Saturday, March 5, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
CYRANO AND THE TWO PLUMES:III
by John Shirley
And so it went, back and forth across the room, faster and faster, swords blurring, crossing with a sound like a percussionist’s triangle jangled by a madman; only the occasional minor touchรฉ was effected, with d’Artagnan getting a few shallow cuts on his upper right arm, Cyrano taking one one just above a nostril, so that blood ran into his mouth, and a scratch over the collarbone; but, equally matched, neither swordsman gained significant ground.
The two duelists became heated, the hilts of the flashing swords slippery with sweat, their eyes glittering like their sword-tips, their teeth bared with feral intensity. The fight was a curious wedding of tactical keenness and competitive animal fury.
After a particularly furious exchange of sharp steel, d’Artagnan stepped back into one of the tables holding a candelabra, rocking it so that the candle holder fell onto the floor, near a tapestry.
“Arrete!” d’Artagnan cried, and Cyrano nodded, stepped back, to give him a moment to smother the flames.
As d’Artagnan succeeded at this, Alcandre slipped from the shadows and hissed, “Cyrano! Now you fool—while his back is turned!”
Cyrano whirled on him with narrowed eyes, shaking with the affront of it. “What do you think I am!”
“Merci, Cyrano,” d’Artagnon said, turning away from the ashes, the fire now smothered.
“And now…” He performed his salut, Cyrano returned it, and poised to fight…
But just then the door to the inner room opened and a sleepy, rumpled young sovereign stood there in his silk nightshirt and bare feet, scratching himself. “See here, guards, where is d’Artagnan, he is to sit beside my bed! And what was that great crash that…” Then he stared, blinking, at Cyrano, realizing this was not one of his guards. “But who is this? What has occasioned here?”
The Count d’Artagnan turned instinctively to the young king. “Your Majesty! Go back into the other room and bar the door! I will protect—”
He did not finish the sentence, for the sorcerer had stepped up behind d’Artagnan, and struck him from behind with the fallen candelabra.
And Charles d’Artagnan crumpled to his knees, badly stunned.
“What!” Cyrano cried, outraged. “That is carton noir! It is not done, magician! We were engaged in combat between gentlemen!”
“Gentlemen? He is a murderous hireling of that Italian bastard Mazarin—and this pallid little tyrant!”
“Who’s a tyrant?” asked the young king, blinking in confusion. “And what have you done to my friend! d’Artagnan is quite dazed! Guards!”
“Kill him, Cyrano, before he brings the palace down upon us!” the Magician urged.
But Cyrano, gazing at the young man, felt some of the fog that had blurred his mind evaporate. “But—that is my king! This is Louis! The Fourteenth Louis! He is but a boy!”
“Mazarin is to die soon enough—and this boy will take full command of the nation! He will bring upon it wars and poverty! Do you not remember what I showed you?”
Cyrano remembered—as they’d traveled to this place, he’d seen, away in a metaphysical distance, the raveling and unraveling of time: he’d seen the building of Versailles, the self indulgent glories of the court, and the wars—the Wars of Devolution, the Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, the War of the Spanish Succession…
“Guards!” Louis shouted.
“Kill the tyrant!” urged the magician. “And you will not be struck down! You will live, Cyrano! Refuse and I will return you to your fate!”
d’Artagnan struggled to rise, blood rising from his head. “No…the king…”
“Odd,” Cyrano remarked. “'Struck down' did you say? The worthy d’Artagnan is here struck down, struck on the head by a foul blow—just as I was to be. Such strokes are the signature of villainy! They are struck off by the same diabolical hand! I believe it was you, sir, who paid to have me assassinated with a block of wood—so that you could manipulate me to your villainy!” The sorcerer’s scowl deepened; his eyes flicked. He did not deny it. Cyrano went on, “No, Magus—I am no marionetted believer in the monarchy, and I am not a floundering abaser before the Church. But I know duty when I see it and I know the diabolic when I smell it! And who is better equipped to smell it? No, sir Magus—my eyes are opened! You spoke of some distant tyrant but this is the monarch accepted, for better or worse, by the people of France! It is to them I defer—not the crown. Why should I kill King Louis? And why do you wish it done?”
“Why—in a few years, when he is grown a man he will cleave closer to the church, which will send its agents to hound me, to destroy me! I have seen it! It must be stopped! I will not be persecuted! I have used all my magic to this end! And as for you—kill him…or die yourself, Cyrano!”
“I refuse! He is not even armed! Am I to strike down a youth in his nightshirt? Am I a slinking footpad? No! The fight with my esteemed opponent has cleared my head of your dire influence… Again—no! I will not strike him down!”
The young king looked back and forth between them, puzzled, on the verge of shouting for help again—but falling under the magician’s mesmeric influence himself.
“Kill him, Cyrano!” Alcandre persisted. “—and I will give you your Roxanne! She will love you as you always dreamed she would!” the magician crowed, leering. “I will use my magic to bend her will to you!”
“Dog!” Cyrano burst out, scarcely believing his ears. “You expect me to insult her by despoiling her will—her very being? Never!”
“Then, Cyrano, you will die, and—but wait!” The magician’s gaze had fixed on the confused young king. “He is not wearing the charm!”
“The charm?” Louis muttered dreamily, his hand going to his throat. “It was uncomfortable to sleep with, an angular thing that woke me when I rolled on it, I put it aside—do you mean that it was truly…?”
“Gone!” Alcandre cried. “And I am free to strike him down myself!” He drew a dagger from under his bottle-green coat and lunged at the boy, who shrank back gasping…
Then the sorcerer gave a cry, as Cyrano’s epee flashed, and drove through the Magician’s ribcage from the side, to pierce both his lungs.
Skewered, the Magus stood there quivering, mouth agape, eyes wide with surprise, until the dagger fell from his hand. He followed it to the floor, slipping from Cyrano’s blade as he fell dying, bleeding copiously on the glossy marble.
“You…!” the magician rasped. “You, Cyrano…will die as fated…the oaken beam will fall on your head…for without my will holding you…holding you here…you will be removed to your destined place… In killing me—you doom yourself!”
“So be it!” Cyrano said. He turned to help d’Artagnan to his feet. “Monsieur, forgive me.” He turned to the king and doffed his hat. “Your majesty—I apologize for this disturbance. I…”
He was unable to finish the apology. The room containing the Musketeer, the magician and the King began to recede from him—like a transparent box dropped from a high battlement, to fall away, to spin, to smash into pieces.
And Cyrano, no longer held by the will of the magician, was drawn back; was gripped by destiny and pulled inexorably back to that October, that Saturday, that rain-wet narrow, cobbled street, outside the tenement in which he lived. Back to Ragueneau and that hurtling wooden beam…
He appeared on the street—the beam fell.
But he had forewarning, and there was just a split second in which he was able to move slightly to one side…
The beam struck him. Yet it struck his head more glancingly than it would have, had he not been forewarned. He gave a grunt and fell, flailing, into the street, driven senseless, thinking himself flying headlong into the arms of Death.
Cyrano woke a short time later lying, fully dressed, on his own humble bed. He was aware that some potion for the muting of pain had been forced between his lips, that bandages swathed his head. Waves of pain, dulled but unrelenting, rolled through him from the left side of his head. His vision was haloed, and dim. But he was still alive…for a time.
The doctor, talking in low tones to Ragueneau, confirmed Cyrano’s suspicions.
“He is in all probability dying. There is nothing more I can do. Who knows? If he remains in bed, perhaps there is some slight chance of recovery. If he rises…no. Even if he lies quietly, I can hold out little hope…Now, sir, I have no more time for charity cases—I must go.”
The doctor departed, and Cyrano closed his eyes. He heard Ragueneau speak to him. “Cyrano—I am going to find our friends. Perhaps we can combine our purses and bring another surgeon. Soup, at least—you have nothing to eat here. I will be back soon! Do you hear me, Cyrano?”
“Yes…yes my friend…my good friend…” Cyrano managed, through cracked lips. “How strange it was—I swear to you, I was carried off by a magician, who wanted me to assassinate the king. If I did the deed, I might live. But…I could not bring myself to do it. Thank heaven d’Artagnan was there to slow me, till my mind cleared, and…and I knew…”
“Indeed? Yes, Cyrano, it was well that he was there.” Clearly Ragueneau did not believe Cyrano. Incredulity was stark in his tone.
Cyrano wasted no more time on the tale. He had told many fantastic tales—his friend would conclude this was another, formed in delirium. “I must go to Roxanne…her gazette…I must see her again. Before the Old Fellow comes for me. I must….”
“No, Cyrano! You heard the doctor—you must not move! Do not stir! I will return!”
Then Ragueneau departed. Cyrano felt sick, caved-in within himself. But after a few minutes he managed to turn on the bed. In another minute, he was able to sit, and reach for his old cane. In another, to stand, leaning on the cane…
“She waits for me…Roxanne waits…”
And Cyrano staggered to the door.
At the funeral in the chapel of Our Lady of the Cross, the Count d’Artagnan gazed upon the face, the grotesque and noble face, of Cyrano Hercule-Savinien de Bergerac. Cyrano lay in his coffin, dressed in borrowed finery.
The Count d’Artagnan was pondering on a strange dream that had troubled him the night before. In the dream, he had been asked to protect King Louis against a feared, unknown assassin. To his surprise, Cyrano had appeared at the door of the King’s bedchamber…and with him was a disagreeable little man in green, who seemed to be a magician. d’Artagnan had the curious impression that the magician had somehow been directing Cyrano, with a combination of guile and will. The magician had threatened to send Cyrano back in time to an appointment with destiny, and death—a falling beam of wood was mentioned. The oaken beam will fall on your head…
And then this morning, d’Artagnan had been told by Le Bret that the man who’d fought so bravely at the Siege of Arras was dead. That he had been badly concussed by a falling beam of wood, but might have survived had he not insisted on keeping a date with a woman he had loved, chastely loved, for many years…
That Cyrano had died, in her arms, in the garden of the Ladies of the Cross.
Strange! The concordance of dream and real events. Could it be that in some future time he would in truth have to duel with Cyrano—who now lay dead before him?
Preposterous. And yet…
“Monsieur d’Artagnan!” called Ragueneau, joining him beside the open coffin. “Ah—how sad he looks!”
“And how is the Madame Robin—the lady Roxanne?”
“She has done her weeping, and now kneels praying for him at a shrine, just outside, where together they sometimes walked. She insists she feels him near her.”
“Perhaps—he was a great soul. I did not like his politics—but what a man!”
“Ah, to think I outlived Cyrano! An injustice. Only yesterday I read his Agrippine again. In it, you know, he said, one hour after death our vanished soul will be that which it was an hour before life. Yet I cannot but think that his soul will go on…journeying through time.”
“Through time?” d’Artagnan was startled by Ragueneau’s choice of words. The dream still weighed upon him.
“And it’s a most peculiar thing, monsieur,” Ragueneau continued, bemused. “But as I approached Cyrano, yesterday morning, just before that chunk of wood struck him, why—I seemed to see him vanish! To completely, vanish, for a moment! It was as if God thought, 'No, I cannot let this great man die thus!' and snatched him away. And then God decided, 'But then, I cannot change the rules of destiny for him alone!' And so, a moment later, he restored him…Cyrano reappeared, and was struck down! Well. Doubtless a trick of the light.”
“Yes. Yes doubtless…”
A young man entered the chapel—the son of one Duke de Guiche. Resplendently dressed in velvets, jewels and silk, he swaggered in, a flagon in his hand, a jeweled sword at his side. He wore a broad gold-stitched hat with a white flourishing plume. He was quite evidently drunk.
“So!” brayed the young de Guiche. “This is the famous Cyrano! I drink to him! But look—that nose—how will they get the coffin lid shut on that nose, eh? They shall have to crop nose or rebuild the lid! Ha haa!”
“Imbecile!” snarled d’Artagnan, drawing his sword. “Apologize—or die!” He flicked the sword, and–snip!—de Guiche’s plume fell, cut in two, to the floor.
The young nobleman squeaked in fear, and backed away—he fumbled at his sword, then thought better of it, and threw the flagon clumsily at d’Artagnan. Then he ran like a rabbit from the room.
Whereupon the Count Charles d’Artagnan turned to the coffin of Cyrano de Bergerac. He bowed his head. And d’Artagnan wept.
And so it went, back and forth across the room, faster and faster, swords blurring, crossing with a sound like a percussionist’s triangle jangled by a madman; only the occasional minor touchรฉ was effected, with d’Artagnan getting a few shallow cuts on his upper right arm, Cyrano taking one one just above a nostril, so that blood ran into his mouth, and a scratch over the collarbone; but, equally matched, neither swordsman gained significant ground.
The two duelists became heated, the hilts of the flashing swords slippery with sweat, their eyes glittering like their sword-tips, their teeth bared with feral intensity. The fight was a curious wedding of tactical keenness and competitive animal fury.
After a particularly furious exchange of sharp steel, d’Artagnan stepped back into one of the tables holding a candelabra, rocking it so that the candle holder fell onto the floor, near a tapestry.
“Arrete!” d’Artagnan cried, and Cyrano nodded, stepped back, to give him a moment to smother the flames.
As d’Artagnan succeeded at this, Alcandre slipped from the shadows and hissed, “Cyrano! Now you fool—while his back is turned!”
Cyrano whirled on him with narrowed eyes, shaking with the affront of it. “What do you think I am!”
“Merci, Cyrano,” d’Artagnon said, turning away from the ashes, the fire now smothered.
“And now…” He performed his salut, Cyrano returned it, and poised to fight…
But just then the door to the inner room opened and a sleepy, rumpled young sovereign stood there in his silk nightshirt and bare feet, scratching himself. “See here, guards, where is d’Artagnan, he is to sit beside my bed! And what was that great crash that…” Then he stared, blinking, at Cyrano, realizing this was not one of his guards. “But who is this? What has occasioned here?”
The Count d’Artagnan turned instinctively to the young king. “Your Majesty! Go back into the other room and bar the door! I will protect—”
He did not finish the sentence, for the sorcerer had stepped up behind d’Artagnan, and struck him from behind with the fallen candelabra.
And Charles d’Artagnan crumpled to his knees, badly stunned.
“What!” Cyrano cried, outraged. “That is carton noir! It is not done, magician! We were engaged in combat between gentlemen!”
“Gentlemen? He is a murderous hireling of that Italian bastard Mazarin—and this pallid little tyrant!”
“Who’s a tyrant?” asked the young king, blinking in confusion. “And what have you done to my friend! d’Artagnan is quite dazed! Guards!”
“Kill him, Cyrano, before he brings the palace down upon us!” the Magician urged.
But Cyrano, gazing at the young man, felt some of the fog that had blurred his mind evaporate. “But—that is my king! This is Louis! The Fourteenth Louis! He is but a boy!”
“Mazarin is to die soon enough—and this boy will take full command of the nation! He will bring upon it wars and poverty! Do you not remember what I showed you?”
Cyrano remembered—as they’d traveled to this place, he’d seen, away in a metaphysical distance, the raveling and unraveling of time: he’d seen the building of Versailles, the self indulgent glories of the court, and the wars—the Wars of Devolution, the Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, the War of the Spanish Succession…
“Guards!” Louis shouted.
“Kill the tyrant!” urged the magician. “And you will not be struck down! You will live, Cyrano! Refuse and I will return you to your fate!”
d’Artagnan struggled to rise, blood rising from his head. “No…the king…”
“Odd,” Cyrano remarked. “'Struck down' did you say? The worthy d’Artagnan is here struck down, struck on the head by a foul blow—just as I was to be. Such strokes are the signature of villainy! They are struck off by the same diabolical hand! I believe it was you, sir, who paid to have me assassinated with a block of wood—so that you could manipulate me to your villainy!” The sorcerer’s scowl deepened; his eyes flicked. He did not deny it. Cyrano went on, “No, Magus—I am no marionetted believer in the monarchy, and I am not a floundering abaser before the Church. But I know duty when I see it and I know the diabolic when I smell it! And who is better equipped to smell it? No, sir Magus—my eyes are opened! You spoke of some distant tyrant but this is the monarch accepted, for better or worse, by the people of France! It is to them I defer—not the crown. Why should I kill King Louis? And why do you wish it done?”
“Why—in a few years, when he is grown a man he will cleave closer to the church, which will send its agents to hound me, to destroy me! I have seen it! It must be stopped! I will not be persecuted! I have used all my magic to this end! And as for you—kill him…or die yourself, Cyrano!”
“I refuse! He is not even armed! Am I to strike down a youth in his nightshirt? Am I a slinking footpad? No! The fight with my esteemed opponent has cleared my head of your dire influence… Again—no! I will not strike him down!”
The young king looked back and forth between them, puzzled, on the verge of shouting for help again—but falling under the magician’s mesmeric influence himself.
“Kill him, Cyrano!” Alcandre persisted. “—and I will give you your Roxanne! She will love you as you always dreamed she would!” the magician crowed, leering. “I will use my magic to bend her will to you!”
“Dog!” Cyrano burst out, scarcely believing his ears. “You expect me to insult her by despoiling her will—her very being? Never!”
“Then, Cyrano, you will die, and—but wait!” The magician’s gaze had fixed on the confused young king. “He is not wearing the charm!”
“The charm?” Louis muttered dreamily, his hand going to his throat. “It was uncomfortable to sleep with, an angular thing that woke me when I rolled on it, I put it aside—do you mean that it was truly…?”
“Gone!” Alcandre cried. “And I am free to strike him down myself!” He drew a dagger from under his bottle-green coat and lunged at the boy, who shrank back gasping…
Then the sorcerer gave a cry, as Cyrano’s epee flashed, and drove through the Magician’s ribcage from the side, to pierce both his lungs.
Skewered, the Magus stood there quivering, mouth agape, eyes wide with surprise, until the dagger fell from his hand. He followed it to the floor, slipping from Cyrano’s blade as he fell dying, bleeding copiously on the glossy marble.
“You…!” the magician rasped. “You, Cyrano…will die as fated…the oaken beam will fall on your head…for without my will holding you…holding you here…you will be removed to your destined place… In killing me—you doom yourself!”
“So be it!” Cyrano said. He turned to help d’Artagnan to his feet. “Monsieur, forgive me.” He turned to the king and doffed his hat. “Your majesty—I apologize for this disturbance. I…”
He was unable to finish the apology. The room containing the Musketeer, the magician and the King began to recede from him—like a transparent box dropped from a high battlement, to fall away, to spin, to smash into pieces.
And Cyrano, no longer held by the will of the magician, was drawn back; was gripped by destiny and pulled inexorably back to that October, that Saturday, that rain-wet narrow, cobbled street, outside the tenement in which he lived. Back to Ragueneau and that hurtling wooden beam…
He appeared on the street—the beam fell.
But he had forewarning, and there was just a split second in which he was able to move slightly to one side…
The beam struck him. Yet it struck his head more glancingly than it would have, had he not been forewarned. He gave a grunt and fell, flailing, into the street, driven senseless, thinking himself flying headlong into the arms of Death.
Cyrano woke a short time later lying, fully dressed, on his own humble bed. He was aware that some potion for the muting of pain had been forced between his lips, that bandages swathed his head. Waves of pain, dulled but unrelenting, rolled through him from the left side of his head. His vision was haloed, and dim. But he was still alive…for a time.
The doctor, talking in low tones to Ragueneau, confirmed Cyrano’s suspicions.
“He is in all probability dying. There is nothing more I can do. Who knows? If he remains in bed, perhaps there is some slight chance of recovery. If he rises…no. Even if he lies quietly, I can hold out little hope…Now, sir, I have no more time for charity cases—I must go.”
The doctor departed, and Cyrano closed his eyes. He heard Ragueneau speak to him. “Cyrano—I am going to find our friends. Perhaps we can combine our purses and bring another surgeon. Soup, at least—you have nothing to eat here. I will be back soon! Do you hear me, Cyrano?”
“Yes…yes my friend…my good friend…” Cyrano managed, through cracked lips. “How strange it was—I swear to you, I was carried off by a magician, who wanted me to assassinate the king. If I did the deed, I might live. But…I could not bring myself to do it. Thank heaven d’Artagnan was there to slow me, till my mind cleared, and…and I knew…”
“Indeed? Yes, Cyrano, it was well that he was there.” Clearly Ragueneau did not believe Cyrano. Incredulity was stark in his tone.
Cyrano wasted no more time on the tale. He had told many fantastic tales—his friend would conclude this was another, formed in delirium. “I must go to Roxanne…her gazette…I must see her again. Before the Old Fellow comes for me. I must….”
“No, Cyrano! You heard the doctor—you must not move! Do not stir! I will return!”
Then Ragueneau departed. Cyrano felt sick, caved-in within himself. But after a few minutes he managed to turn on the bed. In another minute, he was able to sit, and reach for his old cane. In another, to stand, leaning on the cane…
“She waits for me…Roxanne waits…”
And Cyrano staggered to the door.
At the funeral in the chapel of Our Lady of the Cross, the Count d’Artagnan gazed upon the face, the grotesque and noble face, of Cyrano Hercule-Savinien de Bergerac. Cyrano lay in his coffin, dressed in borrowed finery.
The Count d’Artagnan was pondering on a strange dream that had troubled him the night before. In the dream, he had been asked to protect King Louis against a feared, unknown assassin. To his surprise, Cyrano had appeared at the door of the King’s bedchamber…and with him was a disagreeable little man in green, who seemed to be a magician. d’Artagnan had the curious impression that the magician had somehow been directing Cyrano, with a combination of guile and will. The magician had threatened to send Cyrano back in time to an appointment with destiny, and death—a falling beam of wood was mentioned. The oaken beam will fall on your head…
And then this morning, d’Artagnan had been told by Le Bret that the man who’d fought so bravely at the Siege of Arras was dead. That he had been badly concussed by a falling beam of wood, but might have survived had he not insisted on keeping a date with a woman he had loved, chastely loved, for many years…
That Cyrano had died, in her arms, in the garden of the Ladies of the Cross.
Strange! The concordance of dream and real events. Could it be that in some future time he would in truth have to duel with Cyrano—who now lay dead before him?
Preposterous. And yet…
“Monsieur d’Artagnan!” called Ragueneau, joining him beside the open coffin. “Ah—how sad he looks!”
“And how is the Madame Robin—the lady Roxanne?”
“She has done her weeping, and now kneels praying for him at a shrine, just outside, where together they sometimes walked. She insists she feels him near her.”
“Perhaps—he was a great soul. I did not like his politics—but what a man!”
“Ah, to think I outlived Cyrano! An injustice. Only yesterday I read his Agrippine again. In it, you know, he said, one hour after death our vanished soul will be that which it was an hour before life. Yet I cannot but think that his soul will go on…journeying through time.”
“Through time?” d’Artagnan was startled by Ragueneau’s choice of words. The dream still weighed upon him.
“And it’s a most peculiar thing, monsieur,” Ragueneau continued, bemused. “But as I approached Cyrano, yesterday morning, just before that chunk of wood struck him, why—I seemed to see him vanish! To completely, vanish, for a moment! It was as if God thought, 'No, I cannot let this great man die thus!' and snatched him away. And then God decided, 'But then, I cannot change the rules of destiny for him alone!' And so, a moment later, he restored him…Cyrano reappeared, and was struck down! Well. Doubtless a trick of the light.”
“Yes. Yes doubtless…”
A young man entered the chapel—the son of one Duke de Guiche. Resplendently dressed in velvets, jewels and silk, he swaggered in, a flagon in his hand, a jeweled sword at his side. He wore a broad gold-stitched hat with a white flourishing plume. He was quite evidently drunk.
“So!” brayed the young de Guiche. “This is the famous Cyrano! I drink to him! But look—that nose—how will they get the coffin lid shut on that nose, eh? They shall have to crop nose or rebuild the lid! Ha haa!”
“Imbecile!” snarled d’Artagnan, drawing his sword. “Apologize—or die!” He flicked the sword, and–snip!—de Guiche’s plume fell, cut in two, to the floor.
The young nobleman squeaked in fear, and backed away—he fumbled at his sword, then thought better of it, and threw the flagon clumsily at d’Artagnan. Then he ran like a rabbit from the room.
Whereupon the Count Charles d’Artagnan turned to the coffin of Cyrano de Bergerac. He bowed his head. And d’Artagnan wept.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
CYRANO AND THE TWO PLUMES:II
by John Shirley
They traveled through material barriers as a man strolls through a ground mist. They passed through thick outer walls, through locked doors; they passed beyond cornices and curtains—and as they came, the Magus showed Cyrano visions of the future. They shimmered through time and space, until Cyrano found that he had fetched up in a high-ceilinged, ornate corridor, outside a large, beautifully carved, closed door.
“Surely this is a palais,” Cyrano said, looking around at fine tapestries and golden candelabra, as Alcandre appeared at his elbow. “I have never seen quite such splendor, though I have been a guest in some very fine mansions.”
“Yes. In our time, just a few years ago, this wing of the palace was still being completed.”
“A few years ago? I had thought we were traveling some distance into the future, to some faraway time, but—”
“Silence! Would you go back to submit to that block of hard wood?”
“I have no desire for the Sword of Damocles, wooden sword or no, to descend upon me—but I must know—”
“Bah! Enter and see the tyrannical malefactor for yourself!” And with that Alcandre reached out to the knob in the center of the door, turned it, and pulled the door, creaking, ajar.
Feeling odd and unreal, Cyrano loosened his sword in its scabbard, licked his lips, and stepped through into the chamber. The Magus followed, closing the door behind them.
This was an antechamber to a bedroom, Cyrano supposed—candelabra on wooden tables stood to either side of the doorway to the inner room. But two men in finely figured helmets and cuirasses stood beside the candelabra, each man tall, and neatly bearded, each leaning on a long pike, and each wearing the livery of the king.
They looked at Cyrano with astonishment—then they rushed him, pikes lowering as if to doubly spit him.
“Intruder!” one of them shouted.
Cyrano reacted instinctively. Jumping to the right he snatched the nearest pike, just under the blade, as it slashed past him, jerked it from the astonished man’s hands, and slammed its butt into the guard’s forehead. The guard fell over backwards, quite unconscious. With the same motion Cyrano had blocked the other pike, but now the second guard made as if to rush past him out the door, to cry the alarm.
Cyrano swept the pike under the second guard’s feet, and tripped him. The guard’s helmet banged to the floor, rolling away, and Cyrano, reversing the pike, slammed the flat side of its blade expertly down on the back of the guard’s head.
The man gasped, and went limp.
Cyrano dropped the pike. “Big cumbersome things. Not a weapon for a real man—a weapon to keep real men at bay!”
“But you used it very well, monsieur,” the sorcerer remarked, sounding impressed. “Your skills have not been exaggerated.” He licked his lips. “Perhaps we should take a moment to cut their throats? Just to see that they remain quiet.”
“By no means! These are doubtless good, faithful men, only doing their duty!”
Alcandre shrugged. “As you will. And now—we proceed—for there is one who must undoubtedly die this night—”
“Who goes there?” interrupted a deep voice, from the inner door to the bedchamber.
Cyrano looked up to see the silhouette of a Musketeer stepping through the doorway. Beyond the Musketeer, in the light from a stub of candle in a silver holder, a slender male figure, of no great size, was visible sleeping in the largest bed Cyrano had ever seen. Stirring restlessly, but still asleep. The Musketeer closed the bedroom door behind him.
“There—you saw the tyrant! He sleeps!” hissed the sorcerer. “Win past this ruffian and kill him and all will be well!”
Cyrano’s gaze had fixed on the Musketeer—though he was dressed as a Musketeer, no musket was to hand. The man was armed with a scabbarded sword and dagger. His hat was rather like Cyrano’s, white plumed, but far less battered. His breaches and weskit were of blue silk, burnished by the candlelight, and his coat the finest cut; he wore the ribbon of a high officer. At his cuffs and ruffled about his neck was the finest white lace. His face was in the shadow of his hat brim.
“An assassin!” the Musketeer burst out, drawing his sword. Then—he hesitated. “But—do I not know this man? Were we not together at Arras? Did I not see your splendid duel at the Hotel de Bourgogne, in which you extemporized perfect rhyme even as your sword sought your enemy? How could I mistake that…profile? Are you not known as Cyrano de Bergerac?”
So speaking, the Musketeer stepped forward into the candlelight. Despite his finery, he had the lean, weathered face of a warrior. The bristling black mustaches and pointed goatee did not conceal two long scars on his face, nor an expression as severe as the beetling clouds of an approaching thunderstorm.
It had been some years, but Cyrano now recognized an old acquaintance: Charles de Batz de Castelmore, Count d’Artagnan. Once the fabled companion of Porthos, Athos and Aramis, d’Artagnan had put aside his roisterer’s ways to serve the Premier Ministre and the crown.
They had not been friends, Cyrano and this Musketeer—d’Artagnan was not of a literary bent, and had not always appreciated Cyrano’s sense of humor nor his notoriety for free-thinking, which d’Artagnan, in his middle years, had come to regard as mere anarchism. Nevertheless, they had a powerful mutual respect, forged at the siege of Arras.
So it was with regret that Cyrano de Bergerac drew his sword.
“Monsieur,” Cyrano said formally, standing en garde. “I ask you to stand aside. For several good reasons, I am bound to destroy the tyrant who sleeps in yon chamber, and would not destroy you also.”
Charles d’Artagnan snorted. “Did you really think I could step aside? You would not think of me in such low terms?”
“Not at all, sir. The request was a matter of form, merely.”
“And may I ask who is that who stands in the shadows behind you? What influence does this figure have upon your actions?”
“That is my own affair, Monsieur d’Artagnan. And now…”
Cyrano saluted him with his epee, d’Artagnan returned the salut—and Cyrano thrust testingly. d’Artagnan parried easily and riposted, with coup droit; Cyrano performed a contre-riposte, to which the Musketeer returned a contre-attaque; Cyrano parried with a false attack that became a feint, then a coup lance; d’Artagnan performed a grazing froissement and then lunged; Cyrano parried and for a moment they were grappling corps-a-corps. Then a degagement initiated by d’Artagnan and they were apart, again en garde, involuntarily grinning at one another.
And then Cyrano lunged. Count d’Artagnan parried…
They traveled through material barriers as a man strolls through a ground mist. They passed through thick outer walls, through locked doors; they passed beyond cornices and curtains—and as they came, the Magus showed Cyrano visions of the future. They shimmered through time and space, until Cyrano found that he had fetched up in a high-ceilinged, ornate corridor, outside a large, beautifully carved, closed door.
“Surely this is a palais,” Cyrano said, looking around at fine tapestries and golden candelabra, as Alcandre appeared at his elbow. “I have never seen quite such splendor, though I have been a guest in some very fine mansions.”
“Yes. In our time, just a few years ago, this wing of the palace was still being completed.”
“A few years ago? I had thought we were traveling some distance into the future, to some faraway time, but—”
“Silence! Would you go back to submit to that block of hard wood?”
“I have no desire for the Sword of Damocles, wooden sword or no, to descend upon me—but I must know—”
“Bah! Enter and see the tyrannical malefactor for yourself!” And with that Alcandre reached out to the knob in the center of the door, turned it, and pulled the door, creaking, ajar.
Feeling odd and unreal, Cyrano loosened his sword in its scabbard, licked his lips, and stepped through into the chamber. The Magus followed, closing the door behind them.
This was an antechamber to a bedroom, Cyrano supposed—candelabra on wooden tables stood to either side of the doorway to the inner room. But two men in finely figured helmets and cuirasses stood beside the candelabra, each man tall, and neatly bearded, each leaning on a long pike, and each wearing the livery of the king.
They looked at Cyrano with astonishment—then they rushed him, pikes lowering as if to doubly spit him.
“Intruder!” one of them shouted.
Cyrano reacted instinctively. Jumping to the right he snatched the nearest pike, just under the blade, as it slashed past him, jerked it from the astonished man’s hands, and slammed its butt into the guard’s forehead. The guard fell over backwards, quite unconscious. With the same motion Cyrano had blocked the other pike, but now the second guard made as if to rush past him out the door, to cry the alarm.
Cyrano swept the pike under the second guard’s feet, and tripped him. The guard’s helmet banged to the floor, rolling away, and Cyrano, reversing the pike, slammed the flat side of its blade expertly down on the back of the guard’s head.
The man gasped, and went limp.
Cyrano dropped the pike. “Big cumbersome things. Not a weapon for a real man—a weapon to keep real men at bay!”
“But you used it very well, monsieur,” the sorcerer remarked, sounding impressed. “Your skills have not been exaggerated.” He licked his lips. “Perhaps we should take a moment to cut their throats? Just to see that they remain quiet.”
“By no means! These are doubtless good, faithful men, only doing their duty!”
Alcandre shrugged. “As you will. And now—we proceed—for there is one who must undoubtedly die this night—”
“Who goes there?” interrupted a deep voice, from the inner door to the bedchamber.
Cyrano looked up to see the silhouette of a Musketeer stepping through the doorway. Beyond the Musketeer, in the light from a stub of candle in a silver holder, a slender male figure, of no great size, was visible sleeping in the largest bed Cyrano had ever seen. Stirring restlessly, but still asleep. The Musketeer closed the bedroom door behind him.
“There—you saw the tyrant! He sleeps!” hissed the sorcerer. “Win past this ruffian and kill him and all will be well!”
Cyrano’s gaze had fixed on the Musketeer—though he was dressed as a Musketeer, no musket was to hand. The man was armed with a scabbarded sword and dagger. His hat was rather like Cyrano’s, white plumed, but far less battered. His breaches and weskit were of blue silk, burnished by the candlelight, and his coat the finest cut; he wore the ribbon of a high officer. At his cuffs and ruffled about his neck was the finest white lace. His face was in the shadow of his hat brim.
“An assassin!” the Musketeer burst out, drawing his sword. Then—he hesitated. “But—do I not know this man? Were we not together at Arras? Did I not see your splendid duel at the Hotel de Bourgogne, in which you extemporized perfect rhyme even as your sword sought your enemy? How could I mistake that…profile? Are you not known as Cyrano de Bergerac?”
So speaking, the Musketeer stepped forward into the candlelight. Despite his finery, he had the lean, weathered face of a warrior. The bristling black mustaches and pointed goatee did not conceal two long scars on his face, nor an expression as severe as the beetling clouds of an approaching thunderstorm.
It had been some years, but Cyrano now recognized an old acquaintance: Charles de Batz de Castelmore, Count d’Artagnan. Once the fabled companion of Porthos, Athos and Aramis, d’Artagnan had put aside his roisterer’s ways to serve the Premier Ministre and the crown.
They had not been friends, Cyrano and this Musketeer—d’Artagnan was not of a literary bent, and had not always appreciated Cyrano’s sense of humor nor his notoriety for free-thinking, which d’Artagnan, in his middle years, had come to regard as mere anarchism. Nevertheless, they had a powerful mutual respect, forged at the siege of Arras.
So it was with regret that Cyrano de Bergerac drew his sword.
“Monsieur,” Cyrano said formally, standing en garde. “I ask you to stand aside. For several good reasons, I am bound to destroy the tyrant who sleeps in yon chamber, and would not destroy you also.”
Charles d’Artagnan snorted. “Did you really think I could step aside? You would not think of me in such low terms?”
“Not at all, sir. The request was a matter of form, merely.”
“And may I ask who is that who stands in the shadows behind you? What influence does this figure have upon your actions?”
“That is my own affair, Monsieur d’Artagnan. And now…”
Cyrano saluted him with his epee, d’Artagnan returned the salut—and Cyrano thrust testingly. d’Artagnan parried easily and riposted, with coup droit; Cyrano performed a contre-riposte, to which the Musketeer returned a contre-attaque; Cyrano parried with a false attack that became a feint, then a coup lance; d’Artagnan performed a grazing froissement and then lunged; Cyrano parried and for a moment they were grappling corps-a-corps. Then a degagement initiated by d’Artagnan and they were apart, again en garde, involuntarily grinning at one another.
And then Cyrano lunged. Count d’Artagnan parried…
Click Here for the Conclusion~
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
CYRANO AND THE TWO PLUMES: I
by John Shirley
One thing without stain, unspotted from the world, in spite of doom, mine own!—And that is…my white plume!
-Cyrano, in Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac
In the Autumn of the year 1655, two hours after dawn, a sorcerer in a bottle-green coat drifted invisibly over the city of Paris, not far above the rooftops. His body upright, the magician sailed past chimneys, and, once, without pause, right through a steeple. He flew along about as fast as a raven flies, when it is in no terrible hurry, traveling wherever his mind chose to take him. When the magician came upon a certain district, he slowed, and descended toward a neglected, winding side-street. Here he stopped, just below the rooftops. The sorcerer hovered, and gazed up at three laborers, climbing a scaffold onto the roof opposite. One of them was a burly man in a long tattered coat, most of his face hidden by beard and matted hair. The burly man carried an oaken beam to the edge of the roof, where he could look down at the street. He stood there, holding the beam in his arms, waiting—just as the magician waited. The other two workmen glanced at the burly man, then looked quizzically at one another. But they were afraid to ask questions.
Well might they be afraid of him. The magician knew this man in the tattered coat to be a murderer. He had murdered in the past, and he had been sent here today to kill again, for a handful of gold.
Perhaps the murderer would succeed, the magician mused. Then again, perhaps not.
The sorcerer descended further, almost to the street. Unseen and nearly unseeable, he drifted just over the cobblestones, where he watched the front door of a tenement in which lived the poet, philosopher and soldier, Cyrano de Bergerac.
Cyrano Hercule-Savinien de Bergerac buckled on his sword, donned his ragged cavalier’s hat, with its large white plume—its panache—and hurried down the creaking wooden staircase.
He paused in the doorway to gaze out on the narrow street, assessing the late October day—a bit gray, but it was no longer raining, and with his prodigious nose Cyrano savored the multifarious scents of Paris: minerals released by the new rain, wood smoke combined with chamber pot’s reek, the smell of meat and pastry cooking; some blossom, somewhere—or was it a woman’s perfume? Gardenia?
Ragueneau was to meet him here, in front of the tenement—stout, genial old Ragueneau, the baker and poet. They would gossip over a quick breakfast, before Cyrano went to Roxanne. Most Saturdays, when he was in Paris, Cyrano recited his society news to Roxanne as she did her needlework. Some of his ironic “gazette” he would obtain from Ragueneau; some he would cheerfully fabricate. Anything to please his love—his unrequited love.
He had spent a good deal of time, recently, sequestered with Pierre Gassendi, steeped in the priest’s strange coalescence of Epicurianism, Christianity and atomism, and he yearned for the grounding of his old friends and for the forgetfulness he found in gazing upon Roxanne in the garden of the Ladies of the Cross.
He had been warned not to return to Paris, but he had been born here, and Roxanne was here, and he could not be away for long. And if a duel was offered him, so be it. It had been years since he had fought a duel, but—perhaps that was the very reason he needed one. In the world of philosophy one felt distanced from the visceral energies of life. Risk quickened the pulse; only Roxanne made his heart thunder more.
But in a duel, he reflected, as he stepped out onto the narrow lane of rain-wet cobblestones, a man might hope for consummation…
Somewhere close at hand voices were chattering away in gutter French—but not from the gutters, on the contrary, the gruff male voices nattered from the rooftops, as if the ghosts of Parisian scoundrels disported on the eaves. Workmen, he remembered, were to replace a decaying section of roof-beam today. So his sour-faced landlady had informed him.
There, to his left, came Ragueneau, walking through a small flock of strutting pigeons, the birds foraging at a heap of garbage; the pigeons took noisily to the air at the baker’s approach, fluttering near “the king of Bakers” like courtiers, Cyrano thought, applauding the approach of young Louis IV.
Ragueneau was still portly, Cyrano observed, though perhaps a bit haggard with some of the ill luck that had dogged the once-wealthy merchant in recent years. His eyes lit up at the sight of Cyrano. The pigeons fluttered and Ragueneau raised a hand—then those same eyes widened, his hand stiffened and he cried out in wordless warning—a shadow crossed Cyrano’s eyes and he felt the wind of the wings of death—
And suddenly both Ragueneau and the pigeons froze. The pigeons simply stopped in mid-air—yes and in mid wing-beat. The birds hung there, motionless, wings spread, like ornaments depending from a string on a windless day; Ragueneau was as motionless as the pigeons beside him, his hand upraised in warning, his mouth gaping, mustaches bristling as if to underscore the alarm in his eyes. Even more remarkably, Ragueneau’s right foot was raised in the air, had arrested fixedly there as if poised on an invisible stairway. But there was no stairway in the lane. There was just Ragueneau defying gravity—for, as he stood there with one foot lifted for a step that never completed, he should have been falling forward.
“Ragueneau?” Cyrano called, his voice sounding muffled and distant to his own ears, “What ails you? You seem to have gotten yourself stuck.” He began to move toward his old friend—and felt a sudden iciness sweep through him; a wrenching, as if he were torn from the fabric of the world.
For a moment Cyrano seemed to drift in the air a few paces, like a dandelion puff. He seemed unable to guide himself in the narrow lane; he turned randomly in the air, like whirling smoke—and, to his considerable shock, saw himself standing at his own front door.
He had left his body. So it seemed: he could see his own body, frozen in place, mouth open to call to Ragueneau; Cyrano frozen in place as Ragueneau was. There was a shadow on the frozen Cyrano’s face. It was cast by an object impossibly suspended, supportless, in the air over his head: a large piece of wood, roughly shaped into a short beam. This piece of beam looked to weigh about sixty pounds. But as it had fallen several stories from the roof—doubtless it originated with the workmen up there—its momentum would give it a great deal more force than a mere sixty pounds, Cyrano knew. When it struck him, it would stove in his head.
But it did not strike his body. It stayed motionless in the air, inches over his forehead.
And to see himself like this, so objectively…his mouth open, smiling, his head turned, one hand raising in greeting, the other on the pommel of his sword… He could see saliva glistening in his mouth; could see the oil on his skin, the pores on his nose. The rather large pores on his rather large nose.
Well, now. His nose, seen from this perspective, was not really as big as he had always supposed. The mirrors had perhaps exaggerated. It was rather big, yes. But really…
But that thought was washed away by the fear that swept through him, another internal gust: a keen wind from the highest, coldest mountain peaks. If his mind was torn from his body—surely he was dead!
Dreaming or dead, he thought.
“No,” came a sibilant voice “You are not dead. Not yet. You are merely outside the stream of time.”
“Who speaks?” Cyrano demanded. He was not himself certain how he spoke himself; with his mind or with some manner of ghostly mouth. “Show yourself!”
“I am behind your psychic perspective. Merely think of turning toward the source of my words and your spirit will respond,” said the voice.
Cyrano did so, and found his point of view rotating. He was now staring at the tenuous figure of a compact man in a bottle-green frock coat, a high collar, a leonine face; his hair was a mane of silvered black around his globular forehead; his eyes were small and piercing, seeming more substantial than the rest of his psychic form. The stranger floated a few inches over the cobblestones.
“What you see is a mere projection of my mind,” said the stranger. “My body is in a trance state in the south tower of my manse, which is in…ah, let us merely say that it is somewhere in Normandy. As for yourself, I have prodded your spirit out of your body—here in one of the crystallizations of a moment, in the necklace of eternity, a spirit is easily nudged free…although I must admit yours was a bit more tenacious than most. No doubt it was rather wrenching for you.”
“It was! And who are you, sir, to interfere with my spirit?” Cyrano demanded. “What impertinence! I insist that you meet me, fully bodied, and give satisfaction! You will choose your weapon, sir, and we will have it out!”
The stranger’s voice was all silky condescension. “Do you not see the wooden beam caught in its descent toward your head, you fool? Had I not interfered, you would now be dead! Expired! Pffft! And as for my identity, you may know me as Alcandre the Sorcerer; also known as Alcandre the Magnificent, Alcandre the Brilliant and Alcandre the Enviable.”
“Your reputation has not preceded you,” Cyrano said coldly. “And I do not believe in magic. Nor the soul—I was speaking facetiously a moment ago of my spirit. Nor do I believe in miracles—I have argued against them with devastating logic! Even Gassendi agrees with me, in secret. So I must conclude that I am dreaming—or I have taken opium, and forgotten that I have done so. Or possibly I have been poisoned, occasioning delirium. Each is more probably true than your magical freezing of time.”
“I have not said that I have frozen time. It continues. We are merely outside its stream—we are, as it were, perpendicular to it, so that we do not observe its passing, but are fixed, temporarily, and temporally, within the crystallization of a single moment. However, we haven’t 'time' for the full explanation: a variety of subsidiary time relating to the entropy of our spiritual selves holds sway upon you and me. And so we must proceed apace with our business. I have saved your life, sir, for the moment. But if I but reinsert you into your body and give you another nudge, your destiny will unfold as intended. The murder will proceed. And you will die. Or—you can do my bidding, and live!”
“Hold! What’s that you say? A murder? How so? Clearly it is an accident! Or—about to be.”
“No, monsieur. I regret to inform you I came upon the information that you were to be murdered, this morning. A team of workmen repair the roof, yes. But one of them is not a workman—he is unknown to the others. His employer has been bribed by a certain gentleman, who works, in turn, for a—ah, a member of the nobility. I do not know exactly which one. This mysterious nobleman has been desirous of ending your life for a long time. But then—you have many enemies. Many have been insulted by your writings, your declamations, and the, shall we say, insinuation of your sword, which always seems to suggest, without much repudiation, that the nobility is made up of cowards...since they have concluded to run from it. One such has arranged for that oaken beam to be dropped on your head as you emerge.”
“I insist you tell me his name! I will confront the coward!
I will—”
“I truly do not know his name,” the sorcerer interrupted, not very convincingly. “You have so many enemies! Who’s to say? I could find out, but it is not important to me. You will find out—after you have done a certain task for me. I will intercede, and prevent gravity’s own cudgel from falling on you. Then you will be free to make inquiries. You can then rush to the roof and interrogate the carpenters. But first…if you wish to live, and have your revenge, you will do as I ask.”
“And should I make an unsavory deal with an hallucinatory phantasm, sir?” Cyrano said, doing his best to sniff contemptuously. Difficult to do when one is pure spirit. “To have dealings with the excrescence of a dream? I would not so degrade myself. Again I assert the unreality of this event.”
“You are not dreaming; and I am no phantasm. I am unbodied, but I am quite real. Oh, you are right about magic: what people suppose to be magic is not magic. It is all science—all of it! But some is a science unknown to scientists! It will appear to be supernatural. As for the soul—some have one, while others have not developed one. The soul grows within a man like fruit in a tree. Most such trees grow in poor soil and are poorly tended, they produce no fruit. A few have a truly great, juicy ripe fruit—a truly developed soul! You sir—I became aware that you have just such a soul. A rare thing! A fairly solid soul that would not melt instantly away, once free of its body. The sort the Higher Beings rejoice in, when it ascends to their plane.”
Cyrano made a sound of derision. “Oh you knew I had this 'special soul', did you? Indeed? And just how did you know that?”
“Why—your plume sir. Your panache!”
“My panache? On my hat?”
“No, sir. The other sort. That is what you sometimes call it, no? It is—an expression of your essential being. A summarization that adds up to more than the factors of the equation. A gestalt of self expression which expresses far beyond your walk in life, although you are unaware it is doing so. It emanates, sir, because of your nature. It sends out a beam of spiritual light…or more accurately, a plume of light…that acts as a beacon, for those sensitive enough to perceive it. And with the guidance of this beacon, I found you. Thereupon, I saw this murderous event coming—which makes you particularly suitable, since, frankly, it gives me leverage for negotiation, yes?”
“This is all the false conjuration of a mountebank,” Cyrano protested, though feeling increasingly less convinced of his own convictions. “I don’t know how it’s done, but…”
“It is no false conjuration, monsieur. Look around. Do you not trust the evidence of your senses?”
Gazing again at his statuelike body, Cyrano had to admit to himself that he was in a place beyond his experience—and that it did not have the quality of a dream. It had the ineffable tang of genuineness.
Alcandre the Sorcerer nodded as if he’d read Cyrano’s thoughts. “Exactly so. Now heed me: Because of the power of your panache I can reintroduce your soul into your body. I will then introduce it into a—shall we say, a 'shortcut' in time and space, which will transport you to the time and the place where you will do the deed. There, a distance in the future—you will kill a tyrant! A tyrant who will be the scourge of the poor! A terrible tyrant the world is better off without! That is another reason I picked you: you are opposed to tyrants. Thus you are triply motivated: you have the chance to save your life, rid the world of a tyrant and seek out he who attempted to murder you. If only you perform this one task—kill the tyrant!”
“What tyrant is this?”
“Does it matter? When we pass beyond the edge of the worlds, and traverse time and space to his sanctuary, I will show you a bit of his wickedness. The wars I have foreseen—they will go on and on! The weighty taxation on the poor to build a gilded nursery for himself and his playmates! He is a monarchical absolutist…the very thing you despise! And he will trample France, the nation you love, under his perfectly formed, exquisitely booted feet!”
“And if you are so powerful, why can you not take this shortcut yourself, stab the fellow yourself, and take the same path to exeunt, eh?”
The sorcerer scowled. “I am not the only magician in this land. There is one, secretly engaged by Queen Anne, who still works for the crown—or more specifically, for that scabrous conspirator, Cardinal Mazarin!”
“Mazarin? The Premiere Ministre? Mazarin is a Jesuit! He would have no truck with a magician!”
“He would prefer it thus, true. But in fact that Italian wretch has become aware of my motions, certain conjurations of mine have come to his attention, and he has become alarmed. His own magician is a dwarf of sorcery, scarcely more than a mere chiromancer, but he stumbled upon a rather effective crystal of time-seeing and in it he saw that I intended to destroy the tyrant. He also saw that if I attempt the assassination in this year, it will fail; I have seen this as well. But in the future, matters are not so fixed! What is definite in the near-future is indefinite a little farther on. So we travel in time as well as space. Now, this malignant Jesuit set a swordsman to guard the tyrant against me: a lackey, a bootlick for tyrants. But—a great swordsman. I confess I fear him. You see—he, also, has…panache. His 'plume', too, is quite powerful, and I’m not sure I can manipulate him magically…and then again, there is the small matter of a charm, with a certain saintly relic inside; it has been placed about the tyrant’s neck by that low-rent alchemist. And that too keeps me at bay. But the charm will have no effect on you. And as for the swordsman—why, monsieur, you are well known to be the equal of any swordsman!”
“Ah well. In my day, perhaps.”
“You are only thirty-six! You are at your prime. Would you have your life ended at a mere thirty-six by a falling log? The ignominy! A great man like yourself? The author of The Death of Agrippine and The Pedant Imitated? The hero of the Siege of Arras and the greatest swordsman of Paris? But now, attend: Here is a fourth consideration to compel you: You will learn if you are indeed a more masterful wielder of cold steel than this…this oaf sent by the Cardinal to protect the tyrant. Unless…you are afraid?”
“I? I fear no man! I am Cyrano de Bergerac! I am…” His voice trailed off as he became aware of a dull rippling sensation in the vicinity of what had been his head. He was vaguely sensible that some aspect of this proposal was befogged by that rippling sensation. Some bell of warning rang within him: Beware. Something clouds your mind…
But he was overwhelmed by what had happened, disoriented by the loss of his body. And how he yearned to be reunited with it! This floating about was not something he understood. He was a man of action—not a wisp to be puffed away like the last exudation of a chimney! It was true, as well, that he did despise tyrants. And there was the matter of the murderer. And the chance to see Roxanne again. . .
“Yes,” Cyrano heard himself say. “I will undertake this mission—if you will return me to my body. Although how you can do it without permitting the unfortunate intrusion of this block of wood, I cannot guess. It would indeed be inappropriate for me to die thus, I who have shown that so many others were block-heads by comparison. And so, if you don’t mind, I dislike this vaporous state.”
His voice trailed off again as he found himself swirling like a human dust-devil. The figure of the Magus made certain sorcerous passes—and then Cyrano was falling through a spinning tunnel, back into…himself.
A wet reverberation, a metaphysical impact, and he was back in his body, standing, now to one side of his own doorway, staring at the short wooden beam yet hanging in the air over the spot where he had stood.
“But—time is still arrested!” Cyrano exclaimed.
“Yes. Your body now moves freely through the crystallization of this moment. It will also move a short distance into the future…and there it will rejoin the flow of time. Meanwhile, this moment will remain crystallized. You cannot move that beam from its place however hard you try! Later, you will return to this place, and this time. If you destroy the tyrant as I request, I will return you to this spot, but one step to the right of that falling block. Time’s flow will resume for you, and the block will strike the ground beside you. You will be unhurt and free to resume your life and hunt down your enemy. Free to see your Roxanne again! Free to live past a mere thirty-six years, to explore the outer reaches of philosophy! But if you do not do as I ask—you will be returned to the exact spot from which you were plucked. And you will be brained by that falling block! Do you understand the choice?”
“I do, Monsieur Magician.”
“Very well. Turn and approach the wall. Do you not see the crack there, in the wall? Observe! The crack widens! What was only big enough for an ant now gapes open sufficiently for two men to walk through, side by side! It is a transient opening through space and time…”
It was as Alcandre maintained: a crack in the wall of the building groaned and quivered and expanded, wider and wider. Within it was a churning quagmire of nascent possibilities…
Into which strode Cyrano de Bergerac.
One thing without stain, unspotted from the world, in spite of doom, mine own!—And that is…my white plume!
-Cyrano, in Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac
In the Autumn of the year 1655, two hours after dawn, a sorcerer in a bottle-green coat drifted invisibly over the city of Paris, not far above the rooftops. His body upright, the magician sailed past chimneys, and, once, without pause, right through a steeple. He flew along about as fast as a raven flies, when it is in no terrible hurry, traveling wherever his mind chose to take him. When the magician came upon a certain district, he slowed, and descended toward a neglected, winding side-street. Here he stopped, just below the rooftops. The sorcerer hovered, and gazed up at three laborers, climbing a scaffold onto the roof opposite. One of them was a burly man in a long tattered coat, most of his face hidden by beard and matted hair. The burly man carried an oaken beam to the edge of the roof, where he could look down at the street. He stood there, holding the beam in his arms, waiting—just as the magician waited. The other two workmen glanced at the burly man, then looked quizzically at one another. But they were afraid to ask questions.
Well might they be afraid of him. The magician knew this man in the tattered coat to be a murderer. He had murdered in the past, and he had been sent here today to kill again, for a handful of gold.
Perhaps the murderer would succeed, the magician mused. Then again, perhaps not.
The sorcerer descended further, almost to the street. Unseen and nearly unseeable, he drifted just over the cobblestones, where he watched the front door of a tenement in which lived the poet, philosopher and soldier, Cyrano de Bergerac.
Cyrano Hercule-Savinien de Bergerac buckled on his sword, donned his ragged cavalier’s hat, with its large white plume—its panache—and hurried down the creaking wooden staircase.
He paused in the doorway to gaze out on the narrow street, assessing the late October day—a bit gray, but it was no longer raining, and with his prodigious nose Cyrano savored the multifarious scents of Paris: minerals released by the new rain, wood smoke combined with chamber pot’s reek, the smell of meat and pastry cooking; some blossom, somewhere—or was it a woman’s perfume? Gardenia?
Ragueneau was to meet him here, in front of the tenement—stout, genial old Ragueneau, the baker and poet. They would gossip over a quick breakfast, before Cyrano went to Roxanne. Most Saturdays, when he was in Paris, Cyrano recited his society news to Roxanne as she did her needlework. Some of his ironic “gazette” he would obtain from Ragueneau; some he would cheerfully fabricate. Anything to please his love—his unrequited love.
He had spent a good deal of time, recently, sequestered with Pierre Gassendi, steeped in the priest’s strange coalescence of Epicurianism, Christianity and atomism, and he yearned for the grounding of his old friends and for the forgetfulness he found in gazing upon Roxanne in the garden of the Ladies of the Cross.
He had been warned not to return to Paris, but he had been born here, and Roxanne was here, and he could not be away for long. And if a duel was offered him, so be it. It had been years since he had fought a duel, but—perhaps that was the very reason he needed one. In the world of philosophy one felt distanced from the visceral energies of life. Risk quickened the pulse; only Roxanne made his heart thunder more.
But in a duel, he reflected, as he stepped out onto the narrow lane of rain-wet cobblestones, a man might hope for consummation…
Somewhere close at hand voices were chattering away in gutter French—but not from the gutters, on the contrary, the gruff male voices nattered from the rooftops, as if the ghosts of Parisian scoundrels disported on the eaves. Workmen, he remembered, were to replace a decaying section of roof-beam today. So his sour-faced landlady had informed him.
There, to his left, came Ragueneau, walking through a small flock of strutting pigeons, the birds foraging at a heap of garbage; the pigeons took noisily to the air at the baker’s approach, fluttering near “the king of Bakers” like courtiers, Cyrano thought, applauding the approach of young Louis IV.
Ragueneau was still portly, Cyrano observed, though perhaps a bit haggard with some of the ill luck that had dogged the once-wealthy merchant in recent years. His eyes lit up at the sight of Cyrano. The pigeons fluttered and Ragueneau raised a hand—then those same eyes widened, his hand stiffened and he cried out in wordless warning—a shadow crossed Cyrano’s eyes and he felt the wind of the wings of death—
And suddenly both Ragueneau and the pigeons froze. The pigeons simply stopped in mid-air—yes and in mid wing-beat. The birds hung there, motionless, wings spread, like ornaments depending from a string on a windless day; Ragueneau was as motionless as the pigeons beside him, his hand upraised in warning, his mouth gaping, mustaches bristling as if to underscore the alarm in his eyes. Even more remarkably, Ragueneau’s right foot was raised in the air, had arrested fixedly there as if poised on an invisible stairway. But there was no stairway in the lane. There was just Ragueneau defying gravity—for, as he stood there with one foot lifted for a step that never completed, he should have been falling forward.
“Ragueneau?” Cyrano called, his voice sounding muffled and distant to his own ears, “What ails you? You seem to have gotten yourself stuck.” He began to move toward his old friend—and felt a sudden iciness sweep through him; a wrenching, as if he were torn from the fabric of the world.
For a moment Cyrano seemed to drift in the air a few paces, like a dandelion puff. He seemed unable to guide himself in the narrow lane; he turned randomly in the air, like whirling smoke—and, to his considerable shock, saw himself standing at his own front door.
He had left his body. So it seemed: he could see his own body, frozen in place, mouth open to call to Ragueneau; Cyrano frozen in place as Ragueneau was. There was a shadow on the frozen Cyrano’s face. It was cast by an object impossibly suspended, supportless, in the air over his head: a large piece of wood, roughly shaped into a short beam. This piece of beam looked to weigh about sixty pounds. But as it had fallen several stories from the roof—doubtless it originated with the workmen up there—its momentum would give it a great deal more force than a mere sixty pounds, Cyrano knew. When it struck him, it would stove in his head.
But it did not strike his body. It stayed motionless in the air, inches over his forehead.
And to see himself like this, so objectively…his mouth open, smiling, his head turned, one hand raising in greeting, the other on the pommel of his sword… He could see saliva glistening in his mouth; could see the oil on his skin, the pores on his nose. The rather large pores on his rather large nose.
Well, now. His nose, seen from this perspective, was not really as big as he had always supposed. The mirrors had perhaps exaggerated. It was rather big, yes. But really…
But that thought was washed away by the fear that swept through him, another internal gust: a keen wind from the highest, coldest mountain peaks. If his mind was torn from his body—surely he was dead!
Dreaming or dead, he thought.
“No,” came a sibilant voice “You are not dead. Not yet. You are merely outside the stream of time.”
“Who speaks?” Cyrano demanded. He was not himself certain how he spoke himself; with his mind or with some manner of ghostly mouth. “Show yourself!”
“I am behind your psychic perspective. Merely think of turning toward the source of my words and your spirit will respond,” said the voice.
Cyrano did so, and found his point of view rotating. He was now staring at the tenuous figure of a compact man in a bottle-green frock coat, a high collar, a leonine face; his hair was a mane of silvered black around his globular forehead; his eyes were small and piercing, seeming more substantial than the rest of his psychic form. The stranger floated a few inches over the cobblestones.
“What you see is a mere projection of my mind,” said the stranger. “My body is in a trance state in the south tower of my manse, which is in…ah, let us merely say that it is somewhere in Normandy. As for yourself, I have prodded your spirit out of your body—here in one of the crystallizations of a moment, in the necklace of eternity, a spirit is easily nudged free…although I must admit yours was a bit more tenacious than most. No doubt it was rather wrenching for you.”
“It was! And who are you, sir, to interfere with my spirit?” Cyrano demanded. “What impertinence! I insist that you meet me, fully bodied, and give satisfaction! You will choose your weapon, sir, and we will have it out!”
The stranger’s voice was all silky condescension. “Do you not see the wooden beam caught in its descent toward your head, you fool? Had I not interfered, you would now be dead! Expired! Pffft! And as for my identity, you may know me as Alcandre the Sorcerer; also known as Alcandre the Magnificent, Alcandre the Brilliant and Alcandre the Enviable.”
“Your reputation has not preceded you,” Cyrano said coldly. “And I do not believe in magic. Nor the soul—I was speaking facetiously a moment ago of my spirit. Nor do I believe in miracles—I have argued against them with devastating logic! Even Gassendi agrees with me, in secret. So I must conclude that I am dreaming—or I have taken opium, and forgotten that I have done so. Or possibly I have been poisoned, occasioning delirium. Each is more probably true than your magical freezing of time.”
“I have not said that I have frozen time. It continues. We are merely outside its stream—we are, as it were, perpendicular to it, so that we do not observe its passing, but are fixed, temporarily, and temporally, within the crystallization of a single moment. However, we haven’t 'time' for the full explanation: a variety of subsidiary time relating to the entropy of our spiritual selves holds sway upon you and me. And so we must proceed apace with our business. I have saved your life, sir, for the moment. But if I but reinsert you into your body and give you another nudge, your destiny will unfold as intended. The murder will proceed. And you will die. Or—you can do my bidding, and live!”
“Hold! What’s that you say? A murder? How so? Clearly it is an accident! Or—about to be.”
“No, monsieur. I regret to inform you I came upon the information that you were to be murdered, this morning. A team of workmen repair the roof, yes. But one of them is not a workman—he is unknown to the others. His employer has been bribed by a certain gentleman, who works, in turn, for a—ah, a member of the nobility. I do not know exactly which one. This mysterious nobleman has been desirous of ending your life for a long time. But then—you have many enemies. Many have been insulted by your writings, your declamations, and the, shall we say, insinuation of your sword, which always seems to suggest, without much repudiation, that the nobility is made up of cowards...since they have concluded to run from it. One such has arranged for that oaken beam to be dropped on your head as you emerge.”
“I insist you tell me his name! I will confront the coward!
I will—”
“I truly do not know his name,” the sorcerer interrupted, not very convincingly. “You have so many enemies! Who’s to say? I could find out, but it is not important to me. You will find out—after you have done a certain task for me. I will intercede, and prevent gravity’s own cudgel from falling on you. Then you will be free to make inquiries. You can then rush to the roof and interrogate the carpenters. But first…if you wish to live, and have your revenge, you will do as I ask.”
“And should I make an unsavory deal with an hallucinatory phantasm, sir?” Cyrano said, doing his best to sniff contemptuously. Difficult to do when one is pure spirit. “To have dealings with the excrescence of a dream? I would not so degrade myself. Again I assert the unreality of this event.”
“You are not dreaming; and I am no phantasm. I am unbodied, but I am quite real. Oh, you are right about magic: what people suppose to be magic is not magic. It is all science—all of it! But some is a science unknown to scientists! It will appear to be supernatural. As for the soul—some have one, while others have not developed one. The soul grows within a man like fruit in a tree. Most such trees grow in poor soil and are poorly tended, they produce no fruit. A few have a truly great, juicy ripe fruit—a truly developed soul! You sir—I became aware that you have just such a soul. A rare thing! A fairly solid soul that would not melt instantly away, once free of its body. The sort the Higher Beings rejoice in, when it ascends to their plane.”
Cyrano made a sound of derision. “Oh you knew I had this 'special soul', did you? Indeed? And just how did you know that?”
“Why—your plume sir. Your panache!”
“My panache? On my hat?”
“No, sir. The other sort. That is what you sometimes call it, no? It is—an expression of your essential being. A summarization that adds up to more than the factors of the equation. A gestalt of self expression which expresses far beyond your walk in life, although you are unaware it is doing so. It emanates, sir, because of your nature. It sends out a beam of spiritual light…or more accurately, a plume of light…that acts as a beacon, for those sensitive enough to perceive it. And with the guidance of this beacon, I found you. Thereupon, I saw this murderous event coming—which makes you particularly suitable, since, frankly, it gives me leverage for negotiation, yes?”
“This is all the false conjuration of a mountebank,” Cyrano protested, though feeling increasingly less convinced of his own convictions. “I don’t know how it’s done, but…”
“It is no false conjuration, monsieur. Look around. Do you not trust the evidence of your senses?”
Gazing again at his statuelike body, Cyrano had to admit to himself that he was in a place beyond his experience—and that it did not have the quality of a dream. It had the ineffable tang of genuineness.
Alcandre the Sorcerer nodded as if he’d read Cyrano’s thoughts. “Exactly so. Now heed me: Because of the power of your panache I can reintroduce your soul into your body. I will then introduce it into a—shall we say, a 'shortcut' in time and space, which will transport you to the time and the place where you will do the deed. There, a distance in the future—you will kill a tyrant! A tyrant who will be the scourge of the poor! A terrible tyrant the world is better off without! That is another reason I picked you: you are opposed to tyrants. Thus you are triply motivated: you have the chance to save your life, rid the world of a tyrant and seek out he who attempted to murder you. If only you perform this one task—kill the tyrant!”
“What tyrant is this?”
“Does it matter? When we pass beyond the edge of the worlds, and traverse time and space to his sanctuary, I will show you a bit of his wickedness. The wars I have foreseen—they will go on and on! The weighty taxation on the poor to build a gilded nursery for himself and his playmates! He is a monarchical absolutist…the very thing you despise! And he will trample France, the nation you love, under his perfectly formed, exquisitely booted feet!”
“And if you are so powerful, why can you not take this shortcut yourself, stab the fellow yourself, and take the same path to exeunt, eh?”
The sorcerer scowled. “I am not the only magician in this land. There is one, secretly engaged by Queen Anne, who still works for the crown—or more specifically, for that scabrous conspirator, Cardinal Mazarin!”
“Mazarin? The Premiere Ministre? Mazarin is a Jesuit! He would have no truck with a magician!”
“He would prefer it thus, true. But in fact that Italian wretch has become aware of my motions, certain conjurations of mine have come to his attention, and he has become alarmed. His own magician is a dwarf of sorcery, scarcely more than a mere chiromancer, but he stumbled upon a rather effective crystal of time-seeing and in it he saw that I intended to destroy the tyrant. He also saw that if I attempt the assassination in this year, it will fail; I have seen this as well. But in the future, matters are not so fixed! What is definite in the near-future is indefinite a little farther on. So we travel in time as well as space. Now, this malignant Jesuit set a swordsman to guard the tyrant against me: a lackey, a bootlick for tyrants. But—a great swordsman. I confess I fear him. You see—he, also, has…panache. His 'plume', too, is quite powerful, and I’m not sure I can manipulate him magically…and then again, there is the small matter of a charm, with a certain saintly relic inside; it has been placed about the tyrant’s neck by that low-rent alchemist. And that too keeps me at bay. But the charm will have no effect on you. And as for the swordsman—why, monsieur, you are well known to be the equal of any swordsman!”
“Ah well. In my day, perhaps.”
“You are only thirty-six! You are at your prime. Would you have your life ended at a mere thirty-six by a falling log? The ignominy! A great man like yourself? The author of The Death of Agrippine and The Pedant Imitated? The hero of the Siege of Arras and the greatest swordsman of Paris? But now, attend: Here is a fourth consideration to compel you: You will learn if you are indeed a more masterful wielder of cold steel than this…this oaf sent by the Cardinal to protect the tyrant. Unless…you are afraid?”
“I? I fear no man! I am Cyrano de Bergerac! I am…” His voice trailed off as he became aware of a dull rippling sensation in the vicinity of what had been his head. He was vaguely sensible that some aspect of this proposal was befogged by that rippling sensation. Some bell of warning rang within him: Beware. Something clouds your mind…
But he was overwhelmed by what had happened, disoriented by the loss of his body. And how he yearned to be reunited with it! This floating about was not something he understood. He was a man of action—not a wisp to be puffed away like the last exudation of a chimney! It was true, as well, that he did despise tyrants. And there was the matter of the murderer. And the chance to see Roxanne again. . .
“Yes,” Cyrano heard himself say. “I will undertake this mission—if you will return me to my body. Although how you can do it without permitting the unfortunate intrusion of this block of wood, I cannot guess. It would indeed be inappropriate for me to die thus, I who have shown that so many others were block-heads by comparison. And so, if you don’t mind, I dislike this vaporous state.”
His voice trailed off again as he found himself swirling like a human dust-devil. The figure of the Magus made certain sorcerous passes—and then Cyrano was falling through a spinning tunnel, back into…himself.
A wet reverberation, a metaphysical impact, and he was back in his body, standing, now to one side of his own doorway, staring at the short wooden beam yet hanging in the air over the spot where he had stood.
“But—time is still arrested!” Cyrano exclaimed.
“Yes. Your body now moves freely through the crystallization of this moment. It will also move a short distance into the future…and there it will rejoin the flow of time. Meanwhile, this moment will remain crystallized. You cannot move that beam from its place however hard you try! Later, you will return to this place, and this time. If you destroy the tyrant as I request, I will return you to this spot, but one step to the right of that falling block. Time’s flow will resume for you, and the block will strike the ground beside you. You will be unhurt and free to resume your life and hunt down your enemy. Free to see your Roxanne again! Free to live past a mere thirty-six years, to explore the outer reaches of philosophy! But if you do not do as I ask—you will be returned to the exact spot from which you were plucked. And you will be brained by that falling block! Do you understand the choice?”
“I do, Monsieur Magician.”
“Very well. Turn and approach the wall. Do you not see the crack there, in the wall? Observe! The crack widens! What was only big enough for an ant now gapes open sufficiently for two men to walk through, side by side! It is a transient opening through space and time…”
It was as Alcandre maintained: a crack in the wall of the building groaned and quivered and expanded, wider and wider. Within it was a churning quagmire of nascent possibilities…
Into which strode Cyrano de Bergerac.
Monday, February 28, 2011
MARCH, 2011
Featuring the serializations:
CYRANO AND THE TWO PLUMES
by John Shirley
John Shirley returns to bring us a tale of swashbuckling mystery and honor as he reveals what happens when sorcery crosses paths with Cyrano de Bergerac! {*Formerly published only in a rare, French anthology. To be serialized in three daily installments beginning Wednesday, March 2, and concluding Friday, March 4, 2011}
THE WHITE CUP
by Adam Bolivar
Adam Bolivar returns with the continuation of his Weird Jack Tale, begun last August with The Fox In The Thorn. Follow the adventures of Jack as he descends ever deeper through the rabbit-hole and into the dreamlands in search of the key that will bring him the fabled White Cup.
{To be serialized throughout the month of March, beginning Monday, March 7, and running Mondays through Thursdays, until its completion by the end of the month}
+ PLUS +
+ New stories by +
Sean Manseau
Shaun Lawton
Cardinal Sin
Vince Daemon
each remaining weekend in March!
~only on~
The Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
CYRANO AND THE TWO PLUMES
by John Shirley
John Shirley returns to bring us a tale of swashbuckling mystery and honor as he reveals what happens when sorcery crosses paths with Cyrano de Bergerac! {*Formerly published only in a rare, French anthology. To be serialized in three daily installments beginning Wednesday, March 2, and concluding Friday, March 4, 2011}
THE WHITE CUP
by Adam Bolivar
Adam Bolivar returns with the continuation of his Weird Jack Tale, begun last August with The Fox In The Thorn. Follow the adventures of Jack as he descends ever deeper through the rabbit-hole and into the dreamlands in search of the key that will bring him the fabled White Cup.
{To be serialized throughout the month of March, beginning Monday, March 7, and running Mondays through Thursdays, until its completion by the end of the month}
+ PLUS +
+ New stories by +
Sean Manseau
Shaun Lawton
Cardinal Sin
Vince Daemon
each remaining weekend in March!
~only on~
The Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
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Archive of Stories
and Authors
Callum Leckie's
THE DIGITAL DECADENT
J.R. Torina's
ANTHROPOPHAGUS
house ('90-'97), runs Sutekh Productions
(an industrial-ambient music label) and
Slaughterhouse Records (metal record
label), and was proprietor of The Abyss
(a metal-gothic-industrial c.d. shop in
SLC, now closed). He is the dark force
behind Scapegoat (an ambient-tribal-
noise-experimental unit). THE HOUSE
IN THE PORT is his first publication.
Sean Padlo's
NINE TENTHS OF THE LAW
Sean Padlo's
GRANDPA'S LAST REQUEST
Sean Padlo's exact whereabouts
are never able to be fully
pinned down, but what we
do know about him is laced
with the echoes of legend.
He's already been known
to haunt certain areas of
the landscape, a trick said
to only be possible by being
able to manipulate it from
the future. His presence
among the rest of us here
at the freezine sends shivers
of wonder deep in our solar plexus.
Morris's HOW THE GODS KILL
Konstantine Paradias's
Adam Bolivar's
Daniel Josรฉ Older's
Paul Stuart's
SEA?TV!
Paul Stuart is the author of numerous
G. Alden Davis's
THE FOLD
G. Alden Davis wrote his first short story
SACRI-FEES
Konstantine Paradias is a writer by
choice. At the moment, he's published
over 100 stories in English, Japanese,
Romanian, German, Dutch and
Portuguese and has worked in a free-
lancing capacity for videogames, screen-
plays and anthologies. People tell him
he's got a writing problem but he can,
like, quit whenever he wants, man.
His work has been nominated
for a Pushcart Prize.
Edward Morris's
ONE NIGHT IN MANHATTAN
Edward Morris's
MERCY STREET
Edward Morris is a 2011 nominee for
the Pushcart Prize in literature, has
also been nominated for the 2009
Rhysling Award and the 2005 British
Science Fiction Association Award.
His short stories have been published
over a hundred and twenty times in
four languages, most recently at
PerhihelionSF, the Red Penny Papers'
SUPERPOW! anthology, and The
Magazine of Bizarro Fiction. He lives
and works in Portland as a writer,
editor, spoken word MC and bouncer,
and is also a regular guest author at
the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.
Tim Fezz's
BURNT WEENY SANDWICH
Tim Fezz's
MANY SILVERED MOONS AGO
Tim Fezz hails out of the shattered
streets of Philly destroying the air-
waves and people's minds in the
underground with his band OLD
FEZZIWIG. He's been known to
dip his razor quill into his own
blood and pen a twisted tale
every now and again. We are
delighted to have him onboard
the FREEZINE and we hope
you are, too.
Daniel E. Lambert's
DEAD CLOWN AND MAGNET HEAD
Daniel E. Lambert teaches English
at California State University, Los
Angeles and East Los Angeles College.
He also teaches online Literature
courses for Colorado Technical
University. His writing appears
in Silver Apples, Easy Reader,
Other Worlds, Wrapped in Plastic
and The Daily Breeze. His work
also appears in the anthologies
When Words Collide, Flash It,
Daily Flash 2012, Daily Frights
2012, An Island of Egrets and
Timeless Voices. His collection
of poetry and prose, Love and
Other Diversions, is available
through Amazon. He lives in
Southern California with his
wife, poet and author Anhthao Bui.
Phoenix's
AGAIN AND AGAIN
Phoenix has enjoyed writing since he
was a little kid. He finds much import-
ance and truth in creative expression.
Phoenix has written over sixty books,
and has published everything from
novels, to poetry and philosophy.
He hopes to inspire people with his
writing and to ask difficult questions
about our world and the universe.
Phoenix lives in Salt Lake City, Utah,
where he spends much of his time
reading books on science, philosophy,
and literature. He spends a good deal
of his free time writing and working
on new books. The Freezine of Fant-
asy and Science Fiction welcomes him
and his unique, intense vision.
Discover Phoenix's books at his author
page on Amazon. Also check out his blog.
Adam Bolivar's
SERVITORS OF THE
OUTER DARKNESS
Adam Bolivar's
THE DEVIL & SIR
FRANCIS DRAKE
THE TIME-EATER
Adam Bolivar is an expatriate Bostonian
Adam Bolivar is an expatriate Bostonian
who has lived in New Orleans and Berkeley,
and currently resides in Portland, Oregon
with his beloved wife and fluffy gray cat
Dahlia. Adam wears round, antique glasses
and has a fondness for hats. His greatest
inspirations include H.P. Lovecraft,
Jack tales and coffee. He has been
a Romantic poet for as long as any-
one can remember, specializing in
the composition of spectral balladry,
utilizing to great effect a traditional
poetic form that taps into the haunted
undercurrents of folklore seldom found
in other forms of writing.
His poetry has appeared on the pages
of such publications as SPECTRAL
REALMS and BLACK WINGS OF
CTHULHU, and a poem of his,
"The Rime of the Eldritch Mariner,"
won the Rhysling Award for long-form
poetry. His collection of weird balladry
and Jack tales, THE LAY OF OLD HEX,
was published by Hippocampus Press in 2017.
Sanford Meschkow's
INEVITABLE
Sanford Meschkow is a retired former
NYer who married a Philly suburban
Main Line girl. Sanford has been pub-
lished in a 1970s issue of AMAZING.
We welcome him here on the FREE-
ZINE of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Owen R. Powell's
NOETIC VACATIONS
Little is known of the mysterious
Owen R. Powell (oftentimes referred
to as Orp online). That is because he
usually keeps moving. The story
Noetic Vacations marks his first
appearance in the Freezine.
Gene Stewart
(writing as Art Wester)
GROUND PORK
Gene Stewart's
CRYPTID'S LAIR
Gene Stewart is a writer and artist.
He currently lives in the Midwest
American Wilderness where he is
researching tales of mystical realism,
writing ficta mystica, and exploring
the dark by casting a little light into
the shadows. Follow this link to his
website where there are many samples
of his writing and much else; come
explore.
Daniel Josรฉ Older's
GRAVEYARD WALTZ
Daniel Josรฉ Older's
THE COLLECTOR
Daniel Josรฉ Older's
THE COLLECTOR
Daniel Josรฉ Older's spiritually driven,
urban storytelling takes root at the
crossroads of myth and history.
With sardonic, uplifting and often
hilarious prose, Older draws from
his work as an overnight 911 paramedic,
a teaching artist & an antiracist/antisexist
organizer to weave fast-moving, emotionally
engaging plots that speak whispers and
shouts about power and privilege in
modern day New York City. His work
has appeared in the Freezine of Fantasy
and Science Fiction, The ShadowCast
Audio Anthology, The Tide Pool, and
the collection Sunshine/Noir, and is
featured in Sheree Renee Thomas'
Black Pot Mojo Reading Series in Harlem.
When he's not writing, teaching or
riding around in an ambulance,
Daniel can be found performing with
his Brooklyn-based soul quartet
Ghost Star. His blog about the
ridiculous and disturbing world
of EMS can be found here.
Paul Stuart's
SEA?TV!
Paul Stuart is the author of numerous
biographical blurbs written in the third
person. His previously published fiction
appears in The Vault of Punk Horror and
His non-fiction financial pieces can be found
in a shiny, west-coast magazine that features
pictures of expensive homes, as well as images
of women in casual poses and their accessories.
Consider writing him at paul@twilightlane.com,
if you'd like some thing from his garage. In fall
2010, look for Grade 12 Trigonometry and
Pre-Calculus -With Zombies.
Rain Grave's
MAU BAST
Rain Graves is an award winning
Blag Dahlia's
armed to the teeth
with LIPSTICK
BLAG DAHLIA is a Rock Legend.
Rain Grave's
MAU BAST
Rain Graves is an award winning
author of horror, science fiction and
poetry. She is best known for the 2002
Bram Stoker Award winner for Best
Poetry Collection, The Gossamer Eye
(along with Mark McLaughlin and
David Niall Wilson). Her most
recent book, Barfodder: Poetry
Written in Dark Bars and Questionable
Cafes, has been hailed by Publisher's
Weekly as "Bukowski meets Lovecraft..."
in January of 2009. She lives and
writes in San Francisco, performing
spoken word at events around the
country. 877-DRK-POEM -
Listen. http://raingraves.com/
Blag Dahlia's
armed to the teeth
with LIPSTICK
BLAG DAHLIA is a Rock Legend.
Singer, Songwriter, producer &
founder of the notorious DWARVES.
He has written two novels, ‘NINA’ and
‘ARMED to the TEETH with LIPSTICK’.
G. Alden Davis's
THE FOLD
G. Alden Davis wrote his first short story
in high school, and received a creative
writing scholarship for the effort. Soon
afterward he discovered that words were
not enough, and left for art school. He was
awarded the Emeritus Fellowship along
with his BFA from Memphis College of Art
in '94, and entered the videogame industry
as a team leader and 3D artist. He has over
25 published games to his credit. Mr. Davis
is a Burningman participant of 14 years,
and he swings a mean sword in the SCA.
He's also the best friend I ever had. He
was taken away from us last year on Jan
25 and I'll never be able to understand why.
Together we were a fantastic duo, the
legendary Grub Bros. Our secret base
exists on a cross-hatched nexus between
the Year of the Dragon and Dark City.
Somewhere along the tectonic fault
lines of our electromagnetic gathering,
shades of us peel off from the coruscating
pillars and are dropped back into the mix.
The phrase "rest in peace" just bugs me.
I'd rather think that Greg Grub's inimitable
spirit somehow continues evolving along
another manifestation of light itself, a
purple shift shall we say into another
phase of our expanding universe. I
ask myself, is it wishful thinking?
Will we really shed our human skin
like a discarded chrysalis and emerge
shimmering on another wavelength
altogether--or even manifest right
here among the rest without their
even beginning to suspect it? Well
people do believe in ghosts, but I
myself have long been suspicious
there can only be one single ghost
and that's all the stars in the universe
shrinking away into a withering heart
glittering and winking at us like
lost diamonds still echoing all their
sad and lonely songs fallen on deaf
eyes and ears blind to their colorful
emanations. My grub brother always
knew better than what the limits
of this old world taught him. We
explored past the outer peripheries
of our comfort zones to awaken
the terror in our minds and keep
us on our toes deep in the forest
in the middle of the night. The owls
led our way and the wilderness
transformed into a sanctuary.
The adventures we shared together
will always remain tattooed on
the pages of my skin. They tell a
story that we began together and
which continues being woven to
this very day. It's the same old
story about how we all were in
this together and how each and
every one of us is also going away
someday and though it will be the far-
thest we can manage to tell our own
tale we may rest assured it will be
continued like one of the old pulp
serials by all our friends which survive
us and manage to continue
the saga whispering in the wind.
Shae Sveniker's
A NEW METAPHYSICAL STUDY
REGARDING THE BEHAVIOR
OF PLANT LIFE
Shae is a poet/artist/student and former
A NEW METAPHYSICAL STUDY
REGARDING THE BEHAVIOR
OF PLANT LIFE
Shae is a poet/artist/student and former
resident of the Salt Pit, UT, currently living
in Simi Valley, CA. His short stories are on
Blogger and his poetry is hosted on Livejournal.
Nigel Strange's
PLASTIC CHILDREN
Nigel Strange lives with his wife and
PLASTIC CHILDREN
Nigel Strange lives with his wife and
daughter, cats, and tiny dog-like thing
in their home in California where he
occasionally experiments recreationally
with lucidity. PLASTIC CHILDREN
is his first publication.