Mists of Everness

by John C. Wright

  “Come on! Come on!” he called. “No blubbering! It can’t be that bad!”

  “My friend is dead,” Wendy softly said.

  He blew out his cheeks in an immense sigh. “Hey! That’s not so bad. I mean, its bad, but it’s not really so very bad. The worse thing about death is, you see, how it makes you forget. But this here is Galen Amadeus Waylock! (You’ve sure got important friends, I’d say!) He found the lost horn of the star-steed, and overthrew the Demon Kings of Uhnuman. He’s the Guardian, he is! He’s got his whole memory arranged sort of like a house, see? And not a sloppy house like mine with goats in the kitchen and wood cords piled every which ways by the door, no, his house is a real shipshape affair. All we have to do is stuff that soul in your pretty little hand back down his throat.”

  “His soul won’t go.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes you just got to force it. Here. Let me.”

  “Oh! Oh, do be careful! What are you doing?! You’re not going to smash it into him? Put down that club!”

  “Don’t worry, little miss! I’ve done it before! Ask Theseus … er. Except don’t ask him about Perithous … Hup! Ho!” The stranger had balanced the fiery crystal orb atop Galen’s breastbone and raised his club to hammer it in. With giant strokes he pounded the chest.

  “Don’t fret, ma’am!” he shouted. “Some folk have weak spirits, and their spirits give way before their flesh does, you know? But this here is Galen Amadeus Waylock! His spirit survived the touch of Cerberus. His soul will hold …”

  The sky was darkened with a sudden shadow. From overhead came a thunderous shrill cry of a bird of prey.

  The club strokes drove the air in and out of Galen’s chest. Galen gasped and sat up, eyes wild. “It wasn’t impatience at all!” he said breathlessly.

  “What?” said Wendy, blinking.

  “Welcome back to the living,” said the gigantic stranger, leaning on his oaken club. “You’re getting to be a regular customer. If I hadn’t been following my old enemy Cerberus around, I never would have been close enough to give you a helping hand.”

  “Who?” asked Wendy.

  “Koschei,” said Galen. “Cerberus is another name for Koschei …”

  The sky about rang with horrid shrieks.

  Wendy looked up.

  “Well, well,” said the huge man, toying with his club. “What now, young Parzifal? The world is ending, the sun has died, and the hawk flung from the wrist of the father of all tyrants wheels and stoops again. What now?”

  Galen stood up slowly, his face calm. “I thought impatience was my sin. It’s not, or, at least, not entirely. I got in this mess because I thought my need, and the emergency, would justify everything I said or did. When I went to Tirion, I killed a man. I lied and said I was the Guardian when I wasn’t. I tried to go down and make a deal with the Selkie, our enemies, just because Azrael told me to. Why? Why? I wanted to prove I was a man, not a frightened boy. No, I wanted to prove I was a hero. The first thing men do, when they are old enough to be men, is stop trying to prove that they are men. They stop trying to be the hero and to do everything by themselves.” He smiled grimly. “And, unless they want to turn into little copies of Azrael de Gray, they stop letting needs and emergencies justify their actions.”

  He stooped and picked up the string and began to loop a knot again. “I’ll try to catch the sky-eagle in a frustration dream again. We have a hero here, a real hero, who can fight the eagle and keep it away from us … . That is, sir,” said Galen, suddenly shy, “if you are willing to …”

  The huge man laughed. “Of course! What fights tyranny? Not enlightenment, no, not healing. Courage! Strength! Heroism! And cleaning up after tyrants is no worse than mucking out the Augean stables, I can tell you!” He whirled his club and saluted with it.

  “Wendy,” Galen said, “you and I are going to go save Prometheus. The Silver Key can make him real. I’m hoping the chains will stay in the dream-realm when that happens. If not, we might have to resort to messier measures.”

  “Messier?” asked Wendy, smiling. She was pleased that she would have something to do in this rescue.

  “Yeah. I figure if his liver grows back every day, his hands and feet can grow back, especially with the help of my arrows. A chain can’t hold you if it’s chained to something you’re willing to give up and have cut off.”

  The huge man pointed. “Prometheus is that way. Legend might report that I got him down from this mountain, but we’ll know the real story, my Lord Guardian. Strength is wasted when it’s used without patience. And if you want to be a hero, my young lord, don’t fret about it! I wanted to be one too, when I was young, and I ended up being not just a hero, but a god. You might not have much time left, now that the end of the world is here, but maybe you’ll have a chance to make some difference before the end, eh?”

  “How soon is the end?” asked Wendy, looking up fearfully.

  “Now. The time is come,” said the huge man. He saluted once more with his club and turned and marched away, whistling. In the distance, the sky was darkened by a vast, approaching shadow.

  “Let’s go,” said Galen, and he drew the sign to summon the chariot that had brought them here. “Piotr! Show us the way!” A small black raven hopped out from the shadow of a rock nearby, cocked its head to look at Galen with a yellow eye. It opened its bill and croaked at them.

  Wendy looked at the bird. “That’s my father-in-law, isn’t it? His spirit. Is he dead?”

  VIII

  In his seat of power, carven of black opals, sat great Morningstar, his pinions fanned up to either side, and in his hand, his mighty scepter, which also was his mace.

  All about his throne, within that vast and nighted hall, fallen angels bowed with adorations hymned to his dark majesty. Each fell spirit paid homage according to its kind: evil seraphim bowed their heads; cherubim knelt on one knee, their crowns like black flame; thrones knelt fully; dominations crouched with hands grasping the black diamonds of the floor; virtues, powers, and principalities were prone; and all the waters shook and breathed with perfect song.

  Music there was, but no other light than that one cold fire which the Lord of Acheron wore like a gemstone on his brow.

  On balconies and pillar-tops and in far places, near enough to hear, but not to see, were princes and emperors of races in bondage to Morningstar, or heroes who had distinguished themselves in his service; svartalfar and svart-vanir, dragons, vampires, scorpion-worms, necromancer-kings, sarim and lilim, abdals and amshaspands, chimerae, hydrae, hecatoncheire, and krakens.

  Beyond and behind all the gathered and adoring hosts of living beings, within an arch, rose a great window, figured around the boundaries with runes of secret meanings, through which Morningstar could view at once the whole of his terror-builded kingdom.

  Three times great shudders trembled though the length and breadth of Acheron, and three times great music was let blown as the topmost three towers rose from the waves.

  Through the window, as if through eyes of vultures high above, Morningstar beheld drowned towers rising in skirts of spray and waterfalls pouring from windows and gates, splashing over corbels and gushing from the teeth of machicolated bastions. The upper courtyards were now pools; and the streets and steps and bridges of the higher citadel were rivers, streams, and aqueducts.

  Morningstar raised his scepter; the hosts fell silent. There was no noise in Acheron except the sobbing of the Tormented echoing from the Houses of Woe.

  The oceans parted and fell away from the tall, black walls of the inner citadel. The four towers of the outer citadel now rose up, broke the shivering curtain of water overhead, and touched the air. With a hideous roaring and confusion, which tossed his court this way and that, the seawaters rushed from the hall.

  Morningstar rose to his feet, and the single light that burned from his brow cast out a beam that turned the rushing waters of the presence hall instantly to silent ice, which lay in frozen waves like hills and mountains all around h
is throne.

  Now he nodded, and, at that nod, the far window opened, as it had not opened in a thousand years or more.

  And, without the window, Morningstar beheld a great waste of empty waters, dark beneath a sunless sky, and here and there a drift of toppled iceberg floated, released from Acheron’s black walls. The cold of the towers had pierced the sky, and it began to snow.

  Morningstar looked up to that vast dark shape, riding in the heavens, which had blotted out the Sun. And now he smiled.

  His chest swelled as he breathed in air.

  “The time is come,” he said.

  IX

  Prometheus hung in chains on the mountainside, his muscles aching once again with agony, his nude body shivering with pain as his torn flesh, once again, was slowly reknitting itself. He had been watching when the full Moon suddenly went dark, and, by this, he knew night had fallen across the noon on the other side of the world.

  Yet the features of his face showed no fear, no pain, no uncertainty, only a remorseless, intent, alertness.

  Now he raised his pain-stiffened head, and shook the icicles of sweat which clung to his long, tangled locks of hair. This slight motion caused chips of bloody ice to pull away from the lips of the wound in his side, and sent another shiver of pain like a needle into his body.

  His eyes narrowed as he looked in the distance.

  And he saw, far off and flying down across the mountain peaks of ice and granite, led here by the shade of a raven, a girl in a flowering dress, a wand of truth in one hand, and the key of dreaming in the other. Behind her was a young magician on a dream-colt, with a bow, and the scars of his battle with the vulture of heaven were closing and healing in the light from the arrow on his bowstring.

  And now he smiled. “The time is come,” he said.

  X

  Azrael de Gray Waylock lay on his stomach on the edge of an icy ledge, high on a cliff overlooking a darkened world. He inched forward, his face contorted as if in pain. A few inches in front of his outstretched hand, the smallest distance beyond the reach of his imploring fingers, stood a fierce, small bird of prey, feathered in blue and black, with bright eyes, a pigeonhawk.

  He inched forward, crawling on his belly like a worm, and the slippery and rotten ice beneath him creaked ominously. He knew that if he moved forward another inch, or half inch, the ice would give way and he would plunge down the steel-hard slopes of cold rock into the abyss below.

  The pigeonhawk looked at him disdainfully, and hopped a few more inches away.

  “Do not flee from me,” Azrael whispered. “Do not despise me.”

  He crawled forward. The ice began to crack and snap.

  The pigeonhawk hopped a few more inches away, ruffling its wings, preparing to fly.

  “Wait!” breathed Azrael de Gray Waylock, “I have pursued you from high heaven, where there is no air, across the face of the Earth, flying at the speed of thought, past blasted desert, frozen glacier, and the wilderness of the salt sea. Now, so close! Why must you ever fly from me? What do you disdain so in me?”

  The bird spoke in a voice like unto the voice of a man. “I am no more than your mirror, slave of Acheron. Ask yourself what you disdain so in yourself, and you shall know your answer.”

  With a crack, the ice beneath him tilted. He began to slip sideways, an inch, six inches, a foot. He clawed at the slithering pebbles beneath his hands and said, “Call me not by that name! Tell me what I must do to regain what once I was, I compel you by … by the name of …”

  “The only name with which I may be compelled is your own, slave of Acheron, and you have forgotten it.”

  “Shall time come when it will be recalled?”

  “The time is come,” said the pigeonhawk, flying up.

  And Azrael, falling from the ice, called for his kelpie chariot in midair, and, mounting, flew up out from the chasm, to give chase to the bird once more.

  They passed in a moment across continent and ocean. In the midst of a great fleet of the warships of mankind, the pigeonhawk flew down to roost upon a mighty flagship, built of cold iron, large as a floating city.

  On the deck, surrounded by armed men, he saw the chariot pulled by Tanngrisner and Tannjost. Here also, gleaming with fairy-light, beautiful and swift as song itself, a dream-colt reared and plunged, made nervous by the closing circle of sailors.

  The young Titan was here, and Peter, and Lemuel, whom he had betrayed; and here as well stood a proud figure in black, a sword of mythic power shining in his hands; the Pendragon.

  Even as he watched, he saw Van Dam order the men to stand at ease. Van Dam saluted the Pendragon and asked for orders.

  XI

  Oberon, Lord of Heaven, stood alone within the private garden which gloamed with twilight hues, lit only by the reflected silver and gemwork of the Towers of Mommur. Now and again, the scented breeze played about the locked gate to the east and breathed the perfumes of paradise across the lawns and hedges.

  Oberon stood, hands clasped behind his back, gazing down into his seeing pool.

  All at once he grimaced with wrath, wincing. “Fools! Do not let so dangerous a creature loose!”

  And then, upon another image, said to himself, “Wind the Horn! Do not forget the Horn! Have I not promised the whole might of Celebradon shall follow where that horn-call sounds?”

  Now he stood in black abstraction, crown of swan plumes bowed. His one eye glittered gray and clear as a winter dusk. Then he spoke. “Must Oberon’s own hand make whole what clumsy mortals mar? The time is come.”

  And drawing on his cloak of mist and shadows, invisible, he dropped down from heaven toward the earth, and he flew with the same speed with which a man wakes from deepest dream instantly to day.

  19

  Darkness, Darkness Covers All

  I

  The smell of the sea brought back memories, but he had never served on a ship like this. Raven stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier and was amazed that he could feel no pitch nor roll. The vessel was so enormous that it was perfectly steady even in the roughest seas. The upper deck was larger than a football field; jet aircraft, launched by steam catapult, rushed with a thunderous roar down the immense length of the deck and were flung into space, engines blazing. Even more amazing was the sight of other aircraft, rocketing down from the sky to touch the deck, wheels squealing, only to catch a cable with a tail-hook and jerk to an alarming stop. Massive elevators could lower the fighter jets into vast hangar spaces belowdecks.

  Raven saw the faces of the fighter pilots as they climbed down from their cockpits. They would take their fibreglass helmets from their heads, shaking back their sweat-streaked hair, and glance around the decks with looks like panthers. The fighter pilots walked with a jaunty step, and there was an arrogance to their posture, a fighting spirit in their eyes.

  For a time, every crewman and pilot was so busy that no one noticed or had time to deal with the intruders, despite the supernatural beasts they had brought, goats and dream-colts.

  In the far distance, across the tropic seas, a flotilla of icebergs floated out from the heart of the darkness. Above the tops of the spreading clouds on the horizon, three tall towers rose, like straight shafts of impenetrable night. Even from this distance, Raven could see sparks of light crawling along the towers’ bastions and balconies; strange lanterns held by cloaked monstrosities, and explosions and raging fires flung down by the darting swarms of fighter jets.

  There were other swarms around the towers; circling and wheeling bat-winged shapes, much too large to be bats. And, goddesslike, each tower was crowned by a supernatural figure of a winged titaness. Twin beams of reddish light streamed forth from their eyes, reaching like searchlights through the clouds, and whichever way the titanesses gazed, fighter jets dropped from the sky or silently vanished.

  Great battleships struggled in the wave-swept, icecrowded sea, and the smoke and thunder of their guns was a shock and an amazement to Raven. With immense concussions, rolling cl
ouds of flame-lit smoke would appear before the main guns of the battleships when they fired, clouds of smoke larger than the ships themselves, and the power of those guns was so great that even those huge ships would sway, driven backward in the sea several feet from the force of the recoil.

  Raven borrowed Pendrake’s photomultiplying telescopic site, and saw warships continuously shelling the rising towers, and the armies and hordes of creatures gathered on the roofs, upper courtyards, and in the vast windows were slain by the hundreds. Yet even through the clouds of smoke and flame, Raven caught glimpses of vast, slow, graceful silhouettes, undisturbed by shell or shockwave, shrapnel, gas, or flame, moving among the shadows, carrying tall torches, pennants, or lances; and, unless he was deceived by the distance, the confusion, the flame, the gloom, Raven thought these vast shapes were washing and decorating the towers in preparation for some rite or celebration.

  A squad of marines came to surround them. Pendrake spoke with them briefly, warning them of the coming nuclear strike. Perhaps because he spoke with such calm authority; or perhaps because he was holding a magic sword and was escorted by obviously supernatural cohorts, the deck officer ordered them brought up to the conning tower.

  Raven looked at Peter, then up at the tall, angular shape of the conning tower, with the narrow stairways and gangways leading upward. Peter understood the look, and snorted, and said, “Don’t worry about me, friend. I’ll be waiting for you by the time you get there.” And his goats ran up onto the air, dragging the wheelchair aloft.

  When one of the marines ordered Pendrake to put away the sword, Lemuel whispered something in to Pendrake’s ear. Pendrake nodded, and surrendered the blade to a marine officer.

  They climbed up the narrow stair, through an oval door, then another, and found themselves in a tall space, surrounded on all sides by slanting windows of greenish glass, crowded by ranks and rows of computer boards, radar screens, and readouts. Men with faces of frantic calm were bent over the microphones, and Raven overheard, from more than one speaker, voices requesting help and rescue in urgent monotones, terse descriptions of casualties, or of the unnatural monsters causing them, and, in the far background, sounds of eerie screaming, chanting, or inhuman voices shouting praises to the darkness.