River Into Darkness

by Sean Russell

  The boy raised a darkly twisted hand, and pointed with a finger blackened and charred.

  “Percy . . . ?”

  But a snuffling caused him to whirl about, and there was Eldrich’s wolf, regarding him coldly. Erasmus felt himself back away and ordered himself to stand his ground—show it no fear.

  The wolf had its ears pressed back, fangs partly bared, hackles raised like scales. For some reason Erasmus noted that its shadow, cast by the moon, was not canine at all but long and stooped.

  “Take me, then, and leave this child in peace,” Erasmus whispered. “He has suffered enough. We have all suffered enough.”

  The wolf bared its fangs and growled, raising one paw as though about to spring. Erasmus bent and swept up a heavy fragment of stone, but as he did so, the wolf leaped past him, snatched the child from its perch, and disappeared into a tongue of mist. Erasmus threw himself into the fog, but in a few steps he was lost and could find no trace of the wolf.

  He tripped and sprawled on the ground, and felt tears form, like ice upon his cheeks.

  * * *

  * * *

  It was a city like the one in her vision, where she had seen Kent and heard the lament for a lost king. She walked on, mist appearing now and then to blind her, and in this unnatural mist she thought she saw the scenes of her life drift by. Lovers, her late husband, the half-formed spirit of a miscarried child. All of these things wafted into view, dreamlike, then faded into the mist, the crying child-that-was-not most disturbing of all.

  The countess didn’t know where she was or how she had come to be here. Even the idea that it might all be a dream did not occur to her. She was merely here, in this colorless world, this ancient, abandoned city—here without reason or meaning.

  And she wandered among the ghosts of her past, which seemed to haunt her but never came close enough to touch or even to be clearly seen. Kent appeared, his lips forming soundless words—but this was an aged Kent, wrinkled and bent, yet with the light still in his eye: vivid blue in this world bled of all color.

  Marianne chasing leaves carried up on a breeze—leaves like escaped words. Erasmus standing on a stair, alone. He would not look at her, nor did he seem to hear when she spoke, but looked always away—abashed. Ashamed.

  “Why did you not come after me?”

  But he ascended the stair and dissolved in moonlight without answering.

  Through an arch she found a fountain filled with mist, as though a cloud had settled into this small bowl. Reaching down, she swirled the mist and her own reflection appeared, the stars behind.

  But it was not quite her, for she seemed as gray as the world around her, as though drained of . . . what?

  “Glamour,” she whispered. “The countess without her enchantment.” She stared for a long moment, then closed her eyes. “How plain I am,” she whispered.

  She looked again and reached out tentatively, but her hands found only ash, cold and fine between her fingers.

  She fled that place, wandering aimlessly, and came upon a balcony which looked out over the ruined city swept by a sea of moonlit mist.

  What a cold, inhuman landscape, she thought. But who had built this place? Had men not dwelt here once?

  It seemed to her they had not. That the race that built this place was not quite a race of men.

  And then she heard the song, a swelling of voices in a strange tongue. A dirge, it seemed. A song of great power and sadness. A lament for some fallen hero or king, and oddly familiar to her. Where had she heard this?

  “Death stalks someone here,” she said, and turned away, the music fading as she went.

  She came into a sculpture garden, the statues broken and eroded upon their pedestals, and there she saw movement—two small children hiding among the statuary.

  “You still have not chosen.” It was the musical voice of Eldrich, oddly insubstantial here. She could not see him, for the voice emerged from shadow.

  “What choice was I given? To let them die. But I would choose life for them, for that is what they desire.”

  “Look around you. Regard this endless, lifeless night. This world without warmth, or compassion. Would you choose this for them? This for many lifetimes of men?”

  “You must give the choice to them,” the countess said, and fled.

  * * *

  * * *

  They pursued him, the cacophony of voices, the thousands and tens of thousands, and he ran; stumbling among the fallen walls, plunging into the pools of mist, scrambling up stairs and over balustrades. Closer they would come, and the noise of their voices would almost overwhelm him. Stopping up his ears was little help, but running, keeping ahead of them, that was his only hope.

  “Randall . . . ?” someone called, someone who was not of the hordes that pursued him, but he did not know the voice and ran on.

  * * *

  * * *

  Cold stone at her back: a pillar around which her arms were bound. About her feet a green flame flickering out of a rubble of stone—the tongues of a malevolent earth, but cold beyond enduring. Through the flame, her accusers silently watched, their shadowed faces ghostly grim.

  Garrick. Pryor. Banks. Kells.

  “I am not a witch,” she said, but her words came out as silence.

  “You, Banks, Kells. I did what you asked of me. I became a mage. A mage. . . .”

  But they remained as still and uncaring as the ruined walls. The flame flickered around her knees, catching at the hem of her robe.

  Someone appeared among her tormenters, someone touched by moonlight which shimmered in his gray robe.

  “Brother Norbert!” she called out, her hope suddenly rising. “You gave your word that you would bring me peace.”

  “Yes,” he said, and led her tormenters silently away, leaving her to the flames.

  * * *

  * * *

  “Kehler? Thank Farrelle! Kehler, it’s me; Hayes. Samual Hayes.”

  Kehler lay in a huddled heap at the foot of a stone wall, his back near a small opening.

  “I cannot go through with it, Hayes. I cannot. I don’t care if I die, but I will not go back in there.”

  Hayes put his hand gently on his friend’s shoulder, dismayed by his state. “You don’t have to go into the passage, Kehler. It’s all right. We will stay out in the open. In the moonlight. Come on—up with you now. Out of this, lad. We must go on.”

  “But there is never an end,” Kehler sobbed. “There is only this dark world forever. Cold stone. Passages choked with water.”

  Hayes began to gently lift his friend, bringing him to his feet. Flames, but he felt light! He had not realized how badly their ordeal had depleted them.

  “He is in there, Hayes,” Kehler said, pointing to the opening, and backing away. “Inside, waiting. Reaching out. Don’t go near!”

  “Come away from this place,” Hayes said, turning his friend away.

  “But he spoke to me—the buried child. Asked why we meddled in the affairs of the dead.” Kehler shook his head, leaning heavily on Hayes. “Asked why we would come to join him when we could be buried in the living earth. Oh, Hayes, Hayes. We are dead, and wandering. Wandering where memory and dream can never be pried apart.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Erasmus climbed the tower stairs and then up the stone to perch upon the wall. The gray and endless sea spread beneath him, made substantial by moonlight. High

  up like this, he almost felt more than heard a cold and brittle music. It drifted down to him as though falling from the heavens—falling like snow.

  The choral stars, he thought, not sure from where that knowledge had come.

  On a section of shattered wall, like a jagged peak, a robed figure appeared, and a flight of swallows swept down from the sky to weave an intricate pattern about him, like a spell. All the while he turned slowly wit
hin it, hands half-raised, as though in awe.

  “Brother Norbert,” Erasmus whispered. “Look what honor they give him. The very birds of the air.”

  And then the mist washed over the scene, and it was lost.

  * * *

  * * *

  He found Anna huddled in a corner, shivering, muttering to herself.

  “Leave me,” she whispered, though it was almost a hiss. “Have you not haunted me enough? Will I not pay all the rest of my days, and beyond?”

  “Anna? It is Erasmus.”

  She raised her head slightly but not enough that he could see her face. “Erasmus . . . help me,” she whispered desperately. “I am a ghost. A shadow. I will dwell here always for what I have done, for the crimes I have committed.”

  He crouched down and put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched away. Through the flimsy robe he could feel her flesh was cold—ghostly cold.

  “Anna, come with me.”

  “Where could we go that would be different? You don’t understand, Erasmus. We are ghosts. Spirits. We will wander here for a thousand years.”

  He shook his head. “No. I remember. We are lost in the ritual. Like a king’s blood dream. You were attempting to open the gate, perhaps did open it.”

  “Then we failed, and we are lost in the limbo between the worlds.”

  “No, it is something you once spoke of: the way by darkness. It is an ordeal of sorts, and we must go on.”

  Erasmus wrapped his frock coat around her, then took her in his arms, trying to give her warmth. She leaned against him, shivering so badly that her teeth actually clicked.

  “Why are you so kind to me?”

  “Because you have been haunted by Eldrich all of your days, as have I. We have common cause in our fear and hatred.”

  He felt her head nod. She began to sob bitterly. “But it led here, to this toneless world, this world without desire or sustenance or human warmth.”

  “Can you not feel warmth from me?”

  She hesitated. “Yes. . . . Yes, I can.”

  “Then perhaps we are not quite ghosts yet. The others are here. I have seen some of them. Perhaps even Eldrich, for I saw his familiar. Rest a moment, and when you are ready, we will seek them. Perhaps there is a way out of this limbo.”

  Anna shook her head. “No, I shall never escape what I have done. Three times they have burned me this night, and I fear they shall burn me a thousand times more before the end. Whether I escape or no.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The moon crept endlessly across the sky as though the celestial clock had run down. The night lingered beyond enduring, and Erasmus wondered if a sun ever rose here.

  Are we between the worlds as Anna said?

  The mist had begun to rise again, as though the tide flowed instead of ebbed, and this drove them up through the bones of the city. Up to the crest of a hill.

  Once, they heard a piercing howl of despair. It froze them, and then they forced themselves to go on warily.

  At last they came to a great stair down which a cloud seemed to pour like liquid, lapping over each tread, spreading eerily about their feet, then dissipating as it flowed from the open square. They went up without discussion, as though both knew there was no choice. Up the cloud-stair, toward the moon and stars.

  At the top they found an officer of the King’s navy, huddled on the stair, mist breaking about him.

  “What brought you here?” Erasmus asked.

  “Eldrich,” the man said, not stirring.

  “Eldrich. . . . Is he here?” Erasmus asked. “Does the mage know the way out?”

  The man looked up, eyes wide with fear. “Better seek a sea devil or the eye of a storm than seek the mage. This is what comes of meddling in the arts. You lose your soul and wander here. Wander until the world ends.”

  “You’re not a ghost yet, Captain. Come along with us. We seek a way out of this limbo, for surely there is a way. A way to the world beyond.”

  The officer followed in their wake as the cloud swirled around them, leaving a curling furrow behind. They went down a columned avenue, and finally arrived at the foot of a flight of seven stairs.

  “Here is the way out, if such exists,” Erasmus said.

  “But where are we?” the navy man asked.

  “At the nance, Captain,” Anna said, suddenly straightening. “The nexus of this world. The gate to the worlds beyond.”

  At the stair’s head they found seven palely tinted columns; two of rose, a pair in white, two of green, and one of shining black.

  Anna no longer seemed lost and overcome with despair. She drew herself up and looked around with a clear eye.

  “We might manage it yet, Erasmus. Do you remember? We opened the first gate, but there is a second. Where are the others? Where is my charm? I hope nothing has befallen Brother Norbert.”

  “I saw him,” Erasmus said. “The swallows paid homage to him. It was surpassingly strange. Men have been made saints for less significant occurrences.”

  “Not in this world,” Anna said.

  Fifty-Five

  Kehler and Hayes appeared first, helping each other up the final stairs. Anna bade them perform the proper rites before they set foot on the nance, and then they collapsed with their backs to a pillar.

  “There, we have found our way out, Kehler,” Hayes said. “We are not ghosts after all.”

  “I am recovered now, Hayes,” Kehler said, the edge of desperation gone from his voice, which now sounded only profoundly fatigued. “I . . . I was lost in my own fears, the horror of the crawl into the chamber and our escape. You see, I remember it all now.”

  Anna stood looking down on them. “You saw no others?”

  “None that I knew,” Kehler said. “Only Hayes, who rescued me from my demons, it seems.” He looked over at Erasmus. “I hope your own journey here was less harrowing than mine.”

  Erasmus shrugged. He remembered it with something less than clarity. He had seen Clarendon and Brother Norbert. And the countess . . . or had that been a dream?

  The naval officer whom they had found—the man who had accompanied Deacon Rose—stood looking up at the figures carved above the fount. He seemed like a man lost—far more so than sailors normally did on land. The captain was out of his depth and knew it. His only hope now was to return to the world he knew; other than that, he no longer seemed to care what this struggle was all about.

  Erasmus closed his eyes and felt himself begin to drift. He snapped his eyes open, but found himself still upon the nance—the others there as well.

  He shut them again and drifted into a dream of a fair green place, where sunlight played upon the forest floor and a sweet breeze spoke among the trees. He could almost understand what it said. Almost.

  A hand rocked him gently, then again, and Erasmus opened his eyes.

  “Ah, Mr. Flattery,” Clarendon said, for the small man was there, as was Brother Norbert. “We must all awake from our dreams now. Dreams or nightmares. Anna says it is time.” The small man smiled at him in open affection, looking more than a little adrift.

  Erasmus scrambled up, shaking his head to clear it.

  “What must we do now?” he asked.

  “The second gate must be opened,” Anna answered. “Take your places as before. We must not tarry. Erasmus saw the wolf among the ruins, and I do not think it was illusory. Captain James? You must remove yourself from the nance. It will be dangerous for you otherwise.”

  The man stepped quickly down onto the top step, not needing to be asked twice, but then turned and addressed Anna. “Is there any hope that I will see my own land again?”

  Anna gazed at him a moment. “There is hope, yes. You must return to the gate from which you came, Captain, and not tarry, for it will close soon after this gate is opened.”

  “But I do
n’t remember how I arrived here. I only recollect being engulfed in a wave of fire and then found myself wandering, bewitched and lost.”

  “You must go down, Captain.” Anna pointed. “Down to the edge of the sea of mist. The gate is there. I can tell you no more.”

  The sailor’s gaze dropped to the ground, and he shook his head, more than sorry he had ever become involved in the affairs of mages.

  Anna bent to begin her preparations when Clarendon called out.

  Deacon Rose approached the stairs to the nance, his manner as determined and malevolent as ever. Without thought, Erasmus pulled Captain James’ sword from its scabbard and pushed the surprised seaman so that he stumbled down the stair.

  “Ah, Deacon,” Anna said in mock solicitation, “you have arrived too late once again. In a moment we shall take our leave of you—unless you have it in mind to pursue me into the other world. . . . Don’t look so disappointed, at least you are rid of me—though not in the manner you would have preferred no doubt.”

  “Eldrich is here,” Rose said, barely containing his fury. “I have seen his familiar.”

  “But even he has not arrived in time, Deacon.”

  “Do not let him up the stair,” Anna said, and turned back to her preparations, leaving Rose fuming below. A fair voice was suddenly lifted, chilling everyone who knew it.

  “But it seems you are wrong, Anna. I have arrived in time.”

  Erasmus looked up to find the stooped figure of Eldrich approaching at the head of a small band, all masked in shadow.

  Anna quickly drew a line of green fire across the stair head, and stood beside Erasmus, who held up his sword, certain that it would seem little threat to Eldrich. The others gathered around Anna, as though determined to make a stand, however futile. Deacon Rose backed away deferentially, quickly retreating from the field between Anna and the mage.

  “Come no further,” Anna said, her voice trembling. “I am more skilled than you know. Stronger than you guess.”