Completing the Klangfarben Trilogy

Writing novels in a series is a bit like Sisyphus and his rock: you work hard getting a novel started, then you finish it but then you realize you need to start writing another one so you start all over again, pushing that rock.

This past Wednesday morning, I finished the last remaining bit of the third novel in my series of classical music appreciation thrillers, the “Klangfarben Trilogy.” This began about four years ago with The Doomsday Symphony (which you can read, beginning with this link) and then continued last year with The Lost Chord and has now concluded with The Labyrinth of Klavdia Klangfarben which I began writing last September and completed this past June except for its... well... prologue, of sorts.

(Two excerpts from The Labyrinth have been posted on the blog: the story of the villain Nepomuck and the murder weapon, a white viola (you can read it, here) and the self-contained “Tale of the Master and of His Belovéd” about Beethoven and the Immortal Belovéd as told by a friend named Rainer Knussbaum who was also a figure in the second novel, The Lost Chord (you can read that excerpt, here).

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The Doomsday Symphony, set in the summer of 2012, introduced the unlikely hero, composer and retired music professor Dr. T. Richard Kerr, who, attending a house-concert in which a seemingly new work by his mentor, Sebastian Crevecoeur (who'd died, like, 24 years earlier) was being given its first performance. The mystery deepens when Kerr sees the completion date at the end of the manuscript – only a few months before – and then their host (the composer's son) disappears along with the manuscript.

From there, it involves rabbit holes that take the unsuspecting Dr. Kerr and his friends to a parallel universe where not only do they meet the late Sebastian Crevecoeur, they also end up at Stravinsky's Tavern where many of the late great composers go to hang out. You see, this is Harmonia-IV where dead composers go but continue composing.

Crevecoeur, it turns out, has discovered a plot in which a disgruntled musicologist named Klavdia Klangfarben has found a way she can go back in time and kill off the great composers of the past. What will happen to Classical Music as we Know It if the music written by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner and other works inspired by them no longer exist? And so he prevails upon Kerr and his friends to chase Klangfarben and her Harmonian accomplice, the lawyer Abner Kedaver, to undo all the changes they have managed to influence.

In the process, one of Kerr's friends, a frustrated but mild-mannered assistant conductor named Rogers Kent-Clarke (and who dreams of becoming a super-conductor) runs into Mahler who has just completed another symphony, this one inspired by the impending Mayan apocalypse. Kent-Clarke steals the score with the idea he would give the work its world premiere (back on Earth), unaware that the climactic chord in the final movement could actually initiate the much-hyped End of the World on December 21st.

Did I mention this is a comedy?

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The Doomsday Symphony was my first attempt at writing a more-or-less original “comedy thriller” based on Classical Music – speaking of “niche audiences” – following two earlier parodies on Dan Brown thrillers that became The Schoenberg Code (after Brown's The Da Vinci Code) and The Lost Chord (after his The Lost Symbol).

But when I realized I didn't really like this second parody, I was reluctant to just throw it away, especially given all the wonderful characters' names I'd come up with.

So I then set about completely rewriting it, keeping many of the names while changing specific plot details but keeping, confusingly, the title as well. Since there are already numerous uses of the title “The Lost Chord” in music, itself a perfect parody on Brown's title, it didn't seem as much a rip-off of a popular novel as a reference to, say, Sir Arthur Sullivan's hymn, “The Lost Chord.”

Considering one of the main aspects of the plot concerns inspiration and creativity, this Lost Chord takes on a deeper meaning.

Using some of the same characters as The Doomsday Symphony, this new Lost Chord version started out as just a second book until about two-thirds of the way through when I decided to introduce a new character who could be one of the villains from the previous book, the ill-starred, would-be femme fatale and former forensic musicologist, Klavdia Klangfarben. Having failed to achieve her mission, she ended up sending herself back in time to rescue her mother only to find herself stuck (cheap batteries) as an observer of her own childhood without any way of getting back to the present except to wait it out.

By the time she catches up to Dr. Kerr whom she essentially blames for foiling her plot, she's pretty pissed off, living all those years as a homeless person in Manhattan. But her attempted revenge fails.

I'll spare you the synopsis of The Lost Chord except to say there's musical-political intrigue behind the murder of Kerr's friend, composer Robertson Sullivan, placing his cousin, LauraLynn Harty, in grave danger. Also, there's a madman who calls himself Tr'iTone who is seeking the Fountain of Inspiration which Sullivan apparently has knowledge of. And there's a secret journal that had been kept by LauraLynn's great-grandfather, Harrison Harty, when he attended a summer music camp held at the legendary Schweinwald Academy with his friends Gustav Mahler, Hans Rott and Ethel Smyth and which could reveal information about Beethoven's Immortal Belovéd, perhaps one of the greatest mysteries in classical music.

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Even before I had finished this completely revised Lost Chord with its director of the ICA (International Composers Agency) Yoda Leahy-Hu, the villain Tr'iTone and the bumbling SHMRG agent, Garth Widor, the next novel in the series began to form itself in my mind.

And for this one, I returned to The Schoenberg Code, my original Dan Brown parody, again primarily to keep many of the names I'd come up with, most of them musical puns – especially agents from the International Music Police like Inspector Hemiola, Mimi Solfeggio or Ben Rubato, the conductor Hans-Jörg Schnellenlauter and his companion Frieda F. Erden, among others – and then completely altered the plot (or at least, most of it: there are some plot details that are so typical of the genre, it would be hard to avoid them) after finally finding a way to make Klavdia Klangfarben, once again, the main villain.

It went through several working titles until I decided on The Labyrinth of Klavdia Klangfarben which also altered the details of the ending which I'd left vague hoping “inspiration” would somehow fill in the blank.

Again, let's leave the plot synopsis at “it continues the quest for the identity of the Immortal Belovéd and discovery that she and Beethoven had a child.” Was the conductor Hans-Jörg Schnellenlauter murdered because he's about to conduct the opera that got its composer, Robertson Sullivan, killed – or because he knows who the Heir to Beethoven is?

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The other thing was, for matters of structure and proportion (which I won't go into, here), I didn't just need a “prologue” for this novel which, in its entirety, was to be a little less than 150,000 words: it required a semi-independent short story of about 27,000 words which I wanted initially to just be an “interlude,” perhaps a short mystery of its own. And since I'd decided the novel would open with Kerr, on a train, awaking from a dream and then, ultimately, close with Kerr, on a train, falling asleep, it seemed logical that this short story would be a dream-sequence. And in this, it would bring together various elements of the earlier novels – memories of the visit to Harmonia-IV, especially, and tying in some characters from The Lost Chord that were not as developed by the time they've shown up in The Labyrinth, like LauraLynn Harty's cousin Maurice who gets a nice Momento Maurie here.

The initial plot for this short-story was left very vague as I began the novel that would actually follow it: I decided I wanted to write the complete novel and discover what sorts of things might need a little more explanation – especially the fact that Kerr keeps thinking Phlaumix House (the great 18th-Century English house where most of the novel is set) was familiar though he'd never been there before.

Then, better yet, I decided to introduce plot-elements into it which would seem completely unrelated – a separate, self-contained case. It involved Kerr attending the premiere of his latest composition, a long-form piano piece he entitled “Labyrinth” but everything that could go wrong was going wrong. Around this were various sub-plots, some of which recalled elements in the previous books or looked ahead to what would (or might) happen in the novel itself. One of these involves a symposium about the pendulum-like changes in classical music styles attended by many of the great dead composers organized at some great old English manor house by Sebastian Crevecoeur.

This interlude – or “Intermezzo,” since I'm using musical terms – is primarily set at a community college in suburban Philadelphia. I had quite arbitrarily placed the home of Dr. Kerr in a fictional part of Doylestown, PA, but when I was half-way through The Labyrinth which is set in England, I discovered there is a town – more officially, a township – outside Philadelphia called Marple. Well... with a nod to Agatha Christie, I had to set my next mystery, there.

I created St. Sisyphus Community College whose football team is called “The Rocks” and whose mascot is a large stone without arms or legs, and where the student lounge serves “Rolling Rock” beer.

Finally, I hit upon the idea that the basis of the story should become the central plot of yet another novel and would involve Kerr's old friend, another composer and soon-to-retire professor named Tom Purdue who has inexplicably disappeared. Hence, the new novel will be called In Search of Tom Purdue.

For those who know their Proust, this is a take-off on In Search of Lost Time. “Lost Time” in French is temps perdu.

An Escher-like Illusion

Since the final scene of The Labyrinth takes place in a vast, round room with a giant pendulum which opens to reveal a possibly four-dimensional labyrinth, images of M. C. Escher came to mind and it occurred to me that a dream sequence, which has little logic to it anyway, could easily reflect not only labyrinths but also Escher-like optical illusions (or, in this case, optical allusions) so everywhere Kerr went, the paths were too long and convoluted or he'd walk through a door and end up in a different building across campus.

Another “allusion” would be to Edgar Allan Poe's “Fall of the House of Usher,” one of my favorite stories from my childhood (I'd set it as a chamber opera when I was in my late-teens). There are frequent references to passages from Poe – including the weird all-white underground passageway in one of Roderick Usher's drawings – the use of particular adjectives in particular ways. The President of the college where this takes place is Roderick Ulster; the Dean of Fine Arts is Madeline Wilsher (in the concert program, she is mis-identified as “Dead of Fine Arts”), named after the ill-fated twins Roderick and Madeline Usher. Even the name given to the otherwise anonymous narrator in a film version of the story appears as an assistant to the President. In the end, it is revealed that Tom Purdue (who has yet to be seen) has been diagnosed with Usher Syndrome, a condition that leads eventually to blindness and deafness.

And the house where Kerr is staying on campus is owned by the foundation who'd commissioned his piano piece, the dePaula Escher Fund. The house is itself a cross between the optical puzzles of M.C. Escher and Poe's tale, a very dark fun-house of a place.

So, the title of the short-story became “The House of dePaula Escher” which nearly mirrors “The Fall of the House of Usher” as close as I could get. Granted, dePaula is an odd choice for a name but I needed something to reflect the vowels and rhythm in “the fall of...”

I had completed the “novel proper” on June 12th and now the short-story that would become the “Intermezzo” between the second and third novels was finished on August 20th, in so much as it “ends” (it's a dream-sequence: basically he wakes up before anything is realized).

(And yes, “The Klangfarben Trilogy” consists of three novels and a short-story... Deal with it.)

Normally, I like to wait a couple of weeks before going back to read through the rough draft and start the editing process, giving it a little time to settle.

But I want to get the second novel posted on-line even though it's been through two drafts already – I just haven't gotten around to it. So I'll do the third draft of the second novel and post it on the blog before I do the second draft of the third novel before starting on the first draft of the fourth novel.

- Dick Strawser

The Doomsday Symphony: Chapter 71 (The End)

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, Mahler's score has been safely deposited in the Posthumous Manuscript Collection, Klangfarben's plot was a total failure, and Victor Crevecoeur has been taken back to New Coalton where he has been successfully revived. The case would seem to be closed.


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Chapter 71
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As we pulled into the farmhouse’s driveway, the sun was about to come up, that slight, pale light on the horizon letting us know the night was over and a new day was ready to begin.

There were some heavy clouds that looked like they could bring much needed rain except, in this heat, they’d likely produce strong thunderstorms.

I’d forgotten how hot and humid this mid-summer day had been after the time we’d spent in the cooler world of Harmonia-IV. Despite the humidity or thinking I should be exhausted, I was wide awake – “wired!”

Mary, already standing on the porch, ran down the walk to greet us when she saw Victor get out of the car. Words didn’t need to be spoken, then. We stood aside to let them embrace.

A moment later, Mary, threading her arm through Victor’s, invited everyone inside for breakfast. It seemed the thing to do, given the timing.

Dr. Portnoy and Dr. Highwater, sleeping on the parlor sofas, awoke slowly but quickly focused when they saw Victor in the archway. They both greeted the good news of everybody’s return, wanting to know about everything.

Mary shook her head, guiding everyone toward the kitchen. “Not now, not now – I’m sure everybody’s exhausted,” she said. “I know I am…”

The musicians were sleeping upstairs and Zoe went to wake them with the news.

Mary told her, “Make sure you invite them down for breakfast as soon as they feel they’re ready.” She knew something about artists.

Detective Ste.-Croix declined to stay, excusing herself to get back to the office and the business of somehow writing up her day’s report.

Mary, along with Dr. Portnoy, looking out the kitchen window, commented about the wind. It seemed to be getting stronger, maybe brewing up a storm, though now that everybody was home safely, it didn’t really matter.

It wasn’t long before the rain kicked in and winds began howling. Before long, lightning and thunder rocked the early morning skies.

As the musicians came downstairs, some of us stood at the windows and watched.

In no time, Mary and Dr. Portnoy had breakfast ready and on the table, all of us digging in like we were famished.

Soon, the storm stopped, the sun came out and almost instantly it felt cooler. There were deer playing in the yard, the calming effect of everything reminding us that, so in nature, so also in life.

During breakfast, no one bothered asking anything about where we had been, what we had seen or how we had found Victor, though Dr. Highwater was extremely curious and Ms. Rowberson, on the verge of exploding.

Even after watching the deer and commenting about how calm everything felt, Mary said she was just happy to have her husband back.

Too wired just to sit down and rest, some of us strolled around the back yard while Xaq wanted to take his mom down to the pond which surprised Victor since Zoe never went there, willingly.

Once we’d gotten back inside, we heard a commotion coming from the parlor. Loni and Devon discovered they couldn’t find the parts for Sebastian’s quintet – it’s like they were all stolen right out of their folders. And when Dima went to check his computer files to see about getting another set printed, it turned out his laptop was fried.

Zoe thought maybe she should check her “new” violin – the one Bach had given her (how would she ever explain where she got it?) – afraid perhaps it too might have vanished. Was everything going to disappear?

But when she opened the case, not only was the violin there, there was another handful of white petals from the mock orange.

Where could they have come from, she wondered. How did they get in there? Did Bach put them there – or, more likely, Sebastian…?

She smiled as she closed the case, realizing the past is always with us.

-*-

As I drove home, Cameron was very quiet. I was going to drop him off at the train station near my place so he could catch a train into Philadelphia where he’d meet his best friend. After telling me about his plans to attend college with Dylan, he cautiously showed me the sealed envelope that Beethoven had given him.

“He didn’t say what it was,” Cameron elaborated, “except it would make my fortune. He even told me which library I should go to, pretending I found it there, then publish it in this particular magazine.”

I couldn’t imagine what it might contain – perhaps a letter identifying the Immortal Beloved?

“Don’t lose it or forget where you hid it.”

Sebastian had told me where I could find an envelope of my own, though I didn’t feel comfortable telling anyone about it. It contained unmarked sketches for his Piano Quintet, surviving separately from the registered score.

He said I should realize them, turn them into my own work, since they were largely based on something I’d already written.

“Who would know, right?” he’d said, with a wink. “Dedicate it to my memory.”

It was his way of inspiring me, since I had helped inspire him – like a joint creation, a mutual tribute to our friendship.

“What if anybody remembered what they’d heard or played that night at the farmhouse?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he’d said with a shrug. “Tell them you’re trying to recreate what you’d heard, that night. They’d all understand.”

-*-

After dropping Cameron off at the train station, telling him to keep in touch, I stopped for groceries before going home where I was greeted at the door by a very hungry and highly incensed cat.

It was good to be home, maybe grabbing some sleep after checking the mailbox.

There was a letter – scented – with no return address.

It looked like a ransom note, cut-out letters.

That didn’t make much sense.

Who was Klavdia Klangfarben?

What was that all about?

-*-

Anyone standing near the woods outside New Coalton that afternoon would’ve seen Detective Jenna Ste.-Croix, dropped off by a cab, looking around. She took note of the clouds, some nearby deer, then located an old stump.

Then they would’ve seen her walk into the center of the field – and disappear.

They would wait a long time till she returned.


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THE END
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This turned out to be the first in a series of classical music appreciation comedy-thrillers I call The Klangfarben Trilogy. You can read the second novel, The Lost Chord, which beginning here. I completed the third novel, The Labyrinth of Klavdia Klangfarben, in September of 2014, and it may well become available here in future posts. As of the Fall of 2014, I am toying with another novel that would not involve Ms. Klangfarben but would continue the adventures of Dr. Kerr and his sidekick, Cameron Pierce, at the moment entitled In Search of Tom Purdue. Stay tuned...

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012

The Doomsday Symphony: Chapter 70

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, Rogers Kent-Clarke, once mild-mannered assistant conductor, has escaped from Harmonia-IV with the score of Mahler's new symphony but not if a posse of highly irritated but otherwise dead composers has anything to say about it: ever think you'd be head-butted by Arnold Schoenberg? But from the Other Side, Officer Tennant is witnessing a very different and extremely strange phenomenon because, don't forget, the dead who cross over from the parallel universe are invisible to the Living Eye... 

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Chapter 70
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With a mysterious air, Smighley led Zoe, happy to be reunited with her son, and the others toward the edge of the field, opening a door to a police transport, then motioning for them to enter.

Before he could explain anything to them, they found themselves hovering outside Stravinsky’s Tavern.

Zoe suddenly remembered her father who’d died here earlier.

With no idea how late it was or why they were here now, they silently got out of the miraculous police transport – possibly the coolest thing he’d experienced so far, Xaq thought – and entered the tavern.

The room was quiet with only a few patrons but ones she instantly recognized: Wagner, Mozart, Beethoven and, in the corner, Bach.

Stepping forward, Bach handed Zoe a beat-up violin case. Inside, he said, was his second-best violin. “It has a really magnificent sound, though.”

Beethoven handed Cameron an old envelope, whispering something in his ear. “Use it wisely.”

Xaq’s eyes widened just as Zoe’s narrowed when Wagner presented him with a Time-Device.

“Sir, I don’t think that’s a very good idea…”

“Relax, my dear, it no longer works,” he said with a twinkle, “They’ve been discontinued – like a plastic car model: you could never drive one. Trust me.”

Zoe’s arched eyebrow indicated that perhaps she did not.

“But the reason we’re here,” Smighley interrupted, “since we have no need for morgues on Harmonia-IV, we’ve kept your father, as it were, on ice. Igor,” he said, turning to the bartender, “will you do the honors?”

From the back kitchen, Stravinsky rolled out a buffet table piled high with chipped ice topped with large leaves of brilliantly green lettuce.

“We didn’t know how long he might have,” Smighley continued, “since we have so few trespassers who come here and then die. So there’s no scientific body of evidence, so to speak…”

Zoe looked puzzled, confused.

“The lettuce was Vera’s idea,” Stravinsky said, smiling broadly at Zoe, then the table. “Who knows how much time someone has between when they die here and when they can no longer return to the living.”

Smighley pulled away some lettuce leaves, revealing Victor’s body on top of the ice. He looked like he was lying there asleep.

“We assume he had a heart attack but we’re pretty sure he’s not dead.”

“If he were really dead,” Stravinsky added, “he’d appear, like us, to be alive.”

“What’s that,” Zoe asked, “about ‘returning to the living’?”

Smighley explained if they’d get Victor back to New Coalton’s side of the Time-Gate, he’d have maybe a 60-40 chance of reviving.

“Reviving?” Zoe was still confused.

“Yes,” Sebastian said, “before the body completely breaks down.”

“But only a 60-40 chance of rejuvenation?” She didn’t think those were good odds.

“Okay, maybe 65-35,” Smighley reconsidered, “but better than nothing.”

“No, it’s just I remembered somebody earlier saying we’d have maybe 12 hours and he’d be fine once we’d gotten him… across.”

She took a long look at her father, lying there, and felt very sad.

“Oh, Zoe, it’s all my fault,” Sebastian whined, wiping away a tear. “I should never have considered bringing him here, even briefly.”

“But if we can get him back and he might revive… that is possible?”

Zoe’s hopefulness started cutting away at the gloom and the others became more enthusiastic.

“Well then,” Mozart said, “let’s roll!”

They all agreed.

“It’s not that I want to leave, no disrespect – you’ve all been wonderful and… well, it’s certainly been quite an experience, but if I can get my father home and maybe bring him back to life…?”

Smighley smiled, “and, no disrespect, since your presence here is technically illegal, being trespassers, we’d better hurry – or I’ll have to arrest you.”

Stravinsky and Mozart helped push the table out to the police transport as the others propped him up in the back seat.

After a group hug and one final farewell, they took off for the Gate.

Zoe felt a little cramped in the back seat of the car – what she thought of as a car since it looked like a car and felt like a car but didn’t drive like a car – sitting between her father who felt frozen but might still be alive and her grandfather whom she knew was dead but felt warm.

While they got Victor ready for the “crossing,” she figured it was time to say good-bye, the chance she never had before.

Zoe looked warmly at Sebastian.

“Will we ever be able to see you again?”

He decided he shouldn’t really make the crossing any more, since it’s frowned upon. “Besides, you won’t really see me,” he smiled.

“Hey, wait…” Xaq recalled a distant memory – at least for him, it was distant. “That summer, you… – in the woods – after Mom and Dad…?” Xaq smiled at him.

“Well,” Sebastian smiled back, “you didn’t really see me.”

“But can we come visit you, now that we know where you live – kinda…?” Hugging him, Xaq felt he couldn’t let go. The boy wanted to get to know him better. “Can’t we come visit, Mom?”

Zoe joined in the hug but said, “you know we can’t, Xaq – after all, it’s illegal, isn’t it…?” What else could she say?

By the time I got there, everybody was in tears, hugging and saying their good-byes, getting ready to carry Victor through the Time-Gate.

Arriving at the gate, I told them Mahler’d invited us to the symphony’s premiere.

When I went to say farewell to Sebastian, it occurred to me we’d never taken the time to talk about his quintet. True, we’d been kind of pre-occupied and now we didn’t have any more time.

“Imagine,” he laughed, “if there’d be no more time!”

Yet in the few remaining moments we had, I couldn’t find anything to say.

He admitted to “borrowing” a few things from that old string quartet of mine. (I wasn’t imagining it – that really was mine!)

“Well,” he said, poking me in the ribs, “you weren’t doing anything with it.”

“Would we ever have the chance to hear the rest of your quintet? I really want to know how it worked out.”

Sebastian shook his head. “No, I had Nepomuk register the score at the P.M.C., back while the trial was going on,” he figured.

This meant all copies and parts at the farmhouse would disappear.

Except one.

-*-

Three of us supported Victor’s body while Xaq clutched Bach’s violin to his chest. After entering the Time-Gate through a few seconds of swirling winds, we walked into the middle of the field in New Coalton.

It seemed so much easier to return than arrive.

Then someone shouted.

“Hey – look…!”

Soon everyone was running toward us from the cars.

Officer Tennant was the first to approach us.

“Okay, now… so, what – uhmm, where…?”

Zoe just smiled. “Look! We found my dad.”

“Yeah, but…” He looked at me as we gently placed Victor on the ground.

Cameron and I looked over at each other as Zoe tried patting her father’s cheeks – “Dad… hey, Daddy” – hoping to revive him.

So far, there’d been no response. Would it work? Maybe it took more time.

Ms. Rowberson hurried unsteadily over to Zoe’s side.

“Victor! You’re not dead, are you?”

Then she mentioned something about petals in Zoe’s pocket.

“Petals! Of course,” Zoe said, standing up. She remembered the handful of petals the mock orange had given her in the woods.

Zoe stared at her in loving disbelief. How could she have known about that?

What was it the flowers told her about them, all these magical talking flowers? Something about these petals helping to make everything right?

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a fistful of delicate white petals, sifting them in amazement from one hand to the other. She sprinkled them over her father, scrunching up her face while making a wish.

In a few seconds that seemed like minutes, Victor sat up and opened his eyes, looking right into his daughter’s beaming face.

“ZuZu,” he said, raising his arms to hug her. “Where am I? What happened…?”

“ZuZu? You haven’t called me that since I was five!” It was just one of many nicknames Zoe had had during her life.

“What a strange dream!” Victor stood up and dusted himself off. “It was like I was actually sitting there talking to Mozart.”

“Oh,” Ms. Rowberson said, nodding, patting his arm, “I do that all the time.”

Maybe that was it, I said to myself, watching the happy reunion as we all shook Victor’s hand and welcomed him back.

Maybe it really was just all a dream, the play of stuff and shadows. How else could any of us possibly explain it?

But Xaq was holding Bach’s violin, an old Time-Device sticking out of his pocket…

“Well, he’ll survive,” Detective Ste.-Croix said, pointing back toward the disheveled and bewildered Kent-Clarke. He was still glancing furtively around him, distinctly paranoid, as if expecting to get struck by some invisible force from any direction.

“He may need years of therapy before he’ll ever be able to conduct again,” she said, “at least anything by a dead composer.”

In a way, watching him duck and weave like that, I felt a little sorry for Kent-Clarke. He thought it would make his career but now it looks like it destroyed him. Who would have thought…?

Ste.-Croix dusted off her hands, glancing at each of us with a smile or a wink.

“Since it looks like Victor Crevecoeur, former missing person, has been found, I’d say this case is pretty much closed.”

Everybody began moving back to the cars, divided up who would ride with whom.

Everything had to look pretty nonchalant, returning to normal.

Officer Tennant would take poor Kent-Clarke – raving now about becoming “SuperConductor” – into the Collierville Hospital. Somebody could come get his car, later.

Ste.-Croix would drop Victor and Zoe off at the farmhouse, along with Ms. Rowberson.

We agreed that I would follow them with Xaq and Cameron, coming back for a celebratory breakfast and an obligatory chance to unwind.

Zoe decided she’d call Galina Poulter, canceling her Chicago trip, and spend the rest of the summer at the farm with Victor.

Plus, there was something Sebastian hid back at the farmhouse I needed to find.

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012

The Doomsday Symphony: Chapter 69

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, after a philosophical diversion about truth and mythology, it turns out Klavdia Klangfarben is having trouble figuring out what will happen to her, now that she's stuck in 1985. Man Kaye, meanwhile, is listening to the all-night classical radio station, waiting for confirmation that Klangfarben's plot has succeeded. 

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Chapter 69
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By the clock, it was only a few seconds we were actually flying through the air, but it felt like several minutes, tumbling in slow motion, the reddish water going from floor to ceiling and back. There was a great roaring hiss, presumably from Fasolt the Squid, and a great rising scream, presumably from me, during these tense moments.

Within that brief span, I wondered if at any point in my life I ever thought I’d die being eaten by a giant squid or being dissolved in a polluted underground lake of foul-smelling mining residue.

So when I landed with a pain-searing thud without benefit of watery splash or crunch of squid mandibles, it took probably more seconds to figure out what had happened at the dynamic conclusion of that moment.

We had all landed on the shore, Fasolt’s leap having generated enough speed with sufficient trajectory to help us clear the water’s edge.

A few feet shorter, we would quickly become one with the toxic sludge that passed for a lake. A few feet further, numerous broken bones and serious concussions might have resulted in yet another fatal option.

And still, over those rocks, I saw Kent-Clarke scampering along, pushing Xaq in front of him, waving his pistol in our general direction.

They had just clambered out of their rickety cable-car when a great poisonous spume splashed over it, barely missing them by a foot. Struggling to our feet, we scrambled past the steaming car, already beginning to evaporate.

Across the rocks we scurried, frantically tearing after them in hot pursuit as much to just get the hell out of there.

Then Cameron yelled over, pointing back at Sebastian, still lying there on the shore.

I immediately ran back to him, Cameron joining me in a flash. A large tentacle started creeping up the beach toward Sebastian’s legs.

Zoe probably couldn’t hear us yelling in the din once Fasolt began shrieking furiously. She kept running, desperate to rescue her son.

Cameron and I reached Sebastian and pulled him back as fast as we could.

Fasolt’s tentacle, gray and slimy with a ghastly blood-shot eye at the tip of its paddle-like extremity, menacingly continued groping after us.

Cameron picked up a rock and threw it, smashing it down on the eye.

Fasolt hissed and shrieked, quickly withdrawing the wounded tentacle, arcs of blood spewing everywhere.

Sebastian came to, screamed and scrambled to his feet.

Without looking back, we raced after the others but could still hear Fasolt’s demonic yowling, churning up the water in his rage. Great drops of noxious acid splattered across the shore, hissing and steaming on contact.

From up ahead, echoing through the dimly lit tunnel, we could hear the unseen Kent-Clarke yelling for us not to come any closer.

Now looking completely frantic and totally disheveled, he’d grabbed Zoe around the neck by his arm, the gun waving behind his head. In the other arm, he was desperately hanging onto the tote-bag with Mahler’s score.

But he wasn’t yelling at us. Someone else was approaching from the other direction, just beyond a sharp bend in the mineshaft. Judging from Kent-Clarke’s less than terrified demeanor, chances were good it was probably human.

So now, villain or not, he was at a decided disadvantage: one man with two hostages being attacked on two fronts, clearly outnumbered.

Knocked to the ground with a nasty shove, the boy started yelling, “Leave my mother alone,” kicking him violently in the shins.

Blocking his only escape route, five more people couldn’t make things that much worse.

Kent-Clarke looked terrified, realizing everything was beyond his control.

Clearly this night was not turning out to be exactly what he’d expected, either.

He could have been easily overwhelmed – the man had problems dealing with bad reviews – so I was surprised Smighley’s team stood aside.

Leaving Xaq behind, Kent-Clarke, equally incredulous, crab-walked past them, his arm around Zoe’s neck.

Pushing her ahead of him, Kent-Clarke dashed through the steeply rising mineshaft till they came to an even more steeply ascending ramp, their way barred by the luminous presence of the Old Man of the Mines. Stepping aside, he showed him an elevator, well-camouflaged in the rocks, making their escape considerably easier. In seconds, they’d arrive at the surface.

We reached the base of the ramp just as the elevator door closed and the Old Man scurried off down another tunnel. Now free of his bonds, Xaq, banging around on the wall, found the call-button.

While we waited, Smighley explained the Gate had been closed and Kent-Clarke couldn’t escape. Besides, his policemen were there, waiting for him.

But when we reached the surface, we were met with a most unusual sight.

Kent-Clarke was being besieged by a rather large, unruly mob of decidedly hot-under-the-collar composers – including Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Chopin, Berlioz – even Mahler himself.

They were chasing him right toward the Gate which Smighley calmly reminded us he’d ordered closed.

Unfortunately, it turned out it wasn’t.

The air turned blue and rippley as Kent-Clarke disappeared, the composers in hot pursuit.

Agent Babbitt reluctantly informed us, following standard protocol, yes, the governor had sent Smighley’s request to the Universal Security Council for official approval.

“That could take days!” Smighley cursed under his breath, then yelled for his men to follow them. “Don’t let that bastard get away!”

Detective Ste.Croix corrected him: “you mean, that alleged bastard.”

Fuming, Smighley led the charge.

They’d hardly been gone before they returned, the composers carrying Kent-Clarke like a battering ram then throwing him down on the ground. Hugging the tote-bag to his chest, he rolled over, avoiding sharp kicks from Debussy.

Deftly scrambling to his feet, he made another run for the gate, plowing into Ste.-Croix just as she returned, sending them both sprawling.

He barely made it through before Clara Schumann tripped him, Schubert and Berlioz dragging him back through the Gate by his heels.

Kicking and screaming, Kent-Clarke tried protecting his face from the pummeling he was receiving.

Rondo Sharrif and I jumped into the fray as Schoenberg lifted Kent-Clarke by the collar and gave his skull a resounding head-butt, sending the now terrified man spinning, buffeted from one to another like a top.

This made it easy for Rondo to grab hold of the tote-bag and tear it out of his clutches, regaining the stolen score.

-*-

Standing in the New Coalton field, Officer Tennant looked up to see the conductor, Rogers Kent-Clarke, appear out of thin (if blue and rippley) air, toss himself about, roll in the dirt, pick himself up and then charge headlong across the field only to disappear again, followed by Detective Ste.-Croix who turned and disappeared as quickly as she’d appeared.

He and the other policemen stood there in totally unmitigated shock, not sure what to make of this or what to do. They felt they’d been drawn into some computer game that suffered from faulty wiring.

Even stranger had been the momentary appearance of Kent-Clarke’s upper torso on the ground, his unnerving scream – as if being devoured – indelible in Tennant’s mind as he watched him being pulled back into the shimmering air.

He swore he heard shouts and screams like a large crowd in the distance with no idea where that could be coming from.

There was a far-off cheer as Kent-Clarke, battered and dirty, hurtled through this “environmental anomaly” (the only term Tennant could think of), landing in a heap by the old tree stump, face-down in a small mud-puddle.

“Ewww,” he screamed as Detective Ste.-Croix, from out of nowhere, bent down, handcuffing him.

Even weirder, she seemed to be talking to someone.

Dragged to his feet, Kent-Clarke, completely hysterical, looked around him wild-eyed, dodging imaginary blows.

All Tennant could hear was his paranoid, incoherent babbling.

Something about how could he possibly ever be able to conduct their music again.

“Uhmmm…”

It was the best Tennant could do, not knowing what else to say.

Ste.-Croix dusted herself off and straightened her hair.

“The suspect has been apprehended, but I’m not sure what to charge him with.”

“Uhmmm…?”

“Oh, shit, I forgot! We have to get Victor Crevecoeur back before he…”

Then she froze, looking back and shrugged her shoulders.

“Okay, so…” Tennant scuffed his boot in the dirt. “Could you explain, perhaps… anything? Help me, a little… you know, humor me?”

She marched the still-babbling Kent-Clarke, muttering under his breath, back to her police car.

“Maybe you could start with where you just came from, how you got here?” Trying not to pry, Tennant still wanted explanations.

She looked down, momentarily pensive.

“Let’s just leave it at ‘undisclosed location,’ shall we?”

Tennant turned just in time to see Ms. Rowberson suddenly wandering around dazed in the middle of the field.

“Jeez Louise,” he muttered.

-*-

Once Kent-Clarke had been captured and expelled from Harmonia-IV after the score he’d stolen was retrieved and returned to its rightful owner, and once Klavdia Klangfarben’s plot had been totally foiled, my work here was done.

There was, however, one more thing, what drew us here in the first place: helping get Victor Crevecoeur back to the Other Side.

Smighley whispered something to Zoe and Sebastian, motioning for them to come with him while Mahler asked Rondo and I to follow him to the library, Nepomuk leading the procession, the other composers falling in behind.

With much pomp and ceremony, we arrived at the Posthumous Manuscript Collection, where Mahler turned over the score to his “Doomsday” Symphony.

Nepomuk, the PMC’s highest-ranking representative present, dutifully logged the huge score into the system.

Great cheers arose from the assembled composers now that Mahler’s score no longer posed a risk to the security of the Greater Universe.

Mahler mentioned he might still consider revising it – take out that final, cataclysmic chord? – but he already had ideas for something new.

“Something with many big horn solos for my friend, Rondo, here,” he added, beaming.

Rondo smiled from ear to ear as I wistfully glanced through this collection of symphonies, operas and quartets by the world’s best-loved composers.

These were all works they had written since they died, and which the world – at least, my world – would never get to hear.

“We play them all the time, here,” Mahler explained. “It’s good to keep busy.”

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012

The Doomsday Symphony: Chapter 68

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, they reach a strange underground lake that appears to be either reddish acid or is so highly polluted, it's enough to dissolve bones yet is home to large reptilian-like fish and a great white squid named Fasolt. Uh oh...

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Chapter 68
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Whether man created Satan to explain the evil in the world or God created Satan thereby causing that evil is not the argument. Nor is it who created whom in whatever image you’d choose to imagine. But there are observations to be made in the various polarities of the argument and those shades of black or white shaping it.

Since the beginning of time – or, more correctly, since the time of human consciousness – mythology has been used to explain the world. The complex details which man was incapable of comprehending were rationalized through simple stories.

What made the sun rise or how malevolence was punished could all be explained in simplicities of the starkest black or white. These stories – rather like fairy tales, if you will – also taught us moral values.

Mythology was something that we usually regarded as a primitive belief system different from our own which we, by comparison, designated as religion.

Priests were the first scientists, so we are told, keeping it securely in their jurisdiction as a way of proving their beliefs. It was something considered far too sacred for mere mortals to understand or assimilate. Later, when scientists developed into a social sphere of their own, their explanations often were at odds with greater, generally accepted spiritual beliefs.

One has to look no further than those thought-provoking scientists persecuted for having “discovered” the earth was not the center of the universe or that creatures unmentioned in the sacred writings existed, by evidence of skeletal remains.

Nothing is quite so detrimental to the sake of argument as the blind acceptance of one “fact” at the expense of another, whether contradictory or simply different. Inevitably, new polarities mean it’s either acceptable or not. Unable to agree, disagreement takes on the characteristics of rejection and thus, lacking consensus, are born religious intolerance as well as political intransigence.

It is the general perception of this fact, its transcending of pertinent truths, that is nullified by becoming ‘either/or’ rather than ‘both/and.’

When someone says “I tell you the truth,” the next question is “whose truth?”

If creation myths placed man squarely at their center, the whole reason for Creation apparently being put here solely for man’s use, doesn’t his becoming one brief component of the natural continuum automatically erode his superiority?

Is this any different than science telling us that man, no longer divinely created, has merely descended from a long line of apes?

Whatever history may or may not be, its sequence of facts, chronologically told, is invariably complicated by the context of its times. Not all facts survive or manage to survive translations through time, languages and cultures. Such times, existing before the observations of those present, are often, by default, reinterpreted to reflect the acceptable viewpoints of our immediate society.

Theories – potential interpretations of experts making well-intended assumptions – fill in where facts are missing but often become more assertive than facts themselves. If one implication of these gathered facts proves false, shouldn’t the entire argument collapse?

Cursory by nature, education serves its introductory role by choosing the most representative facts, since not everything can be explained in expert detail. When the distant past is reduced to the names of kings or presidents, lists of battles, dates when wars begin and end, very often one thing missing in summaries found in many textbooks is the people.

Plus, we tend to absorb too much of our historical awareness from our entertainment – from movies and television; before that, historical novels – where facts are sacrificed for a good story’s needs, fiction only factual in part. But because the medium allows for greater expansiveness in developing some of these facts, we might get a better picture of the past.

But these are still filtered through an author or director’s viewpoint, possibly biased, picking and choosing what many would consider “better drama.”

Absorbing all these various influences, our faulty memories later create additional layers of perception.

As a case in point, whatever overview we may have learned in our history classes in school about the Spanish Conquests in America, the general perception is that Cortez conquered both the Aztecs and the Mayans. However, the Mayan kingdom had basically disappeared, so far inexplicably, during the 9th Century when, without warfare or plague, great cities were abandoned.

Seven centuries later, the Spaniards found remnants of this civilization, blindly destroying many of their sacred writings as works of the devil just as they murdered many of the people they found who refused to convert.

Five more centuries pass and still we know little about the intricacies of the Mayans’ faith, their science or how they interrelate. Only comparatively recently have scientists rediscovered their great cities or started translating their language.

We know, for instance, their complex calendar ends abruptly even though it extended thousands of years beyond the chronological boundaries of their civilization.

Even though scientists – and surviving Mayans themselves – tell us their religion contains nothing so extremely apocalyptic as the end of the world, many people assume because the calendar just stops, they believed the world will end.

Many creation stories – on-going and regenerative – imply the destruction of the world out of which is created a new (and presumably improved) world.

Conflating the often contradictory Mayan and Aztec mythologies, well-meaning philosophers (and I use the term loosely), unsure which age we’re currently living in, have become convinced, in 2012, the universe will be destroyed and time will end.

For things that cannot adequately be explained by science, we often revert to mythology, still finding the “either/or,” the not-quite-reality of “black/white.”

Take, for instance, the mysteries of man’s artistic creativity: where does art come from?

Whatever their initial explanations – involving inspiration-bearing muses and the patronage of Apollo or Dionysus – the Greeks had no word for “art” or “creativity.”

To them, art, the work of craftsmen, was called “techne,” a word giving us “technique” and “technical,” implying a more conscious approach. The idea of the inspired artist was an image distilled in more recent centuries.

In fact, until a few centuries ago, “creativity” was the prerogative of the Divine (as in “The Creation”), not of mere mortals. Yet we still describe the differences between Classicism and Romanticism as Apollonian or Dionysian.

Now, an artist has a “God-given” talent and receives periodic infusions of “divine inspiration,” something that’s devilishly difficult to quantify and explain scientifically.

-*-

Periodically, Klavdia Klangfarben – that is, the adult Klavdia Klangfarben – would pull out this odd little hand-held contraption and stare at it wistfully, checking to see if anything had changed since the last time she’d checked it.

Her mother – the woman who had no idea she was her mother – would sneak a glance in her direction, wondering what that was.

“Dead as a door-nail,” she’d mutter, slipping it back into her pocket and sighing. But it still indicated the battery had power.

Whatever had gone wrong, technically, she missed not having Kedaver there to fix it.

Yes, maybe she’d been too hard on him, and it would only have been for a little bit longer – not much time. But she knew he would’ve tried talking her out of this little side trip.

That was the main reason behind accepting SHMRG’s offer, to try rescuing her mother. Ironically, now, her brashness had become her own undoing.

She had to laugh, thinking about it. There were Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, all still alive, doing just fine, thank you, all because there was this numbskull professor of hers who’d successfully thwarted her plan.

She’d failed, thanks to him, and now here she was, in some time-traveler’s limbo.

She had failed big time. What would happen now?

Maybe it wasn’t nice leaving Kedaver stuck in 1802, considering she would never have figured out how to implement the plan without him. And now, no one even knew where she was: who’d bother to rescue her?

The important thing was, whatever else happened, she had saved her mother’s life, and that, she felt, ought to count for something. How could she have known that her best friend’s mother would have died instead?

Every day, now, she’ll be thinking of Susie, suddenly growing up without her mother. How could she do that to her best friend?

She glanced sideways at the woman sitting beside her, perceived through different eyes, now, not the idealized image of her Mother but a woman who was very ordinary. Was rescuing her a kind of failure, too?

This was something new Dr. Klavdia Klangfarben was experiencing. What, after all, was guilt? Wasn’t she devoid of guilt, coming into her maturity in a capitalist, corporate environment? It was like being in a Dickens novel.

There was a brief glimmer, something akin to hope: perhaps, waking up, it’ll be Christmas morning so, Scrooge-like, she could reform her ways.

She hadn’t begun thinking about her own difficulties. Here she was, an adult in her childhood home, not a tourist stopping by. How would she be able to explain herself, become part of everything around her? She couldn’t even use her real name, could she? Because Klavdia Klangfarben was really that child left playing back in the living room.

She had no identity, no history, no job. She had no income, no money, no place to live, not even any luggage. She had no idea what she could do about it or where to begin.

She couldn’t buy new shoes because she only had credit cards in her wallet, cards that expired thirty years into the future.

Did they even have credit cards back in 1985?

She couldn’t remember. Everything froze.

How did she create a new identity, get a job, rent an apartment, fake a birth certificate, starting her life over from scratch?

And didn’t she know too much about the future? She’d have to be careful what she’d say or how she’d say it. They’d think she’s crazy if she started warning people about terrorists before September 11th.

Could she start a new career as a psychic? Madame Klavdia! Well, her degree as a forensic musicologist was even more worthless, now.

Basically, she had nothing and could do or say nothing without giving herself away. She was unemployed, homeless, penniless and potentially certifiably whacko.

There was nothing she could do. She had become the embodiment of the negative.

-*-

Man Kaye lay in bed, unable to sleep. He kept staring at the clock. When would he hear some verification from Dr. Klavdia Klangfarben about the success of her mission – his mission (his plan, at least)? Could he walk into N. Ron Steele’s office first thing in the morning, informing him SHMRG could take over the classical music business?

What a great moment that would certainly be, pointing out how he should be given a promotion and, above all, a raise? Hadn’t he proved his worth? SHMRG was poised on the verge of unbelievable mega-greatness!

He had spent months going through the archives and buying up the rights to long-dead composers’ music, the also-rans of music history. It hadn’t made much sense: only classical radio stations played the stuff any more.

“Who’s going to listen to Kozeluch or Weigl if they have Mozart and Beethoven? Its only purpose is to make good audio wallpaper.”

“Ah,” he said with an evil grin, “but then, if they no longer had Mozart and Beethoven to listen to, any more? Without them, what was left for people to listen to or perform or record?”

That’s when his colleagues knew he was an idiot. How else had he managed to rise up the corporate ladder, becoming their boss?

That was when he formulated his plan – it was brilliant, really, and very simple. The only problem was how to make it happen.

That was when Dr. Klavdia Klangfarben answered his ad.

And tonight was the night.

It was already 4am. Kaye reached over and struggled with the radio by his bed, fumbling with the switch in the dark. Soothing piano music soon filled the room. He knew this piece: it was famous.

“Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata,” the whispery voice announced once it had quietly concluded, “inspired by watching the moon shining across the beautiful blue Danube.”

Right, he remembered that, now. Interesting. So beautiful. It was a shame they would lose that, once Beethoven died – or, rather, disappeared. Maybe he could write it out and then publish it under his own name?

That hadn’t occurred to him, before, taking the most popular songs by these guys, then, when nobody remembered them, publishing them himself. Why, he’d make a killing in the market since he’d own all the copyrights.

Would all that sheet music just disappear into oblivion? Wait, if these composers never existed, it would never have been written or printed.

He sat up, afraid it was too late. He must write this stuff down before it was forgotten, vanishing from human consciousness. If he wrote it out himself, wouldn’t his own anonymous copy survive their disappearance? Wouldn’t it be great if he said it’s based on some guy named Beethoven” and people would say “Beethoven? Never heard of him.”

What else should he try to pirate? Bach’s Jesu Joy thing and that “Air on a G String,” maybe some Mozart (what?). And the opening of Beethoven’s 5th (that’s all he’d need for the commercial rights).

Then he heard the radio announcer’s smooth voice continuing. “Amazing, how Beethoven could turn such a beautiful scene into such beautiful music. Well,” he added with a chuckle, “he was deaf as a doornail, not blind.”

Kaye snarled at the radio. “Dead as a doornail, not deaf, you insufferable imbecile.” Then he laughed, “and now he really is dead!”

Distracted by anticipation, not to mention the sheer magnitude of his most incredible plan, he forgot about writing down these soon-to-be-forgotten hits and looked at his phone, willing it to ring with news of Klangfarben’s victory.

While he checked his e-mail one more time – nothing – the station began to play something by Mozart, something for winds, pretty but unfamiliar.

But if the station was still playing Beethoven and Mozart, it hadn’t happened yet. Maybe it was some kind of time-zone thing.

“So I can still jot down the Moonlight Sonata?”

He ran to his desk.

-*-

Stuck in her childhood world as an adult, she was sitting in her mother’s car on her way to do some shopping for shoes she couldn’t afford to buy, couldn’t, in fact, even pay for, herself. Klavdia Klangfarben (or whoever she would become) tried not to dwell on the enormity of everything that was about to happen to her.

There were so many things she hadn’t thought out, hadn’t done the requisite research. She might have tried approaching it more scientifically. She couldn’t explain, “I should’ve at least googled it.” (“What’s that she said? ‘Google’?”)

Going back to eras when she didn’t exist, she could understand becoming an observer. But hadn’t she expected – that’s the way it was in her dreams – on that day in 1985 she’d become her childhood self?

Dreaming of growing up with her mother, now she was going to watch someone else – her other self – grow up with her instead.

And how weird was that going to be, watching herself as a spoiled ten-year-old growing up until she went off to college, majoring in music, becoming a forensic musicologist, then taking on that job for SHMRG?

Should she try advising herself – the young Klavdia – to pursue something… well, more practical? Knowing what she knows, could she actually change history?

Not like knocking off some future President or terrorist. More like killing Dr. Kerr so he wouldn’t be a factor in her future.

By the time she’d return to the present – her former present – she’d be 60.

Remembering all the failures, even the slights, that happened to her throughout her life, she could imagine looking after the young Klavdia, smoothing her way like some beneficent fairy godmother or guardian angel looking over her.

But was that possible? Was there a three-wish limit? Would she waste them on boy friends before getting to things that really mattered?

What were the scientific ramifications to think about? Would she stay permanently unaltered or continue growing older like any normal person would?

Or would she just, eventually, fade away like the battery power in her Time-Device?

No, she had to get back to 2011. Somehow, everything had to get back to normal, whatever normal was (speaking of perceptions). Could she find the Time-Gate without Abner Kedaver’s help? How hard could it be?

It shouldn’t be too difficult to find New Coalton. How long would it take her to get there, hitch-hiking from Valley Hills, Connecticut?

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012

The Doomsday Symphony: Chapter 67

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, Milo Smighley, wondering about Harmonia-IV's open border policy, and his team prepare to enter the mine from their end in order to capture Kent-Clarke before he escapes. Having survived the rolling boulder, Dr. Kerr and his team have discovered a new threat: dinosaurs. And, even stranger, a lost tribe of underground blue pygmies who sing. Meanwhile, Klavdia Klangfarben, arriving in her hometown in 1980, has succeeded in saving her mother from being killed in a car accident but now finds herself stranded. In New Jersey...

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Chapter 67
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The descent was dark and steep, a tightly spiraling ramp rather than a staircase.

“One false step, it’s all over,” she thought. “A banana peel right about now could make this one hell of a disaster.”

Bringing up the rear, Detective Jenna Ste.-Croix walked gingerly, something she was unaccustomed to, while her eyes slowly adjusted to the faint glow.

The two agents from BHUIA cautiously led the way, their weapons drawn and ready. They hadn’t said a word, yet – robots, maybe? She wasn’t sure what kind of weapons they had, nothing regulation from her catalogue.

The deeper they went, the weirder it got, but why should this be any less weird than anything else she’d experienced, right? Being on familiar ground was one thing but being under unfamiliar ground was another.

Perhaps she’d spoken too soon, volunteering for this mission. Too late for reservations, now – besides, what would he think if she chickened out?

“I’m really glad you decided to come along,” Detective Smighley whispered back to her, his tone of voice less gruff than usual.

She smiled to herself. That’s the most romantic thing anyone’d ever said to her.

“At least, with you here,” he confided, “I don’t feel quite as outnumbered, now – it’s two to three, police officers versus universal agents.”

“Okay,” she reconsidered, “maybe I should take that back.”

She told him she’s a bit out of her league, not just her jurisdiction.

She was supposed to be tracking down Victor Crevecoeur: how was this helping her?

Starting out as a possible missing persons case, she’d heard that Crevecoeur turned up dead and Smighley had already arrested the suspects.

But so far, she hadn’t seen the body or inspected the alleged crime scene.

Her forensics guys hadn’t determined cause of death, yet he’s telling her it’s murder?

That’s a pretty slipshod way of dealing with death.

But then she remembered, after all, supposedly everyone here’s already dead (speaking of weird) so it’s not like they have a lot of experience with somebody, a trespasser, just showing up on their doorstep and dying.

So what she really needed to do was get over to the crime scene as fast as possible and interview the witnesses before the trail went cold, leaving nothing behind to help her close the case.

If that short agent – the unintelligible one – was right, then those supposed “suspects” are heading this way, too, chasing after the alleged thief.

And what the heck was that conductor up to – Roger Kent-Clarke, whatever he’s called? These musicians were always such a damned nuisance during the summer, as if the normal out-of-towners weren’t already a big enough pain.

She felt partly responsible for his being here – she was the one who told him where New Coalton was, in the first place.

Reaching the bottom of the spiral ramp, they were finally standing on flat ground. Everything glowed faintly but her eyes weren’t adjusting.

They stood at the end of a long tunnel branching off in the distance.

The agents discussed two possibilities: waiting for them and ambushing them here or going in after them in a surprise pre-emptive strike.

Smighley suggested a stake-out when the two robot-like agents stalked off down the tunnel.

That’s when they heard distant gunshots – dozens of them.

There was no time to lose: she knew her witnesses’ lives were in danger.

The tunnel they were in branched out into three mineshafts with no way of knowing which direction the shots had come from.

None of the reports indicated these trespassers were to be considered armed and dangerous.

Taupner said one report indicated the boy’s abductors included the notorious cult-leader, Siegfried Schweinwerfer. Perhaps, whatever his role was, he had a gun?

Then, another barrage of shots rang out – more like one shot with several repercussions. Waccamole led the charge down the middle tunnel.

Looking at Smighley, Ste.-Croix realized she had no choice but to follow the others.

-*-

Without Schweinwerfer to control the boy, Kent-Clarke was getting very weary, carrying the heavy score and pushing Xaq in front of him. They had cut the bonds around his feet so he could at least walk. But there was no way he was going to risk freeing the boy’s hands or pulling off the gag: he’d only run away.

It was awful, watching dinosaurs toss his partner around like a game of hackey-sack. He’d never said anything about underground monsters, before. What other kinds of crap were they likely to run into, now, without him?

And whatever happened to that ghostly old guy who glowed from the photonmium dust? He’d be handy, as the tunnel got dimmer. Kent-Clarke picked up a medium-sized rock and held it aloft for a better view.

There’s something strange up ahead, judging from the smell. Rounding another bend in this zigzagging tunnel, he told the boy to slow down.

There was a large underground lake and, judging from the glow of the photonmium, more red in color than blue or green. Kent-Clarke could see nothing safe-looking about it and no way of judging its depth.

A small ledge outlined the one side but it was very narrow and close to the surface, seeming to crumble away in spots.

Standing close to the shore, Xaq stumbled on something that turned out to be part of a skull, knocking it into the water. Jumping back, he could hear it hiss and bubble before it dissolved and sank.

Further down the shore, Kent-Clarke saw two rusted hulks suspended from a thick cable stretching across the lake, disappearing into the dimness. These turned out to be long-abandoned cable-cars which could be operated by hand-pulled winches.

Perhaps this would be their only method of escape.

Xaq was holding back, ready to run as soon as Kent-Clarke dropped his guard.

On the first car’s back seat was a pistol which, even if it proved too rusted to fire, at least looked convincing. He waved it at Xaq, telling him to get into the car – or else.

Knowing it was only a matter of time before Professor Kerr and the others managed to get past the singing blue pygmies, Kent-Clarke squeezed the trigger, surprised it went off, its blast reverberating through the cavern.

Clambering in after the boy, he saw an ugly sea-monster rising to the surface. Another shot either dispatched it or scared it away.

-*-

Shots!

Zoe and I froze in our tracks.

Sebastian turned with a fearful look.

Cameron asked, “Where did Kent-Clarke get a gun?”

“Maybe it was the police,” I offered. Had they already caught him, rescuing Xaq?

The second round was not reassuring.

Not knowing what to expect, we hurried forward. We didn’t want to assume it was the police.

Hmmm, how did Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth turn out? But then, technically, this wasn’t Earth, was it? If I’d paid more attention to those science-fiction movies when I was a kid…

We’d already discovered it’s not necessarily a deserted mine, so what else was there? If these mines had herds of counterpoint-hating dinosaurs and choirs of chanting blue pygmies, what other surprises did it have in store?

But what if we got to the Gate and these things followed us through? What would do more damage: them or Mahler’s symphony?

Rushing toward what appeared to be a lake, we realized our path was blocked by an old man glowing in the dimness.

“Dear God!” Sebastian screeched to a halt. “It’s the Old Man of the Mines!”

If this was the Ghost of Christmas Future, I thought, I’m not going to worry about spending a lot on presents this year.

In the distance, we could hear a squeaking, raspy noise that reverberated across the lake and echoed back and forth around the cavern.

“Bats! Oh God, please, no – not bats,” Cameron whimpered.

“No, look – there!”

Zoe screamed.

He was getting away. And Xaq was with him.

Rogers Kent-Clarke, his pristine hair now damp with sweat, was furiously pumping the handle on the winch, pulling the rusted hulk of a cable-car along a length of rusted chain, jerking slowly toward the opposite shore.

Xaq recognized his mother in that anguished scream but was unable to turn around.

The Old Man of the Mines held a broken femur over the rank water. Dipping it in, he quickly pulled it out, already melting, dripping back into the water which had begun to steam and spit.

Stepping aside, he told us to beware, most of all, a fish named Fasolt.

His warning, whatever it meant, was perfectly clear.

Diving for the cable-car, Sebastian found a pistol. “Hah! Blanks – for scaring the fish.”

“Fish!?”

Just as we heaved up over the water, a reptile-like shark lunged for us, grabbing the gun right out of Sebastian’s hand.

-*-

“Agent Babbitt, I think we may have a problem,” Officer Schleppenfuss said to Roger.

“I know.” He was trying to make contact with Sharrif underground, something about hearing gunshots and then, naturally, the radio went dead.

“No, I mean entering the field to our left.”

“Hmm?” Roger looked up from thwacking his radio and groaned. “Oh, no – now what…?”

Hurrying in from the street was a large and rather unruly bunch of composers.

Agent Babbitt greeted them by saying, “We’re in the midst of an operation. This is not the time for a news conference.”

“But you don’t understand,” Sauerbraten, as their leader, told him. “We’re here to help.”

Babbitt wondered, “Great. Now, give me the good news…”

Mary Rowberson greeted several of them by name – “Oh, I talk to you all the time!” – then swooned again.

Liszt turned to Brahms and asked, “Who is this woman?”

“I’ve never seen her in my life!”

-*-

To say we were narrowing the gap between our cable-car and Kent-Clarke’s was delusional. Yet we had to get to the other shore before he’d cut the chain, dropping us into this acid-bath of a lake.

Ominous bubbles, then even more ominous ripples announced the surfacing of some gigantic creature.

Rising from the waves was a great white squid.

No doubt Fasolt the Squid was no slouch when compared to Fafner the Dragon. One of his mighty tentacles struck our cable-car.

With a terrific jolt, we suddenly found ourselves airborne.

I screamed, “Release the bladder!”

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012

The Doomsday Symphony: Chapter 66

In the previous installment of The Doomsday Symphony, our rescue team is caught in a mineshaft descending deep under the parallel universe that is Harmonia-IV, where they hear something rumbling in the distance: it turns out to be a gigantic boulder tumbling and bouncing toward them, just like that famous scene in 'Dr. Dick and the Tempo of Doom'.

*** ***** ******** ***** ***
Chapter 66
*** ***** ******** ***** ***

Ever since arriving at Harmonia-IV on that first assignment well over a century ago, Milo Smighley was never keen on these gates. It had never made sense, in his experience, leaving them open all the time. You never knew who’ll just stumble through it accidentally. And what happened once people discovered there really was an Other Side: what then? Many argued keeping it open was a necessity when it came to universal commerce even knowing it also had its dark side. But if countries on Earth could regulate trade, why can’t Harmonia-IV regulate its gates?

It was easy, importing goods they didn’t feel like manufacturing within the Parallelian System, to go across under cover of invisibility and darkness of night to abscond with items that, to the Otherians, simply, inexplicably disappeared. He realized there were high-minded, moralizing individuals complaining this was no more than theft but, naturally enough, they were neither politicians nor businessmen.

The worst example had been Basil Ratfink’s decision to shanghai miners from New Coalton, forcing dozens of them to work under slave-like conditions deep in the photonmium mines then operated by his company, Wotan Industries, Ltd. Times were hard and labor was hard to find, especially any that would work voluntarily for the meager wages his company paid out.

It was a turbulent period in American industrial history when somebody named Molly McGuire, presumably a powerful tavern-keeper or something, created considerable havoc. Ratfink figured she could supply Wotan Industries with a new influx of temporary labor.

Unable to locate her or her agents to make any kind of a deal, Ratfink’s unscrupulous agents kidnapped a dozen miners as they left the town’s seediest tavern, The Blue Weasel, conveniently located near the Time-Gate.

When this proved financially successful – slave labor was, after all, basically inexpensive to maintain – Ratfink’s agents merely went back to harvest some more.

Like any other resource – coal, wood or human – they could be used until eventually there was nothing left in them worth using, like ashes shoveled onto a heap out back: or rather, back through the Time-Gate.

They were broken and sick although whether from the effects of handling photonmium or the working conditions remained a subject for debate.

People finding them on the edge of town figured they’d been sleeping one off.

Soon enough, they all died – slowly – babbling insanely about mines with rocks that glowed, complete with monsters and a fiery lake of acid.

Of course, before people realized how most of the miners in town had become sick and eventually died of this mysterious illness – originally called the Glowing Disease, because they coughed up bits of ominously glowing pleghm – doctors were brought in from neighboring towns to figure out what may be causing this bizarre condition and how to stop its spread.

They determined the cause was either the poor quality beer the taverns were serving or something deep in the New Coalton mines. Residents then abandoned the town: that last mine collapse just sped up the process.

This became a classic example of that social and psychological reaction to a decisive event initially considered a surprise by the observers which is then rationalized after-the-fact as the unforeseen result of something not entirely unexpected.

Parallelian scientists and philosophers, like their earthly counterparts eager to find pseudo-logical terminology gathering events into convenient theories, called this a “White Crow.”

Milo Smighley wondered how these same scientists and philosophers, no matter where they were located, would evaluate the presence of today’s trespassers: they would certainly find no satisfactorily practical explanation for the likes of Mary Rowberson.

As for the other trespassers, once they’d finally managed to retrieve the Mahler score, they could easily be dispatched back through the Gate.

Unfortunately, that also meant the beautiful Detective Ste.-Croix would be leaving soon and he felt this with a keen sense of regret. She, however, had a case to close before departing, fortunately requiring his utmost cooperation.

While Smighley gazed at Ste.-Croix standing over the poor, confused figure of Mary Rowberson, his reverie was rudely interrupted by the unexpected arrival of that annoying violist, Roger Babbitt, flashing his badge as a BHUIA agent. Enough to handle willingly under the most normal circumstances, working with a violist from Intelligence was something he found incongruous by any definition.

Rondo Sharrif, also flashing his badge, came forward upon Babbitt’s arrival, greeting him with the traditional, supposedly secret handshake and accompanying gestures implying BHUIA had been created by teenagers during a slow week at summer camp.

Babbitt introduced two other agents wearing ominously dark trench-coats and sun glasses – Agents Taupner and Waccamole from the Department of Harmonian Security. Babbitt himself was rumored to be mid-level in the Department of Imagination and Naturization.

The fact they even looked better than Smighley’s policemen was enough to irritate him, but he knew not cooperating jeopardized his own position.

Agent Babbitt, using official D.I.N. jargon largely incomprehensible to otherwise normal law enforcement personnel, described recent intelligence pertinent to the Mahler case. This meant, Sharrif translated, the alleged thieves had kidnapped the boy known as Xaq.

They were then presumably heading toward the Gate by way of the underground tunnels, Professor Kerr and his friends hot on their trail.

Smighley wrinkled his nose, reminded of an embarrassing recollection: the remnants of that stink bomb still permeated the hallways of his police station. And now he’s supposed to run through miles of mineshafts to rescue that boy?

“The Gate,” he began explaining to Babbitt, “is about to be locked down due to a localized presence on the Other Side though it might also assist in obfuscating the eventualized escapement of the allegedary suspects.”

Try as he might, Smighley couldn’t think of any fussier-sounding synonyms to use instead. An old-fashioned, hard-boiled cop, he mistrusted these intellectual bureaucrats.

Babbitt nodded, smiling politely at his ineffectual attempt, hating when people tried adopting a linguistic stylization preternaturally incompatible with their archetypical verbiage.
He conferred briefly in whispered tones with Agent Sharrif, nodding and shrugging his shoulders.

Babbitt carefully explained to Smighley, “you and Agent Sharrif along with agents Taupner and Waccamole should pursue the suspects from this end. BHUIA has jurisdiction in this case, considering it’s a matter of Universal Musical Security.”

Detective Ste.-Croix asked gruffly if she could join them which Smighley quickly agreed to.

Babbitt nodded approval, and they carefully entered the Gate.

-*-

It took a few minutes before clouds of dust – like glittering confetti – began settling and the faint glow permeating the walls returned. The mineshaft was in shambles, shards of photonmium everywhere.

Where had the boulder gone? Had it shattered on impact or was it lying at the bottom of the pit?

Maybe it’s still rumbling along, headed toward Xaq?

Zoe and I traded worried glances as the distant sound grew louder and closer. Wasn’t this supposed to be some empty mineshaft?

What dangers were there still to face? How would Xaq survive this geological juggernaut?

But whatever we still had in our future, we could go no further with this pit that had cracked open before us. We’d waste too much time, going back to the surface to pick another mineshaft. That wouldn’t guarantee we’d reach them eventually or run into other any other dangers. And that sound was beginning to get too weird.

A tangle of roots, knocked loose by the impact, dangled Rapunzel-like from the ceiling, long fibrous tree roots hanging just within reach. Gnarled but sturdy-looking, they swung tantalizingly in the swirling debris, the aftershocks of collision. Would they be strong enough to hold our weight, long enough to swing each of us to safety across to the other side?

Ignoring old fears of rope-climbing from gym class, I reached out and grabbed the root with a good yank before losing my footing. The edge of the pit had started to crumble, leaving me hanging in mid-air.

Trying not to look down – and not screaming – I began kicking frantically until I started up a pendulum-like motion, back and forth. After swinging far enough, Cameron gave me a push. Another time should do it.

More of the edge collapsed. Cameron reached out, desperately hanging on by my belt.
My hands began slipping, then sliding down the root.

His weight provided enough momentum until I figured it was safe to let go, collapsing in a heap onto the opposite side.

At least, I thought it was the opposite side. Swinging around, had I miscalculated?

Zoe and Sebastian scrambled over, helping us up. Laughing, they pointed at a fissure in the wall connecting to the other tunnel. They simply took the detour, safely walking around, avoiding the edge of the pit.

Having lost valuable time, we hurried down the tunnel, wondering what we’d find next.
That strange noise began sounding like lots of cows.

The mineshaft began descending more steeply, pot-holes wherever the boulder bounced against the floor. So, it had come this way: but where…

Sebastian, pointing toward another tunnel that leveled out, suggested it took the lower tunnel.

That noise was now accompanied by a rumble: earthquake? Or perhaps a stampede, hundreds of frantic cows, mutated by long exposure to photonmium?

Rounding past a sharp corner, we suddenly veered into a large, eerily lit cavern with glowing stalactites and stalagmites, whichever was which.

Against the far wall, Kent-Clarke and the giant Schweinwerfer were busy cutting Xaq’s bonds.

Kent-Clarke saw us and raised the bulky tote-bag. “It’s Mahler’s latest symphony,” his eyes wild with greed. “I stole it from him! It’s a truly amazing discovery. You must help me get the score back home!”

“They’re not here to help, you maladroit,” Schweinwerfer thundered. “Any closer, the boy dies.”

He took the knife, holding it across Xaq’s throat.

Schweinwerfer, tired of carrying him, figured it was time Xaq started walking by himself. If he ran off, where would he go? But Schweinwerfer knew they had to save the boy till they reached the Gate.

Kent-Clarke saw them first, charging down the other mineshaft. Not mutant cows but worse: a pack of dinosaurs! Raptors – perhaps twenty of them.

Bellowing fiercely then falling silent, they stopped and stood, their heads lowered, studying their would-be prey before preparing their attack, sniffing and drooling.

Instantly, they lunged at Schweinwerfer, tearing him to shreds.

His knife inflicted little damage.

-*-

Klavdia Klangfarben – that is, the grown-up Dr. Klavdia Klangfarben – walked down the street she had lived on when she was a child. Such an infusion of nostalgia would prove powerful at any point in her life. Doing so at the exact time her mother would die in that automobile accident was even more incredibly powerful, making her unbelievably nervous.

These houses were her friends’. There was the swing-set standing in her side yard. The porch was littered with her favorite dolls. Everything about it – the sunny day, the scattered toys – spoke of comfort and innocence.

She remembered if she’d just picked up her toys instead of throwing that tantrum, her mother would have left earlier, on time, and driven through the nearby intersection, missing the accident that moments later killed her. Perhaps this was why Klavdia had grown up to become so obsessive about neatness, a way of atoning for causing her mother’s death.

At the door, the adult Klavdia took a deep breath and rang the bell. She could hear her childhood self inside screaming. How embarrassing, to have treated her mother like that, even without knowing its consequences.

Not sure how she’d be able to delay her, it would only take seconds. She wondered if the interruption might be just enough.

A woman, pulling on a jacket, answered the door, harried by yet another interruption. She was clearly annoyed and didn’t hide her rudeness.

Klavdia’d thought she would never see her mother again and yet here she stood.

“Yes, what…!” her mother barked at this stranger, her arm catching in her sleeve. For a moment, they stared at each other.

Didn’t she recognize her, see her daughter in this grown woman standing before her?
This was her mother, she realized, the last time she had ever seen her. Could she control herself and speak without breaking down?

“Hurry up, huh? I’m running late and my daughter is being a bitch, today.”

This was not the way she remembered her.

Wasn’t it her fault she was like this, now? She’d behave better, she promised.

“I, uh, think I’m lost and I was wondering if you could help me?” She had to admit, It sounded pretty lame. With a doctorate, you’d think she could come up with something better than this.

“Look, honey, I don’t have time – try next door?”

Then she heard it.

Bang!

There was a screeching of wheels.

And a scream.

Rushing to the edge of the porch, her mother shrieked, looking toward the intersection.

“Dear God,” she wailed, “oh my freakin’ God!”

Klavdia, unnoticed, leaned against the door and sighed in relief.

It had been enough.

The child Klavdia, ignoring her adult self, rushed past and grabbed her mother’s skirt, trying to see past her what was going on.

“It’s Suzie’s mom,” she screamed.

Her mother hid her daughter’s face in her skirt.

“That man ran the light – hit Mrs. Porter!”

“I had saved my mother,” Klavdia realized, “but doing so killed Suzie’s mother, instead.”

A neighbor who’d seen it happen said Suzie’d ridden her tricycle out into the street and Mrs. Porter went to grab her. The driver swerved, missing Suzie, but hit her mother, throwing her in the air.

Accomplishing what she’d long dreamt of changing, Klavdia was saddened by her friend’s loss. She forgot that changing one thing altered something else.

Taking out her Time-Device, she hit “return,” expecting she’d just disappear. But nothing happened.

She shook it, squeezed harder, but still nothing.

“Oh, shit!”

Before her mother noticed, Klavdia tried again.

“But the battery’s not dead!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry – terrible,” her mother said, clucking her tongue. “You were saying?”

“Yes, indeed,” Klavdia admitted, “I’m afraid I’m very lost.”

“I know just the thing,” her new friend suggested. “Always helps. Let’s go shopping.”

“I could use some new shoes, I guess.”

“And another piece of advice, if you don’t mind: do something about your hair.”

-*-

Xaq couldn’t risk running over to his mom’s side, not in front of the dinosaurs – they’d grab him, like they did Schweinwerfer. Falling back against the wall, he ran right into the equally terrified Kent-Clarke’s arms.

“What the fuh-…?” Schweinwerfer screamed as the dinosaurs, each one standing nearly ten feet tall, tossed him around.

“Surely, the apocalypse is… noooooow..!”

It was horrible, greenish blood and body-parts everywhere. Perhaps it didn’t matter if you were already dead when dinosaurs ripped your flesh.

Dropping back against the walls, reluctant to draw their attention, we heard another sound.

It was a kind of chanting with beating drums in regularly accented, march-like rhythms.

There they were, rushing down the opposite tunnel.

Several dozen short human-like creatures, all drumming and chanting.

Facing the dinosaurs, they stopped.

Standing barely three feet tall, their skin was deep blue, decorated with photonmium face-paint.

Standing in a chorus-like formation, they began to sing.

Their sound was mesmerizing, simple chords flowing back and forth, the simplest of sonorities. The overall tempo was moderate, calming the spirit. Coming after the pounding rampage we had just witnessed, this music sounded peaceful, heavenly.

The dinosaurs, entranced, stopped and listened intently with enjoyment. Some casually munched on an arm or a foot, but they were clearly delighted.

What manner of people – if that was the term – could create such gentle music that even ferocious cold-blooded reptiles warmed to their song?

Kent-Clarke began slowly inching away until one of the raptors spotted him and growled.

The dinosaurs weaved back and forth to the soothing undulations of the singers’ chords, immediately transformed from their previously murderous, beastly selves.

Amazing, seeing twenty dinosaurs at all, much less bobbing their heads in obvious contentment.

Then, suddenly, the singers transformed their now familiar sound, starting with a lone voice, gradually augmented by newer voices forming additional independent layers.

Lizard eyes opened in surprise, their expectations questioned, their concern mounting as to why the soothing music, so enjoyable, had now changed.

Line upon line was added, similar to the earlier song but denser, more complex.

Questioning glances and increasingly perturbed frowns between the dinosaurs led to groans of annoyance, and, dissatisfied, they began backing away in disgust.

The choir started marching forward, singing their complicated counterpoint. The performance became a route.

Kent-Clarke grabbed Xaq and used the choral diversion to make a dash for it. Hiding behind them, he was going to get away!

= = = = = = =

To be continued…

- Dick Strawser

The novel, "The Doomsday Symphony," a music appreciation thriller written between 2010 and 2011, is the sole supposedly intellectual property of its author, Richard Alan Strawser.
© 2012