The Plagerist

There once was a little boy who was terrified by the ever-changing world. He hid his terror by copying cheap lithographs: apple-cheeked children, happy peasants, and orderly villages, presenting them as his own. One day, the plagerist erased the world as it was, painting it as it should be, brush dipped in blood, canvas a nation.

"What does sentimental Edwardian kitsch have to do wi—" The dragon interrupts: Patience, dear ferret. Patience. Whatever it is in the guitar case, the EXIT door I rest upon, agrees.

Listen. The dragon thrums, Listen.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Damen und Herren!"

Worn deck of playing cards in one hand, long milk-white hair a banner, the Angel of the Perverse strolls through the disapproving glares of SS men, duel scarred cheeks, necks overflowing tight collars, the carefully blank eyes of their women and boys stark against the darkly gleaming kimonos and tailcoats of the visiting Anglo-Nippon Empire in his wake.

Seated upon a simple wooden chair surrounded by his work, the Paladin of Utopia leans forward upon an ebon cane.

Standing beside her husband, Deputy Führer Hoess, Ilsa, Zenith's sometimes niece, sometimes cousin, swallows a scream. Where were the black alchemist's robes, the tall conical hat embroidered with sun-signs and star-signs, the Tarot deck? He could at least have worn the SS uniform she'd supplied!

Broad of shoulder, narrow of hip, Illsa's tall sometimes cousin, sometimes father, sometimes lover, pauses beneath the glare of electric chandeliers with a laconic gesture to the conductor exactly twenty-five years after the triumph of the Beer Hall Putsch.

Sweating, the fat little man raises his ivory baton.

Silvery lenses glinting in the merciless light, Zenith gives a curt nod.

A click of the heel, a correct martial bow, the music of a Weimar cabaret razzing impudently in his wake, the albino tosses his shabby top hat with its black on green diamond band and shabby, jaunty spray of red crepe paper poppies high into the thin, chill air of the Eagle's Nest, 6,017 feet above sea level.

Hat spinning high overhead, the pale man advances, worn heels percussive upon the chilly flagstones, shuffling the worn, greasy deck one-handed, tall hat caught behind his back, now rolling up one arm, now across his shoulders with an insolent shrug, now down the other, bouncing off one heel, now the other.

Displaying the teeth of a shark, Zenith spins, hat landing upon his head, long arms wide, a flare of pale hair, a bow before the Knight of Barbarism, proffered cards fanned with a rattling snap, silver gaze intent upon the ebony cane, the orchestra nervously trickling into silence.

"Mein herr, pick a card. Any card!" Zenith taunts the man-shaped void. Why bow to this nothing? Why beg this man-shaped hole in the page of History for the lives of his friends? "...and I'll give you the future!"

Twin reflections in Zenith's silver lenses, the father of the Reich leans forward in his seat, greedily reaching for a card like any carnival rube on payday.

At her husband's side, Ilsa draws a silent, nervous breath. Hanussan, the dirty Jew, told the truth one time too many. Herr Zodiac is a card worth playing…

Stage Whispers

"This feels all too familiar." I snap. The bleeding man bites through his tongue beneath strange skies, "Tell me something original!"

Dearest, sweetest little ferret, schatzi… don't be silly. Define original! The dragon chuckles, whispering in sotto voce, Define insanity! Define dreams… define… MORALITY!

Shark Eyes

"Ace of Spades, mein Führer!" Zenith grins, displaying the card – "There will be triumph! There will be wisdom. There will be…INSIGHT!"

The orchestra blows a fanfare.

The audience claps.

Ilsa exhales.

Holding the card high for all to see, Zenith's concealed remaining eye is fixed upon the birthright that he lost.

Painted lips gleaming in the harsh light Ilsa joins the applause– her husband has taken her as far as she can go!

With a polite but derisive gesture at the audience for silence, the albino proffers the cards a second time, "Now, mein Führer, choose again!"

The Paladin of Utopia chooses a second card.

Zenith notices Klosterheim behind the Führer's simple wooden chair among his master's small army of physicians and soothsayers.

Monocle glinting, the dried-up little husk of a man whispers something in Hitler's ear. Straightening, Klosterheim locks eyes with the last King of Mirenberg accompanied by an ironic little bow as if saying, "So, you think you hold the reins in your hand, do you, Von Bek?"

Sweat cascading down his face, Zenith displays the card to the silent crowd, "Six of Spades!" He titters in falsetto, sharp fingertips coquettishly concealing his painted lips, "Oh dearie me! Six of Spades. Seems there is to be a change of direction!"

Hitler scowls.

Lace gloved fists clenched at her sides, Illsa moans, white teeth biting scarlet bottom lip… She'd been too hasty in presenting this more easily controlled replacement for die Führer's favorite fortuneteller turned traitor… still, two more cards... "Choose again, dear Adi, choose!" she calls out with a giggle.

Her husband looks at his untouched wife as if for the first time.

And… frowns.

Reaching for a third card, Hitler glances around the room with dead shark eyes, "Reichsfrau Hoess tells me that you have a request, fortune teller."

There was a long pause.

Ilsa closes her eyes.

"What is it you ask, fortune teller?" Hitler stares up at Zenith, grating, hectoring voice unusually high and soft, "What is it you will tell me if I give you what you ask, fortune teller, FREAK?"

Insult ignored, Zenith meets the blue gaze of the Paladin of Utopia, greedy for his sole remaining birthright in the long silence, sleet hissing against the window behind the Father of the Third Reich, November wind in the rafters, a cough somewhere in the watching audience, and then…

"Why…allow me and my friends tour the world unhindered." The albino straightens, sweat cutting grooves in the rouge upon his cheeks.

"You? Tour the world? Unhindered?"

The audience leans in.

Sleet rattles in the dark high above the world.

The once eager rube laughs, striking the butt of the ebony cane upon the rune-woven carpeted floor sharply, barking, "Tour? UNHINDERED?"

"Unhindered, mein herr," Painted lips split by a brief scarlet snarl, Zenith flirtatiously proffers the fan of cards with a whispery coo, "(choose)"

Scowling, the Führer reaches once more with a palsied hand and chooses a card, pale blue eyes reflecting silver, silver reflecting pale blue, scrap of a mustache a black smudge upon his upper lip…

What the hell is happening? I ask, trying not to sound interested.

(But I am.)

Submitting to Entropy

"Nine of Spades. There will be DESPAIR." The leader of the Third Reich gives a mocking laugh, flicking the card back at Zenith, "You will have to do much, much better than this, soothsayer, if you want your friends to live – after DESPAIR, there will be TRIUMPH of WILL and the world will be CLEANSED of the likes of YOU!"

Hitler's bellow echoing, Klosterheim smiles and a small black and white cat watches them all from beneath a table of sweets.

Zenith watches the card land at his feet, face inscrutable.

Blood dribbles down Ilsa's chin.

Hoess scowls, realizing what he's overlooked until too late.

Zenith, eyes back upon his father's cane shuffles, and shuffles again, cards a spinning arc between his long fingers, the rattle of pasteboard against pasteboard echoes in the space around him, the hiss of sleet, the tethered airships of the Anglo-Nippon navy and of the Third Reich heave unseen in the dark winter skies high above Berchtesgaden and the Reich's most exclusive space.

Finally… "Pick a card. Any card!" Zenith, once known as Odalric, hisses.

A single bead of sweat traces a path down one rouged cheek.

The palsied hand of the would-be Master of the World selects a card and holds it up.

"Ten of Spades." Ilsa whispers, chin raised, eyes closed, hands clenched.

Pale blue meets silver.

Silver meets pale blue.

"There will be GRIEF!" Zenith slaps the card from Hitler's hand, ripping his father's cane from the shorter man's grasp, causing him to stumble and guards to rush forward.

Zenith screams in dark ecstasy. Ilsa faints unseen in the chaos as he pulls the concealed black steel blade of Ravenbrand from its slim, gleaming sheath…the freed blade sizzles from his grasp in a trail of dirty black sparks through the window behind them in a shower of molten glass and into the night.

There is a space of a heartbeat…

perhaps two billion, and…

…hand smoking, the Angel of the Perverse follows it, 6,017 feet above sea level….

…as I, watched by a million red stars, collide with a dark shore and the dragon and the man who bleeds, laugh.

Timekeeper

Among the guests from the Anglo-Nippon Empire, Sir Seaton Begg snaps shut his watch of a thousand dials with great satisfaction.

Things are right on schedule.