Beneath Ceaseless Skies #173 Read online

  LADY CADENCE: (to WHITLOCK 3) You are raving! (She WRENCHES free of his GRASP and steps back from both WHITLOCKS.)

  WHITLOCK 2: I haven’t enslaved anyone! The alien race has already embarked!

  WHITLOCK 3: Not yet! Not after they meet you!

  LADY CADENCE: I utterly fail to comprehend.

  WHITLOCK 3: I invented a machine, Your Ladyship. A machine to traverse the corridors of time.

  LADY CADENCE: Impossible! But why?

  WHITLOCK 2: Don’t say it!

  WHITLOCK 3: To repair my frequent lapses in punctuality.

  JACQUENETTE: Milady!

  (LADY CADENCE silences her with a gesture.)

  LADY CADENCE: The effort seems excessive.

  WHITLOCK 3: Alas, the cure has proven worse than the disease. But in my travels I have learned that your path to happiness lies with this creature from the stars... Vril.

  (Off-stage, as before, are heard rhythmic cries of ‘Vril, Vril, Vril!’)

  LADY CADENCE: Why do they chant his name?

  WHITLOCK 3: Because he annihilates all who dislike him.

  LADY CADENCE, JACQUENETTE, and WHITLOCK 2: What?

  WHITLOCK 3: He believes our village is the whole of our Earthly race! If we assure him he is universally belovèd, Your Ladyship, he will depart once more to the heavens. With you.

  LADY CADENCE: How can you sacrifice me to this monster?

  WHITLOCK 3: Sacrifice? On the contrary! You love him! He has feelings! He broods!

  LADY CADENCE: He broods? A loathsome reversion to adolescence!

  WHITLOCK 3: That’s not what you said twelve hours from now!

  WHITLOCK 2: You’re mad, Whitlock. Lady Cadence would never stoop to greet such a fiend, much less grant him her affection.

  WHITLOCK 3: You haven’t heard her after she meets him!

  WHITLOCK 2: But that hasn’t happened yet!

  WHITLOCK 3: It’s happened to me!

  LADY CADENCE: Stop talking to yourself!

  WHITLOCK 2: I won’t be tyrannized by time, Whitlock-from-twelve-hours-hence! I have conquered time for her sake. (WHITLOCK 2 takes her HANDS.)

  RECITATIVE

  (triumphant chant)

  WHITLOCK 2:

  My lady, if indeed a fiend will soon, by some preternatural power, darken your heart, allow me to use these last few moments of light to offer you my own.

  (WHITLOCK 2 kneels before LADY CADENCE.)

  JACQUENETTE: (chants) Oh, milady!

  LADY CADENCE: (chants) I accept.

  WHITLOCK 3: (speaks) What? But you said—that is, you will say—

  (The VRILLIANS march on-stage, as before, followed by the VILLAGERS and led by the singing VRIL.)

  SONG—VRIL

  VRIL:

  Vril! Vril! Vril!

  VRILLIANS:

  Vril!

  VRIL:

  We cry in voices—

  (He sees LADY CADENCE and shrieks in surprise.)

  VRIL: What is this? What strange admixture of desire, wonder, desire...

  WHITLOCK 3: (aside) Not again.

  VRIL: (frowning at WHITLOCK 2) ...and what minion dares to obstruct the object of my attraction?

  WHITLOCK 3: Your pardon, sir. Allow me to introduce... myself. (He gestures to WHITLOCK 2.)

  VRIL: A duplicator! What foul sorcery is this?

  WHITLOCK 3: (aside) A ‘duplicator’? A-ha!

  WHITLOCK 2: It’s not a ‘duplicator’, you purple prince of preposterous—

  WHITLOCK 3: What perspicacity, Your Excellency! A ‘duplicator’ indeed! And imagine if my humble device were employed upon... yourself.

  WHITLOCK 2: (aside to WHITLOCK 3) What are you doing?

  RANDOM VRILLIAN: Our joy would be doubled!

  RANDOM VRILLIAN 2: Squared!

  VRIL: No, you cretins! Swayed by my duplicate’s overpowering rhetoric and charisma, the multitude might prefer him!

  VRILLIANS: Never!

  VRIL: Silence! I cannot risk such a loss to all the worlds! Come, my Vrillians! Let us leave this dangerous orb at once!

  VILLAGER 1: (aside) O rapture!

  WHITLOCK 2: (to WHITLOCK 3) We’re brilliant!

  WHITLOCK 3: (to LADY CADENCE) Quick! I insist you go with him!

  VRIL: As do I.

  LADY CADENCE: Mr. Cartwright! I have canonically and definitively requited your love!

  WHITLOCK 3: But only because I circumvented the truer passion you would have conceived for Vril under the correct conditions!

  VRIL: For instance, seeing me.

  LADY CADENCE: Spare me this torturous paroxysm of conscience! Do you love me or not?

  WHITLOCK 3: Of course! I already told you!

  WHITLOCK 2: No, I did!

  WHITLOCK 3: But how can you enter wedlock with a Whitlock when a Vrillian grips the key to your heart? You told me! You love him!

  OLD BEGGAR WOMAN: (in a younger voice) To be frank—I may have exaggerated my affection.

  (The OLD BEGGAR WOMAN throws off her shawl, revealing LADY CADENCE (henceforth, ‘LADY CADENCE 2’). At the sight of a second LADY CADENCE, VRIL cries out and recoils, only to behold WHITLOCK 1 entering from L. of stage with his customary tardiness.)

  VRIL: Vrillians! To me! Already their vile duplicator vomits forth additional insidious spawn!

  SONG—VRIL

  (urgent)

  VRIL:

  I’ll gather my Vrillians,

  And leave these civilians,

  Whose world makes me wince with concern.

  Within our own vessel,

  We’ll cosily nestle,

  To leave and to never return!

  (VRIL and the VRILLIANS exeunt with dispatch.)

  VILLAGERS: Huzzah!

  WHITLOCK 3: (to the CADENCES) But why have you both forsaken your brooding prince?

  LADY CADENCE 2: As it happens, O most insufferable Whitlock—

  LADY CADENCE 1: (to LADY CADENCE 2) My dear, before you begin, a wisp of that dreadful cloak still clings to your hair. (She brushes away the offending DETRITUS.)

  LADY CADENCE 2: Thank you, my dear. (They KISS each other’s CHEEKS.)

  WHITLOCK 1: Lady Cadence, you’re calling me ‘Whitlock’.

  LADY CADENCE 2: My dear man, you have already professed your love multiple times, in both the past and the future. I believe I am entitled to your praenomen.

  WHITLOCK 1: (stunned) Take it. With my compliments.

  WHITLOCK 3: When did I profess my love in the future? You professed your love for that alien potentate!

  LADY CADENCE 2: How you do harp on that minor misunderstanding! The correct question is not when in the future but in which future.

  WHITLOCK 1: Which future?

  WHITLOCK 3: I confess, Lady Cadence, I share my confusion. Perhaps you could use an analogy from Geometry?

  LADY CADENCE 2: Once and for all, I loathe Geometry.

  (All three WHITLOCKS gasp.)

  LADY CADENCE 1: Quite.

  JACQUENETTE: (aside) But the mathematics are such the delight!

  LADY CADENCE 2: However, one could conceive us each as traversing an independent, though often intersecting, ‘vector’ of chronology.

  ALL WHITLOCKS: Ahh!

  LADY CADENCE 2: Do you recall when Vril’s minions dragged you to prison?

  WHITLOCKS 1 and 2, LADY CADENCE 1, and JACQUENETTE: Prison?

  WHITLOCK 3: Indeed.

  LADY CADENCE 2: Your original vector led not to release at my hands, but to a final appearance at the Court of Vril.

  WHITLOCK 3: His Court?

  LADY CADENCE 2: Due to redecorations of his star vessel, necessitated by our impending nuptials, he had temporarily established his Court in my parlour, to the great detriment of my ancestral carpet.

  JACQUENETTE: Ah, no!

  LADY CADENCE 2: When he gave you one last chance to grovel, you instead professed your love for me.

  WHITLOCK 3: I have no memory of this.

  LADY CADENCE 2: I shall never forget it! It was most aff
ecting. A woman could scarcely ask for a more romantic declaration. Of course, you were promptly disintegrated, which somewhat lessened my elation.

  WHITLOCK 3: How unfortunate!

  LADY CADENCE 2: That night, seeking some appropriate and tasteful memento of your person, I slipped out to your workshop. There, I discovered your device. With it, I returned to the past, intersected your vector several hours before your execution, and released you from your cell.

  WHITLOCK 3: Of course! In the prison, you spoke of my machine! But why the pretence of such a monstrous affection?

  LADY CADENCE 2: Since I had precluded your future declaration in the face of death, I felt that a certain... urgency... might encourage a similar declaration in your cell. Alas, I miscalculated, and I fled in confusion. But on consideration, I resolved that, if I could not win your open affection, I could at least return to this temporal juncture and ensure the departure of those odious Vrillians.

  (WHITLOCK 3 takes the hands of LADY CADENCE 2.)

  WHITLOCK 3: Oh, Your Ladyship.

  LADY CADENCE 2: (softly) Cadence.

  LADY CADENCE 1: Yes?

  (WHITLOCK 3 bends to kiss LADY CADENCE 2. WHITLOCK 2 kisses LADY CADENCE 1.)

  WHITLOCK 1: And what of me?

  JACQUENETTE: Monsieur Cartwright—

  WHITLOCK 1: Not a chance.

  (The VILLAGERS lock ARMS around the COUPLES and sing.)

  FINALE

  (with finality)

  VILLAGERS:

  Osculation confirms that these Loves must be True!

  With relief, we’ll avert this device’s début—

  WHITLOCK 3: (to LADY CADENCE 2) But if no one invents the Punctuality Machine in the future, we won’t be together now!

  WHITLOCK 2: You’re already together now! If a full repetition of events is required, what of your disintegration?

  WHITLOCK 3: You were the one disintegrated—

  (Both CADENCES kiss their WHITLOCKS quiet.)

  WHITLOCK 1: (aside) Ah! What man of honour can but rejoice, to see his lady doubly beloved? And by suitors so superb!

  (With a happy SHRUG, he joins the CIRCLE of spinning VILLAGERS as they finish the SONG.)

  VILLAGERS:

  For cantankerous chaos will always ensue

  When attempting a tempting temporal redo!

  FINIS

  Copyright © 2015 Bill Powell

  Read Comments on this Story on the BCS Website

  Bill Powell lives in the scenic Shenandoah Valley of not-quite-Northern Virginia, where he eats and breathes regularly. He's currently writing comedy masquerading as a self-help blog at RichSkinnyWise.com. Visit him online at billpowell.org.

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  COVER ART

  “Twisted Mountain Valley,” by Christopher Balaskas

  Christopher Balaskas is an instructor at Infinity Visual and Performing Arts and a freelance traditional / digital conceptual artist. He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, and is currently based in Jamestown, New York. View more of his work at deviantArt and artstation.

  Beneath Ceaseless Skies

  ISSN: 1946-1076

  Published by Firkin Press,

  a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization

  Compilation Copyright © 2015 Firkin Press

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