Best New Horror: Volume 25 (Mammoth Book of Best New Horror)

by Неизвестный

  Folscyvio scowled. He did not for an instant credit this. Yet the Thing did indeed seem antique. Certainly, it was a sort of violin. But – but …

  The form was that of a woman, from the crown of the head to her hips, the area just between the navel and the feminine pudenda. After which, rather than legs, she possessed the tail of a fish. She was made of glowing auburn wood – he was unsure of its type. All told, the figure, including the tail, was not much more than half a metre in length.

  It had a face, quite beautiful in a stark and static kind of way, and huge eyes, each of which had been set with white enamel, and then, at the iris with a definitely fake emerald, having a black enamel pupil. Its mouth was also enamelled, pomegranate red. The image had breasts too, full and proud of themselves, with small strawberry enamel nipples. In the layers of the carved tail had been placed tiny discs of greenish, semi-opaque crystal. Some were missing, inevitably. Even if not a product of the Stradivari, nor quite so mature as the 1600s, this piece had been around for some time.

  The two oddest features were firstly, of course, the strings that ran from the finger board of the Piscean tail, across the gilded bridge to the string-clasper, which lay behind a gilded shell at the doll’s throat; while the nut and tuning pegs made up part of the tail’s finishing fan. Secondly, what was odd was the hair, this not carved nor enamelled, but a fluid lank heavy mass, like dead brown silk, that flowed from the wooden scalp and meandered down, ending lev el, since the doll was currently upright, where, had the tail constituted legs, its knees might have been.

  A grotesque and rather awful object. A fright, and a sham too, as it must be incapable of making music. For the third freakish aspect was, obviously, at the moment the doll was upright. But when the instrument – if such were even possible – was played what then? Aside from the impediment of its slightness yet encumberedness, the welter of hair – perhaps once that of a living woman, now a hundred years at least dead? – would slide, when the doll was upside down, into everything, tangling with the strings and their tuning, the player’s hands and fingers – his throat even, the bow itself.

  Thinking this, Folscyvio abruptly noted there were also omissions from the creature, for she, this unplayable mermaid-violin, this circus-puppet, this con-trick, had herself neither arms nor hands. A mythic cripple. Just as he had thought she might render her player. Another man, he thought, would already loathe her, and be on his way out of the shop.

  But it went without saying Folscyvio was of a different sort. Folscyvio was unique.

  Just then, a thin stooped fellow came crouching out of some lair at the back of the premises.

  “Ah, Signore. How may I help you?”

  “That Thing,” said Folscyvio, in a flat and slightly sneering tone.

  “Thing … Ah. The viosera, Signore?”

  “That.” Folscyvio paused, frowning, yet fastidiously amused. “It’s a joke, yes?”

  “No, Signore.”

  “No? What else can it be but a joke? Ugly. Malformed. And such a claim! My God. The Stradivari. How is it ever to be played?”

  The stooped man, who had seemed very old and perhaps was not, necessarily, gazed gently at this handsome un-customer. “At dusk, Signore.”

  Even Folscyvio was arrested.

  “What? At dusk – what do you mean?”

  “As the fanciful abbreviation has it – viosera – a violin for evening, to be played when shadows fall. The Silver Hour between the reality of day and the mysterious mask of night. The hour when ghosts are seen.”

  Folscyvio laughed harshly, mockingly, but his brain was already working the idea over. A concert, one of so many he had given, displaying his genius before the multitude of adoring fanatics – sunset, dusk – the tension honeyed and palpable – chewable as rose-petal lakoum …

  “Oh, then,” he said. Generously contemptuous: “Very well. We’ll let that go. But surely, whoever botched this rubbish up, it was never the Famiglia Stradivarius.”

  “I don’t know, Signore. The legend has it, it was a son of that family.”

  “Insanity.”

  “She was, allegedly, one of three such models, our viosirenalino. But there is no proof of this, or the maker, you will understand, Signore. Save for one or two secret marks still visible about her, which I might show you. They are in any case, Masonic. You might not recognize them.”

  “Oh, you think not?”

  “Then, perhaps you might.”

  “Why anyway,” said Folscyvio, “would you think me at all seriously interested?”

  The stooped old-young man waited mildly. He had whitish, longish hair. His eyes were dark and unreadable.

  “Well,” said Folscyvio, grinning, “just to entertain me, tell me what price you ask for the Thing? If you do ask one. A curiosity, not an instrument – perhaps it’s only some adornment of your shop.” And for the very first he glanced about. Something rather bizarre, then. Dusty cobwebs or lack of light seemed to close off much of the emporium from his gaze. He could not be certain of what he now squinted at (with his gelid, grey-mauve eyes). Was it a collection of mere oddities – or of other instruments? Over there, for example, a piano … or was it a streetorgan? Or there, a peculiar vari-coloured railing – or a line of flutes …

  Folscyvio took half a step forward to investigate. Then stopped. Did this white-haired imbecile know who the caller was? Very likely. Folscyvio was not unfamous, nor his face unknown. A redoubtable musician, a talent far beyond the usual. Fireworks and falling stars, as a prestigious publication had, not ten weeks before, described his performance both in concert halls and via Teleterra.

  Suddenly Folscyvio could not recall what he had said last to the old-young mental deficient. Had he asked a price?

  Or – what was it?

  When confused or thrown out of his depth, Folscyvio could become unreasonable, unpleasant. Several persons had found this out, over the past eighteen years. His prowess as a virtuoso was such that, generally, excuses were made for him and pol ice bribed, or else clever and well-paid lawyers would subtly “usher” things away.

  He stared at the ridiculous auburn wood and green glass of the fish-tail, at the pegs of brass and ivory adhering to the glaucous tail-fan.

  He said, with a slow, and velvety emphasis, “I’m not saying I want to buy this piece of crap off you. But I’d better warn you, if I did want it, I’d get it. And for a – shall I say – very reasonable price. Sometimes people even give me things, as a present. You see? A diamond the size of my thumb nail – quite recently, that. Or some genuine gold Roman coins, circa Tiberio. Just given, as I said. A gift. I have to add, my dear old gentleman, that when people upset me, I myself know certain … other people, who really dislike the notion that I’m unhappy. They then, I’m afraid, do these unfortunate things – a broken window – oh, steelglass doesn’t stop them – a little fire somewhere. The occasional, very occasional, broken … bone. Just from care of me, you’ll understand. Such kind sympathy. Do you know who I am?”

  The slightest pause.

  “No, Signore.”

  “Folscyvio.”

  “Yes, Signore?”

  “Yes.” Oh, the old dolt was acting, effecting ignorance. Or maybe he was blind and half-deaf as well as stooped. “So. How fucking much?”

  “For the viosirenalino?”

  “For what fucking else, in this hell-hall of junk?”

  Folscyvio was shouting now. It surprised him slightly. Why did he care? Some itch to try, and to conquer, this stupid toy eyesore. Besides, he could afford millions of libraeura. (Folscyvio did not know he was a miser of sorts; he did not know he was potentially criminally violent, an abusive and trustless, perhaps an evil man. Talent he had, great talent, but it was the flare and flame of a cunning stage magician. He could play instruments both stringed and keyed, with incredible virtuosity – but also utter emotional dryness. His greatest performances lacked all soul – they were fire and lightning, glamour and glitter, sound and fury. Signifying no
thing? No, Folscyvio did not know any of that either. Or … he thought he did not, for from where, otherwise, the groundless meanness, the lashing out, the rage?)

  Unusually, the stooping man did not seem unduly alarmed. “Since the need is so urgent,” he said, “naturally, the viosera is yours. At least,” a gentle hesitation, “for now.”

  “Forget ‘for now’,” shouted Folscyvio. “You won’t get the Thing back. How much?”

  “Uno lib’euro.”

  Everything settled to a titanic silence.

  In the silence Folscyvio took the single and insignificant note from his wallet, and let it flutter down, like a pink-green leaf, into the dust of the floor.

  The enormous lamp-blazing stadium, fretted by goldleafery and marble pillars, with a roof seemingly hundreds of metres high, and rock-caved with acoustic-enhancing spoons and ridges, roared and rang like a golden bell.

  It had been a vast success, the concert. But they always were. The cheapest ticket would have cost two thousand. Probably half a million people, crushed luxuriously onto their velvet perches like bejewelled starlings, during the performance rapt or sometimes crying out in near orgasmic joy, were now exploding in a final release that had less to do with music than … frankly, with release. One could not sit for three hours in such a temple and before such a god as Folscyvio, and not require, ultimately, some personal eruption.

  They were of all ages. The young ming led freely with those of middle years, and those who were quite old. All, of course, were rich, or incredibly rich. One did not afford a Folscyviana unless one was. Otherwise, there were the disks, sound only as a rule, each of which would play for three hours, disgorging the genius pyrotechnics of Folscyvio’s hands, all those singing and swirling strings of notes, pearl drops of piano keys.

  Sometimes, even included on a disk, since a feature, often, of the show, the closing auction, and the sacrifice. The notes of that (though they were not notes), faultlessly reproduced: the stream-like ripple, the flicker of a holy awakening, the other music, and then the other roar, the dissimilar applause, very unlike, if analysed, the bravos and excelsiors that were rendered earlier.

  Oddly though, these perfect disk recordings did not ever, completely (for anyone), capture the thrill of being present, of watching Folscyvio, as he played. Even the very rare, and authorised, visuals did not. If anything, such records seemed rather … flat. Rather … soulless. Indeed, only the bargaining and sacrifice that occasionally concluded the proceedings truly came across as fully exciting. Strange. Other artists were capturable. Why not the magnificent Folscyvio? But naturally, his powers were elusive, unique. There was none like him.

  For those in the stadium, they were not considering disks, or anything at all. They knew, as the concert was over, there was every likelihood of that second show.

  Look, see now, Folscyvio was raising his hand to hush them. And in his arm still he held the little vioncello, the very last instrument he had performed upon tonight.

  Colossal quiet fell like a curtain.

  Beyond the golden stadium and its environs, hidden by its windowlessness, the edges of the metropolis lay, and the Laguna staring silver at the moonlit sea. But in here, another world. Religious, yet sadistic. Sacred, yet – as some critic had coined it – savage as the most ancient rites of pre-history.

  Then the words, so well known. Folscyvio: “Shall we have the auction, my friends?”

  And a roiling cheer, unmatched to any noise before, shot high into the acoustic caves.

  The Bidding For began at two thousand – the cheapest seat-price. The Bidding Against sprang immediately to four thous and. After this, the bids flew swift and fierce, carried by the tiny microphones that attended each plushy perch.

  For almost half an hour the factions warred. The Yes vote rose to a million scuta-euri. The No vote flagged. And then the Maestro stilled them all again. He told them, with what the journals would describe as his “wicked lilt” of a smile, that after all, he had decided perhaps it should not be tonight. No, no, my friends, my children (as the vociferous and more affluent Yeses trumpeted disappointment) not this time, not now. This time – is out of joint. Perhaps, next time. This night we will have a stay of execution.

  And then, in a further tempest of frustrated disagreement and adoring hosannas, Folscyvio, still carrying the vioncello, left the stage.

  “But what are you doing there, Folscy-mio?”

  Uccello the agent’s voice was laden with only the softest reproach. He knew well to be careful of his prime client; so many of Folscyvio’s best agents had been fired, and one or two, one heard, received coincidental injuries.

  Yet Folscyvio seemed in a calm and good-humoured mood.

  “I came to the coast, dear Ucci, to learn to play.”

  “To … to learn? You? The Maestro … but you know every thing there is to—”

  “Yes, yes.” One found Folscyvio could become impatient with compliments, too. One must be careful even there. “I mean the new Thing.”

  “Ah,” said Uccello, racking his brains. Which new thing? Was it a piano? No – some sort of violin, was it not? “The … mermaid,” he said cautiously.

  “Well done, Ucci. Just so. The ugly nasty wrongly sized little upside-down mermaid doll. She is quite difficult, but I find ways to handle her.”

  Uccello beamed through the communicating connection. Folscyvio, he knew, found ways often to cope with females. (Uccello could not help a fleeting sidelong memory of buying off two young women that Folscyvio had “slapped around”, in fact rather severely. Not to mention the brunette who claimed he had raped her, and who meant to sue him, before – quite astonishingly – she disappeared.)

  “Anyway, Ucci, I must go now. Ciao alia parte.”

  And the connection was no more.

  Well, Uccello told himself, pouring another ultra strong coffee, whatever Folscyvio did with the weird violin, it would make them all lots of money. Sometimes he wished Folscyvio did not make so much money. Then it would be easier to let go of him, to escape from him. Forever.

  He had found the way to deal with her infuriating hair. Of course he could have cut it off or pulled it out. But it was so indigenous to her flamboyant grotesquery he had decided to retain it if at all possible. In the end the coping strategy came clear.

  He drew all the hair up to the top of the wooden scalp, and there secured it firmly with a narrow titanium ring. This kept every fibre away from his hands, and the bow, once he had upended her and tossed the full cascade back over his left shoulder, well out of his way. Soon others, at his terse instruction, had covered the titanium in thick fake gold, smooth and non-irritant. Only then did he have made for her a bow. It was choice. What else, being for his use.

  As for the contact-point, it had been established thus: her right shoulder rested between his neck and jaw. Now he could control her, he might begin.

  By then she had been carefully checked, the strings found to be new and suitable and well-tended, resilient. He himself tuned them. To his momentary interest they had a sheer and dulcet sound, a little higher than expected, while from the inner body a feral resonance might be coaxed. She was so much better than Folscyvio had anticipated.

  After all this, he adapted to his normal routine when breaking in a novel piece.

  He rose early and took a swim in the villa pool, breakfasted on local delicacies, then set to work alone in the quartet of rooms maintained solely for the purpose. Here he worked until lunch, and after siesta resumed working in the evening.

  The house lay close to the sea, shut off from the town, an outpost of the city. In the dusk, as in the past, he would have gone down to the shore and taken a second swim in the water, blue as syrup of cobalt. But now he did not. However pleased with, or aggravated by, the mermaid he might have become, at twilight he would always play her. He had not, it seemed, been entirely immune to the magical idea that she was a viosera, a violin of the Silver Hour.

  It was true. She did have a fascination for
him. He had known this, he thought, from the moment he glimpsed her in the sordid little shop off the Via Silvia. He had become fascinated by instruments before in this manner, as, very occasionally, by girls. It happened less now, but was exciting, both in rediscovery, and its power. For as with all such affairs of his, involving music, or the romantic lusts of the body, he would be the only Master. And at the finish of the flirtation, the destroyer also.

  By night, after a light dinner, he slept consistently soundly.

  The Maestro dreamed.

  He was walking on the pale shore beside the sea, the waves black now and edged only by a thin sickle moon. At spaces along the beach, tall, gas-fired cressets burned, ostensibly to mimic Ancient Roma. Folscyvio was indifferently aware that, due to these things, he moved between the four elements: earth and water, fire and air.

  Then he grew conscious of a figure loitering at the sea’s border, not far from him.

  In waking life, Folscyvio would have kept clear of others on a solitary walk – which anyway, despite his wished-for aloneness, always saw, in a spot like this, one of his bodyguards trailing about twenty metres behind him. Now, however, no guard paced in tow. And an immediate interest in the loiterer made Folscyvio alter course. He idled down to the unravelling fringes of the tideless waves, and when the figure turned to him, it was as if this meeting had been planned for weeks.

  No greeting, even so, was exchanged.

  Aside from which, Folscyvio could not quite make out who – even, really, what – the figure was. Not very tall, either bowed or bundled down into a sort of dark-hooded coat, the face hidden, perhaps even by some kind of webby veil. Most preposterously, none of this unnerved Folscyvio. Rather, it seemed all correct, exactly right, like recognizing, say, a building or tract of land never before visited, though often regarded in a book of pictures.

  Then the figure spoke. “Giavetti is dead.”

  “Ah, good. Yes, I was expecting that. Has the debt been recovered?”