Book One
BY
JONATHAN
COWEN
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RED & CYAN Š2013 Jonathan Cowen. All rights reserved. The events, characters and institutions presented in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental. No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means without written permission from the author, except in the case of short excerpts as part of a review. Digital printing June 2013.
Prologue: Whispers in the dark
My name is Alice. I am dead; be sure of that.
I died long ago, maybe seventy years, if counted.
What occurred is still a mystery,
and all who have investigated have failed to find my body. I have tried to tell them, but no one living will listen. For after all, I am a ghost, and who listens to ghosts?
My dear little brother is my last living relative, and I watch over him constantly. He is now very old, and very ill. I feel so guilty.
Alice...?
The more ill he becomes, the more torture he feels not knowing.
Every night in his sleep, he asks the same question‌
Alice...
...why
did younot come
home?
...I’ll find a way to tell you.
Wait a little longer for me, Robert...
This is the story of how I told.
Book One BY JONATHAN COWEN
Chapter one: The wager between an angel and a demon An angel and demon lived alone in a tower in the centre of London.
The tower was older than the city of London, and the angel and demon were older than the tower.
They were older than memory, older than sin.
The angel was, like all angels tend to be: tall and handsome, with great golden wings. His name was Caius.
The demon was a snow white lady, with red flame eyes, and hair as dark as misery. She wore a ragged black dress and a horned mask of cyan, from which she took her name.
Caius guarded Cyan, for a reason long forgotten. The reason had been very important, that much he knew. Any other detail had long left his memory.
Caius spent much of his time in the tower looking out across the city, wishing for someone to visit him, trapped by his duty. Cyan, on the other hand, spent her time creating plans to escape, but nothing came to mind that would work. She also did not know why she was in the tower, for as she would often say:
If a demon is not up to mischief, then what is a demon for?
And so it was that they passed through eternity, both quite sad and forgotten, until one auspicious day, Cyan finally had an idea that might work. Let us make a wager.
She sprang to her feet and she said to the angel...
If I can lure someone to the tower to take my place, you let me go. If I fail, I will forfeit my life, and then you will be free.
Cyan watched the angel consider the wager. His duty was to keep her locked up, Cyan knew that, but Caius had changed, she could see it in his eyes. He was waiting to crack.
Agreed. But, I doubt you can do it. We live in the dreams of London. No one will answer your call.
Cyan smiled a wicked grin, and her eyes burned a deeper darker red, and simply said...
...’tis my wager to make.
I will give you three days’, and if by that time you have not brought someone to the tower... ...you must die.
That night, while Caius was on his balcony watching the people of London sleep, Cyan called to the ghosts of the city. Her call was the sound of the wind and rain.
It seeped into the cracks, and the gaps, and the crooked places where ghosts dwell.
When a church bell struck the hour of twelve, I appeared outside Cyan’s window.
Why have you called me here?
I have a message I wish you to carry.
A message? Why should I carry a message for you, Demon?
My name is Cyan, Ghost. What is yours?
Alice. Because, Alice, if you do this for me, I will owe you a favour. A favour is a very rare thing indeed, don’t you think?
I nodded in agreement.
I have only one wish, Cyan.
I wish to talk to my brother, explain why I did not come home‌
He is eighty years old now, and very frail. Time is short.
Deliver my message, and I will grant your wish. Cyan then passed me a thin piece of paper.
Upon it was scrawled, in swirling black ink, ‘Help me’. Is this all? Who is it for? It will do the trick, and you will know who it is for, Alice. Just wait and see.
I put the message in my bag, and floated off into the night.
I knew London well and had seen it change over the years, seen the city evolve and grow. I could fly its streets blindfolded, but, as I flew, I realised I didn’t know where I was going.
I floated to a stop in a quiet backstreet and took the message from my bag. The paper tingled in my hand with energy. I read the two words again, and wondered what I should do.
As I considered it, I heard a whisper. The words called to me in a language I did not understand.
The words incepted my mind, forming silhouettes, and imaginings — I shook my head trying to clear the thoughts that were not my own.
You don’t want me... I’ll find you someone soon. Save your charm for someone alive.
What is that, my love?
I turned to see a bedraggled spectre with a bloodied bandage wrapped around his head. His eyes were fixed and glazed.
Nothing, sir.
I must be going. Now steady on, young missy that there nothing made a noise. I heard it myself. Is that magic in your bag? I said, trying to fade into the dark.
He said, hitting me hard in the chest.
The man grabbed my arms and forced me to the ground. His grip was hard and painful. This man was a poltergeist, and poltergeists are the worst a ghost can be.
He flipped open a jagged switch blade. I lay sprawled on the floor, looking around for someone to help. There was no one, not a single spirit.
...when I have them too.
Just as his blade touched my cheek, my bag exploded with black flame knocking the spectre off his feet.
My word, your eyes are filled with magic. I’ll let you go...
I didn’t understand, at the time, what he meant. But I had no time to think.
The black flame swirled into a smoky shadow of Cyan, eyes blazing red, and angry.
Cyan’s shadow dragged the poltergeist up into the sky by his hair, then let him go.
As if treading water, the poltergeist tried to fly, but couldn’t.
Instead, he came plummeting back down.
That’s impossible.
Cyan’s shadow picked the poltergeist back up by his neck. His shock was visible.
Her voice was all crackle and echo, coming from a far, like an old radio not tuned in properly.
You shall not hinder this message.
The poltergeist twisted and slashed trying to escape, but try as he might he could not break the shadow’s grip.
The shadow began to laugh, and said:
Have you ever wondered if it were possible to die, twice?
The poltergeist’s answer was lost as he became engulfed in cyan flame.
I had never heard a poltergeist scream in pain before; the sound stabbed at my ears like a blade.
The poltergeist exploded into vapour, drifting into the night.
Cyan’s shadow turned to look at me,
and then flickered out, like a black flame in the wind.
I picked myself up from the floor and took to the sky: the sooner I got rid of this message the better.
But,
first I had to find a safe place to think.
I flew high into the clouds and the clouds welcomed me like a mother embracing a frightened child.
They covered me in secretive layers of white and grey, for ghosts and clouds are kin, and kin is always kin.
As I rested in their embrace I wondered where I would go. There was one place I knew. I liked to haunt a small church on a hill, just outside the city. An old priest lived next door to the small church, and he was the kindest man I knew. If anyone could please the message, he would.
The flight would be long so I asked the clouds for help.
Will you carry me north to the small church on a hill? Your protection would be a great help.
We will carry you north, and prote ct you, as best we can.
Now, the North wind, on hearing the clouds say this, became very jealous, for the North wind had loved a cloudscape in the summer, and had been rejected.
Why her, and not me?!
The North wind had been swirling and dancing across the country—as only the North wind can— and had been stopped in his tracks by the sight of a beautiful cloudscape. Grabbing the
cloud the North wind demanded, with gusto, that they be wed.
The cloud, calm and patient, said the North wind was too cold and harsh, and not marriage material. No wind that blew was bitterer than he. They would never be wed.
That summer the North wind tore down trees,
and ripped up roofs, and knocked down houses. Everyone, from sailor to tailor, said it was global warming, but if anyone knows anything, it was a broken heart that did the most damage.
So, the North wind blew hard,
The North wind called to his family to join him and strike me down: and I flew out of the clouds’ grip.
Blow, blow, thou wild winds: South, East, and West!
Freeze, freeze, this bitter sky. Teach this ghost a lesson. Show her we are gods!
The response was instant, oh yes, with fury they did respond.
They trapped me in a terrible tumble where there was no escape.
Their assault was as ferocious, and as uncontrollable, as their legend would have you believe.
The clouds called for mercy, afraid I would be ripped to shreds. The winds did not listen; instead they lashed out the harder.
As the storm expanded and ballooned it quickly swallowed up a small flock of birds: Three swallows—swallowed swallows is indeed funny, but that was the case.
They were on their way south when they were scooped up and dragged into the storm, and soon they tumbled along with me.
Upon seeing me it became quite clear to the swallows that this was not an ordinary storm.
You should not fly so high, if you cannot be friends with the wind, young lady.
Another swallow cried more kindly: We are off to the pyramids, will you not join us?
She is be being torn apart by the wind, The third swallow replied:
she cannot fly to Egypt if she cannot stay in one piece.
The winds struck me again, swift and hard, and I strayed into darkness‌
Cyan, high on the roof of her tower, looked out across the London skyline, towards the commotion in the sky. Others were watching too, but I will not speak of them yet. Cyan, however, could not believe her eyes...
That ghost just attracts trouble.
To Be Continued‌
Afterword A
F
T
E
R
W
O
R
D
“We live in the dreams of London,” says Caius to Cyan, in the first issue of Red & Cyan. This is very true for me, Red & Cyan has lived in my dreams for a very long time, since 2009, and it has taken many shapes. It first existed as a film script; I
I LIKE
recorded Red & Cyan as an extremely cheap ten minute film with friends back in 2009. I did it because I had become addicted to watching movie documentaries, and I wanted the chance to make a film of my own. It was fun to do, but I felt we
U SI NG OIL
didn’t have the budget, or time, to do it justice. I then set about writing a novel, using my Red & Cyan script as a starting point. This novel has had many rewrites, and as I wrote the story, I found I wanted to illustrate it too. So, my novel turned
PAI NT F O R M AN Y
into an illustrated book, but really this path was only heading in one direction. My path was taking me back to comic books, a medium I had always loved but had avoided for some time. The Red & Cyan comic book is now quite far removed from my original screen play, but it has evolved into something I am extremely happy with. I hope you enjoyed this first instalment.
RE ASON S ,
Creating the artwork for Red & Cyan I used a mix of pencil, ink, oil paint, and Adobe Creative Suite. I think digital art is very useful, and I used it sparingly, but I
BU T T H E M AI N ON E
wanted to use traditional methods as much as possible. I needed to make a mess, and then scan in what I had done (the only downside was waiting for the paint to dry). I like using oil paint for many reasons, but the main one is it just looks cool. I didn’t break down my novel like a traditional page-by-page script; I just took my novel and intuitively felt how the pages would look. I created individual paintings
IS IT JUST
and modelled the pages on screen, reshaping constantly, and shifting art from one page to another. I edited as I went too, and I found this way of working helped fine tune what I had already written.
LO OK S COOL .
Red & Cyan has been influenced by many things, and it is hard for me to pin down where the comic book story really came from. I think this picture of Cyan and Caius pushed me to tell the tale. It was fun to create a fantastical world where they existed. I also think there are some real human subtexts going on in this fairy tale… Well, I hope there is. Maybe you are sharp enough to spot them? But, essentially this is a story about love - the love for family, the love that is unrequited, and the love that can’t be diminished. But, you will have to wait and read the future issues of Red & Cyan to understand what I mean. I would like to thank everyone who has supported me in this project. Red & Cyan is dedicated to Rebecka and The Real Bob Hund. Chat soon, Jon Twitter: @joncowen
Soundtrack to Red & Cyan: Goat If you haven’t already seen it, you should check out our Red & Cyan trailer on YouTube (youtube.com/vildltd). Goat, a mysterious Swedish group, let us use one of their songs for the trailer, and you really need to hear their debut album World Music (out now on Rocket Recordings). I saw Goat play a gig in Malmo, and I really didn’t know what to expect. When they came on stage they surprisingly all wore masks, this did grab my attention, but I thought they would be just image and no substance. They then proceeded to play one of the most remarkable gigs I have seen in years: They were punk, they were psychedelic percussion, they were alien, and I had never seen anything quite like it before. Goat hail from a small remote village in the north of Sweden called Korpolombolo, where for centuries the inhabitants of the village were dedicated to the worship and practices of Voodoo. Goat is heavily influenced by the culture from their village, and they wrote a piece for qthemusic.com to explain their music: ‘When we play music together we transform from being several single human units into one greater being. One collective mind and body free of references and labels not even striving towards any particular point or goal anywhere. Simply enjoyment of what is. Right now.’ We did email Goat some questions for this issue, but they are on tour in the US and are very busy. Hopefully we can bring you their answers soon via Facebook or in book two. Whether you believe their legend or not, Goat are a must-see band, and I can’t recommend them enough. goatsweden.blogspot.se
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