Paparazzi Burning
Epilogue. Gaston's Story
“Herr Diethard! It’s time!”
Gaston du Lac awoke with a start. The orchestra had stopped playing and the appreciative but formal applause began.
Gaston was never fond of the symphony. In fact, he was utterly bored with it, so much so that he had fallen asleep amidst the clamor and clangor of this newest, most bombastic, and decidedly pompous magnum opus by the immortal Aalbanese composer, Herr Otto Theodor von Werner. (He was immortal both figuratively and literally as he has been receiving regular doses of potions of longevity from his foremost and most powerful patrons, the ruling Drachenfels family of Aalban.)
Gaston has just hoped that the drums and cymbals and those blasted Sylaire horns had covered his snoring. But given the dagger looks of the hefty Aalbanese grand dame beside him (some cousin or aunt of Prinz Jaggar von Drachenfels), he thought it unlikely.
Looking right straight at the beefy matron, Gaston wiped off a string of drool from his mouth with a fancy cuffed sleeve. The Aalbanese frau looked away in outright disgust and an audible harrumph, and so Gaston could fix himself in peace.
“Herr Diethard! The others are—” reminded his page, cautiously looking in the direction of Frau Viktoria Löwenroth (formerly Viktoria von Drachenfels), who had just stood up, subtly signaling a few other Aalbanese nobles to follow her lead.
“I know, I know…” grumbled Gaston du Lac, scratching himself rudely. His skin had been itching beneath all the fine Alphatian spider-silk he was wearing, and the ruffles of his frilly suit were giving him a rash. All this discomfort reminded him how mistaken he was about this assignment for the Paparazzi Glantri.
Gaston du Lac had thought that going undercover to investigate the Free Anachronic Society of Aalban—that subversive cabal of Alphatian-Aalbanese wizards who hated and destroyed all things mechanical and technological, including the printing presses of the Paparazzi Glantri—would lead him to pubs and taverns, alleys, sewers, docks and warehouses, the lairs of thieves, lowlifes, ne’er-do-wells, and those ilk, people and places he was used to dealing with.
Instead, the Anachronics were meeting here, at a Wernerian symphony in some pretentious orchestra house, under the bright magical lights and rich trappings of the Aalbanese upper crust, where the Hattian and Alphatian factions of Aalbanese society waged their subtle yet destructive wars against each other, where an upturned painted lip could end a man’s life or a half-whispered half-meant remark could topple fortunes.
Gaston du Lac did not like this one bit as he scowled at this pageboy, who was ushering him out of his seat with the utmost of urgency. Of course, Gaston could see through the clever disguise of his fellow Paparazzo, Melisante Erewan. Her light build and her elven features make her look like a lithe Aalbanese youth, the ones that the true Herr Diethard von Othmann was known
to hanker after. So while earlier that day, another Paparazzo, the handsome, young, silver-tongued socialite Noussoir du Marais had waylayed the lecherous Aalbanese nobleman with his boyish charms and a draught of sleeping potion, Gaston was here to take his place, accompanied by the unlikely divination specialist of the Paparazzi, Melisante.
“The Anachronics are heading for the cloakroom upstairs,” Melisante whispered.
Their disguises were perfect as no one batted an eyelash when the lustful Herr Diethard was seen scurrying off with a handsome albeit androgynous young man up some shadowed out of the way staircase and into some darkened, heavily curtained darkroom.
Inside the secret meeting place, Gaston could hear the Anachronics arguing in whispers and murmurs, hushed voices with thick Alphatian accents. There was talk of operations and plans, sabotage, arson, theft, and confiscations. There was mention of “Herr Doktor,” Baron Rolf von Graustein of Blofeld, who obsessively crafted golems and mechanical constructs for Prinz Jaggar von Drachenfels. There was ranting about “that crackpot technomancer” Herr Sigmund von Drachenfels, the genius inventor-wizard and son of Prinz Jaggar, whose latest invention was a mechanical drolem, a dragon-shaped golem made of iron and steel, pistons and pipes, run with magic and technology. There was also allusion to a strange power called Gray Sorcery, “the bane of magical society and a danger to the entire world,” according to the Anachronics, and the very force that they were battling. But through all those long-winded words of self-important Alphatian wizards was one clear voice of a woman, Frau Viktoria von Drachenfels Löwenroth, the present leader of the Anachronic Society.
When Frau Viktoria spoke, the Anachronics were deathly silent. Gaston inched closer from behind the velvet curtains near the cloakroom entrance to have a good view of the Anachronic leader, when suddenly the room burst into strange eerie brightness.
It was not a magical light, as Gaston and most Glantrians were used to seeing, but it was brilliant and unnatural. Gaston saw it was emanating from a strange device that Frau Viktoria was holding, a kind of rectangular gray slate, with a glowing square crystal. What was stranger was the all the Alphatians were transfixed and staring into the light.
Gaston had faced fell magic before and knew that this was worse. He tugged at Melisante beside him, but saw that she too, despite being hidden behind the thick curtains was transfixed and staring into the center of the room where Viktoria von Drachenfels stood with her mysterious device.
That was when it hit Gaston. First, a strange twinge inside his head, then a ache and a sore, then a full throbbing headache. But worse than the pain in his brain, were the visions, flooding nightmarish memories: running from Château d’Ambreville, gray mists surrounding him, an ancient tattered scroll in his hands. A raspy voice speaking in Kaelic, kilts, plaid, and tartan over dried bone, a terrifying audience with a living corpse, a bargain for the scroll of ancient death magic. Then a handsome face, smooth, flawless, pale, and white, the gleaming white fangs, and his eyes, beautiful, deep, enchanting eyes, black as a Boldavian night.
Gaston gripped his head. He suddenly realized why he had joined the Paparazzi—He was an unwitting agent of Sir Boris Gorevitch-Woszlany, brother to Prince Morphail of Boldavia. But that selfsame charm that kept him under that vampiric thrall had also protected him from that mind-controlling radiance that Viktoria von Drachenfels was now using, and probably has been using, to manipulate the Anachronics.
Gaston sensed how perilous his situation was. If this roomful of Alphatian wizards could be hypnotized by this strange force, and even the all-knowing Melisante Erewan could not detect or foretell such a trap, what hope had he, a magicless mundaner scoundrel?
Gaston was thinking whether to bring the mesmerized Melisante along with him in his escape, when suddenly he heard a cold, inhuman voice.
“Herr Diethard von Othmann,” called the voice mechanically.
The curtain where Gaston was huddling with Melisante was opened. Standing there was Viktoria von Drachenfels. But Gaston could see through the shimmering image of the Aalbanese noblewoman an unnatural, terrifying monstrosity—a humanoid figure of twisted flesh melded with steel, like golem, half-flesh, half-metal.
Gaston screamed in terror as the weird bright light engulfed him. But in his mind’s eye, all he could see was darkness.
The End
