you to my shop in the first place? Did someone tell you I had a collection of such books?”
“No, actually, I ran a netlink search. Not a very detailed one – I just found out that you sold occult books. Your place was the first one I looked at.”
I think Dove’s black lips attempted a human smile. “Ahh...you see, Mr. Ruby? Some call it fate, or destiny. Synchronicity. But I think of such things as the patterns within chaos.”
“Yeah, well, good luck with Gaby. Her name is Gabrielle, by the way. Put in a good word for me, will ya?”
“Here, let’s go up front now so I might transfer that thousand munits from my card to yours, Mr. Ruby.”
“Sure,” I said, following him. Behind me I heard the protective shutter slide back into place over the museum-like display of rare – shockingly rare – tomes. Well, I sort of gave up on my original half-hearted quest, and didn’t even bother to check out his general selections, but I had made a thousand munits for my trouble. And I imagined Gaby would make more, perhaps even a lot more, than that. No four million, because hers was only a copy on a cheap red disk, but it might be enough to put me back in her favor. And back in her bed.
***
I SPENT A quarter of my thousand munits right away.
The Choom prosty’s flat was upstairs in the same building that housed Dove Books. She was short, slim as a boy and nearly as breastless. Her long straight hair was dyed dark purple and as shiny as the dark purple satin sheets on her bed; the whites of her eyes were dyed a lighter purple, as if she were color coordinated with the brick building. Her eyes were slanted with the Oriental fold, but this was just cosmetic, a recent fad; it was more common for Chooms to have their mouths made smaller, so as to fit in better with the people who had pretty much claimed their world as their own. This was the one who’d called me “handsome”.
I was in her within the first few minutes. I was relieved that I was up to the task; I hadn’t had a prosty in ten years, not since that Japanese girl I rented back in my Japanese phase, and so I was nervous and shy.
“Take me in the ass,” she cried, slipping slickly out from under me, rolling fast onto hands and knees and looking over her shoulder. “You wanna take me in the ass?”
“Uh, no thanks, not this time,” I said a little shakily, but I snugged up behind her and guided myself into her more conventional receptacle, then held tight to her slim waist as I ground myself luxuriously against her hard little bottom, so unlike Gaby’s more cushiony but no less appealing model. I stirred her guts, so it seemed. She moaned. It was convincing enough to suit my needs. I liked the way her silky purple hair spread across her albino-white back. Gaby would fit in well down here, amongst the troglodytes. Couldn’t stop thinking about Gaby. That made me guilty. I tried not to think of Gaby.
Sweating profusely from the strain of my churnings, the sweat of my mental churnings, slick with the girl’s sweat too, and straining all the harder because I was finding it hard to come, finally I came, scrunching my face as if in pain, shuddering in hard jolts against her, my heart ready to tear itself free from its moorings. I slipped out and collapsed on my belly on the sheets. She stretched out beside me and started rubbing my back until I guess she felt the sheen of sweat and didn’t like it, withdrew her hand.
“I have a disk of me and my roommate doing it. She’s a girl. You want to buy something like that? I have a B and D disk of me you might like. For a souvenir.”
“Maybe next time,” I panted. I traced a finger between her slight breasts, made even slighter by her lying on her back with arms flung above her head as if to cool her underarms. “What’s this mean?” I asked, circling a black tattoo there. It was a kind of crude star design with an eye in its center, and the eye’s pupil looked like it might be a flame.
“A friend gave it to me. She said it would protect me. It does, too. I used to have these horrible dreams...horrible, horrible nightmares...they were driving me crazy...ever since I moved into this building. I complained to Ric – Ric is my pimp – but he didn’t do anything, but my friend Rosa is like a witch or something...she’s a prosty, too...and she put this tattoo on me.”
“Like a good luck charm, huh?”
“Yeah. This building is haunted, you know that? At night I hear something in my wall. Like clawing behind the wall. Ric said it was just rats or bugs or drugs or something, but Rosa...she lives in the building, too...she says it’s a spirit. Maybe even a demon. Rosa says that book store downstairs is the problem...Rosa says it’s evil. She has this same tattoo as me.” She touched it, as if kissing a crucifix.
I nodded my head on her pillow, staring at her, but my thoughts hovering outside me.
; ***
I TRIED CALLING Gabrielle over the next three days. She never replied to my messages.
Finally, I called Dove Books on Morpha Street. B.
“Ah, yes, Mr. Ruby!” exclaimed Mr. Dove, looking exactly as he had in his net page recording. For a second I wondered if he truly were live now. “Thank you so much for putting me in touch with Gabrielle...”
“So...so did she sell you her disk of...”
He held up a finger. “Ah – no names, please, while we’re being transmitted. Yes, no, well, she made me a copy of it, in fact, which is wonderful. I’m very grateful to the both of you.”
“I was just curious. How it went, you know...if she talked to you...”
“Yes, of course.”
“Sooo. All right, then. I was just...curious, I guess.”
“Certainly.”
“Well...so...do you think I could get a copy of the disk from you?”
Dove squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Ruby, but that’s just not possible...”
“Not possible? You’ve got to be joking!”
“I’m so grateful to you, as I say, but I’m afraid that’s one of the stipulations Gabrielle made before she gave me a copy. That I mustn’t sell a copy to you.”
“Oh, great,” I hissed. “Damn her. Who does she think I am?”
“I take it she doesn’t feel...if I might venture to say this...that you are receptive to her beliefs, Mr. Ruby.”
“Well she’s right there, Mr. Dove, she’s right there.” I huffed again, and then said, “Hey...you said she ‘gave’ you a copy. You don’t mean that she gave it to you for free, do you? You paid her, right?”
Was there just a half beat of hesitation, or was it my imagination? “Yes...of course, Mr. Ruby...I paid her quite nicely for the copy. But again, I’m afraid that matter is confidential.”
“Thanks a lot, Mr. Dove – helpful as always.” I reached out to banish his image from my screen. It was my work computer, anyway, and I was anxious not to let my boss catch me – she was less than thrilled with me, lately.
“I hope one day you can be more open-minded about these subjects, sir,” Dove went on. The glow of his vidscreen was reflected in his metallic silver eyes without lids. “You could see things more clearly. See things you can’t possibly see now. Or even conceive of...”
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