Doctor Who_ The Death of Art Part 1

THE DEATH OF ART.

by Simon Bucher-Jones.

The ending of all hope is come.

Its leaden beat denying song.

The messenger of nothingness who's nothing more and nothing less than all that's pallid, wan and wrong.

The pounding of that self-same drum that serves it as a human heart repeats the beat that changes never from which no soul can stand apart within its innards rack and lever.

A human figure from without, its tatters hide the cogs and wheels inside its bland and friendless face.

It haunts the death of all that feels all places with no pride of place.

This is the ending worse than doubt.

All other dooms are rich beside.

The beasts disdain to lick his hands he stirs no rupture of the tide no strange births of forgotten lands.

This is the ending less than dust.

Unless the dust has been your dream, and nothingness your playfellow, and then it's cruel as the machine, inhuman as the King in Yellow.

This endlessness unending must become its own incarnate tomb.

Its blood and bone its ball and chain.

Its dreams the pain of afternoon forever in the fervid brain.

Naotalba's Song (From 'The King in Yellow' 'The King in Yellow' , , a verse-play written in Paris in the 1890s and banned by the French authorities.)

Chapter 0.

Before any conflict, there are already ripples in the water where the spears will fall. water where the spears will fall.

Natal proverb L o n d o n : 18 D e c e m b e r 1845 It was just after eight. The freezing weather and the blank greyness of the morning fog squeezed pa.s.sers-by into buildings until the streets were empty. In the offices of the Daily Daily News, News, two ramshackle houses knocked together, an old man in a moth-eaten greatcoat waved his fist in Charles d.i.c.kens's face. The smell of yeast and low snuff came off the clothes under the greatcoat. They were red and yellow, and tattered. two ramshackle houses knocked together, an old man in a moth-eaten greatcoat waved his fist in Charles d.i.c.kens's face. The smell of yeast and low snuff came off the clothes under the greatcoat. They were red and yellow, and tattered.

'I won't stand for it,' the man snarled.

d.i.c.kens edged sideways, keeping the solid oak of his desk between himself and his visitor. Although d.i.c.kens was the younger of the two, he was small and wiry compared to the ancient man in the greatcoat. He seemed to have solidified with age into something more dense than normal flesh. The room smelt of him. d.i.c.kens felt a stab of fear.

'Quite right,' he said. 'No one could be expected to stand it. I couldn't stand it. No, not for a moment.' Sweet reasonableness. That was the key. Now, if only the fellow would explain why he was complaining. The first typesetters'

copy of the Daily News Daily News was on d.i.c.kens's desk and he wanted to check it. There had already been dozens of delays with the printing. He seized on the normality of the thought. was on d.i.c.kens's desk and he wanted to check it. There had already been dozens of delays with the printing. He seized on the normality of the thought.

'This is what I mean and well you know it.' A hand came down thump thump on the typesetters' copy. "This impudent prying. on the typesetters' copy. "This impudent prying.

You thought better of putting it all into that Christmas Book but even so you're too near things best left a-lying. Stick to stealing your ill.u.s.trator's ideas for fat rogues, and leave other people's lives and doings alone!'

Not waiting for a reply, his face redder than his fancy Punch-and-Judy man's waistcoat, the man clattered down the wooden stairs to the street below.

Alone, d.i.c.kens sighed gloomily. Even tramps off the street had heard the slander that he had stolen the character of Mister Pickwick from Seymour's ill.u.s.trations. He tried to tell himself that it was a pa.s.sing mood, like the depression The Times's The Times's review of his Christmas book 'The Cricket on the Hearth' had caused. The reviewer had said that it was unworthy of the name of literature and possessed of neither merit nor truth. review of his Christmas book 'The Cricket on the Hearth' had caused. The reviewer had said that it was unworthy of the name of literature and possessed of neither merit nor truth.

Only the notion that The Times The Times was bitter about d.i.c.kens' was bitter about d.i.c.kens'

prospective rival paper, the Daily News, Daily News, had finally raised his spirits. had finally raised his spirits.

Of course, 'The Cricket on the Hearth'! That was what had offended the stranger. He must have thought himself maligned in the character of Tackleton, the toy-maker who hated children and found satisfaction in the construction of cunning grotesque creatures of wood and paint calculated to drive a child to fits or worse. d.i.c.kens smiled wanly. He had found the initial idea for Tackleton in Patrick Matherhyde's history of the parishes of York. That book had recounted the rise and fall of the C o x h a m firm of Montague and Tackleton, which had floundered in the late 1780s. Its downfall had been a scandal involving a doll's house built to resemble Ilbridge House, but Matherhyde had been either uninformed or carefully reticent about the details.

d.i.c.kens's caller would surely see that no slur was intended at his expense if he could be located and the matter explained to him.

d.i.c.kens called Henry, the eight-year-old printer's boy, into his office, quickly gave him a description of the toyman and, with a liberal gift from the petty cash, set him on the man's trail.

2.Rea.s.sured that the problem was, or would soon be, solved, d.i.c.kens turned to the first page-proofs of the Daily News. Daily News.

This was what he needed, a cheerful gust of liberality and common sense. His antidote to the gory refuse that sold half the papers on Fleet Street. Even The Times The Times had given s.p.a.ce to the so-called 'pygmy murders'. had given s.p.a.ce to the so-called 'pygmy murders'.

His eye caught a line of poetry. It would be something inspirational, no doubt, picked by his co-workers. He read: As each Doll its place maintains As each Doll its place maintains so it the fading life sustains.

If the Dolls be fed and plump so the waning heart will pump.

If the maker do the deed which allows the Dolls to feed, fearing neither man nor h.e.l.l, they will prosper, wax and swell.

Live forever and escape in the end from human sha...

d.i.c.kens tore his eyes from the page. What was this dog-gerel rubbish, this unpleasant morbidity, doing in his paper?

He looked for the author's name. There was no poem. There was only normal prose set in newspaper columns.

Suddenly he felt very cold and ill, as if not all the sweet air and light in the world could do him any good, as if there was no sweet air or light anywhere; only night and stars that were the empty eyes of dolls gazing blankly from the ownerless heavens.

'Nonsense,' he said loudly, three times, until the staff looked in from the print works, Henry not being there to head them off, and he felt infinitely rea.s.sured that their eyes were flesh and not gla.s.s. Shooing them out, he poked the fire to life reflectively. Something had happened that he did not understand. Something unnatural. He shuddered. A writer treasures his imagination; his dreams. For a moment he had felt them twist like snakes in his grasp.

He realized that, despite the cold, he was sweating.

3.d.i.c.kens had started looking for Henry as soon as he had recovered from his experience with the proofs, but it was afternoon before he found him. The boy was on his way back, shivering in the winter chill. d.i.c.kens paid for some hot pies for the boy and himself, and they sat on the steps of one of London's old churches to eat.

Henry, his hunger abated, picked a piece of gristly flesh from between his teeth.

'His name's Montague, Mr d.i.c.kens. He's got a toyshop down Billingsgate way, but none of those I know there ever buy from him. There's talk he's got a frightful temper, and no one seems to know what he lives on, save the drink.'

'Even a toy-maker must eat,' d.i.c.kens said, and the nervousness of his own voice surprised him.

Henry sniffed. 'Maybe, but if he eats more than his dolls do, he's never seen to do it. I don't like it, Mr d.i.c.kens. It ain't right.'

d.i.c.kens saw Henry was hesitating, and recognized that the boy was wary of confiding further. He lowered his voice.

'Montague did something while he was in my office. He tampered with the proofs of the paper. I need to find out if he's working for a rival.' He pa.s.sed Henry another coin.

Henry looked rueful. 'Mrs Singleton - she's past fifty and her eyesight's failing, but she gives her affy davy that she saw one of the doll's heads in his window open its eyes and look at her. And they say at night the heads whisper to each other.'

It was later that d.i.c.kens, full of brandy and alone, trotted nervously down the back alleys. The noxious overflow of the gutters bit into his nostrils. The cold deadened the smell somewhat but, shivering in the thick wool of his dreadnought coat, he was still uncomfortably aware of the decay. This part of London, windward of Billingsgate and damp as a fish's underbelly, sucked all the joy out of walking. Not even blowing steam like a boiler in great clouds of condensing breath cheered his spirits.

The decision to pay the disgruntled toyman back seemed 4 unnecessary or dangerous now, in the back streets. Crumpets and toast and a crackling fire would meet the case much better. Kate and the children would be waiting for him at home. Why not let the mouldering old toy-maker fume in his garret, nursing his imaginary grievances? It would serve him best not to be taken seriously. Perhaps even magnanimity would defeat him. A suitably impressive goose or a plum cake might set Montague alight with the combustion of his humours, like a living brandy-snap.

No, d.i.c.kens knew in his chilled heart that an appeal to good fellowship or even to self-interest would be as lost on Montague as if it was wine poured into the Dead Sea. The thought pushed him to a decision. He would find the shop and mark it well for a visit in the light and dry. Noon, not a rain-soaked afternoon, was the time to confront Montague. In the heat of the sun the alcoholic vapours would boil off, leaving him a thin straggly wretch, a mere doll or puppet.

Shivering, d.i.c.kens decided that was not a cheerful thought after all. The image of Montague with a face of porcelain from which a film of drink evaporated, like a ghost leaving a corpse, was just the kind of overwrought imagining that the damp engendered. He turned to retreat down the Dock Road. A thin scratching sound came from the overhanging warehouses to his left. He ignored it. He was round the corner, leaning forward like a man walking into a headwind.

There was nothing to keep him here and every comfort to be found elsewhere, and yet he found it harder and harder to place one foot in front of another. The noise of the scratching, unnaturally loud through the rain, reverberated in his head. As he turned he saw the first of the dolls crawling towards him.

He ran from the back street, and from London and the Daily Daily News, News, and the books he wrote from that day onward were colder and bleaker than any he had written before. He never saw Montague or his dolls again. Twenty years later he told some of the story to a drunken Wilkie Collins and they cautiously approached the site of Montague's shop at noon 5 and the books he wrote from that day onward were colder and bleaker than any he had written before. He never saw Montague or his dolls again. Twenty years later he told some of the story to a drunken Wilkie Collins and they cautiously approached the site of Montague's shop at noon 5 on the longest day of the year, but the shop was a blackened sh.e.l.l, burnt for many, many years.

Paris: 2 2 M a r c h 1884 Blinking in the noonday sun, Viers followed the six-year-old boy along the street between the rue Richelieu and the rue St-Roch in the direction of the Eglise.

The ma.s.sive bulk of the Church St Roch, which was scarcely shorter than Notre Dame itself, was concealed by the tall houses. Viers imagined it dark as his undertaker's coat against the early evening sky, its architecture of high chapels topped with a single cupola. Just so, la Fraternite la Fraternite was concealed by the mundane world which hung like a series of veils before the light at the heart of things. There were so many veils. was concealed by the mundane world which hung like a series of veils before the light at the heart of things. There were so many veils.

When his instructor, Boucher, had first told him of the accursed Family, Viers had baulked at a.s.sisting in the kid-napping of a child, even to free it from the h.e.l.l of such a life, but now he had seen for himself the Devil's marks on Emil, he knew where his duty lay. Crouching back in the empty doorway of a shattered townhouse, he put his mind in contact with his instructor's master.

The sickly breaking-down of the barriers between mind and mind was, as always, unpleasant. He began the chant which the Grandmaster's tame wizard had taught him.

'Malelt Tilad Ahyram. Asai Asai Evohe, Malelelt Tilad Ahyram.' His voice faltered over the half-familiar sounds. A Catholic by childhood instruction, he had shied away at first from this ritual of strange words with their echoes of something heavy, almost diabolical. Only gradually had he come to understand that it was this taint that the Grandmaster was fighting, albeit with its own weapons. For, as a poisoned dagger wrenched from a murderous and irredeemable attacker may, in the tight and pressing melee melee of a struggle, be used lawfully, so these powers could if taken up by the clear-minded be used in the service of man and G.o.d. of a struggle, be used lawfully, so these powers could if taken up by the clear-minded be used in the service of man and G.o.d.

Coldly at first, then with a fire that burnt without the 6 comfort of warmth, he began to think into the thoughts of his master. In words his report would have been: 'Brother Viers here. The youngest of them is heading towards St-Roch. I suspect he will stop at the square with the fountain carved with bluebirds.' In truth he expressed more than that. Telepathy was not speech, and even when a thought was phrased as a sentence it travelled in a cloud of images and surrounding sub-thoughts.

At that instant, walking in the place de Verdome by the columned statue of Napoleon where the politicians con-gregate when the Palais Bourbon is not in session, the younger deputies nudged each other as they saw the old man on the seat stiffen momentarily, and his left hand shudder involuntarily on his knee.

'Old Jean Mayeur is having one of his fits,' said one, behind his perfectly manicured hand. Even in the Council of Deputies where a man might hold power for as long as his purse was full, Mayeur was among the longest-serving members. He was an embarra.s.sment really, the younger men thought. Still, he couldn't last much longer, could he?

In his mind Jean Mayeur, the Grandmaster of the Brotherhood, read Viers's zeal with every brilliantly coloured thought.

He felt Viers's pa.s.sing judgement of the architecture of the church in the image of its brooding oddity, and experienced the touch of fear that Viers had felt as the skin of the child had darkened in the sunlight as he left the house, changing from the purest white to the black of the Devil's heart. Viers's imagery was excessive, but he was loyal. Loyalty was rare enough to make even simple-mindedness no hindrance to advancement.

Indeed, it could be an a.s.set. Jean Mayeur knew his servant's resolve, and he knew it was good. With Emil in his hand, he would consolidate his hold over his agent within the Family, and if in the process of turning them back to the Fraternal Brotherhood and saving them from their foolishness they stood with him against Montague, so much the better.

Opening his eyes, he squinted up at the statue of Napoleon.

It had been torn down by the Bourbons on their restoration, 7 only to be replaced later by the order of Napoleon III. Perhaps some day his statue would be there. If so he would never let it be torn down. Perhaps some day his statue would be there. If so he would never let it be torn down.

They had s.n.a.t.c.hed the child from the square reasonably easily.

Boucher had been waiting when Viers reached it; a pad soaked with ether in the pocket of his badly cut jacket. The child had still fought like a mad thing. Eerily, the voice with which it screamed had changed to match the mutations in its body.

Now it lay face down and still on the slab of stone.

Viers reached out and touched its shoulder. The child's skin was rough and unnatural, and its nails were long like talons. Viers's cheek still ached from the struggle in the alley-way. The child had torn a jagged strip an inch long from the right side of his face. The Brotherhood's healers would need to look at it if it was not going to scar.

Boucher leant forward over the slab. His movements were taut and brisk.

'So this is the youngest of the little fish who have swum out of the nets of the fishers of men.' Deftly, with a grace that his humped back denied, he reached for one of the knives. Viers grabbed his hand. Despite the way the child had fought, he could not stand by and let him be gutted. 'He's just a b o y '

'Just?' The word seemed to be an alien one in Boucher's throat. Viers wondered how he could ever have admired the man. In that moment of doubt the child was upon them.

Somehow its body had rejected the effects of the ether. It fastened its teeth into Viers's shoulder. They had grown long like a wolf's.

Boucher, leaving Viers to take the brunt of the attack, stepped back. He clasped his hands together and brought them down in a ma.s.sive two-handed blow to the side of the child's head. The boy dropped like a sack of meal.

'Just a boy, eh!' Boucher snorted.

Viers clutched at the wound the boy had made in his shoulder, and blood seeped between his fingers. He gritted his teeth. 'We are not going to kill him. The Grandmaster wants him alive.'

8.Boucher shrugged, his hump moving oddly on his back.

'As you wish. Tie him up until the Grandmaster can decide this, but be it on your own head.' Firmly, without trying to cause pain, Viers tied the child's wrists.

Boucher watched him, scowling. Viers was so solicitous of the creature's welfare, so smug in his a.s.surance that the Grandmaster was benevolent. This was going to be a pleasure. Smirking, the hump-backed man smashed his hands down hard on the back of Viers's neck. Viers gave a throttled gasp deep in his chest and lay still, slumped over the boy.

Boucher laughed his wicked little laugh. The child was his now.

The one o'clock shift was changing in the sewers. Monsieur Pierre Duval stood in the gallery of the sewer Asinieres, a lean white-haired wraith against the dark stonework. Often, when his fellow workers were scurrying to the light at the end of their shifts, he would come here and watch the underground river. This gallery, the main sewer below it and the other three great sewers had all been built in his lifetime. Before they had been constructed, he had worked on the ninety-six miles of drains, some tiny, some wide enough to take a man, that had carried the effluvium of Paris to the Seine. He knew even the old drains that Haussmann's rebuilding had overlooked, or had left abandoned out of a l.u.s.t for symmetry or a distaste for the rotting stonework.

There were stories about the old sewers. Pierre had heard them all. There was the one about the sewerman with the hooded face who uncloaked to reveal the staring iridescent dead eyes of a great fish. There were tales about the lights where the sewers crossed the catacombs under Montrouge to which the dead of Paris had been moved ninety years or more ago. There were many stories of the drains that pa.s.sed under the parts of Paris shunned by its inhabitants, the house where Alexis Ladeau had cut his throat after piecing together the fragments of a certain 9 book, the street where the murderer Prevost threw sc.r.a.ps of his victims openly into the sewers, and the rue Morgue itself. In legend those drains ran red and thick. Pierre merely shook his head at such imagination. If there were such things in the sewers he would know.

He turned to leave, and did not see the vast scaled back that broke the black waters of the sewer Asinieres. A l.u.s.trous reptilian sheen of green and blue scales, a hint of yellow-tipped fins, the disturbance was gone in an instant. Below the surface, the scaled body moved sinuously, and three great red eyes blinked behind thick armoured eyelids. Its search went on.

Panting slightly, Boucher dragged Viers to one side. Now the child would die and Montague would reward him. The Grandmaster would be shown as the ineffectual fool he was.

He picked up a knife. Tied on the slab, the child thrashed. Its hands became scythes of bone, fingers fusing into edged weapons.

Boucher watched its attempts to free itself with mild interest. The child was a lively one. Perhaps Montague would wish to examine it? He gathered his mental energies to contact one of Montague's adepts for an apportation. He would have the boy moved to the vats for investigation.

The stonework shattered. Something huge and reptilian broke into the crypt. Boucher caught a glimpse of three red glowing eyes as the overhand swipe of a talon broke his neck. The blow, smashing down through Boucher's collar-bone, sliced through the leather corset he wore under his coat. Black bat-wings spilled free from the artificial hump. In the corner the dazed Viers screamed, imagining himself the puppet of the d.a.m.ned.

Turning slowly in the confining s.p.a.ce, the creature scooped up the body of the boy. Stirring for a second on the edges of consciousness, Emil brushed the rough scales of the creature with his bone hands, and a murmur of recognition escaped his lips.