The Garden of Unearthly Delights (38 page)

Maxwell
entered the circular room.

The
crystal-topped table was laid out for a feast: bowls of brightly coloured
sweets, decanters of wine, platters of biscuits and cakes. Another sound.

Maxwell
passed by the table and stared down.

And
then he began to smile.

MacGuffin
lay on the floor. He was twisted into an unnatural posture: his knees drawn up
to his chest, his fingers bent back upon themselves. His big head was on one
side. Yellow slime dripped from his mouth.

‘MacGuffin,’
said Maxwell, ‘whatever has happened to you?’

The
beady black eyes were glazed, but they flickered towards Maxwell and fixed him
with a stare of unutterable loathing.

Maxwell
pulled over MacGuffin’s big red throne-like chair and sat down upon it. ‘You
are clearly quite poorly,’ said Maxwell. ‘In fact, you are about to die.’

MacGuffin
tried to speak, but no words came to him. ‘You have lost your voice,’ said
Maxwell, ‘and the movements of your hands, no more to utter curses or fling
magic. How has this come about?’

Maxwell
rose to his feet and stood over the dying magician. ‘It has come about’, said
he, in a vicious tone, ‘because I have poisoned you. Three times over, this
single day. How did I do this, I feel you might ask. Well, I shall tell you. I
acquired Count Waldeck’s medicine cabinet. A great man for poison, was the
count. He once had someone poison me. You never forget a thing like that. It’s
the kind of thing you’d wish upon your worst enemy. And you are
my
worst
enemy, MacGuffin.’

A spasm
of pain shook the magician. His black eyes rolled up into his head.

‘Oh,
don’t die quite yet,’ Maxwell told him. ‘You’ll miss how I did it. And I shall
so enjoy telling you.

Firstly,
I poisoned your blood, with a ring coated in venom. Secondly, you poisoned
yourself, by licking the gum on the brown envelope I enclosed with the bogus
message. And thirdly,’ Maxwell kicked the prone figure, ‘the elixir I sent you
to apply to Ewavett. I’ll bet you enjoyed applying it, you filthy creature. It
could not harm her metal body, of course, but it soaked into your rotten
flesh.’

The
black eyes rolled down and crossed, more evil slime leaked from the flaccid
mouth.

‘So I
have killed you,’ Maxwell said. ‘You die for all those you have sent to their
deaths, all those you have enslaved. You die because you are not fit to live.’

A
rattling sound issued from MacGuffin’s throat, he jerked his head from side to
side. Maxwell walked calmly to the table and looked over the colourful fare. ‘A
succulent feast,’ said he, picking up a sweetmeat and putting it to his mouth.

The
black eyes fixed him with a baleful stare.

Maxwell
dropped the sweetmeat to the floor and hastily wiped his fingers.
‘Touché,’
he
said. ‘A poisoned feast for the victor, I should have expected no less.’

The
black eyes closed. MacGuffin lay still.

Maxwell
sank into the big red throne-like chair.

It was
done. He had taken his revenge. MacGuffin was dead.

Maxwell
began to shake and then he was violently sick.

28

Maxwell wiped a sleeve
across his mouth. It was not altogether done. There was the matter of his soul.
A very grave matter indeed.

Maxwell
climbed to his feet. ‘Come, cabinet,’ he shouted.

No
cabinet came. Well, it was worth a try.

Maxwell
glanced across the room to the door which MacGuffin had stared so hard at when
last they met. In there, perhaps?

Maxwell
crossed the room and pushed open the door. A bedroom lay beyond. A marvellous
bedroom. The kind of bedroom Maxwell had always fancied: big round bed, with a
white lamb-skin cover; deep pile carpet; mirrored ceiling; full range of
marital aids on the dressing-table. Maxwell cast the eye of interest over
these. Then his eye of interest returned to the bed. On this, side by side, sat
Aodhamm and Ewavett.

Still
without any clothes on.

Maxwell
viewed the beautiful couple. The bronze man, with his peerless physique. The
perfect golden woman.

Maxwell
cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me,’ he said.

Aodhamm
looked up at him, stared a blank stare.

‘You
are
free,’
said Maxwell. ‘MacGuffin is dead. I, Max Carrion, have killed
him. You are liberated. You may go your way.

Aodhamm’s
stare remained blank. His bronze lips moved. ‘MacGuffin has defiled Ewavett,’
he said.

‘Er,
yes.’ Maxwell scratched at his chin. ‘That was my fault, I’m afraid. But the
way I see it, one small defilement is better than a lifetime of enslavement.’

‘It’s
not the defilement,’ said Aodhamm. ‘It’s the fact that she enjoyed it.’

‘I
did,’ said Ewavett, grinning hugely.

‘Good
grief,’ said Maxwell, gaping hugely.

‘Aodhamm’s
no good at it,’ said Ewavett. ‘He makes clanking noises when he comes and he
can’t keep it up for more than an hour.’

‘I
think I must be going now,’ said Maxwell.

‘You
look like a bit of all right,’ said Ewavett. ‘How about splitting the bamboo
with me for a couple of hours?’

‘You
trollop,’ said Aodhamm.

‘You
wimp,’ said Ewavett.

‘Goodbye,’
said Maxwell, closing the door.

‘Come,
cabinet,’ he called. Well, it was always worth a second try. No cabinet came
(clanking or not).

Maxwell
sought another door. One other remained in the room. Maxwell stalked over and
threw it wide. Beyond lay the cabinet of souls, hovering in the air. Maxwell
pulled it into the high-domed room. It moved without weight. Maxwell swung it
around. ‘Open up,’ he told it.

The
cabinet did not open.

Maxwell
applied himself to the lid. ‘Carefully does it,’ he said. The lid shifted a
mite, then dropped back. Maxwell dug in his fingers. As he pulled up the lid,
the cabinet rose with it. Tricky.

Maxwell
climbed onto the floating cabinet and pushed it down to the floor. There’d be a
knack to this. If only he knew some magic word.

Some
magic word.

Maxwell
stood up from the cabinet and ran his hands over the lid. Some magic word?
Maxwell’s hands froze.
Some magic word?
The cabinet still floated, kept
aloft by the magic of MacGuffin. And when a magician dies, so too does his
magic.

Which
meant…

Maxwell
spun around.

MacGuffin’s
body shook and shivered. MacGuffin was
not
dead.

Maxwell
sought something to finish the job. The big red throne-like chair — dash out
his brains. And dash them out now.

Maxwell
struggled to lift the chair. The chair would not be lifted. Something.
Anything.

MacGuffin’s
body jerked like a puppet on strings. It flapped from the floor, dropped back.
Flapped up again. The great arms falling wide, trailing about, bending at
strange angles in all the wrong places. The big head lolling this way and that.

Maxwell
looked on in horror. Something very bad was about to happen.

Something
very bad indeed.

MacGuffin’s
body rose, swung erect. But he was not standing. His feet scarcely touched the
floor. Something other than MacGuffin was working the mage.

Maxwell
backed towards the door, pushing the cabinet of souls.

His
MASTERPLAN had ended with PHASE FOUR, it did not run to a PHASE FIVE. Maxwell,
however, felt well disposed to run.

‘Stay.
Stay.’ The magician’s mouth was moving, but the voice wasn’t his. It was soft,
pleading. ‘Stay, Maxwell,’ it said.

‘No
chance of that.’ Maxwell had the cabinet almost out of the door.

‘Then I
must make you stay.’

MacGuffin’s
mouth stretched wide. Revolting sounds came from his throat. Something vivid
red sprang out, a twisting tentacle. The thing thrashed about, another joined
it, whirling from the magician’s mouth. His chest heaved, then split.
MacGuffin collapsed to the floor.

And
something stood over the body. Something that had come from within. It was no
human something.

Bright
red it was, as red as blood. Two horns upon its head. White pointed teeth and
slitted eyes. A tail and wings upon its back.

‘Aw
shit!’ said Maxwell, as you would.

‘Quickly
now,’ the creature said. ‘As you have slain my host, so now it is that you must
carry me within.’

‘No
fucking way!’

Maxwell
snatched a decanter from the table and flung it at the creature. The thing
swept it aside and advanced upon him.

‘I must
come into you now. At once.’

‘Who
are you?
What
are you?’ Maxwell tried to push the cabinet out of the
door, but somehow he’d managed to wedge it.

‘You
have seen the new Adam and the new Eve. Now you behold the new serpent also.’

‘The
Devil?’

‘MacGuffin
conjured me, but I possessed him. I guided his hands to conjure Ewavett and
Aodhamm, so that I might rule over the new
Eden
. The Garden of Unearthly Delights.’

‘Every
bugger wants to rule,’ Maxwell struggled to shift the cabinet. ‘Still, it’s
good to get these things out in the open. It helps tie up all the loose ends.’

‘I must
enter you now.’

‘I’d
rather that you didn’t.’

‘MacGuffin
dies. At the moment of his death his power will be yours. But only for a
moment. If I am within you I can hold the power. Together we can do many
things.’

‘You
really must be joking.’ The window above was open. Maxwell wondered if he could
leap through it.

‘Now,
Maxwell, let me come inside.’

‘Here,’
said Maxwell, ‘have this.’

He
swung a fist and smacked the creature in the gob. It was somewhat like hitting
a rock.

Maxwell
howled and as he howled the room began to rock. It was nothing to do with his
howling though. It was all to do with MacGuffin. The magician clawed at his
hollowed chest, gave a howl of his own and fell dead.

‘Now!’
The creature flung himself at Maxwell. Maxwell ducked aside. ‘Open, cabinet,’
he shouted. The lid swung open and Maxwell snatched out the glowing sphere that
held his soul.’

‘Inside!’
The creature threw itself once more at Maxwell. Clutching his soul to his
chest, Maxwell ran around the crystal table, the creature in pursuit.

‘Quickly,
quickly,’ it screamed. ‘I cannot survive outside a body. We will lose the
magic. Quickly.’

‘Quickly
it is then.’ Maxwell turned to face the creature. ‘Horse and Hattock, this
whole bloody house!’ he shouted. ‘Then to Hell with MacGuffin’s magic!’

‘No!’

But it
was
yes.

And
chaos was the order of the day.

The
house shook and trembled. Slates flew from its roof. The crystal table tipped
and smashed. In rooms and halls beneath, showcases shattered and statuary
toppled. Rude pictures fell from the walls and broke. And the manse lifted into
the air.

As it
ripped itself from its foundations, MacGuffin’s magic burst out like water from
a fractured main.

It
boiled about the village, tearing up the cobblestone and frightening the
horses.

Dave,
who had been packing his suitcase, was flung from his feet. His trousers
shredded and a hydra (many headed) rose out of his underpants and went for him
something cruel.

Maxwell
clung to the obscene table support as the room now spun around him. He tried
desperately to keep a grip on the crystal globe, but he could feel it slipping
from his fingers.

The
creature was upon him. It clung to his leg and Maxwell tried to kick it away.
It leered at him and laughed. ‘You’re all mine now,’ it said.

‘I’m
not done yet,’ and Maxwell kicked and kicked. Things smashed and crashed and
windows broke and columns fell and magic roared and raved.

Ewavett’s
voice could be heard above the maelstrom, coming from the bedroom. ‘Yes, yes,’
she cried. ‘Do it to me, Aodhamm. Do it to me. Yes, yes, yes.’

‘I
shall do it to
you,’
cried the creature, curling about Maxwell’s leg, a
horrible blood-red serpent.

‘Oh my
Goddess.’ The crystal globe slipped from his grip and bounced across the room.
Pain tore into Maxwell from every direction. The creature rolled itself into a
ball and shot towards his mouth.

‘No!’
Maxwell ducked his head, the thing flew past. It circled round in the spinning
room and flew at him once more.