sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-06 12:55 am
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-06 12:55 am
Entry tags:
Nothing Constant, Ch. 7; PG-13 for adult image.
Note: While the concept of the Dream Books and their contents are mine, the image used in this chapter is from La Sorciére by Jules Michelet (printed in Paris in 1911), and was engraved by Martin van Maele. The image is not work safe.
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4
Chapter 5 - Chapter 6
For the past two hours I've had two essential questions on my mind, eclipsing the more important matter of how to find the book Wimsey had somewhere in that daft library of his. That question -- finding the book -- was solved as soon as I clapped eyes on Lovejoy.
It's like a treasure hunt. Find the auction, find the divvy. Find the divvy, find the book.
The questions now facing me have less complicated answers, but that doesn't make them come any easier.
One, how long can I get away not telling this pair the truth?
Two, how the hell do I tell them the truth in a way that doesn't make me look either a right wanker or a madman?
Oh, Lovejoy's all right, he's a divvy; he knows there is more in heaven and earth et, as he would say, Shakespearean cetera. Still, anyone can see that he has more common sense than bollocks, and doesn't want to be mixed up in anything nasty.
Not that I blame him. Looking at Lovejoy's like looking at a funhouse mirror. He's shorter and darker and skinnier and about a decade younger than I am, but I'm still looking at what essentially amounts to me: smart mouth, too clever for me own bloody good, working class an' always will be, with the tendency to irrevocably fuck up everyone else's life.
Right. Anyway, Wimsey's more of a problem. He looks like he'd be painfully logical.
I hate logic. It gets in the way and if you know how to think in twists you can bend it to do, oh, nearly anything. Logic is a devilish tool, and I ought to know.
Besides, he's not a divvy nor a dabbler in any arcane arts; the closest he's been to magic is the hymn on his music-stand.
Lucien gave me that for, ha, a song. I asked what he had on the Wimseys and he showed me a whole folio of music. Lord Peter Wimsey, who would never have aspired to be a composer -- not Lordlike, I suppose -- wrote hymns and cantatas, ragtime jazz, ballet suites and symphonies in his head at night for the whole of the time the Great War owned him as a loyal son. His escape, I reckon.
Well, there are worse. There's an army of men sold their soul to demons for a decent night's sleep as long as the war was on. Down there drilling forever in Hell, poor stupid sods.
What happened when Grandson Death sang the hymn, that was unexpected.
It shouldn't have been unexpected. Sympathetic magic is the oldest kind and like calls to like. With Lovejoy as conduit the dream-hymn found the second volume of the dream-book I was looking for and if Wimsey weren't being so almighty stroppy about it, the thing might be over and done with by now.
Except there's another book, and the threes are starting to mount. Me and Lovejoy and Wimsey; Wimsey and Saint-George and old Lord Peter Wimsey, the gentleman effin' amateur. The two dream books, one of which Lovejoy just pulled out of Wimsey's library, one of which is missing God knows where, and the fake with the Canary Islands map that once led the way to them.
But you can't just go telling an idle lord and a broke-down divvy that you're looking for books that never existed, books that were written like Lord Peter's Hymn in the dream time and stashed in Lucien's library there. You can't just go round announcing there's a lord of dreams, a Sandman, and that he's got a library of dreams. You can't just explain how dangerous those artefacts are. Nobody'd sodding believe you, would they?
Better just to get the book and go.
Except I can't.
"One of your collection?" Lovejoy asks Wimsey, who sighs like we're two five year olds proudly showing him our shit.
"The secret engravings. I should have donated them to the British Museum years ago. I can't imagine what Grandfather was thinking."
"Right ol' perv, your granddad, then?" Lovejoy says.
"Not that I ever saw," Wimsey answers. They're talking about something and as usual I'm on the outside, but people will talk till you tell them to stop, so I let them go on and light another fag. "And if you have any sense of decency at all you won't go spreading that kind of a rumour. They're hardly common knowledge; how do you know about them?"
"How do I," Lovejoy chuckles, then grasps his head. Hung over, I reckon. "Legendary, aren't they?"
"Have you got a whole bloody collection of these, then?" I ask, pointing to the book that's between us now on the table.
"It isn't mine," Wimsey says, still with that oh-so-patient expression, the one I'm really starting to dislike. "Grandfather collected them. Dad says it was originally some joke of great-uncle Paul, and Grandmum carried on the joke. They're art, you know, it's not like he bought pornographic magazines."
"Didn't bloody make antique wank mags," Lovejoy grins. I like the little sod.
Wimsey's rubbing his eyes, tiredly. "The collection is priceless. This volume is the only known copy, and it's only half the set. I don't know where the first volume is. It supposedly has the text that goes with the images."
Reluctantly, but still with some kind of pride, he opens the book and turns it towards us. Lovejoy's breathing goes all shallow.
It's not hard to see why.
Every page is a work of art, the book a textless series of erotic images of surpassing artistry. Twenty two engravings, Lucien's voice says in my head, And three glorious colour plates.
I guess this is where my bargaining chip comes in.
"I can find you the text index," I say.
Funny how alike Wimsey and Lovejoy suddenly look.
Hungry.
Lustful.
Continue to the next part
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4
Chapter 5 - Chapter 6
For the past two hours I've had two essential questions on my mind, eclipsing the more important matter of how to find the book Wimsey had somewhere in that daft library of his. That question -- finding the book -- was solved as soon as I clapped eyes on Lovejoy.
It's like a treasure hunt. Find the auction, find the divvy. Find the divvy, find the book.
The questions now facing me have less complicated answers, but that doesn't make them come any easier.
One, how long can I get away not telling this pair the truth?
Two, how the hell do I tell them the truth in a way that doesn't make me look either a right wanker or a madman?
Oh, Lovejoy's all right, he's a divvy; he knows there is more in heaven and earth et, as he would say, Shakespearean cetera. Still, anyone can see that he has more common sense than bollocks, and doesn't want to be mixed up in anything nasty.
Not that I blame him. Looking at Lovejoy's like looking at a funhouse mirror. He's shorter and darker and skinnier and about a decade younger than I am, but I'm still looking at what essentially amounts to me: smart mouth, too clever for me own bloody good, working class an' always will be, with the tendency to irrevocably fuck up everyone else's life.
Right. Anyway, Wimsey's more of a problem. He looks like he'd be painfully logical.
I hate logic. It gets in the way and if you know how to think in twists you can bend it to do, oh, nearly anything. Logic is a devilish tool, and I ought to know.
Besides, he's not a divvy nor a dabbler in any arcane arts; the closest he's been to magic is the hymn on his music-stand.
Lucien gave me that for, ha, a song. I asked what he had on the Wimseys and he showed me a whole folio of music. Lord Peter Wimsey, who would never have aspired to be a composer -- not Lordlike, I suppose -- wrote hymns and cantatas, ragtime jazz, ballet suites and symphonies in his head at night for the whole of the time the Great War owned him as a loyal son. His escape, I reckon.
Well, there are worse. There's an army of men sold their soul to demons for a decent night's sleep as long as the war was on. Down there drilling forever in Hell, poor stupid sods.
What happened when Grandson Death sang the hymn, that was unexpected.
It shouldn't have been unexpected. Sympathetic magic is the oldest kind and like calls to like. With Lovejoy as conduit the dream-hymn found the second volume of the dream-book I was looking for and if Wimsey weren't being so almighty stroppy about it, the thing might be over and done with by now.
Except there's another book, and the threes are starting to mount. Me and Lovejoy and Wimsey; Wimsey and Saint-George and old Lord Peter Wimsey, the gentleman effin' amateur. The two dream books, one of which Lovejoy just pulled out of Wimsey's library, one of which is missing God knows where, and the fake with the Canary Islands map that once led the way to them.
But you can't just go telling an idle lord and a broke-down divvy that you're looking for books that never existed, books that were written like Lord Peter's Hymn in the dream time and stashed in Lucien's library there. You can't just go round announcing there's a lord of dreams, a Sandman, and that he's got a library of dreams. You can't just explain how dangerous those artefacts are. Nobody'd sodding believe you, would they?
Better just to get the book and go.
Except I can't.
"One of your collection?" Lovejoy asks Wimsey, who sighs like we're two five year olds proudly showing him our shit.
"The secret engravings. I should have donated them to the British Museum years ago. I can't imagine what Grandfather was thinking."
"Right ol' perv, your granddad, then?" Lovejoy says.
"Not that I ever saw," Wimsey answers. They're talking about something and as usual I'm on the outside, but people will talk till you tell them to stop, so I let them go on and light another fag. "And if you have any sense of decency at all you won't go spreading that kind of a rumour. They're hardly common knowledge; how do you know about them?"
"How do I," Lovejoy chuckles, then grasps his head. Hung over, I reckon. "Legendary, aren't they?"
"Have you got a whole bloody collection of these, then?" I ask, pointing to the book that's between us now on the table.
"It isn't mine," Wimsey says, still with that oh-so-patient expression, the one I'm really starting to dislike. "Grandfather collected them. Dad says it was originally some joke of great-uncle Paul, and Grandmum carried on the joke. They're art, you know, it's not like he bought pornographic magazines."
"Didn't bloody make antique wank mags," Lovejoy grins. I like the little sod.
Wimsey's rubbing his eyes, tiredly. "The collection is priceless. This volume is the only known copy, and it's only half the set. I don't know where the first volume is. It supposedly has the text that goes with the images."
Reluctantly, but still with some kind of pride, he opens the book and turns it towards us. Lovejoy's breathing goes all shallow.
It's not hard to see why.
Every page is a work of art, the book a textless series of erotic images of surpassing artistry. Twenty two engravings, Lucien's voice says in my head, And three glorious colour plates.
I guess this is where my bargaining chip comes in.
"I can find you the text index," I say.
Funny how alike Wimsey and Lovejoy suddenly look.
Hungry.
Lustful.
Continue to the next part
no subject
Love the fic so far, I'm gonna read the next couple'a chapters and hope that either chapter nine is the last one, or that you're going to continue this at great length later.