- Kylaer
- Aug 4, 2007
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I'm SURE walking around in a respirator at all times in an (even more) OPEN BIDENing society is definitely not a recipe for disaster and anyone that's not cool with getting harassed by CHUDs are cave dwellers. I've got good brain!
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Is Dickens chat still ongoing?
A Carol of Ice and Fire posted:
Stave 1
Jordan was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Martin signed it: and Martin's name was renowned as an editor, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Jordan was dead as a door-nail. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.
One upon a time - of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve - old Martin sat busy in his library tower. The door of Martin's library tower was open that he might keep an eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was deleting less-than-adoring comments from Martin's blog.
"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Martin's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
"Bah!" said Martin, "Humbug!"
"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.
"Good afternoon," said Martin.
"And A Happy New Year!"
"Good afternoon!" said Martin.
His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who cold as he was, was warmer than Martin; for he returned them cordially.
This lunatic, in letting Martin's nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Martin's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.
"Martin and Jordan's, I believe," said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Martin, or Mr. Jordan?"
"Mr. Jordan has been dead these seven years," Martin replied. "He died seven years ago, this very night."
"We have no doubt his work ethic is well represented by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.
It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous phrase "work ethic," Martin frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.
"Considering that another year is on the verge of passing, Mr. Martin," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that you show some progress on your novel, which has been delayed these past ten years. Your publisher is fearing that your fans are losing interest in the series. Sales of the existing books have died off. If you want us to not declare you in breach of contract, you must show that you have made some progress."
"Have I not published role-playing sourcebooks?" asked Martin.
"Plenty of sourcebooks," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
"And the Wild Cards collections?" demanded Martin. "Are they still being printed?"
"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."
"Valyrian Steel and Dark Sword Miniatures are still in operation, then?" said Martin.
"Both still exist, although sales of your products have dropped dramatically over the past few years. Yet still, they stay in business."
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Martin. "I'm very glad to hear that my royalty checks will still be rolling in."
"Under the consideration that all those things you mentioned are a poor substitute for another portion of the Song," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are intent on pressuring you to publish Dance. If you are found to be in breach of contract, you could lose not only the rights to the series itself, but also those to the merchandise. Now, how much progress have you made on the book?"
"None!" Martin replied.
"You...you must be joking."
"I wish to be left alone," said Martin. "You threaten me with breach of contract, well, here is my answer: I've already made my pile of money. I don't need any more. I can comfortably live out my years on what I banked from the first four, plus what little I collect from GEORGE R.R. MARTIN'S WILD CARDS. If my fans want something to read, they should read those; they're what I enjoy writing - err, editing - after all."
"Many won't read them; and many would rather read Sword of Truth."
"If they would rather read that poo poo," said Martin, "they had better do it, and cut themselves off from real writing once and for all. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that."
"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.
"It's not my business," Martin returned. "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Martin returned to arranging the toy knights on his desk with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.
At length the hour of shutting up the library tower arrived. With an ill-will Martin hauled himself ponderously out of his chair, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the tank, who instantly shut off his computer and put on his hat.
"You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?" said Martin.
"If quite convenient, sir."
"It's not convenient," said Martin. "But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning."
The clerk promised that he would; and Martin walked out with a growl. Martin took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy pizza parlor; and having read all the latest comic books, and beguiled the rest of the evening with the manuscript of the latest Wild Cards collection he was editing, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. Let it also be borne in mind that Martin had not bestowed one thought on Jordan, since his last mention of his seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Martin, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change -- not a knocker, but Jordan's face.
Jordan's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Martin as Jordan used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part or its own expression.
As Martin looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.
To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, and walked in. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that. Sitting-room, bedroom, reading-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa - not that many would have been able to fit, so low had it sagged after years of being subjected to Martin's weight. Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire with a tray of lemoncakes.
As he leaned his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.
This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant's cellar. Martin then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.
The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.
"It's humbug still!" said Martin. "I won't believe it."
His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know him; Jordan's Ghost!" and fell again.
The same face: the very same. Jordan in his usual jacket, khakis and boots. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Martin observed it closely) of bound volumes, pens, typewriters, manuscripts, drafts, and engraved covers wrought in steel.
"How now!" said Martin, caustic and cold as ever. "What do you want with me?"
"Much!" -- Jordan's voice, no doubt about it.
"Who are you?"
"Ask me who I was."
"Who were you then?" said Martin, raising his voice.
"In life I was your fellow author, Robert Jordan."
Martin, narrowing his eyes, peered once again at the shade.
"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost.
"I don't." said Martin.
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Martin held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!
Martin toppled out of the chair, stomach trembling like a mountain of suet, and fell upon his knees, clasping his hands before his face.
"Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?"
"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do you believe in me or not?"
"I do," said Martin. "I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"
Martin trembled more and more.
"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"
Martin glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.
"Robert," he said, imploringly. "Old Robert Jordan, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Robert!"
"I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It comes from other regions, George R.R. Martin, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. I never completed what I set out to in life -- mark me! -- in life would not take the time to finish what I'd begun; and now all time stretches before me, yet I cannot perform my task!"
"You must have been very slow about it, Robert," Martin observed, in a business-like manner, though with humility and deference.
The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.
"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"
"But you were always a good writer, Robert," faltered Martin, who now began to apply this to himself.
"Writing!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Tarmon Gai'don was the aim of my writing. To complete the cycle; the first truly epic fantasy series, the series that made your own possible, and Malazan, and all the others that have and will follow! That was why I wrote! But I set them aside, I wrote too slowly, and time ran out! The books that I completed were but a part of what I had planned!"
Martin was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.
"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly gone."
"I will," said Martin. "But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery, Robert! Pray!"
"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day."
It was not an agreeable idea. Martin shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.
"That is no light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost. "I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, George."
"You were always a good friend to me," said Martin. "Thank `ee!"
"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three Spirits."
Martin's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.
"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Robert?" he demanded, in a faltering voice.
"It is."
"I -- I think I'd rather not," said Martin.
"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one."
"Couldn't I take `em all at once, and have it over, Robert?" hinted Martin.
"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!"
When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, as before. Martin knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.
The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned Martin to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Jordan's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Martin stopped.
Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.
Stave 2
Martin lay in this state until the chimes had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was past; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.
The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.
"Ding, dong!"
"A quarter past," said Martin, counting.
"Ding dong!"
"Half past!" said Martin.
"Ding dong!"
"A quarter to it," said Martin.
"Ding dong!"
"The hour itself," said Martin, triumphantly, "and nothing else!"
He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn. Martin, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.
It was a strange figure -- like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions.
"Are you the Spirit, ser, whose coming was foretold to me?" asked Martin.
"I am."
The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.
"Who, and what are you?" Martin demanded.
"I am the Ghost of Releases Past."
"Long Past?" inquired Martin: observant of its dwarfish stature.
"No. Your past." It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm. "Rise. And walk with me."
As the words were spoken, the room around them blurred and shifted, and Martin gave an exclamation of surprise.
"Good Heaven!" said Martin, clasping his hands together as he looked about him. "I remember this office! This is where I worked when I wrote the first story I was able to get published! I'd just gotten the copy of the magazine...it wasn't much of a story, but it was mine, and I received some letters saying it was good, and I was so proud..."
The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten.
"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is that beneath your chin?"
Martin muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was his neck, as yet bare of the sprawling neckbeard that would later encompass it; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.
The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, "Let us see another release!"
The room changed again; this time it was larger, no dingy office, but what appeared to be a private dining room at a restaurant. Martin trembled at the sight of his younger self, surrounded by his friends and fellow authors.
"And what was this?" the Ghost asked.
"The party I threw when the first copies of A Game of Thrones were shipped to the stores. I was breaking new ground, writing a kind of story that hadn't been done before, and I could just see how it would play out...the next few years, two more novels, and wrap it all up to a solid conclusion."
The half-real figures around the table raised their glasses in a toast to the younger image of Martin, who answered in kind. Several of the freshly-printed books stood on a side table, covers shining under the overhead lights, but not as brightly as the smiles of the people around the table.
"I..." Martin looked at his younger and ever so much happier self, not yet bitter from years of failed progress. "Where did I go wrong?" He watched as the party went on into the night, as his friends filled the air with their congratulations on what he had done.
"Spirit!" said Martin in a broken voice, "remove me from this place."
"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"
"Remove me!" Martin exclaimed, "I cannot bear it!"
He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.
"Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"
The room spun once more, the figures and the table fading. He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.
Stave 3
Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Martin had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through Robert Jordan's intervention.
Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. At last, however, he began to think it might all have been some strange dream. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door.
The moment Martin's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.
It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. Against the walls were stacked books beyond count, books of all genres, freshly printed, covers unmarred by dust or fingerprints. The air smelled of printing-presses, glue and ink and fresh paper. In the center of the room, a sort of couch was formed from stacks of mass-market paperbacks. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see:, who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Martin, as he came peeping round the door.
"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in, and know me better, man."
"I am the Ghost of Releases Present," said the Spirit. "Look upon me. You have never seen the like of me before!"
"Never," Martin made answer to it.
The Ghost of Releases Present rose.
"Spirit," said Martin submissively, "conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it."
"Touch my robe."
Martin did as he was told, and held it fast.
Not like the first Spirit's was the journey this one led him through. Where the first Ghost had taken him to chosen places, this one carried him forward like a whirlwind, through bookstores large and small, barely alighting for more than a moment in any one. Martin and the Ghost stood, silent and invisible, at the shoulders of men and women, young children and aged grandparents, as they browsed through the shelves, and witnessed, one after another, the small moments of joy that the discovery of an anxiously-awaited new release brought them. They traveled with a postal deliveryman as he took a box containing a newly-printed book to it's buyer's house, and saw the happiness on her face as she accepted the package. They paused among a crowd of clamoring youngsters as they waited at a midnight unveiling for the latest book in a beloved series, and heard their cheers as the release became official.
It was with trepidation that Martin spoke. "Ghost, what of...what of my fans?"
"Your fans are not to be found in book-shops and gatherings," the Ghost intoned, "for they have naught to anticipate. Naught to celebrate. They are abandoned. Some have found solace in other series; a few have managed to forget entirely about what you wrote in the past. But most remember, and their knowledge of the unfinished Song pierces them every time they set foot in a bookstore.”
"No, no," said Martin. "Oh, no, kind Spirit. Say that they have at least something to enjoy, I beg of you."
"Do they not have Wild Cards?" the Spirit boomed. "Do they not have RPG sourcebooks?"
And Martin hung his head in shame, for he knew that never had Wild Cards found an audience to even approach that of the Song, and the RPG had been a dismal failure.
The bell struck twelve.
Martin looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Robert Jordan, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.
Stave 4
The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came, Martin bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.
It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.
He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.
"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Releases Yet To Come?" said Martin.
The Spirit answered not, but pointed downward with its hand.
"You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us," Martin pursued. "Is that so, Spirit?"
The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.
Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Martin feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit pauses a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover.
But Martin was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the dusky shroud there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black.
"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?"
It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.
"Lead on," said Martin. "Lead on. The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit."
The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Martin followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along, through ever-changing scenes like those the previous Spirit had shown. Yet these were not joyful scenes, and the people showed none of the mirth that the earlier ones had.
The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of men crowded around a table. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Martin advanced to listen to their talk.
"No," said one of them, idly working a handful of dice around in his palm. "I only read that he died. Don't know much more about it than that."
"When did he die?" inquired another.
"Last night, I think."
"Well, what was it that finally got him?" asked a third, measuring a distance on the table with a ruler and moving a tiny painted figure along the measured line. "I'd been expecting him to die any day for years."
"Damned if I know," said the first, with a yawn. "His heart, probably, considering what a fat gently caress he was. But the exact cause? Can't say."
"Did he leave any notes or partially-completed books behind?" asked a sharp-faced young man, looking up from the rulebook in front of him.
"I haven't heard," said the man with the dice, yawning again. "I would hope so. Maybe someone else can finally finish the series. Although considering how long he let it sit and rot, think he'd mind if someone else did it?"
This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.
"It's going to be an expensive funeral," said the same speaker, "what with the need for an extra-large casket and grave. Let's hope he didn't ask to be buried with a copy of each of his books. How many loving Wild Cards did he publish before the end? Thirty-five, forty? Did anyone ever actually read one?"
Another laugh.
"At this point, who gives a poo poo? I'm done, your turn," said the man with the tape measure.
The Phantom shifted onward, tugging Martin alongside. Through other conversations they passed, many of the same tone as the first, others using language even more crude. They watched over the shoulders of people as they conversed through their computers, venting a mixture of rage and disappointment - and, in a few cases, satisfaction - that some unknown man had finally died.
Martin was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Robert, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow of himself and his own releases when they appeared. For he had an expectation that the state of his future work would give him the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy.
When they at last entered a bookstore, Martin headed eagerly towards the shelves at the front, where he expected he would find his latest work.
The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.
"The shelf for top-rated authors like myself is yonder," Martin exclaimed. "Why do you point away?"
The inexorable finger underwent no change.
Martin hastened to the best-sellers shelf and peered down its length. The titles were not ones he recognized, nor did he see his own name anywhere. The Phantom pointed as before.
He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an aisle at the back of the store. He paused to look round before entering.
A bargain rack. The detritus of the publishing field, crammed willy-nilly into a set of dingy shelves. "Half off!" a sign proclaimed, yet this seemed to have little effect, for no customer even turned their head to glance down the shameful aisle.
The Spirit stood beside the books, and pointed down to One. Martin advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.
"Before I draw nearer to that book to which you point," said Martin, "answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only?"
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the book by which it stood.
"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Martin. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me."
The Spirit was immovable as ever.
Martin crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the cheaply-printed cover of the neglected book: GEORGE R.R. MARTIN'S WILD CARDS XXXVII. Although it was new and untouched, this was not the proud untouched nature of the books shown by the Ghost of Releases Present, ready and anxious to be acquired by an owner; this was a pariah among books, and Martin could tell that this solitary copy of his final work would never be purchased, would sit on the shelf until the store owner, annoyed by the space it filled, threw it in the recycle box.
"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me. I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?"
For the first time the hand appeared to shake.
"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: "Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life."
The kind hand trembled.
"I will finish what I began. I will end the Song as it should be ended, I swear. I shall not let myself be distracted, nor shall I fall prey to the temptation to rest on what I've already done and fritter away my remaining time on lesser works. Tell me, I beg you, that it isn't too late! Oh, tell me I need not end up like this!"
In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.
Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate aye reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.
Stave 5
Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Such a strange dream, Martin thought. All that nonsense about ghosts and unfulfilled promises...surely it couldn't have been real. And the accusation that no-one found any joy in his more recent works? That couldn't be possible, the latest volume of Wild Cards had sold at least six thousand copies. Slowly, he rolled out of bed and reached for the phone, to order his morning pizza. Today, one of the Dark Sword Miniatures modelers had said he would be sending a new set of figures for approval.
By the time Martin had consumed his pizza, he had forgotten entirely about the promises he had made. It was going to be another fine day.
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Aug 23, 2018 20:20
Cat Army 
