| She
was tired. So very, very tired. Devnet sat down heavily on the
only wobbly chair in her cramped, damp apartment, her rusty
prosthetic leg banging against the warped wood floor with a harsh
thwack. Rubbing at the aching muscle in her thigh she leaned back
and closed her eyes, her teeth clenched. It would not be long
now. He would be here soon. She could feel him, the edges of his
thoughts reaching into her head like fingers about to touch a
strand of hair on her...
Her
eyes snapped open and she turned around. Narrowly she surveyed
the air behind her, but could see nothing. Taking a deep breath
she fingered the medallion that laid at her throat. No, not long
at all now. A slight smile played at the corners of her mouth.
This time he would not catch her unawares. Let him come. She was
ready.
*
* *
Moonlight
filtered through the thread bared curtains, washing faintly across
the still form lying on the stained mattress in the corner of the
room. The shallow breathing indicated one who slept. The only
other sound was the faint ticking of a second hand mantle clock
sitting on a broken night stand. A shadow freed itself from the
far corner, stretching its deformed shape over
the room towards the red haired girl lying prone on the bed. It
paused next to her, dull red eyes examining her form. She looked so
different than she had, just five years ago. She was taller, despite
the loss of the leg. Her hair was longer, curlier. Her skin was
pale, unnaturally so, and those markings...it wondered if the Master
had left those on her when He had taken her leg. It reached out to
touch the rust colored dots on her cheek and two deep green eyes
popped open.
“Hallo
Father.”
The
shadow recoiled a moment only, then surged forward, its mouth opening
to emit a voice that sounded of dry, bitter leaves. “Hullo my
darling. Doing all right then I see? That's a grand girl you are.”
Sitting
up in the bed Devnet arranged the covers over her knees, her eyes on
what was left of her father. “Yes, no thanks to you.”
The
shadow that was once Erasmus Caratauc let out a facsimile of a
chuckle. “Ahh...but you've been a naughty girl, my darling Dev.
Led me on a grand chase you have, and not behaving like a daughter
ought to.”
For
a brief moment Devnet's eyes burned as red and hot as the red star in
the sky. She arched an eyebrow. “Oh, so I was
supposed to let myself be eaten, is that right? Just go meekly into
the abyss...and the monster?”
The
shadow made the sound of a clicking tongue, dismissing her statement
as exaggeration. “Come now, it's not as if you would have felt
anything after a wee bit. And it was for the greater good, my girl.”
The shadow was broadening itself, stretching to surround the
bed...and the girl.
Devnet
brought one hand up to clutch the bauble at her throat. “And I
suppose you had first hand knowledge that it would be over in a 'wee
bit' did you? Did your Master promise you? Or did you even bother
to ask, Father dear?”she asked, her voice heavy with scorn.
“You
should know better how to speak to me by now, girlie girl.” the
shadow hissed, reaching forward with its pointed fingers towards her
head. “I think the time has come for me to take you in hand. No
more running for you.” It drove itself into her brain, but
whatever it was expecting, it did not get it. Shrieking in pain it
pulled back, slinking across the room.
Devnet
laughed, a low, hollow sound deep within her chest. Pushing back the
covers she rose slowly from the bed, advancing on the shrunken
shriveled mass. Her eyes wide with feigned innocence she asked,
“Whatever is the matter, my dear Father?”
The
shadow whimpered, trying to draw in on
itself. Holding up her amulet, Devnet whispered into it, and held it
aloft. The affect on her father was immediate, and gratifying. His
howls of pain reverberated through the room.
“Your
first mistake was thinking I would learn nothing in all the time I
spent running, Father. Your second mistake was in thinking I was
still the helpless, defenseless child who would allow you to
sacrifice her to a Monster. And your last mistake? Was in not
remembering that I am your daughter, and you taught me one lesson
very very well.”
She
squatted down on the cool floor boards next to the shadow of the man
who had raised her, and almost destroyed her. Her voice nearly a
whisper, she said. “You taught me to always make the better deal.”
Standing
up she threw her arms open wide, her eyes alight with red fire, her
voice chanting “Ph'nglui
mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn”
As
her voice grew louder with every repetition the wind picked up,
blowing with such fierce abandon that the curtains flew off the
windows debris swirled around the room. Erasmus screamed and
shrieked as a dark torrent of power swirled around him, stripping him
of his form. “No! Master! I served you!”
Devnet
laughed. “Why would he want
you
when he has me?!”
Twirling
and dancing about the room now she sang, “Ia!
Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
Cthulhu
R'lyeh fhtagn!” With one last moaning hiss the shadow flattened in
on itself and blinked out. The wind died and Devnet slumped in the
middle of the room, breathing heavily. After a few moments she began
chuckling uncontrollably. Wiping her eyes she nodded her head to the
voice only she could hear. “Yes, Master. I hear and obey.”
Standing she went to her dresser and began pulling out her few
possessions for packing, mumbling the word “Babbage.”
*
* *
-Author's
Note:
This
is a story about what would have happened had I never happened upon
the Steamlands, never taken the train to Caledon, and never met Ouna,
or Nika, or any of the friends who saved me. Please believe me when
I say that New Babbage is completely safe from me and my relations.
|
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The Gas-Lit Garden
by
Eppie-In-The-Hellhole
In
the gas-lit garden
The
moon above doth shine
With
a waning luster
From
a light divine.
And
in the gas-lit garden
The
lanterns do too
Adding
an eerie nature
And
a freakish hue.
For
in the gas-lit garden
The
strange and evil dwell
A
place it seems, a land of dreams
A
Heaven … or more often, Hell.
PRIDE
Carnation. The flower of mothers. The
flower of Jove. The flower of misfortune. At any time, a single
carnation could mean one of these things or all of them together.
The flower is a favorite with either sex, finding its way into a
bouquet or onto a lapel with equal ease.
The carnation sprang from the coast of
the Mediterranean some 2,000 years ago, landing today into gardens
the world over. Originally the petals of the flower were a pinkish
flesh-color, hence the common name of the carnation sharing its root
with the words carnal or carnage. However, over generations of
selection and careful cultivation, many different colors have
developed, including white, red, yellow, and striped.
The flower is popular enough to be a
common sight in plots large and small, public and private, and it is
due to this popularity that it might even be found in a small,
well-lit space in a garden at night.
The flower is a rare specimen indeed,
mostly white, except for a handful of blood-red flecks that shine
like copper under the light of an overhead gas-lamp. There are those
that know the carnation who might say that such a flower doesn't
exist, but it could. And in this garden on a cold day in March
anything is possible.
It was Spring 1904. A slight-framed
Swiss-born German doctor looked into the mirror before himself in the
cramped dressing room adjoining the stage. Doktor Johannes Ghisling
was in the midst of the most important day of his entire career. He
was slated to give a talk concerning the human psyche to an assembly
of his peers, the College of Medicine of the University of Vienna.
It was his day.
He would not fail.
Sigmund Freud, that detestable little
Jew, had set the world of medical science ablaze with his methods of
psychoanalysis, but in the end, it was just a study of words. Some
patients, most patients, were too broken to truly understand
themselves, and if the patient was at a loss to know themselves,
their words meant nothing. Ghisling knew that the mind was like a
clock, and the only way to fix it if it breaks was to peer inside.
The workings of the human mind were not
some vague and amorphous web of impulses and desires, but rather, the
mind, according to Ghisling, was one gear and one function added
layer upon layer that turned in tandem to allow humanity to exist and
function in the world human beings have made. When a mind broke,
thought Doktor Ghisling as he smoothed down his jacket, it was only
because the mind has added a gear – of sorts – where one need not
exist … or because a proverbial mind-spring or axle had broken.
Any good clockmaker would construct a model of a clock he did not
understand before attempting to fix it. After all, if the model
broke, the original was still intact. And the building of the second
clock, the possessing, … the understanding through creation, was
what made clockmakers like the Ghislings the best clockmakers in the
world. Build a working model of a broken human mind, study it, find
and fix the break. Then, a doctor of the mind could fix his patient
without Freud's inept conversational fumblings.
Ghisling would show his peers a better
ways and means to conquer the realm of the mind. The way to a better
tomorrow filled with whole-minded and psychologically fit men and
women. A tomorrow made possible through the new science: Ghisling's
science of cognitive mechanics!
He adjusted the white carnation on his
lapel and pushed his round silver-rimmed glasses up on his nose.
The doll was already on the stage, waiting to be wound. Ghisling had
played through trial after trial with the infernal machine. He knew
it worked, but it had never been tested with the dual-core inserted.
That little wretch Mannechen had dug
his heels in perfecting the dual core to Ghisling's specifications,
leaving no time to test. His assistant kept sputtering on about
loving “the Maker”, about protection, about danger. Nothing a
good beating or few jolts of electricity couldn't cure though, to be
sure. Leave the pot-belly with enough of a ringing in his ears, and
he came around. Ghisling was a clockmaker. He made and designed
clocks as his fathers had before him. He did not fear clocks.
As Mannechen could attest quite readily
now, clocks feared him.
Ghisling smiled a wide, wolfish-smile
into the mirror, his perfectly bald head showing the faintest bit of
shine in the reflection. Some powder, just a bit, would fix that.
The community had laughed at Ghisling the “Doll-Doktor” for too
long. Now, it was time for his revenge.
He left the dressing room and
immediately brought his heels clicking against the hardwood of the
assembly hall. Around him were his peers. Sigmund Fraud, as
Ghisling liked to call him, was not here. Something about a
conference in London. No matter. Word would reach him of Ghisling's
triumph all the same, and when it did, maybe the imbecile would stay
in Britain altogether. The doll was seated in a chair, her tiny
frame form resembling in exact detail the girl she was modeled after:
Patient 05788 of the Imperial Asylum Budapest. A child the
newspapers had named the Grave Girl of Tatabanya.
Ghisling had examined her and her case
file at length. It was easy enough to see by looking at her that she
suffered from extreme catatonia. She did not respond to voices, to
light, or to anything else. She had been found, half-frozen in a
cemetery, next to a man the authorities believed was her father in
the the town of Tatabanya two years ago. And Ghisling had been sent
to study her. Even Freud's methods would not work on someone if they
refused to speak.
Other than her lack of will to respond
to the outside world, she seemed normal and healthy. Her flesh
showed no disfigurement, though her file reported her to be quite
bruised at the time of discovery. Her bones were small, even for a
child her age, but they appeared normal. Her respiratory, digestive
and excretory functions seemed in order, though she had to be
force-fed, a process that often left as much food in the child's
windpipe as it did going to the stomach. That, and her frame, and
probably the condition in which she was found, left the girl
unfortunately susceptible to pneumonia and other diseases of the
lungs.
Enter cognitive mechanics. Ghisling
had poured over what little was known about Patient 05788 in an
effort to construct her doppleganger in wax and brass. He knew that
if the original would not respond to the good Doktor, her double
would be made to. And in rebuilding and understanding her mind
through a model, Ghisling could and would understand how to fix the
little girl. Leave Freud to his talk. Ghisling would see the
charlatan eat his own cigar and urinate tobacco juice.
This was the true science of the mind.
Ghisling patted the mute dummy on the
head as he turned to stand behind the podium and speak in his loud,
low baritone, his mustache bouncing up and down as he did. “Most
esteemed colleagues, today I introduce to the field of cognitive
mechanics. Behold,” he paused, sweeping his arms back toward the
little doll seated motionless to his right “I give you a recreation
in the greatest detail of Patient 05788 of the Imperial Asylum
Budapest. As you can see” he continued, as snickers erupted from
all corners of the room, the slightest bit of rage building within
him as it did “ the craftsmanship on the shell is flawless and
almost life-like, but it is the inner-workings of the doll that set
her apart from a mere child's toy. For, in her, I have recreated in
equal detail, the mind of Patient 05788.” At this, snickers were
joined by unintelligible whisperings.
“Let me demonstrate.” Doctor
Ghisling went behind the tiny form in the equally small chair and
began twisting a key. When it was finished, a click followed the
sound of a repetitive 'tick-tock' faintly audible for those nearer to
the stage. With the ticking, the doll's eyes opened. They were eyes
of black glass, with pale, almost glowing, pink centers.
The doll began in a shaky, recorded
monotone “Main core active, dual core present. Access main core?
Access dual core?”
Ghisling smiled, handing the blinking
machine a small boy doll to hold in its arms. A little girl might be
more inclined to talk to a stranger if she had the security of toy.
The laughter from the audience died as the girl came to life, as did
the whispers.
“Access dual core.“ Ghisling
commanded as the doll's eyes eyes flared.
“Dual core access granted.” The
doll seemed to sense the toy in her arms and began clutching to it
like a blanket.
“How do you feel, little one?” the
doctor asked, almost wholly lost in his own glee. She was working.
The doll with a doll did not respond,
only continuing to stroke the hair of the child it felt in its arms.
“Answer me, little one! How do you
feel?” Again, the little clockwork did not respond. She just
shook her head as she raised her eyes to regard the man towering over
her. The flare in the eyes grew in intensity. The assembly started
into hushed chattering once more, and a nervous energy tinged with a
slight impatience began filling the room. Ghisling could feel it.
If the doll failed now, he would never have a second chance.
“I said,” Ghisling growled as he
bent down to steal the little boy from the automaton's grasp. “how
do you ...”
The automaton felt the child … her
brother … being ripped from her arms.
“NO!” roared the false-girl, the
single word erupting from its mouth like the shell from a moon-cannon
in a Jules Verne novel. With a shrill cry made of part wounded
lioness, part exploding train engine, the machine shot out of its
chair and wrapped its tiny legs against Ghisling's sides as it
clutched his neck with its right hand and began using its left fist
as a battering ram against the good doctor's face. His glasses broke
instantly, and before the doctor or the audience could react, his
face was turned into a sea of blood. The spray coated his face, his
front, and the doll like a thick crimson paint, and flooded his
nostrils like a true Red Sea. The splatter began to rain on the
small stage, over the hardwood, and over a carnation that had been
pinned to the speaker's lapel before the force of a tiny colliding
body had torn the flower free of Ghisling's jacket.
The rain of blood began to leave the
otherwise perfectly white carnation with very distinctive, beautiful
little crimson flecks.
***
Man's effort to master the world around
himself is a struggle as old as time. It is a portion of his
character almost as ancient as the pride it is rooted in. At the
twilight of the nineteenth century, with almost all other frontiers
on Earth conquered, men like the doctors Sigmund Freud and Johannes
Ghisling tried, through very different methods, to conquer the last
true frontier man saw readily open before himself – the realm of
the human mind.
In the Spring of 1904, Doctor Ghisling
had been invited to demonstrate a technique in treating the mind that
he had dubbed “cognitive mechanics.” Rather than teach his
peers, Doktor Ghisling attempted to show them the technique in the
flesh, or in the gears, so to speak. In the gears of a little
clockwork doll fashioned after an equally little girl. A little girl
who only wanted to protect her brother.
A girl the newspapers had dubbed The
Grave Girl of Tatabanya.
Failing to grasp what made the girl
tick, the physician had stumbled accidentally – clumsily - upon
that very knowledge. In his pride, he had shown the medical
establishment of his day, that he and his new science were capable of
prying words from even the most silent tongues. And in the prying,
Doktor Ghisling had shown that a doctor using the technique could
open up the secrets of the shuttered human mind. His achievements
that day were the talk of the College and the papers for months to
come. But his achievements were not quite in the way he might have
wished.
If only he had heeded his assistant, or
if only he had understood the signs around him. The sign on his
lapel. Not a man of flowers, Ghisling had failed to grasp that the
white carnation is often seen as a bad omen or representing death
among many Europeans in his day. He might have grasped the old
wives' tales among some Celtic cultures that a doppleganger, an
unnatural body-double of a living person, is seen as a
personification of the Ankou. The Ankou is held to be the
henchman of Death itself.
And pride, regardless of the culture or
person in which it is found, is a sure road to that which the Ankou
so devotedly serves.
Unfortunately for him, Doktor Johannes
Ghisling was not a man of fables or of flowers. He was a man of
science. And he knew that science could, would, and did prove him
right. It only cost him his life. Then again, what is life compared
to one's pride? That life, in the end, is an otherwise flawless and
fragile pure white carnation with its perfection marred only by a few
haphazard blood-red specks. A flower that otherwise couldn't exist.
It shouldn't exist.
But, it does exist. It exists as a
singular specimen that thrives under the light of a single gas-lamp
in an open urban oasis surrounded by cobblestone streets on a cool
Spring evening. It exists as the type of flower that could only be
found … in the Gas-lit Garden.
~ fin
