Fall Ceramic DM - Final Round Judgment Posted!

[FireLance]

Autumn 2004 Ceramic DM Final: Piratecat vs. FireLance

Transparent As A Stone

I was in the middle of a game of Solitaire, focusing on a face-down card and trying to determine what it was, when my Talent activated spontaneously. Premonitions were the least predictable of an Intuitive's powers, and sometimes warned of nothing more than an unexpected rain shower. This one had the definite feel of danger, but was most indefinite about what sort. "I just got a flash of danger," I announced, "But I have no idea what."

Chilong looked up from the book he was reading. "Oh good," he said, "I was starting to get bored. And so was he." He nodded to Reanjir, who was on the other side of the room, idly tossing darts at a dartboard.

"Hey, you read my mind. No fair," Reanjir said, grinning, "Well, if we're going to be in danger, I guess I better put my toys away." He concentrated, and all the darts on the board detached and packed themselves neatly into their box. "And get my tools ready," he concluded. His suit of plate armor floated off the rack and settled around him, buckling itself into place, and his two-handed sword strapped itself to his back.

"Showoffs," I muttered. "You started it," Chilong shot back.

The sound of rushing air cut short our banter, and Dashal, Porter and messenger for the Watch, appeared in the room. "Xander, Chilong, Reanjir, we need your help! A monster has just attacked Cailo's Armory! Come quickly!"

"Take us there," I said, as Chilong and Reanjir stepped forward and joined hands. Dashal grasped Reanjir's hand and mine, and invoked his Talent. Immediately, we were Ported halfway across the city, to Cailo's Armory.

I was quite familiar with Cailo's Armory, as I had accompanied Reanjir there on several occasions to examine the latest advances in weaponry. The place now looked as if some natural disaster had struck it. The glass panel which distinguished it from all the other shops in the street was shattered, and the weapons and armor that were normally on display were gone. Cailo himself was speaking to some watchmen, and he looked unhurt, if shaken. We walked over to speak with him.

"Cailo, what happened here?" I asked.

"Xander, thank the Gods! I should have guessed that the Watch would call out their best agents for a case like this. It was horrible, horrible, I tell you."

"Calm down, Cailo, and just tell us what happened," Chilong said soothingly. He must have used his Talent, because Cailo's agitation vanished instantly.

"Just a short while ago, I was in my shop and I heard a tremendous crash. I came outside to check and I noticed that the glass panel was broken. When I looked in the window display, there was this big blob eating all my weapons and armor."

"A blob?" I asked, looking at Chilong and Reanjir, both of whom shrugged. None of us had ever heard of any creature like this.

"Yes, it was big and gooey and looked like someone's spit. Except that as it ate the weapons and armor, it got all silvery and metallic."

"So did you attack the blob?" Reanjir asked.

"I'm not crazy. I'm a Shaper, not a Mover or a Blaster. I ran to get the Watch and by the time we got back, the blob had disappeared."

"Do you have any idea where it might have gone?" I asked, and Cailo shook his head. Right, so we had a mysterious attack and no leads whatsoever. All in a day's work for an Intuitive.

"Cailo, with your permission, Chilong will set up a mindlink so that I can have access to your memories of the creature," I said, "I will need them to get a fix on its current location." Cailo nodded and Chilong concentrated. Images of the creature Cailo had seen filled my mind. It did indeed look like something that was spit up.

Concentrating on those images, I invoked my Talent. To me, it always felt like casting a net across the entire world, and drawing it back to see what sensations were caught in it. Greenery. The sound of birdsong. The smell of earth. One big, ugly, stone statue. (1) I opened my eyes. "It's in Troll Park," I said, "Hurry!" Chilong, Reanjir and I clasped hands, and Dashal Ported us again.

The first thing I noticed when we arrived in Troll Park was the noise. It was the loud clanging you get when two hard objects are slammed together with great force. The next thing I noticed was that the statue that had given Troll Park its name had somehow been toppled and was now lying on the ground. The third thing I noticed was that a metallic blob was ramming itself against the statue, apparently trying to smash it to pieces.

Predictably, Reanjir charged forward, swinging his two-handed sword, using his Mover Talent to increase both his speed and the power of his strike. His sword easily passed through the creature, but when it emerged, its blade was missing. The creature reared up before Reanjir and lashed out a pseudopod that engulfed his right arm. In a flash, Dashal Ported to his side, grabbed his other arm and Ported the two of them away just before another pseudopod crashed down on the spot where Reanjir stood.

Dashal and Reanjir reappeared next to Chilong and myself. "Are you alright?" I asked. "Stupid monster ate up all the armor on my arm," Reanjir snarled, "My arm's okay, though. I thought it would be gone, but it isn't."

My Talent flared. "Organic materials," I said, "The creature can't affect organic materials."

"Really?" Reanjir said, "That gives me an idea. Dashal, I'll need boards. Lots of wooden boards. I think they're renovating the Watch house in Central. You can get them there. Nobody eats my weapon and armor and gets away with it."

Dashal Ported away, leaving us in Troll Park with a metallic blob oozing its way slowly towards us and no way to make a quick exit. "I hope you know what you're doing," I said nervously.

"Trust me," he said, and concentrated. The ground between us and the creature suddenly erupted. Earth, sand and rock flew as Reanjir attacked it with his Talent. When the dust cleared, there was a large pit between us and the creature. Dashal re-appeared with a pile of wooden boards, and Reanjir quickly Moved them to line the floor and sides. Then, he concentrated one final time and his Talent shoved the creature inside. We rushed to the side of the pit to look down on it. "You broke it," I said.

"No," Chilong said, "Fortunately, it is not badly injured." Ignoring our questioning looks, he continued, "Establishing a mindlink was very hard. It has such an alien and complex mindset. But, I have managed it and I have discovered a number of things. It is not evil. It is not malicious. It is frightened. It wants to go home. And it, or rather, she," he paused significantly, "Was pregnant."

We looked down into the pit again. (2) "Oh dear," I said.

"Don't worry," Chilong said, "The baby survived. They are remarkably tough creatures."

"Right, er," Reanjir said sheepishly, "I suppose I should Move them out, then?"

"Please do," Chilong said. "And while you're at it, you might want to apologize to them. The actual gesture of apology is impossible for a human to mimic, but the closest possible approximation would be this." Chilong spread his hands in front of him, at chest level, made an "O" with his mouth and bowed.

After we had let the creatures out of the pit, Chilong elaborated further on what he had learned about them. "The mother tells me that she is from another place very different from here. She ended up here after moving through stone, and she has been trying to find the same stone that she moved through in hopes that it will return to her home. She has asked for your help in this, Xander. Would you be willing to mindlink with her to access her memory of the stone? I must warn you, though, that her perceptions will be very different from ours."

"Of course I'm willing," I said. Chilong nodded and established the mindlink. The world was grey. The white patches were metals, the lighter greys were stone and the darker greys organic materials. But that was not all. There was shading to indicate the level of radiation, patterning to indicate temperature. The net result was a three-dimensional sense of space, matter and energy could only be translated imperfectly into the human analogue of sight. The memory of entry into this strange world surfaced. (3) The matter moved through was indeed stone. A closer examination of the memory also revealed a large amount of radiation passing through the stone, a fact that was not earlier noted. There was an odd sensation of movement through space, then a strange concept surfaced, alien to the creature. What was it? Chilong broke the mindlink, and I struggled to grasp the elusive thought. "Alistar," I said, "Alistar the Great. What does that mean?"

"Alistar the Great?" Chilong said, "He is probably the greatest Empath in recent history. His performances at the Grand Theatre were acclaimed by the greatest critics of the city. His portrayal of Draben in The Tale of the Bridge earned him a memorial in the Grand Theatre."

"Wait a minute," Reanjir said, "The greatest Empath in recent history was an actor? If he was that great, why didn't he do something more important?"

"Obviously, you do not understand Empaths," Chilong said with a smile, "Every Empath secretly dreams of becoming a performer. There is simply no other way to touch the emotions of so many people at once. You can be sure that if there were more roles for Empaths of my ethnic group in the local theatres, I wouldn't be working for the Watch now."

"Well, it seems like we should go talk to Alistar, then," I said.

"That would be difficult," Chilong said, "He died two months ago."

"There was one other thing I recall. The creature seemed to recall light passing through stone. Does this suggest any leads to anyone?" I asked. This was met by blank looks. "How can light pass through stone?" Reanjir asked. "That does not seem possible to me," Chilong said. "Then perhaps we should visit Alistar's memorial in the Grand Theatre and see if that leads us anywhere," I concluded.

"How are we going to disguise the creatures, though? Two metallic blobs following us are bound to attract attention," Reanjir said.

"One other things I should have mentioned about our friends," Chilong said, "They are shapeshifters. They have agreed to act as your armor and shield as compensation for destroying them. At least, until they find some way to get home."

Dashal Ported us to the Grand Theatre, where we spoke to one of the ushers about Alistar the Great's memorial. "It's in one of the upper towers. It's somewhat out of the way and the path to take is rather confusing, so you should get Goff there to show you where it is," he said, "He's a stagehand here and was a great fan of Alistar's. Be careful, though. He's been a little strange since Alistar died."

Goff turned out to be a wizened, bald man dressed in black. "Visitors to Alistar's memorial? Certainly, I can show you where it is. This way, please." He led us through several winding passageways and flights of stairs, until we entered a small room with three large windows. Alistar's memorial appeared to be a wooden bridge and a small clay mask. (4) "The bridge, of course, represents The Tale of the Bridge, the play for which he earned this memorial. The clay mask is a depiction of Alistar's face."

I stepped forward to pick up the mask, but Goff smoothly intercepted me. "I must apologize," he said, "But we do not allow visitors to touch the memorial." He spread his hands in front of him, at chest level, made an "O" with his mouth and bowed. (5)

I froze, as a sudden premonition of immense danger overwhelmed me.

"Too late, little Intuitive," a voice spoke in my mind. "While Goff was speaking I have already taken control of all your friends: the Porter, the Mover, even the Empath and the creature."

"You are Alistar, aren't you? I thought you were dead."

"I am, but I have discovered a way to exist after death. I have implanted my personality into this mask and I will now transplant it to the creature I summoned into this world with the help of my friend Goff. He is quite a powerful Porter, didn't you know?"

"The creature said that it moved through stone when it came into our world. Did it really?"

Alistar laughed, "Indeed it did. Stone turned to sand, melted into glass. Shaped into the proper pattern to allow a Porter to bring creatures from other worlds."

I looked up at the three large windows in the room. (6) "Light passing through stone," I murmured. "One final question, Alistar. Why?"

"Why else? To live forever, of course. Something which you and your friends will have no chance of doing."

"I wouldn't count on that," I said. Alistar was unaware of the creature's child, and had overlooked dominating it. By now, it had crept up next to the mask. Before Alistar could react, it had smashed it to bits.

The destruction of the mask seemed to free everyone from stasis. Goff screamed and collapsed. "Do you think you will be able to work the windows?" I asked Dashal. He nodded and concentrated, and the light from the windows suddenly changed, becoming redder and dimmer. "The mother says that this is the right place," Chilong translated. I nodded to Reanjir, and he Moves the creatures through the windows. "Farewell," I said as they returned home.

(1) The statue in Troll Park
(2) The creature, and child
(3) The world through the senses of the creature
(4) Alistar's memorial
(5) Goff apologizing like a creature
(6) Three windows/glass portals

 

[Piratecat]

Gallery

Autumn 2004 Round 4-1: Firelance vs. Piratecat


He sniffed. “You’re plebian, incompetent, and an absolute wretch. You lack a sense of perspective. How you haven’t been fired yet, I have no idea.”

She would have given him credit for a good vocabulary, but he’d had a lot of time to think of the insult since they’d started to disagree ten long hours ago. Celia silently counted to three. “Jay. . .”

“Mondarian! I told you, first names are bourgeois and I will only be known as Mondarian. That’s assuming that you even retain enough creative integrity to recognize an artistic statement.” Sniff. “I have my doubts.”

“Do you?” Her inflection made it clear that she wasn’t actually asking a question. It had been a long and trying day.

“I do.” He sniffed again. It was either a coke habit – so eighties – an incipient head cold, or a sign that his head had been shoved as far up his ass as a year of successful critical acclaim could push it. “I am sure that you hate me. You are no doubt jealous.”

No doubt, and she tried to hide a bitter smile. She’d known Jason Mondarian for almost a decade. Back then he was known as Jay. He had flunked out of the same art school she’d graduated from with honors, but recently his sculptures had caught the eye of a wealthy society family and it had given him delusions of competence. Celia had been running the Stanhope Gallery for eight years now, and it wasn’t usually a thankless job. She normally loved the rambling old mansion nestled in the deep woods of western Massachusetts. She loved the quiet winters, the rooms filled with art, the mixture of traditional antiquities and cutting edge new artists, the heavy air of history that lay over the gallery and the grounds. The only time this wasn’t true was when she had to deal with artists like this one.

Mondarian had caught her half-smile. “You laugh!” His eyes grew wide and he threw open his arms, as if preparing for crucifixion. “You laugh at me! That’s it, I will cancel the show! You will allow this piece to be shown, and you will apologize, or the show will not occur.” Sniff. He crossed his arms and turned his back.

The winter wind howled outside. It was late at night and Celia had been hoping to finish the installation long before now. Lighting technicians were scheduled to be in early tomorrow morning to properly illuminate all the pieces, assuming they could get through the snow. For that to happen, though, the damn artiste would have to stop micromanaging every placement in the gallery of high-ceilinged rooms. She’d be lucky if the roads were even passable by the time they finished tonight. Time to be diplomatic. Deep breath, another three count, and go. Ramp up the bullshi. . . excuse me, professionalism. She’d dealt with worse. She just couldn’t remember when.

Her voice was carefully modulated to be respectful without sounding obsequious. “Mondarian, I’m tired. Please forgive me. I certainly understand how much you value your work, and as gallery manager I want you to be completely satisfied with the installation. It must speak to our audience.” In this case, Celia thought to herself, it was going to say ‘Look at me! I’m a bright orange life sized paper mâché sculpture of a rutting pig. A large pig. Making it with Fidel Castro. Oooh, but I’m not complete and utter pretentious rubbish because I’m art. Honest.’ Sometimes she lost her patience with modern art. “I just think that this particular creation is beyond most of our guests. I’m sure that the impact will be diluted if we place it as the first thing people see when they walk through the door. It spoils the mounting tension that your works create. People will talk about this, and ignore everything else that you’ve created.”

Mondarian looked mollified. He turned slightly, still pouting. “Indeed. It is meant to be symbolic, a paean to the creative urges. A tactile symphony of desire! Do you really think it undermines the other work I’m doing?” He sniffed.

“Oh, yes. I’d hate for you to lose sales because of it.” She gave him a calculated smile of professional respect, hitting him where she knew it would hurt the most. “But you know, I have just the showcase for it at the back of the house. It’s a room that we only use for the crowning jewel of a particular exposition, a venue that rewards those guests who have the tenacity to truly explore the limits of an artists work. Come and see.” I knew that getting that closet refinished was a good idea, she thought.

“No,” he declared. He cupped his hands in front of him and ostentatiously blew across them, as if dismissing an annoying piece of dryer lint. His eyes bulged. “I give you no choice, so you must agree. It will stay in the entrance hall, where all will marvel. We will bring it there now, or I and my sculptures will leave.”

There was a buzzing whine like an angry insect, and the lights went out.

They weren’t supposed to. The lights were never supposed to go out. It was specified in old Mrs. Stanhope’s will that had turned her ancestral home into a private museum and gallery of eclectic art. If the power ever failed – and it had, four times in the years she’d been there – a backup generator in the basement was supposed to kick in. If that failed, a second generator was supposed to pick up the load. The house was always supposed to be lit, to the extent that certain sections didn’t even have any light switches. It was just one of those things she had started taking for granted.

“Well, damn,” said Celia. The darkness was complete.

Sniff.

“What is it?” asked Mondarian, clutching her arm in the pitch darkness. “Is it a robbery? Is someone trying to steal my masterpieces? We mustn’t let them!” She heard panic in his voice, and he fumbled to draw his ever-present sculpting knife from the sheath at his belt.

Celia let herself smile bitterly. “I don’t think so. Listen to the wind. I think a tree dropped on a line somewhere.” She fumbled for his hand and patted it reassuringly, and together they stood in the gloom and listened to the shrieking of the storm outside. The snow-covered skylight let in almost no illumination at all; Celia suspected that even the parking lot lights were out.

“Well, no need to panic. We have a generator, and I know where the reset switch is. I’ll just pop down to the basement and restart it. Then we can finish up with the last sculptures.”

“Mondarian will come with you.” Her eyes were starting to adjust, and she saw his bald head gleaming slightly in front of her. With his black clothing hiding his body, it looked like a floating egg.

“You don’t have to.” She fished out her cell phone and pushed a button, lighting the floor around them with a cold blue light.

“But I will. You will need my help.” He’s scared of the dark, Celia realized, and lowered the phone so that he wouldn’t see her face. Nodding, she skirted the problematic sculpture and turned away into the darkness.

-- o --

“Please stand over here against the wall,” Celia instructed. The room smelled like oil and dust. Her nose picked out the acrid scent of something that smelled like burned plastic. “Let’s see if I can get this restarted.”

“What, against this door?”

“There’s no door there. Against the wall.”

“Of course there’s a door here. I can feel it.”

Annoyed, Celia turned and walked back, lifting her lit cell phone up high. She could see the faint blue light reflected in Mondarian’s bulging eyes. He stopped her with outstretched hands and framed her dramatically.

“I will do a piece of you,” he whispered. “Just like that, carrying the torch of illumination on high. You will pose for me!” His breathing had quickened.

Celia blinked, shook her head slightly, and brandished the Nokia. “Sure. I’ve always wanted a sculpture of me with Fidel Castro.” She raised an eyebrow. “See behind you? No door. Just wall.”

Mondarian turned around, and his expressive face contorted in confusion. “But I could have sworn. . .” His voice trailed away, and Celia didn’t hear the rest of his sentence as she walked back to the generator.

“It’s back!”

“What?”

“As soon as you turned away. I felt it again in front of me.” He sniffed.

She lifted the cell phone over her head and pointed it at him. The light barely carried. “Gone.” She lowered her arm. The artist’s voice was fascinated. “Back! Amazing!”

“You’re imagining things.” More likely the sniffing is from a coke habit after all, she thought. She pushed the reset button on the generator. Nothing but a dull click that reminded her of a dead car ignition.

Kuh-click.
Kuh-click.

No rumble into life like the grumbling of giants, no welcome glow of light. She tried the button for the backup generator. Same thing. “Crap,” she said under her breath.

Never mind the crazy artist. This meant no finishing the installation tonight, no prepared gallery for the lighting technicians tomorrow, an overtime rush to have the show ready in time for opening, and doubtlessly a huge bill to fix the damn generators. The museum might even lose its funding if the executors found out that the lights had failed.

In sharp frustration she smacked her hand down on the restart button one final time, and screamed as she impaled it on a sharp barb of metal jutting out of the plate. She yanked her hand back, and the violence of the movement knocked her cell phone out of her other hand and into the darkness. Even as she felt blood trickling down her palm, she heard the phone hit face down onto a box of tools. The light extinguished with a crunch.

She raised her right palm to her lips to check the damage, and tasted the hot copper of oozing blood. She was pulling a handkerchief from her pocket when she heard the sound of creaky hinges behind her.

Mondarian’s voice was smug, no trace of the previous fear. He liked being right. “The door you said wasn’t there? I just opened it.”

“What?” She edged forward until her unhurt hand touched the wall. “This isn’t a bad movie version of Clue, and you aren’t Tim Curry. There aren’t any secret doors to the conservatory in here.” She struggled to control her sudden fear. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Oh?” His voice was amused and ten feet farther onwards than it had any right being. She walked forwards and felt her shoulders brush a narrow and crooked doorframe. She walked a few more paces until she bumped into Mondarian’s back. It was colder here, remarkably colder, as if this room was never insulated like the rest of the mansion. There was a smell, too, the odor of a wet shirt left too long in summer. Mildew and decay. Dust. She sensed expectant anticipation, hunger. An icy trickle of sweat trailed down the small of her back.

“Do you see?” Mondarian’s voice was reverential, but Celia saw only unremitting darkness. Then as if someone flipped on a light switch, a long and crooked room swam into a soft gray focus. The angles hurt her eyes.

In front of her, the artist breathed. “Art.”

And it was. The Stanhopes must have been storing pieces in this archive for decades. Countless nooks hid paintings and sculptures. Celia drew in breath; she had never expected that this existed in the building. Mondarian strode over to a nearby nook, but Celia just stood and wheeled in a circle. The work surrounded her, no one piece dominating the hidden gallery. She walked over to the nearest piece of art and examined it with her curator’s eye.

It was a squat and complacent gargoyle, unlabeled and surrounded by dusty plastic plants, the kind of sculpture she would expect to see in someone’s garden. Slightly chipped, nice casting work, worth maybe fifty dollars tops. Disappointing. It looked annoyed about something.

Not often we get visitors. Hey, you know any good jokes? All the ones I have are played out.

“What?” Celia froze, unclear of where the voice had come from. “Jay?” Across the room and staring at a sculpture of a drama mask, Mondarian didn’t respond.

Not him, sweetcakes. We’ve been alone since long before the old lady snuffed it. The others won’t shut the hell up. Me, though? I’m patient. I’ve had practice.

She stared at the unmoving gargoyle. It seemed to be looking right at her. “What the hell?”

Nah. Not even the right neighborhood.

Her mouth sagged. “How are you talking to me?”

I’ve been stuck in this form since the dark ages, toots. In Rumania originally, although I used to serve as Johann Weyer’s hat rack. Interesting guy. Some friggin’ savages locked me in stone by trapping me in a circle of iron, and I’ve been kicking around ever since. I got picked up by the Stanhopes a couple’a generations back. They let me guard the back garden until the old lady inherited. She wasn’t old then, kinda a looker, but she was on an anti-occult binge. Had a hair up her ass about it or something. Grabbed us up, tossed us in here, and locked away the room to keep out the gentry. Do I ramble? I've been told I ramble. The voice paused. Nice ta meet'cha.

Part of Celia’s mind reported very clearly and concisely that she was going crazy. Her thoughts reeled. You hurt your hand and got blood poisoning, or you fell and hit your head and are in a coma, or you are dreaming. That must be it. Heck, this thing even looked a little like Mondarian if you gave him a snout. Any minute now I’ll wake up and do my impression of Dorothy at the end of the Wizard of Oz. She clenched her eyes shut and pinched herself.

I do NOT. You wound a guy.

“What?” Her eyes snapped open.

I don’t look anything like egghead over there. He has. . . Oh, crap, the play has him. So much for his sparkling company. Just you and me and the art objects, now. If he gets tetchy, your best bet is the wooden crate against that wall. He's done for.

She looked over and saw the crate, but ignored it in favor of her client. “Mondarian?”

Mondarian was crouching in rapt wonderment in front of a wooden drama mask. The mask was dimly lit by an antique and ornate arc of theater lights. In the shadows it seemed frighteningly alive.

Celia left the gargoyle and moved over in concern, noting a label that simply said “Theosophical Society, Blavatsky’s Mistake.” The painted mask seemed to jeer at her. “Mondarian? Mondarian? Jay?” She shook him, and his shoulder was slack.

”Bitch.” The word came from Mondarian’s mouth, but it was the mask under the lights that leered at her lasciviously. She recoiled.

”He is our stage. It isn’t intermission. You’re not wanted here.”

She looked into Mondarian’s bulging eyes and screamed. She saw a play reflected in them, dozens of actors playing out some unthinkable drama on a stage that no one could see. Deep in his eyes a bald figure in black stood on the tiny stage, surrounded by performers that didn’t seem entirely human.

From behind her, the gargoyle spoke into her brain. They’re all sentient, lady. That’s what I’m trying to tell ya. Anything magical is. It has needs and wants, and some of ‘em ain’t exactly going to say pretty please.

”You know, every minute here is like a year to him. He’s in hell. But we’ll release him if you do what we say.” Mondarian’s voice was hateful, but his face was utterly slack. In the dancing gleam of his eyes, endless indignities occurred in an unreachable theater. The mask winked. Celia choked back vomit.

“What?” Her voice shook.

”Go see them. They want an agent. You’ll have to do.” Mondarian loosely pointed with a limp hand. Celia looked to the end of the elongated room, where three small arches were backlit inside a nook. Something waited there behind the mottled green fabric. With a shudder she realized that the fabric had probably once been white, but the years had stained it the color of misery. This is where the bad smell is coming from, Celia realized. Whatever’s back there is corrupt.

She slowly approached and read the label, written in that spidery script that crawled across the tag. “Three Kings. Congo. 19th Century.” She reached a trembling hand towards the small curtains, felt something back there reaching greedily for her in return, and stumbled away from the smell with the curtains undrawn.

“No. No!”

The room twisted around her. She staggered towards where she thought the door might be. Mondarian was standing now and doing a hideous dance before the drama mask, shuffling his feet in an insane parody of glee. He was sniffling, but only because a vein had broken in his nose and blood was pouring down the bottom of his face. “Look at us, Celia,” he said in a flat parody of his normal voice. “We’re dancing.

Celia struck at the wall. Behind her, the possessed Mondarian kept talking. No, not talking, Celia realized sickly. Declaiming. Like he was on stage. ”Tsk tsk, Celia. You fail. They need an agent. We all do. We’ve been trapped here, away from the world. We haven’t been fed. We’re hungry, girl. And you’re food.” Around her, much of the art seemed to stir impatiently. The hideous smell of sweat and disease seemed to get stronger. For a second Celia thought she could hear the sea. The floor swayed.

“So you’re going to help. Do you know what we’re going to do with this body when we’re free? We’re going to perform. Play acting. We’ll still sculpt to keep up appearances, but there will be real bodies beneath the paper mâché. You’ll still get to pose for us. We’ll win acclaim. People will come to see, and perhaps we’ll send them on to those that need them more.” He gestured a languid hand towards the green-curtained nook once again. ”We’re hoping to help one another here. You can help by opening the door and letting us out.”

“There is no door!” She tried to buy time, but she was choked by a bubbling panic. Mondarian took a half step towards her, did a little jig, and took another. The unsheathed sculpting knife was in his hands.

“Of course there is. You just can’t see it if there’s light in the room.” Another teasing step.

Desperate, Celia looked for the light switches. “There’s no way to turn them off!” she screamed. She side-stepped to the corner of the room.

“Indeed there’s not. It’s a nice little trap. But you’ll be fine once we carve out your eyes. That should do the trick.” Mondarian’s blank face twisted into a rictus, and Celia knew that the artist was now totally gone. “Act One, Celia. Curtain rises. Enter girl, blind.” He lunged for her.

Celia thrust her hand into the wooden crate.

Time stretched and rebounded, like light from a mirror. In an endless second she soared through the thermals of her own breath and she heard a thousand prayers from a thousand lungs. She was the sky, and she was everything that flew in the sky: the plane and the bird and the moth. She was stripped of weighty flesh, and she felt her body twisting with hurricanes and being drawn in by a baby’s first breath. She ran across winter roads and laughed snow.

Celia danced across the heavens. Celia was the heavens.

With part of her essence she read the label on the crate. Johann Reuchlin, 1504. Cabalist. Apotheosis. She could see inside it; two mirrored spheres squatted atop one another in impossible balance. Quicksilver light seeped from their glass. They were an elemental focus, she somehow knew, letting a person briefly become the element – not a little of it, as if her body turned to air, but all of it and all at the same time. The feeling was indescribable because she saw everything that air touched across the entire planet. Every person and object was set before her like a sculpture in a studio, and she had all the time in the world to examine each and every one before she returned to her body. She did so whether or not her mind was prepared to handle it, seeing and knowing everything at once, and she only took the time to make one change before she returned to her weighty flesh.

Mondarian’s body fell over in front of her. His chest heaved, but no noise came out. There was twitching, but no sniffing. No air for you, Celia thought as tears began to roll down her face. No air for the things behind the curtain. Ever.

Her form was impossibly bulky. She no longer wanted her flesh. She began to shake. She had saved herself, maybe, but she was still trapped. No way out. She wanted to return to the air. She thrust her hand against the quicksilver sphere again and again, but it would only work once. Too much flesh. She heard the sculptures shifting. There were billions of things she could no longer see. Tears rolled down her face. She considered the knife. She considered all the flesh. The two seemed to be related. She wondered if she had seen enough to last a lifetime. She wondered how one could tell. She thought about peeling back the layers to find out.

Eventually, she wondered why she was thinking crazy talk when she knew where the ventilation shaft into this room went.

It took three hours and a lot of skinned knuckles, but dawn was still far away when she pulled herself free. When she left she took the statuette of the gargoyle. She left everything else behind. Celia staggered through the darkened mansion, wondering if there were any more of these hidden doors, wishing she could remember, glad that she couldn't. The first thing she did when she reached the ground floor was toss Mondarian’s favorite sculpture out the back door into a ditch. It sounded like Castro's head split on a rock, and the exuberant pig broke in two when it hit. The crunching sound was rather pleasant.

Then she stood out in the black and silent night, breathing deeply, and stared up into the gallery of snow.

-- o --

atcha.jpg – Mondarian, exhorting a central location for his favorite sculpture
gardengoyle.jpg – a resident of the locked room
lightshow.jpg – the occult artifact that captured the artist
something_green.jpg – the resting place for something exceptionally nasty
flight.jpg – apotheosis of air
glass.jpg – the quicksilver spheres that trigger Celia’s exaltation

 

[Maldur]

Judgement send, there is even an attempt at intuitive explanation

 

[Berandor]

My judgement will probably arrive tomorrow at Lady M's (figurative) doorsteps, though I'll try to get it done today, and might slip off till Tuesday

Rest assured, though, when it comes, Christmas will still be more than a week away.

 

[alsih2o]

How about a stone sphere holding a hand?

Wow, where did you find THAT pretty image?



Mythago, you have rocked my world and schooled me AGAIN.

 

[Piratecat]

Sialia, that image I could work with!

Thanks for the quick judgments. I dare say it's appreciated by both Firelance and myself.

 

[Berandor]

Judgement sent. And now I'm off to the comments thread!

 

[Sialia]

Wow, where did you find THAT pretty image?

I hoped you wouldn't mind--I liked your sphere just fine without the retouching, but everytime I looked in to it, I kept seeing things. Which was part of what I liked about it. It has a fabulous texture, and incredibly rich color. It's like a globe of a foreign planet, or a gazing sphere . . . when Piratecat posted his complaint, I immediately remembered it, and the comment I made pretty much the moment you posted it. There wasn't time to ask you if it was ok.

For those curious about what AlSiH2O's work looked like before I got ahold of it, here's the orginal http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=98870 . As you will note, I didn't do much to it that wasn't already there.

You fired this with tobacco, right? Pipe dreams, smoke signals.

It's a great piece.

 

[mythago]

Very tired. 3 1/2 hours under a tattoo needle. Have read both stories, will quit writing bad grammar, judgments up tomorrow night.

 

[Sialia]

Congratualtions, babe. You've certainly earned that.

Cannot wait to see the results.