The Garden of Unearthly Delights Read online

  It was a man. But such a man. A man of bronze (though not Doc Savage). A man of burnished bronze, of metal. Perfect in form. An Adonis. Quite naked. Embarrassingly so.

  Maxwell turned away his face. This wonderful creation did not belong here, in this house of perversity. ‘Who is he?’ Maxwell asked.

  ‘What is he. He is an automaton. A robot. A computer.’

  Maxwell shook his head. ‘But he lives, surely.’ He glanced at the beautiful man, who stood with downcast eyes, exuding, for all his radiance, an aura of unbearable sadness.

  ‘He is but a toy,’ said MacGuffin the mage. ‘An exotic toy. But he yearns for his mate.’

  ‘His mate?’

  ‘His other half; her name is Ewavett. You will reunite them.’

  Maxwell tried to picture the other half. As beautiful as this? More beautiful by nature of its femininity? And he could picture, without difficulty and without going into detail, just what plans MacGuffin had for these two once they were reunited, what entertainments he might expect them to provide.

  ‘He is no toy,’ said Maxwell. ‘No robot. Can he speak?’ Maxwell glanced back up at the metal man. ‘Can you speak?’

  The metal man just hung his head and stared blankly at the floor.

  ‘He seldom speaks. He can perform a few basic tasks. He is made of metal, Maxwell. Come, Aodhamm, let Maxwell have a feel of you.’

  The shining figure shuffled over to the table and reached out an elegant hand. It was clearly metal, although not jointed, or hinged, but flowing like mercury.

  ‘Go on,’ said MacGuffin. ‘Have a good feel.’

  ‘No,’ said Maxwell. ‘Somehow it isn’t right. I won’t.’

  ‘As you please. Aodhamm, be gone.’

  Aodhamm turned away and left the room upon dragging naked feet.

  ‘So,’ said MacGuffin. ‘You have seen him. You have seen his sorrow. You will restore his other half to him. Yes?’

  ‘No,’ said Maxwell. ‘Well possibly,’ said Maxwell. ‘Well, yes,’ said Maxwell. ‘But I want to know a good deal more. If he is a robot, which I doubt, who made him? And where? And how did you come by him? And how did he get separated from his mate? And who has his mate now? And—’

  ‘That’s quite enough ands. You will restore Ewavett to him?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Maxwell. ‘If I can.’

  ‘Good,’ said MacGuffin. ‘Then you have at last found a purpose. That is good.’

  Good for Aodhamm, thought Maxwell, but not good for you.

  ‘But can you be trusted?’ asked MacGuffin.

  ‘To restore Aodhamm’s mate to him? Absolutely.’

  ‘But can I trust you, Maxwell?’

  ‘I have said I will attempt to do what you ask. What more can I say?’

  ‘You could say, to yourself of course, I will restore Aodhamm’s mate to him, but not for the voyeuristic pleasure of the odious MacGuffin; him I will seek to slay, as soon as the opportunity presents itself.’

  ‘As if I would,’ said Maxwell.

  ‘As if you would,’ said MacGuffin. ‘So I can trust you implicitly?’

  ‘I swear that you can,’ said Maxwell, crossing his heart with his right hand, and the fingers of his left beneath the table.

  ‘Excellent,’ said MacGuffin. ‘Excellently excellent. Then the action that I now perform is nothing more than a formality.’

  ‘And what action might this be?’

  MacGuffin smiled through his golden nose-ring. ‘I’m going to remove your soul,’ said he.

  9

  ‘No!’ Maxwell fought to bring life to his knees. ‘Whatever you’re going to do, don’t!’

  ‘Tut, tut, tut.’ MacGuffin shook a big finger at Maxwell. ‘You have sworn that I can trust you. So now, that the balance of equilibrium be maintained, I swear with equal sincerity that you can trust me.’

  Maxwell made a bitter face. ‘Irony, I can take,’ said he, ‘but death is quite another matter. Please let me go. I truly, truly promise you can trust me.’

  ‘And I believe you, really I do. But I am an old-fashioned fellow and well set in my ways. So pardon me if I go about my own business in my own fashion. Radical changes rarely bring forth pleasing results. This lesson, I feel, is one that you yourself are coming to learn.’

  ‘There is much I could learn from a man of your genius,’ said Maxwell, putting his brain into first gear. ‘Much that you could teach a willing pupil.’

  ‘Much more than you could ever imagine.’

  ‘A willing pupil, once taught, could manage the affairs of the village,’ said Maxwell, ‘giving his master more time to engage in his private pursuits. Such a pupil—’

  ‘Maxwell,’ said MacGuffin, ‘don’t bullshit the bullshitter, there’s a good fellow. Now, let’s get on with it.’

  MacGuffin clapped his hands together. ‘Come, cabinet,’ he called, and at his calling, and to Maxwell’s further amazement, a long glass-topped cabinet, ominously coffin-shaped and brass-bound at the corners, entered the room, floating several inches above the floor.

  ‘Over here,’ called MacGuffin the mage. ‘And get a move on, do.’

  The cabinet swung around and dropped to the floor with a thud.

  ‘Careful,’ said MacGuffin.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the cabinet.

  Maxwell beat furiously upon his knees, but to no avail.

  The magician flipped open the long glass top and explored the cabinet’s interior. Upon velvet cushioning rested a number of crystal globes, each approximately the size of a small melon or a large orange or a very large grape or an absolutely enormous blackberry or a severely shrunken pumpkin, depending on your taste in fruit and your sense of proportion.

  MacGuffin dipped in his prodigious fingers and lifted one out. He went ‘Hhhh’ upon it and buffed it gently upon his sleeve, before leaning across the table and placing it before Maxwell.

  ‘What is this?’ Maxwell asked.

  ‘What do you think it is?’

  ‘A crystal globe, exactly the size of a nineteenth-century French ceramic carpet bowl.’

  ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’ MacGuffin asked.

  Maxwell shrugged. ‘Search me.’

  ‘Then look inside the globe.’

  Maxwell leaned forward and peered in. ‘By the Goddess,’ said he, falling back in his chair. ‘It’s Rushmear the horse dealer. How did he get inside there?’

  MacGuffin took the globe into his possession.

  ‘This is not the flesh-and-blood Rushmear. This is his spiritual homunculus, his etheric stuff His soul, if you like.’

  ‘I do not like. Then Rushmear is dead?’

  ‘No. He is very much alive for now. And working hard for me far away to the north. I hope he is working.’ MacGuffin gave the crystal globe a sharp tap with the ring upon his thumb.

  An agonized cry echoed about the room. It did not come from the crystal globe.

  Maxwell made a frightened face. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Just a little reminder to Rushmear to keep on the job. Not that I think he needs one.’

  ‘So Rushmear is away searching for Ewavett?’

  ‘His physical self is. His soul remains here, under my control, to be returned to him should he successfully complete his mission.

  ‘I’m sure you can rely on Rushmear,’ said Maxwell. ‘He’s a most determined fellow. With him on the case, you have no need to send me. So, shall we discuss what duties you would like me to perform about the house?’

  ‘Such discussions can wait until you return.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Maxwell. ‘But for all we know Rushmear might return at any moment with Ewavett by his side.’

  ‘That is somewhat optimistic.’

  ‘You’re right. Let’s give him a week, or perhaps two. Then if he has not returned, I will set out and see what’s become of him.’

  MacGuffin shook his head wearily. ‘Spare me your wheedlings, Maxwell, you set out today and that is that.’

  ‘But I—’r />
  ‘Enough, Maxwell, or I seal up your mouth.’

  Maxwell raised his hand politely.

  ‘Go on then, but make it brief.’

  ‘Look,’ said Maxwell, ‘I don’t understand any of this. How can Rushmear be up north somewhere working for you, and his soul be here?’

  MacGuffin returned the crystal globe to the cabinet. ‘Through refined magic it is possible to separate a man’s soul from his body without the man dying. Such magic calls for considerable refinement and much practice. I have slipped up a few times in the past. Well, a great many times. But I have the knack of it now. But body and soul can only be kept apart for a limited period: a lunar month. Twenty-three days.’

  ‘A lunar month is twenty-eight days,’ said Maxwell.

  ‘I would not recommend that you put it to the test. So, as I say. If body and soul remain apart a day longer, then—’

  ‘I get the picture. As a matter of interest, how many others are presently away seeking Ewavett for you?’

  MacGuffin examined the rows of globes and shook his head sadly. ‘Only Rushmear, I regret. As for the others,’ he shrugged, ‘you just can’t get the help nowadays, can you?’

  Maxwell shook his head dismally.

  ‘But, if at first you don’t succeed, and all that. Perhaps you will bump into Rushmear and the two of you join forces.

  Maxwell shook his head even more dismally.

  ‘Allow me to tell you this. Ewavett is presently in the possession of a magician by the name of Sultan Sergio Rameer. He rules over a city called—’

  ‘Rameer?’ Maxwell asked.

  ‘You’ve been there?’

  ‘Just a lucky guess.’

  ‘His influence extends over a considerable distance, so it will be necessary for me to set you down at the border of his kingdom.’

  ‘Set me down?’

  ‘I will arrange your transportation there. You must find your own way back. If you are successful, this should present no difficulty.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘You’ll find out. Now, let me give you this.’ MacGuffin drew a small pouch from his pocket and tossed it across the table.

  Maxwell took the thing between thumb and forefinger and examined it without a lot of interest. ‘And what is this?’

  ‘It’s a bag with a hole in it.’

  ‘Oh, thanks very much.’ Maxwell made to fling the thing away.

  ‘Not so fast. Put your hand inside.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Maxwell.

  ‘Don’t ask why. Just do what you’re told.’

  ‘There’s nothing nasty in there?’

  ‘There’s nothing in there at all.’

  Maxwell gingerly slipped his hand through the opening and felt inside the pouch. He could feel nothing. He slipped his hand in further. Up to the wrist. The forearm. Up to the elbow.

  ‘By the Goddess,’ Maxwell yanked out elbow, forearm, wrist and hand. ‘How does it do that?’

  ‘Never mind the how. Just be aware that it does. When you locate Ewavett, slip the bag over her head and draw it down to her feet. Whatever is contained within the bag loses its weight and so may be easily transported.’

  ‘That’s very clever,’ said Maxwell, truly impressed. ‘Did you give Rushmear a pouch like this?’ Maxwell tucked the thing into his trouser pocket.

  ‘What I gave or did not give Rushmear is no concern of yours.’

  ‘Fair enough. But tell me, with all the magic at your disposal, why do you not simply travel to Rameer and acquire Ewavett yourself?’

  ‘I am too busy here. I cannot leave the village.’

  ‘I suspect otherwise. I suspect that this Sultan Sergio, who rules a city rather than a village, is your superior in magic. I further suspect that it would be nothing less than suicidal to attempt stealing Ewavett from him. And I—’

  ‘Enough, Maxwell. Enough. I have my people to care for.’

  ‘Your slaves to rule, more like.’

  ‘Enough!’ MacGuffin snapped his fingers and Maxwell’s jaw locked.

  ‘Grmmph!’ went Maxwell. ‘Rmmph, mmmmph!’

  ‘Will you hold your tongue?’

  Maxwell nodded vigorously.

  ‘Good.’ MacGuffin snapped his fingers again and Maxwell’s jaw unlocked.

  ‘Now I shall remove your soul.’

  ‘No,’ said Maxwell. ‘Listen.’

  ‘Careful now.’

  ‘I’m being careful. You don’t understand. I’m not like others of this time. If you take my soul you will kill me.’

  ‘That would be a shame. But no doubt I can put your body to good use. Or at least your skin. Stuffed and imaginatively mounted it can join the others in my private basement collection.’

  ‘You vile bastard!’ Maxwell lunged across the table. The magician drew back and uttered certain words of power. Maxwell’s hands became affixed to the table top.

  ‘Now let this be done,’ said MacGuffin, drawing a slim transparent tube from the glass-topped cabinet. ‘Please speak no further words, or you go upon your way with a maggot for a tongue.’

  What happened next happened horribly fast and was horribly horrible also. MacGuffin snatched hold of Maxwell’s head, drew it up, rammed the transparent tube up his left nostril, pushed and pushed and pushed. Maxwell’s eyes started from their sockets. Blood spurted from his right nostril. MacGuffin put the other end of the tube into his mouth and sucked. There was a terrible sound. A scream? A whine? A high-pitched sawing? MacGuffin lifted his nose-ring and took from his mouth a shining crystal globe which he examined carefully, nodded over, then placed in the cabinet.

  Then he tore the tube from Maxwell’s nose.

  Maxwell’s hands freed. He slumped back in his chair, gagging and retching. He clutched at his head.

  ‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’ said MacGuffin. ‘But the operation was a success and the patient didn’t die.’

  Maxwell opened his eyes and stared at MacGuffin. Suddenly all had changed. If MacGuffin had seemed evil before, now he seemed something much more than that, a transcendent malignant horror. Evil beyond all evilness.

  ‘You will experience a shift in your sensitivities,’ said this loathsome beast. ‘A man without a soul is a very angry man. A man bereft of scruple or conscience or compassion; a man driven by rage and motivated only by the desire to be reunited with his spirit.’

  Maxwell foamed about the mouth. ‘I will kill you,’ he said.

  ‘No, you will not do that. You will do what I wish you to do. Fetch me Ewavett or die so doing. I told you that fate led you directly to my door. Is not Carrion the perfect name for a man without a soul?’

  Maxwell fought like a madman to rise from his seat. ‘Know also this, Maxwell: I am ever alert. Do not think to return here empty handed. Do not think to sneak back and attempt to take me by surprise. This cabinet, for instance, opens only at my command. A word from me and it destroys its contents. Others have gone before you. Others who thought as you now think. They are gone into the nothingness that awaits us all. I am not.’

  Maxwell glared with unbridled hatred at the magician and opened his mouth to speak curses.

  The magician raised a hand. ‘Though nothing would give me greater pleasure than to hear whatever it is you wish to say, as you have only twenty-three days in which to complete your mission, it would be churlish of me to keep you here chatting. So, Maxwell, farewell.’

  MacGuffin rose to his feet and flung wide his arms. ‘Horse and Hattock, Maxwell’s chair,’ he cried. ‘To the outskirts of Rameer’s kingdom at the hurry up. Be gone.’

  The chair lifted from the floor. Maxwell tried to leap from it, but MacGuffin’s magic was proof against that sort of thing. The chair swung across the room towards an open window and passed through it into the sky.

  Maxwell, now clinging to the chair for what dear life remained to him, was only able to turn his head, glare back at MacGuffin and utter three small words.

  But, though they were small, and only three in number, these wer
e special words. Words which had brought untold joy to millions of discerning movie goers the old world over.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ howled Maxwell.

  ‘I’ll be back!’

  10

  Maxwell clung fearfully to the flying chair.

  With the red sky above, the grey earth below and himself lost somewhere in between, he sought to attempt the near impossible and collect his widely scattered wits.

  He was angry. Very angry. A red-mist rage stormed around inside his head, kicking his senses all about. His nose was bleeding and his ears popped. His teeth rattled and his knees, now restored to power, knocked together violently.

  Maxwell was in a bit of a state. What had MacGuffin done to him? Taken his soul? Impossible! Nonsense! You couldn’t do a thing like that to someone. You just couldn’t. There had to be a more logical explanation for the alarming situation he now found himself in. And the dreadful way he felt, wrung out like a jaded J-cloth, yet simmering as soup.

  Perhaps he’d been hypnotized or narcotized, that was more likely. Bunged some dire hallucinogenic in his breakfast. Maxwell ground his rattling teeth. It was neither of those and he knew it. He’d had his first taste of magic in this new world of myth and legend and he was now in the worst trouble he’d ever been in.

  He had to think his way out of this mess, and fast. Twenty-three days, MacGuffin had said. Twenty-three days, then wipe-out.

  ‘I’ll fix you, you BASTARD!’ Maxwell raised a fist, the chair tilted alarmingly and Maxwell clung on once more for what was left of his dear life.

  What did he know for certain? What could he cling to, mentally?

  Well, he knew why MacGuffin had given him this crap chair to sit on. That was one.

  And he knew what he was expected to do. Somehow steal Ewavett from the Sultan Rameer, pop her in her magical pouch and return with her to MacGuffin. That was two. Or twelve, or a hundred and seven. There was nothing certain at all there.

  Kill MacGuffin. Yes, he was absolutely certain about that one. The evil MacGuffin must die.

  Maxwell’s teeth resumed their rattling. He was absolutely certain about that. Which was terrible. Murder somebody? He, Maxwell Karrien, murder somebody? Unthinkable. Up until now. But he, Max Carrion, man without a soul, man consumed by anger and hatred.