A Stark And Wormy Knight (31 page)

There was not much strange in the events of that evening, as I said, but there was much that was strange that happened afterward.

Arvald, the owner of the tavern, disappeared within a few days after the fire. Some said that was because there was nothing except an expensive and pointless salvage to detain him in Southmarch any longer and so he had gone back to the Vuttish islands, others suggested it was because his conscience was something less than clean. Why he should have set a fire in his own tavern, though, has not yet been convincingly explained even by those who suggest his guilt.

When Thom Regin’s body was brought out of the ashes, it was naught but black bones and charred meat, and thus nothing I said would have made any difference, so I told no one of how I had found him. I was young and not keen for the eye of authority to fall on me in such an unflattering situation. I might have spoken up if John Sommerle had remained, but he too had vanished, never seen again after Arvald shoved him out of the Quiller’s Mint front door. The Jellonian woman Doras was little help in answering questions. She could never speak of the evening without bursting into tears, and the pox took her within a year or two in any case.

Was it simply by chance that the Mint burned down? It matters little, I suppose, because a new tavern was soon built on the ashes of the old, and because the oldest parts of the place are in any case below ground or in the city walls and thus went unscathed.

It still seems odd that the fire should have started on the opposite side of the room from the fireplace, on a damp night, and that I should find Thom Regin’s corpse on the ground near the place where it had caught. But if John Sommerle came back to murder Regin and set the fire to cover his deed, why did he not simply drag the poet’s corpse out through one of the side doors and leave it in an alley instead? Regin would have been thought only the most recent in a long line of Quiller’s Mint patrons who never made it back to their homes through the Lagoon District’s sometimes inhospitable streets.

There are even wilder speculations, most based around the reputed presence of the man who would someday be our King Olin, but I have never heard one of these tales yet that did not sound to me like the ravings of a madman. The idea that a king who has always shown kindness even to his lowest and poorest subjects would instruct his guards to set a deadly fire simply to hide the fact that he was visiting a tavern… well, there is just no sense to it.

So there it is, the tale of the conflagration that destroyed the old Quiller’s Mint. In fact, I am told that even this terrible deed or accident was merely a reenactment of a larger historical tradition — that the Mint which burned was at least the fourth or fifth building of that name on that spot in Squeakstep Alley between Fitters and Tin. It is that most unsatisfying of tales, a true one. What it means, if it means anything at all, must be up to you, kind reader, to decide.

— Finn Teodoros, by his hand, on the ninth day of the eleventh month of the year 1314

Black Sunshine

FADE IN:

EXT. — PIERSON HOUSE, 1976 – NIGHT

From blackness to shadowy trees — a tangled orchard in moonlight. We move through them toward a three story turn-of-the-century house with lights in the windows. As we track in, we hear Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” playing distantly on a stereo.

CUT TO: ERIC’S DREAM POV — Micro close-up on a carpet — it’s ALIVE, squirming with intricate patterms. “Iron Man” is ear-splitting now.

YOUNG JANICE

Eric! Eric, talk to me!

YOUNG ERIC’S POV swivels up from the carpet — things are dreamlike, compressed, distorted — it’s an acid trip. YOUNG JANICE is so close that her face is distorted. We dimly see she is fifteen, maybe sixteen, wearing 70s clothes.

YOUNG JANICE

Eric, I want to get out of here… !

YOUNG BRENT, lurches into view, looming above JANICE. He’s chunky, teenage, clutching his hands against his stomach, panicky but trying to stay calm.

YOUNG BRENT

Shit, it’s bad — Topher’s freaking out for real up there.

YOUNG JANICE

What’s going on, Brent? Where’s Kimmy?

YOUNG BRENT

I don’t know! I can’t find her. I think… I think something bad happened! I tried to help Topher, and I…

Just now realizing, BRENT lifts his hands away from his body and stares at them. They are smeared with blood. His eyes bug out.

YOUNG JANICE

Oh my God!

Something is THUMPING on the ceiling above — something heavy thrashing around upstairs. As the POV looks upward, the ceiling suddenly becomes TRANSPARENT, a spreading puddle of translucency as though the ceiling were turning to smeared glass. A dark human shape (YOUNG TOPHER) is lying on the floor of the room above, face pressed against the transparent ceiling as though it were a picture window, looking down on them. All we can make out of him is a huddled shape, distorted face, and a single staring eye.

YOUNG TOPHER

Hey, Pierson — I seeeeee you… !

YOUNG JANICE

(screaming)

Eric!

FADE
with JANICE’s cry still echoing as we
CUT TO:

INT. — ERIC’S MOTEL – NIGHT

ADULT ERIC as he sits bolt upright in a motel bed, sweating.

YOUNG JANICE

(very faint now)

Eric!

ERIC PIERSON is sweaty, trembling. He’s in his early 40s, nice-looking, slender, but at this moment he could be twenty years older. He fumbles for a cigarette and sits smoking in the dark as we:

ROLL CREDITS

EXT. — THE PIERSON HOUSE, NOW – MORNING

ADULT ERIC
drives down a long, dirt driveway. From atop a rise we see the house — the same house, but now sitting in a wide, empty DIRT FIELD several acres across: the orchard has been cut down. The house looks grim — peeling paint, screen door hanging halfway off. Hesitantly, he moves up the front steps and through the front door.

INT. – HOUSE

There’s nothing Gothic or creepy about the place, it’s just stripped and empty — carpets removed, no furniture, wallpaper peeling. ERIC hesitates again, then moves toward the dark stairwell. He flicks the switch — no light. He looks up the stairs, but a noise outside distracts him. A car with “Red Letter Realty” has pulled up beside his and someone is getting out.

EXT. – HOUSE

ERIC
has returned to the dry front lawn, and stands with his back to the drive, looking up at house. As an attractive, dark-haired woman in her late thirties approaches, he talks over his shoulder to her.

ERIC

Things seem smaller when you see them after a long time. I remembered this place as being so huge…

JANICE

That’s funny, because I remembered you as being much shorter.

ERIC turns, startled.

ERIC

Janice? Janice? Oh, my God, what are you doing…

(looks at car)

Jesus. Are you the…

JANICE

The real-estate agent? Well, someone else in the office is actually handling it, but when I heard you were coming back to town to sign the sale papers, I said…

(shrugs)

Well, it seemed to make sense.

ERIC is still staring at her.

ERIC

You look… you look great.

JANICE

I look old. But thanks. You look okay yourself. I was sorry to hear about your grandmother.

ERIC

Well, ninety-two. We should all last so long. I thought she’d sold this years ago.

JANICE

She wasn’t stupid, Eric. She was making the developers bid up the price — you can see this was the last property here. She did you a good turn.

ERIC

(turns back to the house)

It’s hard to believe, huh? Those days seem like… like a dream.

JANICE

Not to me. I live around here, remember?

ERIC turns at the harshness in her voice.

ERIC

Is that bad?

JANICE

You didn’t want to stay much. No, I guess it’s all right. Not as exciting as Los Angeles, I’m sure.

(she frowns, then tries to smile)

But it’s nice to send the kids off to school without firearms training.

ERIC

You… have kids?

JANICE

Callie and Jack — eight and six. But no, not at the moment. They’re with their dad for the summer. We’re divorced.

ERIC is staring at the house again.

ERIC

I was just going to visit Topher, then drive back, but… hey, would you like to have dinner? It’d be nice to catch up.

JANICE

You’re… going to visit Topher?

ERIC

Thought I should. You want to come along?

JANICE

(shakes her head; then:)

You haven’t seen him lately. It’s bad.

ERIC

(shrugs)

Yeah, that’s what they told me. So, dinner. What do you say?

JANICE

I don’t think it’s a good idea, Eric.

ERIC

Just talk. Catch up. I… really feel like I need to.

JANICE

You don’t want to catch up, Eric. It’s better to leave things alone.

ERIC

C’mon… Jan-Jan

JANICE looks at him for a long moment, both touched and irritated by the use of the name. She rolls her eyes like a schoolgirl.

JANICE

Asshole.

FADE TO: EXT. — LAS LOMAS CONVALESCENT HOSPITAL – DAY

It’s a quiet, decent place. ERIC pulls into the parking lot.

INT. – HOSPITAL

ERIC walks down the hallway, past various geriatrics in wheelchairs and one young man twisted with palsy. As ERIC’s gaze sweeps across the young man’s face, a voice speaks behind him.

OLD WOMAN

Stop! Stop!

He turns. A scowling OLD WOMAN in a wheelchair is following him.

OLD WOMAN

It’s all a mistake! Call my mother!

ERIC walks on a little faster than before.

CUT TO: INT. — HOSPITAL LOUNGE

The room is filled with old people on benches, in chairs, mostly staring into space. ERIC is talking with a NURSE in the lounge doorway. She points toward the corner. As ERIC approaches, looking around, he doesn’t see TOPHER until the last moment — then a look of SHOCK runs across his face.

FLASH CUT TO:
TOPHER as a teenager in 1976, handsome, blonde, surfer-ish, a shit-eating grin on his face as he lounges on a couch.

YOUNG TOPHER

Eric, my man! Have I got something for you…

CUT TO:
TOPHER NOW, in his wheelchair. He is startlingly grotesque, hairless and hunched, but his SKIN is the worst part — a crusty brown SHELL over his whole body, as though he’s covered with dried mud. He sits as stiff as if paralyzed. Two pale blue eyes peer out of the masklike face.