BYZANTINE, Chapter 16 (TLG1)
A FACE THAT RHYMES
The Longest Game: Byzantine is an Occult Pulp Noir serial. To begin at the begin, or find your way around, see the Table of Contents.
A Face That Rhymes.
Calumn’s teeth desperately filtered Sazerac as they vibrated to polka. He leaned an elbow over the mahogany bar, blinking slowly at all the chess and nautical melodies, wondering why his heart rate was slower than the band’s tempo. I suspect the talking dollar has something to do with it, he mused. This is the best worst place to have a mental breakdown.
For Calumn, thinking about magic was a bit like a chocolate chip landing beside the pancake batter, tossed onto the tongue while sizzling. The sweetness hurt. It was probably all real. A grand purpose in how the Minerva’s blood painted the seaside alleyway. Something meant something was something did something for someone somewhere.1
Mentally, physically, he needed what his grandfather called his faire dodo, just that sweet little siesta amid the throng. What was that poem, about rose petals in a cup of black broth? Crowds? Calumn remembered the poet’s face and not their name, which is a rarity for poets. The man was a dead-ringer for Grandpa Georges.2
This cocktail was extremely strong. Calumn broke his one rule just a little, and played himself a game-- I Spy. Looking for an inch of this bar, this city, that wasn’t drowning in atmosphere.
Movement caught Calumn’s eye again, that scrawny kid had drawn the curtain aside to watch him again. Ah. This was definitely a problem. Or maybe Calumn was being paranoid? Five minutes without his protector and he was a child lost in the big city.
Calumn didn’t feel paranoid. He felt buzzed on an empty stomach. The front-man in the band called out the name of the song: Give Me Cider Or Give Me Breadth. Dread? Breath? Ah. That was the Sazerac, all right.
Calumn took a teetering step toward the man in the booth, before his gait steadied. He was just close enough to see the man rotate something on the table, while a second obscured presence in the back of the booth moved, bones clicking and creaking like hell’s gizmos as it pushed a pawn.
Something curved and bronze caught a flash of light like a castaway signals with a mirror. Something in Calumn’s stomach fell over and broke. It was right where he’d left it.
The Archer!
Breaking into a run, the man kept rotating something--a plate? -- delicately, like it were a primed dirty bomb. Something rolled beneath Calumn’s feet, and he lost all balance.
˙pǝuᴉɐʇuᴉɐɯ suoᴉʇᴉsodɹǝdns ‘sǝǝɹƃǝp 06 pɹɐoq sǝʇɐʇoɹ ʇuǝuoddO pɹᴉɥ┴ ˙ㄥƐ
Effie’s voice sounded urgent against the musician’s opening number, but the message was scrambled by the speakeasy chaos. The entire joint began to rock like a ship. As Calumn tried to get to his feet, Effie’s balance gave and she tumbled into Calumn’s back. With a sickening lurch, the earth began to quake, rotating the other way. Calumn’s beleaguered knees absorbed the blow, while Effie landed on three points. “Cal!”
But Calumn’s Archer was just an armspan away. He summoned enough from his beleaguered reserves to pounce for the curtain, tumbling into the booth and ripping the curtain. The booth was empty, the table marked in rings by years of negligent drinkware. Nobody else around them seemed fazed, even aware of the shockwave. “Fuck. More adorable gris-gris.”
˙ǝlqɹɐW uǝʞoɹq ǝɥʇ ɥʇᴉʍ ǝsuǝɟǝp s’ɹǝɥɔɹ∀ sɹǝʇsloq ǝuᴉʇuɐzʎq ˙8Ɛ
Effie brought Calumn to his feet in what was becoming a practiced motion. They stood back-to-back as the earth stilled. Folks were staring their way. One of the chess players raised a pint. “You folks might wanna call a cab!”
The scant pockets of air between the jovial bustle seemed to recoil from them; preparing to lunge, suffocate. Smother their throats the glossy sparkly parti-colored mystic crackle. Folks nursed cosmopolitans. Their forearm hairs pointed to the omnidirectional peril. “Cal, the doors are wrong.”
The stairs leading out were now beside the bathroom hall, whose doors had rearranged themselves on either side of the bar. The corner stage now clung sideways to the wall, useless.
A muffled voice shouted from Effie’s crumpled fist. “Shh!”
“This his doing?” Calumn thumbed at the crumpled bill she held.
“No, but he said the wizards are up to something.”
“There’s multiple wiz-- warlocks? Can he, ah, help?” Calumn was desperate at this point. The Port Authority wanted him, to be sure, but Sylvester had technically been his roommate. As brief as their time together had been.
“Mmf!” said the dollar.
Effie shook her head. “He’s all too eager, but as soon as he figures out where we’re at, we’re in trouble.”
˙ɥɔʇɐɔ oʇ sƃuᴉɹʇs ƃuᴉpuᴉq ɹoɟ ǝɔɐld uᴉ ɹɐɾ ʎǝlsɹɐd ƃuᴉploɥ ‘ɯopuɐɹ ʇɐ pɹɐoq ǝɥʇ suᴉds ʇuǝuoddO pɹᴉɥ┴ ˙6Ɛ
“Shame. It’s all jumbled like a Rubix Cube in here,” Calumn said and whistled. He began to whistle, but swallowed vomit as the floor began to tremble. One or two of the other patrons seemed to stumble, but they remained unaware of the occult storm blowing through. Nor did anyone exclaim at the sudden door upon the ceiling, the bar tap hung sideways behind the bar on a liquor shelf. Sal the bartender seemed oblivious, though Imogen tripped over something on the floor while whipping up another cocktail. A moment of confoundment, then back to her liquor dance.
“Effie. Ever play chess?” Calumn’s eyes were working over the Escherfication as their backs pressed against a wall that was partially floor and was partially ceiling.
“Sure, Dad always has it set up in the lighthouse but I’m no good. I thought you never--”
“Then you understand what it means when your opponent’s moves don’t make sense. It means you haven’t clocked their strategy yet. Someone’s lining their pawns to do something.”
The music pressed on, oppressive and oblivious.3
“You’re the king they’re hoping to capture. We need to go.”
“The Archer is too close,” Calumn shook his head, pushing back the next booth’s curtain. The couple inside froze, two deer making out in the headlights. “Ah. Pardon.”
“I know enough about chess to know the queen does all the legwork.” Effie grabbed Calumn’s arm, tugging him toward the bar. “Hey, Imogen! Where’s the door?”
˙ssɐd uɹn┴ ˙ǝʌɹǝsǝɹ uoᴉʇɔɐ ƃuᴉʇɐɔᴉpuᴉ ‘ssɐlƃ ʇoɥs ǝɥʇ sdɐʇ ǝuᴉʇuɐzʎq ˙0ㄣ
Imogen turned her attention from a busy bar, less jovial than the last time with practiced speech: “Can’t miss the exit sign, remember to close it on your way out, friend!”
She pointed in the direction where they’d come in, seemingly oblivious that there was now no door.
Calumn sighed, taking three long Groucho Marx steps to a sideways painting of a chess board hanging beneath the glowing EXIT. “It’s locked,” he deadpanned as he slapped the canvas.
Imogen slammed down a bottle of expensive-looking amber liquid and turned the full bore of her attention on the duo. “Are we going to have a problem? This is a bar, not your dumb game.”
“She said, in her game-themed bar,” Calumn seethed, unable to suppress himself. Folks drinking at the bar enjoyed their drinks to the burgeoning entertainment.
“Mmmf!” Sylvester shouted through Effie’s glove.
“That’s it, I’m having a talk with Minnie after this.” She pressed something beneath the bar, a universal gesture that means security incoming.
“Mmf-mmmf!” explained Sylvester, gasping as she opened her fingers wide. “Hand me to the lady--”
“Ah.” As Calumn tried taking the painting off the wall for an escape, Effie slapped Sylvester to the table, folding him once, twice, a third time into a crude paper airplane and sent him gliding toward Imogen’s face.4
Calumn paused his clawing at a glued-down painting as the tiny plane struck Imogen’s nose, sending a cascade of effervescence into the air. Imogen blinked, as though she’d just sprinkled with fairy dust. Or black pepper. And then-- a spell broken, she took in the room. The doors on the ceiling. Back to Calumn, wrestling with a painting where the door should be. Back to the door stuck between two light art-deco light fixtures.
“I’ll be damned,” Imogen drawled.
˙ʎɹǝɥdᴉɹǝd oʇ pǝʞɔouʞ uʍɐd ʇɐɔ ‘ɹǝʌo pǝʞɔouʞ sᴉ ssɐlפ ˙ǝlqɹɐW/ɹǝɥɔɹ∀ ɥʇᴉʍ ssɐlƃʇoɥs ɟo uoᴉʇᴉsod ƃuᴉƃuɐɥɔxǝ ‘pǝɹǝƃƃᴉɹʇ ǝʌoɯ plǝɥ s,ǝuᴉʇuɐzʎq ˙q0ㄣ
˙ǝlqɹɐW/ɹǝɥɔɹ∀ spɹɐʍoʇ q ɥʇʍoɹפ ɔᴉʇǝɥʇɐdɯʎS sǝʌoɯ ʇuǝuoddO pɹᴉɥ┴ ˙Ɩㄣ
The doorknob turned, and the rogue’s gallery crowding the bar watched in awe as the door opened forward-- groundward-- and briefly a sideways Glimsvale emptied its trash and troubled puddles to the floor.
Detective Ortega fell through, holding the doorknob as her gravity redirected to the room she fell toward. In the moment before her fingers slipped, the woman had already drawn a revolver from under her jacket, spotted Calumn, and taken aim. “On the ground, Quothe!”
Folks gasped and ‘ooh’ed the cacophony as though someone had broken a tray of glasses, nothing more.
Effie was already pulling Calumn behind the bar, the two of them tumbling to the floor.
Landing on a slip-proof mat, they could both see from between bottles the outline of Ortega’s gray suit plummeting to the table below the door. The ensuing sounds of pain and breakage were simple to parse, but the crumpled bill on the counter announced for them anyways: “Sounds like my sister just fell ten feet into the middle of a chess game! Checkmate, am I right? Hey-- hey, Carmen! He’s over here!”
Effie snatched the dollar, holed up in behind the bar like a foxhole. She pushed a finger against George Washington’s mouth. “Just whose side are you on, anyways?”
The little vampire bit at Effie’s hand-- somehow the teeth pricked her finger, and he gasped for air. “Okay this is getting complicated, so: the guys scrambling the room? I’m your enemy’s enemy and that makes me your pal, same as always. But I’m still on daddy’s payroll, and that’s my sister over there and I have to catch your boyfriend there, who’s a wanted man. Not you, we’re after him. But judging by how much you’re blushing--”
Imogen, who had squatted on Calumns’ other side, snatched the bill from Effie’s hand. “How is the dollar talking?”
“Bigger problems,” Calumn groaned. He watched through the mirror behind the bar as Ortega drew her second revolver, pointing them both to the ceiling as she crossed the room their way. She was disheveled from her fall, but moved as purposefully as ever. She had accepted falling from the ceiling with a terrifying agility.
Somehow, the music played on.
˙ǝᴉp ɐ ƃuᴉlloɹ puɐ ǝʌᴉʇoʌ ɐ ƃuᴉʇɥƃᴉl ‘ǝƃuǝllɐɥɔ ɹoɟ q ɥʇʍoɹƃ ɔᴉʇǝɥʇɐdɯʎs sʞɹɐɯ ǝuᴉʇuɐzʎq ˙ᄅㄣ
They made eye contact through the mirror. Ortega was close enough to spot Calumn’s reflection watching her as he hid beneath the bar, wedged between the bartender and his protector. But she only looked at him, and smiled. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Minerva Callahan! Not to mention arson, theft, and armed assault against an officer. After what you did to Barnum, I should--”
Calumn saw the blur of movement behind her, the bouncer emerging from a broom closet and throwing a haymaker at Ortega. Calumn heard a crunch as the blow connected, but despite her size she took the hit like a boxer. A moment later and the poor bastard was on the receiving end of two pistol-whips, one to each ear. She discharged the guns as they pointed towards the light, the concussive force of the sound against his eardrums alone bringing him down.
The band had the wherewithal to stop, the sound now replaced with a dull ringing in Calumn’s ears.
That set the folks into a panic for the door. A door they could not find. Some of them were trying to peel the painting off the wall. It’s glued on there or something, Calumn wanted to tell the folk. He moved to crawl away before Ortega could redirect her attention from the madness. Apparitions, the madness of crowds.
Calumn’s pajama-pant snagged on something. He turned to see Imogen standing over him, the point of her heeled shoe piercing him in place. She held the blow-torch she’d used to ignite the lavender before. Her dark eyes reflected the small, noisy flame she now brandished. “Our mutual friend wound up dead the other day?”
Ah. More vendettas. Effie was preoccupied with Ortega, preparing to brawl her way through as second Port Authority official this evening, and Calumn was on his own.
“I’m sorry,” he offered as he swept his free leg behind her calf, a move he’d seen Effie do more gracefully. The bartender went down with surprising ease, and Calumn moved to wrench the blowtorch away. As Calumn moved over her, Imogen’s eyes went from a predator’s to horrified prey.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she begged.
Calumn froze, seeing his reflection in her eyes. “I didn’t kill nobody. Minerva’s game-- look around you, I beg you to see. Minerva lost the game.”
Imogen sat up, and Calumn gently took the blowtorch away. She took in the crowd clamoring for an exit, the bouncer battling the Port Authority gunslinger. “The dollar was talking,” she said wearily.
“You said the Midwayman came up from below, right? Is there another way out of here?”
Light returned to Imogen’s eyes. “He would come up from the Warrens, we have a bootlegger’s hole behind the bar, down the original structure before it sank.”
They both looked around, but all there was to see from here was Effie frantically searching her belt, under her gloves, every fold in her fabrics. “Cal, I’m out of props!”
More shots rang out, and several bottles crashed. The mirror shattered, leaving Ortega’s position a guess. The evening revelers and chess players had mostly dove to the floor, crawling towards the bathrooms by this time. Imogen frantically started knocking on the floor. “It’s right here,” she insisted.
“It was, until someone shuffled this place,” Calumn realized. “It could be anywhere now.”
˙sɹǝƃuᴉɟ oʍʇ ɥʇᴉʍ ǝlpuɐɔ ǝɥʇ ʇno sɟɟnus :sǝnlɐʌ ǝɥʇ ƃuᴉlɐʇoʇ ‘ǝɔᴉp oʍʇ slloɹ ʇuǝuoddO pɹᴉɥ┴ ˙Ɛㄣ
Another burst of gunfire was followed by a pocket of silence which had Calumn peeking over the bar. The bouncer was slumped, dead weight, over Orgega’s shoulder. She moved to push the heavy-set man off her, tumbling in panic and effort.
Imogen pointed across the room, a square of time-varnished wood hinged against a wall. “That’s it! That’s the trap door… somehow.”
Ortega finally rolled the body of the bouncer off of her.
“Billy,” Imogen squeezed the name through the grief in her throat.
Doctor Watson! Another local, who had seemingly gone their entire life free of hazard or magic until Calumn’s curse had transmitted like a pathogen. An asshole skipped the line at a bar, and Billy felt generous at the twenty-dollar bar trick Calumn pulled. Grandpa Georges warned me about playing games.
Calumn shook his head back to the scrambled room, the trap door guarded by Detective Ortega. “This is our window. Effie! Prop!” Calumn tossed the blowtorch to his protector. She would know what to do with it.
“Ma’am,” Calumn turned to Imogen. “I hope you never have to see us again. I’m so sorry.”
“You’d better. If you find who hurt Minerva, you’d better see me again.”
“You two were, ah, close then?”
“Yeah. We were close,” Imogen said.
˙ǝlqɹɐɯ uǝʞoɹq sǝʇɐʌᴉʇɔɐ ǝuᴉʇuɐzʎq ˙ㄣㄣ
Effie stuffed a red opera glove from her Sailor Leo uniform into the top of a bottle of Chambord, setting it ablaze. “Yo, Carmen!”
The detective spun from staring at the body of the bouncer, her face feral. “Effie Sampson?”
“I call this one Fire Leo… Leo fire-sign!” Effie threw the orb at Carmen’s feet, the fireball of alcohol setting several surfaces ablaze. Effie followed Calumn’s lead as they vaulted over the bar, sprinting around the raspberry-scented flare as sprinklers set off in all the wrong places-- from walls, floors, underneath tables.
“Fireball, Leo-lion fireball!” Effie workshopped as Calumn fiddled with the latch on the door. “Stop drop and roll, Carmen! Cal hurry up!”
Calumn took one last peek at the curtain across the speakeasy, seeing nothing but shadow within. The trap door opened, and as he peered into the passage, gravity reoriented itself.
COMING UP NEXT…
Calumn and Effie
While waiting for Chapter 17, you can always navigate the Table of Contents, or peruse the latest newsletter, //FERAL.PREENING//4.26.
Thank you for reading.
Pigeon was pigeon.
“In A Station Of The Metro”
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
-- Ezra Pound (1913)
Sailing off to slay the whale,
Four tall masts go painted pale,
Storied sailors know what’s good,
And raise a glass to brotherhood:
As the live-long lives grow shorter,
Sons and Daughters from the border,
Flowing from the orchard’s press,
Give me cider, or give me death!
Give me cider, or give me death!
Give me cider, or give me death!
Death or cider, which one’s which?
Tell me tell me!
Tell me tell me!
Glimsvale pirates, Glimsvale ghosts,
Glimsvale soldiers at their posts,
Glimsvale robbers robbing graves,
Each man knows what each man craves!
Give me cider, or give me death!
Give me cider, or give me death!
Death or cider, which one’s which?
Tell me tell me!
Tell me tell me!
In the bathroom of Gimlet’s Gambit, Sprigs had a clear view of the clockwork man sitting across from him. Sprigs recoiled as the Byzantine chirped and clicked to pins and gears within its ribs, a clumsy dexterity that seemed self-satisfied with its passed turn.
Sprigs looked to the board, committed to pushing another one of those wax fingers towards the Archer. Their Trap was the thrust of Professor’s gambit, a ritual committed both on-Board and in the field. He had no clue what those fingers represented, what trap the Professor had set, why one of those fingers had burned down to a nub. A panic gassed his deepest insides to a cool flat dread, that Sprigs had no idea what he was doing. What was he doing?
Somebody in a nearby urinal flushed. Sprigs and the Byzantine were in the open, the gaming table taking up half the trendy dark space. The stall opened, and before they transported again Sprigs caught movement in the flickering candlelight: interference on the Board, a nearly imperceptible effervescence of power outside the Game extending its hand over the shotglass.
Really cool mechanic, really fun read.