Page 10 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
The voices I had heard belonged to the Mad Duke Orsino and his delicate bride. They entered through a heavy oak door, which slammed ominously behind them. Casting off his cloak, the Duke declaimed, “And now, my bride, you shall at last be mine. My pain, my woes, mytorments all are thine. Your dreams did end the moment we were wed. For now I take you to our marriage bed.”
The young lady I had seen in the vestibule flung herself wretchedly to her knees. “My lord, I hope that in some tender part. You find a shred of pity in your heart. My life, my soul, my virtue all to save. Or, I, alas, shall plunge into my grave.”
“Nor grave nor freedom shall you ever see,” intoned the Duke, clutching her to him in a manner I found quite unacceptable even in artifice, “but day and night do service unto me.”
My editor informs me that under the Creative Works (Uses, Abuses, and Recombinations) Act, Third Year, Twelfth Council, I am not permitted to share any more of the text of this production. I confess that I consider this very much a blessing. Suffice to say that, for the best part of the next hour, I wandered the halls and galleries of the Mad Duke Orsino’s castle, bearing witness to all manner of ghastly scenes. I did my best to avoid the bloodiest and most lurid but nevertheless saw far more than I was comfortable seeing. I should emphasise, for the benefit of readers in the Commonwealth and other similarly conservative societies, that Mise en Abyme is not wholly representative of the theatre as an art form and I have, in my later years, had occasion to find some plays most enjoyable.
Eventually I came upon a long and winding stair and, ascending, encountered the Mad Duke Orsino a few paces ahead of me. He was in the throes of a soliloquy about the pleasures he imagined would await him in his lady’s bedchamber when, quite unexpectedly, he stopped and turned towards me. His image shimmered and his face seemed to move out of focus for a moment. When my eyes adjusted, I saw in his place the young actress who had, up until this point, been personating the Duke’s innocent bride.
“Help me,” she whispered. “He’s keeping me here.”
I was insufficiently experienced in matters either of the theatre or of rescuing damsels to be entirely confident that this was not simplypart of the production. This left me hesitant to say anything lest I give offence.
She clasped her hands together in a manner wholly unlike the flourishes that had hitherto characterised her performance. “It’s du Maurier. He won’t let me go. There’s a door behind you. That way.” Her eyes darted to her right, as if she feared to give any more obvious direction. “I can’t go through it unless you come with me.”
Just as I was about to look, I remembered the impresario’s warnings and carefully kept my head facing forward, turning my whole body clockwise instead. There was, indeed, a door that I am certain had not been present a moment before. I had, by then, come to the conclusion that either the lady was sincere or this interlude was a part of the play in which I was required to interact with her as though she were. Reaching behind me, I clasped her arm and led her onwards.
Beyond the door lay a disordered room, its edges seeming to flicker and recede as one looked at them. Racks and overspilling trunks of what I presumed to be costumes lay scattered about, alongside tables littered with props, shards of glass, and hastily annotated scripts.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“It’s a kind of staging area. We can speak freely here.”
I turned to face the lady. She appeared to be eighteen, perhaps twenty, and well suited for the role in which she had been cast. “What is du Maurier doing? Are you in danger?”
“Not I.” She gave a slow smile, blinked, and then her eyes were mirrors.
And I saw within them my own startled face looking back at me.
CHAPTER TEN
The Mocking Realm
Even at thispoint in my career I was not a stranger to the attentions of otherworldly beings that wished to devour me. I was, however, unarmed and wholly ignorant of the natures and the weaknesses of the entities I now confronted. I had gleaned a little insight from my experiences thus far at Mise en Abyme, and Ms. Haas saw fit afterwards to explain a trifle more about the Princes of the Mocking Realm. My editor suggests to me that informing you at this juncture of conversations which can only have taken place after the experiences I presently describe robs the forthcoming narrative of any sense of tension or uncertainty. I personally do not understand this complaint. You, the reader, must surely know that I am writing this book many years after these events and, while it is true that some popular memoirs have been penned by the deceased (Miss Evadne de Silver’sLife Amongst the Bone Cults of Leibeing a particularly fine example of the genre), such texts remain a rarity and are normally composed by persons with access to and knowledge of powerful necromantic arts.
In any case, after this encounter (during which you may accurately conclude I did not die) I learned that the Princes of the Mocking Realm are phantasmal beings equal parts illusion, delusion, and memory who build themselves and their worlds from the thoughts and fantasies of mortals. It was for this purpose that they desired sacrificesand it was in their power to offer such gifts as to make the procurement of said sacrifices worthwhile for an ambitious or aspiring sorcerer. When one was drawn into their realm, as I was about to discover, they constructed a feeding ground of sorts shaped from the depths of their victim’s mind.
The moment I inadvertently caught the eye of my own reflection in the eyes of the actress, who I later identified as Miss Katrina de la Martynière, the world around me instantaneously shattered into a thousand tiny and jagged points of light that presently resolved themselves into the image of what was now called Industry Square back in Ey. The scene that the Princes of the Mocking Realm had seen fit to conjure before me was the execution (although this is not entirely the right word, for reasons that should soon become apparent to those for whom they are not already obvious) of the Witch King Iustinian. It was not an occasion that came to mind often but represented one of my most formative memories. I recall to this day the utter silence as a thousand onlookers waited, uncertain what horrifying curse the Witch King might even then be capable of visiting upon his subjects.
The king himself stood upon a platform, impaled on seven spears. The spears were attached to chains bolted fast to the ground. The rings to which they were affixed remain to this day. He was muzzled like a dog in order that he might speak no words of power, but, through heavy-lidded eyes, he watched us with a terrible serenity and an almost unbearable sorrow. On a scaffold above him a searing fire was lit beneath a crucible of soon-to-be-molten iron. The method that had been chosen for the execution was partly symbolic—the Creator is a being of fire and thus flames of all kinds are considered sacred in Ey—but partially in concession to pragmatic concerns. The Witch King is immortal, no wound will last upon his person, and even severed his members will retain life and malice and seek to return to wholeness. Encasement in metal, therefore, was deemed the only practical means by which he could be neutralised. I understand thatlater he was interred in a location known only to the Lord Protector Thomas Latimer and select members of the Chamber of Regicides.
Having experienced this day once, I was less than enthusiastic about the possibility of doing so again and was thus relieved to observe that the scenario had been presented, as it were, in tableau. Or almost in tableau, for a wind I could not feel stirred the long dark locks of the Witch King’s hair, and I was sure I saw him blink. Elsewhere in the crowd, a few scattered figures moved also. I recognised Latimer and my mother by his side, and some distance from them, my father and a child I knew to be my younger self, though none of us seemed quite as I remembered.
“Welcome,” said my mother, in a voice that was most certainly not her own. “This will be painless.”
“Though not swift,” added Latimer.
The child gave me a sharp-toothed smile. “And not actually painless.”
“Pain is an illusion.” I thought that was my mother.
“Then again,” remarked my father, “so is everything else.”
My family began to close in on me. I could already feel a strange sense of unravelling, as though my thoughts and dreams and self were being teased gently apart. I tried to run. But I did not try to run. I stood like a dreamer, aware of what should be done but unable even to attempt it. Their voices swirled around me.
Hold still—In the Creator’s name it shall be so—It has been so long since we—Perhaps it would be best if you left the Commonwealth—You can rest now—Father, I can’t—
Quiet now—I call you to service and ask only your faith—Be calm—Let us help you—Freedom—Surrender.
