The Concarnadine Chronicles #100 -- "Homage"
Title: "Homage"
'Fandom' :: The Concarnadine Chronicles
Claim: General; Characters
Prompt: #100 :: Author's Choice :: “Homage"
Word Count: c.2450
Rating: PG-13
Summary: You are invited to an evening with Concarnadine
Disclaimer: Various bits of this have been inspired by other, main-stream, works of art; due acknowledgement is paid in each case.
Author's Notes: This is a work of love, as yo can probably guess, and some people may be able to discern a message (or keyword) within it.
“Homage”
This was a special event: Concarnadine at the Durbar - the sort of event that drew attention these days, if only on account of the fact that, whereas he had formerly been resident there, doing around three shows a week, sometimes more, more recently the theatre had been used by other, younger or less-well-known magicians, whilst the principal tenant had been about other business.
And now, for one night, he was back, and the box office had been flooded: the staff outstanding in maximising the number who could get in for the performance, and (with help from Elizabeth) almost totally eliminating the touts who might otherwise unjustly have profited.
Rarely had the theatre been so full - not only was the balcony open but the heretofor-never-used side galleries had been spruced-up and offered, for those who would put up with the restricted view of the stage.
During the waiting time, while people got into the theatre, some of the students from the Academy wandered round the stalls gangways and the balcony doing off-the-cuff tricks, juggling coins and cards and distributing little souvenirs. Again and again it looked as if the show might be about to start and the audience tensed, before relaxing again as the house lights stayed bright. Little by little, however, the students withdrew and people sat up in anticipation. Every sound was interpreted as the opening of the show. Knowing what they did, however, the theatre staff were utterly unsurprised when Concarnadine strolled in through the vestibule doors and walked into the theatre from the back.
In seconds, however, the news of his arrival spread throughout the audience - all conversations ceased and every nerve was attuned to learning what he had in store for them, and why it was that he had chosen to enter among then, as it were, rather than on-stage.
Seconds passed, while everyone waited, until, with a sweeping gesture, Concarnadine swung his arms up, and (apparently from his shirtsleeves) swirls of bright-coloured fabric launched themselves into the air, to hang, draped, across the ceiling. Unspeaking, Concarnadine continued on to the stage. Steps spring from the orchestra pit front, and he climbed up then. And, as suddenly, they vanished again. Now, he turned, to face his audience and said, simply “Time was; Time is; Time will be.”
During the sudden black-out, the audience sat within to see what would happen next.
In the event, illumination returned courtesy of a quartet of standing lamps, at the corners of the stage, which spontaneously sprang to flambent light - or, in simpler language, suddenly ignited themselves, with Concarnadine standing calmly amid them, and then strolling forward to pluck some fire from one lamp, and begin to juggle it in his hands.
Meanwhile, Borin, dressed in stout leathers, and Elizabeth, in a functional overall suit, entered from the rear corners of the stage and placed four lengths of wood on the stage, to make a square frame about four feet on either side.
Elizabeth then went to fetch two tall mirrors whilst Borin brought out stout posts, about six feet high, which went into the corners of the frame, and then (with the help of two stagehands) brought out a six-foot-high wooden panel which he proceeded to attach to the rear pair of posts and the back of the frame.
None of this made sense, as yet, to the audience, but Concarnadine simply carried on - the ball of fire had turned in his hands to a flame-patterned silk scarf, out of which he had produced first a white dove, which he then changed to being flame-patterned itself (and the scarf white), before restoring its whiteness; then he turned the bird into the white scarf, and generated three rabbits (each taken away by Elizabeth, and each slightly bigger than the scarf itself), before pulling out a glass of water, emptying it over the nearer of the lamps, and then crossing the stage to pour a second glass of water (from the same, supposedly empty) glass over a second lamp (the first having, meantime, relit spontaneously).
Suddenly, he walked down to the front of the stage, swept his eyes across the audience, and raised a hand. “As you may have been expecting me to say, I need a volunteer from the audience.” Resolutely a young man in a rugby shirt and jeans stood up. “And here he is.” He handed the volunteer a long stick (which had, as seemed commonplace to him, come out of nowhere that his audience could think of) and invited him to check that there were no glass panels being surreptitiously installed in the framework on which Borin was still working. “Jab it in wherever you like, and you might just tap on the panels he has put in - not too hard, if you don’t mind: the paint’s gloss.” Another wooden panel had been fitted in, and the observant could see that they were painted an interesting intermediate shade of blue, neither a pastel nor yet a vibrant royal shade, somewhere in-between. “Now, if you’d just wave to everyone out there, to confirm that everything you saw is in order - thank you -- and you can keep the stick. Excellent.”
In short order, a third panel was fitted, making an open-fronted cabinet, and Elizabeth went down into the audience to check that, for some of them at least, the tall mirrors were correctly aligned so that they could (were they so minded) keep an eye on the back of the cabinet (Concarnadine conveniently walking behind it, to satisfy them that they were looking at the Real Thing.).
On cue, Borin turned aside from his construction work to bring out an ornate box, and once more a volunteer was solicited who, brought to the stage, confirmed that the box was indeed firmly locked, and its lid unmoveable, before being asked to hold the box out at arm’s-length whilst Concarnadine waved at it a small rod, about the size and shape of a screwdriver, which emitted a high-pitched whine.
No-one (given that this was a magic show) was completely surprised when the volunteer (a man who looked very like a bank manager) was then able to open the box. Excitement came when the opening of the box caused silks and spangles to erupt from its interior, spilling down round the man’s feet. When they’d finished, Concarnadine relieved him of the box (the small rod having disappeared again at some point) and gave him two silk scarves, before sending him back to his seat. Everyone applauded and Concarnadine paused in his show for long enough to acknowledge the attention. “And there’s more !” he warned them, however, and returned to centre stage, holding a carpet bag. Regular attendees at his shows at the Durbar knew what to expect and were not disappointed, as he produced, seamlessly, a series of items. The collection (passed to Elizabeth, who put them along the front of the stage) began with rabbits, passed through doves in little cages, moved away from livestock with a series of balls (with stands, so they didn’t roll away) and then on to ornaments - china and crystal vases and sculptures. However, it was soon clear that the larger balls and the china and crystal were of dimensions larger than the bag and when he started to pull out brooms, hat-stands, and a chandelier, no-one could have thought that this was a simple illusion.
At one point, Concarnadine even lifted the bag up with one hand, into mid-air, and pulled a lighted lounge lamp from it with the other, and managed to set the lamp down and connect the plug to a power cord Elizabeth brought, before the light-bulb went out.
“Logically,” Concarandine said, idly, to the audience, “that didn’t happen, because it couldn’t’ but, then, logically, most of magic won’t work because it depends on the impossible occurring, and on people ignoring that impossibility, in favour of the impossibility of their senses having been deceived.”
“Logically,” Elizabeth chimed in: “this can’t happen,” and she took the bag and thrust her arm into it, until, by rights, she should have been through the bottom.
“You can try this at home,” she added: “But don’t expect it to work.”
Through all of this, Borin had continued to construct the cabinet, bringing out two doors, which he hung on either side of the open front face of the cabinet. One by one he closed and re-opened them, but did so carefully, so as to ensure that one was always fully open, so that it could be seen that nothing was concealed within it. Repeatedly, he would tap each wall panel, as well, as though to confirm that it was still there. Concarnadine, meanwhile, was engaged in producing flowers from a series of smaller and smaller pots - each pot was removed from inside its predecessor (which was handed to Elizabeth, who stacked them onto a side table), and then flowers caused to pour from it. However, the detailed observer might have wondered how what began with bunches of daisies (tossed into the front stalls) so effortlessly progressed through roses and chrysanthemums to orchids and sheaves of honeysuckle, which logically would not had fitted into the palm-sized pots there were coming from. While he was doing that, Borin had been brought four lintels for the tops of the panels (and a step-ladder with which to reach to erect them). On finishing (with a torrent of brightly-coloured flowers, coming out of a pot about the size of a tea-cup), Concarnadine doffed his elegant opera-cloak, and went and helped, lifting the last two into place, for Borin to fasten with long pins. Once that was done, the stage-hands brought out a square roof, which magician and assistant slotted into place. Dramatically, Elizabeth brought something from the wings, and Concarnadine stepped inside the structure, to poke it through the roof - a round, blue, flashing light.
Raggedly, a ripple of applause ran through the audience: there was a realisation that, in some way, what they had seen going on in the background was significant - even, perhaps, a foretaste of what was to come.
After letting that run for a few seconds, Concarnadine signalled Elizabeth, stepped forward and said: “You’ll have to be patient. In the meantime, if three of you would like to step up - ” and he deftly selected the volunteers “ - we’ll see what we can do with something called the Cornucopia.”
Next up was a slightly jaded routine where Concarnadine, standing behind a small folding table and with three top hats, made rabbits appear and disappear, seemingly at will. Yet there was a sense that this was now merely using up time, until the climax of the show. Subtly, the balance of power had changed - Concarnadine had offered the audience a “future attraction”, and they were now with-holding the approbation to which he was entitled until he delivered on his promise. Second by second passed, and what applause there was was polite, measured, rationed. At length Concarnadine caused all five rabbits to vanish and then brought his hand down on the table, making it dematerialise as well.
“So, we come to the piece de resistance,” Concarnadine said, as Elizabeth brought out from the wings a seamstress’s dummy - headless, armless, a wicker frame on a swivel base. Adroitly, Concarnadine turned at exactly the right moment, to help her steer it into the cabinet, ad position it, dead centre. Then he took a walk round the cabinet, as if to emphasise that to secret passages had been smuggled in (even allowing for the mirrors that still reflected the back of the cabinet and the area around it), before returning to the front, and closing one of the doors, then reopening it, and closing the other - at no time did the audience, as an entity, lose sight of the dummy: some of them could see it all the time. “And now … ” he added, letting the second door fall shut, momentarily obscuring the cabinet’s interior for the first time. Neon lights flared up for a moment, illuminating the stage, making it clear that nothing was moving in the area around the cabinet; at the same time, there was a grinding noise from the cabinet, followed by a deep thrumming. Perhaps it was inevitable: the doors of the cabinet opened and a tall silver figure stepped out. It filled the doorway, well seven feel tall, and its face was an emotionless mask; it stepped forward, its footsteps echoing heavily, and raised its arms, as through to strike, until Concarnadine whirled up the opera-cloak he’d removed earlier, and cast it over the figure’s head. The cloak fluttered to the floor, seemingly erasing all trace of the silver figure.
Complete silence followed.
Ending in waves of thunderous applause.
None of which seemed specifically to reach Concarnadine - he whirled the cloak back onto his shoulders and took a bow or seven, but his face was impassive, his manner controlled, as though there were something about what they had just seen which his audience was missing.
Dramatically the grinding, groaning noise starts up again. In the flare from the neon lights, it suddenly becomes clear that the cabinet doors have closed again. Cabinet doors which are vibrating and shaking, and then are being thrust apart, and kept open. Kept open by a round suction-cup-like device on the end of a telescopic arm which is coming out, being followed by something like an upturned pepper-pot, with another arm alongside the first and an eye-stalk towards its domed top. Emerging, and advancing, the domed top turning, so that the eye-stalk can rake the audience with its imperious stare, the “body” following Concarnadine around the entire cabinet, exhibiting itself to every corner of the audience, making noise and moving things aside as t moves, making clear that it is truly there, not an illusion.. Nor is it an illusion when Elizabeth points for it to go back inside the cabinet, and it barely squeaks through the doorway. Silence, then Concarnadine just touches the cabinet, and the whole thing, until then solid as a rock, and containing something easily its own width, collapses like a pack of cards onto the stage, and then lies there.
Empty, untenanted, wood and board, perhaps three inches high in total.
Now, as they applaud again, Concarnadine smiles, throws his hands wide, bathes in their acclaim - he might have teased them earlier - building the cabinet and leaving it, not telling them that he would use it twice - but they don’t mind, and he doesn’t mind that he had to do it to them.
The theatre was quiet and empty when Elizabeth came back onstage to find Concarnadine standing there, looking out at the empty stalls.
“All done,” she said, then added, “and, by the way, you never did tell me what inspired all of tonight.”
“Let me tell you a story,” he said, putting his arm round her shoulders, “about something that started in 1963 - the night Kennedy died - ”
'Fandom' :: The Concarnadine Chronicles
Claim: General; Characters
Prompt: #100 :: Author's Choice :: “Homage"
Word Count: c.2450
Rating: PG-13
Summary: You are invited to an evening with Concarnadine
Disclaimer: Various bits of this have been inspired by other, main-stream, works of art; due acknowledgement is paid in each case.
Author's Notes: This is a work of love, as yo can probably guess, and some people may be able to discern a message (or keyword) within it.
“Homage”
This was a special event: Concarnadine at the Durbar - the sort of event that drew attention these days, if only on account of the fact that, whereas he had formerly been resident there, doing around three shows a week, sometimes more, more recently the theatre had been used by other, younger or less-well-known magicians, whilst the principal tenant had been about other business.
And now, for one night, he was back, and the box office had been flooded: the staff outstanding in maximising the number who could get in for the performance, and (with help from Elizabeth) almost totally eliminating the touts who might otherwise unjustly have profited.
Rarely had the theatre been so full - not only was the balcony open but the heretofor-never-used side galleries had been spruced-up and offered, for those who would put up with the restricted view of the stage.
During the waiting time, while people got into the theatre, some of the students from the Academy wandered round the stalls gangways and the balcony doing off-the-cuff tricks, juggling coins and cards and distributing little souvenirs. Again and again it looked as if the show might be about to start and the audience tensed, before relaxing again as the house lights stayed bright. Little by little, however, the students withdrew and people sat up in anticipation. Every sound was interpreted as the opening of the show. Knowing what they did, however, the theatre staff were utterly unsurprised when Concarnadine strolled in through the vestibule doors and walked into the theatre from the back.
In seconds, however, the news of his arrival spread throughout the audience - all conversations ceased and every nerve was attuned to learning what he had in store for them, and why it was that he had chosen to enter among then, as it were, rather than on-stage.
Seconds passed, while everyone waited, until, with a sweeping gesture, Concarnadine swung his arms up, and (apparently from his shirtsleeves) swirls of bright-coloured fabric launched themselves into the air, to hang, draped, across the ceiling. Unspeaking, Concarnadine continued on to the stage. Steps spring from the orchestra pit front, and he climbed up then. And, as suddenly, they vanished again. Now, he turned, to face his audience and said, simply “Time was; Time is; Time will be.”
During the sudden black-out, the audience sat within to see what would happen next.
In the event, illumination returned courtesy of a quartet of standing lamps, at the corners of the stage, which spontaneously sprang to flambent light - or, in simpler language, suddenly ignited themselves, with Concarnadine standing calmly amid them, and then strolling forward to pluck some fire from one lamp, and begin to juggle it in his hands.
Meanwhile, Borin, dressed in stout leathers, and Elizabeth, in a functional overall suit, entered from the rear corners of the stage and placed four lengths of wood on the stage, to make a square frame about four feet on either side.
Elizabeth then went to fetch two tall mirrors whilst Borin brought out stout posts, about six feet high, which went into the corners of the frame, and then (with the help of two stagehands) brought out a six-foot-high wooden panel which he proceeded to attach to the rear pair of posts and the back of the frame.
None of this made sense, as yet, to the audience, but Concarnadine simply carried on - the ball of fire had turned in his hands to a flame-patterned silk scarf, out of which he had produced first a white dove, which he then changed to being flame-patterned itself (and the scarf white), before restoring its whiteness; then he turned the bird into the white scarf, and generated three rabbits (each taken away by Elizabeth, and each slightly bigger than the scarf itself), before pulling out a glass of water, emptying it over the nearer of the lamps, and then crossing the stage to pour a second glass of water (from the same, supposedly empty) glass over a second lamp (the first having, meantime, relit spontaneously).
Suddenly, he walked down to the front of the stage, swept his eyes across the audience, and raised a hand. “As you may have been expecting me to say, I need a volunteer from the audience.” Resolutely a young man in a rugby shirt and jeans stood up. “And here he is.” He handed the volunteer a long stick (which had, as seemed commonplace to him, come out of nowhere that his audience could think of) and invited him to check that there were no glass panels being surreptitiously installed in the framework on which Borin was still working. “Jab it in wherever you like, and you might just tap on the panels he has put in - not too hard, if you don’t mind: the paint’s gloss.” Another wooden panel had been fitted in, and the observant could see that they were painted an interesting intermediate shade of blue, neither a pastel nor yet a vibrant royal shade, somewhere in-between. “Now, if you’d just wave to everyone out there, to confirm that everything you saw is in order - thank you -- and you can keep the stick. Excellent.”
In short order, a third panel was fitted, making an open-fronted cabinet, and Elizabeth went down into the audience to check that, for some of them at least, the tall mirrors were correctly aligned so that they could (were they so minded) keep an eye on the back of the cabinet (Concarnadine conveniently walking behind it, to satisfy them that they were looking at the Real Thing.).
On cue, Borin turned aside from his construction work to bring out an ornate box, and once more a volunteer was solicited who, brought to the stage, confirmed that the box was indeed firmly locked, and its lid unmoveable, before being asked to hold the box out at arm’s-length whilst Concarnadine waved at it a small rod, about the size and shape of a screwdriver, which emitted a high-pitched whine.
No-one (given that this was a magic show) was completely surprised when the volunteer (a man who looked very like a bank manager) was then able to open the box. Excitement came when the opening of the box caused silks and spangles to erupt from its interior, spilling down round the man’s feet. When they’d finished, Concarnadine relieved him of the box (the small rod having disappeared again at some point) and gave him two silk scarves, before sending him back to his seat. Everyone applauded and Concarnadine paused in his show for long enough to acknowledge the attention. “And there’s more !” he warned them, however, and returned to centre stage, holding a carpet bag. Regular attendees at his shows at the Durbar knew what to expect and were not disappointed, as he produced, seamlessly, a series of items. The collection (passed to Elizabeth, who put them along the front of the stage) began with rabbits, passed through doves in little cages, moved away from livestock with a series of balls (with stands, so they didn’t roll away) and then on to ornaments - china and crystal vases and sculptures. However, it was soon clear that the larger balls and the china and crystal were of dimensions larger than the bag and when he started to pull out brooms, hat-stands, and a chandelier, no-one could have thought that this was a simple illusion.
At one point, Concarnadine even lifted the bag up with one hand, into mid-air, and pulled a lighted lounge lamp from it with the other, and managed to set the lamp down and connect the plug to a power cord Elizabeth brought, before the light-bulb went out.
“Logically,” Concarandine said, idly, to the audience, “that didn’t happen, because it couldn’t’ but, then, logically, most of magic won’t work because it depends on the impossible occurring, and on people ignoring that impossibility, in favour of the impossibility of their senses having been deceived.”
“Logically,” Elizabeth chimed in: “this can’t happen,” and she took the bag and thrust her arm into it, until, by rights, she should have been through the bottom.
“You can try this at home,” she added: “But don’t expect it to work.”
Through all of this, Borin had continued to construct the cabinet, bringing out two doors, which he hung on either side of the open front face of the cabinet. One by one he closed and re-opened them, but did so carefully, so as to ensure that one was always fully open, so that it could be seen that nothing was concealed within it. Repeatedly, he would tap each wall panel, as well, as though to confirm that it was still there. Concarnadine, meanwhile, was engaged in producing flowers from a series of smaller and smaller pots - each pot was removed from inside its predecessor (which was handed to Elizabeth, who stacked them onto a side table), and then flowers caused to pour from it. However, the detailed observer might have wondered how what began with bunches of daisies (tossed into the front stalls) so effortlessly progressed through roses and chrysanthemums to orchids and sheaves of honeysuckle, which logically would not had fitted into the palm-sized pots there were coming from. While he was doing that, Borin had been brought four lintels for the tops of the panels (and a step-ladder with which to reach to erect them). On finishing (with a torrent of brightly-coloured flowers, coming out of a pot about the size of a tea-cup), Concarnadine doffed his elegant opera-cloak, and went and helped, lifting the last two into place, for Borin to fasten with long pins. Once that was done, the stage-hands brought out a square roof, which magician and assistant slotted into place. Dramatically, Elizabeth brought something from the wings, and Concarnadine stepped inside the structure, to poke it through the roof - a round, blue, flashing light.
Raggedly, a ripple of applause ran through the audience: there was a realisation that, in some way, what they had seen going on in the background was significant - even, perhaps, a foretaste of what was to come.
After letting that run for a few seconds, Concarnadine signalled Elizabeth, stepped forward and said: “You’ll have to be patient. In the meantime, if three of you would like to step up - ” and he deftly selected the volunteers “ - we’ll see what we can do with something called the Cornucopia.”
Next up was a slightly jaded routine where Concarnadine, standing behind a small folding table and with three top hats, made rabbits appear and disappear, seemingly at will. Yet there was a sense that this was now merely using up time, until the climax of the show. Subtly, the balance of power had changed - Concarnadine had offered the audience a “future attraction”, and they were now with-holding the approbation to which he was entitled until he delivered on his promise. Second by second passed, and what applause there was was polite, measured, rationed. At length Concarnadine caused all five rabbits to vanish and then brought his hand down on the table, making it dematerialise as well.
“So, we come to the piece de resistance,” Concarnadine said, as Elizabeth brought out from the wings a seamstress’s dummy - headless, armless, a wicker frame on a swivel base. Adroitly, Concarnadine turned at exactly the right moment, to help her steer it into the cabinet, ad position it, dead centre. Then he took a walk round the cabinet, as if to emphasise that to secret passages had been smuggled in (even allowing for the mirrors that still reflected the back of the cabinet and the area around it), before returning to the front, and closing one of the doors, then reopening it, and closing the other - at no time did the audience, as an entity, lose sight of the dummy: some of them could see it all the time. “And now … ” he added, letting the second door fall shut, momentarily obscuring the cabinet’s interior for the first time. Neon lights flared up for a moment, illuminating the stage, making it clear that nothing was moving in the area around the cabinet; at the same time, there was a grinding noise from the cabinet, followed by a deep thrumming. Perhaps it was inevitable: the doors of the cabinet opened and a tall silver figure stepped out. It filled the doorway, well seven feel tall, and its face was an emotionless mask; it stepped forward, its footsteps echoing heavily, and raised its arms, as through to strike, until Concarnadine whirled up the opera-cloak he’d removed earlier, and cast it over the figure’s head. The cloak fluttered to the floor, seemingly erasing all trace of the silver figure.
Complete silence followed.
Ending in waves of thunderous applause.
None of which seemed specifically to reach Concarnadine - he whirled the cloak back onto his shoulders and took a bow or seven, but his face was impassive, his manner controlled, as though there were something about what they had just seen which his audience was missing.
Dramatically the grinding, groaning noise starts up again. In the flare from the neon lights, it suddenly becomes clear that the cabinet doors have closed again. Cabinet doors which are vibrating and shaking, and then are being thrust apart, and kept open. Kept open by a round suction-cup-like device on the end of a telescopic arm which is coming out, being followed by something like an upturned pepper-pot, with another arm alongside the first and an eye-stalk towards its domed top. Emerging, and advancing, the domed top turning, so that the eye-stalk can rake the audience with its imperious stare, the “body” following Concarnadine around the entire cabinet, exhibiting itself to every corner of the audience, making noise and moving things aside as t moves, making clear that it is truly there, not an illusion.. Nor is it an illusion when Elizabeth points for it to go back inside the cabinet, and it barely squeaks through the doorway. Silence, then Concarnadine just touches the cabinet, and the whole thing, until then solid as a rock, and containing something easily its own width, collapses like a pack of cards onto the stage, and then lies there.
Empty, untenanted, wood and board, perhaps three inches high in total.
Now, as they applaud again, Concarnadine smiles, throws his hands wide, bathes in their acclaim - he might have teased them earlier - building the cabinet and leaving it, not telling them that he would use it twice - but they don’t mind, and he doesn’t mind that he had to do it to them.
The theatre was quiet and empty when Elizabeth came back onstage to find Concarnadine standing there, looking out at the empty stalls.
“All done,” she said, then added, “and, by the way, you never did tell me what inspired all of tonight.”
“Let me tell you a story,” he said, putting his arm round her shoulders, “about something that started in 1963 - the night Kennedy died - ”