Ink by Hal Duncan Page B

Pantaloon,” says Guy, “the onetime poobah of these palaces and plazas, has long since passed his place and all its privileges to Pierrot, son of his daughter Columbine—”
    ‘Aye, Pierrot,” says Jack. “He wages war against my wine, pushing the daimon drink away and pouring no libations, making no mention of poor me in all his muttered prayers. It's not fair! This King of Tears … I'll show him and his people the divine; I'll show him the full glory of the vine. Then, once I've set his house in order, I can go somewhere more green, and show my spirit there.”
    He holds a finger up.
    “But
if the town should take up arms—lift up their fists in anger—if they think that they can drive my followers down from the heights of ecstasy, we'll face them down and, at the head of a mad mob, I'll show them rout and riot. Why else do I wear this mortal skin, this flesh and bone, and step down from my throne to take man's form, if not to cause a royal ruckus?”
    The Duke looks ponderous, face seeming graved from silent stone like he's just one more sculpture in this hall built out of dreams of chivalry. I'm not impressed. His artifice is more elaborate than our own, but made of ideas that are long since stale, a pulpy paperback heroic fantasy. He probably has knights somewhere, off hunting for the Holy Grail. Well, fuck that shit, as Jack would say. Nobody ever asks the serfs if
they
are happy living in the fairy tale.
Happy Families and War Crimes
    Once upon a time. Once upon a time there were three little pigs, a wolf and seven little kids, three billy goats gruff, and trolls under bridges, and giants in the sky, and thirty little children with Ladybird books and poster paints, and tubes of glitter and sticks of glue, and a boy called Jack.
    Once upon a time, the Way Station was a school, and faded finger-paintings still decorate the walls—dinosaurs and ruined cities, happy families and war crimes. Pages of arithmetic textbooks, times tables and alphabet readers litter the floor, ground into pulp by countless feet. The open-plan classrooms are cluttered with overturned desks and chairs all scaled for preteen occupants.
    Signs in white paint on eggshell yellow lead us to the gym, where filing cabinets and lockers have been gathered against the back wall of a small stage, and where an old man sits behind a desk half buried in paperwork. Military uniform, British Raj—period general. He looks up only when the door creaks and crashes shut behind us; a tattoo circles one eye, the graving of a monocle, just a little absurd like he's been inked by a joke telescope. The dull thunder of children's feet fills the room, together with the muted hiss of a radio playing an eightsome reel far-ago in the past. The Way Station is haunted with the ghosts of all those who didn't make it, shreds of spirit matting the entry point like hair clogging a plughole.
    He nods to himself and waves his hand for us to come close. We jump up onto the stage and sit down on a chair facing his desk, sniffing the dust and musk and mildewed paper in the air. For a while we just study each other: a thousand shadows could be hidden in the wrinkles of his ridden face, the jowls and baggy eyes, a face once solid, long gone soft. He peers at me through his nightshades.
    “So…” he says eventually.
    His quiet voice is amplified by the emptiness of the hall.
    “You want sanctuary. You want come in Kentigern, play pip pip best of Britain, old boy? You no jolly happy in Hinter?”
    His accent is so thick that it's grotesque, as if the farthest reaches of the British Empire collaborated on creating the ultimate offense to the language of their colonialist masters.
    “We want humanity,” we say.
    He laughs and coughs, gasps for air, and laughs again. He has the emphysema wheeze of a forty-a-day smoker but it doesn't stop him from reaching into hisbreast pocket to bring out a silver cigarette case. He clicks it open, takes a Russian black out, taps it on the