Mandrake Ackx
Mandrake Ackx is the bad guy in Napoleon Xylophone. Actually, he is half wyte, half changeling and 100% psychotic. Sometimes he is over seven feet tall and sometimes as small as a child. No matter his size, he always looks old and undernourished, like he is closer to being a corpse rather than being alive. Despite his appearance Ackx is full of energy. The supernatural atoms that make up his body generate far more powerful electrical currents than any man ever could. Ackx can focus this power and if he touches something - if he touches a person, the discharge is strong enough to fry that person into a blackened husk.
Being lord of the underworld beneath Newcastle has its responsibilities, but all Ackx is concerned about is talking to Time. He understands Time well, he has listened to its lament for over five hundred years and knows it is ready to hand over its responsibilities to someone else. Ackx wants to become that someone else so he can mould the world into a place where his psychosis rules unchallenged. Although he can hear time speak when he slips into a dream trance, he cannot speak to Time himself. If he could speak to Time, he is sure he would be able to convince it to relinquish its hold on the rhythm of life and hand over that responsibility to Ackx. All he needs to do is find someone capable of creating a device to speak to Time, someone like Eli Xylophone. In order to get Eli to work for him, Ackx has to enter the realm of man. He hates their world; it is too dry, even when it rains it is too dry for Ackx’s eyes. The only time he likes to walk there is at night. Especially when there is a meteor storm. He first met Eli at night, when Eli was a child. Ackx saw something in Eli and took him back to the underworld. He treated him like his own child. The children of the underworld are taught to be loyal to their parents. Underworld parents are not taught to be loyal or even kind to their children. Some underworld parents are naturally benevolent to their children, others are naturally cruel. If one of Ackx’s children disappoints him, then they are his children no more. When Ackx’s changeling son disappoints him, he kills the changeling in the only way a changeling can be killed. He cuts off his head. It doesn’t concern Ackx that he has lost a son, he can always make another child.
Being lord of the underworld beneath Newcastle has its responsibilities, but all Ackx is concerned about is talking to Time. He understands Time well, he has listened to its lament for over five hundred years and knows it is ready to hand over its responsibilities to someone else. Ackx wants to become that someone else so he can mould the world into a place where his psychosis rules unchallenged. Although he can hear time speak when he slips into a dream trance, he cannot speak to Time himself. If he could speak to Time, he is sure he would be able to convince it to relinquish its hold on the rhythm of life and hand over that responsibility to Ackx. All he needs to do is find someone capable of creating a device to speak to Time, someone like Eli Xylophone. In order to get Eli to work for him, Ackx has to enter the realm of man. He hates their world; it is too dry, even when it rains it is too dry for Ackx’s eyes. The only time he likes to walk there is at night. Especially when there is a meteor storm. He first met Eli at night, when Eli was a child. Ackx saw something in Eli and took him back to the underworld. He treated him like his own child. The children of the underworld are taught to be loyal to their parents. Underworld parents are not taught to be loyal or even kind to their children. Some underworld parents are naturally benevolent to their children, others are naturally cruel. If one of Ackx’s children disappoints him, then they are his children no more. When Ackx’s changeling son disappoints him, he kills the changeling in the only way a changeling can be killed. He cuts off his head. It doesn’t concern Ackx that he has lost a son, he can always make another child.
No comments have been added yet.
