But intimate somehow.
Kip looked up to see the inside of the clock tower. Arcs of light shed from its inner walls, dancing inside it before merging back into place. The underbelly of the massive clock burned like a sun.
A watchful eye keeping time.
26
Vorax sat on his throne and watched the boy come.
He looked so frail to him now, a tiny ant making his way across the landscape. Yet he had done something wonderful. He had unlocked some secret that only an alchemist could have. He’d made this inert world come to life.
The throne was a map of stars. It had just enough form to support him, phasing in and out as needed, moving with the shifting of his body. It grew out of a raised dais at the end of the hall of tombstones.
It was the seat from which Vorax could see the world, stretching out behind the boy, the spires of Pale London and the Pale World beyond. Soon it would be his seat to see the real world, control the greater house of London and reveal himself to humankind.
The boy’s shadow creature sat on the floor next to the throne, two purple eyes staring out of his cat-like head. The thing sat stone-still, waiting patiently for his next command.
The boy reached the dais and stood before him.
“You came to me, Master Kip,” Vorax said. “You stripped yourself of everything and came to me. Free of your life that came before. Free of everything.”
Vorax’s eyes flitted to the vial in Kip’s hand.
“And you found it. I knew this world could still yield wonders.”
He reached down and ran his dark hand over Shadow’s back. He could see this rankled the boy and it made him glad.
“You befriended something that wasn’t meant for you. One mistake after another brought you here, boy. Meditating on forces greater than your comprehension, you invited death and were then surprised when it accepted.”
He snapped his fingers and a shape stirred on the opposite side of the throne.
The shade of Enos stepped forward, as pale and lost as ever.
“What do you think of my new companions?”
Still there was silence from the boy.
“And what do you think of my new house?”
Vorax gestured to the rotating stars behind him as they moved over the spires of Dark House.
“It seemed fitting that we be among the stars. It is, after all, where all mortals are bound. When the sun consumes the earth and pulverizes it into ash and char, the atoms that make your body will rejoin the universe, freed from their cages of flesh. Perhaps you’ll be of some use then.”
“What is this place?” the boy asked.
The question troubled Vorax. Even now, could the boy not see?
"If Alchemy House is reason and Magic House, mysticism, Dark House is the realm of the unknowable; a place that defies your observing eye. It is the answer to the questions you haven’t thought to ask. I am suited to such a place. Imagine this house punching through to your world, a beetle on the back of London, and me at its center.
“Oh, the talk that would inspire, the new ideas that would trigger. Would they come to see the great Vorax, just as you have come? But not to a well in a basement, but to a throne room.”
His eyes were drawn to the vial in Kip’s hand again and the sweet glow there.
“Come forward.”
The alchemist climbed the three steps of the dais and Vorax rose to meet him, the throne pulsing and moving behind him. His two bookends, Shadow and Enos, stayed behind, watching without reaction.
“I can feel the old man is gone. Some vestige of him stirs inside me. The old fool rattled the cage one last time before his end, but only I remain now. He wanted Dark House more than anything. It gives me pleasure to deprive him of that.”
Lord Blackmoor was nothing more than a slight vibration now, like a muscle twitching before going still.
“Have you come to deliver the Soul of All Things?”
The boy nodded, and again his calmness niggled Vorax. He wanted this moment to have an intensity, an importance. This was supposed to mean something.
Vorax couldn’t take his eyes off the golden liquid. What a sweet wine, how it pulsed and flowed and asked to be consumed.
“Every king has a taste-tester, a servant willing to die for him. You will be mine, Kip. Taste the king’s wine for me. Show me your loyalty.
“And if it works for me, we’ll resurrect your dear Enos. I don’t want you to think I’m a cruel thing. I keep my promises. You’ll see him again; feel his warmth and hear his voice.
“What did you call him when we met? Your raven-haired Boccherini-lover? Your ship-builder and muse and the force that drove you to near-madness. The siren that sang you to this moment, and you can have him back again.”
But promise or not, it was a lie. Nothing came back from the dead. That door closed with a finality that couldn’t be reversed. The dead tumbled through this place on to their next adventure. And the ones that stayed were nothing but ghosts.
Vorax extended his hand as if he were the one offering the elixir to an eager guest.
“Drink now, Master Kip. Drink and think of your love.”
Kip nodded, raised the vial, and then brought it to his lips. The golden liquid slid down his throat, illuminating muscle and bone.
The boy put his head back and closed his eyes. Part of Vorax wondered at his vulnerability, so calmly exposing himself like an animal exposing its belly. Another part of him was entranced by it. He wondered if he’d ever looked so peaceful, if he had known such tranquility. All his existence had been filled with longing and here was a creature that had shed those things.
The glow filled the boy’s body now. It came from every pore, breaching his skin as if it were made of wax, a candle burning inside it. Vorax felt himself absorbing whatever power was shed. It came off in waves and just the hint of it nearly drove him mad with longing.
A covetous flame sprang up inside him and he could wait no longer.
Vorax stepped forward and grabbed the vial just as it fell from Kip’s open hand. It hit his palm with a delicate thud and burned with a sweetness that crept up his arm.
He brought it to his lips as the light filled his mouth, and tipped the liquid back. More of the burning sweetness and then a pause.
First there was nothing. Vorax’s mind raced, his eyes darting as he scanned the confines of his body. How long had he waited for this? Even he didn’t know. Millennia had crawled by in nothing but darkness with no meter to gauge the time. Silence and waiting was all he had ever known until this, his great experiment.
He’d watched the dead tumble by in an unending line, bound to some new place he couldn’t follow. Most came alone, moving to a distant shore, but others came in groups of twos and threes, sometimes dozens. Some held hands, or embraced as they sped by, but most were solitary and lost in some state of puzzlement. They wondered how this had happened to them. Surely they would have been spared the indignity of death. Death was something for others to face, something you could outwit; escape the jaws of the wolf.
And then they were gone, gone to some new place. They faded into a world beyond, that Vorax couldn’t follow.
A tickling sensation surged throughout his body. His form, itself so new, was coming to life, soaking up Kip’s tonic with greedy slurps. He held up his hands and saw golden light threading itself through his skin. Were there veins forming, the pathways that would deliver life to every molecule? Would he be given a heart, that symbol that had come to mean so much? Life, love, passion, blood.
He looked at Kip, a few steps ahead in the process, his body glowing with more intensity. A sunrise took over his shape, hiding his features in its light. The boy was an engine of life. His light hit the walls of Dark House and brought life even to the dead stone.
It is divine, Vorax thought.
A beat hammered his chest, first a single thump, then followed by another and another; so much like a drum. He brought a hand to his chest and felt the gentle r
hythm, nearly gasping with each beat. Light swirled in his breast, a tiny cosmos of gold.
Such wealth these humans carried around with them and they never even realized it, too busy scrapping by for lesser metals, for attention, and all the unrequited things of their world. Fools, fucking fools.
Vorax looked at the boy and saw colors he’d never seen before. The gold had swirled into his eyes like ink into water. It brought something new. Had Kip’s hair always been so red, his eyes so green? Dark House, too, was a maze of color now. The buttresses and arches of light rose into the night sky and vibrated with life.
“You walk around with this?” He said to Kip, his voice raised as if speaking over music.
The boy nodded.
“And yet you mourn and pout? What a waste, Master Kip. What a waste.”
Then something changed.
A shadow crossed the boy’s face, or rather, slipped through him, interrupting the golden light. Kip’s head snapped to the side, his neck craning in a hideous way. As his head turned, Vorax saw white bone where his head had been split. A sharp geyser of blood issued from the wound, the blood flecked with golden light.
The boy stumbled, then righted himself. His eyes rolled back in his head as he struggled to stay conscious. He was waiting for something.
There was music. It was both beautiful and malevolent. Kip succumbed to some death, some dark alchemy that Vorax had missed.
He watched in horror and uttered a single word.
“No.”
27
Kip descended the steps into the great hall of Dark House, truly meant for a grand entrance. He walked slowly down the center, his eyes on the drama unfolding in front of him.
He saw his shade on the dais, or rather, himself. It was always me, he thought. Just another part of me, one frozen moment in time that had long since passed. It was a moment he’d held too tightly and with some sick glee that he didn’t recognize any longer.
Kill that part of yourself so that you can live.
Fool, dreamer, bastard, he wanted to say, but that wasn’t right either. It was merely what life had given him.
He crossed the great hall, tombstone-pavers underfoot.
He watched himself, blood streaming from his cracked skull, the essence of Enos running its course. The shade had fallen to his knees in front of Vorax. Shadow, with his purple eyes, watched from one side of the throne and his pale Enos from the other.
Kip walked forward and climbed the stairs of the dais. He knelt beside his shade just as it fell back into his arms, eyes open and fixed to the ceiling above. A whispered exhalation left his lips and then there was silence.
I’m sorry, he thought. Rest now.
His body faded and was gone.
Vorax watched in horror, the gold in his eyes stabbed by spikes of black.
“You…you think to destroy me with your tricks?”
“It’s no alchemy, Vorax. Or none of mine, at least. It’s the thing you begged for. Life.”
A shadow cut across Vorax now, a cloud over the sun.
“You wanted to know what being alive felt like. This is what it feels like, a life-entire. Every bit of it gold, merely because it existed. Every joy and sorrow, success and defeat.”
“I will gut you, boy, fucking bending sick boy.”
Vorax was a demon now. His hands trembled as his long fingers worked, itching to be around Kip’s neck. The smoothness of his shape was replaced by a skin of black knifes, all in flux. They boiled as his body fought to hold onto the golden light even as it slipped away.
He stepped towards Kip, roots of black slithering over the floor. His shadowy cloak rose behind him like wings.
Dark House itself began to change, responding to its master’s pain. The white constellations turned a vivid red and began to spin. The ceiling descended, contracting around the dais. Thousands of purple eyes shone dimly through windows and walls. The Shadows were coming.
His Shadow, too, was now activated, still under Vorax’s spell. He bared his teeth, his face a snarling mask as he crept forward, his back arched like a hunting lion.
“After all I’ve given you,” Vorax said, his speech labored, “an entire world for you to play in, the grandest laboratory of all, an alchemist’s dream. I gave you a well to weep into, to pour your tears into. I gave you a portal to a world of raw creation, and all I asked for was one life, a life of my very own.”
“No. You taught me to worship death. Death is the shadow of life.”
A thousand eyes came into focus. Claws and teeth gnashed in the darkness, closing the circle around them. The black vines that came from Vorax wrapped around Kip’s legs, snaked up his body, hunted for a soft spot. His hands reached for Kip’s throat and found the soft muscle there.
Vorax’s cold breath hit his face.
Clawed hands squeezed.
The drums boomed.
And Vorax’s eyes blazed.
“I gave you a life-entire,” Kip said, “including a death.”
Vorax’s head cracked to the side. Dark shards appeared around a hole in his ruined skull. His eyes swirled, trying to focus on Kip.
A geyser of light shot from the hole, a streaming fountain of gold that rocketed towards the ceiling. Dark House consumed it. The angry constellations returned to white as Vorax’s life-force spilled into the great hall. It moved in a wave, finding every hidden corner and secret alleyway, an expanding bubble of light.
It struck the Shadows and stopped them in their tracks. The purple left their eyes. They were a silent audience now, watching and waiting.
As the bubble expanded, Dark House faded. The coldness of space gave way to a landscape of lush green. The light from Vorax’s skull mingled with a rising sun, gold meeting gold. Pale London shook around them and began to collapse. Kip heard the distant rumble of stone and wood as each building fell. Towers collapsed, cobblestones cracked, and windows shattered. Let all the fictions be erased, he thought.
Vorax’s hands fell to his sides and he stared at Kip.
The boy spoke.
“I gave you a life-entire. This one belonged to Enos and now I’ve given it to you. His life and his violent death. Be happy, be honored that you got to share in it.”
Vorax sighed as his eyes dimmed, the last of the golden light funneled from his body. His form faded like a morning fog lifting. It moved upwards in layer after layer, unwinding black mist.
His body evaporated, like a final sigh parting from a dying man, leaving only a gray skeleton behind. The ragged collection of bones stood in front of Kip, a few bits of leathery flesh holding it together. The skeleton was malformed, curved where it should have been straight; twisting what was smooth.
The jaw hung loose, a frozen look of surprise. He wondered if this demon had gotten what he’d wanted. Had he learned the secret of life?
The skeleton tumbled forward towards Kip, clattering to the floor where it smashed to pieces. Bones spun across the marble, some slipping off the dais. A fine mist surrounded them as they turned black.
28
A final deafening bell filled Dark House. The clock tower flared to life, shooting a column of light into the hall.
The circle of color expanded outward. Kip saw the same golden world he’d seen in his well. It was no longer contained.
It was shattered amber. Its shards moved in all directions, widening the sphere and changing everything it touched. Dark House no longer seemed such a fearsome place, and its star-scapes gave way to a palette of colors; purple and blue nebulas churning in the depths of space, the imprint of exploded stars, their light fading over the millennia.
The purest green moss sprouted between the stones of Dark House. It filled the cracks like emeralds being pushed up through the earth.
The sun climbed into the sky and washed the night away. It moved over a new landscape. Kip found it was too beautiful to process. Its images overwhelmed him as they froze in time; untouchable, incorruptible.
The bubble moved towards Enos.
Its edge washed over his colorless form and touched every cell in his body. Blood gave color to his flesh again, etching pink onto his cheeks. His eyes were as green as the moss, and twice as sharp. Kip thought of the painting over his hearth and how it had never really captured him at all, how limp and useless a thing when you could have life itself.
It was as if Enos had just woken up. He looked around, bewildered by his surroundings. The ceiling and sky moved overhead and he took it in, seeing every detail. He looked at his hands and held them up, bending his fingers as if for the first time. Then he saw Kip.
There was total silence but Kip thought that moment could have triggered an avalanche. In the past he would have swooned, or cried, or given in to any manner of self-pity, but he stood still and met his love’s eyes.
Enos stepped forward and Kip met him halfway, meeting in the middle of the dais, all patterns and lines flowing out from there. This was his ship-builder and Boccherini-lover, but so much more; more than raven-haired and green-eyed, more than anything that words could bring form to.
A cloud passed over the sun and cut through the golden light, immediately vanishing everything in its path. Kip knew what it meant even if his heart rebelled.
He put a hand on Enos’s cheek.
“I can’t keep you,” he said, and for the first time in a long time, was happy to cry. He was happy to let it come. The wall he’d hidden behind came down in tatters and he was happy to let it fall. All the passion he’d held so tightly flowed out like the tide.
“It was never my place. I kept you here,” Kip said, “with my selfishness…my longing. I kept you in this in-between world. I prayed to some unholy thing, used a deeper alchemy than I should have. It was wrong, I know that, but I had to try. I thought I had to try. Go to the next place now. You’re free…”
Enos leaned forward and his voice filled Kip’s ear. He spoke in a mad rush, too much to say and too little time. His voice broke at times and was tinged with laughter at others. He remembered moments they’d shared and mourned the things they hadn’t done. It all unwound in a stream of thought and words and it was beautiful.
Kip & Shadow Page 19