Page 9 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
“With all due respect, ma’am, while I have no doubt that there were pleasures untold at the court of the Witch King, the rest of us spent our lives hiding from the dreadwraiths and toiling in fields.”
“Whereas now, presumably, they toil in fields and hide from the witch hunters.”
“The witch hunters spare the innocent. The wraiths did not.”
“Fair point. I suppose Iustinian did kill rather a lot of people over the years. I personally try to stay out of politics. It’s usually boring or fatal, and rarely anything in between.” She offered me her arm. “Shall we go?”
We went, but I did not take her arm and she did not seem offended. In retrospect, I wish that I had accepted the gesture. I did not realise at the time how infrequently Ms. Haas made such overtures to people she was not intending to seduce. In the moment, however, my thoughts still very much on my homeland, my sense of decorum prevailed.
Mise en Abyme was located in Wax Flower Hill, a fact which did not surprise me, given what I had heard about both the establishment and the area. Like many parts of Khelathra-Ven, its history was somewhat obscure. To the best of my knowledge, wax flowers had neither grown nor been made there. At the time of our visit, as today, it was a tangle of narrow, sloping streets, accommodating a mixture of galleries, theatres, and garrets of dubious provenance, all primarily occupied by artistic persons in either the ascending or descending phases of their careers. These establishments (along with others, the nature of which I shall not discuss) made the region popular with a certain class of student, a certain class of aristocrat, and, if I may speak freely, a certain class of charlatan.
The building itself was an unassuming, rather ramshackle affair with shuttered windows and overhanging eaves. The wordsMise enAbymeappeared in faded yellow paint above the door and a poster, with peeling edges, announced that tonight’s performance would beThe Moste Lamentable and Bloodie Tragedie of the Laste Wyfe of the Madde Duke Orsino.
“As you can see,” said Ms. Haas, “du Maurier’s tastes are quite tediously lurid. Expect strapping stable boys, dewy innocents, sundry beheadings, and at least one wholly unnecessary ravishment.”
While I found many of the strictures of the Commonwealth to be gratuitous and stifling, I was beginning to think that the ban on theatre had its merits. “Could we not simply speak with Mr. du Maurier without attending this production?”
“No, the man is impossibly vain. And will give audience only to those who endure his, for want of a better term,art.”
A small, fashionably attired crowd had gathered in the street outside. The air was sticky with anticipation as we waited with varying degrees of patience for the doors to open. When they did, we were ushered into an already darkened atrium by a sylph-like youth and an (I presume) equally appealing young lady. A moment later, a shaft of brilliant light shone down from above, illuminating a hitherto unseen figure. It was a tall, somewhat bulky man, whose age I could not quite discern beneath his stage makeup. He was dressed in black velvet in a style that vaguely suggested the past without being tied to any specific era and surveyed us with hard, kohl-darkened eyes.
“I...”
Here he paused for a duration I assume coincided with the conventions of this medium.
“... am the Mad Duke Orsino. And you, gentle guests, are soon to bear witness to the treacherous, murderous, and lascivious misdeeds that I shall visit upon my lovely new bride.”
Another light blossomed, this time revealing a raven-haired beauty in an inappropriately diaphanous white dress. She brought a wrist to her forehead in an exaggerated gesture of sorrow.
“But worry not,” continued the Duke, “for ours is a most moral and improving tale that warns most correctly of the dangers that await those who indulge in vices, iniquities, and debaucheries. Rest assured that bloodiest retribution shall fall upon every evildoer and that no detail of this just and proper punishment shall escape your virtuous eyes.”
Ms. Haas moved her mouth close my ear. “I cannot believe I engaged in connubial activities with this gentleman. But I suppose I was very young.”
As a matter of record, I should add that the words “engaged,” “connubial,” “activities,” and “gentleman” were not, in actuality, used by Ms. Haas at this juncture, but I have taken some licence in representing her use of language in order to protect the sensibilities of my readers.
The Duke extended an arm as if plucking fruit from an imaginary tree and held the pose. “One small matter more, gentle guests. Our most marvellous and most wondrous theatre straddles the border between this world and another. If you are to go safely in this most mysterious place three rules must you obey without fail.”
“This bit”—Ms. Haas elbowed me sharply—“is actually important. Be careful.”
“One: never must you look across your left shoulder. Two: never must you look into the eyes of your own reflection. Three: should a voice call you by name, on no account should you answer. Should you break but one of these most vital prohibitions, disaster beyond imagination will befall you. Now...”
He gave another of his, to my mind, somewhat excessive pauses.
“... follow me into the castle of the Mad Duke Orsino.”
Then came a crack of lightning that made the audience gasp. In the brief flare of white, we saw a door at the back of the room, through which the Duke was swiftly vanishing. The crowd pushed excitedly forward to follow him.
Ms. Haas’s hand closed about my arm with surprising strength. “I should probably have mentioned earlier that we’ll be separated. But keep your wits about you and don’t break any of the rules.”
I very much wished that she had, in fact, mentioned it earlier. It was, however, too late to inform her of this as the press of the crowd carried me through the door and I found myself quite alone in a hall of mirrors.
CHAPTER NINE
The Castle of Mad Duke Orsino
Taking our host’swarnings very much to heart, I stared fixedly at the floor in order to avoid even inadvertently catching the eye of one of my many reflections. I could hear voices from deeper in the maze and decided that this entire affair would be most swiftly resolved if I moved towards them. As I progressed the mirrors fell away, and I stood instead in a vast and shadowy castle such as might feature in the sort of sensational pamphlets they sold from street corners for a penny. Not that I had ever personally partaken of them. My father would not have approved.
I should clarify, for the benefit of those readers who may not have encountered such phenomena, that there was no means by which the space I presently occupied could possibly have existed within the building I had entered just minutes earlier. I was not without experience of travel to other realities, although I had done so almost exclusively in a military context, and this, combined with the outlandish nature of my surroundings and the unsavoury character of my host, left me wary.
