The Wayward Muse, page 24
Then, it seemed to me, the light came ashore, surging up and over the cliff until it came with a rush upon my house. Diluted now, it was no longer capable of blasting stone or setting wood ablaze; it climbed instead to the open window in which Lucian Sombre and Eirene Magdelana were silhouetted, and flowed into their bodies like a flood that was no longer light at all, but the pure substance of dreams.
They were both magicians, capable of shaping the morpheotic flux, but they operated as such by permission of a force that was infinitely more powerful. It was not a god, nor a solution of ghosts, but it was not and could not be impersonal, for dreams are not merely the sustenance but the very fabric of personality.
Mother and son, who probably had not seen one another since Lucian had been weaned from Eirene’s breast, were reunited in more than sight or flesh. Their bodies remained separate, touching one another without any particular force or fervor, but their minds were fused and their emotions seamlessly combined.
They had both been mad, each in a distinct and idiosyncratic manner, but when the shapers of their dreams were exerted to intervene in their common plight matters of sanity and madness became irrelevant. Dreams have a logic of their own.
Eirene was weeping. So was her son. They were not unhappy; they were ecstatic. The music of the storm had entered into them–as had the music beyond the storm–but they were not tempestuous within; they had found, instead, a precious and preternatural calm. Even so, Eirene was weeping; this was not a new beginning but a closure, a final settlement of something that had begun a hundred years ago–perhaps to the day, given that whatever had happened between Vyvyane Bayard and the first Lucian Sombre must have come to its climax some time before the Haemon Redondo had foundered on the Devil’s Rocks.
After a while–I can’t tell how long–Eirene moved her arms again, releasing the body of her son. Lucian Sombre slowly toppled sideways, his knees crumpling and his torso sprawling across the bedhead. His hat fell away from his head, revealing his face to the candlelight.
I was surprised to see how old he seemed, although he had perforce to be 15 or 20 years younger than Eirene. Jean-Jacques had said that he gave the impression of being a dark man, but his hair was more white than black now, and his features were ravaged by wrinkles and liver-spots. I still didn’t know for sure whether he had been Phelim’s brother or father, or both, but the family resemblance was abundantly clear and the detail no longer seemed to make much difference.
I couldn’t help wondering whether I might be looking at some strange fleshy echo of the first Lucian Sombre–and whether, in some strange way, they were all figments of the same dark dream: both Lucians, Edom and Phelim too.
I am older than I seem, and I could easily imagine that Lucian Sombre was also older than he seemed, having won his own costly longevity by darker and different means.
Edom Sombre’s experiments in somnabulism had evidently involved Karenne Kracy in exactly the same fashion as Eirene Magdelana, but how much further they had extended I couldn’t estimate exactly. Here was an instance in which the sins of the father really did seem to have been inherited by the son, not once but three times over–but that inheritance had not solved the problems or ended the frustrations that had bedeviled the First Lucian Sombre.
I stepped forward and put my hand to Sombre’s neck, feeling for a pulse. I couldn’t find one.
He hadn’t been murdered; I won’t say that he’d been healed, but he hadn’t been carelessly slaughtered as Tybalt Sphendon and Morloc Hyat had been slaughtered, any more than he had committed suicide. His had been a relatively natural and peaceful death: an ending that was not so much fated as belated, having been held in long but mysterious suspense. I knew, now, why Eirene Magdelana had been gathering her strength and refining her power for so many years on top of Snowspur, in spite of the fact that the process was driving her mad.
I could only suspect, at that moment, that Phelim Kracy was also dead–killed by the literal fraction of the lightning-strike that had hit Lucifer’s Light. If so, I thought, the male line of descent extending from the first Lucian Sombre was now extinct... unless, of course, Candida Kracy was carrying a son and not a daughter.
“I had hoped that you would come to my concert, Eirene,” I said. “It was a special occasion.”
“I heard the music,” Eirene assured me, “and I heard the song–but I had to see Lucian first, before I attended to Karenne’s daughter. There is an order to be observed in these matters, no matter how chaotic dreams may seem. Oh, Edom, Edom! What have you done? Why could you not...”
The grief took her voice away. I knew that it wasn’t only the face of her son that she saw upon the bed but the ghost of her old lover. Even Phelim, who must have been something of a disappointment to his father, had been able to cast that kind of spell on Hecate Rain.
I stepped forward and prised the two guns out of Lucian’s clutching fingers, one by one. Then, I called out to Jean-Jacques. He took his time in arriving, having positioned himself downstairs exactly as I had commanded, with a shotgun at the ready.
“Barling is still alive, I think,” I told him. “Make sure that he’s secure. Constable Clovis can collect him at his leisure. That little phial he still has in his left hand must contain some remnant of the poison that he dripped into the decanter by the bed. Preserve them both carefully; they’ll be firm proof of his guilt, if any is to be required. The other man can wait, I think–but make sure he’s quite dead, just in case. Store him wherever it’s convenient.”
“Are you and the lady all right, sir?” Jean-Jacques inquired, casting an inquisitive glance in Eirene’s direction. She didn’t look well at all, but that was because she was so pale and distraught, and because her clothing, being soaked through, was clinging to her body in a very unattractive manner.
“Perfectly all right,” I assured him. “More to the point, how is Miss Kracy?”
“Asleep, sir–but troubled, I suspect, by a nightmare. Miss Rain and Miss Amalek brought the cot from the library into the dining-room in order to lay her down more comfortably. They’re with her.”
“I think I might soothe that nightmare now,” Eirene said. “I shall need your help, Axel–I’m a little drained just now, as you can probably tell by the fact that I’m making so much sense.”
“She can’t dream the child away,” I said, although I wasn’t at all sure. The pregnancy couldn’t be far advanced, and there was abundant scope for a miscarriage. I was attempting to discover whether that was Eirene’s intention.
“She shouldn’t even try,” was Eirene’s verdict. “The object of morpheomorphism is not to obliterate but to transfigure. Dreams are the fabric of our being; the destruction of their produce always leaves us diminished. It’s not the child that’s the problem–the problem is the dream that preoccupies it even in the womb.”
I recalled what I had said to Candida about some of the unborn being ready to be delivered, while others were only ready to fall. I also remembered what Hecate had told me about Phelim’s analogy between the maker of dreams and a half-tamed animal, still poised on the brink between domesticity and wildness. On the whole, I preferred my representation.
“The destruction of our dreams diminishes us by leaving us artless,” I murmured, by way of clarification rather than correction. “You’re right–the problem isn’t to obliterate, but to transfigure, to temper dangerous purity with exactly the right combination of impurities. If only it were as simple as it sounds.”
Jean-Jacques had already set about following my instructions. Eirene moved out of his way, and I beckoned her to the door. We went downstairs to the dining-room, where Hecate and Davida had indeed installed Candida Kracy on the cot which I had given to Hecate; it was longer than the dining-room sofa, and far easier to transport than the heavier one in my studio.
As Jean-Jacques had said, Candida did indeed seem to be in the grip of a troublesome nightmare. She was moving her head from side to side and her eyes were busy behind their closed lids. Her limbs were twitching, her fingers rippling on the counterpane as if they were trying to play a harpsichord.
“Do you, by any chance, have some spare clothes with you that might fit Eirene?” I said to Davida Amalek.
“Not good ones,” Davida admitted, blushing slightly. “Even the better ones have not been laundered.”
“No matter,” I said. “Luvah will find something.”
I called Luvah, who merely nodded in response to my request–but Eirene didn’t leave the room with her immediately.
“I think you should complete your concerto when we’re ready, my dear,” Eirene said to Davida Amalek. “I’m truly sorry that you were interrupted. Will you be able to play?”
Davida was puzzled, but she nodded meekly. Eirene nodded too, and went after Luvah in order to change into dry clothes.
“Where’s Ragan?” Hecate demanded. “Did you...?”
“I caught Ragan in the act of poisoning the water decanter beside my bed,” I told her. As Davida’s eyes grew wide, I was quick to add: “He didn’t know, of course, that Davida had exclusive use of my room. I was his intended victim. He’s in safe hands now–Jean-Jacques will make sure that he gives us no trouble until we hand him over to the Constable.”
“Why did you send Jean-Jacques for the shotgun?” Hecate wanted to know.
“There was a second intruder. He won’t give us any further trouble either. I’ll tell you the whole story later–but Candida still needs help. The respite she won before was briefer than I hoped. She must be our first priority.”
“What second intruder?” Hecate demanded, determine not to be put off.
I sighed, but bowed to necessity. “I believe that Candida is pregnant...” I began.
“By Phelim?” Hecate was scandalized.
“Yes. A belated twist of fate, I think. I deduce that Phelim and his father had made numerous attempts to impregnate her long ago–although I doubt that Phelim’s involvement began until he had concluded his affair with you, and may have been the reason... At any rate, Phelim’s father–and Candida’s too–was not Karenne Kracy’s husband but a man named Lucian Sombre, the son of Edom Sombre and the grandson of the other Lucian Sombre, who was the great pioneer of morpheomorphism. Their serial incest was no mere perversion, but an attempt to conserve and concentrate some hereditary virtue that Lucian Sombre detected in Vyvyane Bayard–fortunately or unfortunately, the fertility of their couplings seems to have been reduced in consequence. By the time Phelim guessed or found out that his sister was not barren after all, he and she were already en route here. Phelim must have sent word to Lucian to come as swiftly as he could. If he had been able to keep Candida on Lucifer... Well, I suspect things might have worked out badly for all three of them, given that Lucifer’s Light was struck by lightning a few minutes ago.”
“What!” Hecate didn’t know whether to rush from the room in search of visual confirmation of what I said, or to wait for the end of the story. Had she still loved Phelim Kracy, she would doubtless have chosen the former course. She didn’t.
“Instead,” I went on, “Lucian followed her here, hoping to get Candida away before his troubles were multiplied by scandal–a prospect which must have seemed all the more urgent when he was questioned by Constable Clovis. He brought a gun to aid him, but he didn’t want to hurt anyone... and the story had one remaining twist for which he was not at all prepared. Eirene, his mother, has spent a great deal of time on Snowspur purifying her own dreams and repairing the damage done to her by having once been party to Edom Sombre’s scheme.”
“What scheme?” Hecate demanded, mystification sharpening her tone.
“Eirene can provide the details, if she cares to,” I said. “The bare bones of it, I think, are that the first Lucian Sombre fancied himself a new kind of alchemist, He was obsessed with the secrets of eternal life and the transmutation of elements... not the chemical elements, in this case, but the elements of the soul. He hoped, by means of an alchemical marriage, to produce a very special child–a medium far more powerful than the likes of Vashti Savage–and to provide himself with the means not merely of a sort of resurrection, but of the acquisition of a new kind of power. He found a suitable subject in Vyvyane Bayard, but she was married. This is pure guesswork, but I think she was only allowed to travel abroad under the watchful eye of her husband’s brother, which proved to be not watchful enough from her husband’s viewpoint but rather too watchful from Lucian Sombre’s... At any rate, whatever happened aboard the Haemon Redondo set in train a chain of betrayals and tragedies that recurred, in one way or another, with every daughter born to that female line, until...”
I was interrupted at this point by Eirene Magdelana’s return. She was by no means flattered by Luvah’s second set of clothes, but she was dry and the color was returning to her cheeks. Jean-Jacques came in with her to report that Ragan Barling was secure and that Lucian Sombre’s corpse was safely stowed away in the cellar.
“Has Lucifer’s Light been struck by lightning?” Hecate asked him. “Has the tower come down?”
“The light has gone out, Miss,” he replied, “that’s all I know. Pray that no ships need its guidance.”
“Miss Amalek,” said Eirene, “will you play again, now?”
“I might not be at my best,” Davida muttered–but she knew that it didn’t matter. The point was to finish what she had started, as best she could. None of us, I suspect, was really at his or her best just then–not even me.
Eirene sat down on the bed on Candida Kracy’s left side, and indicated that I should take a similar station to the girl’s left. I did so, and matched Eirene’s moves in taking the patient’s left hand in my left hand, and placing my right hand on her left temple. Hecate, meanwhile, looked on apprehensively.
Davida began to play, taking up her piece at the exact point at which she had left off. She had only a few minutes to play–four at the most–but there was no need for any recapitulation or prelude. Although Candida had ceased to sing, the music had not entirely let go of her dream. The notes played by Davida were merely a catalyst; the true author of Candida’s continued distress was the storm beyond the storm: the disturbed power of Morpheus.
18
As soon as I heard the music start, I was part of it. I was no morpheomorphist, in any practical sense, but I was an artist. Even the most impure artist is capable of distilling his genius when the need arises–and Eirene Magdelana was the purest artist in the world just then. Just as she had fused her mind with Lucian Sombre’s she now formed a trinity consisting of herself, Candida Kracy and me.
I dreamed Candida Kracy’s dream. I met the monster that was distressing her.
The monster was not her child but something parasitic upon her child: something terrible. I have said, time and time again, that the dead do not return, and that what ghost-seers see is a reflection of something within, made manifest by artistry. I have also said that whatever makes our dreams has no life of its own, but only shares in ours. I hold to both those propositions now–but the first Lucian Sombre had been determined that the dead could and should return, not as ghosts but in the flesh, in blood, bone, brain and instinct, and he had been similarly determined to create new life and new force within that renewed flesh. He had believed that a man resurrected might be more than a man–all the more so if he had a pliant instrument to complete and complement him: a slavish empress whose morpheomorphic power might render her completely mad, but capable in consequence of working miracles.
Lucian Sombre was dead, but I met him again in Candida’s dream–not, this time, as an old or middle-aged man but as disembodied idea avid to be and to become, which needed flesh to accomplish its ambition. He had no face or form, nor even a shadow, but the raw material of dreams needs no such imagery to do its finest work.
It was I who made images, by way of defense; it was I who painted portraits on the walls of my inner world, to fill it and protect it.
I dreamed that I painted Eirene Magdelana and Candida Kracy, Hecate Rain and Davida Amalek–and what paintings they were! I painted a self-portrait of a kind I had never attempted before, not flattering in any vulgar sense but aspirational nevertheless; I painted the better person that I might perhaps have become in the best of all possible worlds but never would or could in the tawdry copy that is actuality. I painted people I could have loved, in worlds far better than ours but not that best of all possible worlds–and regretted, if only for a while, the impurities of my character that prevented my loving anyone so well in the spoiled simulacrum of materiality.
I was a better painter in that dream than I had ever been or could be, and was not surprised by the discovery. The reach of dreams is never limited by mere practicality.
At the same time, I dreamed as Eirene Magdelana dreamed, in the language of the wind and the sea, surrounded by a host of spirits. I lived in her madness, and saw the artistic limitations of sanity, restricted by conformity and morality, logic and induction, color and form. I gave my force, my life, my consciousness to Eirene, so that she might shape the other part of our dream that was Candida Kracy’s strange sleep and siren song.
At the same time, I saw the world as Candida Kracy had sensed it, unseeing, and reconstructed with the aid of her memory of sight. It was an exceedingly peculiar world, from an artist’s point of view, but I am not entirely the tradition-bound representationalist that my particular interests suggest. I understand other vocabularies of sensation. I know the myriad ways in which the world may be transformed by an imagination that collapses three dimensions into two, and refuses to respect the limitations of focus and perspective, lines of sight and demarcation. The world of Candida’s dream was a world by which I could be intrigued, and tempted... and a world in which I could work constructively, in harness with Eirene Magdelana.
We fought the monster that we could not see, and we slew it. We saved Candida Kracy’s child from the jaws of that disaster, and we saved Candida Kracy’s inner world from permanent corruption. I don’t say that we set everything to rights absolutely and forever, for she had a long period of spiritual convalescence ahead of her, but I do say that we put an end to the progress of the disease that had been planted within her, and prevented the possibility of any further spread of its infection. We gave her mind the opportunity and the space to begin the process of healing itself, without fear of any reverse.
