The Map of Chaos by Félix J. Palma Read Free Book Online Page A

an antiques dealer, and yet, like everyone else, it suited them to pretend they didn’t. However, the cards were on the table now, and the Master of Imagination’s sudden display of honesty did not bode well. “The Church denounces me from its pulpits the world over,” Murray lamented, “and yet conveniently looks the other way, allowing my business to enjoy the necessary impunity. Indeed, it often does more than look the other way . . . But I’m fed up with being the Church’s scapegoat, and that of Cardinal Tucker and her entourage of putrid old fogies,” he declared in a sudden outburst of rage. “They need me because they desire the power I give them over the people, and the people need me because they desire the happiness I give them. And yet, to all of them I am undesirable ! The devil incarnate! Ironic, don’t you think?” he asked them, putting on a sickly-sweet smile.
    Wells swallowed hard. He no longer doubted that this scene was going to end badly for them, and yet he couldn’t help considering Murray’s impassioned speech with a sense of fascination, for what he had just said confirmed a surprising fact: the Church was covertly involved in the fairy dust industry. It was easy enough to go one step further and realize that the Church had devised a cunning plan to repress man’s imagination, the same way it had his capacity for love: it knew that preventing people from imagining would only make them want to imagine more, and so it had decided to make them doubt their capacity by creating a substance that artificially enhanced the imagination, and then making it illegal, so that it became at once fascinating and dangerous. Thus mankind had become addicted to fairy dust, convinced they needed it to be able to imagine, even though they had doubtless always possessed that gift. However, the Church still had to supply its devotees with the illegal substance, for it didn’t wish to eradicate entirely that quality in man, which, like love, could lead to Knowledge. Only in order to reap the benefits without losing control over its subjects, the Church had to transform it into a sordid, clandestine addiction. And that was where Murray, the Master of Imagination, came in: by having him traffic in the illegal substance, the Church remained untarnished. Murray wasn’t the first to have played that reviled but necessary role. The Church had produced other shadowy figures embodying everything that was despicable about the world, for each new generation. But it seemed Murray was to be the first to rebel against his fate.
    â€œI’m tired of doing the dirty work for that bunch of old busybodies,” Murray went on, “while they go around pretending to despise me. I’ve had enough of grinding up fairies with my pestle and mortar so the world can go on imagining.” He gave an embittered laugh. “I don’t want to continue being the Master of Imagination. I don’t want to be remembered as the villain of the story when I die. No, I can think of a far better sobriquet. I want to be remembered as the Savior of Humanity! Could there be any greater achievement?” He grinned, his eyes moving from Dodgson to Wells, then back to Dodgson. “So, Professor, despite all your wisdom, you are a complete fool if you think I am simply going to accept your money and discreetly step aside so that you can take all the glory. That’s not how the story is going to unfold.”
    Murray looked into his eyes, waiting for a response.
    â€œAnd h-how is it going to h-happen?” Charles replied at last.
    â€œI’ll tell you,” Murray said calmly, still staring straight at him. “It will happen like this: the eminent Professor Dodgson will blow his brains out on the afternoon of the fourteenth of January 1898—that is to say, this afternoon—after battling with depression for months, having been defeated in a crucial debate