Clockwork Mirror

Richard Snow

Description

Like the hand of the Devil, the minute hand casts its ominous shadow as the Doomsday Clock ticks closer to midnight.And as millions face annihilation at the hands of a madman, on the other side of the mirror, the great and the good have been granted a stage of their own: Alfred Hitchcock plays the wolf and Marilyn Monroe plays the sex kitten. And Pablo Picasso paints his greatest masterwork since Guernica whilst proclaiming his genius. While, in the demon forest, the still heart of Richard Wagner begins to beat once more. Welcome to the strange, hallucinatory fever dream that is the Clockwork Mirror - one of the broken places where the silver glass of cosmic time is cracked wide and the titanic engines of creation are revealed, each tumbling mirror shard reflecting a vision from the edge of the inferno. Here are worlds populated by bold heroes and lethal sirens - alternate realities home to malevolent doctors and ruthless assassins, where deadly trials must be faced and darkest truths are revealed just before the killing blow is delivered...

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 31 mars 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528983938
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Clockwork Mirror
Richard Snow
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-03-31
The Clockwork Mirror About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © PROLOGUE THE WOLF IN THE FOLD TEMPTATION BICHROMIA METHUSELAH’S ABACUS FUGITIVES BEYOND MAGNETIC MOUNTAIN THE ENCHANTRESS THE KEEPER OF THE LIGHT CINNABAR LAUGH RIOT THE MENAGERIE FOREST MURMURS THE GLASS ANVIL MAJOR AND MINOR THE FIRST CASUALTY THE COLLECTOR THE FLOATING WORLD MATABELE ANOTHER EDEN SNOW-COVERED VOLCANO BLACK RIVER THE PUPPET MASTER THE MADNESS OF BOBBY FISCHER THE LAST DAYS OF ATLANTIS THE CLOCKWORK MIRROR BROKEN NO LONGER REFLECTS TRANSCENDENCE BLACK DOG LAUGH RIOT: SHOWDOWN FREUDIAN SLIP LAW OF CONQUEST SANCTUARY MEDUSA SURVEYS THE RUSTING GRAIL ANTARES CARPE NOCTEM THE FURNACE NEAPOLIS THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY THE TWENTY-FIFTH HOUR 1. The Clock Strikes 2. Tally-ho 3. Isengrim’s Revenge 4. The Twilight of the Gods 5. Time is of the Essence THE VIBRATING WORLD THE MENAGERIE: TORO NEGRO THE VICTOR, THE VANQUISHED EZEKIEL AND THE POET THE TEMPTRESS THE SHOWMAN OMNISCIENCE LAUGH RIOT: JOKE KING MADNESS PHANTASMAGORIA LEGEND THE HANDS OF THE CLOCK HALF-MEN THE IMMORTALS ROCKERS THE BIG MAN BRITTLESTAR 1. The Door that Slammed the Angry Girl 2. Vulcan’s Forge 3. Rips in the Mirror 4. Al-Sirat THE SCIENCE OF HARM THE MENAGERIE: GREEN LINCOLN
About the Author
Richard Snow was born in Birmingham in 1970. An artist and writer of poetry, The Clockwork Mirror is his first collection of short stories.
Dedication
To all my family.
Copyright Information ©
Richard Snow (2020)
The right of Richard Snow to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528983921 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528983938 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ

Cover design and artwork are the product of author’s own imagination.

Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through.
Dylan Thomas
And Death Shall Have No Dominion
‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said the Spider to the Fly,
’’Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I’ve many curious things to show when you are there.’
Mary Howitt
The Spider and the Fly
PROLOGUE
When a man lies, he murders some part of the world. These are the pale deaths men miscall their lives.
Paul Gerhardt
If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss
will gaze back into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Time – the allegorical ghost inside the clock.
Time – the binding and unbounded river twisting like blood through the body of the starlit void where the Earth is sanctuary.
Divine Earth turns like the hands of a clock, hurtling through the cosmic darkness like a lapis river stone cast from a sling in the war between heaven and hell.
Sanctuary Earth – a lush and verdant haven from the cold embrace of the infinite, yet, never from the march of time itself.
Where the boundless mirror of the real is broken, the glittering dust born of shattered reality hurtles through the void as quickly as light. In such a place, all things are made possible. Thus, in a world where the tide of history flows every way but the course destiny had chosen, saints succumb to their demons and stumble on the road to the city of lies. And living gods once revered by men burn in effigy, as a thousand histories are rewritten in blood.
And like spiders in the shape of men, killers rise through the cracks in the Devil’s earth, eager to hunt and trap in the garden of earthly wonders.
THE WOLF IN THE FOLD
Six beautiful blondes walked in the night forest with Alfred Hitchcock. The hoots of owls serenaded them as they advanced leisurely by moonlight through the towering redwood colonnades.
‘Isn’t this enchanting,’ declared one of the girls.
‘It’s so romantic,’ opined another.
‘Just dreamy,’ a third lovely purred.
Beside a monster redwood, Hitch stopped in his tracks and turned to address his sextet of fragrant companions:
’There was a young lady named Claire
who possessed a magnificent pair;
Or that’s what I thought
till I saw one get caught
On a thorn and begin to lose air.’
Hitch took a small bow as the girls applauded, the music of their laughter filling his ears. ‘Oh, Hitch, you’re so naughty,’ said one girl.
‘You know I aim to please, my dear,’ the eminent director replied, speaking deliberately, in the sepulchral drawl that had become his trademark. He continued, ‘Very soon it’ll be midnight, my six lovely lambs, and time for the little surprise I have in store for you all. There’s a full moon shining above us and a wolf in sheep’s clothing standing before you, ready to eat you up, because you all look so delicious.’
Suddenly, there was the sound of a clock striking midnight. In the giant trunk of the redwood, a little door opened and a golden cuckoo emerged into the moonlight. As the cuckoo cuckooed, the girls applauded.
‘How truly delightful,’ remarked one of the six, ‘and now, Hitch, we’ve a little present for you.’
The girl stepped forward and revealed what she was hiding behind her back. It was a gilded rose.
Hitch’s Basset Hound eyes widened with theatrical surprise, ‘Good heavens, ladies, I wasn’t expecting this, how charming.’
The girl smiled playfully as she presented the rose to Hitch. As Hitch accepted the gift, he pricked his finger on one of the rose thorns. ‘Oh dear,’ he said, ‘that’s rather unfortunate. I don’t think I’m going to be able to keep you ladies company for very much longer, how awful.’
With the girls looking on, all of a sudden, to the accompaniment of a hissing sound, Hitch’s jowly face began to deflate.
In moments, his head and then his body had collapsed like a hot-air balloon, until all that was left of him was a heap of baggy skin, tailored cloth and shoe leather, resting on the forest floor.
TEMPTATION
It seemed clear, to the faithful, that it was God, in his judgement, who had sent the burning stones from the heavens that had razed the Vatican to the ground. It was also clear that, from henceforth, only the most pious could be permitted to lead. Therefore, because of the divine act of reckoning, it was announced a ‘hall of temptation’ was to be constructed in the living rock, in an undisclosed location. It would be created, it was claimed, for the task of examining the morality of those aspiring to lead the Roman Church. Some cynics had suggested such expenditure, in the pursuit of piety, was rather unnecessary, as the world already provided sufficient iniquities and temptations to challenge all but the most puritanical of souls. However, with the Vatican reduced to ashes, clerics had decided drastic action was required so that God would look favourably on his church once more.
Six years later, at a scenic location in the Italian Alps, priests arrived in their dozens from all over the globe.
‘So, this is it – the moment of truth,’ young Irish priest, Noel Finnerty, said, in a low voice, to an equally callow Polish priest, Mariusz Skovronski.
The Pole smiled nervously. ‘My heart is beating very fast,’ he said.
‘I couldn’t sleep last night,’ Luca Tedesco admitted – a priest from Treviso in his early twenties.
Further forward in the line, another young East Asian priest was visibly trembling.
In front of the long line, a dramatic gothic-style arch could be seen. It had been built into the rockface as a gateway into the mountain. Gradually, like a great stone maw, it swallowed bodies, as the line of priests advanced under the watchful eyes of the stewards, like lambs to the slaughter.
In the eyes of Rome, for the young priests, all accepting of the discipline of celibacy, the trial began the moment they passed beyond the stone gateway and entered the Hall of Temptation. An abundance of concealed cameras monitored every reaction, looking for the lustful gaze, the bead of sweat that would reveal an individual as unfit to serve in God’s church. Those deemed to be displaying signs of lasciviousness were led away into anterooms by the stewards, their life in the priesthood unceremoniously concluded. Some of the priests chose to close their eyes and cover their ears as they advanced; others continually made the sign of the cross and said prayers to keep them from temptation.
Finnerty was led away quite early on, as he failed to avert his gaze from a glass partition beyond which two captivatingly beautiful women were writhing naked, locked in a sapphic embrace, their sighs of pleasure amplified by loudspeakers in the walls. Likewise, Skovronski fell afoul of the unseen overseers, as his eyes were drawn to a frantic pornographic scene being displayed on one of the large, suspended monitors.
As twenty-year-old Chinese priest, Wei Huang, hurried through the seemingly endless gallery of carnal exhibition, he found himself in a large mirror-walled chamber. From the ecstatic sounds alone, echoing in the room, he knew he dare not look, if he were to escape the judgement of the overseers and remain a servant of God’s holy church. But curiosity, and no longer containable desire, got