River Into Darkness

by Sean Russell

  No one spoke immediately, and Hayes thought their reluctance very curious.

  “I will tell my story,” Kehler said after a moment. “Why should I not? It takes some time to starve to death, I think, and we have little to do to pass the time. I will bare my soul if others will do the same. In fact, I will tell my tale even if others will not speak. Perhaps, when I am done, others will be more inclined to follow.”

  “You see,” Rose said, turning back to Banks and Anna. “I will break my oath, for I’m sure it can do no harm here, and Farrelle will forgive me this, I think, considering the circumstances.” He tried a weak smile on the two who were supposed to be his sworn enemies.

  “Will you not come down, sir?” Banks said, his tone so very sincere that Kehler relented.

  “You have been up the long stair twice now,” Kehler asked, as though sensing this was the time to ask. “Was it meant to go to the surface? Can we break through, do you think?”

  Again the Tellerites only stared back at him, saying nothing, but then perhaps Banks realized that Kehler would not cooperate if he received nothing in return. “It is not so simple, I fear. Much of what is written here suffers from ambiguity, to say the least. The mages were famous for it, as though they were always afraid that their writings would come into the possession of people who should not have them. Such as yourself, Mr. Kehler, or me for example. But the stair . . . it could have had a number of purposes, I fear.” He reached out and clasped Kehler’s arm. “Thank you for coming down.”

  They gathered near the door to the vault—Landor’s crypt—and sprawled on the hard stone. Clarendon had assessed their tiny food supply and realized that, even if rationed to the point of absurdity, it would not last three days. After that it was only a matter of time.

  There had been a rather macabre discussion of how long people could live without food, and the longest anyone had heard of, that seemed believable, was nineteen days. Ten or twelve days seemed more likely given their exhausted state. Hayes had been hungry since they’d entered the cave. If he believed they were truly trapped, the prospect of starving to death would no doubt terrify him.

  He stretched out full length on the stone, propping his head on his hand, and waited, not sure who would begin this confession. Certainly not him, for he had nothing to tell. He looked over at Anna, marveling at how different she looked dressed in the clothes of a boy—not like the elegant and somewhat threatening lady who had appeared in his dream. Her manner and her appearance were in contrast, for she looked tired, even pallid, but in her movements she was no more exhausted than the rest—perhaps less so.

  She noticed him looking at her, and Hayes suddenly felt he must ask a question to justify his staring. “What did you mean when you said we were a sacrifice?”

  She returned his gaze briefly and then looked away. “It would appear that Eldrich has been aware of us for many years. We were utterly wrong in many of our assumptions, and the mage long schemed to trap us.” She glanced at Erasmus. “He used Mr. Flattery and another to draw us out into the open. . . .” She faltered, not quite answering Hayes’ question.

  “I think that Miss Fielding is right,” Erasmus said. “Eldrich wanted to lure us down here, and not just any seven people. That means that you, too, were required, Deacon, though I cannot imagine why.”

  That left everyone thinking. And then Kehler looked around the circle. “Who will begin?”

  “It started with me, or so I begin to perceive,” Erasmus said, “so I will start.” He sat with his back to the wall, his legs stretched out and crossed. Hayes had known Erasmus for many years and during all that time Erasmus had made few concessions to fashion, but even so he had always retained an inexplicable dignity—never looking even faintly ridiculous the way many scholars did. Even now, with his beard and hair unkempt, clothing dirty and torn to rags, Erasmus retained a certain disheveled distinction—like a prince in exile. He could not say the same for Kehler, or likely himself.

  “It seems that everyone knows of my time with Eldrich,” Erasmus began, looking up, his manner almost defensive, “though no one suspects the real truth of it, I’m sure. I will apologize in advance to Hayes if the story I am about to tell is a little different from the one he heard previously.” He stopped, took a long breath, and looked over the heads of the others, his eyes focusing on another place and time. “I was sent to the home of Eldrich when I was aged ten years. It is true that I don’t know the reason for this, though something my mother once said left me believing that it was at the request, perhaps even insistence, of the mage himself.

  “I was given a room to share with another boy of about my own age: Percy. We were schooled together, and we were as close as brothers for those three years.” Erasmus looked a bit distressed at the thought of this other boy, or so Hayes thought. “An elderly servant named Walky was our schoolmaster. He was a forgetful, kindly old man, and the closest thing to a friend we had in that strange house, so despite his eccentricities we loved him dearly. I will not bore you with all the details, but let us just say that Walky had obviously taught boys before, and he kept confusing our lessons with the things he had taught in the past. The subjects he had taught previously it seemed, were not always so mundane as our own lessons.”

  “Are you saying that Eldrich trained others, but it has been kept secret?” Anna asked, her surprise obvious.

  “I have asked myself that very question many thousands of times, Miss Fielding. I have spent entire nights trying to puzzle it through, and I’ve never reached a conclusion.”

  “I have an answer,” Rose said, “or so I think. The mages commonly had young men in their service, and almost all of them were taught some small part of the arts. Most, however, never rose beyond being servants and their knowledge was not great. This man Walky would be one of them. But many a failed apprentice to a mage was sent back to his family—and if he learned anything out of the ordinary in his time at the mage’s house, he could not remember it. Some, it seems, remembered nothing at all.”

  “So Mr. Flattery has had his memories obliterated? Is that what you’re saying?” Kehler asked, his curiosity so great that he actually spoke to Demon Rose.

  “But I remember everything perfectly,” Erasmus said. “Not every tiny detail, perhaps, for it was long ago, but there is no time unaccounted for in all my years there.”

  “Let Mr. Flattery finish his story,” Clarendon said before anyone else could speak.

  Erasmus looked a little unsettled by this discussion, as though his part were suddenly suspect. “As I said, Walky began to confuse our lessons. At the time I didn’t think we were meant to be taught anything but the normal subjects for schoolboys. Now I am not so sure. . . . It seems Eldrich does nothing without purpose. We learned a script and some few words in another language, Darian it was called. Although we suspected Walky was not to teach us these things, we never questioned him. In truth, we were fascinated. We had never been told why we were there, and Percy developed the theory that we were meant to be trained as servants to the mage—not just servants, but to assist Eldrich with his pursuit of the arts. I think we both secretly wondered if we were to be mages ourselves, a thought that was rather terrifying, and attractive at the same time. We were only boys, after all, and had no real idea of what this might mean.

  “And then, after we had been there almost a year, Walky left a book in the room we used for our studies. It was an intriguing looking book, its title, so worn it was barely legible, in the script we had learned, though the words meant nothing to us. Alendrore Primia.”

  “The primer,” Anna whispered.

  “You know it?” Erasmus said.

  “No . . . I’ve never seen it,” she said, apparently still reluctant to speak.

  “A rough, incomplete copy exists,” Banks said. “Made by Teller from memory. It is the first book in the training of a mage: the Primer of Alendrore.”

  Erasm
us nodded. “For the first few days the book sat there, we were afraid to touch it, though it was seldom out of mind. When we realized beyond a doubt that the book had slipped from Walky’s mind, we worked up the nerve to open it. You can’t even begin to imagine the thrill this gave us—forbidden knowledge, after all. And it was a book full of wonders; diagrams of things arcane, written in an ornate, highly ambiguous language that filled us with awe—like a voice from the past, but the voice of a mage.

  “It was not a slim volume, and the first section was devoted to language. After a fortnight we smuggled the book out of the room and hid it in the loft above the stables. Here we pored over it by the hour, though in the good weather we took it to the wood that surrounded much of the hill on which Eldrich’s house stood.

  “After the section on language, which we learned with a diligence that would have impressed Walky—but then the text was so impressive to us that we dared not approach it in our typical schoolboy manner—came a section of lyrics and poems. All extremely ambiguous, but fascinating all the same, for they seemed to speak of a distant and mysterious history, and like the sculptures in the hall, these poems seemed to evoke something more. That odd feeling that one knew more than was actually presented.

  “The second year went on. It became clear to me that we were not mages in training, for most of our work was in the most mundane of subjects. But even so, we learned our lessons, including those that we were never meant to have learned—or so we thought.

  “As we progressed into the primer, we mastered some very simple charms—tests I believe they were. Tests to determine our talent for the arts. Some of these might make good parlor tricks. There is one which employs a candle and a rose that is impressive, for instance.”

  Hayes noticed that the priest nodded his head when he heard this.

  “Much of this first book had to do with the control of fire, which was very exciting to boys who, of course, love nothing better than to play with fire. I think that was the plan of it, for whoever wrote this book knew his readers well. Without Walky to guide us, though, our progress was slow, and we were constantly afraid that we’d be discovered. If we performed the simple enchantments we found in the book, would Eldrich sense it? We debated this endlessly, and then with the imprudence common to young boys, we went ahead. I cannot tell you how thrilling it was to bend the flame of a candle this way and that, to make the smoke behave in a manner completely unnatural. We could hardly have been happier, and for the first time stopped dreaming of returning home.

  “During all of this time we never met the mage, and, in fact, were warned to keep our distance should we accidentally happen upon him. Once, while I was idling on a window seat, I did see a man I took to be Eldrich walking in the garden. He looked up at me suddenly—this is the story I told to Hayes—and I felt so utterly sure he knew about our book. That he could sense terrible guilt within me. I fled back to our room and put such a terror into poor Percy that he almost fainted from fright. But Eldrich did not appear, nor did Walky suddenly wonder where his book had gone.

  “I wonder now if it was merely the overactive imagination of a boy, or if Eldrich put that fear in my heart, for I will tell you I have never known such overwhelming terror. Astonishing to think that a man of such power would take pleasure in terrifying a small boy, but I am not sure he didn’t. Be that as it may, we went back to our book in a week or so. It was near the end of my third year there when we came to the method of lighting fire—a skill we thought useful beyond our ability to express. I was the dominant partner in this alliance, and in the manner of children, coerced Percy into first trying anything that seemed at all dubious to me. It is a tradition of sacrifice practiced by children the world over, I’m sure,” Erasmus said, but the irony was tinged with sadness and regret. “In this case I could not imagine what this small act of cowardice would lead to. Percy performed the spell as it was described in the book, exacting in the preparation, or so we thought.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “But the small fire that we thought to start did not materialize. I was standing several feet away, mindful of my own safety, as usual. We were in a small clearing in the wood, and Percy stood in the center of a geometric design we’d marked out on the ground.

  “We had experienced failure before, and worked through the explanations in the book to find our error, and this is what I thought we would do again. I went to step forward, opening the book as I did so. And suddenly Percy screamed . . . and a column of flame erupted around him. I felt as though I was thrown back, and when I regained my feet, I saw Percy staggering toward me, engulfed in flame, such a wail of agony erupting from his throat that I can hear it still.

  “As quickly as I could, I quelled the flame with my coat, and Percy lay on the ground, horribly burned, howling from the pain. Before I could even consider going for help, Eldrich arrived with Walky only a few paces behind him.

  “The mage stopped, surveying the scene—the geometric markings on the ground, the book—and then he thrust me aside and whispered something over Percy, who seemed suddenly released from his agony. Wrapping the child in his coat, Eldrich bore him up, saying only, ‘Bring the book, Walky.’

  “I followed behind, terrified for my friend, overcome with guilt and shame. Walky sent me to our room, though not unkindly. I saw no one until the next day when Walky arrived to have me pack my belongings. ‘But what word of Percy?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you be worrying about Percy. You have other matters more pressing,’ was all Walky would say. ‘Where are you sending me?’ I asked. ‘Home, child,’ he said. And that is what happened.” Erasmus put a hand to his brow, hiding his eyes for a moment, and then, self consciously, moved the hand to his chin. In that moment Hayes thought that Erasmus looked utterly dejected and anguished, for clearly this was one of those great shames of childhood that some men bore. “That afternoon I was put in a carriage and taken home. To this day I cannot tell you what happened to Percy, though I fear the worst. Slowly I recovered from the horror, if not the guilt of what had happened, for I blamed myself. I was the leader of our small league, and I had let Percy do something so foolish. I realize now that I was only a child acting as children do, but only my head believes this—my heart knows differently.

  “As I grew to be a young man, I found that the events of my childhood haunted me. If Deacon Rose is right and many who serve in the house of a mage can remember nothing afterward, then I can only think I was being punished by being left with my memory intact. But my curiosity had not been burned away by our terrible fire. I began to believe that for both myself and Percy, who I believe died of his burns, I would seek the knowledge of the mages. I would learn all the things that we were meant to learn as boys. Perhaps I would even find out if Eldrich could have healed my boyhood friend—something that would have given me great relief—for I could see that even the terrible mage was not unaffected by Percy’s suffering.” He opened his hands as though displaying something. “And this has led me here . . . and it seems now I will be truly punished at last.”

  There was no immediate response to Erasmus’ story. No one asked the questions that had occurred as he spoke. Hayes wanted to comfort his friend, for it was certainly true that Erasmus had merely acted as children often do, but he could not deny Erasmus was being punished—for Eldrich was a mage and mages were vindictive. History bore this out over and over again. If Erasmus had not been meant to see the book, then he might well have earned the mage’s anger. But if Eldrich had merely used Erasmus to lure the Tellerites out of hiding, as had been suggested, then why was Erasmus trapped here as well? Did Eldrich use people so callously?

  “You should not censure yourself for what happened, Mr. Flattery,” Rose said at last. “You were a child and could not understand the possible consequences of your actions. We do not allow children to play with knives or rapiers, for their inexperience makes mishaps likely. The book should never have fallen into your hands. If it was an accident, then the one to bear the b
lame would be this man, Walky, not you. Guilt is a consuming emotion, and it clings to us like no other. I sometimes think that we are more able to stop loving another more easily than we shed our guilt, though very often I have found men’s guilt to be unwarranted. And that, I believe is the case here, Mr. Flattery. You were a child, and you have made penance enough over the years. And who knows, this young boy, Percy, might live a perfectly whole life, cured of his affliction, or less affected by it than you think. I would advise you to give up this atonement. Let your last days be free of this torment—this feeling that you deserve to be punished.”

  Anna looked at Erasmus. “I think you were merely playing a part in Eldrich’s plan, Mr. Flattery,” she said, her tone unusually warm. “You and your boyhood friend, used without remorse to trap me and my companions, and if you are innocent of any alliance with Eldrich, as you claim, then I am sorry for it. But the mages have always been so, even to the last, it seems.”

  Erasmus looked at them gratefully, a bit of relief on his haggard face, as though telling his tale had provided some small comfort. “What day is it, do you think?” he asked.

  Banks and Hayes produced watches that did not agree, and Clarendon did the same, his timepiece committed to its own theory. It turned out that there was no concordance, and only an estimate could be made.

  “Whatever day it is, and whatever hour, I think I must sleep,” Clarendon said, and the others agreed. Only Anna did not seem so inclined.