by Robin Jarvis
His thin, clever face creased with laughter as he strode forward and removed the stuffed rabbit from Martin’s pocket.
“What are you doing with this?” he cried. “How you love your toys. I was only telling the Creeper very recently how ‘other’ dolls are. You people are so hopeless, lavishing your affections on sewn-up remnants because you’re incapable of interacting with one another. I never realised just how powerful the pull of a doll could be. The little animation of myself this week was enormously successful. We were inundated with e-readers because of it. The little chap is going to make some more appearances tonight; everyone will be so pleased.”
He waggled the rabbit by the throat, then cast it aside.
“Oh, but do forgive me rambling on,” he declared. “I’ve been meaning to grant you an audience since you arrived; there’s been a hundred and one things to do, as you can imagine, and we’re still not quite ready. Always so many last-minute details need tweaking, but I think we’ll be all right on the night.”
He waited for Martin to answer, then smiled indulgently when he saw the other man was speechless.
Martin could hardly believe what he was seeing. There was so much to take in, he felt bludgeoned by it. Firstly, the dawn was breaking. The sky was a soft grey and darkness was draining from the landscape. Oh – but what a landscape! Taking a sharp, disbelieving and frightened breath, he looked away from it and his eyes roamed instead over the full-sized replica of the White Castle that sprawled about him.
It was a staggering accomplishment and covered a huge area. It was exactly as it had been drawn and described in the book; with three imposing and wide concentric walls with battlements surrounding the central, inner ward and lofty Keep. They were separated by broad expanses of velvety lawn, ornamental gardens and tilt yards. There were stables, brewhouses and stout bastions at every corner, where banners flapped madly. It was built entirely of pale Portland stone that, in the grey half-light of dawn, almost glowed, and the frosty dew made it sparkle.
But it was unfinished. Scaffolding was everywhere, towers were incomplete, with ragged tops, and stone blocks, waiting to be put in place, were stacked in great piles. Industrial cranes besieged the curtain walls. Martin had never seen so many; they were too numerous to count. Their masts formed a forest of vertical steel and their jibs cross-hatched the sky. Temporary plank bridges spanned gaps between the wall walks, or cut diagonally across a corner, bypassing a half-built tower. And, everywhere he looked, there were lighting rigs and remote cameras and tarpaulins covering staging areas for the broadcast. It was a chaotic, ugly mess.
“Of course,” the Ismus was saying, “it’s not finished and never will be, so you’ll have to use a bit of imagination here and there. But then completing it was never the intention. The process was the thing. You have to provide the ignorant masses with a big, shiny project now and then to distract them, like a ball of wool to a kitten. That way they can’t take time out to speculate what’s actually going on behind the curtains of power. Every king, emperor, dictator, pope, Führer, president or prime minister knows that. Bread and circuses, mob-pleasing bandwagons, jihad, rockets of rampant destruction, storming in to avenge so-called human rights abuses when the sole real motive is to snatch that country’s wealth, or to replace one despot with their own glove puppet.
“Sleight of hand and smokescreens, that’s what keeps the populace unaware and under control. Give them a cause or a task they can get behind, no matter how absurd or banal, and they’ll feel included and happy and won’t ask irritating questions. This is no different. Mesmerising as my great work is, the immersive experience is ultimately unsustainable without the necessary smoke and mirrors. The live feed that has documented the build here has been a ratings smash across the world. Don’t suppose you ever caught it in your little mountain hideaway? The theme tune is really catchy. I had it as my ringtone for weeks.”
Martin said nothing. He hardly heeded the Ismus’s familiar, bantering prattle and instead lowered his gaze. They were standing on the expansive flat roof of the Keep, at least eighty metres above the ground. It appeared to be the only structure that was totally finished, but even this was still sleeved in scaffolding and he had been brought up here by a construction hoist lift attached to the exterior.
Once, his enduring love of fantasy and sci-fi would have made him an unwilling admirer and caused him to be captivated by it all, but not even that was left to him now.
“Leave us,” the Ismus dismissed the Jockey. “Martin and I want some quality time alone for a private tête-à-tête. Go squeak your leathers in the lift and leave us to it. Don’t fret, I’ve got my bodyguards with me and those manacles really do limit Martin’s options if he gets any felonious notions.”
The Jockey looked at him peevishly, then tottered back to the lift. Martin had barely noticed the three Black Face Dames standing a little distance away. His full attention was now commanded by the great cast-iron chair that stood in the centre of the flat roof.
“Yes,” the Ismus said when he saw his reaction. “It is the very same one. I had it brought from the old home town, along with a couple of other useful odds and ends that you’ll get to see later. Looks much better here. I reckon just about everyone out there will get a grand view.”
He waved a hand at the landscape and Martin’s eyes flicked back at the awful spectacle he’d been trying to avoid.
“Scrumptious, isn’t it?” the Ismus said. “I’m so tickled they could shuffle along to my little shindig.”
Martin forced himself to stare out across the battlements and ramparts, past the gatehouse and the moat, over the thatched roofs of the replicated village of Mooncot that bordered a quaint, meandering street, and then to the Kent countryside.
His mouth went dry. What he was seeing was impossible.
As far as the encircling horizon, and probably for a great distance beyond that, was a vast ocean of people. The castle was completely surrounded. The only clear spaces out there were the service roads that brought the labourers, stonemasons, engineers, architects, artisans, materials and equipment to this overblown building site every day. If the roads hadn’t been fenced off, the Jaxers would have swarmed on to them too. They cut through the human panorama like deep scars while, overhead, pylons carried the current to drive the tools and machinery and to feed the thousands of power points that radiated from the castle. Islands of light showed where e-readers could be charged, and where punnets of minchet were available.
“Not sure of the exact number,” the Ismus said. “I’ll take a stab at a hundred and fifty million and counting and that’s just the ones we can see. But you’re the maths guru, you’re better at figures than I. There’s masses more over the horizon. Good job I had the towns and villages that used to be here flattened, right at the start. Plenty out there have tents or are huddled in their cars or in sleeping bags on the ground, but I shouldn’t like to guess how many came unprepared and have already perished in the cold, although the mass body heat generated out there is visible on thermal images from satellites. Fancy that! Those who had the wit to bring supplies will be running out of them by now – and those that didn’t will be patiently starving. It must really stink down there; we ought to be grateful it isn’t summer. One just cannot provide toilet facilities in such quantities, there aren’t enough Portaloos in the world – we checked and decided not to bother.”
Taking a platinum-backed smartphone from his pocket, he took a photo of himself and said, “You’ll love this – watch. I’m just posting a selfie.”
Moments later, the air was filled with the noise of his tweet arriving in hundreds of millions of mobiles. It was like the shrill, suffocating buzz of a plague of marauding insects. Then the colossal multitude answered with a cheer, the like of which had never been heard in the world before. Their voices crashed about the castle walls in a monumental wave of sound. It took Martin’s breath away and caused a tear to run down his face. With just a few exceptions, the whole of humanity had b
een debased to the level of a mindless chorus, hanging on to the Ismus’s every banal or evil word.
“Seven billion followers,” the Ismus boasted with a wink. “Bless ’em, too excited to sleep. Every creed, every colour, united by my little book. No crime, no hatred, no nationalism, no quarrels of any sort. Peace and harmony reign supreme. The noble ambition of all good-hearted men, fulfilled at last by yours truly. Where there was discord, I brought harmony. Where there was error, I dispensed my truth. Where there was doubt, I gave them faith. And where there was despair, I delivered a new and better life. Yes, it was worth the wait. I never dared dream it would have such an impact, but the world was different in 1936. Minds weren’t so plastic and hungry for distraction and this island hadn’t devolved into little more than a theme park for wealthier countries with inferiority complexes because they have no class. Dissatisfaction is such a powerful weapon.”
Thoroughly broken, feeling hollowed out and empty, Martin stared at him, grasping for words. He had no fight left. It was over. He was defeated. On that high platform, they faced each other: one utterly crushed, the other triumphant.
“You’ve won,” Martin said in a stricken, dead voice. “You got the entire world worshipping you. No free will anywhere – you’ve done it. What now? Throw me off here – or chuck me out among them so they can tear me apart? I don’t care any more. Just get on with it and stop posing.”
“That bleating livestock out there, my avid readers, don’t deserve you,” the Ismus answered with a tut. “And how could you think I’d do something so unsporting? No, you’re not going to die just yet. There’s still the broadcast to go and you’re going to be a highlight of that, Mr Baxter. Your big starring moment awaits you.”
“I’m not going to jump through your hoops. Finish me now.”
“Yes, yes, blah blah. Token protest over with? Good, because we both know you’ll do exactly what I want, when I want, because I hold all the cards, especially two very dear to you. But don’t look so crestfallen. To make it even more amusing for me, I’m not just going to threaten them, I’m going to make you an offer you’ll jump at.”
“There’s nothing…”
“Oh, but there is. My Lady Labella and Magpie Jack – did you know I have it in my gift to excommunicate them? Actually I think ‘unfriend’ is a more apt modern term. I can remove them from the world of Dancing Jax as easily as that and they’ll remember who they really are and who you are to them. Wouldn’t you just love such a happy reunion? Bound to be good for a few tears. It would make excellent television. Viewers love overwrought displays of snot.”
Martin’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you do this?” he asked suspiciously. “Carol and Paul are two of your prime characters. You wouldn’t let them go as easily as that.”
“There’s always someone ready to replace them, just as your Carol replaced Shiela. You remember her, your former pupil and my… old flame?”
“Course I do. What did you do with her? Is she here?”
The Ismus grinned and ran his hands over the cast-iron chair as he recalled the girl’s grisly fate. “Gone, I’m afraid,” he said. “The man Jezza always said smoking would be the death of her.”
Martin hung his head.
“And Lee?” he asked. “You said you’ve seen him, your Castle Creeper? Is he over in that other place? I know what you wanted him to do. Has he done it?”
“Not yet, the Bad Shepherd is notoriously elusive. But I’m confident the Creeper will track him down today and accomplish what is required. He’s got a nice, big, sharp knife ready and waiting.”
“You sick maniac.”
“Now don’t be so churlish. The Creeper is more than happy with his little commission. He’ll get to be reunited with his vacuous girlfriend once the deed is done. I’m offering you a similar proposition here. Show a little gratitude. You do something for me and in return you get your nuclear family back.”
“Something for you? What?”
“All in… bad time. You’ll find out tonight. It’s going to be an incredible, unmissable show – followed of course by the publication of Fighting Pax. I’d love you and yours to witness that. You’ve squirmed and wriggled against my plans for so long and come so far, daring to be a Daniel, you deserve to be here at the grand finale.”
“And you’ll let Carol and Paul be themselves, even after? If there is an after?”
“That depends on how good a performance you put on. You have to earn their continued freedom by giving your all. Break a leg, as they say. Eyes and teeth and all that, Martin. Show us what you’ve got – be convincing.”
Turning to one of the Black Face Dames, he said, “Escort him back to the lift. The Jockey will see he returns to the gaol.”
The bodyguard took Martin by the arm.
“Wait,” Martin said. “I can’t go back without that rabbit. It belongs to a little girl. Please, give it back.”
The Ismus regarded him for a moment with undisguised derision. Then he picked the stuffed toy off the floor and pushed the ears into Martin’s mouth.
“There’s a good gun dog,” he said, patting his head. “Now get going and I don’t want to hear any complaints about the costumes you’ll be wearing tonight. Oh, yes, there are costumes – no expense spared in this extravaganza. I’m not having it spoiled by the sight of your beggarly rags. If I hear of anyone refusing to put the outfits on, I shall let Captain Swazzle do some sums of his own. He’d just love to discover how many times his sword can go into one of you. He adores a long division. Be sure to pass that information on.”
With the rabbit dangling from his teeth and, due to the manacles, having no way to remove it, Martin was forced to carry it like that all the way back to the dungeon. The Jockey hooted and taunted him for the whole journey.
Martin paid no attention. His mind was burning with the Ismus’s proposal. Was he really going to be allowed to see Carol and Paul tonight? Could he believe what that evil man promised? Would they truly be released from the dark spell of Dancing Jax? And just what exactly would he have to do to buy them that freedom? It was certain to be something foul and horrific and an ultimate degradation. Martin told himself that, whatever it was, he would simply have to get on with it. If there was the slightest chance the Ismus wasn’t lying… Carol and Paul were the only things that mattered now. He couldn’t back down; he couldn’t be squeamish about anything. Whatever the Ismus told him to do, he’d jump at it and perform like a trained seal. Even if it meant the loss of his own life, it’d be worth it. Everything else he had tried had failed; maybe this last act would partly atone for his countless mistakes. Perhaps, deep down, he felt as though he deserved whatever ordeal the Ismus had prepared for him.
On the roof of the Keep, the Holy Enchanter of Mooncaster stared down over the huge construction site of the castle. He watched the Jockey lead Martin back through the inner gateways and lawns towards the courtyard that led to the dungeons. The crooked smile played across his face and he stepped back to the great iron throne.
“Tonight, my Lord,” he addressed it humbly. “Tonight You shall reclaim Your rightful place amongst us. Your kingdom is well prepared and the way shall be opened.”
Turning his attention to the encircling landscape, his dark eyes glinted and the smile grew wider. “Nothing has been left to chance and the pieces are primed and set.”
Even as he indulged in the appalling spectacle and anticipated the magnificent victory ahead, a fragment of doubt prickled in his mind. There was something, the remotest possibility of the meticulously planned broadcast going awry. It was so minuscule and improbable that he refused to consider it. And yet overconfidence had been the downfall of so many before now.
“Austerly Fellows leaves no loose thread hanging,” he announced decisively. “No matter how slender. Tonight’s programme of events will be a stupefying success and the Prince of the Dawn shall be restored.”
Bracing himself against the great chair, he tilted his head back.
“B
ut just to be doubly certain…”
Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes. The skin of his face became peppered with dark spots that spread and bloomed rapidly, until the flesh was consumed and hidden beneath a foaming carpet of writhing black mould. Then his mouth opened horribly wide and he exhaled.
A stream of spores like a cloud of sooty thistledown erupted from his throat and went flying into the winter air. The strong breeze snatched them and they were carried out across the battlements, into the breaking day.
“Bon adventure, my dark seeds,” he said once the mould had retreated from his features. “May you find fertile soil.”
Straightening, he turned to his three bodyguards and was irritated to find them overawed, even after all this time.
“Come,” he ordered. “We must make ready. There is still much to prepare before Fighting Pax is released. We have the final technical run to get through. Bring me the director – I want to make sure every spring trap is working, that aerial cam still isn’t gliding smoothly and get those dancers rehearsed until their feet bleed. I want those royal replacements standing by to take over at a moment’s notice, no cock-ups. This broadcast is going to be called ‘diabolical’ for all the right reasons.”
20
GOOD MORRRRRNIIIIING, Dancing Jax! Yes, it’s finally here, the twenty-fourth of December – Christmas Eve. Tonight Fighting Pax is going to be released to every e-reader everywhere. The suspense is excruciating. Our time in this grey dream will be over and we shall never have to think of this boring place again. The spectacular kicks off at 9pm GMT. Everyone is here, everyone is ready. Get set for the most fantastic Christmas! Blessed be.
Now heeeeeeeere’s Slade…
When Martin returned to the cells, he was astonished and then discomfited to learn how much the German aberrants revered him. His unease was compounded by the fact that a second batch of arrivals had turned up in his absence. They were thirty-four teenagers from America and they too considered him to be some kind of superhero. Reaching through their bars, they begged him to help them.