Mists of Everness

by John C. Wright

“Aye, lass,” he rumbled in a deep voice. “That I am, indeed.”

  III

  With a flutter of feathers, a wren landed on the rail of the repaired balcony behind her. Then a robin, a thrush, and two pigeons landed there, chirping and cooing.

  Wendy turned her head to look at them. A lark and a linnet landed on the sill of the southern windows. The forest to the south showed as an angry line of smoke and flame; to the south, the sky was coiled in knots of thunderheads, gray with driving rain. Everywhere else the sky was blue.

  Wendy turned back. “Okay, Mannannan! Enough is enough! Give me back my wand and the Silver Key! Right now! And I don’t want to hear any excuses!”

  Cardinals and seagulls landed all along the balcony. Mannannan folded his large arms across his massive chest.

  “Yer wand I shall give back, me dearest, if yer hand ye give to me. False man I am, perhaps, most false, albeit my love be true as truth! Were it not me what tossed to yer hand that wand in the first place, and let ye render all me own men to mere helplessness?”

  “And you who dropped Lemuel out the window!”

  Several more birds landed on the windowsills. Birdsong filed the room. The entire balcony was filled with flocks. An owl was next to a lark; a pigeonhawk next to a pigeon.

  He stepped forward, “Lassie—ye will not take yer old husband back. I think ye must hate him well for what he done to poor young Sir Galen Waylock.”

  She tossed back her hair and looked at him with a spark of anger in her eye. “I wouldn’t bring that up if I were you! Galen told me everything your people did to him in Nastrond! You’re really a goof if you think I’d give up someone like Raven for someone like you! Now give me my Wand!”

  A cold, stern voice came from the door. “Enough.”

  Azrael de Gray came in through the door. He wore a hooded robe woven with constellations; his belt was a living snake biting its own tail. In the shadow of the hood, his eyes gleamed, dark, hypnotic. Angular lines framed his mouth, and had gathered beneath his eyes. In his hand he held the unicorn horn capped with a silver point.

  Behind him came two angels with faces too handsome and perfect to gaze upon. They had wings of vultures; circling their long hair were coronas of darkness. They wore ebon breastplates inset with seven stones; on their surcoats was the heraldry of a pentacle reversed, red on a black field. One carried a torch upside-down, and the bleak flames burned downward rather than up; the other held a censor from which poison smoked.

  Where the fallen angels cast their gazes, frost gathered. Mannannan fell to his knees. “A few moments more! She would have agreed! Once wed, everything of hers would be mine, and ye could have had yer blasted Key! And the Wand! The Wand would have been mine!”

  Wendy sniffed. “Don’t flatter yourself. If I left Raven because he acted like you, what makes you think I’d take you? You act more like you than he does!”

  She turned to Azrael. The look in his eyes frightened her, but she tried to keep her voice brave. Her fingers only shook slightly when she put out her hand. “Give me back the Silver Key. It won’t obey you and you can’t use it unless I give it to you. And I won’t! You can bet … Um. I mean: I’ll never give it to you!”

  Azrael said, “All time has run; there is no more. This day shall see the ruination or salvation of the world. I shall trifle no more with any of you; the pressure of overhanging doom bids me cast all scruple now away. Yield me the Silver Key, fairy-girl, or I deliver you to torment.”

  “Never.” She floated up off the floor a few inches, then a foot or two, light as thistledown, and her hair and skirts spread and swirled around her.

  Azrael’s face grew dark with wrath, but he held his expression immobile as a statue’s. “Archangels of Darkness! Balphagor and Belial, I charge you by your master’s name to seize that girl who floats there like a little bird, wrap her in chains of adamantium, and bear her to the nightmare-pits of Acheron till such time as she relents and speaks the words to render me possession of the Key!”

  The angels of darkness took a step forward, growing in size to fill the chamber. As they did so, a music of drums and trumpets roared in the air, a chord of ringing majesty and horror.

  The dark angels raised their hands.

  There came a music of a woman’s voice singing in a language unknown, clear notes of quiet strength and joy. The dark music fell silent in a winding tumble of misplucked chords.

  The dark angels covered their faces with their wings for a moment, and stepped back. With a rustle they folded their wings once more on their shoulders. The singing voice blended into silence.

  Azrael said, “What is the meaning of these signs? Speak, Balphagor, I charge you by Nimrod!”

  The dark angel with the torch said, “She is protected by a rune cast by Oberon; she is circled with the charms sung by Titania.”

  “Interesting. He cannot have the Key itself, yet still Oberon will keep me from it. Belial! Name the time of this rune, by Iormungandr’s fang, I ask.”

  “Till the world’s last day, this strong charm shall hold. The King and Queen of Dreams rarely knit their power together, and might beyond might springs forth when they do. Creatures of our order may not approach till Acheron’s power extinguishes the sun, doomsday’s dawn.”

  Azrael said, “The humble must serve where the great fall short. Mannannan! Send your folk against her!”

  The Seal-King rose from his knees. “I’ll not. ’Tis my own true love ye ask me harry.”

  Azrael’s lips curved in an expression that could not properly be called a smile. “Your true love is yourself, seal-man. Do you recall what promises you made on the burning deck of the sinking ship where last you shed your humanity? Do you remember what you said to the voices in the waves? The flames of that ship still hunger for you; I know their names. I shall burn you with fire if you call not your folk.” He gestured toward the windows, and all the casements flew open.

  Mannannan did not hesitate for long, but sadly beckoned to the birds. “But don’t hurt her too muchly!”

  Flock upon flock flew in through the window. Wendy looked at the birds closely for the first time, and screamed in outrage and horror. “How could you! You killed Mr. Owl! And Wren and Skylark and Gray Gull!”

  Then the birds were all around her, pecking and clawing.

  Wendy threw her hands before her face, and flew away down the corridor, her elf-gown flapping like a green leaf in a wild wind. The birds flew after her.

  Azrael turned and strode down the corridor after, his robes billowing around him. “Wind, path, and guide her way; wind her will to wind my way … .”

  IV

  Raven, a lightning-bolt buzzing in one hand, crouched in a corridor decorated with tall Egyptian sarcophagi. Ahead of him were two archways opening to the left and right, and, through them, he could see small bits of a hallway hung with red drapery, with swords displayed on the wall between each set of drapes. Both corridors on either side were decorated symmetrically.

  His nostrils twitched. He smelled the scent of blood, freshly spilled, and the lingering acrid odor of gunpowder. His sharp eyes saw the bullet hole scarring the wainscoting near the ceiling. There had been a fight here, and recently, too. But why had he heard no gunshot?

  Raven turned and called softly over his shoulder, “Fight here, but I am seeing no sign of who shoots who.”

  Lemuel and Galen were standing at the doorway down the hall behind him. Galen, with an arrow nocked, was looking from side to side nervously. Peter was “eyes behind,” and he sat in his wheelchair in the main hallway beyond the door, one goat in the traces, one goat free to act as combination heavy cavalry and secret weapon should the need arise.

  Lemuel hissed, “What does the needle say?”

  Raven took out the needle from where he had stuck it in his coat’s shoulder. He held it by the thread that Lemuel had carefully tied to the balanced center of the needle.

  The needle swung back and forth lazily, then turned and pointed to the le
ft. “Left!”

  Not long before, Lemuel had dropped the needle through the center of Raven’s wedding band fifty times, each time praying to Saint Anthony and the pagan god Hymenaeus. When it was done, Lemuel claimed it was “magnetized.” Raven had his doubts, but he didn’t have any better ideas. The needle had led them toward the east wing of the house, until a few moments ago, when it turned, and began leading them toward the central tower. Peter was in the main corridor leading from the south wing to the central rotunda, which, from the noise, they guessed to be held by enemy forces; Raven was trying to find an unguarded path through side-passages toward the main corridor of the east wing. There was no way in sight yet; this corridor seemed to dead end in an alcove holding a sarcophagus.

  Galen whispered, “She’s moving again. That’s a bad sign, I think. Is that a bad sign, Grandpa?”

  Peter, from the main hall, said softly, “Everything’s a fucking bad sign when you’re in enemy territory! We haven’t seen one fucking bad guy, except for the noise behind the door to the main tower. Why the hell would they all be gathered there? They’re up to something. Raven! Get a move on up there! I got a feeling we ain’t got much time!”

  Lemuel said, “The secret latch to the doorway to the left is behind the Egyptian coffin at the end of the hall here.”

  Raven crept forward. “What? What are you meaning? Is no door here. Archway is open! I …”

  He saw a movement in the archway as he started to look around the corner. He yelped, threw his lightning bolt.

  Lemuel was saying, “No! It’s a …”

  The red-hung corridor to the left seemed to fracture and shatter as the mirror filling that archway cracked.

  “ … it’s a mirror, Raven …,” finished Lemuel.

  Only the archway on the right was real, opening up into the corridor lined with weapons and red hangings. The archway to the left had been a mirror held in a sliding frame.

  Raven stood blinking at his cracked reflection, which had startled him. Peter called softly, “Easy there, pal. That could have been your wife, you know …”

  Part of the mirror had fallen away in a large triangular shard. Raven could see the corridor beyond was actually small and dark, paved with large, gray stones, each stone inscribed with letters from the Greek alphabet.

  Upright, like pillars, lining the walls were tall sarcophagi. The carven, gold-painted faces of pharaohs looked down with regal, cold disdain.

  In the shadow of these ancient coffins, on a stone inscribed with an “omega,” lay a dead body in a purple robe, facedown in a puddle of fresh blood.

  Raven put his hand though the hole, found the catch and slid the broken mirror aside with a tinkle of glass. “Someone here before us. Enemy of Azrael’s, I am thinking.”

  Peter rolled in through the door, calling his goat-monster after him. With a curt gesture, he signaled Galen to shut the door.

  Behind them, Galen softly swung the door leaf shut. Raven was looking at the line of tall coffins nervously, as if he expected some dark shape be hidden in one of them.

  Lemuel walked past Raven, stepped gingerly over the corpse, and came to the end of the short passageway paved with letters. Here, flanked by engravings of pyramids, was a door to the large, main east hall.

  Lemuel stepped up to a painting of the pyramids and swung it open on hinges, showing a tiny peephole. Peter and Galen stared at the peephole in open surprise.

  “No wonder you found out about that time with me and Sue Butterworth …” whispered Peter, grimacing.

  There came a noise of many running boots outside the door.

  Then, shouts. “Radio says she’s coming this way! Remember, no shooting, except you guys with blanks! Azrael says herd her toward the middle tower!”

  “Captain, let me do something! Give me a weapon! These guys wiped out my squad!”

  “Shut up, Eckhardt! Oh, shit, here! Take my sidearm …”

  Another voice: “Here she comes!”

  There was a noise like a rushing wind, and, “There she goes!” Someone said softly, “Damn, she’s fast. How does she do that? Wires?”

  Raven was at the door, teeth clenched, eyes wide, but Peter warned him to stay calm with a motion of his hand. Then Peter noticed everyone was staring at the door. He touched Galen’s shoulder and pointed down the corridor they were in. Galen obediently kept his eyes looking down toward the Egyptian hall.

  Beyond the door, meanwhile, came the rushing flutter, chirping and screeching, as if a vast flock of birds, hundreds of birds, were flying by outside. Some of the soldiers called out in fear. One voice said, “Looks like a fucking Hitchcock movie in this place!”

  Another: “I’m getting damn sick and tired of all these supernatural manifestations of otherworldy power!”

  “Yeah, no shit.”

  “Hey! Here she comes again! Like a rocket!”

  The sound of the birds swelled to agitation.

  Wendy screamed.

  At that moment Raven kicked open the door, a lightning-bolt in either hand, and a sound louder than any sound on earth echoed from his shout. Drops of sweat flew from his black hair and black beard, and his face was ruddy with anger.

  Galen was behind Raven, turning left and shooting with his shining bow while Raven blasted the length of the corridor to the right. Sunlight glanced from the arrowhead, and the bowstring sang a high, pure note.

  Peter, bellowing, drove his wheelchair, drawn by Tanngjost, into the gap between them, shouting to Tanngrisner to follow. The fiery hoofs of the goat-monsters dented and blackened the floorboards. With one huge motion of his broad shoulder, his muscular arm, Peter threw the hammer.

  Behind them down the corridor, Lemuel raised his magnet and called on Morpheus.

  Wendy was high above, near the cathedral-like ceiling of this huge, main corridor. To one side of the corridor were the tall, peaked doors, almost gateways, leading to the central tower; to the other side was a balcony, like a bridge linking two second-story cross-corridors. Beyond, the main hall stretched away and became the pillars and stonework of the east wing.

  The air was filled with birds of all kinds, shrieking and screaming, swooping and diving at Wendy. She was trying to keep her hands before her face; her arms and shoulders were dotted with scars and drops and streaks of blood where they had pecked her.

  Everywhere were fleeing men, men falling asleep, men dying. In that first second, Raven electrocuted a dozen; Peter smashed and bludgeoned two dozen; Tanngrisner trampled two score and burned five others with his breath. Galen accidentally shot one man who was wounded, who straightened up, unhurt, and ran away.

  A clatter of hooves came from overhead. Onto the transverse balcony rode Azrael de Gray, in a chariot of ebony drawn by two monstrous Kelpi-steeds like rotted skeletons. He held up his hand. “As the Guardian of Everness, on Everness land, in my hour of duress, I invoke my swift command! I exclude the magic of the intruders from the wards of Everness! Morpheus! Somnus! Rob their limbs of motion!”

  Galen said, “I am the true Guardian of Everness, not you! I call on the world to witness this is true!”

  Lemuel held up his magnet. “Hyperion! Cast all sleep away! Slumber cannot bide the coming of the day!”

  During this exchange, Peter and Raven slew another two dozen men, with lightning and iron hammer, nor did any fatigue touch them.

  Raven began to summon a wind to blow the birds away from Wendy; but either fear hindered his concentration, or else the doors and windows kept the winds outside. Raven shouted for Peter to use his hammer.

  Surrounded by steam and gun smoke, the hammer glowing redhot in his hand, Peter ran his monster-drawn wheelchair over the line of men opposing him. When they broke and fled, he used the moment to shout, “Mollner! Get the birds!”

  The hammer did not move.

  Galen shouted over the din of battle: “Selkie! They are selkie-lords! High selkie!”

  “Get the selkie!” The hammer flew up, hindering some of the birds in flight;
but it could not strike them.

  Mannannan the Seal-King came out on the balcony bridge across from Azrael. He had put down his hood, and now seemed a man of great girth, dressed in ermine, but with the head of a gray seal.

  The Seal-King laughed. “Ye cannot fight lies with violence, ye great fool! Yer loud hammer can do us no hurt!”

  Peter, without a word, threw the hammer through the balcony floor beneath Mannannan’s feet. The balcony floor in that spot became flying splinters. Mannannan fell in a shouting flutter of ermine into the confusion of battle and was lost to sight.

  Galen shot into the thick of the flock of birds. The shaft hit Wendy. Immediately the spots of blood dotting her arm vanished. Wendy smiled.

  The birds drove in with greater fury now, meaning not just to harass, but to slay, and cut her arms and face with their talons. Raven looked up, sick with horror, while his bloody wife screamed in mid-air; his calm concentration slipped; the lighting bolt he held shocked him; he fell, dazed.

  Galen loosed another shaft at Wendy; it turned to sunlight as it touched her and cured her of all wounds inflicted by the selkie. Galen shouted over the din of battle to his grandfather, “Why can Dad call the hammer back to his hand?”

  Lemuel brightened, for he understood the point of Galen’s question. Cupping his hands around his mouth, Lemuel now shouted up to Wendy, “These weapons are spiritual weapons! Honesty cannot be taken from you unless you throw it away yourself!”

  Wendy, flying among the rafters, now put out her hand. As if it had come from nowhere, as if it had appeared from out of a dream, the Moly Wand flew lightly through the air and landed in her palm.

  Mannannan, the Seal-King, stood up suddenly from where he had been hiding among a group of fallen bodies. He shouted, “Roost! Come to land, ye fools! Can ye not see ‘tis your death she holds in her hand! Obey me! Land! Can ye not see this gold crown upon me head!” He was in tears; his voice shook with anger and frustration: “’Tis I, ’tis I, the Seal-King himself who tells you! Land! Land! Can’t ye believe yer eyes for once!”