The Archivist Of Sin, a new chapter of my novel is up at Substack.
The Glass Colossus (a shortstory)
New 5K fiction up at Substack, concerning a group of explorers imperiled upon an expedition into an ancient ruin of seemingly impossible construction.
The ruins of the nameless gods
They gazed upon the towers. “Was this land beset with kings?”
“Surely,” One enjoined. “They must’ve been possessed of wings.”
“Aye. Is scribed they, on great beasts of iron, voyaged high,
To the ancient pitted rock, which egglike, hangs upon the sky.”
“Foolish superstition,” the youth rebuffed as elder glared.
“The bravest falcon’s climb is by swirling elements ensnared.”
The recusant gained all ground by nascent curtains of nocturn;
And only the old man wondered at the nameless gods’ return.
Monolith
That needs no soporific orison, nor rills of craven dew,
And looms miasmal deeps, ever roiled in ashen flue.
Sunk by guileful masons, a mazy dive to pristine gears,
In seawall’s rise is kindled hallowed malice for arrears.
Gape gibbering maws of all oozing layers in the churn,
Rueful supplications wrothful ramparts callous spurn.
Low by skullborne riptide, starlight bright by lofty stone,
Clear to leaking eyes what silent feasts on fallen bone.
New chapter archive for serialized stories
From now on all chapters of my serialized fiction published via Substack can be found in descending order from first to last on Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/kaiterenless. I will be updating the lists there regularly, typically as soon as I publish a new installment in a series, so if there is a story that catches your eye, I recommend bookmarking its chapter archive.
Presently listed are the first chapter of the seaside mystery story The Gulf Of Gypsum Haze, and chapters 1-11 of the small town drama/dreamworld fable The House Of Starless Sky.
The House Of Starless Sky: Chapter 11
THE MASQUERADE OF KNIVES
Liot felt her touch before he saw her. Small soft mahogany hands, pampered hands that smelled of substitute flowers, sliding over his corded shoulders and arms. “Why is there a strange woman on the couch?” Liot rolled to his side. Tess sat on the bed in her undergarments, smiling as a sphynx. He related his day’s adventure and Tess listened with an abstracted expression. “Did you wake her?” Tess shook her head and slid a hand into his pants and felt the smooth rising tumulus. Shifting of bedsheets. Hidden fires kindled by the weight of her thighs and the strength of his hands. Moans followed the conference of flesh and thereafter a glistening wetness. She fell against him and he trailed fingertips across the soft curve of her back and her breath tumbled as the beads of sweat from her brow.
As daylight filled the room, Tess untangled herself from his body, rose and headed for the door. “Don’t forget the Halloween dance is tonight.” Tess’ eyes grew wide. “Oh I completely forgot.” She twirled hair about a delicate painted finger. “I can’t go.”
He sat upright. “What? Why? I thought you were excited to go. Halloween is your favorite holiday. Isn’t it? I even made the costume you wanted.”
“I know.” She shrugged. “I just can’t. I already made plans.”
“You could have given me a heads up.”
“Are you angry?”
“No. Disappointed. A dance without a partner holds little attraction.”
“Oh what you’re not going now?”
“I don’t see the point. What plans did you have that were so urgent?”
“Meeting an old friend.”
“Who?”
“I’m going to be late.”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“What is your problem?”
“I didn’t know I had one.”
“I’m not going to talk to you when you’re like this.”
“Like what?”
Liot tilted his head to one side, his searching gaze discerning ire and furtiveness in the woman’s frame. She shook her head and slipped from the room. He listened to her bare feet stomp across the corridor, patter down the stairs and fade to nothingness. The scent of her lingered. For the first time since he had laid with her, he felt revulsion and hastened to the shower. He dressed, descended and found Freja standing by the doorside window in the living room, gazing at birds fishing for worms in the dew stained grass.
“Is your girlfriend alright?”
He walked to the door, threw on his coat and turned to the woman. “I’m off to work. You can eat whatever you want in the fridge. Freezer’s in the basement. Keep the lights off when you’re not using them and don’t rifle though my things.”
She put her hand to her head in a mock salute. He smiled and shut the door behind him.
When he got to Mazaran’s shop the old man beckoned him to a chair before his desk. “Sit down.” Liot did as bade and waited with his hands in his lap. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go.” Liot’s face went taunt.
“Why?”
“I think you know why.”
“If I did I wouldn’t ask.”
“We’re in the business of making machine parts, not gossip.”
“So its about Clayton. His father tell you to fire me?”
“You accused a man of domestic abuse.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“There’s no point talking about it. This isn’t a negotiation. Your things are in that box.”
“Does Danager think I won’t say anything about his deadbeat son if I’m fired? Or was this your idea? Afraid you’d lose Danager’s sponsorship?”
“Get your things and get out.”
Liot stared hard at Mazaran. The old man figeted nervously in his chair and averted his gaze to his papers. After a long uncomfortable moment, Liot rose, gathered his effects and left as Clayton glared out from the shop.
He returned home to find Freja gone and rushed from ground floor rooms calling her name then bounded up the stairs to his study and the lockbox where he kept a large bundle of cash and the wedding ring he had planned to give Tess during the festival. The box stood ajar. Empty save for some old drawings he had made. He cursed and paced around the chamber until exhaustion dragged him to an armchair where he spent the better part of the day finishing The Rending Band. All the vile feelings of the day were subsumed by the magnificence of the unknown author’s tale. His soul soared in tandem with Halmthust’s as the latter set his dire machinations into motion. Yet wholly unsatisfying was the abrupt and irresolute ending.
He put the book aside and descended to the kitchen where he lay a large pumpkin for the fall festival. He set to carving the winter squash which took on the appearance of the golden mask from his dreams and fitted a unlit candle inside it.
As daylight died, he walked with pumpkin in arms and carving knife in pocket to the old church beside the plaza of the winged god. The house of worship was abuzz with stragglers chatting over beers and festooned with tacky seasonal decorations. Beyond the creaking wooden doors, a narrow bench adorned vestibule and Walt Clemons in oriental garb with a fascimile of a antique scimitar sheathed in a swath of red silk.
“Evening Liot.”
“Evening. What are you supposed to be?”
Walt struck a gallant pose. “Sinbad The Sailor. Fresh from the valley of giant snakes. But where’s your costume?”
“I’ll be playing the part of Sinbad The Porter.”
“Well don’t spend too long listening to my tales. You just missed your girl.”
Liot set his pumpkin on one of the benches and turned with perplexity. “Oh?”
“Yeah she came in with Derrick.”
“Derrick?”
“Derrick Rutherford. I figured you’d know him since he’s a friend of Tess. He came to town last month. Some kind of political activist, I think.”
“Crew cut, tall, orange jacket?”
“Yeah that’s him.”
Walt bent and examined Liot’s jack-o-lantern. “That’s the eeriest pumpkin I’ve ever seen. You always did have an artful eye.”
He stood and discussed the handiworked squashes of the townsfolk and passed into the altar chamber, which had been transformed into a dance floor. Dozens of costumed participants twined under the auspices of a sonorous waltz. Through a break in the terpsichore mass, Liot spied Tess tight to Derrick Rutherford, the former done up like a vampire, the latter in the guise of a huntsman. As the music unwound, Tess draped her arms about the man’s shoulders and smiled. Derrick cradled her tapered waist with his left hand and twined his fingers through her own with his right. Liot looked on, numb to the scene before him.
Liot moved about the rim of the dance floor, and found, on one of the wall pews a discarded black cloak and oni mask. He put the mask on, secured the cape about his shoulders with a brooch and raised the narrow hood. The get up in tandem with his dark gloves, long sleeved coat, pants and boots, obscured every inch of flesh, rendering him an unrecognizable shade. As the demon masked miller returned his attention to the revelers, Malzberg brushed past, done up like a wolfman and took the hand of a woman with an entourage in the guise of fairies. The machinist recognized her as the romance author, Katie Hutching. The fat literary agent pawed at Hutching’s drunken companions who swallowed their discomfort for the sake of their mistress. Behind them, Liot made out the form of the Grangers, red and feathered like injuns, in amiable disputation with the church’s pastor, Arthur Wilt.
Across the sea of folly, a sad eyed woman sat alone in the far left corner of the room. Liot walked to her and offered his hand. She looked a long moment at the specter before her then put her small pale fingers to his palm and allowed herself to be swept to the dance floor as an ominous tune flared from the speakers. The pair swirled amid the press of tittering, gaudy bodies, and shifted by subtle degrees, close to the vampire and the huntsman, who spoke in hushed tones as the music closed upon its crescendo.
“What if he shows up?”
“He said he wasn’t coming.”
“What if he does?”
The vampire gave a one shouldered shrug. “He’ll get over it. He’s already found someone else anyway. Its just the way things go. Things happen.”
“Oh?”
Before he could say another word she kissed him and he eagerly responded, fondling her scantily clad body in leatherbound arms. So close were they to Liot that he could smell their perfume and hear the wet collision of their lips. The strings screamed and faded. Liot’s soul died with the music.
The couple pulled away and their words were lost to revel’s cacaphony. “Are you alright?” It took Liot a moment to realize the voice flowed from the woman in his arms. He was shaking. “No. Thank you for the dance,” he replied before shifting from the revelry. He stripped mask and cape, flung them to a pew as a slurred cry lit up from near distance and stagged into the piercing wind of night.
Silverblack clouds hid the moon and the waning jack-o-lantern’s arrayed about the temple’s entrance cast an inauspicious glow. He walked aimlessly forward, heedless of the trailing footsteps. The whole world was substracted and only the afterimages of Tess and Derrick remained, repeating as the figures of an insane troupe’s carousel. The inward form shattered upon the arrival of Clayton Morstyn’s inhebriated voice, grating like wet gravel. “You think that’s funny? Huh?” Liot paused, apprehending the statue of the winged god before him and Clayton behind.
“What?”
Clayton shoved him hard. “Taking my costume is what.”
“I didn’t know it was yours.”
“You angry because the old man kicked you out over me? Huh? Thought you’d pay me back?”
“I just want to go home, Clayton.”
The blow came without signal, a strong left hook to brow. Liot lost his balance and spun into the corner of the plaza fountain and felt a dull wetness spread across his skull. He clawed up the gelid marble protrusion and was hauled backward by Clayton’s frenzied hands. He took a fist to his gut and dropped to a knee, sucking air.
“You always looked down on me. Now I’m looking down at you.”
Liot raised his rubied head, left eye pooling with life’s water, and stared at his assailant. “You don’t look pleased. Is it because I’m not pleading?” Clayton stood unsteadily, his breathing heavy and his countenance twisted by halfhearted triumph and bewilderment at his own actions. “I bet Dany cries out. Is that what excites you?” Clayton moved to strike the man again but stopped as he discerned the dull blue gleam of a blade. Liot drew a violent arc and Clayton hissed and clutched his left arm which dripped beneath the star mottled abyss, his face tense with terror, a terror that intensified as Liot stepped forth. “I’ll kill you, Ravel. One of these days, I’ll kill you.” Clayton turned heel and slunk to the church like some law dogged fugitive. Blood trickled to pavement, black and glossy against the azure gloom. Liot lurched round the monument and collapsed against the northern side of the fountain. He washed the knife and his wounds in the tepid water and removed a length of faded cloth from his pocket and wrapped it slantways about his head over his left eye. Looking to the pool he discerned the aspect of some misbegotten fusilier. For an interminable spell he leaned against the soothing stone ring. He raised his head and beheld the statue and recalled when he had twirled Tess in his arms beneath its shade. Tears swelled in his eyes and every fibre filled with sorrow. He cursed and constrasted his weakness to that indomitable visage before him, that suggested a being who if roused could shake the very heavens and scatter the stars to chasms no light could break. Of man, yet greater and more terrible, resplendent in monstrous singularity. A horror to those without wings. Under the deity’s inexorable regard, he concieved an idea to rival its dreadful artistry and laughed at the thought of its fulfillment. Laughed as the tears trickled down his cheeks. His mind swirled feverishly, howling as the pipes and pistons of a fathomless machine. “The garden is desolate by trusted hands. Every carcass a meal for future maws. Seed the moldered refuse. Soon. Fruit divine from fetid soil. How I long to pluck it. To gift it! Who shall bear the taste?”
A brief note on future serializations
From now on I’ll be publishing my serialized novels to Substack (with free subscription), in addition to this site. If, for whatever reason, you prefer reading fiction via Substack rather than this site, you can find the (very short) first chapter of my surreal novel, The House Of Starless Sky, here.
The Gulf Of Gypsum Haze: Chapter 3
THE BLUE CRYPT
Amid a gray dawn, Aurel Carnoux met Edric Armitage at Beaconmast Relay and from there piled in a liveried stagecoach of red and black where he was introduced to Conlan Mather and Hetty Brandt, who Wayer had requested, and they, being on holiday, had delighted to take up the offer. The vehicle clattered out of town and cut across low green tufted hillocks like a great mechanical beetle. The passengers, save Carnoux who scribbled in a leatherbound tome and glanced abstractedly out the window, chatted idly as the vehicle wound the southern crescent of the gulf, past a spare wood and the hamlet of Riflingrock, where they stopped and lunched at an outdoor cafe. Yet even as the rest of the party sated themselves on tea, fish and honey glazed biscuits, Carnoux persisted in his incessant cacography, rousing his companion’s curiosity.
“Is that your journal, Mr. Carnoux?”
He looked from the book to the woman. “No. It is my regional codex.” Seeing her searching countenance, he elaborated. “I record the peculiarities of every fresh place I set foot for future reference.”
Hetty set her handbag upon the table, opened it, revealing a number of seashell necklaces, a folded looking glass, a handkerchief, a box of matches, a pack of cigarettes, a pair of gloves, a comb, and a wallet. She removed her smokes and matches, lit one and returned to Carnoux. “Eddy said you were a fraud consultant.”
“An authenticator.”
“Sounds exciting.”
Carnoux closed his book, took the tea the server had set out for him and dropped a thick slice of butter and a heavy chunk of salt into the brew to the horror of all surrounding. “It is not the only capacity in which I have been called to consult or investigate. I specialize in the unspecialized. When a man digs deeply, he ceases to see the pits of others. That sight is my special province.” He raised the book. “Hence the import of my little tome. As to excitement, it is the sort of work that, to the uninitiated, is rather more interesting in the execution than the exposition. For example, my last client had come by a stone relic purported to be an Aztec tonalpohualli, a type of pre-Columbian sacral calendar. However, once I studied it, I found its annular cycle of three hundred and sixty five days.”
Hetty feighed impression while Conlan gestured in confusion. “That’s how many days there are.”
“In our calendar and in their xiuhpohualli, but not in the tonalpohualli, which consisted of two hundred and sixty days.”
“So it was a fake?” Mather asked.
“At the time the detail was suggestive of fakery, but there was also the possibility of clerical error. To verify I asked for the name of the seller, an antiquities dealer by the name of Harold Lassiter. I set upon his residence, which also functioned as his office, and when his trust had been sufficiently gained, took the, I will admit, considerable liberty, of clandestinely perusing his workshop, wherein I discovered a sun stone of near identical manufacture to the one that had been proffered to my client, save a great fracture, likely the result of one of his apprentices chisling too vigerously. It was at once appearent that Lassiter was at tricks and that this stone was to have been the original, but the damage which befell it preclude its sale, and so, another stone was crafted to take its place. Having the foresight of bringing my camera, I took a couple of pictures and so proved the fradulence of the artifact, and the knavery of Lassiter, to the satisfaction of my client.”
Mather gave a dismissive wave with his pipe. “Guff. He’s pulling our leg.”
“No more guff than to infer a ship’s right course from the position of the stars.”
Again Conlan laughed and turned to Edric. “He’s cracked if he thinks I’m buying that dime novel yarn.” Edric held his tongue and leaned back with an expectant air.
“What is the longevity of a star?”
In response to Carnoux’s query Conlan stroked his beard. “I couldn’t say. I never thought about it.”
“Noted. You’ve never thought about the composition of that upon which your trade relies. You doubt my word, but why should I take yours anymore seriously?”
“That’s completely different. You’re not sore are you?”
“No more sore, I fancy, than Ms. Brandt would be should I task her to list the chemical makeup of the electric blue seashell necklaces she trades.”
“You’ve been to the Calvalcade then?”
“No, madam. Only passed it.”
“Did Eddy mention it?”
Edric shook his head looking perplexed as she. “No.”
“Then how did you know?”
“I observed your bag, which is full of them. Necklaces, that is. You opened it to take out your cigarettes and matches. If you were carrying only one piece of jewelery I’d have suspected it was purely for your personal adornment, but I observed at least seven necklaces, which indicates you’ve brought them to give away, and, further, that you would so freely give them suggests, along with their homespun character, that you, or someone close to you, made them, and, probably, therefore, sell them.”
Hetty was put out by the intrusion yet placed her hands together in dainty applause. “How very clever.”
“I still say its a yarn.”
Edric interrupted. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Mr. Mather. My father was a great admirer of art. Several years ago, he purchased a series of paintings attributed to the famed seventeenth century symbolist, Sonlin Maran. Perhaps you have heard of him? The Wake of Paris. The Wages of Meleager. The Judgment of Apollo. No? Ah, well. The collection was worth a fortune, if genuine. The seller said it was, but my father wanted a second opinion. However, there were few in Beaconmast who had the expertise necessary to give a definative view. So the old man dispatched me to Mr. Carnoux, who he had met at the town gallery. While the art experts looked only at the composition, shading, brushstrokes and so on, Mr. Carnoux looked instead to the wood and discovered that it wasn’t poplar, upon which Maran exclusively painted, but rather, a composite, made to look like poplar. When he revealed this rather suggestive fact, the seller was kind enough to allow him a sample of some paint from the corners of each of the paintings that would be concealed by the frame. From his study of the paint, he discovered that they were not authentic seventeenth century materials, but modern concoctions with few local sites of production, and so traced the forger, rang a confession from him, and saved my father a great deal of money.”
Carnoux, apathetic to the digression upon his exploits, diligently surveyed the crowd around the cafe. Most of the patrons and passers wore the weary yet satisfied looks of the yeoman, but several carried themselves like animals fearful of the hunt. An old woman broke from the crowd, strode to their table and hissed, “We don’t want you here. Just get out!” A lad with a hunting cap protested the woman’s outburst and led her away with soothing words. “Ya can’t just go hollering like that, Ma.” “But what if it happens again?” “Ma!” The flareup drew all nearby eyes and them dark with concern. Mather watched the woman depart and clicked his tongue. “What’s her problem?” Hetty shrugged. “Its the curse business, isn’t it?” Carnoux inquired to his host, tea cup to lips. Edric nodded despondently as an unsettling atmosphere spread through the cafe like invisible flame upon a hayfield. Carnoux set his cup down and shifted to Edric. “What did she mean?” Edric’s hands worked nervously about the edge of his saucer. “I couldn’t say.” Though Carnoux’s serpentine eyes glittered with scepticism, he nodded to himself with subtle delectation, as if proud of forecasting the reply. Hetty and Mather squirmed in their seats beneath the mistrustful glares of the locals. Despairing the black mood, Edric ushered his guests back to his carriage, where the sandy headed coachman Connors stood checking the reigns. Piling inside the coach, the company was ferried to the village outskirts where the shoreside cliffs gave way to a rocky beach. Upon the bony strand, a long unfinished building rose of no vernacular style, to which Carnoux gestured with interest. “What is that?”
“That,” Edric replied. “Is the floating hotel of Mr. Samuel Edmond Briggs. Or some of it, anyway. He’s a local developer. My father had personally loaned him some money for the project, thinking it would bring prosperity to Riflingrock. However, it came to light Mr. Briggs possessed a mania for gambling and had spent a considerable sum of the loan on cards. So my father cut him off, alongside a number of his other backers, and the project stalled. But he’s had an upswing. Quite a big one. About a month ago he started building again and even offered to buy my family’s estate. Good for him I say.”
Carnoux peered over his glasses and his eyes flashed with keen interest. “Did Herr Briggs say why?”
“No. Damned secretive that man. Probably wanted to turn it into a tourist trap. You see, there’s a lagoon beneath the cliffs upon which the estate is built, which has an obvious appeal for a developer like Briggs. Plus stables, a sizable tennis court and a polo track.”
Conlan looked to his host with perplexity. “Aren’t you afraid of catching it?”
Hetty rolled her eyes. “Polo, not polio, you blockhead.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Its a game, sir,” Edric replied, stiffling a laugh. “Played on horseback.”
Mather chaffed at the entertainment he had inspired and furiously puffed upon his pipe.
“It is a sure sign of intellectual integrity to forthrightly admit the limitations of one’s knowledge.” Carnoux declared without looking up from his book to the surprise of the others. Mather’s chagrin evaporated and he tipped his cap to the authenticator.
They wound through a wide field, barren save varicolored splashes of grass, kudzu and weathered rock, void even of road, and emerged upon a thinly wooded plateau that jutted over the ocean like a giant’s arrowhead, and upon it, Armitage Court, high and fantastical against the bloody horizon. An alien factory set upon a rusted sea. The building’s outline was of a V with a waterward vertex and a right wing of smaller size than its left. In the interstice between the two wings was a porte cochere formed by a high stone arch, above which the sloping shingles enclosed a loggia. A number of smokestacks jutted from the pale red roof and informed a dynamic industrial grander that was contravened by invidious greenery which slithered in great cancerous surges across the construct’s suneaten gray facade. All about the vast domicile, lay large odd angled white stones and evergreens surmounted by spanish moss. The carriage traversed a wide cobblestoned path that ran from the gates along the perimeter, up to the front of the house, and terminated before a plaza held in the nook of the building’s rays, adorned with a life size statue of a fierce man with a book in his left hand and a harpoon in his right, who Edric explained was Aldrich Armitage, the first of his line to settle the region and the designer of the estate. Beyond the plaza they passed beneath the porch topped archway and let out before the seaside portion of the manor, where, behind a stone wall, a short stair led to a cantilevered porch that spouted over the sheer cliffs and misted waters like the beak of some gargantuan armored bird, that might, at any moment, raise its incongrous wings and sail over the violent spray.
As the party exited the vehicle and walked to the leftward portion of the house, Connors drove the empty carriage around the right, where a dark haired woman with violet eyes and padded vestments upon her left shoulder emerged. On the thin armor strapped about her shoulder perched a large hawk, whose predatory gaze set upon the newcomers.
“Who is that woman?” Carnoux inquired from beneath the brim of his eggshell campaign hat.
“Evandra Strand, our stable hand and resident falconer.”
“What about our luggage?” Hetty asked.
“Ms. Strand and Mr. Connors will see to it. The two wings of the houses connect through the archway. They’ll bring your effects round to your rooms. Rest assured.” They moved out of the drive, through the old stone fence, and were shown into the house by a fresh faced maid. “I’m going to show Mr. Carnoux the porch, Tiffany, give Mr. Mather and Ms. Brandt the tour and we’ll be with you by the time you finish.” Edric turned and walked from the old oak doors to the edge of the overhanging porch before it with Carnoux in tow. After several seconds Edric glared at his guest. “I thought you were discreet.”
“You’re referring to my question about what that woman at the cafe said?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you keeping information from me?”
“Because it has no connection to Wayer. I don’t want to stir the townsfolk. You saw how they looked at me.”
“That much I had ascertained. Tell me what happened.”
Edric worked his jaw and the agitation left him like helium from a punctured balloon. “I’m conducting renovations.” He pointed to the right wing of the house, where a patch of the roof had been refurbished. “A week ago, the crew I hired were taking lunch, one of them, Harper, stayed behind. Wanted to swim. I had given them permission to use the lagoon. One of the other workers, Reginald, had gone back to fetch his cap which he had forgot, and found Harper in a terrible state upon the beach, his body horribly lashed. Harper cried out about something closing upon him. They wasted no time in calling for me and I for Dr. Trellis, who was taking a holiday in his cottage, not far away. Trellis could make neither head nor tail of the man’s injuries and Harper himself was so delirious we couldn’t get an answer from him. It was clear the man had been attacked, for his wounds were as from a scourge. He was a rough sort and had many enemies, but how someone could have prevailed upon him without being seen, and why with so peculiar a weapon, is a mystery to me. There are only two ways into the lagoon and both run near the house, which at the time was filled with workmen. I had the servants conduct a search, but found no trace of trespass. Trellis took Harper with him back to Riflingrock and there he has stayed. Now fully recovered, at least in body, but his mind was so horribly effected by the ordeal, he refuses to set foot upon the estate or speak to anyone about the affair. Given the atrocious predilection for gossip in these parts it was not long before the yokels connected Harper’s assault with the fables about an Armitage curse. Which Ms. Haberly so colorfully demonstrated at the cafe.”
“You should have told me this during our interview.”
“I don’t see why.”
“What time did this plight befall Mr. Harper?”
“I don’t remember the exact time, but shortly after two in the afternoon.”
“When Harper recovered from his delirium, did you ask him again what had happened?”
“No, he refused to see me. He had, by that time, bought into the superstition and thought I might bring some fresh calamity upon him. Indeed, the man screamed upon seeing me.”
“You said there are only two ways into the lagoon.”
“Yes.”
“I would like to see them.”
Edric guided the authenticator off the porch, down a gradient opposite the archway that wrapped about the sheer face of the cliff and concluded at a resevoir of azure hue enclosed seaward by a narrow shoal and landward by a vaulted grotto. The brackish water was half shadowed by the overhang of a clastic fold and here and there a crab scuttled along the white sanded foreshore. The path the men trod met a splotch of dry land that ran in a shallow arc and bisected the water from the cave. The smoothworn contiguity of the place was ruptured by sculpted figures which glared from the base of the cliffside.
“What a very curious place!” Carnoux exclaimed with delight.
“The locals call it the Blue Crypt. An unfortunate title, given recent events.”
They moved from the shore through the dark confines of the grotto and emerged upon a sparse tufted inclivity that bent toward the grounds of estate. Upon the incline was a track composed of irregular gashes that started several paces beyond the mouth of the cavern and extended up to the apex of the elevation and some feet beyond the first of the indentations lay a bony boulder like a titan’s somber skull, and several more beyond it. Carnoux stood a moment drinking in the desolate scenery, then bounded up the slope following the furrows, stooping at each and examining them with great care. Edric followed at a leisurely pace and thrust his cane at a grassy patch near the top of the rise. “That’s where they found him. No doubt the attacker concealed himself behind one of these boulders, waited for him to pass, then lashed him with his flail or whatever it was he carried.”
Crouching atop the hill like some giant crow, Carnoux swiveled his head to the aristocrat. “That is certainly not the case.”
“You sound quite confident. How can you be sure?”
“You observed the marks?”
“Obviously they’re from where he fell as he attempted to ascend.”
“Yes but note they start before the first boulder along the way. There is no place for concealment around the grotto’s aperture, nothing but flatish ground, so whatever it was that caused our man such agony was inflicted prior to his exit from the lagoon.”
“I see what you mean. Then I suppose the assailant sprung upon him in the cavern passage.”
“We arrive again at the same problem. Where would a man conceal himself in the pass or upon the lagoon? The passage is smooth and it isn’t dim enough at midday to allow for the concealment of shadow. As for the beach, no diver could hold his breath so long as to go unnoticed throughout even a brisk swim and to suppose one could hide in the sand is equally absurd.”
“Must have come down along the same path we did as Harper was heading through the grotto, and overtaken him there. Like I said, there’s no other way to get to the lagoon.”
“Save by crossing the shoal. But we can cross out an incursion by sea. Surely Mr. Harper could not have failed to see a skiff, however diminutive, bearing down upon him. But I wonder.” Carnoux unfurled himself from his perch, tilted his head like a swallow that has spotted a worm, and jogged down the hill into the grotto.
Edric followed with some consternation. “We ought to be getting back to the house so I can introduce you to my brother. That is after all why you are here.” Edric halted upon the shore of the lagoon and spotted his guest upon the cliffside path, furtively bent. “What are you doing?”
“Testing your theory! Put your back to me. Pretend you are Harper. You’ve had a good swim and are contemplating a warm meal. Your attention is fixed toward the cavern pass and the statues.”
So infectious was Carnoux’s enthusiasm that Edric obliged despite his impatience. Carnoux crept down the stony decline soundlessly and crunched into the white sand. He modulated his gait, putting his toes first, which produced a more muted hiss. “I suppose you heard that?”
Edric turned round. “Yes.”
“Then we have our answer,” Carnoux declared as he sided up to his host. “There is no way for a man to overtake another in this place without detection.” The man’s words carried ominously over the wind and Edric turned them like a puzzle box in his mind as the pair returned to the house.
The Gulf Of Gypsum Haze: Chapter 2
A JOB FOR CARNOUX
North of Beaconmast, the manse of Arynside surged from a barren shoreside cliff. It was a curious structure built into an old lighthouse that predated the town, adorned in allegorical masonry and girded by blue marble statuary. Edric Armitage moved between the ominous sculptures with harried gait and rapped twice upon the heavy double doors of the house. Several seconds passed before one of the doors was opened and a leery female face emerged.
Edric tipped his cap. “Good morning, Ms. Mornsted. Did he receive my letter?”
“Yes. Mr. Carnoux is expecting you. Come in.” He did as bade and followed the small efficient woman through the interminable labyrinth of the interior up to a pitch black room on the second floor. She left and closed the door behind her, leaving the guest stranded in darkness. “What the devil is the meaning of this!” Edric thundered as he cast about with his cane, fearful of striking his shins upon some shadow shrouded piece of furniture. A restrained and amused voice resounded from the pall.
“It is only when we take leave of our sight that we can truly see.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
“Observe.”
Small blue lights began to glow amid the gloom, as if drifting on a languid breeze. Edric drew closer and started upon realizing what they were. Jellyfish. Hundreds of the gelantinous creatures radiated like small frosted lanterns in a massive glass container near the back of the chamber. Behind the translucent and illumined vessel stood a thin man of middling height in eccentric dress, with a lean, foxlike face, unruly silver streaked black hair and serpentine eyes.
“Illumination was easy enough to acquire, the difficulty came in achieving the specific blue coloration and in triggering the animal’s luminary response. I’m currently working on increasing the luminosity while simultaneously decreasing their size, for once sufficiently small and bright, I shall have superceeded the need for gas entirely.”
“That’s most impressive, Mr. Carnoux, but my matter is most urgent.”
Aurel Carnoux waltzed about the vast aquarium with his hands thrust into his pockets. “Then we’ll save the digression on marine biology for a later date and speak instead of your step brother.”
“How on earth did you know?”
“I didn’t. Until now.” He turned on the wall lights. “But given Selwyn Armitage has recently died of the cancer from which he long suffered, and the black sheep of the family – you will forgive me the indelicacy I trust – has inherited and returned to the estate, I reasoned it probable Wayer Farley and your sudden desire to confere were intimately connected.”
Edric mastered his emotions and removed his hat. “It is as you say. Being of an adventurous turn, he, that is my brother, wanted little to do with our father’s machinations, and consequently prefered to live as a roustabout upon the docks. Residing in some dingy little tavern. Whale’s Calvacade is the name.”
“Despite relations being positive between them.”
Edric’s brows cinched. “I find you quite uncanny, Mr. Carnoux. Indeed they were. He got on quite well with father, better, I am somewhat ashamed to say, than I. But you have never been to the estate, how did you come by such information?”
Carnoux strode with a languid gait to a table left of the fishtank and pressed his fingers to a stack of newspapers upon it. “It was widely printed that Selwyn left the lion’s share of his wealth to your brother. If they had been on poor terms, it seems likely to me your father would have left rather more to you. Even if not, he would not have bequeathed his entire estate to Mr. Farley. Ergo, relations between Mr. Armitage Sr. and Mr. Farley were positive.”
“Quite so. It was for that reason I knew he would return.”
“He has a strong sense of familial duty, your brother?”
“Yes.”
“As there was no difficulty in inducing him to return, I take it the problem lies in Mr. Farley’s reception at your ancestral abode?”
“No. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Carnoux spread his dark gloved hands. “You’re hardly a fount of explanation, Mr. Armitage. What is it that prompts you to fly to see me on an inclement saturday and hesitate?”
“The matter is a strange and delicate one.”
Carnoux gesticulated dismissively, sat an elegant armchair by the paper laden table and lit a cigarette. “You should know from our prior arrangement I am not given to gossip. Sit and explain.”
Edric clearded his throat, ground his cane in his hands and sat in the chair opposite his host, a tinge of embarresment flashing across his proud, solemn features. His dark mustache bristled and when he spoke it was in a flustered rush. “Best to lay it straight out. My brother, Wayer Farley, believes he is being shadowed by a mermaid.”
Carnoux peered over his brass rimmed sun glasses as a lopsided smile spread across his wan and saber scarred face. “Is that a common occurrence in your neck of the woods?”
“I know, its preposterous. You must think my brother quite mad.”
Carnoux held up his hands as if soothing a spooked horse. “Absurdity is a function of unfamiliarity. Knowledge advances with every oar stroke to unknown shores. If your problem were merely a domestic intrique, the shoreline does not come into view. What would you have me do?”
“I would like you to accompany me back to Armitage Court. As you are a man of science, his fears might be alleviated by your presence. He does not listen to me. Nor, so far, the rest of the household. I will, of course, recompense you for your time.”
“You leave when?”
“Tomorrow. Business in town detains me until then.”
“Urgent?”
“No. In the evening.”
“Then I have ample time to decide. Tell me more about this notion of your brother’s.”
Edric shifted with discomfort. “My brother has a friend by the name of Mather. Conlan Mather. A local fisherman with some reputation as a rather daring fellow. Likes to take a turn in choppy waters, that sort of thing. Well, Mather claimed to see a woman swimming out by the spires in the gulf during one of his joyrides and my brother wanted to see this creature, and after they went out together, claimed he had. Around this time a queer legend was being bandied in town about a curse hanging over my family. About the sea taking what is owed. Spouted by a wandering conjurer in the tavern my brother takes his room. Wayer seemed quite affected by it. Slanderous nonsense. Well, anyways. Ever since these episodes, my brother has become increasingly absorbed in the ridiculous notion that he saw a mermaid and that it is part of the purported hex. Encouraged, no doubt, by that fisherman – you know what these nautical types are like.”
“I’m not sure I do. But I grasp the matter’s significance. If Mr. Farley persists in this fancy, he will be thought insane, but it will not be a reflection upon the Farleys so much as a reflection upon the Armitages.”
“That is the size of it.”
“Your brother and this Mather, they do not indulge in psychotropic substances?”
“I should think not!”
Carnoux closed his eyes and took a long slow drag off his cigarette. He remained silent for several seconds, flung his snakish eyes wide and leaned forward with such intensity Edric winced.
“Did either Mr. Mather or your brother describe this aquatic apparition to you?”
“Yes, my brother did, shortly after arriving at the estate, but why does that matter?”
Carnoux smiled enigmatically. “Repeat it to me.”
“According to my brother this ‘mermaid’ was youngish, dusky of complexion, with long dark chestnut hair and reddish brown eyes. Her face was round, sharp nosed, almond eyed and small chinned. She wore no clothes.”
“Splendid! You’ve a wonderful faculty for minutia. When did each sighting occur?”
“I do not know the day Mr. Mather saw this woman, but Wayer saw her first a month ago, the same day I informed him of our father’s death, same day the conjurer was spouting his nonsense.”
“First? So he has seen her again?”
“Yes. Or rather, claims he has. That’s why he’s gone so deep into the hole over the subject. But it must be coincidence. Just some local swimmer who happened to be passing, I’d say.”
“If all that you have told me is accurate, I do not think that likely.”
Edric stiffened in disbelief. “Why?”
“Consider the geography and demography of Beaconmast. Its bay is calm until one reaches the spires, and it is there the sea currents play roughly. A dangerous place for a casual skinny dip, and a especially unlikely one for a dusky skinned person. There are not many so colored in town. The description your brother relayed to you of this bizarre aquatic adventurer fits an Indian, wouldn’t you say?”
“I suppose it might. But so what? Some crazy Indian takes a turn, runs into Wayer.”
“Twice.”
“What are you driving at?”
“Does nothing strike you about your own summary?”
“Beyond its ridiculousness, no. What strikes you about it?”
“I can give you more definate answers when I stand at Armitage Court.”
“You will come then?”
Carnoux spang from his chair. “The shore comes into view. I row.”
The Gulf Of Gypsum Haze: Chapter 1
THE CURSE
Wayer Farley peered across the glassy gulf and the iron red sky that loomed over it like a crown of blood. He pressed herringbone cap to salted brow as a cruel wind snaked in from the north and the circling gulls jeered from their invisible thrones.
“It was there,” Conlan Mather declared, gesturing with a jerk of his head, his dark silver streaked beard quivering and his fierce blue gray eyes full with the rising sun. “There I saw her. If woman it be. Wore no clothes and smiled when I brought the schooner round. It weren’t no smile of mirth, I can tell you.”
Mather’s reticence was matched only by his metallic nerves, so his excitement roused considerable curiosity in his younger friend. Farley looked to the area indicated, a region of choppy water several hundred feet off the coast, between two great spires of blanched rock that soared from the churning foam as the fangs of some mountainous tigerfish. “Skinny dipping I suppose.”
“At that distance? Current is strong. There’s a danger of being pulled to sea. Besides, water was near freezing. But if she felt the chill, she didn’t show it. There was something wrong about it.”
“What did you do after she smiled?”
“Asked if she needed help. She said nothing, dived into the water and never came back up. Ten minutes I waited without sign of her, another five I sat pondering what I’d seen.”
“You must have been swimming much as she, in a bottle, rather than a bay.”
“Oh funny young master.” Mather took a drag from his whale bone pipe and gazed sternly at his companion. “You’ll soon find there’s more than a lark between wit and wisdom.”
“You get that from one of your tea tags?”
The elder’s annoyance passed to disappointment and he returned his steely sights to the coastal spires.
“Well what do you mean to do?”
“Mean to go back out there. But there’s a storm blowing in.”
“We’ve plenty of time if we make haste.”
Mather tapped the balance of his pipe into the surf and gave Farley a look of concern. So adamant was the younger man’s expression that Mather at length sighed and nodded. “Two sets of eyes then.”
“Capital! If I see your creature before you, I’ll tell her you said hallo.”
The men walked the pier until they came to Mather’s home, a seabattered ship with “Hound’s Gallant” writ in gold across its dark crimson hull. The vessel was a sleek, dingy, barnacled affair, double masted and sallow flagged by the sun. What it lacked in glamor it made up for in character. The men stepped sternward to the vessel’s rolling deck. A thermos dangled from the aftmast, a fishing chair near it, strewn with lures resembling various creatures of the deep. They unmoored, cut windward and made for the standing stones with Mather firm at the helm and Farley tugging rigging at the prow. Wind was scarce as birds overhead and dark clouds like sinister worms massed in the distance. Mather pulled portside through calm waters round the twin prominence and slowed in leeward drift. Farley looked to the two spires, the leftmost, shorter, bearing a bird nest near its apex, the distant right column, more weathered and mottled with lichen. The hazy orange lights of the wharf amassed starboard like giant fireflies skimming the tide. Mather repacked his pipe and moved to the back of the ship, shading his eyes against the glaring sanguine sun and peering to the twofold turrents and the lazy waves. Farley kept his perch at the prow where old harpoons clattered in their casements. Seconds bled to minutes and when the sun was full over the skyline, a blur of movement caught Farley’s eye. He was sure something had swam under the boat. Something large and pale. He glanced to Mather and found him scouring the liquid desert with his spyglass. Farley jogged portside, anticipating the emergence of the submerged shape, and froze, for there, in the water, was a woman. She was unclad and dusky skinned, with long chestnut hair and wide rust colored eyes. The swimmer smiled like a sphynx and plunged to the abyss.
“Wait!”
Mather cocked his head. “What is it?”
“I saw her, by Jove! I saw her!”
With Mather starboard and Farley port, the men scryed the tides for sign of the elusive swimmer. Neither hide nor hair could they find and as the element’s ferocity accrued, the Hound’s Gallant turned into the wind and made for shore.
The men docked and sped along the wharf to the Whale’s Cavalcade, a rickety inn that lay stalwart against the deluge. The scent of fish and spice hung thick as the sound of carousal over the interior of the establishment as a foreigner in asiatic garb performed a series of parlor tricks with the aid of a dutiful fez donned monkey for the motley patrons. Amid the inn’s festive clangor, Farley and Mather dripped with residue of storm and sea. They stood a moment speaking with excitement, wiped boots on the entry mat, hung coats and hats, and seated themselves at the old and well peopled counter. A barmaid hurried out and Farley hailed her with warmth. “Even the beauty of the sea pales in comparison to your own, my dear Hetty.”
Hetty flushed and looked out the window at precipitation’s curtains behind which frothing waves crashed against ship and pier. “A low bar to clear at present.”
Mather laughed and Farley drew his mouth to one side in consternation. “Why can’t you ever take a compliment? I swear, if I compared you to a majestic stag you’d say ‘So you think I’ve the scent of a beast?’”
The woman arched a brow and lashed the speaker with a towel thrown about her shoulder.
“What’s that for?”
In reply she smacked him with the towel once more, this time upon the crown.
“Ack! Woman! Do that again and I’ll put you over my knee!”
“Best not lad,” Mather cautioned. “She might enjoy it.”
The fearsome towel was swiftly turned in the sailor’s direction. Mather threw his hands up in entreaty. “I surrender!”
At length, the entrants ordered lager and as she poured her eyes studied the soggy pair. “What kept you two out in this tempest?”
Farley grimaced and waved a calloused hand. “You wouldn’t believe us.”
“Oh? Now you must tell me.”
“Well.” Farley fiddled with the seashell necklace about his throat. “It was a mermaid.”
Hetty tittered and leaned over the counter. “And a kraken too?”
“See I told you. It was Conlan put me on the track. Go on, tell her.”
Hetty swiveled her strawberry head to the fisherman. Mather nodded solemnly and the pair related their adventure at the spires and by its conclusion Hetty’s delight had waxed to concern. For a long moment she stood with furrowed brow looking for any sign of deceit. “You’re serious?” Farley sighed and drooped, crestfallen, while Mather solemnly inclinded his head. Before either man could formulate further reply, a raddled voice broke upon them. “It was an omen.” Three heads turned to behold the performer and his monkey staring at them with wild eyes. The interloper was gnarled as an ancient tree and arrayed about his thin neck were a number of strange talismans. “Weren’t no fishing in these parts save that which was needed til the Armitages came, and they scheming and scouring the waters thin. They were plunderers then and are plunderers still. They have a shadow over them. A shadow that will claim what it is owed. For the man that tries to rise above nature shall fall below it!” With those words, the man rapped his walking stick upon the floor, bore his monkey upon his shoulder and hurried up the stairs to the upper floor lodgings. The patrons mumured among themselves a moment before resuming their revelry.
“Who was that man?” Farley asked.
“That’s The Seer. Well that’s what folk call him. I don’t know his name. Father heard he was popular with the navy, and since we get so many officers, figured he’s turn heads,” Hetty replied.
“Well I hope he isn’t like that all the time. What was all that about my family?”
“Dock superstition, young master, nothing more.”
“Is it, Conlan? I begin to wonder.” He looked to Mather, and could tell by the grave lines there that the fisherman had begun to wonder too.
Hetty leaned over the counter toward Farley, her voice low. “Oh, speaking of your family, I almost forgot, Edric is here to see you.”
“Really? How queer. He say what about?” Farley inquired as he glanced toward the direction the woman indicated and saw his half brother seated alone in the darkened left corner of the hall, a thin murky smudge of black against a deeper blackness.
“No, but I fancy its important.”
“Why?”
“He’s been sitting there since near dawn. Came in almost soon as we’d opened.”
“Well, thank you for telling me. Shall we, Conlan?” Together the men strode through the throng previously entranced by the wandering magician and hailed the shaded man. Edric Armitage gazed at the pair a long moment, his driving glove clad hands upon tabled black cane and his sparkling green eyes placid at the sight of his brother and narrow upon the sailor. “I would prefer to speak to you alone.”
“Oh come on Eddy, anything you can say to me you can say to him.”
Edric’s suspicious eyes drifted to Mather’s face. “I can rely upon your discretion?”
“I don’t go telling tales out of class, sir.”
“I shall hold you to your word.” The sailor furrowed his brows at the threatening tone.
Edric waited until they were seated and spoke softly. “Father is dead.”
Farley sank back against his chair, mouth agape. Mather bowed his head and said a prayer. Several seconds passed in silence before Farley collected himself and spoke with difficulty. “When?”
“Last night. Mr. Wakefield was there and, as executor of father’s will, he read it to me.” Edric’s mechanical tone assumed coarser purportions and he squeezed his black cane with irrepressible vexation. “With the exception of a small consideration accorded me, a few other members of the family and the servants, he has left everything to you.”
“Everything?”
“The fisheries, smithy, warehouse, ships, and estate.”
“And the servants, what will become of them?”
“That depends entirely upon you. It is now within your power to keep or expel them, along with the rest of the family.”
“Why would you say that? I’d not dream it.”
Edric held up a hand in entreaty and continued in his officious register. “I’m only relaying the way the matter stands. Its important you know your rights, and your duties. Mr. Wakefield retains all relevant documents. I recommend you see to them as soon as possible. Well, that is all. I have business elsewhere.”
Farley sunk onto the table, hands curled before his face and it contorted with gloomy incertitude. For a brief moment, Edric observed his relation impassively, rose, and raised his cane to his bowler, issued a curt “Farewell,” and departed, leaving a grim and tomblike quiet in his wake.
Aurel Carnoux
An orchestral piece in 3/4 composed in tandem with my story The Gulf Of Gypsum Haze.
The House Of Starless Sky: Chapter 10
Pain roused the man with no golden mask. He flailed, gasped, and clutched his chest where the mark of the thing in the gyre stood out from pallid flesh. He lay on his back in a silt strewn cavern perforated at its apex. Through the hole, a slanted beam of light illuminated him and all else was shrouded in darkness. Two voices sounded in succession, female, male, familiar.
“I told you he’d wake. He’s not like the others.”
“I give you commendation, Meliora.”
“I give you thanks, Gouffre.”
The feminine voice came from the ground while the masculine voice echoed from above.
“He doesn’t understand.”
“No.”
The man with no gold mask attempted to raise himself, but shuddered and fell unto his back where bony motes spun up and misted his enfeebled body. His mind was disoriented and the light falling from the ceiling burned his eyes. He shut his eyes until he felt a hand behind his head. Above him leaned the owner of the womanly voice from the dark. She smiled, drew a dagger and cut her wrist. He tried to extricate but she held him fast and forced her blood into his mouth. With wide eyes he gagged on the warm rosy fluid and felt his head clear and his body enliven. She caressed his head and hummed until he could sit. He spoke of the Woman In Red, the theft of his mask, the gyre and what moved within. The commentary roused the voice from above. “You lie.” The man without the mask, with the aid of the woman, rose to his feet and faced the darkness. “To what benefit?” From above, the concealed speaker descended, drifting as if ferried by shadow, and his coat flapped like the wings of a horrific bat. He loomed over the convalescent wayfarer and the jawbone strung about his neck shimmered as he spoke. “Why would The Exalted reveal itself to a worm like you?”
The man without the mask met his adversary’s formidable gaze with renewed zeal. “What do you call a man who can’t kill a worm?”
Gouffre’s scantly illuminated face twisted into a ghastly smile and his eyes shone like burning coals. “Perhaps this one is not useless.”
“I hope I can say the same of you. What do you know of the Woman In Red?”
Gouffre’s smile vanished, replaced with a baleful scowl. “A foul desecrator. Was she who exiled us to these forsaken lands. Ask Meliora. It was from that sorceress’ service I plucked her.” The man without the mask shifted to the woman with expectant countenance.
“The Woman In Red resides in the Duomo of Revels,” Meliora cast her arm out and pointed eastward, “In the Mount Of Verba, at the boundary of The Veil.”
“Can you show the way?”
Meliora hesitated and looked to Gouffre, who spoke with amusement. “She can offer directions. What can you offer?”
“An end to exile.”
“What do you mean to do?”
“I will shear her soul.”
Gouffre laughed and the cavern shook with his mirth. “This one delights me! Eastward to that mount, succulent with terror. To carve her demense as your chest.”
/////Logos Literature 