Lord Tophet - By Gregory Frost Page 0,114
the room. She recalled the story the Ondiont snake had told her of the bride of Death, who had captured souls like tiny lights; and of the brothers who were turned to rock with a final wish to be worshipped; of the thousand stories of people who wished for something before they understood the price of it.
The sparks flicked and vanished, flicked and vanished, around her, past her, through her. They pitted the gold mask behind her where they hit it until it became as thin as mesh. And when the last one burst forth and died, the body of Tophet stopped moving. The indurate form had become a dried husk, a gaping mummified thing without a face.
She stepped back from the corpse and brushed against the huge mask. It fell, slipping past her shoulders as she turned to see the figure of the attendant stumble and release the pole on which it hung. The mask bent when it hit, and slid across the floor like a leaf skimming a pond. The pole clattered after it. The blind attendant caught her balance against Scratta. He in turn rocked to and fro and then fell, shattering when he hit the floor. All around Leodora, the Agents of Chaos had become stone that within moments had begun to crumble away. The force that had knit them together was gone.
Her hand where Tophet had grabbed her was burned white as if covered with powder, but it hadn’t turned to stone. She looked at the people around her, the survivors of this span, who were too fearful yet to believe that the Destroyer was really gone. She stepped down from the throne and walked away, out from under the dome, and by the time she passed the curtained dais she was runnning, weaving back through his trove of treasures until she reached the mirror. In dread she approached it, hopeful that the magic behind it had been banished; and yet her heart swelled when she discovered it had not and her mother still agitatedly filled the frame.
“Why didn’t she go?” she asked as she touched the pendant.
The Brazen Head awoke. “His magic was cast in the glass, independent of him, as with the dome. Magic needs magic to be undone.”
“How do I set her free? I can’t leave her this way.”
“What is she?”
“My mother.”
“But if I say your mother is long dead, then what does she become?”
“I don’t know. A reflection.”
“A reflection,” he repeated. And he fell silent again.
She stared around her, turning in a circle, then looked up through the dome and shouted, “You knew all along! All of you! Shumyzin! Cardeo!” Her voice echoed through the vast chamber and came back to her unanswered. The most important questions were the ones they never asked.
She gripped the phial. It had to be nearly empty. The drop that had rescued Diverus had taken forever to spill from it. She couldn’t pour the last drops on the upright mirror and couldn’t tilt the mirror on its stony base. Instead she held out her hand and tipped the phial over her palm. Two drops splashed out.
For a moment she hesitated. The air filled with distant cries of “Jax!” as if the crowds from the Terrestre were clamoring for more; but she knew it was the survivors of Calcaria, freed and seeking after their savior.
“Good-bye, Mother,” she said, then she wiped her hand over the glass, smearing the reflection from top to bottom. She stepped back and the image in the mirror rippled and faded. The mirror turned black.
“Diverus!” Leodora called, and she stepped through the darkness.
EPILOGUE
THE PUPPETS OF BARDSHAM
There is a span on Shadowbridge called Calcaria that claims it has Bardsham’s original puppets. The span is terribly ancient, so old that its Dragon Bowl has long since fallen into the sea, and most of the span is composed of uninhabited ruins. The puppets, however, are on display in a museum that is a great towering structure like no other on the span, and which lends credence to the story they tell there of how the span fell into ruin. The people of that span—tall, slender creatures with prominent snouts and eyes like black marbles—tell a story about how they were once imprisoned there by a fiendish god named Chaos, and how the ghost of Bardsham’s wife came out of a mirror and destroyed him with a story, leaving the puppets behind as a tribute to those who’d suffered under his yoke. The mirror from which she emerged is a dull and unpolished thing that no longer reflects. It is also on display there, beside a pocked and damaged mask that they claimed was the face of Chaos.
This local tale would be dismissed were it not for the puppets themselves: Bardsham is not known to have performed on spirals anywhere near Calcaria, and in truth most of those other spans are dead ruins, too, peopled only by statues, the cause of their abandonment likewise attributed to the same shattered god. The puppets, however, are quite real. Detractors of the story point out that there’s no puppet of Meersh in the collection, and we all know that Meersh was Bardsham’s signature figure. Of course, the people have an explanation for that, too: that Bardsham took his puppet with him when Chaos had him thrown off the span into the sea. It’s a perplexing story to be sure.
On the other side of the world, far across the Adamantine Ocean, the spans sing stories of a girl puppeteer, who followed in Bardsham’s footsteps but was even greater than he. Some say she was his daughter, and others that she was a goddess who healed the span of Colemaigne. What happened to her is not known. At the height of her powers, she stopped performing. Many there are who believe she and Bardsham were so skillful that the gods of Edgeworld whisked them away and they live now as immortals for the entertainment of the eternals. Stories of her—of a puppeteer called Jax, who came from an island and brought Colemaigne back to life—are now performed far and wide in pantomimes and puppet shows, recitations and comedies. No one really knows for sure any of it, but, then, not all mysteries are explained.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Numerous people gave of their time and wisdom in providing feedback on this book as it grew. I want to thank especially Fran Grote, who argued against the most obdurate resistance in the world—mine; Oz Whiston, for her blade-edged criticism; Janine Latus, a superb writer and canny reader; and my editor, Keith Clayton, who caught every single thing that everybody else missed and then some. Thanks to Shana Cohen, my agent, for keeping everything on track, including me. Once again a special thanks to M. Swanwick and the M. C. Porter Endowment for the Arts for the long-term chivvying they provided; and to Barbara for weathering it all. Finally, my thanks to the great shadow puppeteer Richard Bradshaw, who once upon a time let me have a peek into his world.
GREGORY FROST has been a finalist for nearly every major award in the fantasy field, including the Hugo, Nebula, James Tiptree, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, International Horror Guild, and World Fantasy awards. He is the author of six previous novels, as well as the critically praised short-story collection Attack of the Jazz Giants & Other Stories. Greg is one of the Fiction Writing Workshop directors at Swarthmore College. He lives in Merion Station, Pennsylvania. His website is www.gregoryfrost.com.
BY GREGORY FROST
Lyrec
Tain
Remscela
The Pure Cold Light
Fitcher’s Brides
Attack of the Jazz Giants & Other Stories
Shadowbridge
Lord Tophet
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
I: The Blight of Colemaigne
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
II: Pons Asinorum
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
III: Lord Tophet’s Bane
Epilogue: The Puppets of Bardsham
About the Author
Also By Gregory Frost
Copyright
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
I: The Blight of Colemaigne Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
II: Pons Asinorum Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
III: Lord Tophet’s Bane
Epilogue: The Puppets of Bardsham
About the Author
Also By Gregory Frost
Copyright