Prunesquallor
08-08-2011, 11:41 AM
(Note: To hear this story read by mistercactus, a trained Shakespearean actor, please tune into Episode 4 of our Malifaux podcast: The Aethervox (http://theaethervox.com/)).
This story is part four of an ongoing series:
Part 1: 'The Circus is Coming to Town (http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=18461)'
Part 2: 'The Auxiliary (http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=18462)'
Part 3: 'The Pocketwatchers (http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=19509)'
Part 4: 'The Choir of Babel (http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21384)'
***
Edmund Zo ducked into a tiny alley off Bartlecross Row and stopped to catch his breath. The alley was an architectural accident, too insignificant to be given a name, a narrow fissure that ran between the spiked granite walls of Malifaux Penitentiary and the crumbling red brick of Mr. Goodhand’s Crematorium. Edmund’s heart pounded in his chest and his throat felt tight. He leant against the wall, panting, full of excitement and ragged nerves. He hadn’t felt this way since his student days at Marchmont Hall when he used to sneak over to the ladies’ dormitories to woo his future ex-wife Margaret Muchly. Edmund grinned at the memory.
He peeped back out into Bartlecross Row to make sure he hadn’t been followed. All clear. Just a gang of weary miners heading for the station, a few street urchins hanging about the fruit vendor’s stand hoping for handouts of spoiled apples, a couple of mangy dogs fighting over a bone. Nobody who looked like a snoop.
Edmund crept further down the alley until he found a rotting old crate, full of spiders and smashed bottles. He hauled it aside with a grunt. Beneath it lay a trapdoor made of solid oak, which Edmund unlocked with a tiny silver key. A flight of stairs descended into darkness.
Edmund crept down the slippery steps, pulling the trapdoor shut above his head. He fumbled his way forward, in utter blackness, trailing one hand against a wall, reaching ahead with the other, groping for the heavy metal door he knew was there. The darkness played tricks with his sense of distance, and the narrow passageway always felt longer than he remembered it, but at last his fingertips touched the reinforced iron door.
Edmund tapped a complicated rhythm on the cold metal—rat-a-tat-ratta-a-ratta-a-tat-tat. The door was answered by professor Eleanor Mountain. She was an old colleague who had once been a pioneer in the field of Parapsychology and Occult studies at Edmund’s university. Her impressive psychic powers had always made her a hit at parties. She claimed she had been forced to resign from her professorship due to discrimination against her gypsy heritage, but Edmund had heard from other sources that it was because of gross academic misconduct. She wore her formal academic robes along with a gaudy headscarf and lots of heavy jewelry. She claimed this was the traditional garb of her people. The light of her candle glinted off the lenses of her enormous spectacles. She blinked and scowled at Edmund: “What’s the password?”
“Ellie, it’s me, Edmund,” he whispered back.
“The password,” she insisted.
“Oh alright,” said Edmund. “Errare humanum est. Can I come in now?”
“Very well,” said Professor Mountain, stiffly. “You can’t be too sure these days. You might have been a doppelganger, or a Guild agent in disguise.”
“Believe me, this is no disguise,” said Edmund, patting his beer belly, happily.
Professor Mountain led Edmund into a wide hall with a low vaulted ceiling. It had once been a wine cellar, and a few dusty bottles still lay about the place. The wine press had been converted into a printing press, the wine racks into bookshelves.
The other faculty members were already assembled. Professor Emmanuel Bludgeon sat in his ramshackle wheelchair, his mortarboard on his head. He glared at Edmund and grunted a greeting. Edmund waved back. He didn’t like to get too close to that chair. It was covered in spiky mechanical contraptions, and had galvanic components that spit sparks and could give you a nasty shock if you got too close. Bludgeon himself was cranky and smelt bad.
Nobody knew how the old man managed to get that wheelchair into the narrow alley, let alone through the trapdoor and down the stairs to the cellar. He was always the first to arrive at meetings and there were rumours that he simply lived down there, but Edmund suspected he had his own secret entrance. In a previous life he had been a distinguished professor of logic and philosophy and held honourary degrees from numerous august institutions on the other side of the breach. Edmund could only guess how he ended up conspiring with a bunch of misfits in a Malifaux basement.
Huddled over the printing press were Professor Juliette Golding and Professor Marion Shrewd, a pair of anarcho-syndicalist agitators and general-purpose radicals. They wore dirty old robes, holes mended with torn-up Guild uniforms – patchworks of defiance. They were printing a run of leaflets that encouraged soulstone miners to ‘Throw Off the Shackles of Oppression - Fight the Hegemony of the Guild! - Fight the Corruption in the Union!” Professor Golding had taught chemistry somewhere in Britain before getting the sack for manufacturing bombs in her lab. Professor Shrewd had taught political science at the same university and was wanted for throwing one of those bombs through the faculty club window.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor was Professor Paul Otto-Maxwell, a boy-genius young enough to be Edmund’s grandson. He was the only one of their group who refused to wear academic robes, preferring a duffle coat, a long, flamboyant scarf and a jaunty cap. He always had a pipe in his mouth, a ridiculous affectation that made him look even younger than he really was. He was listening to a portable aethervox receiver that he had built himself from scratch. It was tuned to an illegal underground frequency. Professor Otto-Maxwell had taken a leave of absence from a tenure-track art history position at Grand Horting College to visit Malifaux and never went back. He claimed that Malifaux was going to be the birthplace of the next great artistic revolution, despite the lack of any compelling evidence. He nodded to Edmund and tipped his cap.
In the center of the room, holding the ceremonial mace, was Professor Keith Crankwallace. The mace was heavily ornamented and beautifully wrought, with six jewels set into its head, representing the six principles of good scholarship – just what those six principles were Edmund had no idea. Professor Crankwallace had stolen the mace from the University of Cumly-Tweeling and beaten a man to death with it in a bar fight. That had ended his career on the law faculty and he had fled to Malifaux to escape justice. He towered over the others, his bald head almost brushing the ceiling. His mighty beard tumbled down his barrel chest to his waist.
“Professor Zo, welcome!” he boomed in greeting. “Now that we are all assembled let us waste no more time. I call this meeting to order.” He thumped the handle of the mace against the floorboards, sending tremors through the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow scholars and conspirators, today is a very special day. For months now we have met in secret, we have talked, we have argued, we have theorized. All of this was important work, for any strong intellectual movement requires a strong theoretical foundation, forged in the hot fires of debate. But the time for talk is over. Now it is time to act. For the people of Malifaux are victims of terrible oppression. They are slaves to soulstone, pawns in the power-games of those who seek that terrible rock. But they are kept slaves by the bonds of their own ignorance, they are pawns because they do not understand the game. Their horizons only extend as far as their next meal. They settle for drudgery and misery because they can’t imagine anything else. They cannot read; they cannot think.”
Professor Crankwallace paused for dramatic effect. He looked into the eyes of each of the other professors in turn. When he spoke again it was in the quiet voice that he reserved for very serious and very secret information. “Ladies and gentlemen, we may be a bunch of charlatans and scoundrels, murderers and terrorists, we may have abused our privilege and been dishonourably discharged from our various positions. But we are all still scholars and teachers, and we hold the key to Malifaux’s salvation.”
“Speak up,” shouted Professor Bludgeon, waving his ear trumpet in the air. “I can’t hear a bloody word.”
Professor Crankwallace continued at a louder volume. This time he spoke like a preacher, full of fire. “We shall go among the people of Malifaux and teach them what they deserve to know. We shall sew the seeds of knowledge throughout the population and let them grow and flower and bear fruit. We shall bring the fire of knowledge to this benighted land, and the powers-that-be shall tremble, because nothing is more dangerous than an educated peasant. Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby announce the founding of the University of Malifaux.”
A cheer went up in the room, led by Edmund. “Hear hear, Crankwallace old boy,” he said. “I second the motion wholeheartedly.”
“We’ll teach them that true power comes from within,” said Professor Mountain.
“We’ll show them how to use creative expression to recontextualize their plight,” said Professor Otto-Maxwell.
“We’ll smash the mechanisms of cultural hegemony!” shouted Professor Shrewd.
Just then there came a knock at the door. It wasn’t the secret knock, just an ordinary knock, firm but polite.
“Is anybody expecting anyone?” whispered Professor Crankwallace.
“Maybe it’s the forces of oppression come to offer their surrender,” said Professor Golding.
“Don’t answer it,” said Professor Mountain. “Maybe they’ll just go away.”
The knock came again, more insistent this time.
“Ellie, can you tell who it is?” whispered Edmund.
Professor Mountain closed her eyes and rubbed her temples with her thumbs. “I sense danger,” she whispered. “It’s difficult to get an exact reading, but…”
She was interrupted by a hideous groan of twisting metal. The door bulged and buckled before their eyes, screws popping from the frame one-by-one, like the buttons from a coat that is much too small for its wearer. Hinges split and clattered to the floor and the door seemed to fold in on itself, like a sheet of wet clay. A pair of huge, hairy hands shoved their way through the newly-made gaps between the door and its frame. The knuckles of those hands were as big as onions. With a mighty shove the door came away entirely and for a moment seemed to float towards them. Then, the man who held it turned and leant the ruined door carefully against the cellar wall. Dusting off his mighty hands, the man turned to face the stupefied professors.
“Good day,” he said, in a refined English accent. “I apologize for the manner of my entrance. You seem not to have heard my knock. I must have been too delicate.”
The man was enormous. He was tall, yes—taller even than Professor Crankwallace by a clear foot—but his height was almost insignificant compared to his sheer bulk. His body seemed overstuffed with muscle. His skin looked stretched and taut, as if at risk of bursting, and it was crosshatched by tendons as thick as industrial cable. He wore a one-piece leotard and had a thick, handlebar moustache.
Professor Crankwallace was the first to break the astonished silence. He let out a roar and swung his heavy mace at the intruder. The man caught its jeweled head casually in one hand and pulled it from the professor’s grip with ease. He tossed it into a corner like a twig while Professor Crankwallace carefully backed away, his fists raised in a boxer’s stance.
“Who are you?” asked Professor Shrewd. “Are you from the Guild? The Union?”
“Neither,” said the man, and smiled gently. “My name is Murphy. Some call me Mighty Murphy. I am from the circus.”
“Are you here to kill us?” asked Edmund, tremulously.
The huge man chuckled: “My goodness gracious no. I am merely here to talk. You see, it has come to my attention that you intend to begin some sort of educational program here in Malifaux. I simply wish to learn more about your plans and perhaps offer you some advice.” He picked up one of the wine bottles that lay scattered about the basement and blew the dust from it. “Aha, a Chateau Cassali Cabernet-Sauvignon, a very fine vintage too. Perhaps we can have our discussion over drinks? In vino veritas and all that?”
Murphy sat on a stool in front of the wreckage of the doorway, blocking any possibility of escape. At his direction, the professors reluctantly pulled up stools of their own to form a semi-circle around him. Murphy uncorked the bottle of wine with his teeth and offered it round.
“Please, relax,” the man said. “I am not here to hurt anyone. Tell me of your plans. I am eager to hear what you have in mind.”
There was a long silence, broken at last by Edmund. He found the words spilling out of him, partly out of fear and partly out of pride. The excitement of Professor Crankwallace’s speech still hung in the air and now that it was all coming to fruition it felt good to finally tell someone about it.
“You see, sir,” he began, nervously. “We are a group of disgraced academics—an assortment of miscreants and charlatans if truth be told—who all found ourselves in Malifaux for one reason or another. There’s this pub, you see, the Rotting Spaniel? And we started meeting there every week. One thing led to another and we came up with this idea to start a university. Not like on the other side of the breach. This university would be open to anybody. We planned to lecture in the streets and in the mining camps, hold special classes for children and beggars, teach basic literacy and numeracy along with political philosophy…”
“And aesthetics,” put in Professor Otto-Maxwell.
“And Fitzgerald’s great Theory of Revolution,” added Professor Golding.
“So we approached the Guild and the Union for funding,” Edmund went on, “but neither of them were keen on the idea.”
“Of course they weren’t,” interrupted Professor Shrewd. “They both profit from keeping the populace dumb and obedient.”
“They don’t want the people to realize their own innate power,” said Professor Mountain.
“Right,” continued Edmund. “We were turned down, told to leave town, threatened with violence. But we decided it was important work. We have been meeting in secret since then, laying our plans…”
“Today was the founding of the university,” said Professor Crankwallace. “If you came here intending to stop us, it is too late. The deed has been done. There is no turning back now. As of today, the University of Malifaux exists, and the fact of its existence is greater than any of us. Even if you kill us all, we have colleagues and pupils throughout the city who will carry on our legacy.”
Murphy gave a chuckle at this. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “But as I told you, I am not here to kill you. I am merely here to discuss matters with you.” He finished off the bottle of wine in two huge gulps and then he began to speak.
What happened next was difficult to explain. Afterwards, Edmund felt punch-drunk and fuzzy-headed, as he had sometimes felt after studying all night for an exam.
Murphy spoke with great lucidity and precision. His presentation of his views was utterly exhaustive and shockingly articulate, such that any questions would have been entirely superfluous. He constructed an argument that was so clear and incisive that it seemed impossible to disagree with him.
He argued that the idea of the University of Malifaux should be abandoned.
He quoted, from memory, lengthy passages from history’s most eminent scholars, effortlessly switching between English, Latin, Ancient Greek and High German. He described how evidence for his arguments could be found in history, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics and mathematics. He summarized his claims in symbolic logic and proved that they were airtight. He considered sophisticated counterarguments but pointed out how each was rooted in a logical fallacy or spurious premise. He used compelling thought-experiments and logical extrapolations to demonstrate that his conclusion must be true.
It was an argument of exquisite beauty and absolute rigor. His voice was deep and resonant, with an almost hypnotic quality to it. Edmund listened as if in a trance, hanging on his every word. He found himself nodding in agreement. It was as if Murphy was merely saying things that Edmund had always known but had never been able to articulate until now.
Murphy concluded that the creation of any kind of university in Malifaux would be impractical, unethical, immoral, politically regressive, aesthetically unappealing, financially disastrous, extremely dangerous and ultimately self-defeating. He summarized his argument in point form on a sheet of parchment and wrote out a list of references, in proper citation format, so that the professors could check his sources. When he was done he sat back on his stool and asked if there were any questions.
There was another long silence. Edmund looked around at the other professors. They all looked to be deep in though, troubled creases on every brow.
Edmund felt convinced by Murphy’s arguments, and he knew the others did too. He felt foolish and chastened. He felt silly for not having seen all of this before. And suddenly, he felt a flash of recognition. Something about Murphy’s style of delivery was terribly familiar.
“I know who you are,” he said, at last. The others turned to stare at him. “I know who you are,” he said again and rose to his feet, shaking a finger at the huge man. “Dr. Murphy Penrose. The infamous Dr. Penrose who ran away to join the circus. It was you.” Edmund was angry now. Spittle flew from his lips and approached the man in a rage, no longer afraid or chastened. “It was my greatest work. The product of a decade of research. A monograph published by Marchmont University Press. Everyone agreed it was going to be the definitive work in the history of warfare, and then, a week after its publication this neophyte, this dilettante writes a paper that undermines the entire theoretical foundation of my book. It destroyed my career, ruined my chances for tenure. I was a laughing stock. I was ridden out of town. I was sent packing – all the way to Malifaux. You. It was you.”
Edmund flew at the man, swinging his fists in feeble, clumsy arcs. The man barely flinched, receiving the blows without complaint. Edmund punched the man’s giant chest until his fists hurt and then collapsed to the floor weeping. “And now you’ve destroyed this too,” he sobbed. “My chance for redemption. My chance to do something worthwhile with my life.”
“There there. There’s no need for that,” said Professor Mountain, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“But he’s right,” Edmund bawled. “And you all know it. We let ourselves get carried away with a stupid idea that could never work.”
The other professors remained silent.
“Yes, I’m right,” said Murphy, gently, as if he regretted the fact. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m performing tonight. I hope you will come and see my act. I find lifting heavy objects so much more enjoyable than destroying silly dreams.”
The man turned to leave, but as Edmund looked up, Murphy stopped abruptly and let out a scream. Something sudden and violent had happened, too quickly for anyone to see. For a moment, Edmund thought that he had somehow managed to hurt the giant with his useless attacks, but then it all became clear. Professor Bludgeon was grinning nastily. A length of taut wire extended from his wheelchair to the small of Murphy’s back, a small, toothed contraption had launched from an arm of the chair and lodged in the huge man’s flesh. Sparks and smoke rose from the point of contact – a tiny harpoon that carried a powerful electric charge.
Murphy stood almost still, but his body was wracked by tiny jerks and twitches, his muscles rebelling violently. Then collapsed to the floor with a huge crash. The electric wire whipped back into the arm of the chair and Professor Bludgeon wheezed out a laugh.
“That dealt with him,” chuckled Bludgeon. “Now. Back to business. I’ll be Chief Magistrate and Dean for Life. What do you fellers want to be?”
“Weren’t you listening, Bludgeon?” said Edmund. He had to admit, he felt slightly better now that Murphy was lying unconscious in a pool of his own drool.
“Not really,” said the old man, tapping his ear trumpet. “Something about our little school being a stupid idea?”
“But it would be unethical,” said Professor Mountain.
“And useless,” said Professor Otto-Maxwell. “It would be a totally infertile environment for the creation of art.”
“It would end up being co-opted as a force of oppression,” said Professor Golding, “no matter how much we try to foment revolution.”
“We would be even more of a laughing stock than we already are,” said Edmund.
Old Bludgeon glared around him in disgust. And then he said something that seemed to demolish the unconscious man’s majestic argument as if it were made of twigs and string: “Bugger it,” he said. “Sometimes you’ve got to do stupid things and see where they take you. A stupid thing took me all the way to Malifaux, and I’ve never been happier.” With that, he spat on the unconscious form of Mighty Murphy and wheeled himself off to find another bottle of wine.
-
One by one they slunk back to their garrets and flophouses, the newly-formed faculty of the University of Malifaux, their brains full of strategies schemes, seminars and syllabi. Edmund took the long way home, to throw off anyone who might be following, and also to clear his head in the cool night air. He no longer felt he was engaged in a noble goal that would restore his reputation or redeem him from ignominy. But he felt as though goodness and truth and integrity didn’t matter any more. He felt spontaneous and free to do what he wanted. He felt sneaky and devious and bad – a washed up professor with nothing to lose in a sinister, dangerous city, engaged in a crackpot project with a bunch of rascals and misfits.
And he loved it.
This story is part four of an ongoing series:
Part 1: 'The Circus is Coming to Town (http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=18461)'
Part 2: 'The Auxiliary (http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=18462)'
Part 3: 'The Pocketwatchers (http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=19509)'
Part 4: 'The Choir of Babel (http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21384)'
***
Edmund Zo ducked into a tiny alley off Bartlecross Row and stopped to catch his breath. The alley was an architectural accident, too insignificant to be given a name, a narrow fissure that ran between the spiked granite walls of Malifaux Penitentiary and the crumbling red brick of Mr. Goodhand’s Crematorium. Edmund’s heart pounded in his chest and his throat felt tight. He leant against the wall, panting, full of excitement and ragged nerves. He hadn’t felt this way since his student days at Marchmont Hall when he used to sneak over to the ladies’ dormitories to woo his future ex-wife Margaret Muchly. Edmund grinned at the memory.
He peeped back out into Bartlecross Row to make sure he hadn’t been followed. All clear. Just a gang of weary miners heading for the station, a few street urchins hanging about the fruit vendor’s stand hoping for handouts of spoiled apples, a couple of mangy dogs fighting over a bone. Nobody who looked like a snoop.
Edmund crept further down the alley until he found a rotting old crate, full of spiders and smashed bottles. He hauled it aside with a grunt. Beneath it lay a trapdoor made of solid oak, which Edmund unlocked with a tiny silver key. A flight of stairs descended into darkness.
Edmund crept down the slippery steps, pulling the trapdoor shut above his head. He fumbled his way forward, in utter blackness, trailing one hand against a wall, reaching ahead with the other, groping for the heavy metal door he knew was there. The darkness played tricks with his sense of distance, and the narrow passageway always felt longer than he remembered it, but at last his fingertips touched the reinforced iron door.
Edmund tapped a complicated rhythm on the cold metal—rat-a-tat-ratta-a-ratta-a-tat-tat. The door was answered by professor Eleanor Mountain. She was an old colleague who had once been a pioneer in the field of Parapsychology and Occult studies at Edmund’s university. Her impressive psychic powers had always made her a hit at parties. She claimed she had been forced to resign from her professorship due to discrimination against her gypsy heritage, but Edmund had heard from other sources that it was because of gross academic misconduct. She wore her formal academic robes along with a gaudy headscarf and lots of heavy jewelry. She claimed this was the traditional garb of her people. The light of her candle glinted off the lenses of her enormous spectacles. She blinked and scowled at Edmund: “What’s the password?”
“Ellie, it’s me, Edmund,” he whispered back.
“The password,” she insisted.
“Oh alright,” said Edmund. “Errare humanum est. Can I come in now?”
“Very well,” said Professor Mountain, stiffly. “You can’t be too sure these days. You might have been a doppelganger, or a Guild agent in disguise.”
“Believe me, this is no disguise,” said Edmund, patting his beer belly, happily.
Professor Mountain led Edmund into a wide hall with a low vaulted ceiling. It had once been a wine cellar, and a few dusty bottles still lay about the place. The wine press had been converted into a printing press, the wine racks into bookshelves.
The other faculty members were already assembled. Professor Emmanuel Bludgeon sat in his ramshackle wheelchair, his mortarboard on his head. He glared at Edmund and grunted a greeting. Edmund waved back. He didn’t like to get too close to that chair. It was covered in spiky mechanical contraptions, and had galvanic components that spit sparks and could give you a nasty shock if you got too close. Bludgeon himself was cranky and smelt bad.
Nobody knew how the old man managed to get that wheelchair into the narrow alley, let alone through the trapdoor and down the stairs to the cellar. He was always the first to arrive at meetings and there were rumours that he simply lived down there, but Edmund suspected he had his own secret entrance. In a previous life he had been a distinguished professor of logic and philosophy and held honourary degrees from numerous august institutions on the other side of the breach. Edmund could only guess how he ended up conspiring with a bunch of misfits in a Malifaux basement.
Huddled over the printing press were Professor Juliette Golding and Professor Marion Shrewd, a pair of anarcho-syndicalist agitators and general-purpose radicals. They wore dirty old robes, holes mended with torn-up Guild uniforms – patchworks of defiance. They were printing a run of leaflets that encouraged soulstone miners to ‘Throw Off the Shackles of Oppression - Fight the Hegemony of the Guild! - Fight the Corruption in the Union!” Professor Golding had taught chemistry somewhere in Britain before getting the sack for manufacturing bombs in her lab. Professor Shrewd had taught political science at the same university and was wanted for throwing one of those bombs through the faculty club window.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor was Professor Paul Otto-Maxwell, a boy-genius young enough to be Edmund’s grandson. He was the only one of their group who refused to wear academic robes, preferring a duffle coat, a long, flamboyant scarf and a jaunty cap. He always had a pipe in his mouth, a ridiculous affectation that made him look even younger than he really was. He was listening to a portable aethervox receiver that he had built himself from scratch. It was tuned to an illegal underground frequency. Professor Otto-Maxwell had taken a leave of absence from a tenure-track art history position at Grand Horting College to visit Malifaux and never went back. He claimed that Malifaux was going to be the birthplace of the next great artistic revolution, despite the lack of any compelling evidence. He nodded to Edmund and tipped his cap.
In the center of the room, holding the ceremonial mace, was Professor Keith Crankwallace. The mace was heavily ornamented and beautifully wrought, with six jewels set into its head, representing the six principles of good scholarship – just what those six principles were Edmund had no idea. Professor Crankwallace had stolen the mace from the University of Cumly-Tweeling and beaten a man to death with it in a bar fight. That had ended his career on the law faculty and he had fled to Malifaux to escape justice. He towered over the others, his bald head almost brushing the ceiling. His mighty beard tumbled down his barrel chest to his waist.
“Professor Zo, welcome!” he boomed in greeting. “Now that we are all assembled let us waste no more time. I call this meeting to order.” He thumped the handle of the mace against the floorboards, sending tremors through the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow scholars and conspirators, today is a very special day. For months now we have met in secret, we have talked, we have argued, we have theorized. All of this was important work, for any strong intellectual movement requires a strong theoretical foundation, forged in the hot fires of debate. But the time for talk is over. Now it is time to act. For the people of Malifaux are victims of terrible oppression. They are slaves to soulstone, pawns in the power-games of those who seek that terrible rock. But they are kept slaves by the bonds of their own ignorance, they are pawns because they do not understand the game. Their horizons only extend as far as their next meal. They settle for drudgery and misery because they can’t imagine anything else. They cannot read; they cannot think.”
Professor Crankwallace paused for dramatic effect. He looked into the eyes of each of the other professors in turn. When he spoke again it was in the quiet voice that he reserved for very serious and very secret information. “Ladies and gentlemen, we may be a bunch of charlatans and scoundrels, murderers and terrorists, we may have abused our privilege and been dishonourably discharged from our various positions. But we are all still scholars and teachers, and we hold the key to Malifaux’s salvation.”
“Speak up,” shouted Professor Bludgeon, waving his ear trumpet in the air. “I can’t hear a bloody word.”
Professor Crankwallace continued at a louder volume. This time he spoke like a preacher, full of fire. “We shall go among the people of Malifaux and teach them what they deserve to know. We shall sew the seeds of knowledge throughout the population and let them grow and flower and bear fruit. We shall bring the fire of knowledge to this benighted land, and the powers-that-be shall tremble, because nothing is more dangerous than an educated peasant. Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby announce the founding of the University of Malifaux.”
A cheer went up in the room, led by Edmund. “Hear hear, Crankwallace old boy,” he said. “I second the motion wholeheartedly.”
“We’ll teach them that true power comes from within,” said Professor Mountain.
“We’ll show them how to use creative expression to recontextualize their plight,” said Professor Otto-Maxwell.
“We’ll smash the mechanisms of cultural hegemony!” shouted Professor Shrewd.
Just then there came a knock at the door. It wasn’t the secret knock, just an ordinary knock, firm but polite.
“Is anybody expecting anyone?” whispered Professor Crankwallace.
“Maybe it’s the forces of oppression come to offer their surrender,” said Professor Golding.
“Don’t answer it,” said Professor Mountain. “Maybe they’ll just go away.”
The knock came again, more insistent this time.
“Ellie, can you tell who it is?” whispered Edmund.
Professor Mountain closed her eyes and rubbed her temples with her thumbs. “I sense danger,” she whispered. “It’s difficult to get an exact reading, but…”
She was interrupted by a hideous groan of twisting metal. The door bulged and buckled before their eyes, screws popping from the frame one-by-one, like the buttons from a coat that is much too small for its wearer. Hinges split and clattered to the floor and the door seemed to fold in on itself, like a sheet of wet clay. A pair of huge, hairy hands shoved their way through the newly-made gaps between the door and its frame. The knuckles of those hands were as big as onions. With a mighty shove the door came away entirely and for a moment seemed to float towards them. Then, the man who held it turned and leant the ruined door carefully against the cellar wall. Dusting off his mighty hands, the man turned to face the stupefied professors.
“Good day,” he said, in a refined English accent. “I apologize for the manner of my entrance. You seem not to have heard my knock. I must have been too delicate.”
The man was enormous. He was tall, yes—taller even than Professor Crankwallace by a clear foot—but his height was almost insignificant compared to his sheer bulk. His body seemed overstuffed with muscle. His skin looked stretched and taut, as if at risk of bursting, and it was crosshatched by tendons as thick as industrial cable. He wore a one-piece leotard and had a thick, handlebar moustache.
Professor Crankwallace was the first to break the astonished silence. He let out a roar and swung his heavy mace at the intruder. The man caught its jeweled head casually in one hand and pulled it from the professor’s grip with ease. He tossed it into a corner like a twig while Professor Crankwallace carefully backed away, his fists raised in a boxer’s stance.
“Who are you?” asked Professor Shrewd. “Are you from the Guild? The Union?”
“Neither,” said the man, and smiled gently. “My name is Murphy. Some call me Mighty Murphy. I am from the circus.”
“Are you here to kill us?” asked Edmund, tremulously.
The huge man chuckled: “My goodness gracious no. I am merely here to talk. You see, it has come to my attention that you intend to begin some sort of educational program here in Malifaux. I simply wish to learn more about your plans and perhaps offer you some advice.” He picked up one of the wine bottles that lay scattered about the basement and blew the dust from it. “Aha, a Chateau Cassali Cabernet-Sauvignon, a very fine vintage too. Perhaps we can have our discussion over drinks? In vino veritas and all that?”
Murphy sat on a stool in front of the wreckage of the doorway, blocking any possibility of escape. At his direction, the professors reluctantly pulled up stools of their own to form a semi-circle around him. Murphy uncorked the bottle of wine with his teeth and offered it round.
“Please, relax,” the man said. “I am not here to hurt anyone. Tell me of your plans. I am eager to hear what you have in mind.”
There was a long silence, broken at last by Edmund. He found the words spilling out of him, partly out of fear and partly out of pride. The excitement of Professor Crankwallace’s speech still hung in the air and now that it was all coming to fruition it felt good to finally tell someone about it.
“You see, sir,” he began, nervously. “We are a group of disgraced academics—an assortment of miscreants and charlatans if truth be told—who all found ourselves in Malifaux for one reason or another. There’s this pub, you see, the Rotting Spaniel? And we started meeting there every week. One thing led to another and we came up with this idea to start a university. Not like on the other side of the breach. This university would be open to anybody. We planned to lecture in the streets and in the mining camps, hold special classes for children and beggars, teach basic literacy and numeracy along with political philosophy…”
“And aesthetics,” put in Professor Otto-Maxwell.
“And Fitzgerald’s great Theory of Revolution,” added Professor Golding.
“So we approached the Guild and the Union for funding,” Edmund went on, “but neither of them were keen on the idea.”
“Of course they weren’t,” interrupted Professor Shrewd. “They both profit from keeping the populace dumb and obedient.”
“They don’t want the people to realize their own innate power,” said Professor Mountain.
“Right,” continued Edmund. “We were turned down, told to leave town, threatened with violence. But we decided it was important work. We have been meeting in secret since then, laying our plans…”
“Today was the founding of the university,” said Professor Crankwallace. “If you came here intending to stop us, it is too late. The deed has been done. There is no turning back now. As of today, the University of Malifaux exists, and the fact of its existence is greater than any of us. Even if you kill us all, we have colleagues and pupils throughout the city who will carry on our legacy.”
Murphy gave a chuckle at this. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “But as I told you, I am not here to kill you. I am merely here to discuss matters with you.” He finished off the bottle of wine in two huge gulps and then he began to speak.
What happened next was difficult to explain. Afterwards, Edmund felt punch-drunk and fuzzy-headed, as he had sometimes felt after studying all night for an exam.
Murphy spoke with great lucidity and precision. His presentation of his views was utterly exhaustive and shockingly articulate, such that any questions would have been entirely superfluous. He constructed an argument that was so clear and incisive that it seemed impossible to disagree with him.
He argued that the idea of the University of Malifaux should be abandoned.
He quoted, from memory, lengthy passages from history’s most eminent scholars, effortlessly switching between English, Latin, Ancient Greek and High German. He described how evidence for his arguments could be found in history, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics and mathematics. He summarized his claims in symbolic logic and proved that they were airtight. He considered sophisticated counterarguments but pointed out how each was rooted in a logical fallacy or spurious premise. He used compelling thought-experiments and logical extrapolations to demonstrate that his conclusion must be true.
It was an argument of exquisite beauty and absolute rigor. His voice was deep and resonant, with an almost hypnotic quality to it. Edmund listened as if in a trance, hanging on his every word. He found himself nodding in agreement. It was as if Murphy was merely saying things that Edmund had always known but had never been able to articulate until now.
Murphy concluded that the creation of any kind of university in Malifaux would be impractical, unethical, immoral, politically regressive, aesthetically unappealing, financially disastrous, extremely dangerous and ultimately self-defeating. He summarized his argument in point form on a sheet of parchment and wrote out a list of references, in proper citation format, so that the professors could check his sources. When he was done he sat back on his stool and asked if there were any questions.
There was another long silence. Edmund looked around at the other professors. They all looked to be deep in though, troubled creases on every brow.
Edmund felt convinced by Murphy’s arguments, and he knew the others did too. He felt foolish and chastened. He felt silly for not having seen all of this before. And suddenly, he felt a flash of recognition. Something about Murphy’s style of delivery was terribly familiar.
“I know who you are,” he said, at last. The others turned to stare at him. “I know who you are,” he said again and rose to his feet, shaking a finger at the huge man. “Dr. Murphy Penrose. The infamous Dr. Penrose who ran away to join the circus. It was you.” Edmund was angry now. Spittle flew from his lips and approached the man in a rage, no longer afraid or chastened. “It was my greatest work. The product of a decade of research. A monograph published by Marchmont University Press. Everyone agreed it was going to be the definitive work in the history of warfare, and then, a week after its publication this neophyte, this dilettante writes a paper that undermines the entire theoretical foundation of my book. It destroyed my career, ruined my chances for tenure. I was a laughing stock. I was ridden out of town. I was sent packing – all the way to Malifaux. You. It was you.”
Edmund flew at the man, swinging his fists in feeble, clumsy arcs. The man barely flinched, receiving the blows without complaint. Edmund punched the man’s giant chest until his fists hurt and then collapsed to the floor weeping. “And now you’ve destroyed this too,” he sobbed. “My chance for redemption. My chance to do something worthwhile with my life.”
“There there. There’s no need for that,” said Professor Mountain, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“But he’s right,” Edmund bawled. “And you all know it. We let ourselves get carried away with a stupid idea that could never work.”
The other professors remained silent.
“Yes, I’m right,” said Murphy, gently, as if he regretted the fact. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m performing tonight. I hope you will come and see my act. I find lifting heavy objects so much more enjoyable than destroying silly dreams.”
The man turned to leave, but as Edmund looked up, Murphy stopped abruptly and let out a scream. Something sudden and violent had happened, too quickly for anyone to see. For a moment, Edmund thought that he had somehow managed to hurt the giant with his useless attacks, but then it all became clear. Professor Bludgeon was grinning nastily. A length of taut wire extended from his wheelchair to the small of Murphy’s back, a small, toothed contraption had launched from an arm of the chair and lodged in the huge man’s flesh. Sparks and smoke rose from the point of contact – a tiny harpoon that carried a powerful electric charge.
Murphy stood almost still, but his body was wracked by tiny jerks and twitches, his muscles rebelling violently. Then collapsed to the floor with a huge crash. The electric wire whipped back into the arm of the chair and Professor Bludgeon wheezed out a laugh.
“That dealt with him,” chuckled Bludgeon. “Now. Back to business. I’ll be Chief Magistrate and Dean for Life. What do you fellers want to be?”
“Weren’t you listening, Bludgeon?” said Edmund. He had to admit, he felt slightly better now that Murphy was lying unconscious in a pool of his own drool.
“Not really,” said the old man, tapping his ear trumpet. “Something about our little school being a stupid idea?”
“But it would be unethical,” said Professor Mountain.
“And useless,” said Professor Otto-Maxwell. “It would be a totally infertile environment for the creation of art.”
“It would end up being co-opted as a force of oppression,” said Professor Golding, “no matter how much we try to foment revolution.”
“We would be even more of a laughing stock than we already are,” said Edmund.
Old Bludgeon glared around him in disgust. And then he said something that seemed to demolish the unconscious man’s majestic argument as if it were made of twigs and string: “Bugger it,” he said. “Sometimes you’ve got to do stupid things and see where they take you. A stupid thing took me all the way to Malifaux, and I’ve never been happier.” With that, he spat on the unconscious form of Mighty Murphy and wheeled himself off to find another bottle of wine.
-
One by one they slunk back to their garrets and flophouses, the newly-formed faculty of the University of Malifaux, their brains full of strategies schemes, seminars and syllabi. Edmund took the long way home, to throw off anyone who might be following, and also to clear his head in the cool night air. He no longer felt he was engaged in a noble goal that would restore his reputation or redeem him from ignominy. But he felt as though goodness and truth and integrity didn’t matter any more. He felt spontaneous and free to do what he wanted. He felt sneaky and devious and bad – a washed up professor with nothing to lose in a sinister, dangerous city, engaged in a crackpot project with a bunch of rascals and misfits.
And he loved it.