Introduction: Chasing the Penguin

I had the privilege of meeting the reclusive Edward Ives once, at a poetry reading at the University of Wisconsin in 1988. I spotted a tall, gaunt, silver-haired gentleman lurking in the corner by the refreshment table, glowering at the room and munching on crab puffs. He looked vaguely familiar, and it took some moments for me to recognize the face as the one featured on my dogeared copy of Monster Cottage Kill. Needless to say, I rushed over to say hello and shake the hand of one of my literary idols, perhaps the most elusive man of letters since J.D. Salinger.

Unfortunately, he saw me coming and immediately ran out of the room, throwing handfuls of crab puffs in his wake, I slipped on one such puff, and to make a long story short, I spent the next two weeks nursing a badly sprained knee.

I never saw Mr. Ives again.

Fast forward to Spring of 2002. Shortly after setting up Weirdsmobile Press, I received a call from Henrietta Marquez, head of the Memorial Library's Rare Book and Special Collection Division at the University of Wisconsin. Apparently a manuscript had turned up that had been verified as having been written by Edward Ives, sometime prior to 1960. This was exciting news indeed—not only was this a previously undiscovered Ives work, but it would be only the third such work known to exist, the others being 1970's Monster Cottage Kill and a small collection of poems published in 1985.

Naturally, it took me about eight milliseconds to offer to publish Ives's "new" novel, and luckily Ms. Marquez accepted my invitation.

Rather than publish the entire work at once, I decided to offer this novel for public consumption as it is edited, chapter by chapter. As you read Dark Penguin you'll see why, as the story—as different from Monster Cottage Kill as day is from night—lends itself to a serial format.

As to the novel's deeper themes and ultimate literary worth, I leave it up to future critics to decide. For myself, as a dedicated fan of Ives since my youth, it is a privilege and honor to present this lost work.

Mr. Ives, if you are out there somewhere, I hope you'll forgive my intrusion that day so long ago, and I forgive you for the sprained knee.

— B², November 2003

Prologue: Manakara, Madagascar

The afternoon was hot, muggy. The thick, humid air coiled around the Manakara marketplace like a python. Finlay sat at a patio table at the Café Miasme and fanned himself futilely with a folded newspaper. Damn that Matunde! Finlay thought. Where is he?

The weight of the satchel on Finlay's lap was beginning to hurt his legs. He wanted to place it under the table, but could take no chances. Inside were five bars of the Queen's own gold bullion, enough to purchase this bazaar and everything in it. And Finlay was neither a soldier nor one of Her Majesty's agents—merely an associate curator of antiquities at the British Museum.

This sort of cloak-and-dagger nonsense made Finlay intensely uncomfortable, and he looked forward to returning to the comforts of London. How anyone could live in the midst of such savagery was beyond him. Soon—though hardly soon enough by his reckoning—he would conclude his dealings with this vile African freighter captain, Matunde, and be rid of this burden on his lap, and he could spend the rest of his time in Madagascar safely ensconced in his hotel room.

"You Mistah Finlay?" came a voice from behind him.

Finlay turned to the source of the voice. "At last!" he muttered. "What kept you, Matun—" but it was not Matunde after all, but a wide-eyed young black boy, cradling a wooden box in his skinny arms. "Y-yes, I'm Finlay," he stammered, nonplussed.

"Man tell me to give this to you, you give me gold," the boy said nervously, extending the box to him with shaking arms.

Finlay took the box and set it on the table. He handed the satchel over to the boy. "Careful now," he said. "It's heavy."

"Yes, sah," the boy said, and grunted as he hefted the satchel onto his scrawny shoulders. "Thank you, sah." He turned and stumbled off into the marketplace crowd.

Finlay watched his departure with curiosity. The boy had seemed timorous, even frightened. Was it Matunde who had put the fear into him? Surely. How else would he have ensured that the boy would not disappear with his gold? Of course.

Thoughts of the boy and Matunde vanished as Finlay turned his attention back to the wooden box. Inside would be the artifact that the Museum and Her Majesty's government sought with equal vigor. The Dark Penguin. The key to the mystery that had eluded the Empire's finest minds for so many years. Finlay would be the first white man to even lay eyes on this object. The thought of it sent a shiver through his bones. That part of the glory would be his made the moment all the sweeter.

His fingers busied themselves untying the string that bound the parcel. The Dark Penguin. What would it look like? From its heft, it might be made of ebony, or even obsidian. Or perhaps, given its great value, it was carved out of a single jewel? Despite himself, Finlay found his excitement mounting.

He cast the string aside and pried open the lid. Finlay frowned as he peered inside. So fixed was his expectation that for a moment he did not recognize what he was seeing. Then his gaze met that of Matunde's sightless, bulging eyes, and Finlay gasped and recoiled, overturning his chair as he backed away from the table.

At that moment, the box exploded. Finlay knew nothing before the darkness but a momentary sensation of being buffetted by a desert sandstorm. And then he was gone, vanished in a cloud of heat and dust.