Desolation Road

30

Wisdom, capital of the world, stands upon forty hills by the edge of the Syrtic Sea and its crystal towers are draped in curtains of green vines and summer blossoms. Llangonnedd is built upon an island in a lake and over the centuries has burst these bounds to grow whole districts that float upon a lattice of pontoons or perch precariously upon thousands of pilings. Lyx stands upon both lips of a great chasm and across its twenty bridges, each the masterpiece and care of one of the departments of the Universuum, go the hooded and gowned Masters of the Faculties, and from its short cylindrical towers fly ten thousand prayer-kites, supplications for the continued wisdom of the Masters of Lyx. The ROTECH redoubt, China Mountain, is a federation of a hundred small villages set in an exquisite parkland. There is a village suspended from the branches of trees like the woven nests of certain birds, another is made from exquisitely glazed and fired porcelain, another stands upon a floating island in a lake, another is of gaily painted caravans and pavilions that wends and wanders through the woods, another is built upon a web of diamond filaments caught between the pinnacles of China Mountain peak.

These are some of the great cities of the world. To this list, Belladonna must be added. Without doubt, it is the peer of any mentioned here but its wonders are less apparent. To the traveller coming upon Belladonna across the dry and dusty Stampos all that can be seen of her are a few dish antennae, a tall air-traffic control tower, a few dirty adobe lean-tos, and several square kilometres of tyre-marked runway. Yet Belladonna is there, present yet unseen like the Divine essence in the Paschal host: it is no lie, the wickedest city in the world awaits the traveller, just a few metres beneath his feet, like the ant-lion, hungry to draw men down its maw.

Belladonna is proud of its appetites, proud of its wickedness. It is an old hard bitch of a city; a port city, a sailor’s whore of a city. It is always three o’clock in the morning in Belladonna under the concrete sky. There are more street corners in her than anywhere in the world. And in a city with more bars, sushi houses, tavernas, sex boutiques, wineries, whorehouses, seraglios, bath houses, private cinema clubs, all-night cabarets, cafes, amusement arcades, restaurants, pachinko parlours, billiard halls, opium dens, gambling hells, dance palaces, card schools, beauticians, craps joints, body shops, massage parlours, private detective’s offices, narcotics refineries, speakeasies, saunas, bunco booths, gin palaces, bondage basements, singles bars, flesh markets, flea markets, slave auctions, gymnasiums, art galleries, bistros, reviews, floor shows, gun shops, book stalls, torture chambers, relaxariums, jazz clubs, beer cellars, costermongers’ barrows, rehearsal rooms, geisha houses, flower shops, abortion clinics, tea rooms, wrestling rings, cock pits, bear pits, bull and badger pits, Russian roulette salons, barber shops, wine bars, fashion boutiques, sports halls, cinemas, theatres, public auditoria, private libraries, museums of the bizarre and spectacular, exhibitions, displays and performance areas, casinos, freak shows, onearmed-bandit malls, strip shows, side shows, tattoo parlours, religious cults, shrines, temples and morticians than any other place on earth, it can be hard to find one man if he does not want to be found. But if he is as famous as Limaal Mandella, then it is easier to find him in Belladonna than in any other of the world’s great cities, for Belladonna loves to flatter famous men. There was not a street sweeper or shit shoveller who did not know that Limaal Mandella, the Greatest Snooker Player the Universe Had Ever Known could be found in the back room of Glenn Miller’s Jazz Bar on Sorrowful Street. Likewise, there were few people who could not stream off Limaal Mandella’s lists of conquests, Belladonna being a city where lists ascribe greatness. There is not a single great Belladonian who has not several great lists behind him.

What then, were the names of those Limaal Mandella defeated to become champion? It is soon told.

Tony Julius, Oliphaunt Dow, Jimmy “Jewel” Petrolenko, “Aces” Quartuccio, Ahmed Sinai Ben Adam, “Sack” Johnson, Itamuro (Sammy) Yoshi, Louie Manzanera, Raphael Raphael Jr., “Fingers” Lo, Noburo G. Washington, Henry Naminga, Bishop R. A. Wickramasinghe, Mr. C. Asiim, “Jaws” Jackson Jr., “Iceman” Larry Lemescue, Jesus Ben Sirach, Valentine Quee, Mr. Peter Melterjones, “Frenchy” Rey, Dharma Ailmangansoreng, Nehemiah Chung (The Ripper), Mr. David Bowie, Mikal “Micky” Manzanera (no relation), Saloman Salrissian, Vladimir “The Impaler” Dracul, Mr. Norman Mailer, Mr. Hairan Elissian, Mercedes Brown, “Red” Futuba, Judge (Judge Dread) Simonsenn, “Prof.” Chaz Xavier, Black John Delorean, Hugh O’Hare, Mr. Peter Melterjones (again).

In victory Limaal Mandella was a modest man. He scorned the expensive affectations of his opponents; the mink-lined cue cases, the diamond-filled teeth, the mother-of-pearl inlaid cues, the shop-built bodyguards, the solid gold flechette pistols: all the trivia of losers. Of the fortune he amassed, sixteen percent went to his manager, Glenn Miller, who launched his own “American Patrol” label for new underground bands and built a studio for them to record in, he kept enough to hold body and soul together and gave the rest anonymously to charities for the relief of retired prostitutes, hot stew for Belladonna’s 175,000 registered mendicants, and the rehabilitation for alcohol, narcotic and pornography addicts.

However modest, even charitable, his personal lifestyle, Limaal Mandella could not be said to possess a surfeit of self-effacement. He believed he was the best with a conviction unshakable as heaven. He grew zealous, he grew thin, he grew a beard which only highlighted the steely tint in his eyes. Concerned at his protege’s fanaticism, Glenn Miller watched him one morning after the band had packed up and gone home, potting ball after ball after ball, practicing practicing practicing, perfecting, honing, never satisfied.

“You drive yourself too hard, Limaal,” said Glenn Miller, resting his trombone on the table. Balls clunked into pockets, impelled by relentless mathematics of cue. “No one could do more than you. Look, you’ve been here, a year, yes? Just over, twenty-six months, to be precise; you’re not long turned eleven, you’ve beaten men years more experienced than you; you’re the champion, the toast of Belladonna, isn’t that enough? What more can you want?”

Limaal Mandella waited to clear the table before answering.

“Everything. It all.” The white rolled to rest in the centre of the table. “Best in Belladonna’s not enough while there’s someone out there who might be better than me. Until I know that there either is or isn’t, I can’t rest.” He picked the balls out of the pockets and squared them up for another match against himself.

The challenge was born. To the man who could defeat him Limaal Mandella would give him his crown, half his personal riches, and his word that he would never touch a cue again. Of the man he defeated he asked only that he bow and acknowledge the victor. The challenge went out on the airwaves of Glenn Miller’s Sunday evening Big Band Hour and the nine continents rose to meet it.

And the challengers, they are another list.

There were young men, old men, middle-aged men, tall men, short men, fat men, thin men, sick men, healthy men, bald men, hairy men, cleanshaven men, bearded men, men with moustaches, men without hats, black men, red men, brown men, yellow men, off-white men, happy men, sad men, clever men, simple men, nervous men, confident men, humble men, arrogant men, serious men, laughing men, silent men, men who liked to talk, straight men, gay men, men who were both, men who were neither, blue-eyed men, brown-eyed men, green-eyed men, radar-eyed men, bad men, good men, men from 0 and Meridian and Wisdom, men from Xanthe and Chryse and the Great Oxus, men from Grand Valley and Great Desert and the Archipelago, Transpolaran men and men from Borealis, the men of Solstice Landing, men from Llangonnedd and Lyx, from Kershaw and Iron Mountain, men from Bleriot and Touchdown, men from great cities and tiny hamlets, men from the mountains and men from the valleys, men from the forests and men from the plains, men from the deserts and men from the seas; they came and they came and they came until the towns were emptied and the machines stood idle in the factories and the crops filled and ripened in the fields under the summer sun.

The old men came, the old ores with death in their eyes who reminded Limaal of his Grandfather Haran, and the women, the wives and lovers and strong ones who bore the weight of the world on their backs, the great, strong women of the nine continents and the children came, out of the schools and nurseries and play groups, with cut-down cues and beer boxes to stand upon as they took their shots.

Limaal Mandella beat them all.

There was not a man, woman, child on the planet who could beat Limaal Mandella. He was the Greatest the Universe Had Ever Known. And when the last challenger had fallen, he stood upon the table, held his cue above his head in his two hands, and proclaimed, “I am Limaal Mandella, the Greatest Snooker Player the Universe Has Ever Known: who is there, man or god, who will challenge me, who is there mortal or immortal, sinner or saint, that I cannot defeat?”

“I am the one, I am he. Play me, Limaal Mandella, and learn some humility, little crowing cockerel.”

The speaker stood up so that Limaal Mandella might see his challenger. He was an elegant olive-skinned gentleman, dressed in red satin and leaning on a cane as if a trifle lame.

“Who are you who would challenge me?” boasted Limaal Mandella.

“I am not required to give my name, only to challenge you,” said the elegant man; indeed, he did not need to give his name, for a momentary flicker of hellfire in his black satin eyes identified him to all: Apollyon, Put Satanachia, Ahriman, the Goat of Mendes, Mephisto(pheles), Archfiend, Antichrist, Hermes Trismegetus, Old Clootie, the Adversary, Lucifer, Father of Lies, Satan Mekratrig, Diabolus, the Tempter, Old Nick, the Serpent, Lord of the Flies, the Old Gentleman, Satan, the Enemy, the Devil, the evil which needs no name to cover it.

Perhaps Limaal Mandella was too drunk on victory to recognize his enemy, perhaps his rationalism forbade him to permit the gentleman’s infernal incarnation, perhaps he could just not resist any challenge, for he cried, “How many frames? By how much do you wish to be humiliated?”

“The best of seventy-six?” suggested the Enemy.

“Done. Toss for break.”

“One moment. The stakes.”

“Same as for any other challenger.”

“Not quite enough, if you’ll pardon me. If you win, Satan Mekratrig will bow the knee to you, Limaal Mandella, but if you lose, he will take your crown, your riches and your soul.”

“All right, all right. Enough theatrics. Heads or tails?”

“Tails,” said the Enemy, smiling to his Infernal self. Limaal Mandella won the toss and broke off.

Very soon Limaal Mandella found himself pitted against an opponent the like of whom he had never met before. For by his once-divine nature, all human wit and science were the Enemy’s to use and abuse, though for reasons of demonic honour inexplicable to humans but binding upon devils and Panarchs, he could not use these supernatural wisdoms to improperly influence the game. His natural powers were still sufficient to battle Limaal Mandella to a standstill. The tide of combat surged back and forth across the green baize; here the Enemy led by two frames, there Limaal Mandella pulled back the deficit and went one ahead. There were never more than a handful of frames separating the combatants.

Every four hours they would take a sixty-minute break. Limaal Mandella would eat or bathe or drink some beer or catch a few winks of sleep. The Enemy would sit alone in his chair and sip from a glass of absinthe topped up by a nervous bartender. As word passed around the corridors and alleyways that Limaal Mandella was playing the devil for his very soul, crowds of the curious pressed into Glenn Miller’s Jazz Bar, concentrated and compressed almost to the point of suffocation and implosion, mounted policemen rode back and forth along the boulevard outside, keeping the crowd away from the doors. Teenage runners hotfooted it to the press agencies with the latest frame scores and excited Belladonians watched posters go up reading “Mandella leads by one frame” or sat in bars and cafes listening to Maelstrom Morgan’s radio commentary on the epic contest. In barber shops, sushi bars, bath houses, and rikshas the city of Belladonna cheered on the Greatest Snooker Player the Universe Had Ever Known.

But the Greatest Snooker Player the Universe Had Ever Known knew that he was losing. The quality of his play strained the credible, but he knew he was losing. There was a dreadful precision to the enemy’s shots, a foresightedness to his play that echoed the omniscient, and Limaal Mandella knew that play as he might, his human talent could never match the demonic perfection of Satan. He lost the initiative, slipped behind, and began to trail the Devil, always making up the frame’s deficit to stay in touch with the match but never forging ahead to take control of the table. The cries and shouts of the well-wishers now held a note of desperation.

After thirty-two hours at the table Limaal Mandella was a man destroyed. Haggard, unshaven, fatigue oozed from every pore as he bent to the table again. Only his rationalism, his unshakable faith that skill must triumph over dark sorcery in the end, kept his cue arm moving.

The final frame ground into play. The third change of referees announced the frame score: Limaal Mandella 38 frames, the Challenger 38 frames. The game was down to the colours. Limaal needed blue, pink, and black to win. The Enemy needed black and pink. Sipping his absinthe, he was as fresh and bright as a dandelion in a summer hedge. The green baize universe with its tiny coloured solar systems swirled before Limaal Mandella’s eyes, and suddenly it was a black ball game. Limaal took a deep breath and let the dregs of his rationalism flow through him. The black ball glided alone the table, wriggled in the jaws, wriggled free.

The audience moaned.

The devil sighted down his cue. And then Limaal Mandella had it. He stood on his side table, pointed his cue at the Enemy, and shouted, “You can’t win! You can’t win, you’re not real! There is no devil, there is no Panarch, no St. Catherine, there is only us, we ourselves. Man is his own god, man is his own devil, and if I am being defeated by the devil, it is by the devil within me. You are an impostor, an old man who dresses up and says ‘I am the Devil’ and you all believe him! We believe him! I believe him! But I don’t now, I don’t believe in you! There’s no room for a devil in the rational world!”

The referee tried to restore the contemplative calm of the snooker hall. Glenn Miller’s Jazz Bar settled after the untoward outburst. The Goat of Mendes sighted down his cue once more and struck. Cue ball struck black ball, black ball ran toward the pocket. As the balls ran down the table, the hellfire flickered in the gentleman’s eyes and snuffed out. The infernal power, the unworldly perfection, had gone out of him, wiped away by Limaal Mandella’s act of unbelief. The city of Belladonna held its breath. The black ball was losing momentum, losing impetus. A breath short of the pocket the black ball came to rest. There was utter silence. Even gabbling garrulous Maelstrom Morgan fell silent, words frozen in his microphone. Ten kilometres tall, Limaal Mandella stepped to the table. The city of Belladonna let out a shriek of anticipation.

Suddenly the Devil was just a tired, scared old gentleman.

Limaal Mandella swept his cue down into the striking position, oblivious of the fatigue tearing at every muscle. The room fell quiet again, as if his gesture had stopped time. His arm pistoned back, the same precise machine motion that he had performed ten thousand identical times in the past day and a half. He smiled just for himself and let the cue barely touch the ball. The white ball rolled down the table and stroked the black ball soft as a lover’s caress. The black shivered and tumbled into the pocket, like the plummeting porcelain planetoids of his nightmares.