This choice: Hide out in town as Will Shabbleman • Go Back...Chapter #16The Dream Life of the Faceless One by: Seuzz   You put the Prescott mask back on the golem, and it instantly revives: blinking, it looks back over at you, and its expression darkens. "What the fuck?"
"Get out," you growl at it. "We got nothing to talk about." It gapes. "I said, Get the fuck outta my car, you little gay ass-wipe."
Its cheeks crimson, and with a curse of its own it leaps from your car and starts to stalk back to your house. You turn over the engine; it glances back and gives you the finger, so you peel out hard, narrowly missing it. Yeah, you're being an asshole to "yourself," but after all that has happened to you, you're not sure you can even think of yourself as "Will Prescott" anymore.
* * * * *
You drive out to the seamiest side of Saratoga Falls and check into the cheapest motel you can find. You've got a couple hundred on you—traveling money provided by Grandmother—but you may need to stretch it very far. Night has begun to deepen as you fall onto the smelly bed, drop your arms across your forehead, and stare at the ceiling.
Somehow you have wound up in the body of a golem. You know nothing about golems or how they work, and the only source of information you know of is Blackwell, and you don't really trust him. And even if you thought he was trustworthy enough to go to, he's got Shabbleman at his house now, and being inside his head, you know he is just about the least trustworthy person around. He has plans.
And yet you are stuck with his face. That gives you some advantages, for he's a sneaky, amoral, cunning son of a bitch, and you're totally on your guard against him. But that's also your weakness, for it makes you completely recognizable. How are you going to get into Blackwell's library looking like you do?
You trace out labyrinthine possibilities, over and over, until they merge with each other. After awhile you begin to yearn for sleep, but you don't feel the least bit tired. Nor do you feel hungry. Do golems eat and sleep? They must, in order to maintain the illusion of humanity. Need they? Perhaps not.
Still, you need out of Shabbleman's mind, if only to step away of the stink of it. You remove the mask, and everything goes black-and-white. Hmmm. Apparently golems can't see in color, insofar as they are capable of seeing anything when they are animate. It makes the feeling that you're trapped in a horror movie even more palpable.
You feel no more relaxed outside the mask than inside it, but a certain peace descends. You feel no twitchiness or fatigue; indeed, you feel you could stay in this position for eternity if you had to. Your eyes drift over to the clock, and you are startled to see that the numbers are blinking rapidly through the minutes.
You raise your head, and all at once they stop. But, according to the clock at least, six hours have passed since you checked in. You relax, and they begin to tick by more quickly, though not at the same manic speed. Another interesting discovery: you can alter your sense of subjective time.
You lay back to stare at the ceiling, willing morning to come in an instant.
* * * * *
But maybe you need to practice the technique before you can master it. For instead of summoning morning, you summon inky darkness. All sense of weight drops from you. You are adrift: lying, standing, upside down or even inside out, you can't tell.
And then the wheels of sigils reappear, all around you. They blaze like fire, and you wince. But then you concentrate, and they seem to freeze. The symbols are clear and easy to read, and wordlessly you take them in. And then, without realizing what you are doing, you grasp one of them, and it melts and vanishes. You grasp a second, then a third and a fourth and a ... a seventh. All is dark again. And yet you feel as though they are still present. You feel, indeed, as though they have never been away from you.
You reach out to tear the darkness like a curtain, somehow knowing that that is the way to return home. But you pause, for you suddenly sense that you are not alone.
Though it is so dark that it makes to no sense to say that you have "turned," you are aware that a pool of light has swum into view. It grows larger, as though you are advancing on it. Seated in its center is a man. He is staring intently down into a bowl that sits on a pedestal between his knees. It must be full of a liquid, for as you draw near ripples begin to form in it.
He looks up at you, but he doesn't seem to see you. He is an old man, bald except for a fringe of curly grey hair around the back and sides of his head. His cheeks have deep folds, and there is a deep crease between his eyebrows. His eyes are a pale but intense blue color, and they flash from deeply beneath his eyebrow. His mouth is set in a sharp, downward frown. And yet despite his severe expression he does not seem unfriendly. Only stern.
He rises, and you see he is dressed in long robes of white and gold. He is very short, and he rocks as though he suffers a limp as he steps around the pedestal to approach you. His hands are behind his back, and he looks up at you thoughtfully, though his eyes still can't seem to fix upon you.
You say nothing as he seems to search for your face. But then he speaks. "What is your name, my son?" His voice is soft, but it has a rasp of authority.
You feel no compulsion, but you know you have to answer him. "William Prescott," you reply, though your answer doesn't seem to take the form of words.
And then he seems to see you. His eyes focus, and his frown deepens. He looks you up and down. His hands still behind his back, he walks around you, studying you. Then he returns to his stool and again sits, but keeps his eyes fastened on you. There is no contest of wills, but you hold each other in each other's gaze. Then again he speaks softly. "That will be all. You may return whence you came."
He fades, and the ceiling, lit by the morning sun, appears.
* * * * *
You feel preternatural calmness until you don the Shabbleman mask again, and then a heart tries to hammer its way out of your chest. You want to flee, you want find the edge of the earth and throw yourself into the abyss. Your hand is on the door handle before you can stop yourself. You grit your teeth, and with infinite willpower unbend your fingers from the knob.
That seems to break the spell, and though you feel shaky, weak, and more than a little sick, you have control of yourself again. You sit on the bed with your face in your hands. What is there to be afraid of?
Not the man you saw; there is no horror in the memory of him. Nor in the memory of the sigils. You try to peel back the nature of your feelings and can discover no cause other than an inner compulsion. You seize the remaining residue of that fear, squeeze it ... and like a candle flame it suddenly vanishes. You wonder that you ever felt it.
The mystery of the attack could have left you bemused, but you set it aside for other business, for you have a sudden hunch about the nature of the dream last night. Or, at any rate, about the first part of it. You pay for another night's rent of the room, and then, sticking to back streets as much as possible, drive around town and pick up the supplies you'll need to make a mask. You've never made one of course, but you know exactly what is needed.
A few hours later, back in the hotel room, you finish making the sigil, pour out the ingredients in the prescribed manner, set them aflame, and then take up the face-shaped oval that results. You know that what you did should have been impossible: only the sigil contained in the Libra Personae should have worked, but somehow you knew that you would be able to work the spell without the book. Sadly, you also know it will take many hours of buffing to make it useful.
So you set to work, slowly at first, and then with greater speed. Your arms and hands soon ache, so you divest yourself of the Shabbleman mask and resume work. In this disembodied state, you discover, you can work tirelessly, without fatigue or boredom. More quickly, too, and your stone-like fingers are soon vibrating with an inhuman speed. Intuitively, you realize it should take you days, as a human with the need to eat and sleep and take breaks from the tedium, to finish a mask; but you complete it in less than five hours of nonstop work.
So, you reflect impassively, you now have a mask. But it needs an image. For some time you have been hearing noises from the room next door, seeping easily through the thin walls. It would be easy to take the form of someone here at this motel; anonymity might serve you perfectly well. But it might be easier to insinuate your way back into Blackwell's if you took the form of someone close to him ... or to the golem Will Prescott.  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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