The High House

by James Stoddard

  “This will bring you back into the halls. You will find further help there.” He blew out the candle, plunging the passage into ebony. Carter fumbled for the knob and thrust open the door; daylight rushed in from the other side. The Thin Man was gone.

  He now found himself in the same passage where he had first met Anna. The light fell diffused from the windows, and looking out he saw the storm clouds had returned. It was a moment before he accustomed himself to the brightness, and when he did he saw a man sitting at one of the window-seats, looking out the glass, his back against the wall, his knees up against his chest. Carter approached slowly and called a greeting.

  Hope turned toward him, his face pale in the pale sunlight. He did not appear startled but said, “Hello, Carter, what are you doing here?”

  Carter came forward, his hand clenched on his sword. “I could ask you the same. We are far from the Inner Chambers.”

  “Not as far as you might think. I found myself here, and I’ve been trying to recall how it came about. The last I remember, I was reading a grueling tome in my room, and growing monstrously sleepy. Therefore, I have fallen asleep and this is all a dream.”

  “Like the one we had before? Then I am sharing it with you?”

  Hope’s brow wrinkled, but he did not sit up. “I only have your word on that, since you might be part of the dream. I could be the same, from your viewpoint. Where are we supposed to be?”

  “In an attic space off the Clock Tower.”

  “So you made it! I should tell you then, before I wake up or some such thing, that Glis has contacted the reinforcements, and should be reaching the Towers soon, assuming he can follow your path.”

  Carter moved across from Hope, but did not sit down. “If what you say is true, I haven’t really awakened from my nap on the cot in the attic, but only think I have, and the last few days have been a dream. More a nightmare, actually.”

  Hope formed a steeple with his fingertips. “The work of the anarchists, no doubt. But why now? We have to assume they can’t do this anytime they wish, or they would have renewed their attack long before. And why am I in the dream?”

  “I can answer the last question. I used the Word Which Brings Aid. It brought you to me, even in the land of sleep. I suspect they couldn’t strike at me until I left the room of the Eternity Clock. And they did it through dream because they could not reach me physically. And that means both Lady Order and Old Man Chaos are not physically in the attic either.”

  “I don’t follow that last bit.”

  Carter related the previous days’ experience. When he was done Hope said, “But why couldn’t the Bobby manifest his minions directly in the dream, like he did when Brittle was murdered, instead of sending Order and Chaos?”

  “The Thin Man said he had prevented them from reaching me.”

  “That suggests our unknown friend may have uncanny abilities of his own, doesn’t it?”

  “Perhaps. We don’t understand any of the rules. Do you realize three days have passed for me in this dream? I’ve slept twice. How can that be?”

  “To sleep within a dream? I don’t know. But the Thin Man surely can’t hold the Bobby back forever, and when he comes for you again, you will be in grave danger.”

  Carter shivered, thinking of Anna. “I have already passed a terrible test, just scraping by. I have to wake up. But how? It isn’t as simple as pinching oneself.”

  “There may be a way,” Hope said, brightening suddenly.” As you recall from before you left the Inner Chambers, I had stumbled onto a volume naming the Words of Power. I have done further research since then and learned the names of another: the Word Which Masters Dreams. If you could return to the library, and find it, you could protect yourself.”

  “But I am in a dream!” Carter said.

  “Yes, but the halls of dream, though fluid, seem to be basically the same as those of the physical world. And the anarchists would never expect you to go back to the library.”

  “You are assuming they can’t see all that occurs in this dream world.”

  “If they did, they would have caught us in the library the first time. There are two dangers: one to your body sleeping in the attic, and one to your dream body. We know from Brittle’s death the dream body is as important as the corporeal. As far as we know, your physical body is lying vulnerable right now. You are in double danger.”

  Carter paused to reflect a moment, then said, “I will seek the library as you suggest, but I must find another route. Chaos undoubtedly still blocks my way to the Clock Tower.”

  “Yes, but there is a courtyard below us, which you should be able to reach. From there you can work your way back toward the Inner Chambers.”

  Carter paced the floor a moment. “The Thin Man told me I would find another who would help me. From that I can assume you truly are Mr. Hope. But I can expect no other aid; though Glis’s soldiers might recapture the whole path to the Towers, they won’t walk the corridors of dream. We need to go swiftly, and I know only one route back to the library. It may be guarded.”

  “As likely not,” Hope said. “Creating these dreams, and sending his lackeys into it, if that is what he does, must take great power, else the Bobby would use it more often. He can’t afford to waste it posting dream guards everywhere. It is all guesswork, of course, but everything, even magic, must have its laws. He will concentrate his forces where he thinks you are, near the chambers of Lady Order.”

  “I see no other recourse,” Carter said. “I can’t wake, nor wait to be captured.”

  He walked quickly down the hallway to the spy-hole, to ascertain if Chaos still patrolled the attic. He gave an involuntary start to see the hideous form standing directly before him, its eyes fixed on the spy-hole. Carter had never seen it so close, its skin like gray clay, stretched and distorted, its crooked teeth, half missing, yellow in its tortured mouth. The smaller of its yellow eyes stared straight at Carter’s own. Almost, Carter thought he could smell it, even through the wall, a scent of both graveyards and lilies. It mumbled and slavered, then addressed him in a rasping voice: “Her beauty did not sway you, eh? I knew it would not, else I never would have sent you to her.”

  Oddly, Carter found the creature both repellant and yet attractive in its strangeness. By this, he knew it was more than a monster, but a force to be feared, for there was strength in that ghastly voice. He answered carefully. “So you intentionally blocked my path so I would meet her. I thought you were enemies.”

  “Oh, yes,” the twisted face said. “Oh, yes, indeed. The Bobby made promises, to give up whole rooms of the house if I helped him. Enough, even, to make up for your loss. But I knew, as Chaos always knows, that you would not turn to her; man is attracted to the infinite ever-change. Order is a myth, a false cat, clawless. Can you not see? All will return to disarray; all will be as it once was, when I ruled, boundless and unchained—no Master in the house then. Can you see?”

  Carter saw it indeed, for the words cast a spell upon his mind, a vision that threatened to overwhelm his senses. He saw vast darkness and swirling cosmos, star matter burning bright and dying, all the universe a frantic dance, with Order nothing but a dilettante seeking to thrust a waltz step upon the spinning anarchy. And in the turmoil he saw its beauty, the endless kaleidoscope of never-order. He gasped in wonder and stepped back, and the vision passed.

  “It can be yours, yes,” Chaos said. “I have many names and faces, and you can see them all. I can make you Master; I can give you the Hymns of Ecstacy. Order does not have this power; she is limited by her boxes and division bells. Anything, anything can be yours. Do you think me ugly? Know that all the beauties are within me, seen at the chance moment, never at the expected time. I am spontaneity, creativity, the abrupt satiation of desires undreamed. You wish to walk these halls as Master; I will give you these and others, ever-changing, rearranging, always yours. Babies breath and flame tongues, colors and delights.”

  Again Carter saw it, images bursting in his mind l
ike flares in a night sky. He saw himself, striding above the shaken stars, order turning into exquisite bedlam beneath his feet. Colors he could not name, of piercing beauty, transforming even as he watched.

  The monster’s voice continued, no longer rasping, but smooth: “Side with me and I will show you the Sea No Man Sails, under a rainbow sky, where once your father paced the shores. I saw where he went, and what he did. I can give him back if you wish.”

  “Tell me!” Carter demanded, for he saw Lord Anderson upon the prow of a small ship, deep water beneath him, the wind blowing in his hair, his eyes fearsome and fearful. An awful ache clutched his heart. “Tell me if he lives still.”

  “Living and dying are nothing to me; they are all as one. But I can tell all. I can give your heart’s desire. Promise to serve me and it will be done. Otherwise I tell you … nothing.”

  Thin tears obscured Carter’s sight; he leaned against the wall, helpless, having no means to force the monster. “Black-hearted beast!” he said bitterly. “Have you no mercy?”

  “None. But I can be your friend—”

  “You are no man’s friend!” Carter shouted, his voice shaking. He backed from the wall. Almost he returned, to tell the monster he would do anything, serve anyone, to find his father, but the memory of the man would not allow it. And the next instant the spell had passed, and he knew Chaos’s promises were empty deceits.

  Chaos slammed its fists against the walls, apparently unaware of how to activate the secret panel, as if it had no skill with ordered devices. “You are not done with me yet. Oh, no. We will find you!”

  Carter and Hope hurried down the corridor.

  “Are you all right?” Hope asked.

  “I will be when we escape this nightmare. Let’s see if the road back to the library is the same as the one in the real world.”

  It took several minutes to locate the stair and descend to the flagstone court, which appeared empty. Recalling the maps Hope had given him, Carter retrieved them from his pack. “Do you think these of any value?” he asked.

  Hope shrugged. “In an ordinary dream, no, but here they could be. Still, it is a gamble; the anarchists might be able to change them.”

  Carter studied the map. “That, too, could be beyond their power. I say we go back to the right, a more direct route than Enoch and I took to get here. It should bring us straight to the Long Stair.”

  They took a door leading into a series of ample corridors lined with crimson carpet, illuminated by lamps at every turning, with many shadows between. The wallpaper was yellow with age, the baseboards dusty with neglect. They spent two hours traipsing down the halls, squinting for want of light, and found the intersection shown on the map just when Carter had given up hope.

  “This is the way Enoch would have come, had we not been waylaid,” Carter said. At the lawyer’s request he gave an account of their journey, of his injury, and of their time in the room of the Eternity Clock. Mr. Hope, in turn, related the events in the Inner Chambers of the house.

  “After you left, we had a devil’s time against the anarchists. They tried to come out from the library shelves three times, but Glis had secured the room and met them with pistols and swords. Then they found another way, from a trapdoor leading into the heights of the house; they held half the upstairs wing before we discovered them. It was bloody fighting to drive them back. Our soldiers were on their feet two solid days and nights. But then reinforcements appeared, from Naleewuath and Keedin.”

  “I wish I had been there, instead of waiting for my leg to heal,” Carter said. “There’s proof this is a dream, by the way; my injury hasn’t bothered me during all this time. I should have realized it earlier. What happened next?”

  “Once the anarchists were driven back, and our position reinforced, Glis led his men through the secret panel, following your path, and set about clearing the way to the Towers. He’s a brave man. But there is little you could have done if you had been there. Bringing Enoch was more important.”

  They came to a door opening onto a wide banister, with balustrades on either side, carved with the slivered figure of the man in the moon, his nightcap on, looking out over the top steps. This was the beginning of the Long Stair, and it descended like a train tunnel, sporadically lit by lamps like porter’s lanterns trailing into the darkness. On the ceiling above the landing stretched a grand, stained-glass portrait of an angel, brother to the one in the room of the Book of Forgotten Things, though much larger. His hair was fire, his eyes night; his sword gleamed golden as he sat, hand on hilt, his gaze sweeping down the steps. And if he were the guardian of that way, Carter wondered that any evil dared pass.

  “Quite splendid,” Hope muttered as they stumbled downward, craning their necks to see it.

  They spent many hours descending, allowing themselves no rest or stops for food, for if they were truly dreaming, why would they require either? But their feet grew sore nonetheless, their legs and backs ached, and their stomachs began to grumble. After a time they grudgingly drew dried beef from Carter’s pack.

  “This really isn’t a dream as we know one,” Hope said. “In a dream one can be frightened, and even have a similitude of running, but not this sort of weariness. And the detail is that of life.”

  “It’s like another state of being, as if we have entered another dimension.”

  “Perhaps we have. That might explain why the Bobby can’t control all of it; it takes on a life of its own.”

  After nearly six hours, footsore and aching, they acquiesced to their situation and sat on the steps for a brief respite. As they ate dried fruit washed down with water, they noticed a peculiar smokiness to the ceiling not far before them, as if a low fog hung there.

  “What do you think it is?” Carter asked.

  Hope opened his mouth to reply, but the sound never came out. To Carter’s shock, the attorney grew transparent and vanished, a look of astonishment on his face. For an instant, through his weariness and loss, he could not think what had happened. Then he realized Mr. Hope had awakened. He pulled himself to his feet, feeling lonely and a little betrayed. There was no one to help him now.

  He marched on, and reached the mysterious mist sooner than he expected, for it traveled toward him, and was soon passing above his head, billowing like a dark cloak, spectral in the lamplight. It became more dense, until it resembled storm clouds in summer. Wind tugged at his collar.

  A fat drop of water struck his nose, harbinger to a heavy curtain of rain. He was soaked in seconds, and the wind rose to a hollow howl. Beneath the pelting deluge he stumbled like a sailor on a pitching ship, clutching the banister for support. He buried his face in his sleeve to avoid breathing water. His lantern went out, plunging the stair into darkness.

  Water from above rolled down the steps in waves. He took several nasty spills, and was nearly swept away before he realized he could not continue. He pulled a bit of rope from his pack and tied himself to a railing to weather the tempest.

  Whether he was there for minutes or hours, he could not tell, but he began to believe he would drown. The water ran in a stream down the stair, roiling around his thighs, and Carter expected it to inundate the entire stairwell. He could see absolutely nothing, hear only the rushing of the water; he remembered nearly drowning in the well as a boy, and fear gripped his heart. It appeared his enemies could do anything, command any force, yet he knew this to be untrue, else they would have simply killed him, or materialized on the stair and taken him captive.

  Between shivering and struggling for breath, he found the courage to consider his encounters with both Chaos and Order. Each had sought to persuade him to join their side. Had Order wished, she could have killed him while he was in her chambers. Yet, she had not. Likewise, Chaos had been unable to access the secret panel to reach him. But the monster had known it was there, and the mechanism was simple. Had its pounding on the walls been only a display? If so, then Chaos and Order either did not wish to slay him, or were prevented. If the former, it
was because they desired rather to use him; if the latter, then who or what restrained them? He was not the Master of the house, but he did hold some of the Words of Power. Did that somehow thwart their harming him?

  He breathed a nose full of water and fell coughing against the banister.

  The Bobby had certainly killed Brittle in the dream world; Carter believed he could have killed him as well. But the Bobby was surely answerable to different natural laws than those controlling Chaos and Order.

  Who caused the storm, Chaos, Order, or the anarchists? Carter doubted it was the Bobby; in the library the anarchists had attacked directly. And this was not an orderly attack; Lady Order would have nothing to do with anything so untidy. It was Chaos that had threatened him; the Old Man was causing the deluge. If that was true, and if his assumption about their inability to slay him was also correct, this storm was but a diversion, meant to keep him on the stair until the anarchists came. With an aching heart he realized the storm might never end, that Chaos could hold him here indefinitely. He chided himself for not thinking of it sooner, but quickly realized it was because he was used to natural, not dream, terms; in the real world a storm eventually ceased.

  After some thought he untied himself and began making his way downward once more, clutching the banister with all his strength. A barrage of water knocked him from his feet almost immediately, and he tumbled hard. For what seemed an eternity, he was beneath the waves, rolling down the stair. He panicked. This was the well once more, the water and the dark. He thrashed, pushed against the steps, slipped and fell again. Every bit of air was knocked from his lungs as he slammed against the banister, once, twice, then once more before he regained his grip and pulled himself above the surface.

  Low sobs escaped him, the involuntary reaction to death. But as he came to himself, a new determination took him, a defiance of the forces and powers allied against him. Chaos could divert him, batter him, discomfort him, but it would not stop him. A low laugh crept from between his pallid lips.