The High House

by James Stoddard

  As if their march to the waterside marked the end of the day, twilight fell, and by this they knew they were in an enchanted land, for it had been midmorning when they entered Arkalen. Since they did not know what to expect, or even where to begin their search for their father’s things, they combed the beach until they found enough driftwood to build a fire in a pit scooped from the sand. Then they sat and watched the fading of the light, a spectacular sunset of cold beauty, the colors like icicles, sparkling and frozen, majestic, so many hues all gradually draining away to deep emerald and brown, trailing on the scarecrow clouds.

  The roaring of the breakers attended their meal, while a growing luminescence from the cloud cover to the east betrayed the rising moon. Beneath its light the whole beach took on an eldritch beauty—the sky became jade, the same color as the waters, shot with silver when the distant lightnings flashed. The rumble of the thunder was lost to the sea.

  They huddled close to the fire, chilled by the wind over the water. Taken by the mood of the place, Carter said, “Father used to tell marvelous stories of countries like this. As a child, I thought them only make-believe.”

  Duskin smiled. “I remember. Of Numinor and Poseidonis, enchanted kingdoms both lost to the ocean’s depths. In my mind I can still see the tall princes, chalk-white of skin, in mail of bronze, the sun gleaming on their shields.”

  “Do you recall Lud-in-the-Mist?”

  Duskin grinned. “It was a village lying just beyond the Debatable Hills, where waited Fairyland.”

  “Was Alveric prince there?”

  “No, they had no prince. You’re thinking of the story of the witch Ziroonderel.”

  “Ah, you’re right!”

  “What about Aviathar, the warrior of Khymyrium, how he came to Glasgerd and the things he did there?”

  “I used to dream of him, his armor shining.”

  “I remember Babbulkund and how it fell.”

  “Now that was a story! But I don’t recall all of it.”

  Duskin proceeded to tell the tale, and as Carter listened, he heard in the tone and emphasis the voice of his father. For a time, it was indeed as if he sat by Lord Anderson’s side once more, listening to a bedtime tale. When Babbulkund perished again, its towers crumbling to ruin, the mist of memory fell from his eyes as well, and he sighed and studied the fire. “Do you think they were true, the stories he told?”

  Duskin laughed softly. “I didn’t then, but I do now, after what we’ve seen. Even if they were only stories, they were probably legends he heard in the kingdoms he visited.”

  Carter drew a letter from his pocket, and handed it, tattered and stained, to Duskin.

  “What is it?”

  “The last letter Father sent me. He spoke of his desire to cross this sea. He thought he would find Mother there.”

  Duskin read it, and his eyes were moist as he handed it back. “Do you think he really is the Thin Man?”

  “Perhaps I saw what I wished to see. If it is him, he must be ensorcelled. Perhaps he tried to sail the sea and this is the result. Have you heard its beckoning? It called to him as well, trapped him perhaps in the end. I don’t believe that anything goes there and returns the same.”

  As if in answer to their thoughts a lone cry drifted across the waters, barely audible above the waves. Carter and Duskin stood. At first they saw nothing, until Duskin pointed far over the water, where the moonlight shone through the clouds onto the sea. It was difficult to discern, but Carter finally realized it was a yellow boat, large enough for two or three, with a triangular sail. A single figure, tall and thin, wearing a high hat, stood beside the mast; even from so great a distance, Carter saw he contended against the wind and the sea.

  “Is it him?” Carter asked.

  “Could it be anyone else? He isn’t seeking the shore—see how he battles the waves? They’re too strong.”

  They watched him struggle, slipping to his knees, bailing water from his craft, tacking against the wind, but it availed him nothing. Gradually, though he fought every moment, the boat was driven back. It all ended with the tearing of the sail and the breaking of the mast, which knocked him into the water as it fell. He clamored back on board, but remained half lying, no longer rowing, as the wind pressed his craft rapidly toward shore. The boat passed from sight behind a low hillock some distance down the beach.

  “We should catch him, now, when he is too weak to flee,” Carter said.

  “I’ll bring a lantern,” Duskin said.

  They left their fire and hurried along the shore, guided by the lightning flashes and the shrouded moon. The silicate reflected emerald beads off the jade sky, like galaxies of green stars beneath their feet.

  They were breathless by the time they reached the hillock, where they saw the boat lying on the sand. They redoubled their efforts, sprinting along the shore just beyond the reach of the waves.

  The yellow boat was little more than wreckage; where the mast had broken the boards had come away, leaving a hole in the bottom. It lay on its side, half-filled with water, but its occupant had vanished. They hurried down the coast. For an instant the moonlight penetrated the cloud cover, and they saw him sitting on the beach, his hands covering his face, his hat still somehow clinging to his head, a raggedy man, all shadows and darkness.

  Carter approached him carefully, and halted while still several feet away. The Thin Man looked up, but did not rise. As Duskin lit the lantern and the light fell upon the spent face, the brothers gasped, for this was indeed the eyes, the square jaw, the very face of their sire.

  “Father?” Carter cried. “Is it you?” If not for the spectral quality of the forlorn figure, he would have rushed forward to clasp the man, but he hung back, doubt and hope warring within him.

  “Why have you come here, my sons?” the voice, no longer disguised, was both like and unlike Lord Anderson’s. But it had been so many years. “I warned you to stay away.”

  “But why?” Carter asked. “And why have you hidden yourself so long? You sent no letters. I thought you had died … or … forgotten me.”

  The Thin Man’s eyes bobbed rapidly back and forth, as if Carter’s words confounded him. “It was like dying,” he finally said. “And I had to return, across the sea. Each night I try. I rebuild the yellow boat, but I cannot reach her. I cannot go back to him.”

  “Her? You mean Mother?”

  “Oh, yes.” The voice quivered in sorrow. “Oh, she of the bright eyes! She was so beautiful. I thought so the first time I saw her; I thought it always. She waits beyond the sea, I know, upon the shores of heaven, but I cannot go unless I die myself, for the waves are too strong. And I am afraid to die. If I did, I could not return to the Other Place.”

  “What place?” Duskin asked. “And what did you mean when you said you couldn’t go back to him?”

  “I can never go back to him, though I seek that as well. But you should not be here. I know why you have come—the Lightning Sword, the Tawny Mantle. It will make you Master.”

  “But, Father, why should I be the Master when you are here?” Carter asked. “You could come back. We would help you—”

  “I, the Master?” Horror flickered across the Thin Man’s face. “No, not I, but he. Do not suggest it! But I will not give you the sword or the cloak. There is only pain in being Master; I will not have that for you.”

  “We don’t understand,” Duskin said. “What torments you? How can we help?”

  “Help? You can help by going away, far from Evenmere. Depart! I saved you before, when the Bobby stormed the library, when he sought you in your dreams, but I cannot always be with you. I have to cross the sea!” Tears sprang to his eyes. “But I cannot, for I must return, back to the place. It calls me already.”

  Carter stepped forward, but the Thin Man waved him back. “Come no closer! I must away! Can’t you see I am of the damned? Thus goes the Master of the High House. I lost her, I lost you, and now I have lost myself.”

  With an anguished cry, he sprang
across the beach, his patchwork coat flapping behind him. His speed surprised the brothers, for though he did not seem to run swiftly, his long strides carried him far down the beach before they could think to follow. In the obscurity, he fled with a certainty they could not match, though they pursued with all their hearts.

  Carter’s mind reeled as he desperately followed; he had found his father, yet it was not as he had expected. This pale man, wan and tormented, was he truly the strong, loving sire he had known? Could even the years do so much?

  The wind rose as they ran along the beach, its goblin voice cackling, its imp claws delaying them. The swirling clouds made patchwork of the moonlight; where it shone they saw the silver reflection of their quarry, dancing far before them like a wraith, sliding over the beach, untiring, always farther away. Carter prided himself in his physical condition, but as one mile turned to two, and two to three, both men panted heavily, and he began to wonder: Ashton Anderson was more than sixty years old, yet he outstripped them as if they were still boys.

  I was proud of my father’s strength, yet this is beyond belief, he thought, even as he and Duskin slowed to a trot. It is as if I am still twelve.

  “A moment,” Duskin gasped, stopping, bending down to breathe. “He … can run.”

  Carter was too breathless to answer. Despair ran through him, that he would never catch up. Tears suddenly sprang to his eyes, and he stifled a sudden sob. All his life, it seemed he had sought his father, when he had been away on his journeys, when he had sat at table with his guests, finally when he had sent Carter from Evenmere. The unfairness of it all struck him like a blow to the chest, that he should pay forever for losing the Master Keys, that no reconciliation could ever be made, that forgiveness and his father’s companionship should elude him forever.

  They walked a moment, then ran with renewed effort. Soon, there rose before them, black in the dark, a curving arm of rock into the sea. They hurried to its base and Carter thought he saw a form scrambling over the crest. The sides were smooth this low, worn by the rising tides; farther up the rocks rose in cruel spikes like a crown, thirty feet above them.

  “There’s no help for it,” Carter said. “I could go alone, if you would rather stay.”

  “We go together, or not at all,” Duskin said.

  Carter had always been good at climbing, the result of an adolescence spent searching for the High House among the mountains and foothills. He quickly found a purchase in the shallow cavities pocking the stone face, and pulled himself up. The first few feet proved effortless, until he reached the portion where the rock bent slightly backward, forcing him to cling with all his strength, bearing much of his weight on his arms. He was nearly past the smooth segment when the left foothold crumbled beneath his weight, leaving him scrambling for another. For a moment he flailed the air, until his toes found purchase once more. He continued upward and reached the plentiful handholds of the rough crags above, propelled himself onto an upcrop, and waited until Duskin joined him. They rested a moment together, then Carter led once more, and soon crossed over the rough rim between the dark spires. Beyond the jagged lip the rock top was twenty feet wide and relatively flat. Its granite reach extended into the sea, and at its farthest position, a dim light glowed golden. Duskin clambered over the side; Carter gave him a hand and pointed wordlessly toward the distant luminance. The younger brother extinguished the lamp, and they groped their way toward the radiance, banging their knees against jagged stones, cutting their hands as they steadied themselves.

  As they drew near, they saw the Thin Man, kneeling on a low mound, hugging a large, rounded marker, all his limbs convulsed. “They mustn’t come here,” he murmured. “They mustn’t go back to the house. I can’t cross the sea, though I must; I can’t leave here, though I must. Someone help me!”

  Beside him, lying on the mound, lay the Lightning Sword and the Tawny Mantle. It was the blade itself that cast the glow.

  “Let us help you,” Carter said.

  He turned toward them, and the agony on his face was nearly more than Carter could bear. “You!” he cried. “Haven’t I warned you. You can’t have his things! You can’t be the Master!”

  He stood suddenly, menacing, his features contorted, exposing the rough-hewn marker and the words written thereon: Lord Ashton Anderson, Master of Evenmere, and Carter saw it was a grave.

  Despite the venom in the Thin Man’s eyes, Carter lost his strength of limb, and collapsed, reeling, to his knees. The action had a peculiar effect upon the Thin Man, who said, “Carter, are you all right? Have you hurt yourself?”

  “Are you his ghost?” Carter asked, his chest cold, his heart numb within him.

  “I never wanted to hurt you,” the Thin Man said. “You shouldn’t have come. I didn’t want you to see. He isn’t here, of course. There is no body beneath the mound. But he departed from this place, to cross the Sea No Man Can Sail.”

  “Could he still be alive?” Duskin asked.

  “He died upon the waves. And with his dying breath, he sent me here. But there is only torment. I cannot leave this place, yet I am drawn to find her, across the waves. And I must protect you; he made it clear. The sons of the Master were to be protected.”

  Still on his knees, staring at the grave mound, Carter asked, “What are you?”

  “I never wanted either of you to be Master; I love you too much. But when I tried to protect you from harm, it only drew you to rule. Will this house ever cease tormenting the Andersons? She was so beautiful; her hands were fine as porphyry. I loved her so.”

  “Was it the Bobby who tempted him, who made him cross the sea?” Carter asked slowly, his tongue ashes.

  “We used to stand here, Ashton and I, and sometimes, in the twilight, when the colors had dimmed, we thought we saw her, walking on far lands, her hair blowing in the wind. At the last he followed, and I with him. We were already parted from you, Carter, and Murmur kept Duskin from me as well. She hated me, for still loving your mother, for not wanting Duskin to be Master. I thought we would find the keys there as well, over the sea. I don’t know why we thought it; we just did. No man can sail there and live.”

  “He is a Sending,” Duskin said, staring hard, his voice shaking. “As Father was dying he sent forth a piece of himself.”

  “A scrap,” the Thin Man said. “Only a scrap. He made me before the jade waves overwhelmed the boat, before the mountainous waters crushed him. To protect you. His last thoughts were of you both. But I couldn’t find Carter, not until he returned to the house.”

  “That explains it,” Carter said softly. “Why you drove us away, yet still tried to protect us. Father’s emotions, all mixed up together. But you’re not him. He’s truly gone.”

  Suddenly Carter could contain his disappointment no longer; he burst into long, slow sobs. “He’s truly gone,” he gasped out. “Papa is gone. All because I took the keys.”

  The Thin Man went to him and placed his hands upon his shoulders, his visage all compassion. “Don’t cry, son. It’s all right. I never blamed you for the keys. You were a child. I loved you both so much. The mistakes were mine; you were innocent. Even death couldn’t stop me from coming to tell you.”

  Carter looked up into the eyes, and they were indeed again the eyes of his father, the features suddenly sharpened. “What could you ever have done that I wouldn’t forgive?” he said. “And where I have gone, I see all clearly now. Even Murmur I have surely forgiven.”

  “Then why did you send me away?” Carter asked with a sudden vehemence that surprised himself.

  “I never intended to be long. I thought I would soon find the keys so I could return you home. I sent the White Circle Guard, and placed all the resources of Evenmere toward that end, to no avail. The years went by, and my longing for your mother brought me here, to this sea. So I spent the days I should have spent with both of you. I am sorry, my sons, that I proved a poor father. But I loved you the only way I knew.”

  He stood abruptly and strode to sta
re across the sea. The planes of his face subsided, becoming less Lord Anderson, and more a hunted animal. “It is never long; she calls me again. I will have to rebuild my yellow boat; I will have to seek her.”

  Carter rose slowly to his feet. He spoke with quiet determination. “Since you are … not our father … I require the Tawny Mantle and the Lightning Sword.”

  “Noooo!” the Thin Man roared into the night, his expression melted away, transfigured, alien. He stepped forward, menace in his eyes. “Go away! Go away! You can’t have it! Can’t!”

  Duskin stepped between the specter and Carter. The Thin Man halted, but bellowed again, six inches from Duskin’s face, a deafening shriek. “Go awaaaay!” Again and again he cried, screaming like a child. For an instant, Duskin quailed beneath the affront, his fists knotted, sweat streaming down his brow, but then a light entered his eyes, his face grew impassive, and he stood firm as the Sending went on, screaming always the same words. Carter would never forget how firm he stood.

  Failing to quail the younger brother, the Thin Man sidestepped Duskin, placed himself between Carter and the objects lying on the grave, and focused his tirade toward the eldest son. He raged, waving grasping hands before him, foam running down his face like a winded horse. “Go away! Leave here! You can’t have them. He doesn’t want you to be Master! He doesn’t.”

  “I must,” Carter said, his voice little more than a whisper, but the whisper silenced the pitiful creature. The Thin Man looked about him, bewildered, then his features hardened again. In a clear, still voice he said, “Carter, Duskin, I could never hurt you. If the house needs you, you must obey, even unto sorrow. It is the highest calling. The very highest.”

  The face slipped away. The Thin Man burst into sobbing tears. “You can’t have it. Can’t, can’t, can’t. You’ll be harmed. Oh, I know you will.”