Geist, p.26
Geist, page 26
Victor felt his eyes stretch in shock.
“That said,” the Impresario continued, “there is no one scripture that dictates how Revelations will unfold. Only the ramblings of addled prophets and half-truths warped by centuries of revision. You are ‘destined’ for greatness, Victor. That can mean many things. The Far Messiah is just as likely to save the world as to condemn it to ruin. After all, ‘fate’ is nothing but the culmination of one’s own choices.”
“That’s oddly comforting.” Victor was about to go on a tirade on the nature of free will until the bells of awakening interrupted his thoughts as the Wall of Sleep quivered with every toll. However, one last question nagged at him. “Do you have a name?”
“Not that you can pronounce.”
“Mind if I call you Virgil then?”
The Impresario hesitated as if torn between professionalism and fatherly appreciation. His lips curled into a warm smile, and the fog rolled on. “This is acceptable.”
#
Two weeks had passed since the decisive battle. Government rationing had been relaxed, and commodities trickled into the black market. With each day, Yoshiwara recovered a little more, for the downtrodden were nothing if not resilient. Even the Harlot’s Repose was at peace, gravestones smooth and stoic against the crypts, dwarfed by mounded earth and the mausoleums of madams. Victor kept to the cobbled path, eyeing the bittersweet picnics of barbacks and grieving regulars. To his surprise, every grave was named, from Sally and Margaret to Lucy and Bella. Victor smiled, watching the lamplight shine off of the statue of Lady Fukuhara. Yuko was buried on the next row, under a mock sakura tree.
It wasn’t the first time he’d paid his respects.
“Thought we might find you here,” Charles called, sitting on a threadbare quilt next to Beatrice. “Brought the good shit.” He raised a bottle of Penitent Porter. “Want one?”
Victor sat without a second thought. The picnic was a welcome respite. A variety pack, cheese and crackers and, god-forbid, fresh grapes. Victor didn’t ask where they came from, imagining the Powder Kegs robbed a freight train en route to the City Above. Regardless, he’d almost forgotten what fresh fruit tasted like. How the grapes popped against his teeth, a tart burst flowing into sweetness. It was almost as good as the cotswold and stilton. Especially since he’d gone lighter on the whiskey. The trio engaged in small talk and pleasantries, but the shadow of recent horror lurked in every tree and tomb.
It was only a matter of time before someone brought it up.
“If you were yourself,” Charles asked. “Would you’ve still killed him?”
“I don’t know,” Victor admitted. “Leng was my friend. And I regret the way things turned out.” He paused. “But am I sorry that I killed the Dollmaker? That brought the serial murders to the end? That I avenged Yuko’s death? No, I stand by what I did.”
Beatrice inched away. “Jesus, man.”
“Really glad you’ve got your soul back,” Charles chuckled nervously. “You’re kind of terrifying without it.”
Victor raised his beer. “I know.”
“It feels so weird, though,” Beatrice said. “We were after the Dollmaker all this time, and now, it’s over. Just like that. Don’t know what I was expecting, but….”
“Preach.” Charles passed Victor the cheese platter. “Try to not have an existential crisis on me, dude, but what are we supposed to do now? We only saved the world. Twice. With the power of friendship and all that shit. Great. How the fuck do we get home?”
“I mean,” Beatrice said, “Is there a way home?”
Charles fiddled with his rolling papers but did not reply.
“You know,” Victor pushed the platter aside, “I’m not in the mood to theorize.”
“Feeling okay?” Beatrice asked.
“I’m…still coping,” he admitted. “Honestly, after everything that’s happened? I need time to reflect. Charging in headfirst without a chance to breathe didn’t exactly do us favors. Not that we had a choice.” He watched the lamps flicker. “I’ll be out and about for a while.”
Charles smiled sadly. “Be back before midnight, okay?”
“Will do.”
As his friends packed up and departed, Victor approached Yuko’s grave. He lay a hand atop its cold stone, reflecting on their time together. They’d met two months ago, but one’s first love is not fettered by length or emotional maturity. He understood that now.
It’s over, and yet….
Part of Victor scorned the futility of his entire journey. Would it ever end? Was there even a reason to continue? To think, even after the deaths of Thaddeus and Ingrid, Yuko and Leng, the Inferno and the Devil’s Hour still lurked in every darkened corner of the city. Save for a serial killer and plague, Holy Gothica was unchanged. Another part of him was less fatalistic. Victor had no doubt of the essential role of these “apostles” in keeping him grounded. Should anything have gone wrong, if his friends faltered in any way, the city would’ve been destroyed some time ago. Victor didn’t need to understand why he succeeded so far. Life itself was nothing but a series of nonsensical events paced by soul-crushing mundanity. Its meaning was relative to a morbid fault, but that same uncertainty came with the gift of freedom.
“Don’t give up,” he quoted Yuko’s tape. “You’d be pissed if I did.”
“That would be hypocritical, to say the least.” Slow, hobbling footsteps accompanied the voice, though Edgar kept his distance, leaning on a sturdy cane, his knee braced with a splint. “Forgive my intrusion, Master Roland—”
“What are you doing here?” Victor snapped, clenching his fists. A wraith of anger bared its fangs. Edgar had no right to linger. Not at her grave.
“I,” Edgar stuttered, “I would offer another apology, but we both know that won’t bring Yuko back. Moreover, you’re a man of action. I took what you said into deep consideration. To help the people I’ve hurt and better the world, as it were.”
Victor raised an eyebrow. He was a poor judge of character, but Edgar was transparent to a fault. Not a hint of smugness or sarcasm polluted his words.
“Some of the victims’ names and dates of birth were quite difficult to find.” The chocolatier glanced about the graves. “Still, the cemetery’s renovation is a small comfort to the grieving and murdered. All flattery aside, you have done more good in Holy Gothica in the past two months than I have my entire life. I want to contribute. Please, listen to my proposal.”
“All right….”
Edgar cleared his throat as if reciting a speech. “You have my deepest gratitude for bringing me back from utter insanity. Cronenberg released me from Alchemilla the day before yesterday. Moreover, while I have many connections within the Imperial Ministries, I am also a sympathizer of the Powder Kegs.” He nodded slowly. “Last year, Munchausen Candy Company expanded its platform to include the application of experimental energy sources. Many of Dr. Murdoch’s early inventions are patented under my name.” He bit his lip. “Sorry, I was never good at getting ‘straight to the point,’ as it were.”
Victor was torn between rage and pity. Edgar was barely worthy of life, let alone a second chance, and yet, the chocolatier’s wounds were still healing. Beyond the cane and fractured knee, he was haunted by regret and destructive errors.
Regrets that Victor suffered as well.
“Walk with me?” Edgar gestured down the eastward avenues, across the street, where Xanadu’s lights shut off at the district’s edge. “I assure you, my intentions are pure.”
Victor took a deep breath. “Don’t know why I’m doing this….”
#
Xanadu was closed for the night, its gate sealed by an iron portcullis, patrolled by sputtering automatons and searchlights. Candy-colored pillars supported the main entrance, off-putting in the dimness. Victor remembered the night he broke in to warn Yuko and the regret and shame that followed. Edgar raised a keycard to the light, and the gate buzzed open. Past the ticket booths, Victor joined him down the midway. The entire park was engulfed in silence, flanked by dead lamps, its attractions reduced to a hall of dreams on life support. Even the corporate office was hollow, jutting from the smokestacks like a prison tower.
“So,” Victor spoke up. “What exactly do you have in mind?”
“A step in the right direction,” Edgar replied. “My company’s greatest and most well-kept secret. I may be many things, Master Roland. Responsible is something I wish to add to my resume. Bear with me. We must pass a few more layers of security.”
Inside the factory was of little comfort. Up the stairs and down the walkways, Victor gazed out the windows, recognizing the assembly lines. Where the valentine models and other libertine toys were manufactured. Where Yuko was “born.” And yet, not a single engine or spare part was to be found, only an empty warehouse.
“Are they discontinued?” Victor asked.
“In a word, yes,” Edgar said, “From one widower to another, never try to replicate the dead.” At the hall’s end, the chocolatier pointed a remote at the elevator. The doors slid open with a chime. “If you please,” he beckoned, “I think you’ll find this most fascinating.”
“Hope so….”
Victor didn’t expect the lift to be so cold. Level by level, it delved beneath the streets of Yoshiwara, the city sewers and catacombs, and continued the descent. He’d lost count after the fiftieth floor. Only low drones penetrated the silence until the Music of the Spheres echoed from unseen depths; church bells and pipe organs, a choir of impossible baritones, vibrating with primordial power, surging through the silo’s lights.
“Do you know where our electricity comes from?” Edgar asked.
“The reactors,” Victor answered.
“And?”
“They’re powered by azoth, right?”
“And?”
“Well,” Victor mulled over his answer, “azoth is the mineral residue of the Symphonia Mundi. Which is tied to the Inferno. So, it’s like uranium, only with…divine music. Making the Devil’s Hour, ‘spiritual radiation,’ I guess.” Countless layers of marble and limestone passed the windows by, punctuated by the occasional fossil or doric column. Slowly, Victor realized how little he knew. “What are you getting at?”
Edgar threw him a wink. A thousand feet beneath the city, the elevator passed the final shaft and slowed to a grinding halt. The gate rolled aside, and Victor disembarked with care, feeling the smooth stone under his boots; firm and unyielding.
This was the foundation of the Holy Land.
He was welcomed by cavernous hymns and the percussion of industry as the earth breathed in tune with the tempo of ages. The cyclopean vaults were wreathed in chilling fog, walls carved with strange designs, resembling a circuit board of stone, shimmering with deep, blue light. Beyond the mist, an obelisk rose from a lake of astral liquid. Pneumatic tubes hung from the ceiling, pumping this power to the Phonos Engine and its reactors. These halls predated Holy Gothica by millennia, humbling the city as a tyrant’s playground in comparison.
“What is this?” Victor asked.
Edgar laughed. “That’s an excellent question.”
Neon hieroglyphs spiraled up the monolith’s surface as the commandants of a divine stele, ascending without end. Victor’s mind raced with possibilities; however, one seemed plausible. Whether a wound in the world or a fountain of dreams, this was the city’s power source and chain to the Inferno. A locus of worlds.
Edgar gestured to the far ledge, where a podium overlooked the pool of light. “Take a look,” he said. “Fear not. I am right behind you.”
Victor approached with great care, careful not to gaze too long at the lake of starlight. Atop the podium was a glass tablet; tilted, covered in cuneiform, embedded with a trio of gems. Two shimmered in the dimness, emerald and citrine, while the third was duller than a corpse. Everything was a synthesis of the mechanical and sacred: a union of order.
“I used to be colleagues with Doctor Murdoch,” Edgar said. “He and I were men of like minds. Sharing a need to see our visions made into reality. Contrary to what the Imperial Senate believes, Murdoch did not ‘discover’ azoth. Only the modern tools for its extraction. Nor is the Imperium the first civilization to use the Symphonia Mundi as power.” He did not avert his gazes, entranced by the eldritch grounds. “I hold no pretense of knowledge. However, I believe that this ‘machine’ is a granter of wishes. As those who look into the monolith will see a reflection of their heart’s desire.”
“H…how?”
“As I said, take a look.”
Victor took a deep breath and stared at his reflection in the stone. His features began to melt, morphing into Thaddeus first, his milky eyes and respirator, then Yuko, her coy smile and livid red hair, until a gate appeared, laden with copper-cast corpses and strange pipework. Beyond was a montage of grey sights and mundane comforts; the old arboretum, college campus, Gerald’s at G Street, the chaos of Victor’s dorm room.
“What the fuck?”
“Listen,” Edgar said. “This could change the world. For better or worse. He who uses the machine will have exactly one wish granted before its magic fades. Never to return.”
“How does it work?” Victor tried to speak. “H…how?”
“It’s latent power is more than enough to fuel Yoshiwara’s power grid, including my factories. However, that is only a fraction, an inkling, of its potential.”
Victor was mesmerized. Could this machine be his chance? A way home?
“Right now,” Edgar said, “it is incomplete, and only the darkest of resources can fuel it.” He shuddered. “After the leper riots and Ingrid’s murder, the first orb was lit. And when you brought the Dollmaker to justice, so was the second. But imagine if we could somehow find a way to awaken this machine. Think of what could be done!”
“So, the directors activate it?” Victor asked.
Edgar’s face contorted with anguish. “To the best of knowledge,” he replied. “And honestly, that is why I wish to collaborate with you. Pestilence and Famine have already soiled our city. And I am certain a third calamity will befall us. But we need only triumph one last time to awaken the glorious machine. And if we do…. Maybe the story of man will have a happy ending?” He managed a sad smile. “What would your wish be? What do you see?”
Victor watched the specters of dead friends orbit the gate.
“That’s an excellent question.”
END OF SCHERZO
About the Author
Diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at a young age, Fallon O’Neill has been writing since his sophomore year of high school. These scribblings and vignettes would eventually become the earliest drafts of his debut novel, Geist: Prelude. Dedicated and passionate, Fallon has worked his novels with the Blue Moon Writer’s Group for over seven years, culminating in winning second place at the Will Albrecht Young Writers Competition of 2012 and publication in the eighth issue of the Blue Moon Art And Literary Review. His favorite pastimes include grabbing a beer (or four) at the local bar, blasting soundtracks into his skull, and watching German movies from the ‘20s to keep the existential dread at bay.
Table of Contents
THE STORY SO FAR
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Fallon O'Neill, Geist
