Clockwork Phoenix: Tales of Beauty and Strangeness Read online

  CLOCKWORK PHOENIX

  Tales of Beauty and Strangeness

  Edited by Mike Allen

  Published by Mythic Delirium Books

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, locations, and events portrayed in this book are fictional or used in an imaginary manner to entertain, and any resemblance to any real people, situations, or incidents is purely coincidental.

  CLOCKWORK PHOENIX:

  Tales of Beauty and Strangeness

  Edited by Mike Allen

  Electronic edition copyright © 2011 by Mike Allen. All Rights Reserved.

  Cover Painting: “Head of a Tudor Girl” by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1871-1945). Cover Design © 2008, © 2011 by Mike Allen, Vera Nazarian and Bob Snare.

  Published by Mythic Delirium Books.

  First appeared in trade paperback from Norilana Books, July 2008

  Introduction © 2008 by Mike Allen

  "The City of Blind Delight” © 2008 by Catherynne M. Valente

  “Old Foss is the Name of His Cat” © 2008 by David Sandner

  “All the Little Gods We Are” © 2008 by John Grant

  “The Drew Drop Coffee Lounge” © 2008 by Cat Rambo

  “Bell, Book, and Candle” © 2008 by Leah Bobet

  “The Tarrying Messenger” © 2008 by Michael J. DeLuca

  “The Occultation” © 2008 by Laird Barron

  “There is a Monster Under Helen’s Bed” © 2008 by Ekaterina Sedia

  “Palisade” © 2008 by Cat Sparks

  “The Woman” © 2008 by Tanith Lee

  “A Mask of Flesh” © 2008 by Marie Brennan

  “Seven Scenes from Harrai’s Sacred Mountain” © 2008 by Jennifer Crow

  “Oblivion: A Journey” © 2008 by Vandana Singh

  “Choosers of the Slain” © 2008 by John C. Wright

  “Akhila, Divided” © 2008 by C.S. MacCath

  “The Moon-Keeper’s Friend” © 2008 by Joanna Galbraith

  “The Tailor of Time” © 2008 by Deborah Biancotti

  “Root and Vein” © 2008 by Erin Hoffman

  In memory of Nelson Slade Bond

  1908-2006

  In honor of Emma Joan Lau,

  born 2008

  life well lived, life renewed

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This volume could never have risen from the ashes of concept and dream without the labor and support of many others besides myself. My wife Anita, who helped me choose the sequence of links in this surreal chain; Catherine Reniere, my assistant editor, who vigorously tackled the daunting task of sorting submissions; Vera Nazarian, without whom, let’s face it, there would be no book. Wise advice and heartfelt encouragement from the likes of Kathy Sedia, Sonya Taaffe, Jessica Wick, Amal El-Mohtar, Charlie Saplak and Mike Jones proved invaluable during the long march to publication. Thanks to all, and to any deserving individual whose name has slipped through my porous memory.

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  by Mike Allen

  THE CITY OF BLIND DELIGHT

  by Catherynne M. Valente

  OLD FOSS IS THE NAME OF HIS CAT

  by David Sandner

  ALL THE LITTLE GODS WE ARE

  by John Grant

  THE DEW DROP COFFEE LOUNGE

  by Cat Rambo

  BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE

  by Leah Bobet

  THE TARRYING MESSENGER

  by Michael J. DeLuca

  THE OCCULTATION

  by Laird Barron

  THERE IS A MONSTER UNDER HELEN’S BED

  by Ekaterina Sedia

  PALISADE

  by Cat Sparks

  THE WOMAN

  by Tanith Lee

  A MASK OF FLESH

  by Marie Brennan

  SEVEN SCENES FROM HARRAI’S SACRED MOUNTAIN

  by Jennifer Crow

  OBLIVION: A JOURNEY

  by Vandana Singh

  CHOOSERS OF THE SLAIN

  by John C. Wright

  AKHILA, DIVIDED

  by C.S. MacCath

  THE MOON-KEEPER’S FRIEND

  by Joanna Galbraith

  THE TAILOR OF TIME

  by Deborah Biancotti

  ROOT AND VEIN

  by Erin Hoffman

  PINIONS

  The Authors

  AFTERWORD

  for the digital edition

  INTRODUCTION

  by Mike Allen

  We begin with fire.

  A furnace that burns so hot it seems not even time could survive its temperatures, but yet inside this crucible something is wrestling time backward, condensing matter into a molten pool still too bright to look at as it gathers itself up and white hot parts within start to move.

  Ticks and clicks. Springs and gears. Sprockets and chains. Wheels and crowns. Pinions are the small gears in a drive train. Pinions are the outermost feathers on a bird’s great wing. A rack and pinion convert circular motion to linear motion, like a wheel squealing on a train track.

  The raptor stretches its wings until the razor sharp edges of its pinions score and scar the furnace walls. The curved knife of its beak flashes as it tilts its head, as it returns our gaze; hour and minute hands move within its iron-black eyes.

  It draws up the needles of its talons and rises from the burnings coals, floats for a moment in the fire. Then it throws itself against the firebox hatch, once, twice, thrice, with thunderous force. A fourth time, and the hatch flies off, and the great bird is birthed from the furnace—

  Into the cabin of a roaring locomotive. Where is it bound, and where is its Engineer? The cabin is empty, and outside the windows shadows flicker in a greater darkness. The door to the next car is open, and through it a watery trickle of voices underscores the boiler’s screams. The phoenix clacks its wings once and glides across the gap.

  Borne on its wings, we see what it sees as it soars through the oddly long chamber, a space opulent despite the way it narrows, like the inside of an elegant throat.

  The car is paneled in ivory and white marble, every squared frame carved with pale faces, some sleeping, some blind; some appear to roll their gilded eyes to follow our flight. Window slats stabbed into the walls reveal more darkness outside, but openings that iris in the ceiling breathe in merciless light, drawn in from some unseen source or unreal place.

  Three pillars at the car’s far end reveal themselves as we approach to be three identical men, each wearing three-piece suits tailored in midnight black, each with the same shirts pleated harsh white, the same blood red bow ties clasped with a grinning death’s head, their bearded faces sculpted into circus masks. The only differences between these pundits are their words.

  One says: Form need not be the end. Function need not be the end. Take my breath away both with the tale and how it’s told. The beautiful must slave for a purpose. The purpose must serve to feed the beautiful.

  One says: To admit boundaries is to admit defeat. To admit boundaries is to admit defeat. To admit boundaries is to admit defeat. To admit boundaries is to admit defeat.

  One says: The law is mad. The law is madness, but madness is not the predicate of law. There is no madness in absence of the law. Before its opposition to the law became flesh, madness could never be conceived.

  The raptor’s gaze reads noon. Let us not suffer these fools to live.

  Wings stretched to full length fan feathers sharp as razor blades. Their blood is ink, this long shaft of carved white a blank page.

  When the pundits have succumbed, the phoenix shakes its wetted feathers and plummets on, through the next car, and the next, and the next. They are all linked, but
not in a row; some cars connect through hoops of time; some nestle beside each other, sharing membranes of possibility; some are intertwined like clusters of hearts filled by the same arteries; some are stitched together like quilts, or grafts.

  And what of the chambers we rush past within this train’s strange body, our wings beating against the air in hopes we won’t be ash before the end? What marvels do we see as we leap from gear to spinning gear, hustling daredevil to the precarious edge just for the views? Shadows growing across wallpaper ripples as other forms rustle within the walls; upholstery grown in future times, where arms stretch from the floor and lifeblood warms the ceiling; a train at least as mad as the bird that bears us.

  To say nothing of its freight; or its passengers; or its stowaways; or the crazed hobos beneath that ride the rails.

  THE CITY OF BLIND DELIGHT

  by Catherynne M. Valente

  There is a train which passes through every possible city. It folds the world like an accordioned map, and speeds through the folds like a long white cry, piercing black dots and capital-stars and vast blue bays. Its tracks bind the firmament like bones: wet, humming iron with wriggling runnels of quicksilver slowly replacing the old ash wood planks, and the occasional golden bar to mark a historic intersection, so long past the plaque has weathered to blank. These tracks bear up under the hurtling train, the locomotive serpent circumnavigating the globe like a beloved egg. Though they would not admit it and indeed hardly remember at all, New York and Paris and Tokyo, London and Mombasa and Buenos Aires, Los Angeles and Seattle and Christchurch and Beijing: nothing more than intricate, over-swarmed stations on the Line, festooned and decorated beyond all recognition.

  Of necessity, this train passes through the City of Blind Delight, which lies somewhat to the rear of Ulan Bator, and also somewhat diagonally from Greenland, beneath a thin veneer of Iowa City, lying below it as the bone of a ring-finger may lie beneath both flesh and glove, unseen, gnarled and jointed ivory hidden by mute skin, dumb leather. The Line is its sole access point. Yet in Chicago, a woman in black glasses stands with a bag full of celery and lemons and ice in her arms. She watches trains silver past while the cream and gold of Union Station arches behind her and does not know if this one, or this, or even that ghostly express gasping by is a car of the Line, does not know which, if any of these graffiti-barnacled leviathans would take her to a station carved from baobab-roots and papaya rinds, or one of mirrors angled to make the habitual strain of passengers to glimpse the incoming rattlers impossible, so that the train appears with its headlight blazing as if out of thin air, or to Blind Delight itself, where the station arches and vestibules are formed by acrobatic dancers, their bodies locked together with laced fingers and toes, stretching in shifts over the glistening track, their faces impassive as angels. It is almost painful to imagine, how close she has come how many times to catching the right one, but each day she misses it without realizing that she has missed anything at all, and the dancers of Blind Station writhe without her.

  She will miss it today, too. But he will catch it. He will even brush her elbow as he passes her, hurrying through doors which open and shut like arms, and it is not impossible that he will remember the astringent smell of cold lemons long afterward. She has no reason to follow him—this train has the wrong letter on its side, and he is running too fast even to look at the letter, so certain is he that he is late. But she longs to, anyway, for no reason at all. She watches the tails of his blue coat slip past the inexorable doors.

  The car this man, whose name is Gris, enters is empty even at five o’clock. An advertisement looms near the city map, a blank and empty image of skin spreading across the entire frame, seen at terrible closeness, pores and hair and lines beaming bright. It is brown, healthy. There is no text, and he cannot think what it is meant to sell: lotion? Soap? Perfume? He extends a hand to touch the paper, and it recoils, shudders. The hairs bristle translucent; goosebumps prickle. Gris blinks and sits down abruptly, folding his hands tightly around his briefcase. The train rocks slowly from side to side.

  He does not worry about a ticket-taker: you use your ticket to enter the station these days, not the train. Once within the dark, warm station, which is not unlike a cathedral, all trains are open to the postulant. He is a postulant, though he does not think in those terms. He once took an art history course in college—there was a girl, of course, he had wanted to impress, with a red braid and an obscure love of Crivelli. The professor had put up a slide of Raphael’s self-portrait, and he remembers his shock on seeing that face, with the projector-light shining through it, that face which had seemed to him disturbingly blank, vapid, even idiotic. He is like me, Gris had thought, that is my face. Not the man who was a painter, but the man who was affectless, a fool, the man who was thinner than the professor’s rough mechanical light. I am like that, he thought then, he thinks now. Blank and empty, like a child, like skin.

  He falls asleep and does not hear the station call. But the Line is patient. The doors wait, open into the dark, a soft, sucking wind blowing out of the tunnels and across the platform. The Line has determined the trajectory of its passenger. He stirs when the skin-advertisement shivers above him, and bleary-limbed, steps off of the silver car, into the station-shadows.

  * * *

  The sun filters in a pink wash through the lattice of bodies. Gris thinks of Crivelli’s angels, how sharp and dour they were on the walls of the girl with the red braid’s bedroom. These people are like that, the top-most ones staring down at him, their hair making strangely-colored banners, fluttering with the train-generated winds. He is grateful the floor is plain tile, that he does not have to walk on stomachs and thigh-bones. He gapes—do not all tourists gape? He gapes and his chin tilts up to the banners of hair, ignoring the rush of those for whom the human ceiling is no more unusual than one of glass and iron. They swarm around him; he does not notice.

  Across the gleaming floor, a calf clicks its hooves. Gris shifts his gaze numbly, the smell of the calf beguiling—for it is roasted, brown and glistening, its ears basted in brown sugar, its skin crisp and hot. There is a long knife in its side, and with clear, imploring eyes, the calf looks up at him, turning its pierced flank invitingly. It swishes its broiled tail. A girl runs up in a blue smock, knocking Gris’s briefcase down, and pulls the knife out, cutting a pink slice of veal and chewing it noisily. She thrusts the blade back in towards the calf’s rump, a tidy child. He feels his mouth dry, and though he has found his way to the City of Blind Delight in place of the woman with the black glasses and the lemons, he is lost as she would not have been.

  Near the apex of the ceiling, a woman with long red hair like sheeting hensblood and black eyes detaches herself from the throng, smoothly replaced by a young man with hardly any hair at all on his legs. She climbs down the wall as nimble as a spider dropping thread, and in no time at all slaps her bare heels on the clean floor, retrieving a green dress and golden belt from a darkened booth and covering her skin, chilled from the heights. Barefoot, she strides towards the conspicuous tourist as the calf wanders off, holding her hand out in a nearly normal gesture of the world to which Gris is accustomed. This woman is called Otthild, and she was born here, in Blind Station. Her mother was a ticket-taker, a token-changer. She kept her hair bobbed and curled like a silent movie gamine, her uniform crisp and red, even when it was stretched by her belly and the buttons uttered brassy cries of protest. When the time came, she shrugged off her blazer and trousers, hung her hat on a silver peg, and climbed up the wall of limbs, helped along by a crooked knee here and an elbow there, until she reached a rafter of long, thick torsos clasped together leg by arm, and on this she lay, and gave birth to her child in mid-air, a daughter caught by the banisters and neatly deposited at the gleaming turnstile by an obliging windowsill with a yellow beard. Otthild was thus the darling of the Station. She had never taken the Line out of the City of Blind Delight, nor desired to.

  There are many words for what Otthild
does. They have little meaning in the City, but she collects them like seashells from the tourists. Of all, she prefers fallen woman, since this describes her birth perfectly. Most of her customers are tourists—she prefers them to locals, and the pay is better. She shakes the stranger’s hand, and he is absurdly grateful. She guides him to the door of the station, a gorgeously executed arch of four women, standing on each other’s red shoulders—the topmost pair held their children outstretched, and the youths clasped hands in a graceful peak. She instructs her bewildered charge to purchase a return ticket from the coiffed man in a glass booth before they leave, and again he is grateful for her. The arch winks as Otthild passes beneath them, her polished hair shining against her dress.