October 31: A Night in the Lonesome October-fest

#Zelazny #LonesomeOctober

This is Halloween, this Halloween!

(Halloween, Halloween!)

Sorry, I got carried away.

The big day arrives. Snuff returns to Larry's grove to find it empty. Then he seeks Graymalk, and when he finds her, they walk and discuss things, perhaps for the last time.

We hiked for a long time in silence before she said, "You and Jack will be the only closers there." 

"It looks that way," I said. 

"I'm sorry." 

"That's okay."

The story has so many moments like this, and that exchange is one of my favorites. Snuff and Gray both wish things were different, but they're not, so the only thing you can do is comfort your friend as best you can and go on living in the world as it is.

They discuss events, Gray offering Snuff some wisdom she had learned from the Dreamworld Cat. They then part ways, with Gray leaving for a strategy session with the other openers and Snuff heading home.

However, he is intercepted by Quicklime, who passes on some information. He tells Snuff that the vicar killed Rastov, but the Count killed Owen in retaliation. Snuff thinks Quicklime is confused, because Owen was killed after the Count died.

Au contraire, Quicklime tells him. The Count merely faked his death, and has been lying low with the gipsies ever since. Snuff is happy to have the information, but isn't sure what to make of it at the point.

Later on, he talks with Bubo, who laments that he wasn't able to do anything important, like the rest of them. Snuff reassures him that all the little things add up to make the difference.

Then, finally, it is time for the ceremony. Jack and Snuff approach the hill to find the vicar and Morris and MacCab feeding the fire. He gives a little background on it.

The banefire is a necessary part of our business. It goes all the way back into the misty vastness of our practices. Both sides require it, so in this sense it is a neutral instrument. After midnight, it comes to burn in more than one world, and we may add to it those things which enhance our personal strengths and serve our ends. It attracts otherworldly beings sympathetic to both sides, as well as neutral spirits who may be swayed by the course of the action. Voices and sights may pass through it, and it serves as a secondary, supportive point of manifestation to whatever the opening or closing object may be. Customarily, we all bring something to feed it, and it interacts with all of us throughout the ritual. I had urinated on one of our sticks, for example, several days earlier. There are times when players have been attacked by its flames; and I can recall an instance when one was defended by a sudden wall of fire it issued. It is also good for disposing of evidence. It comes in handy on particularly cold nights, too.

This passage always reminds me how tremendously influential Roger Zelazny has been on the way that I think and write. I encountered his works at the point in my life when I was deciding the person I would be as an adult, and the line I bolded (edit: now actually bolded), which is characteristic of his writing, always struck me as particularly brilliant. Zelazny was superb at understanding the intersection of the magical and mundane, and thereby investing his works with verisimilitude. The most beautifully realized fantasy world is great, but it's only half the story. If you want me to believe in it, the way I do with Lonesome October, it has to be grounded in the real world.

The participants position themselves, and Jill shows up and joins the circle. Snuff and Gray converse, Gray tells them that they raised an objection to Lynette's sacrifice, but they were overruled. Gray asks how they'll know when it's time to begin, and Snuff replies, "When we can talk with the people." So it looks like I was wrong about that, and all the familiars share the same midnight to one window for conversation.

"Jack, can you hear me?" I called.  

"Loud and clear, Snuff. Well-met by moonlight. What's on your mind?" 

"Just checking the time," I said. 

Suddenly Nightwind was talking to Morris and MacCab, Tekela to the vicar.

(Though it seems somehow wrong that a reference to a quote from Oberon occurs outside the Amber books). The players begin readying their gear, and then there is another arrival.

Then the moon went out. We all looked upward as a dark shape covered it, descending, rushing toward us. Morris shrieked shrilly as it fell, changing shape as if dark veils swam about it. And then the moon shone again, and the piece of midnight sky which had fallen came to earth beside Jack, and I saw that vision-twisting transformation of which Graymalk had spoken, here, there, a twist, a swirl, a dark bending, and the Count stood at Jack's side, smiling a totally evil smile. He laid his left hand, the dark ring visible upon it, upon Jack's right shoulder. 

"I stand with him," he said, "to close you out." 

Vicar Roberts stared at him and licked his lips. 

"I would think one of your sort more inclined to our view in this matter," the vicar stated. 

"I like the world just the way it is," said the Count. "Pray, let us begin."

I love that passage. The Count gets barely more exposure that Rastov or Owen, but his passages are some of my favorites. (Probably, at least in part, because he's used so sparingly.)

They begin, Larry appears, darts in and begins pulling Lynette away with the same method he employed with the constable's corpse. Before he can get far, however, the vicar shoots him with a silver bullet. When Larry drops, the vicar orders Morris and MacCab to put her back to the altar. This is obviously not the Count's first rodeo, as he objects.

"Stop!" the Count said. "Players are forbidden to move a sacrifice once the ceremony is in progress!" 

The vicar stared at him. Morris and MacCab halted, looked back and forth from the vicar to the Count. 

"I never heard of such a restriction," the vicar said. 

"It is a part of the tradition," Jack stated. "There must always be a small, even if only symbolic, exit open to a sacrifice in this. They may go as far as they can. They may be stopped. The place where they fall becomes the new altar. Do otherwise and you destroy the pattern we have created. The results could be disastrous." 

The vicar pondered for a moment, then said, "I don't believe you. You're outnumbered. It's a closer's bluff, to make things more awkward for me. Morris! MacCab! Put her back!" 

The Count stepped forward as they advanced. 

"In a case such as this," he said, "the opposing parties are permitted to resist the desecration." 

I heard heavy, clumping footsteps in the distance, but they seemed to be passing the hill rather than approaching it. 

Morris and MacCab had hesitated but then they moved forward, reaching for Lynette. 

The Count flowed forward. No single limb seemed to stir, but suddenly he was there beside them. Then he raised his arms, out to the sides, his cloak dependent therefrom; and he moved them forward, completely engulfing the men within its folds. He stood thus for only an instant, arms across his chest, before a succession of snapping sounds could be heard. 

He opened his arms and they fell to the earth, to lie at odd angles, blood emerging from their ears, noses, and mouths. Their eyes were wide. They did not breathe. 

"You dare?" the vicar cried. "You dare to touch my people?" 

The Count turned his head slowly, raising his arms again. 

"You presume," he said, "to address me so."

The interesting part of that, to me, is that the salient point seems to be that players are forbidden to move the sacrifice. Larry was working very closely with the closers throughout October, and he was influential enough that Snuff considered him a player for the purposes of calculating the site of the ceremony. However, since he didn't meet the criteria of a player for the purposes of the Game, he wasn't bound by the restrictions placed on players either. Is there any reason for players NOT to have at least one such unofficial cohort, exactly for situations such as this?

The Count advances on the vicar, but the vicar casts something towards him that causes him to stop.

"Dirt from one of your own caskets," the vicar replied, "mixed with pieces of my church's altar stone relic, left over from more papish times. Fingerbone of St. Hilarian, according to the records. You require your consecrated soil, but overconsecration is like the difference between a therapeutic and a debilitating dose of strychnine. Do you not agree?"

I like this a lot. I believe it's something the vicar improvised, because vampires have a large number of easily exploitable weaknesses, and there is not a lot of point of whipping up some ridiculous Rube Goldberg anti-vampire powder when you could simply use one of them instead. In my head-canon, the vicar had no reason to suspect that the Count would be returning, and had prepared the superconsecrated dirt to employ in the Game, and happened to have it on hand when the Count arrived unannounced.

Here's a link to St. Hilarian, who was a real Saint, but of no special significance to Halloween.

This encounter served as a distraction to allow the Great Detective to complete Larry's task, and slip away with Lynette. When the vicar notices she's gone, his first act is to blame Jill, which cements him as a dickhead.

The players undergo several transformations. Snuff had been hearing heavy footsteps throughout the night, and as Jill and Jack ready their wands, the experiment man lumbers up to them and scoops up Gray, despite her protests, and settles down to pet her. ("Pret-ty kit-ty.") Snuffs observes tentacles within the gateway. He hears Bubo's voice observing that things aren't working out quite as he intended. Snuff asks him what he means.

"I fixed it so they'd defeat themselves after they'd disposed of you," Bubo said. 

"How?" 

There were great masses of tentacles now, all of them writhing toward the Gateway. 

"I sneaked about last night," Bubo said, "and I switched the wands." 

I seemed to hear the odd sounds of a cat's laughter. It's so hard to tell when they're smiling. The old cat hadn't been telling me to fetch a stick. . .

Carpe baculum: Seize the wand.

I sprang into the air, catching it in my teeth, twisting it out of Jack's grip. I could see the astonished expression on his face as I did so.

Larry leaps at the vicar, which carries them both through the gateway. Jack chucks the wine bottle containing the slitherers after them, ( "Any port in a storm," he observed) and then it's over. The closers have won again.

The book ends with

Jack and Jill went down the hill. Gray and I ran after.

Which is wonderful. (Zach Shephard calls back to it with his own Lonesome October story, something I very much appreciated)

Final thoughts: I'm surprised that there were as many survivors and potential survivors as there were. Zelazny remarks in the Introduction to 24 Views of Mount Fuji that others had observed that he rarely kills his characters, and he said he wrote that story in part due to that, as well as the observation that he rarely wrote female characters. I never thought about that tendency one way or the other, though, though I do note that it's in evidence here. The Count survives, the Good Doctor probably did, even Tekela gets away. I'm not complaining (indeed, that happens to be my preference as well)

The whole book is outstanding. I've said that before, and I'm running out superlatives to describe it, but it's great. All of it. The concept, the plotting, the dialogue, the pacing, the fakeouts, the writing, it's difficult to pick out what I like best about it. Roger Zelazny is at the top of his game, and every one of those elements combines and synergizes with the rest to make A Night in the Lonesome October a Halloween classic.

October 30: A Night in the Lonesome October-fest

Snuff opens the chapter by telling us that there is not a great deal to the day before Halloween in the years the Game is held. He gives an account of the building and function of the banefire:

There was not a great deal to do today. And tomorrow will likely be the same. Till night. Those of us who remain will gather atop the hill at midnight. We will bring kindling, and we will cooperate in the building of a big fire. It will serve as illumination, and into it will be cast all the bones, herbs, and other ingredients we have been preparing all month to give ourselves an edge and to confound our enemies. It may stink. It may smell wonderful. Forces will wrestle within it, play about it, giving to it a multicolored nimbus, and occasionally causing it to produce musical sounds and wailings amid its crackling and popping.

He goes into a bit more detail and concludes with the outcome.

Disasters may follow. Players may fall, or go mad, catch fire, be transformed. The Gateway may begin to open at any time, or it may await the invitation of the Opening Wand. The resistance will begin immediately. The Closing Wand will be employed, and any ancillary forces that may feed it. Eventually, at the end of our exercises, which may take only a little while, though conceivably they could last until dawn (and in such a stalemated case, the closers would win by default), the matter will be decided. Bad things happen to the losers.

Snuff sets out to find Larry, to tell him about the Great Detective, as well as what the vicar has divined. He finds Larry drugged, meditating and unresponsive. Unable to give his message, he howls and departs.

October 29: A Night in the Lonesome October-fest

I believe this chapter is my friend Jen's favorite, and I can see why. 

     Following lunch at Jill's place, to which Bubo was also invited, having finally acknowledged Graymalk to be a cat of a different category, I took a walk back to the ruin of the Good Doctor's place.  The meal had had an almost elegiac quality to it, Jack having asked outright whether she'd consider switching, Jill having admitted to a conflict in her sympathies now, but being determined to play the Game through as she'd started.  It felt odd to be dining with the enemy and to care that much about them.  So I took a walk afterwards, more for something to do while being alone than for any pressing purpose.  I took my time in going.  The charred ruin still smelled strongly; and though I circled it many times, I could see no bones or other signs of dead humans within.  I wandered over to the barn then, wondering whether the experiment man might have returned to it to hide.

"Elegiac" is the adjective form of elegy. I don't know if I've ever seen it written down before. (Other than the two dozen or so times I've read it in Lonesome October, of course.) It refers to something that has the characteristics of an elegy, being mournful, melancholy and contemplative. 

I'm also pleased that the Good Doctor and his assistant might have survived. 

While investigating the barn, Snuff comes across Needle and learns a little bit

      "Now I've learned that the Good Doctor was never in it, I've found the point of manifestation, the big hill with the fallen stones."

   

   "Really.  Now that's interesting.  What else is new?"

 

     "Rastov and Owen are dead.  Quicklime and Cheeter went back to the woods."

     "Yes, I'd heard that."

     "So it seems someone's killing openers."

 

     "Rastov was a closer."

     "I think Owen talked him into switching."

     "No, he tried but he didn't succeed."

 

     "How do you know that?"

     "I used to get into Owen's place through Cheeter's attic hole and listen to them talk.  I was there the night before Rastov was killed.  They were drinking and quoting everybody from Thomas Paine to Nietzsche at each other, but Rastov didn't switch."

     "Interesting.  You sound as if you're still in the Game."

 

     There came a faint sound from below, just as he said, "Oh, I am, Get down!  Flat!"

 It's the vicar with his crossbow and he has Snuff dead to rights, but before he can execute him...

   And then there was a shadow in the doorway at his back.

  

  "Why, Vicar Roberts, whatever are you doing with that archaic weapon?" came the wonderfully controlled falsetto of the Great Detective in his Linda Enderby guise.

  The vicar hesitated, then turned.

   "Madam," he said, "I was about to perform a community service by dispatching a vicious brute which even now is preparing to attack us."

   

 I began wagging my tail immediately and put on my idiot slobbering hound expression, tongue hanging out and all.

    

 "That hardly seems a vicious beast to me," the voice of the lady stated, as the Great Detective moved in quickly, passing between the vicar and myself to effectively block a shot.  "That's just old Snuff.  Everybody knows Snuff.  Not a mean bone in his body.  Good Snuff!  Good dog!"

  The old hand-on-head business followed, patting.  I responded as if it were the greatest invention since free lunch.

    

 "Whatever made you think him antisocial?"

  

  "Madam, that was the creature that almost tore my ear off."

   

 "I am certain you must be mistaken, sir.  I cannot conceive of this animal as behaving aggressively, except possibly in self-defense."

  

  The vicar's face was quite red and his shoulders looked very tense.  For a moment I thought he might actually try angling in a shot at me, anyhow.

That's so wonderful. I think it's another one of those perfect passages, such as the ending of the chapter with the vivisectionists, where there's no way at all to improve it.

This is also the scene that makes me think that William H. Macy could do a good job as the vicar. As a friend noted, he'd have to gain weight for the role, but this scene makes me think of Macy's tantrum  Fargo, where he demolishes his office because he can't fleece the old couple. I could imagine him smothering impotent rage as the vicar, who really is a small, sad little man.

Unable to kill Snuff, he sulks off. The best part is when he tells Linda Enderby that he enjoyed the cookies she baked for him, and Linda asks him if his daughter also liked them, and you just know that he ate all the cookies himself. That cad! I think that's why he's such a great villain, because he's so petty in much of his villainy. 

After the vicar leaves, the Great Detective drops all pretenses and tells Snuff that he knows what's going on. Snuff plays dumb.

     I sat down and scratched my left ear with my hind leg.

   

  "That is not going to work with me, Snuff," he said.  "I know that you are not just a dumb dog, a subhuman intelligence.  I have learned a great deal concerning the affairs of this month, this place, the people engaged in the enterprise which I believe you refer to as 'the Game.'"

     I paused in my scratching to study his face.

    

 "I interviewed both the inebriated Russian and the equally distracted Welshman on their ways home from the pub one night, in my guise as a jovial traveler in commercial sales.  I have spoken with the Gipsies, with your neighbors, with all of the principals involved in this matter of purported metaphysical conflict, yes, I know it to be that, and I have observed many things which permitted me to deduce the outlines of a dark picture."

   

  I yawned in the rude way dogs sometimes do.  He smiled.

    

 "No good, Snuff," he said.  "You can dispense with the mannerisms.  I am certain that you understand every word I am saying, and you must be curious as to the extent of my knowledge of the ceremony to be conducted here on All Hallows' Eve and my intentions concerning it."

Snuff gives him the nod and the Great Detective outlines his intent. 

   

"...A great number of crimes have apparently been committed by nearly everyone involved in this 'Game,' as you call it.  Many of them would be virtually impossible to demonstrate in court, but I have neither a client who requires that I find a way of doing so, nor inclination to pursue such matters for my own amusement.  Technically, I am here only as a friend of the Yard, for purposes of investigating the likely murder of a police officer.  And this matter will be dealt with in due time.  Since my arrival in this place, however, I have been more and more impressed by the unusual goings-on, until, at length, largely because of Mr. Talbot's strange condition and that of the one known as the Count, I have become convinced that there is something truly unnatural involved.  While I dislike such a conclusion, recent personal experiences have also led me to accept its validity..."

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

I like the voice Zelazny gives the Great Detective. He tells Snuff that the vicar plans to sacrifice Lynette, but Snuff informs him, through letters in the dust, that Larry Talbot will be attempting her rescue. The Great Detective is still concerned, because he's not sure that Larry has his dosage down properly and might be mindless on the full moon, and the vicar also knows that there is a werewolf is involved, so he stole that the silver candlesticks back from Jean Valjean and melted them into silver bullets. He says that the only role he can see for himself is a backup for Larry, but that he needs to know where the ceremony will take place. And Snuff shows him. 

October 28: A Night in the Lonesome October-fest

Chapter 28 fills in a couple of the remaining blanks, as Bubo tells Snuff what he had learned of the Game when pretending to be a player.

And he proceeded to tell me the story of how a number of the proper people are attracted to the proper place in the proper year on a night in the lonesome October when the moon shines full on Halloween and the way may be opened for the return of the Elder Gods to Earth, and of how some of these people would assist in the opening of the way for them while others would strive to keep the way closed. For ages, the closers have won, often just barely, and there were stories of a shadowy man, half-mad, a killer, a wanderer, and his dog, who always showed up to attempt the closing. Some said that he was Cain himself, doomed to walk the Earth, marked; others said he'd a pact with one of the Elders who secretly wished to thwart the others; none really knew. And the people would acquire certain tools and other objects of power, meet together at the designated spot and attempt to work their wills. The winners walked away, the losers suffered for their presumption by a reaction from the cosmic principles involved in the attempt. Then he named the players and their tools, adding an awareness of the calculation, of divinations, of magical attacks and defenses.

My friend Frederick says that he thinks that Snuff isn't Jack's first familiar, that another died in some earlier game. That seems right to me somehow, the idea that Snuff is old, but Jack is older.

The chapter ends with the pair discussing this Game and Games gone by.

"I trust your instincts. We must be ready for anything. Too bad about Jill and Graymalk." 

"I've decided I will stay friends with them to the end," I said. 

He squeezed my shoulder. 

"As you would." 

"It's not like Dijon, is it?" I asked. 

"No. Many odd things have happened this time around," he said. "Stiff upper lip, friend." 

"That's how I smile," I said.

I like that passage, and the trust, respect and friendship that Jack and Snuff share, which Zelazny gets across with just a few lines.

October 27: A Night in the Lonesome October-fest

Gray is waiting for Snuff when he emerges through his doggy door. (And it occurs to me that this must be one big door, because Snuff is not a small dog). She tells him that the Good Doctor got burned out last night, and the pair head on over to investigate.

Snuff sniffs out Bubo, who flees into a crate.

"Remember what they say about cornered rats," he said. "We can be nasty." 

"I'm sure," I replied. "But what'd be the point? No one wants to hurt you." 

"You were chasing me." 

"I wanted to talk to you." 

"So you brought along a cat." 

"I can let you talk to her if you don't want to talk to me." 

I started to withdraw.

Bubo tells Snuff that the Good Doctor and the experiment man got in a fight. The experiment man smashed some equipment and sparks from this set the whole place on fire.

"Please," he said, "let me be. I'm just a simple pack rat. Snuff! Don't let her have me!"

"I've already eaten," she said. "Besides, I owe you courtesy as a fellow player."

"No you don't," he said. "It's over. Over."

"Just because your master is dead doesn't mean I should treat you as anything other than a player."

"But you know. You must know. You're toying with me. Cats are that way. I'm not a player. I never was. Have you really eaten recently?"

"Yes."

"That's worse then. You'll toy more."

"Shut up a minute!" she said.

"See? There goes the courtesy."

Heh. Bubo is fun. I don't like the speculate about what a writer might have been feeling, but I always imagined that the Roger Zelazny had enjoyed writing this book in general and dialogue like this in particular. His son Trent has an account of how the writing process went in his introduction to the Lovecraft Zine's second Lonesome October issue, and it turns out that he really did enjoy the process.

That really makes me happy, that something that's given me so much pleasure over the years was just as much fun for the author.

Bubo goes on to explain that he noticed the other companions all treated each other pretty well, so he decided to pretend to be in on the Game too. But the Good Doctor was never a player. It was entirely by coincidence that he was here. Now that Snuff and the other calculators know this, they can build their pattern without him and finally determine the center of the pattern.

Snuff is so pleased with this development, and moved by Bubo's plight that he offers the rat a place to stay.