by Justin Bloch
“Who was he?” he asked, scrutinizing the horseman.
“Tell me what happened,” said Sol, ignoring the question.
Nathaniel looked up, irritated. “No,” he demanded, “you tell me who he was first.”
Knives sharpened in the cop’s eyes, and Nathaniel saw his right hand twitch in the direction of his jacket. “You,” he snapped, jabbing a finger at Nathaniel’s chest, “do not give me orders. You have no say over what I do, Resident. Now, what happened?”
Nathaniel dropped his eyes and drew back, cowed, frightened. He took a moment to gather his thoughts, which had fled at the karma policeman’s unexpectedly virulent reaction. “He asked me my name, then wouldn’t tell me his. He said names had power, and that I could call him Anopheles. He offered to play me in chess and if I won, I could go free. If I lost, he said. . .” He thought for a minute, trying to remember the words. “He said that I would go into the world to spread his influence.” He fell quiet, then tossed the white knight towards the rubble from the table. It struck the dark stone of the floor and cracked in two. Nathaniel wiped his hands on his pants. “I won, but he got angry and attacked me. Because I’d tricked him.”
Sol nodded, his ire slipping away like the tide. “It’s remarkable that you bested him,” he said. He remained quiet for a moment, as if building himself up to something. When he did speak again, his voice was softer than usual. “He goes by many names, but he is governed by his true one: Pestilence. He is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
Nathaniel’s head snapped around. “One of the…” he began, then lapsed into silence. It did not occur to him that there was no such thing as the Horsemen, only that he had been left alone with one of them. He didn’t even think of the karma policeman’s volatile response to his last outburst. “He’s one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and you abandoned me with him? What the hell, man?”
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” the karma policeman shot back. “I’m not—”
“I’ll tell you who I’m talking to: a coward. You’re supposed to watch out for me, protect me!” He was on his feet, though he didn’t remember rising. “You keep saying I’m so important, but then you just vanish when we get in real trouble.”
“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Resident.” Sol, flushed with anger, moved across the space like a scythe reaping wheat. “Without me you would already be dead, and I will not suffer your insolence. You know nothing of this world.”
“And whose fault is that? You don’t tell me anything unless I ask, and even then you don’t give me a straight answer. You don’t think it might have helped to tell me we could run into one of the Four Horsemen?”
“I didn’t—”
“It was your idea to come in here in the first place. Sylvia warned us, she told us there was something in here, and you still thought it was a good idea.”
He stared at Nathaniel, jaw clenched, fists clenched, even angrier than he’d been when Sylvia attacked him. Nathaniel felt suddenly like a man who has been watching a tornado cut its way over the prairie and is just now realizing it’s coming right for him.
“I didn’t know it was Pestilence,” he spat, and turned away.
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t know it was Pestilence,” he repeated, whirling back, furious. “I should have, the river and the forest both poisoned, but I didn’t put it together, I was too focused on getting to the Spiral. When he awoke, he must have evaluated us both and chosen you as the weaker, and so he ghosted me.”
“He ‘ghosted’ you? Did you just make that up?”
“No I didn’t make it up,” he snapped. “Certain powerful beings are able to do it, to force prey or threats out of sync with the rest of the world. They can even weave elaborate fantasies to disarm or confuse. I was still in the Cathedral, but no matter which way I went, I would end up back here. After a few minutes I realized what had happened, and I put the pieces together. If he had won, or if he hadn’t been distracted and lost his hold on me, I might never have escaped.”
“You’re an angel, though. Shouldn’t you have been able to. . .I don’t know. . .do something angelic?”
“We’re not superheroes,” he scoffed. “There are powers beyond even the angels.”
“If he’s so powerful, why’d he give in so easily?”
“What he told you about names was true. The Horsemen are not beings, they are forces, ideas, but like all the Source’s creations, there are rules that they must obey. They are like a sickness: identifying them is the first step in fighting them.”
“He just quit when you named him.”
Sol nodded. “Aspects of his nature make Pestilence particularly susceptible.”
Nathaniel sighed, stepped away from the karma policeman, found an unbroken pew and sat on it. What was he doing here? This wasn’t his life, this wasn’t how things should be. People should not have to play chess for their lives. He hunched over, rubbed his face with both hands, let them fall and dangle between his knees. There was a tumble of sunlight falling across his lap, and something caught his eye.
He raised his hand and spread his thumb and index finger. On the web of skin there was a thin white scar, a tiny letter ‘p.’ He squinted at it. “Sol. What’s this?”
The karma policeman came closer, bent and peered for a moment, then straightened. “It’s Pestilence’s mark. He claimed you.” He shrugged. “It’s nothing to concern yourself with. You belong to the Source, and your fate is in my hands.”
Nathaniel was barely listening. “He must have done it while we were fighting,” he said, his voice far off.
“Probably.” The cop shrugged a second time. Already his attention was wandering. “How do you feel? Are you ready to move on?”
Nathaniel ran his finger across the letter, over the raised roughness of it. Marked. Claimed.
“Nathaniel?” the karma policeman prodded. “Are you ready?”
He gave a little jump, coming back to himself. “Oh, yeah, I guess. Let’s go.”
Sol started up the stairs to the sanctuary, his long jacket fluttering around him. Nathaniel followed, hands in pockets. The altar filled the space, a single, huge block of basalt, unadorned. There was a closed book set in the middle, large, bound in dark leather, with four inches of rough, jonquil-edged pages between the covers. Nathaniel detoured closer to get a better look, reached out to open the book.
“Nathaniel.”
He turned, and Sol was staring at him, half-turned.
The karma policeman shook his head. “We don’t have time for your incessant curiousity.”
Nathaniel dropped his hand, gave the book a last look, and joined him. They passed into the shadows at the back of the sanctuary, where a door was hidden. It was plain, painted the color of blueberries, with a knob made of black iron.
“Come,” Sol said. “Your destiny awaits.”
Chapter V
The door opened onto a circular chamber, brightly lit by thin windows spaced every few feet. A spiral staircase twisted upward around a central pillar, the steps wide enough for two people to climb side by side and dipped slightly in the middle by the passing of many feet. A banister was cunningly cut into the walls and as smooth to the touch as a piece of silk. The interior of the spire looked nothing like the clumsy, shambling exterior.
“How does it work?” Nathaniel asked. He climbed the first few stairs and tried to peer up around the curve.
“The Spiral?” Sol returned. “We climb and it takes us where we want to go.”
“I’m not sure that makes sense.”
The cop shrugged. “There are Spirals throughout this world, and they are all connected to one another. They are controlled by intent: we think about the place we want to go, and this Spiral takes us to the Spiral nearest that location.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. I was not one of the angels that built it. The mechanics have never been explained to me.”
“And it just goes on and on?”
He nodded. “Infinitely. It’s only by having a destination that you can reach the destination.”
They began the climb, not hurrying, Nathaniel pausing every once in awhile to take in the view from a window. From above the canopy it became obvious how much Pestilence had damaged the Fainted Wood. The leaves of distant trees were lush and green, but everything surrounding the Cathedral was lifeless shades of gray and brown, like mud drying in the sun. After awhile, Nathaniel moved to the inner curve of the stairs, avoiding the windows. He had a fear of heights, and glancing out at the forest below made the world go topsy-turvy around him. Even encased within the stone tower he felt like he was about to fall. And he could not forget what the spire had looked like from the outside. He had no idea how the Cathedral’s builders had made the structure so steady despite its appearance, but he didn’t trust it.
Shortly after, they passed the last window. A torch was set in a sconce on the wall, and the karma policeman took it down. He held one hand out; it shimmered, then burst into flame, and he touched it to the torch, which sputtered and caught. His hand became flesh again as Nathaniel watched in awe, speechless.
They trudged up the stairs. It was cool in the Spiral, but beads of sweat trickled down the sides of Nathaniel’s face and made the back of his neck sticky. He didn’t think he was particularly out of shape, but the ascent had wiped out his stamina. He tried counting steps to distract himself, but doing so only reminded him how high he was. He couldn’t even enjoy the wordplay because of the phobia pressing in on him.
At last he could go no further. He lifted his foot and kicked the next stair instead of stepping onto it. He stared down at it dumbly, confused, and then the exhaustion tackled him and he sank down to the stone. “We have to rest.”
The policeman raised one arm and pointed up the stairs. Nathaniel followed his motion: there, just a quarter-turn above, was a blueberry door like the one they had used to enter the Spiral.
Nathaniel stared up at the end of the stairs for several moments before heaving himself to his feet. He wobbled a bit, steadied himself with the banister, the muscles of his legs vibrating like guitar strings. He locked his eyes on the door and climbed. At the top, Sol snuffed the torch and deposited it into an empty sconce, then opened the door and stepped through.
They were in a small chamber exactly like the one at the bottom, with curved walls and two doors beside each other. The room was circled with windows, flooding the room with sharp white light. Another set of stairs began to their left.
Nathaniel stood just inside the chamber, swaying, shielding his eyes with one hand. “I’m done,” he announced. “No further.”
“One more door. It will be worth your while.”
“Come on, seriously?” He wiped a hand down his face. “I’m beginning to think it’s always going to be just one more door with you.”
Sol said nothing, opened the door and left the Spiral.
He groaned, leaned back against the wall for a moment, then pushed off and followed the karma policeman.
He emerged in a grassland that rolled to the limits of the horizon. An unblemished blue dome of sky stretched overhead, set with a sparkling citrine sun. The air was warm, rich, filled with birdsong and the soft scents of honeysuckle and clover. High grass rippled in waves by a steady breeze, spotted here and there with pointillist patches of wildflowers. Plump bumblebees jaunted from blossom to blossom then sped off to share their riches at the hive. Weeping willow trees were scattered throughout the field and birds flitted between them like couriers carrying news to distant outposts.
The long shadow of the Spiral lay across the hills like a black snake sunning itself, and Nathaniel turned to look at the tower, a perfect circle soaring upward into the sky, beyond his ability to see. It was made of smooth stone the color of snow at dusk, carefully crafted so that the seams between blocks were barely visible. A bar of bright royal blue spiraled up the tower, sparkling in the afternoon sun. Surrounding the base was a ring of dark, fertile soil. The obstinate part of his mind insisted to him that he had climbed up into the tower, that he had most definitely not come through the ground. There had been windows lit by the sun. There had been panoramic, panic-inducing views of the Fainted Wood. But if Sol didn’t know how the Spiral worked, then he certainly wasn’t going to be able to figure it out, and he ignored the stubborn voice.
The karma policeman twirled a piece of grass around his fingers as he took in their surroundings. “These are the Elysian Fields,” he said, and Nathaniel looked at him in surprise. This was the first time Sol had ever volunteered information. “The ancient Romans believed this was Heaven, and that the chosen of the gods would spend their eternities after life dwelling here.”
“Was it ever really Heaven?”
He shook his head. “No. Just a story. Do you still want to rest?”
Nathaniel considered. He no longer felt as exhausted as he had; tired, yes, but the bone-aching weariness had disappeared. He took a deep breath, raised his face to the warm press of sunlight. “Actually, I think I’m okay.”
“Elysium has that effect,” Sol said, nodding his approval. He glanced at the sky, then motioned to the north. “Come on. We have miles to travel.”
They set off, the grass whispering against their legs. The scenery was unchanging, pleasant, relaxing. After a few hours, Sol called for a halt, and they sat amidst the grass, sharing manna.
“The gateway to Limbo is just over the next hill,” the karma policeman said.
“Have you ever been there? To Limbo?”
“Yes.”
“It’s another world, like this one?”
“No, not exactly. It is a midworld, a place between.”
“What’s it like?”
The cop was quiet for a moment, thinking. “It’s…very hard to explain. For the souls of the departed, it isn’t ‘like’ anything, just a realm of consciousness. Those awaiting reincarnation are cared for until their time of rebirth arrives. When it does, they are deposited into bodies which are entirely new, save for the eyes. The eyes never change.”
“The windows to the soul,” Nathaniel commented.
The karma policeman nodded.
“Huh,” Nathaniel responded. A breeze whispered through the grass and tickled his hair across his cheeks. “So it’s just a bunch of souls floating around, waiting?
“No. The souls are seen to by the Divinors, the only beings who live permanently in Limbo. They calculate karma, schedule reincarnations. They are extremely dedicated to their duty,” he said with admiration. He rose to his feet, crossed to a small bed of wildflowers and picked two small bouquets. He bound these with thin ribbons, one pink, one red, which he pulled from a pocket of his coat. He regarded them both carefully, nodded to himself, and walked back. Nathaniel wanted to ask about the flowers, but something in the faraway look on the policeman’s face kept him quiet. Sol cleared his throat, seemed to remember where he was. “Come on, we’ve rested long enough. It’s time to meet Bertha.”
Nathaniel stood and stretched, his limbs tingling. They climbed the knoll side by side, Sol holding the flowers above the tall grass so that the petals wouldn’t be damaged. The hill was higher than most of the others in the meadows and when they reached the top, Nathaniel stopped for a moment to enjoy the view. Miles distant, the Spiral jutted from the grassland like the spindle of a turntable upon which sat some vast, warped emerald record. The top of the tower was still not visible, but even from this distance, the blue bar could be seen. The hill they had climbed continued on in either direction to form a ring, the inner sides sloping gently down to form a small, cupped valley. Large beds of flowers covered the hillsides, reaching like fingers across the slopes, the blossoms deep plum, cherry, tangerine. In the center of the valley stood a massive black stone, tall and jagged and rough, dominating the valley: the entrance to Limbo. Beside the stone, a woman reclined on the grass. She took no notice of them.
&n
bsp; They lingered at the top of the hill for another few moments before Nathaniel asked, “Sol, is Bertha an angel?”
“No, she is an Inhabitant,” he said after a moment, almost as if he had a grudge against the fact.
“What’s she like?”
Sol grunted, even more reticent than usual. “She is very lonely,” he said eventually. “Very few have any cause to visit the Elysian Fields.”
“Is she dangerous?”
The karma policeman gave a small laugh and turned to face Nathaniel. “Everything in this world is dangerous. Bertha is no exception. She had the means to defend Limbo, if she has cause to. She isn’t any danger to us, though.”
The woman rolled onto her side, caught sight of them, regarded them curiously. “Come down and say hello,” she said. Her voice was high and clear, lilting.
Sol’s lips tightened for an instant. He nodded and the pair made their way down the hill. The swaying grass grew steadily shorter until they reached the floor of the valley, where it stood a well-manicured inch tall. It was vibrant, harlequin green, springy and thick, begging to be walked on in bare feet.
Sol paused when they were about ten yards away. He stood still, seemed to gather his thoughts, then called out, “Hail, Gatekeeper.”
“Sol, is that really any way to greet me? Do you always have to be so formal?” she asked. She put one hand on the great black stone anchoring the center of the ring valley and rose to her feet.
The cop sighed and walked forward. Nathaniel followed a few steps behind, eyeing the woman curiously. She was nearly as tall as the policeman, slim, dressed in a white gown draped around her like a toga. She had large, piercing aquamarine eyes; beneath the left there was a neat, white line of scar, two inches long. Her face was framed by long curls of honey-blonde hair, her skin flawless and fair despite the fact that there was no cover from the sun anywhere in the ring valley. She was like a cloud over the Caribbean, luminous and so perfectly beautiful as to seem unreal.
