Mists of Everness (The War of the Dreaming)

by Wright, John C.

  Prometheus looked up, as if puzzled. “Pay honor to you, eldest brother? How have you earned it? What have you invented?”

  “The great city of New York has been overwhelmed and inundated. Yield to me. Am I not your elder?”

  Raven, warm sparks crawling over his trembling limbs, and leaning heavily upon the lightning bolt he held like a crutch, had found, from somewhere, a superhuman strength to rise again to his feet.

  Raven could not meet the gaze of the Emperor of Night, but looked up at his chin, and shouted, “Morningstar! Stop! Or we destroy you now!”

  Morningstar eye’s narrowed in withering contempt. “Prometheus Loki! Order the things you have made of dirt to bow to me, and I will, perhaps, entertain to restore the Sun whom I have slain.”

  Prometheus said, “Should you receive bows from my mankind? Well, that’s for them to say. They are not mine to give away.”

  Raven said, “Galen, blow horn. All heaven fall! Fall down and crush this evil angel!”

  Morningstar, perhaps irked by the whining noise of the carrier’s engines, glanced toward the stern, and his cold glance froze the rear third of the ship into a wide iceberg. “Prometheus Loki, silence your crawling vermin. Do they not know their little place in the vastness of the universe? Dare they attempt deception to a mind superior without measure to their own? For I can see into their very hearts, and I know that he who holds the horn has no will to wind it.”

  Azrael Merlin, his face darkened with effort, his eyes bright with rage and fear, had struggled up to his knees, his breath laboring. “Great Morningstar, paramount and without peer among the hosts of angelic powers, though fallen; hail and greetings, and glory, glory, glory unto thee, wonder of heaven! Have I your leave to address you, unworthy though I am?” And with unsteady fingers, he picked up the unicorn horn out of Galen’s hand and pointed it like a weapon at the mountainous vast figure of Morningstar, who loomed, mace still upraised, across the whole heavens overhead.

  The words of the dark archangel, luminous, perfect, filled the night. “Merlin Azrael Waylock, it was your hand and with that horn which first gave me the passions and ambitions of mankind, to which all other angels, save me alone, are ignorant, frozen in their pale duties, unambitious, content. This has pleased me, you may speak; but know first that all you intend to say I see within your heart. Shall you tell me that Acheron behind me is destroyed, and that I cannot return to the dream-world, except through Everness? Shall you tell me that you will have the authority to embody me as you have had to Oberon, should I so put myself beneath your authority and pass back through your Everness gate? Your schemes are nothing to me, wizard, for I foresaw all your treasons when first we met before the cadaver of the unicorn; I knew them even before you had conceived them. My herald, Koschei Anubis Cerebus, the littlest of all my servants, already has raised my colors above Everness, and received the fealty of the lares, genus loci, and guardian angels loyal, once to you, now to me. Prometheus did not give your race wit enough even to remember an enemy you saw within your wards; you fled here and left him there. Fool. Your house is mine; your magic has failed. Now speak. What will you say to me, Merlin Azrael Waylock? Will you, too, threaten to blow the horn? I see in your heart that you would rather die than give victory, and this world, to Oberon. I await. Have you nothing, after all, to say?”

  Azrael Merlin slumped forward, beaten down by the contempt of the angel’s gaze; and he knelt, leaning heavily upon the deck.

  Raven, breathing in strained gasps, said, “Merlin! Apollo, he said magic not save us—only courage.”

  Azrael Merlin, his strength failing, rolled the horn across the deck with trembling fingers. “Take it! You have endured the horror of Acheron. Your courage is greater than any of ours.”

  The horn rolled into Lemuel’s grasp. He put his other hand on the Chalice, leaning heavily upon it; and when the Chalice began to float upward, beating against the tide of hideous pale light radiating from Morningstar’s disdain, Lemuel was raised to his knees.

  “Blow!” snarled Azrael Merlin. “Blow your precious paradise to come and blow me back to hell!”

  Lemuel raised the horn to his lips.

  At the mere touch of his lips, the clouds above parted, and the constellations were gathering together. A shining city, gleaming like a star, with silvered domes and towers of sheer crystal, silent as a ghost, beautiful as a gem, began to descend.

  Lemuel drew in his breath.

  “Stop,” said Morningstar, “I concede. Well done, Prometheus Loki; your tricks have prevailed once more. I shall withdraw if your creature blows not that horn, and wait again in darkness for an aeon. Time is nothing to me; the Guardians of Everness, in generations to come, shall once more forget their charge. Sloth and idleness shall undermine your walls and grant me victory. A century of years or a millennium; it is all one, to me.”

  Prometheus had just taken apart the ignition system of the helicopter, and was staring in fascination at the distributor cap. Without looking up, he muttered, “Certainly, that’s as you wish, eldest brother. But none of this is my work.”

  Morningstar removed his foot from the carrier and stepped back onto the surface of the sea, which turned to ice in his shadow. And he lowered his great scepter.

  Pendrake, leaning on the magic sword, face red with effort, heaved himself slowly upright. “That’s not enough, Morningstar! You have not yet heard our demands; we have not yet accepted your surrender!”

  Wendy, stilled pinned to the ground by the weight and horror of the dark angelic gaze, said in a worried tone, “Daddy? Daddy! What are you doing?! Why don’t you let the nice angel go away now!”

  Azrael Merlin had collapsed back to the deck. He hissed, “My Liege! Do not tamper with such powers! Do not tempt such a miracle as this our escape!”

  Pendrake barked, “Now, Lemuel! Blow the horn. This is a matter of principle, and it is better that the world be destroyed than that we compromise one inch!”

  Galen, face down on the deck, said weakly, “Please, Mr. Pendrake, can’t we just live and go home?”

  Morningstar turned the pressure of his terrible gaze upon Pendrake, who raised the sword as if to parry a blow. Pendrake staggered but did not fall. Morningstar spoke in a mild and lovely voice: “Who are you, vermin, to make demands of one such as I am?”

  Pendrake was able to look him in the eyes unflinchingly. “I am a free man. I bow to no one. And we will blow the horn unless you agree to return control of Everness to the Waylocks; agree to restore the sun which you have extinguished; to recall all tidal waves presently set in motion; to restore Venus to its proper orbit; and undo any other damage in the sky. Or does your angelic intelligence regard my demands as unjust?”

  Morningstar gazed down. “I see in your heart that you put aside all temptation to ask for more, demanding only what is just and fair. So be it: I agree. I will, if it please me, wait till you are passed away, little bee, before I raise again my hand to pluck the honeycomb of this world. But you have wished your worse curse alive again: for only if you restore the tyrant Oberon to his power, can he use the Cauldron of Life to coax the soul of the Sun to flame again. I pray he will destroy you, filth, as you deserve. Enough! I am departed.”

  And Morningstar turned, his great black wings folding over his shoulder like thunderheads, and he strode away into the airs and disappeared, passing over the waves to the East faster than the eyes of men could trace.

  IV

  They all climbed to their feet, looking around themselves at the devastation and wreckage. The aircraft carrier deck was dented with the footprint of Morningstar, and a light powder of snow lay across all surfaces. The aft of the great ship was locked within the mass of iceberg.

  All around on the sea was blood, corpses of monsters, floating hulks of destroyed ships, ice-flows, and a scattered few lifeboats.

  Overhead, like a crystal chandelier, hovered the lovely aethereal citadel of Celebradon, silent, hushed, and lovely, and with banners and pennan
ts flying from its battlements. Tinted clouds rose hung in a great ring all around it.

  The sky above was nighted and eclipsed. The Sun had not reappeared.

  Galen said in a tired voice, “How come I don’t feel like cheering … ? Haven’t we won … ?”

  Pendrake looked back and forth. “Where did Oberon get to?”

  Wendy said, “No one noticed when I said that!”

  Raven looked at the snow that ran in streaks across the deck; but the snow had fallen after Oberon had vanished, and he saw no footprints.

  He looked up and down across the deck, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. He hesitated, looking again.

  Wendy said, “Raven! Can you find him?”

  Azrael Merlin said, “Look at how the stars come joyfully from behind the edges of retreating clouds; the shapes in the clouds form images of nestlings, flowers, elongated fingers. Oberon has already returned to Celebradon. But I do not know how.” Now Azrael Merlin’s nostrils flared, and he turned his head his head to look up at the eastern sky.

  Raven pointed the other way across the deck. “Look!”

  Galen said, “I don’t see anything.”

  Raven nodded. “Where is dream-colt Lemuel riding to get here, eh? All dream-colts are belonging to Oberon, no?”

  Then he turned his head to follow Azrael Merlin’s stare.

  Wendy looked up, too. “Now what?”

  Pendrake looked at a Geiger counter he held, then took off his radiation suit and threw it down. He raised a pair of complex-looking binoculars to his eyes.

  Where the clouds had parted, in the far distance, they saw a moving point of light like a falling star. As it dropped closer, speeding toward them between cloud and sea, they saw a gleaming, slim chariot of lacy silver. The traces were a score of silk threads; the chariot was being drawn through the air by a cluster of cats, their furred, graceful bodies leaping through the air in long, curved lunges.

  Closer still, they saw a slim and stately young woman leaned backward against the pull of the reins, skirts and train floating; and her hair was a dark cloud, wind-whipped back from her face. She was slight of build, like a girl in the first bloom of womanhood; but she carried herself with the carriage and dignity of an empress.

  And even closer still, they saw the cryptic smile which touched those perfect lips, the smoldering gaze which gleamed mysterious from beneath those wide, dark lashes.

  On her hand was a ring burning like a drop of blood, the twin of the mysterious fire opal on the hand of Pendrake.

  The flying chariot circled the deck twice, and then came down for a landing. Slim chariot wheels spun blurring across the deck, as the queenly figure reined in her tiny steeds. The cats all landed on their feet, pulled the chariot to a stop with impatient shrugs of their little shoulders, and padded softly to a halt. There they sat and lay, some washing their whiskers, as dignified as pharaohs.

  Wendy was hopping up and down with excitement as the chariot was circling. “Mommy! Mommy! It’s my mommy! Isn’t she pretty! Look, Raven, look! I bet you forgot what she looked like!”

  And then when the chariot landed, Wendy, as if carried forward on a breeze, spun across the air and landed in the lady’s arms. They hugged each other fiercely, and the lady stroked Wendy’s hair and whispered to her. The mother seemed as young or younger than the daughter, if one did not see the ancient wisdom in her eyes.

  Then Wendy was on her knees, surrounded by the cats. “Hello, Fluffy! Hello, Smudge! Can I pet you? Whiskers! Have you been a good girl? Look, Raven!” Cats were purring and crawling all over the giggling Wendy. Raven thought he had never seen his wife look so pretty.

  Pendrake stepped forward and put his arms around the lady’s waist, and lifted her off the chariot car to the deck.

  He bent to kiss her, but she turned her cheek and looked at Azrael Merlin. Pendrake took her chin in his fingers and turned it back toward him. “What is this?”

  She said, “It may not be polite, Anton. Not in front of my old husband … .” Her voice was husky and musical, delightful to the ear.

  Pendrake snorted. “Titania! I’m not going to falsify reality for him, or any man. If he doesn’t want to see, he can close his eyes.”

  “No … Anton … Mm … no …” She shrugged her shoulder and tried to pull away from his grasp. Her bent her backward over his arm, his fingers tightening in the fragrant masses of her hair, and pulled her tightly to his chest. She could not escape, and, beneath his fierce kiss, whatever murmur of protest she had been speaking softened into a warm moan in her throat, like the purr of a kitten.

  Raven, embarrassed, turned his gaze away. He saw the look of deadly hate burning like fire in Azrael Merlin’s narrowed gaze.

  When they straightened up, Titania had both her arms twined around her husband’s arm, leaning her head against his shoulder; and she was smiling a soft, triumphant smile. She never moved far from his side thereafter, but kept herself pressed close to him.

  Raven stepped forward, but stood gaping, unable to think of what to say. Lemuel at that moment also stepped forward, bowing low, his hands held out, palms up. Lemuel intoned a phrase in an ancient language, perhaps Egyptian, perhaps Babylonian.

  Titania smiled, looked out from under dark lashes, and arched one eyebrow high. (Raven was surprised to recognize Wendy’s favorite expression.) She said to Lemuel in English, “You are polite, sir, and recall the old ways other men forget. But a lady doesn’t like to be reminded of her age.”

  Lemuel said in English, “Great Mother Isis, I rely upon your bounteous good nature to mend any fault of mine.”

  She said, “Pour one drop from the Grail you hold into the sea, and all this blood, these miles of corpses, shall be cleansed away, and the waters made sweet again.”

  Raven found his voice, and said, “I know you … don’t I? From at the reception …”

  She laughed, a sultry, musical laugh deep in her throat. “I should be dismayed you forget me, son-in-law, did I not blame the Mists of Everness. Once, long ago, the Earth was all heat and volcanic passion, and the sky was nothing but cloud, and Heaven had never been seen. The clouds parted for my first husband, so that he could come down to earth to see me. The spirits of earth were amazed when they first saw the stars. Earth and sky now saw each other; and they were married. Lightning, his weapon, now yours, caressed the seas, and brought forth life. The world thereafter was utterly changed, due to the coming of heaven. For you, now, Raven, and for mankind, the Mists of Forgetfulness which cloak the Earth now part; and you will see the wonder, deep, sublime, and ancient, which stands beyond what you thought formed the boundary of the world. The world will be changed again, profoundly.”

  Azrael Merlin said in a voice that cracked and snapped with hate: “Indeed the world shall change; it shall be ice from pole to pole; and every herb and grass shall die in darkness; for the Sun is fallen and shall not rise again.”

  Titania turned, looking at him sidelong from the corner of her eyes, and smiled a slow, languid smile. “How so? Oberon already is in Celebradon with the Cauldron of Rebirth. He merely awaits that you revoke the curse you spoke, to resume his power, that he may work the cauldron to reignite the Sun. It is a miracle, I know, but one which will not try him; hasn’t he done it every dawn?”

  “And if I do not revoke my curse?” Azrael Merlin stood with his arms crossed, his head thrown back, his eyes blazing.

  Titania turned to Pendrake, and she said, “I came to tell you, Anton, that you had no time to tarry here; already the servants of evil seek to reap the grain their masters, defeated by you, have sown. Even if the battle among the gods is suspended, the battle among men is not, and may continue for many years before the wounds are bound up and forgiven. You must go immediately to the Capitol Building and stop them before a state of martial law is proclaimed. It is cold there, and you should wear something heavier than that black cape of yours. And are you wearing a flak jacket? You know how I hate it when you go out without a flak jacket.”
/>
  Raven was shocked when he saw Pendrake, smiling grimly, swat Titania on the bottom. She squealed, her pose of queenly dignity forgotten, and danced away from him, her palms on the bustle of her dress.

  Titania laughed like a little girl, shrugging her shoulders and tossing back her hair. “You had best be as quick to smite the evil ones as you are to smite your wife, Anton. Take my chariot and my daughter and go! There is not time to spend even on a kiss!”

  Pendrake stepped over, put his arms around her, dipped her, and kissed her till she was breathless. He said in a voice of fierce calm, “I shall conquer them as easily and absolutely as I have conquered you, my dear.”

  She lay curved gracefully back over his arm, and whispered through parted lips, “Oh, yes.”

  He put his lips to her ear and whispered something. She stood erect, dignified once more, and with a gentle hand pushed Pendrake back. She said, “You must go. I need to have a word with Merlin Azrael in private. Go! What happens hereafter you may learn in time.”

  Azrael Merlin said, “What words would I have to spend on thee, Queen of Witches?” But he did not walk away, but stood glowering.

  Pendrake stepped up onto the car of the cat-drawn chariot, and took up the silk reins in his hands. “Raven, I may need your help, too. Wendy, come along. Van Dam, you come too; if what I think is happening is happening, I may need your help. Prometheus, I’m afraid you won’t fit …”

  The titan did not look up from the partly disassembled helicopter, but said, “If you curled your rotor blades at the tip, you would avoid the turbulence caused when the outer part of the lifting surface goes supersonic.”

  “Right,” said Pendrake, who turned back. “Titania, I’m assuming you think Peter and his goats can’t take us because they are going somewhere else?”