A crack in the firmament with a weed sticking out. A rip. A fracture. A soundless scream across the deep. And just like that, Sark and Jaunty Blue were back in the Château Peppermint Blonkers, standing inside the entrance.
Staggering to the leeward, legs still accustomed to boats even on dry land: Sark and Jaunty Blue. But other problems, too, even if of the sort they’d become accustomed to.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Sark said. “And you’d just repaired your Fresian water robe. And now we’re full of bullets. How did that happen?”
Jaunty Blue made an elaborate “who knows” gesture. His gestures tended to be dramatic so they could be understood through the robe.
“Would be a problem if we were actually here in our skins. Another astronomical tailor bill, though, I’m afraid, ol’ Jaunty. Always seems to add up but not yet past due.”
Jaunty Blue made a gesture that meant, sardonically, Haunted by a dark and twisted past.
“Forever and always,” Sark said in an affectionate way.
A long corridor lay ahead, with dozens of doors on either side.
“In my father’s house there are many rooms,” Sark said. “Although I agree with you, Jaunty, that there are too many animal trophies.”
The corridor indeed was crowded with mounted animal heads on the walls. All of which were growling or weeping or snarling or shrieking or screaming or pleading or, in rare cases, chuckling maniacally.
It was, as the clamor rose at their approach, always a tad overwhelming. Such a wonderful greeting to mark their return.
“Yes, my pretties, we’re back,” Sark said as they walked down the corridor, Jaunty Blue unable to resist stopping at times to pat the head of a particular favorite.
There were several human heads among the rest, but Sark and Jaunty Blue ignored their pleading. Those heads were, after all, there for a reason. Even if neither Sark nor Jaunty Blue could remember that reason.
At the end of the corridor, before it opened up onto a vast hall full of comfy chairs, Sark stopped and looked at Jaunty Blue.
“With or without heads?” he asked.
Jaunty made a chopping motion across what might reasonably be presumed to be where his throat was. Probably.
“Rightly so,” Sark said, agreeing. “Minimalist it is.”
He reached over to a red lever that appeared on the wall as the heads all began to protest.
“Bye-bye,” Sark said, and pulled the lever.
Behind them, circular blades beheaded each trophy, and they all fell to the floor in a cacophony of unpleasantness, rolling around for a time before the floor itself grew tired of their complaining and absorbed them whole.
The silence was most pleasing.
Beyond the great hall lay all the rooms that did not lead to other places. A museum of fused spines. A hall of fashion dummies. A room full of dirt ablaze with wildflowers. A display of outrageous fossils.
The château had never had much respect for temporal-spatial niceties, nor for coherence.
Sark and Jaunty Blue had much respect for the château. In part because they had died trying to rob it, the original, that is. On an Earth far, far away. Centuries ago. Perhaps longer.
On one side of the great hall there was a tall mirror or a doorway—it was all the same in here, and fast-approaching, as if they weren’t walking through a château but instead a bird diving down from the sky. Through the panoramic windows swift now a city appeared down below, the corridor become a balcony that had swept them up in its embrace.
“Could this be it, Jaunty? The exact moment of our un-exile?”
Jaunty clapped his begloved hands.
“What do you think of our invoker this time?”
Jaunty made a gesture with his cloak that pulled it off for a moment by mistake to reveal the terrors beneath.
Sark looked away quickly while Jaunty fixed himself. “Quite right. Invoker behind the invoker.”
“A worthy cause to someone,” Jaunty gestured.
“None worthier, Jaunty. And what shall we get out of it? Another vacation? Escape? Something … bigger?”
Jaunty Blue’s body language told Sark there was never any escape from the Château Peppermint Blonkers. Besides, it would not do to express certain wishes. The Enemy might be listening in—was listening in, probably.
A spy. Tiny. So many rooms. A rat in the walls. So hard to keep the riffraff out.
The voice of the château rang hard in their heads in a most unpleasant way. Time to change the subject. Really, Sark knew better, but every once in a while it was worth testing things. Even if the answer was always the same.
“Tell me, Jaunty Blue,” Sark said, to change the subject, staring at the horizon over the city. “Tell me this—why would English dirigibles fly a French flag? Any thoughts?”
Jaunty Blue shrugged.
“No matter.” For how could it possibly matter, in the long run. “But now I sense this new adventure may be a story for the ages … shall we retire to the bar, for I sense a supplicant approaching, and I’ve let It in.”
The bar in the château was a shimmering gold with hovering soft light above and comfortable stools with backs, curving along opposite a panoramic wall looking down over Prague. At the bar, one could find any kind of intoxicant ever made across most of the worlds.
By the time Sark and Jaunty Blue arrived, the Golden Sphere was already there, having (rather presumptuously, Sark thought) taken golden-man form and seated itself. Currently drinking a huge pint of beer that was spilling through dozens of pinprick holes. Which rather made Jaunty Blue, stuck full of bullets, exchange a glance with Sark that said, “Tribute or parody?”
“Obliviousness,” Sark replied.
The Golden Sphere turned toward them, held out its golden hands. “Ah, old friends, if I may call you that. I just feel as if I’ve gotten to know you on a practically subterranean level superfast. You see, and I’ll cut to the chase,” and here the Golden Sphere grew sad puppy-dog eyes, “there are unnatural forces afoot in this world that mean me harm.”
“Ah, yes, but we find ourselves in a quandary, Old Stone,” Sark said.
“Whether to grant me sanctuary as befits my status or subject yourselves to the crude onslaught that is Crowley?”
“Well, Unholy Wheel, it’s more that we don’t much trust you.”
“But …”
“Also, a certain, let’s see here … Kafka … has lodged a complaint.”
“He has not!”
“He has, too.”
“On what grounds?”
“Never you mind.”
“How did he even—”
“Oh, it could just be Jaunty making something up, but we must still take even made-up things seriously. This complaint. Interference with the natural order. Imposition of unnatural sea shanties—that sort of thing.”
“BUT YOU ARE BOTH HIGHLY UNNATURAL.”
My, how quickly the Golden Sphere became rattled. It must have “seen some shit,” as one adversary had said to them once.
“Tut-tut. It’s impolite to bring up Jaunty’s having been riddled with bullets. You really shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“My apologies.”
“Apologies won’t cut it I’m afraid.”
The Golden Sphere sobered. “I am a Celestial Beast, in all dignity and sincerity apologizing—and seeking refuge.”
“Sorry—can’t hear you. The bullet holes are very loud and judgmental.”
The Golden Sphere pulsed red. “You’re mad. You’re truly mad.”
“Hurtful words. Another demerit.”
The Golden Sphere dimmed to a humble mauve.
“Is there nothing you can do for me?” Pleading. “You are only here because of me! I summoned you!”
“Oh, you were the vehicle for the summons, true. But you were not the summoner.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Few things in this world do. Or in the next. Now, we must ask you to leave.”
“I am not sure I want to. I am not sure I don’t instead wish to do you harm.”
“Understandable. Still, you must. Leave. I’m not at all interested in battling a Celestial Mechanism such as yourself.”
“CELESTIAL BEAST.” Burning bright once more, like a sphere-shaped tyger in the night.
“If you say so. But, just: go. Your application has been denied. Jaunty Blue has rejected your appeal.”
“Who summoned you, then? So I can rip their heart out and feed it to them.”
“That would be confidential information. Even as to the matter of whether they have a heart.”
“I’m not leaving,” the Golden Sphere snarled, sphere once more, spitting fire.
“Bye-bye,” Sark said as Jaunty Blue pulled a lever that had appeared next to him.
A door opened in the floor and the Golden Sphere, screaming, was sucked out, to plummet to the earth below. To take its chances in Prague.
“Well, that was fun,” Sark said. “What’s next?”
Jaunty Blue was oblivious to the question, too intent on finishing off the Golden Sphere’s beer.
Besides, they both knew the answer.
Alfred Kubin, the true summoner of the château, waited in the antechamber.