Ink (29 page)

Jack leans back in a panto laugh, his hands upon his hips.

“Meanwhile,” he says, “the Harlequin made Pierrot's house quake, and relit the fire at his mother's tomb.”

Jack saunters round the room, picking this courtier or that to play to, subtly guiding them back to their seats; they back away from his advances, not even realizing that they're being herded as Jack dances here and there.

“Pierrot saw the fumes,” says Jack. “He thought his palace was ablaze, so off he runs this way and that” [and Jack darts this way, that way, round a maid] “shouting for servants to bring water, shouting
more
and
more
, till every slave was busy at this pointless chore.”

Now there are just the Princess and the Duke left standing out there on their own. Jack whirls behind them, pops his head between the two and gives a nod toward the throne. The Duke growls, but the Princess laughs and tugs her grizzled guardian back to his chair.

——

“He left this useless labor,” Jack says, “once he realized I was loose, and barged into the palace with his sword out. There, in truth—or so it seemed to me—”

Jack coughs into his hand, looks down.

“ A man can only tell you what he sees—”

He looks around as if to say
you won't believe me
, kicks the ground, milking the moment till his reticence gets a surly growl from our impatient host.

“It seemed,” says Jack, “the Harlequin had made himself a ghost.”

A puff of smoke and Jack's not there. He's back up on the stage.

“Pierrot charged at it,” he cries. “In headlong haste, he stabbed the shimmering air, thought that it was his enemy that he laid waste.”

Another puff of smoke and Jack's up on the wagon's roof. He whirls and jabs, enacts a mockery of a drunken swordfight with his flute. He twirls and stabs.

“The Harlequin just gave him more disgrace.”

He leaps for a rope on the lighting rig, tugs loose a knot, comes sailing down as the curtain dropped for the dream sequence rises on a scene of ruin.

“He smashed Pierrot's palace to a pile of rubble on the ground,” says Jack. ‘And there it lies, a sight to make Pierrot rue the day he thought to have me bound.”

Guy takes the rope out of Jack's hand to tie it fast.

‘At last,” says Jack, “Pierrot dropped his sword from sheer fatigue, fell in a faint, this frail ephemeral, daring to wage war on Harlequin the saint. In the meantime, well, I snuck out of his house and came to you, with little thought for Pierrot.”

He reaches down a hand to pull me up on stage.

“I suspect he'll show up soon. There is a sound of steps within. I wonder what he'll have to say, after all this?”

Jack strokes his chin.

“Well, even if his fury's never been so great, I'll grin and bear it. It's a wise man's way to keep his rage in check.”

And Jack sits on a polystyrene stone of Pierrot's palace, lights a cigarette.

“And hello… Guy. What have you got to say?”

“Well, Don, I'm sure it's nothing that someone as… strong-willed as jack Flash
has to worry about, but I heard a nasty rumor that the old boy has a rather nasty habit that he can't shake. Something that goes back a long way with him.”

“That's old news, Guy. You talking about the absinthe or the hash?”

“I was talking about another type of
tranquilizer.
Very
expensive.
Very
dangerous.
Killed a lot of people. He really should be careful.”

“And where did you hear that, Guy?”

“Oh, I wouldn't like to say. Just thought that someone ought to … point it out. After all, I'm sure Jack listens to your show. I'd bet even money that he's listening right now. And he may not even realize that he's got a… monkey on his back.”

“Nice to know you care, Guy, but this is Jack Flash we're talking about. I'm sure that he can cope with all narcotics known to man.”

The destruction starts at the motorway where the line of hotels and offices—the Hilton and the Hospitality, the Abbey National and the NatWest, all of them in flames—stretches south from Charing Cross right down to Anderston. Illuminated name signs, dark or showering sparks, are broken, falling from collapsing roofs, a skyline jagged as a hammered set of teeth. Payback for the shipyards, Joey thinks, for the demolition of the Clyde industries, the smashing of the unions of welders and engineers.
The spirit of Kentigern
, Jack used to say.
They'll never break the spirit of Kentigern.
And then they did.

There used to be a statue on Buchanan Street, Joey remembers, the ugliest piece of crap he ever saw; this molded lump of dull metal with flipperlike wings stretched up, twisted around, Christ, it looked like some fat mutant pigeon with its head buried in the ground. If the artist meant it to look
dynamic, potent
, then the artist must have been fucking off his trolley. But they called that sculpture “The Spirit of Kentigern,” and to Joey's mind the name fit: a crippled ugly thing.

So now it's petty revenge dished out to banks and businesses and anyone who works for them, poor fuckers staying in the Marriott to attend some SECC convention of toilet salesmen, paper-shuffling temps in corporate nowhere jobs, all the dumb masses of mundane reality whose only crime is their complicity. But that was always one of the biggest crimes in Jack's book. Not that Joey feels any sympathy for them. But, then, he's not the hero of the people.

The pilot brings them down the wasted canyon of Argyle Street, east toward the City Centre, flying low past dingy shops and pawnbrokers till they come to the Hielanman's Umbrella where the airdocks of Central Station bridge the road.

The green fire is still belching from the wireliner's skeleton.

——

As they skirt the flame and flumes of smoke and circle down toward St. Mungo's Square, Joey Narcosis pops another pill. He still doesn't believe it's really Jack, but he doesn't want any memories of the old times getting in the way of his job. He feels the chi running through his body, down the serpent of his spine.

The gunboat ornithopter's wheels just touch the ground, its wings still beating wide and loud, as Joey Narcosis jumps down onto the cement flagstones of the square. He orients himself; straightening up as the thopter rises back into the air, he gazes calmly around at the three sides of Georgian sandstone shops and offices, flames spouting from windows, skybikes and aircars parked all around the little ludicrous building that sits in the center of the square, a tourist-information place that looks like the turret of some Victorian folly chopped off and dumped where it doesn't belong. SS men stand behind it, using it as cover, while lines of grunt militiamen are ranked as cannon fodder out in the open, guns aimed up the long steps that fill the fourth side of the square and lead up to the mall with its shattered glass doors and burnt-out shopfronts, its majestic glass pyramid of a roof now little more than jagged bits of girders belching black smoke into air already full of darting thopters and skybikes.

Fucking amateurs, thinks Joey. A thousand sledgehammers trying to swat one fly. He flashes his ID as he pushes through the ranks toward the steps. Sheep in wolves’ clothing, he thinks.

Out on the stage comes Pierrot, his long hair loose and wild, black greasepaint tears streaked round his eyes with sweat.

“Outrage!” he says. “That stranger—he was held fast in the stalls, and now he's gone, escaped.”

He turns this way and that, sees Jack.

“You! There he is. There is the man! What is the meaning of this? How did you get here? How can you just
appear
outside my halls?”

“Stay back,” says Jack. ‘And, easy now, don't lose your head.”

“How did you slip your leash, get free?”

“Were you not listening to what I said? That I would be released?”

‘Always a smart reply, a question answered with a question, you sly …”

But his anger's taken over now, the words lost in an inarticulate growl.

“Who was it?” he demands. “Who set you loose?”

“The one who makes the vine grow thick for men.”

Jack twirls his fingers round his flute.

“You fucker!” Joey says.

“I'll take that,” says Jack, “as a compliment.”

Pierrot turns to call out orders to his offstage guards.

“Bar every door in the stockade. Close the perimeter,” he calls. “Lock every single fucking gate.”

‘And what's the point in that?” says Jack. “Can ghosts not walk through walls?”

Pierrot backhands me out of his way as he attacks Jack, grabs him by his catsuit's leather skin. I pick myself up off the ground, nursing my jaw. I blink. Fuck's sake, I think, that fucking hurt. I look at the tension in Joey's arms, the whiteness of his knuckled fist. The bastard's fucking wired.

“You're such a wise guy” Joey snarls, “except where actual wisdom is required.”

“Where wisdom's needed most,” says Jack, “I am most wise.”

Joey punches him in the stomach, turns to glare at me. Jesus, there's murder in his eyes. He lets Jack fall and crouches down a second, comes back with a metal glint of knife blade in his hand.

“Wait!” Jack says.

He points offstage and Joey snaps his head round, glares past me into the wings where Guy, in shepherd costume, stands. Pierrot Joey looks confused.

“Your messenger comes from the hills with news,” says Jack.

His words are rushed and out of breath. He holds a hand over his stomach, winded, and I have the seriously scary feeling that it's not an act. Joey has fucking lost it, man; Pierrot's madness—Christ, he's fucking
in it.
He stands there looking trapped in indecision, gripping the knife and turning now to Guy— who enters as Pierrot's messenger—then back to Jack.

“I'll keep,” says Jack. “Listen to him, hear what he's got to say to you. I'll wait. I'll not attempt to fly.”

“You lie,” says Joey, breaking with the script. “You have to die.”

“Just … listen to your … guy,” says Jack. ‘And afterward, then you can have your pleasure with me, kill me at your leisure.”

“Pierrot,” Guy says quickly, firmly.

He clamps a hand on Joey's shoulder, gives a solid gaze into his eyes.

“Pierrot, ruler of this realm of Themes! I have—”

Pierrot slaps his hand away. Guy stalls.

“I
have,” he starts again, “come hither from the hills where pure white snowflakes fall forever.”

There's a pause. The hand that doesn't hold the knife opens and closes at Pierrot's side, a cat stretching its claws. I edge away a bit; Jack looks like he's prepared to pounce. Guy stands there, simply waiting for the line. A hundred heartbeats as Guy faces Joey's madness down.

“What urgent message do you bring?” says Joey.

And our breath is audible as it's released.

“I've seen, O King,” says Guy, “the frantic maidens who flew out in barefoot frenzy from the city's gates. I come to tell you and the city of their awful deeds, things more than strange.”

Pierrot's knife picks nonexistent dirt out from beneath his fingernails.

“But first I need to know,” says Guy, “can I speak freely? Should I trim my tale or tell all that I saw? Your temper is so quick, m'sire; my lord, I fear your sudden wrath, the power of your ire.”

“Speak,” Joey says. “There's nothing you need fear from me.”

He seems to rein himself in, burying his anger. I glimpse guilt in how he glances at me, keeps his eyes away from Jack.

“Rage taken out upon the innocent is wrong,” he says.

But still the quiet threat is strong.

“The grimmer news you bring about these rites,” he says, “the grimmer fate awaits this bastard who's seduced our women with his song.”

“Well, then, it was today,” Guy as the messenger begins, “in the first light of dawn …”

In the first light of dawn, the earth grows warm in the sun's rays, and young Elixir feels the grass soft underneath his feet. He bats at the long stalks with his switch, sings as he drives the lowing cattle up toward the hill's ridge where the pasture's best. The morning air is fresh and, thinking of Accordion with his goats, his gifts of quinces, chestnuts, plums and voice, Elixir smiles. Sung him a song, he did, the other day, that got Elixir all stirred, in that way, you know. Not that he'd ever show it, mind, oh no. A thousand lambs out on the hills and ever-flowing milk from all his flocks and herds—Accordion's a find. Play hard to get for now, Elixir thinks.

Koré circles his feet, circles her tail in wild wags, wet nose nuzzling his leg, and he's shooing her out to
circle the flock not me, silly
, when he sees them.
What's this, girl, eh?

They lie there, some in beds of needles fallen from the pine trees, others with their heads on piles of oak leaves.
Ssh, girl.
Fast asleep in deep exhaustion, there's three groups of them; there's Indo and Autonomy, each dreaming with their troops, the rest gathered around—is it? it is!—the Basilisk's own ma. He whistles underneath his breath, calls Koré back, and crouches down to hold her.

He had heard Iacchus was in town.

It was all quite decent, sire
, he'll say,
not lewd as people claim, with them all out to sate their lusts, alone in the woods, crazy with wine and the soft music of the flute.
That's what he'll say when he's run down through the long grass and through the town to hammer on the Basilisk's wooden door, stood with his hands on hips, bent double and panting till he's caught his breath. That's what he'll say to the Basilisk, yes. But later, with Accordion and Chrome and Mainsail and the rest, he'll whisper tales with even less breath.
Ssh. Come here.

I saw the Bacchae
, he'll say.

He watches them until the lowing of his cows stirs the Basilisk's old ma and she rises up among them, gives a loud cry to awake the rest. Wiping the sleep out of their eyes, they rise, the old, the young, women and girls. Elixir watches them, in wonder at this sight of grace so modest as they smooth hair from their faces, flick it back to fall over their shoulders, stretch. If the Basilisk were here, if he could see this with his own eyes, thinks Elixir, he'd be praying to the deity he despises.