Mists of Everness

by John C. Wright

  Oberon turned to Wendy and said, “Yield me the Silver Key, and I will destroy thine enemies, and mine, and drive Acheron down into the bottom of the sea. In Celebradon, guarded by silent angels, sleepers wait for this final battle. Will you not wake them now?”

  Wendy said, “No.” And she reached over and took the unicorn horn from his hand.

  “Mad girl! Will you choose destruction and war above peace and paradise?”

  Wendy smiled and laughed. “We’ll win our own war, thank you, and build our own Paradise as well, without giving up all our freedom to you, Oberon!”

  “Very well,” said the elf-king softly. “Yet I will allow you still to yield the Key to me once Acheron’s forces enter your homeland. You will have no choice then but to wake the sleepers. Robin! Bear this girl away to any boundary of my wide empire she desires, safely and without mishap.”

  A dark-skinned knight with an Oriental bow spoke up, “Why is the Key in her hands? Where is Galen Waylock?”

  With a rustle, a tall, green-skinned knight dressed all in green, with hollyhocks in the crest of his helm and bearing a great ax, stepped forward out of empty air. He answered the dark-skinned knight. “Galen Waylock is at the east gate, Arjuna. He bears the Bow of Belphanes. Raven the Titan’s son is there as well. He wears the Ring of Niflungar.”

  Oberon said, “What news, Sir Bertolak?”

  “Galen Waylock craves audience, good sire. But not with you; with the young princess here. He says he wishes to plead for her to extend forgiveness to his friend and savior, Raven, son of Raven, whom he excuses from any blame.”

  Oberon asked, “Why has the enemy not fallen on him?”

  “Lightning, thunder, and whirlwind protect them from the foe; and even fallen angels remember to fear the lightning that once blasted them from paradise down to hell.”

  The ground shook. Arms of flame came over the outer walls, and eerie music. Oberon said, “My court is not for lover’s trysts! War rears his head. Let loose the wild hunt! We will show the foe how the rose of Mommur has thorns! Lady? Are you not yet gone? Puck, if she will not choose a place to go, then throw her from the walls!”

  “I want to go to Everness,” said Wendy. For she was not quite sure whether she wanted to see Raven again or not.

  Puck said softly in her ear: “Then, milady, wake! The dream is done; the day is nigh to break!”

  And when she had vanished, Puck smiled and muttered, “Or is it that the storm is nigh to break?”

  Oberon said, “Go, herald, and tell the wizard called Azrael that the Key of Everness is no more within these walls.”

  And when, a few moment later, the skies grew clear, and the flames and roars and pure songs of the enemy had faded into silence, the knights of the faerie-court gave forth a cheer, and called for music; and a spring of wine came up from the grass at their feet in celebration, and blossoms from nearby bushes grew into chalices.

  Only Oberon looked grim. He was staring at the locked gates of gold between the pines, and he watched while the light grew dim, and the gates were hidden in deep shadow once again, invisible and lost.

  IV

  “My lord,” said Puck, “Will you not take cheer with us?”

  Oberon said heavily, “Let us gather our noble and august dead into the Cauldron of Rebirth that they may join us in our revelry on tomorrow’s dawn. And where is Tom Lanthorn? I want him brought to me.”

  But Tom was gone from the court of the faerie-king.

  14

  The Storm Gathers

  I

  Squad leader Gilbert Eckhart was miserable. He liked the uniform he had been issued, all black leather and bright polish, and he liked the feel and look of his weapon in his hand, a heavy, solid, and deadly M-16 with a slung M-101 grenade launcher beneath.

  He also liked being a member of one of Wentworth’s special fighting units. Eckhart hated his country and wanted to see it changed: and he was young and did not care how the change was made. Orders allowed them to take prisoners and hold them without charge, without warrant, without cause, for as long as they liked: and anyone deemed to be a danger was subject to summary execution. No complications, no mess, and, above all, no lawyers. What could be better? The elite squad was meant to act swiftly, with drastic and certain results.

  But here he was on a lonely road in upstate Maine, one of the hundreds of Wentworth’s units in the area, guarding some mansion some miles away. Swift? Drastic? He was sitting on his ass doing a whole lot of nothing.

  Somewhere there were riots going on. Somewhere there were units of state volunteers in open rebellion against the federal government. Somewhere there was action happening. Somewhere.

  Not here.

  The morning sunlight streaming through the leaves of early springtime did not lighten his mood. He sat on the hood of the Abrams M1-A1 tank that stood in the middle of this narrow country road, watching some of his men sleeping on the blockade of sandbags, and others arguing over a card game. He knew he should whip them into shape, call them back into order. But somehow, he didn’t have the heart.

  It was his friend, Sergeant Furlough. Furlough had been acting strangely. At first Eckhart thought it was a joke; that Furlough was playing some sort of mind game with him, trying to weird him out.

  Thinking that, Eckhart slid off the tank hull, landing upright on the road. He walked over to where Furlough was crouching on the pavement, staring off down the road, and sniffing.

  “Hey, Furlough, what’s up? What’ch going to do with your bonus money when it comes? I was going to go in town and find a fine woman and a keg, hey?”

  Furlow cocked his head sideways. “Ar! Aye, now, would ye be? But afore ye count yer gold, there’s something strange on the winds, ar! Har! Ho, hoy, me bucko! Something powerful bad dangerous I reckon!”

  At that point the radioman spoke up, shouting down from the back of the transport truck. “Squad leader, sir! Post Six just gave me a strange report!”

  Eckhart walked over, looking over his shoulder at his friend Furlough only once. Then he said, “What’s up?”

  The radioman’s name was Petroff. He was all spit and polish, upright of posture, and did everything by the book. He thought Elkhart ran a sloppy unit, and he did not bother to hide the sneer in his voice as he spoke: “Sir, Post Six just reported something broke through their perimeter. Sounded like they said it was an old goat in a wheelchair. Something like that.”

  “Huhn. That’s funny.”

  “Sir? Shouldn’t we go to general quarters?”

  “Uh. Yeah. I guess so.”

  Eckhart started giving out orders; the men listlessly moved to obey; the tank raised its cannon and pointed down the road.

  “This is stupid,” whispered Eckhart to himself. “Nothing can get through Posts Seven and Eight. They’ve got APCs and LAW rockets …”

  The radioman jumped up. “Sir! Post Seven has been hit! Post Twenty-two is under attack!”

  Eckhart said, “But—Twenty-two is on the road north of here. They’re coming in two different directions!” And he worked the action on his piece, a sudden, heady joy in his heart. Action at last!

  “Get ready, people!” he shouted. “Rebels coming!”

  One of the men laughed. “Shit! Ain’t nothing coming through Murphy’s squad. They APC shoot them so full of lead, they be shitting pencils!” Some of the men chuckled, but they all kept their eyes on the road south.

  “Petroff, what’s hitting Post Twenty-two?”

  “They said it was a black, armored limousine before they went off the air.”

  A chill feeling touched Eckhart’s spine. “Wh—why would they be off the air?”

  “Post Twenty-three is calling for reinforcements—no—static now … I think we’re being jammed.”

  “Get on it! Raise somebody! Anybody!”

  “Wait—It’s Tolland’s unit, at sea with the Coast Guard cutter. There’s some sort of paratrooper just sank two of our gunboats …”

  “Paratrooper
s?” Eckhart’s voice broke into a high-pitched note.

  “Keep calm, sir,” said Petroff, with an open sneer of contempt on his features. “No, just one paratrooper. He has some sort of particle beam weapon like a lightning bolt. They just reported that he’s … wait … now they’re off the air, too …”

  In the distance, down the road, a huge tree erupted into splinters and fell across the road, blocking the way. Oddly enough, there was no flash of flame nor any smoke, almost as if no explosives had been used.

  “They’re coming!” shouted one man.

  Eckhart saw Furlough turn and slink away into the woods.

  There was a whistling in the air. The line of sandbags exploded, and hundreds of pounds of sand were flung skyward.

  That was enough for Eckhart. “Petroff, you’re in charge!” he shouted.

  He turned deserter and ran into the woods. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Petroff hesitantly raising his rifle, as if debating whether or not to shoot Eckhart in the back as he fled.

  At that same moment, the tank fired, and the front of the tank crumpled and fell in on itself, with a noise like the end of the world tearing the air. Scraps of heavy tank armor flew through the air as an iron hammer pulled itself backward out of the wreckage and flew away. Petroff was hit by the shrapnel and fell.

  Everyone fired. The air shook with the continuous hammering fire of machine-gun bullets.

  Eckhart looked back again when everything fell silent. He wondered if his hearing had gone or if …

  Since he was running away, and since he was looking back, and, since the leaves and shrubs nearby had been cut away by the gunfire, Eckhart may have been the only person alive who saw the sight of two monster goats, running at impossible speeds, breathing fire and pulling a wheelchair, who rammed their horns into the hulk of the tank, broke it in two, and threw it from the road.

  They didn’t even slow down.

  And because Eckhart had dropped his rifle a few steps to the left, he was not near it when some whistling instrument of destruction ripped aside the trees, smashing the rifle into flinders in the bottom of a smoking crater. He blinked for a moment at the white-hot, smoking weapon. It was a sledgehammer with a short haft.

  The falling tree (cut in half when the hammer pulled itself out of the crater and flew away) missed Eckhart by several feet. He did not look back thereafter, but put down his head, and ran.

  II

  Peter shouted over the thrumming of fiery goat hooves on the road, “Dad! How come your Morpheus spell didn’t work?”

  Lemuel, clinging breathlessly to the rear of the wheelchair bumping and flying down the road, gasped out, “Don’t … know …” The goats skidded to a stop before the main gates of Everness. The platoon of astonished men raised their weapons, and the warmachines behind them began to elevate their heavy guns and rotate the turrets of their miniguns toward the goat-drawn wheelchair.

  “Mollner! Kick all the bullets and shells out of the air before they reach us!” shouted Peter, throwing.

  “Somnus! Hypnos! Morpheus! Slumber!” whispered Lemuel, holding up the magnet in his hand.

  A moment later, Lemuel dismounted from the back of the wheelchair to stare in fascination at the fragments of the heavy tank shells lying, flattened, in craters to either side of the wheelchair. Then he started pulling sleeping men aside to make room for the wheelchair to pass through. Tanngjost put down its horns and was shoving the armored personnel carrier off the road; Tanngrisner, still excited by the noise of the deflected gunfire, was kicking holes in the side of the Bradley Tank.

  Lemuel straightened up. “There’s still so much I don’t know. Perhaps those squads infested with selkie have been warded by Azrael; perhaps he has raised the Yellow Sign and put on the Pallid Mask. It could be the stars. Mars is in opposition to Venus, now, and Mercury is in retrograde in the house of Aquarius, a water sign. This may be making my magic weaker; but these are very bad times for Azrael.”

  “I don’t know what all that means …”

  “Perhaps if you had studied your lessons …,” began Lemuel.

  Peter cut him off. “I don’t think you know what it means either. You’re all dealing with book learning, here. You never did a lick of magic in the waking world before.” And then he smiled. “I guess we’re just going to have to make allowances for each other, huh, Dad?”

  Lemuel’s expression softened. Then he smiled too. “Forgive me. I suppose we shall. After all these years, I finally know why you were meant to go into the military. We are a warrior race; our blood has a love of honor, of faithfulness, which must come to the fore.”

  Peter looked skeptical. “Whatever. Let’s take the grounds slowly. According to their radio here,” he hefted the walkie-talkie he had taken from a sleeping man, “they sent most of their units north to stop some big black car. We don’t know what they left behind to guard the …”

  Out from between the trees lining the main drive, it came, huge, black, monstrous, walking forward on padded paws, its horrible cat’s eyes slitted into thin crescents in the sun. The odor from it’s rank fur smelled of napalm and blood.

  Peter raised his hammer. Lemuel said, “Wait … I don’t know if Mollner can stop it …”

  The beast reared up on its hind legs, like a grizzly rearing up, and stood looking down at them. The two goats snorted flame and pawed the ground nervously. Lemuel whispered prayers beneath his breath, eyes downcast. Peter looked the creature in the face without flinching.

  The beast raised one mighty paw. It beckoned.

  “Welcome, henchman of Ares. Come! Increase my kingdom. Soon the Horn shall come to light; when the final note is sounded, then my kingdom shall encompass all the worlds, and yea, hell and heaven also! I will not oppose thy path …”

  Falling again to all fours, the monster turned and lumbered off, pausing only once, briefly, to smile back over its shoulder at Peter. It expanded, becoming rarified, swelling to fill the whole landscape, faded into smoke, and was invisible.

  “I got a bad feeling about that … ,” said Peter.

  “We must acquire the Sword!” whispered Lemuel.

  “Let’s get going!” grunted Peter.

  When they came upon the main house, everyone was asleep, except for a group on the front steps, in the distance.

  “What do you think that is?” asked Peter, pointing to the side-yard. A circular barrier of snapping electric bolts surrounded a large group of sleeping men. Next to the barrier were two large trucks with generators and dynamos filling their truckbeds. Heavy cables ran from the trucks to the edge of the electric wall; technicians in bulky radiation suits were slumped over their instruments. There was a burnt-out shell of some sort of circuit-breaker board smoking nearby.

  Lemuel said, “The scientists here were trying to impede the Storm-Princes’ power. They were succeeding. Note how the electricity is dying down.”

  “What about those guys up there?”

  They came closer to the main doors.

  A cluster of pale-faced lepers stood three ranks deep on the steps, blocking the doorway. Here were sickly men; frail, thin women; and wide-eyed children standing, sad, silent, and motionless. Each face was gaunt and slack with despair; what tears they had once shed were long since gone. They stared at Peter and Lemuel with the apathy of concentration camp prisoners.

  Each bony hand, even the hand of each child, was holding some pathetic weapon: a knife, a tire iron, a chain.

  In front of the steps were huddles of corpses, skulls, and ribcages strewn amidst rotting garments and stinking flesh. The one or two crows that had picked at the diseased flesh there had fallen over dead.

  Peter reined in the goats well away, and he held a scarf over his nose and mouth, his eyes watering in the gangrenous stench that came from the living, the putrid odor from the dead.

  One old man covered with sores and boils, near the front, said softly, “Wait! If you approach, we must attack you …” His voice trailed off feebly.

&nb
sp; Peter asked, “Who the hell are you?”

  One old woman raised a ruined, pockmarked face, and peered out with bleary eyes from between the ratted tangles of her gray hair. “Lemuel Waylock. It’s me. Freda Teeldrum. Don’t make us fight. Let us alone …”

  Lemuel whispered in horror, “Mrs. Teeldrum … ?”

  Her dry, thin voice whispered, “Let us alone so we can dire … .”

  “Where’s Mr. Teeldrum?”

  One of the figures pointed with a gray and skeletal hand at the ring of disease-eaten corpses surrounding the stairs. “That’s what happens if we don’t do what they say. We can’t let you in.”

  One little boy’s voice from the back wailed thinly, “Mama! I want to sit down. I’m so tired …”

  A hard, harsh voice answered, “You stay on your feet! I’m not going to lose you and Cathy, too!”

  Lemuel said, “Mr. Milliard! Reverend Shipley! Joseph? Ellen?”

  There was a stir among the crowd of invalids. One tired voice said, “You best be going away, Lem. We might like you as a partner for bridge, but we sure ain’t going to die for you. You step up here, we got to try to stop you.”

  A woman’s voice from near the back hissed, “Let’s get them anyway! It’s all his weird antics and eccentric ways brought this plague on us! It’s this house!”

  Lemuel backed up, face pale, unable to speak against that accusation.

  Peter raised the hammer. Lemuel said, “Wait. These people are innocent.”

  “Those bastards there aren’t.” Because around the corners of the house, to the right and left, came two lines of armored knights. The horses were lame and sickly, ghastly to behold, creatures of rotting flesh and peeling skin. The knights were handsome, with sober, pious faces. And their swords and lances dripped blood and corruption.

  The knight banneret who led them, a plumed cavalier carrying the sign of a leprous face on his shield, now smiled with false warmth, and said unctuously, “Beloved friends …”