by Jonah Hewitt
“NO TIME. THERE IS NO TIME. SEEK ME BEYOND THE VEIL OF TIME.”
With that last piece of worthless advice the whole god collapsed, but not before transferring all the remaining forward momentum to the right foot, flinging it through the air.
“AAAAAAAAAHH!” Nephys screamed and turned his face into the ankle and braced for the impact. The stone foot hit with a colossal “thud” and felt like it was going to roll over on top him before it finally settled on the floor of the tunnel. Nephys opened his eyes. Behind him lay the broken remains of the god and his stone body. In front of him was the maelstrom of the Gates of Erebus, the souls of the deceased pouring through it like a massive whirlpool, only in reverse. The sound was deafening, like the roar of the ocean but mixed with all the last, plaintive wails of the dying. He was still twenty paces or more short of his goal.
He steeled himself and reached forward with his free hand, but just past the range of the toes of the broken giant’s foot, his arm burst into blue flames. It felt like he had plunged his arm into a vat of cold fire. He pulled it back quickly, smothered it in his robes, and groaned in pain, but as he looked at it, his hand was gone! It had been torn into wispy shreds of smoke like a shade’s hand! He recoiled in horror and clutched it to his chest. There, close to the green stone, it slowly but painfully reformed into a complete hand. Nephys looked around in horror. He was trapped. He was just a few paces away from the gate, but it might as well have been a thousand miles. Just inches from the protective magic of the god’s stone foot, the maelstrom of death was too deadly, and even that power was fading as the stone was slowly eroding. He looked down to see the toes first crack and then begin to crumble. He backed up and hugged the broken stump of the ankle, but even there, he could feel the once-hard black stone disintegrating under his fingers. He had failed.
He had failed the Chamberlain, and he had failed Maggie. Lucy would never get the note. He would be torn asunder, and whatever pieces were left wouldn’t even be enough to make a shade anymore. He watched the light burn away the last remnants of the statue’s toes. He gripped the ankle tightly and closed his eyes and waited, shuddering, for the end.
“WhaaaaaROOOONT!!!”
Nephys opened his eyes. There was only one thing in Limbo that made a sound like that. He looked. There behind him, picking his way over the rubble was Hiero.
“HIERO!!” Nephys called out to the bagpipe in shock.
The crazy monster had followed him the whole way after all! He was there! But the little imp was struggling against the flood of souls. He was moving forward, barely, inching his way with all three available limbs and the butcher knife. “Ka-chunk!” went the butcher knife, stabbing the ground violently and burying it into the stone of the tunnel almost up to the hilt. Then he would drag his wretched body forward, slowly, agonizing over each foothold until finally, “Ka-chunk!” he would stab the knife again, moving forward a measly few inches at a time, but he was moving forward. It was difficult for the poor little imp, but he wasn’t torn to pieces.
“How is this possible?” thought Nephys. Then he realized that imps didn’t have souls! They had no spirit body to waste away. They were made of darker, harder things, like misery, pain and suffering, and there was plenty of that here!
“HIERO, OVER HERE!” Nephys called out to the imp.
Slowly, patiently, persistently, never giving up, the imp worked his way towards Nephys. The stump of the ankle had eroded to not much more than a pile of rock. It was hard to imagine it was ever a foot. Nephys lay down behind the rocks to get as much advantage from their residual staying power for as long as he could. Already, though, he could feel the souls burning him all around the edges. Eventually, Hiero made it up to where he was clinging for life.
“PARRAAAAAAANTTT-BARRKANT!!” it bellowed angrily.
“I KNOW! I KNOW!! I’m sorry I ever sent you back!!” Nothing could hold a grudge like an imp! Nephys pulled an arm free from the remnants of the god Anubis and flung himself onto the back of the tiny imp. Instantly, he felt the full force of the gale of the dead emerging from the eye. It was like hanging onto a chain in the midst of a great waterfall. He wove his arms through the pipes sticking out like spines on Hiero’s back. He could hear them crack and break under the strain. Instinctively, he held the hand with the stone forward. It was his last defense. Like the prow of a ship, it split the tide of oncoming souls, only slightly, but it was enough. The little imp shuddered and seemed to take courage. Ka-chunk! Went the knife, and again, Ka-chunk! Inch by inch the little monster clawed his way right to the eye itself, dragging Nephys the whole way. It was excruciating, but after an interminable struggle the imp stopped just inches from the gate itself, an immense blue-white screaming ball of light, pain and death.
“WHAT ARE YOU STOPPING FOR?!!” Nephys screamed at Hiero.
“FLUARAAAAAANT!!!” it replied angrily.
For some reason, it couldn’t make the crossing. The gate was resisting the little imp, as if it knew it didn’t belong in the land of the living. Nephys thought hard. What could be done? Then he thought. It was the stone. Only Nephys and the stone could breach the eye. Nephys summoned all his strength, and groaning, he pushed the fist with the stone against the blue-white flames of the eye. His fingers weakened, his arm wavered and bounced around in the furious tempest, like a magnet being forced against the resistant pole of another magnet. It just didn’t want to budge the last few inches, but he yelled one last time and thrust his hand through. Instantly, he felt some force grab his hand from the opposite side, and it jerked him violently forward.
But the eye definitely did not want to let the imp through! As if it had a natural revulsion to all dark things from the pits of punishment, the imp was rooted to one side while Nephys was being dragged to the other. With his arm laced tightly through the pipes on Hiero’s back, Nephys didn’t let go though. Hiero’s pipes cracked and one snapped in the middle, and it felt like his arm would be pulled from its socket, but Nephys didn’t let go. For a moment it felt like he might be torn asunder between the imp and the eye and then suddenly, he was plunged into darkness and he and the imp were tumbling, rolling and falling over each other until they were flung apart and Nephys landed with a dull thud on a hard surface.
Nephys blinked. He was alive. He was sprawled on his back on some hard, rough surface. His back ached and he groaned. He felt the ground beneath him, felt its rough, pebbly texture, like small stones stuck in hard earth. He felt a breeze. Not cold and harsh, but cool and gentle and soothing. Nephys blinked again and opened his eyes. There above him was the night sky, not a cavern roof or overhang or clouds, but the actual night sky, with STARS! Bright and twinkling and real! Suddenly the memory of the stars of his life on earth came back to him brilliant and dazzling in all their constellations. There weren’t as many stars here as he remembered back home. They were few and hazy but they were stars all the same.
He blinked again. Around the edges of his vision he could see green. They were leaves – leaves all around the edges of his peripheral vision. He sat up. He was sitting on a strange road with a double yellow line down the middle. All around him were green and leafy trees, types and varieties he had never seen before, not even in his own country. They were dense and thick and lovely. He had never seen so much green in all his life! And everywhere movement! Every leaf or twig danced gently, swaying in the slight breeze. He stood up and looked at himself, his hands and his body. His robes weren’t blue-grey anymore, but they were bright, white linen. And his hands! They weren’t pale and thin but olive toned and fleshy. He laughed out loud and turned around. Everything was different! Everything was wonderful!! The sights, the sounds, the smells! Cool and green and fresh, and other smells, earthy and musty. He had forgotten it all. The brightness and joy of living! Memories came flooding back! Honey cakes and date palms! Barge rides and duck hunts and incense and sunshine and girls with dark wigs and spices and smooth plaster walls splashed with color. It had all come back!! He had made it! He had
made it back to the world of the living! He didn’t know where he was, but it didn’t matter. He had made it!
It was the same feeling he had gotten when he first had seen the stone but a thousand times better! TEN thousand times better. The stone! He looked at his clenched fist and opened it carefully. It was still there, still burning like a green sun. The note! He rummaged around in his robes and breathed a small sigh of relief when he found the tiny scroll. It was still there too. There was something else though, something he was missing. Something he was forgetting.
HIERO! He slapped his hand to his forehead. He quickly looked around him, frantically. There in the middle of the strange road was Hiero. He was laying in a crumpled heap, silent, his bag completely deflated. Even his spidery fingers were barely holding on to the butcher knife.
“HIERO!”
He ran over to him and fell to his knees beside him. He looked at Hiero not knowing what to do. The imp was utterly still. The passage had been far rougher on Hiero than him. Little imps just weren’t meant to be in the land of the living.
“Hiero?” he said softly. He gently picked him up. His head and his blowpipes hung limply like a dead animal. The center one was cracked badly and nearly snapped through.
Nephys didn’t know what to do. As tears almost broke through, he remembered something he had copied once in the scriptorium – a new technique for reviving the near dead or the drowned. A way to impart one’s breath to the dying. What had they called it? CPR? He looked at the broken, limp, boneless body but didn’t know where to begin. The blowpipe hung loosely from the back of the little creature’s cowl. A slight ooze of phlegm and bile was dripping from it. “Well, after all, he was a bagpipe,” thought Nephys. Maybe he could re-inflate him.
Nephys steeled himself. He placed the animal tightly under one arm, grabbed his trumpet-shaped nose in both hands, and putting his fingers over the finger holes he put the blowpipe in his mouth, took a huge glorious breath and blew.
“FUUUUUUU WAAAAAANAAAAAAAAARNTAAAAAPAAAANTFFT!!!”
Hiero’s bag inflated and his eyes bulged out like a fish that was squeezed too hard. He instantly went into a mad fit and clawed his way away from Nephys’ grip.
“Blech!” Nephys flinched. The taste of the blowpipe was wretched and yet somehow tingling, like acid. It was like Maggie’s soup, only much, much more potent. Nephys was disgusted by the taste, but oddly, was eager to taste some more. Even the bad sensations were somehow wonderful here.
Hiero, however, went into the biggest fit Nephys had ever seen. He honked and hooted and bleated and stomped the earth, tearing and lunging at everything in sight with his butcher knife. His usual horrifying, atonal drone was made even worse by the hiss of the broken middle pipe on his back. He finished by chasing after Nephys stabbing after his toes in a frothy, foamy, bloody rage. Nephys couldn’t make out any words, but the gist of it all was crystal clear. “NEVER. EVER. TRY TO PLAY ME AGAIN!!”
“All right, all right! I’m sorry, but I just wanted to make sure you were all right. That’s all!”
“FLUBBIT!!” he shot back at Nephys, but Nephys couldn’t help but laugh at the little imp. It was odd that something so ugly and misshapen had enough of a sense of pride that he felt violated by being played, but then Nephys supposed if he had a pipe coming out of the back of his head, he wouldn’t want anyone to blow on it either.
Nephys watched Hiero continue to fume and fuss for a while longer before he cleared his throat. Hiero calmed down enough that Nephys could finally be heard. Nephys coughed and said simply, “Thanks.”
Hiero looked back at him with one leery eye but only snorted once. That was as close as Nephys was ever going to get to “You’re welcome.”
Nephys smiled, but Hiero just snorted indignantly. Nephys opened his hand and examined the stone. It was blazing and getting brighter all the time. How was this stone supposed to lead him to the Necromancer?
Nephys was just about to look around to get his bearings when a horrible, screeching noise confronted him. He turned to see a bright light coming his way at incredible speed. He froze. At first he thought it was the Gates of Erebus again, that it had somehow come unhinged from its moorings and was now pursuing him to swallow him up whole, but then he noticed that there were TWO lights, not just one. The lights blinded him and bore down on him with a horrifying roaring sound. Nephys stood paralyzed with fear not knowing what to do when Hiero pushed him out of the way.
Nephys came to a stop on the ground at the edge of the strange road just in time to see two red lights speeding away. Hiero bounced off of the fast-moving object and rolled to the side of the road, but he quickly came to his feet and looked unhurt.
“A DEATH CART!” Nephys exclaimed in horror as he sat up. “Not two minutes back in the land of the living and I was nearly killed by a DEATH CART!! No wonder the Gates of Erebus are so overrun!! It’s a marvel there are any living left up here at all!”
“Bludundulunt.” Hiero was back on his feet and shaking off the impact like a dog shaking off water.
“Are you okay?” Nephys asked standing up, bruised but not seriously hurt, brushing the dust off his white robes, but Hiero just ignored him and tore off after the death cart in full furor, honking and hooting with murderous rage.
“HEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!!” Nephys shouted after him, but it was too late. Hiero had already disappeared into the darkness, chasing after the death cart. Not that Nephys could blame him after hitting him like that. It suddenly struck Nephys that Hiero had saved his life twice that day. He wondered what he could ever do to repay him, other than letting him torture some poor soul. He just knew he would love that.
Nephys looked around. It was dead silent. He realized he had no idea where he was or what he was going to do and now he was all alone in a strange land with strange customs and dangerous machines. How he was ever going to find the Necromancer, let alone Lucy? He looked at the stone. It glowed brightly, though slightly less intensely than just a moment ago, but it didn’t give him any indication which way he should go. Hiero had run off, he was in the middle of nowhere, and he didn’t have the slightest idea what to do or where to go.
Then something came to him. Not a thought, but a smell – a rich, wonderful, fat, sweet smell, carried on the gentle breeze. It was intoxicating. He started walking and followed it a short while. “Someone must be cooking nearby,” he thought at last. The smell was delectable – a mixture of roasting meats and sweetbreads and a bunch of other smells he just couldn’t make out. He looked at the small, glowing stone in his hand. He really should be thinking about finding the Necromancer. He took another deep breath and drew in the wonderful smells. He closed his hand up on the stone. He looked both directions and then immediately started in the direction of the wonderful smell, being careful to stay off the hard, black road with the double yellow lines. He didn’t want any more encounters with a death cart. As he walked, he thought out loud to himself.
“I wonder if they have any honeycakes?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Boston
“You like Boston?!” Lucy picked up the eight-track from under the dash and gazed in wonder at the garish, guitar-shaped spaceships amid blue flames. Her mother collected vintage vinyl. It was just like the cover of one of her mother’s albums.
“Are you kidding? Boston is my favorite!” Sky said this with the special, unbridled enthusiasm people reserved only for those that shared their secret passion. Lucy smiled at him. Somewhere in the car, there was another strange thumping sound. Sky didn’t react.
“Old cars,” thought Lucy.
“My mother loves Boston,” Lucy finally said out loud. Then she turned away and got sad. “Loved.” Her mom had loved Boston. She corrected herself in her mind. It had only been a day. It was hard to believe she was actually gone – and not just dead, but missing too. Lucy sniffed and hugged the eight-track to her chest as if that would make her mother closer somehow.
“Well, your mom sounds really cool,” Sc
huyler said, “I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Yeah, she was…is…really awesome.” Lucy’s voice trailed off. She didn’t really want to tell Schuyler that she was dead. Not just yet.
“So…is that where we’re going? To see your mom?” Schuyler ventured.
“Um…no,” Lucy said simply. She didn’t want to talk about it. Schuyler looked at her like he was expecting her to elaborate, but she just stared out of the car window at the passing scenery. She wiped a tear from her eye and then looked back at Sky. Schuyler pretended not to, but he had seen her. It was nice of him not to make a fuss about it.
After a long while, Schuyler spoke, “So, you wanna hear some?”
“Um…yeah.” Even though it had been less than an hour since they had escaped the clutches of Amanda Tipping, psycho-witch, it had felt a lot longer. Lucy didn’t feel much like talking and Yo-yo had fallen asleep on the back seat, or had at least curled up and tried to. After so much time riding in silence, it would be nice to listen to something. Lucy began sorting through the eight-track casettes. When “Amanda” came to the top of the stack, she quickly shuffled that one to the bottom. It would be a while before she could listen to that one.
“Oh! This one, I love this one. My mother used to, I mean my mother listens to it all the time.”
She handed it to Sky, because she wasn’t quite sure how to work the eight-track. Her mother only had the old turntable. Schuyler kept one hand on the wheel, took it from her and looked at the cover with really wide eyes as he read it out loud.
“’More Than A Feeling?’ Well, that’s just fantastic!” It was an enthusiastic response…she guessed, but it sounded a little forced somehow. Somewhere behind her, there was more thumping.
