The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

‘Take those things down!’ she screamed, standing on tip-toe, for she saw in the tail of her eye, a great wavering, semi-human bulk, that was even now as she watched it, breaking in half and turning as it collapsed, to show the long filthy hanks of hair, the mask with its dreadful pallor, lit by the flooding of the dawn, sink to the floor. Down came the others, that had so recently been the symbols of mockery and scorn. Some with their grease-paint dripping; the dusty remnants of blotched sawdust.

All at once a woman screamed, and as though this were a signal for release, a general cacophony broke out and a number of ladies grew hysterical, striking out at their husbands or their lovers.

Muzzlehatch, whose peroration had been interrupted, merely cocked an eye at the crowd, and then stared fixedly and for a long time at what was still dangling at the end of his arm. After a while he remembered what it was.

‘I was going to kill you,’ said Muzzlehatch, ‘in the way you kill a rabbit. A sharp stroke at the nape of the neck, delivered with the edge of the hand. I was even going to throttle you, but that seemed too good for you. Then there was the idea of drowning you in a bucket, but all these things were too good for you. You would not appreciate them. But I’ll have to do something about you, won’t I? Do you think your daughter wants you? Has she a birthday coming? No? Then I’ll take a chance, my little cockroach. Only look at her. Dishevelled and wicked. Look how she pines for him. Why, you’d take his nut for an onion. I must be rude after all, my sweet dangler, for you killed my animals. Ah, how they slid in their hey-day. How they meandered; how they skidded or leapt in their abandon. Lord, how they cocked their heads. Dear heaven! How they cocked their heads!

‘Once there were islands all a-sprout with palms: and coral reefs and sands as white as milk. What is there now but a vast shambles of the heart? Filth, squalor, and a world of little men.’

At the same moment that Muzzlehatch drew breath, Cheeta was seen to speed across the last few steps that divided her from Titus, like an evil thing borne on an evil draught.

Had it not been that with an unexpected agility, Juno leapt in front of Titus, he might well have had his face cut over and over by Cheeta’s long green nails.

Thwarted in her passion to leave her marks on Titus’ face, she howled in an access of evil as tears churned down her cheeks in channels of make-up.

For, no longer than it takes to tell it, Anchor had dragged both Titus and Juno out of reach of the malignant dart. Trembling, she stood and waited the next move, rising and falling on her tiny feet.

The dawn was now beginning to pick out the leaves from the trees of the surrounding forests and glowed softly on the helmets of the agents.

But Titus did not want to be hidden away behind the stalwart Anchor. He was grateful but angry that he should have been plucked backwards. As for Juno who had disobeyed Anchor – she was doing it again. For she also had no wish to remain in the shadow of her friend. They were too restless, too on edge to stand still. Seeing what was happening, Anchor merely shrugged his shoulders.

‘The time has come,’ said Muzzlehatch, ‘to do whatever it was we set out to do. This is the time for flight. This is the time for bastards like myself to put an end to it all. What if my eyes are sore and red? What if they burn my sockets up? I’ve bathed in the straits of Actapon with phosphorus in the water, and my limbs like fish. Who cares about that now? Do you?’ he said, tossing the bundle who was Cheeta’s father, from one huge hand to another. ‘Do you? Tell me honestly.’

Muzzlehatch bent down and put his ear to the bundle. ‘It’s beastly,’ he said, ‘and it’s alive.’ Muzzlehatch tossed the little scientist to his daughter, who had no option but to catch him.

He whimpered a little as Cheeta then let him fall to the floor. Getting to his feet, his face was a map of terror.

‘I must go back to my work,’ he said in that thin voice that sent a chill down the spines of all his workmen.

‘It’s no good going there,’ said Muzzlehatch. ‘It has exploded. Can you not hear the reverberations? Can you not see how ghastly is the dawn? There’s a lot of ash in the air.’

‘Exploded? No! … No! … It was all I had; my science, all that I had.’

‘And she was a lovely girl, I’m told,’ said Muzzlehatch.

Cheeta’s father, too frightened to answer, now began to turn in the direction of the foul light that was still angry in the sky. ‘Let me go,’ he cried, though no one was touching him. ‘O God! My formula!’ he cried. ‘My formula.’ He began to run.