by Rob Scott
He checked Steven’s watch and called, ‘Five clocks, Gilmour. Open it.’
Four minutes later, as the trio stood around the fire watching dawn over the fjord, Steven Taylor appeared beside the far portal. ‘Hello, boys. Any tecan left?’
‘Great rutters!’ Gilmour shouted, spilling his drink down his tunic. He scurried over to clasp Steven in a bear-hug. Garec followed, while Mark knelt to close the far portal with the twig he was still holding.
‘What happened to you?’ Gilmour asked, holding Steven at arm’s length and checking the lacerations on his head and the burn on his cheek. ‘Are you badly hurt?’
‘No. I’m fine – quite a journey, though.’ He looked around, as if to check they were alone, then continued, ‘But you were wrong, Gilmour. Nerak followed me; he pinpointed my cross-over spot even with the Colorado portal closed.’
Gilmour winced and nodded towards the leather book in the boat. ‘I’m not surprised, Steven, but I’m sorry. And you’re right; I think I underestimated a number of things about Nerak. The fact that he was able to follow you through the weaker portal may be just the beginning of a long list of surprises he has in store for us. But tell us – did you find it?’ The three men were hanging on Steven’s every word now. ‘You managed to get back to the far portal, but Lessek’s key?’
Steven reached into the backpack pocket. ‘Rest easy: I did.’
There was an almost tangible exhalation of relief as he held it out, then Gilmour blanched and waved it away. ‘No, no – uh, you hang onto it.’ The book had just lashed out at him; the key was likely to kill him on the spot. That was naught but the tiniest of tastes, Fantus, drawn from the very furthest reaches of my power.
‘All right,’ Steven agreed, ‘I’ll keep it here.’ He tucked the stone into the pocket of his coat, then, slapping Mark’s shoulder, said, ‘I brought you a few things, partner. Let me get a cup of that tecan, then I can show you what I picked up on my little vacation.’ Steven didn’t notice Mark’s grim features as he walked to the fire, then looked around and asked, ‘Hey – where’s Brynne?’
Nerak took the first person he found, an elderly woman out walking her dog, an irritating Bijon with pink-rimmed eyes and an expensive coiffeur. The portal was closed, and the beacon he had followed was silent. The dark prince slammed into the old woman’s body, killing her instantly as he demanded, ‘Where does Sorenson live, Hannah Sorenson?’
The old woman had nothing in her memory to give Nerak any additional information. He dug deeper. ‘Meyers Antiques? What do you know of Meyers Antiques?’
Dietrich Meyers. He came from Austria. Owned the store over on Broadway. Died last year. It was closed up now. He seemed friendly enough. His wife used to make strudel before she died a long time ago – maybe fifteen years ago. I bought a tea set there once back in the 1970s, a nice floral, something British. Jeffrey broke two cups one morning, and I boxed it up. Ah, but that boy was a wrecking crew.
Nothing. Nerak cursed and left in a rush, ignoring the yammering of the wretched little animal as the woman’s stout body fell in a rumpled heap, her thigh-length support hose exposed as the heavy folds of her wool skirt bunched above her puckered knees.
His next victim was a high school student, in the neighbourhood to catch an art film at a nearby theatre.
Nothing; a waste of time. Nerak left the boy’s body slumped on a bus stop bench, an ad for a massage clinic showing behind the young man’s varsity letter jacket.
A bartender on break, smoking a cigarette out behind a Broadway Avenue tavern, followed. ‘Where does Hannah Sorenson live?’ he asked the dead man’s memories.
Hannah. Pretty girl. Great rack. Saw them once when she leaned over to tie her shoes. Drinks beer, sometimes has wine with her mother. They were working the sale at the old man’s antiques store after he died. She lives over on Grant. Someplace near First.
He had it. First and Grant. The bartender filled in the blanks: two blocks over and one block down. Nerak enjoyed a final drag on the cigarette before allowing the bartender’s body to collapse beside the tavern’s loading dock, the wound on his wrist still wet.
At the corner of First and Grant, Nerak took a well-dressed woman, a financial analyst. She was home from work and taking out the rubbish, the only person outside in the street. Nerak had his answers almost before the woman died.
Jennifer and Hannah. They live right across the street. Three houses down. Tragic the way that girl disappeared. Her mother has never been the same. Used to be very cheerful, but losing her father and her daughter in the same year -
Nerak interrupted the dead woman’s soliloquy: he had everything he needed for now: Jennifer Sorenson was Hannah’s mother. So that’s where Steven went. She’ll have the portal.
He cast his thoughts ahead to examine the inside of the house. No one there. Not surprising; she would already be gone. Steven was reckless and overconfident, but he had not yet proven himself stupid.
‘Where have you gone, Jennifer Sorenson?’ Nerak asked out loud. ‘Perhaps a bit of time in your house will help me track you down.’ He laughed, the sound of a soul in Hell. As he climbed the stairs to Jennifer’s front door he wondered if his latest victim was a fan of Confederate Son chewing tobacco. ‘We must introduce you,’ he promised the hapless body.
Jennifer flipped on the indicator and hoped that being lost in the anonymity of the five o’clock rush hour would offer some protection from the creature hunting her. As the radio DJs cracked jokes about politics and religion, weight loss and divorce, she moved into the centre lane, strangers’ cars surrounding her on all sides and creating a living barrier to protect her from Steven Taylor’s demon.
She tried to decide where to go. Someplace no one would expect her to be, that’s what Steven had said, somewhere no one would think of finding her, because apparently, Nerak had the ability to read minds.
Jennifer had enough money to live comfortably for some time, even if that meant staying in hotels. She had stashed a lot of cash from the liquidation sale at Meyers Antiques in the metal strongbox down in the basement, though she wasn’t sure what she had planned to do with the money. The cheques and credit card receipts were all deposited at the bank, but she still had thousands of dollars tucked inside her tote bag. Jennifer had been feeling a little guilty about her taxes, but that was gone now: if the IRS knew the cash was to save lives, her own life, her daughter’s, and perhaps to help keep the country safe from an evil force with the ability to tear the fabric of the world apart, they might not mind if she kept a few dollars. Or, if they did, maybe they would make arrangements for her to have a corner cell, something with a view. Jennifer smiled. Being in traffic was good; it was helping. As her thoughts cleared, she made a decision.
With the Friday night ski traffic and a forest fire closing several lanes in Idaho Springs, it would be hours before she reached Silverthorn. She nestled herself back into the protective centre lane and thought that another six or seven hours of traffic would be fine with her.
‘The forest of what?’ Hannah spat a mouthful of tecan into the fire. The brown liquid sizzled into steam. ‘You can’t be serious. There has to be another way through.’
‘Not one that isn’t guarded by Malakasians,’ Hoyt explained. ‘They don’t bother with this particular pass because no one would dare come that way.’
‘Except us.’
‘Well, yes, there is that, but it will get us into Malakasia without them knowing.’ He tossed her an apple he had stolen from an orchard that morning. ‘And we may get right through the forest without incident.’
‘You don’t sound convinced, Hoyt.’ Hannah sounded sceptical. ‘The forest of ghosts, good Christ. All right. Um, what happens in the forest of ghosts? Do we meet Casper and the hitchhikers from the Haunted Mansion, or is there something else?’
Alen said, ‘You misunderstand, Hannah. There are no ghosts in the forest of ghosts.’
‘No ghosts in the forest of ghosts?’
‘Only
those we bring with us.’
‘All right then, Churn, remind me not to bring any ghosts into the forest of ghosts. I want to go in alone and come out the other side entirely ghost-free. Can you help with a periodic reminder between now and then?’ Hannah’s sarcasm was not lost on the big mute, and Churn grunted a laugh. ‘Thanks, Churn – or am I correct in assuming it’s not that easy?’
‘Uh, no,’ Hoyt answered.
‘The forest of ghosts is an enchanted place along a narrow stretch of foothills south of the Great Pragan Range, the mountains separating us from Malakasia,’ Alen broke in. ‘No one knows how or when the forest developed its curious power, but many travellers have been lost so now no one wanders through there on purpose.’ His words carried a sense of finality that made Hannah shiver.
‘What does it do?’ she pressed.
‘To some, nothing, but to others, it ensnares their minds, trapping them with memories of times in their lives – good times, bad times; no one knows really, because so few have experienced the visions and lived to reach the other side. Of those who have survived, the stories are always the same: they were trapped by the enchanter or the spirit of the place, and shown visions of their lives, pictures of essential moments that had led up to this journey. They always had some ambition or great goal…’
‘And if I’m just out for a morning jog, it will leave me alone?’ Hannah considered the forest’s curious nature. ‘Why would it only target those pursuing lifelong goals?’
Alen went on, ‘Because it feeds on the lies we tell ourselves to soften the blow of our memories. Maybe it grows stronger every time it keeps one of us from reaching our potential or fulfilling a dream. If it can show us the mistakes we have made, the lies – however small or infrequent – we have told ourselves or others to get to this moment, then it can trip us, perhaps convince us to give up – or worse.’
‘Worse?’
‘To stay,’ Hoyt said. ‘We can’t be sure, but the forest may convince some travellers to wait there, reliving the same images from their past again and again until they succumb to hunger or thirst, completely oblivious to the fact that their lives are draining away while they re-enact some bygone moment.’
‘How does it know if we are pursuing something so emotionally important?’ Hannah was trying to find a flaw, a loophole through which she might slip without the forest’s detection.
‘I don’t know,’ Alen said simply. ‘Somehow it reads our dreams. It knows if we are chasing down the last stages of something in which we have invested our passion.’
‘So, of the four of us, who is in trouble?’ Hannah asked.
‘I certainly am,’ Alen replied. ‘Churn is also pursuing a lifelong desire for vengeance.’
Hannah gave the quiet giant a compassionate look; she could not imagine how he had suffered. The mute hadn’t hesitated when Alen told them they would have to make their way inside Welstar Palace to send her back to Colorado. Hoyt was convinced that Churn had been tortured, forced to watch his family die, and then beaten nearly to death before managing to escape. The Pragan healer had found Churn still strapped to several pine planks, as if the big man had torn down a wall to free himself.
Alen added, And you, Hannah.’
My life’s work? This? Nonsense. Hannah envisioned the faculty at the law school, cowled in black at last spring’s graduation ceremony. ‘This isn’t my life’s work. I’m not reaching any lifelong goals here. I just want out of this place. Granted, I would like to find Steven first, but if he is trying to get home as well, we may find him somewhere between here and there.’
‘Not necessarily your life’s work, Hannah,’ Hoyt rejoined the conversation, ‘but something in which you have invested your passion. This journey represents the most important thing you have done in – I don’t know – how long?’
‘Fine, okay, a long time, years even.’ She used the English word to capture the depths of her anxiety. ‘But don’t you think the forest will – well, figure out that I’m just along because there is no other way for me to go?’ She was embarrassed at being so selfish and so terrified out loud.
Thankfully, none of her companions appeared willing to judge her for her insecurity: all three had seen and experienced horrifying things in their past; each knew fear. The fact that Hannah was trying to find a way to avoid the forest of ghosts was a perfectly normal response.
Alen said, ‘I’m afraid not, Hannah. If the forest behaves true to form, you will not pass freely.’
‘Great. That’s just frigging great.’ Hannah stood and began walking back and forth between the fire and a gnarled oak from which she had hacked Churn a longer riding cane that morning. Searching her past, she tried to decide which images the forest of ghosts would use against her. Might it be something wonderful? she thought, Meeting Steven? Feeling the power of those emotions? She did not wish to remain trapped in the forest for the rest of her life, but if she had to relive something from the past, that would be her first choice. Oh shit, though, what if it’s something ugly? Hannah considered the other side of the metaphysical coin. I’ve got a lot of dirty laundry in there, too. Damn it!
A thought suddenly occurred to her. ‘Hey, what about Hoyt? How does he get off without having to wrestle one of these – whatever they are?’
‘I may not,’ Hoyt admitted. ‘I may get in there and discover that I am as susceptible as you or Alen. But if we go by the legends, I ought to be able to move through unhindered.’
‘Because you don’t have anything invested in this little journey?’ Hannah challenged.
‘It is not my life’s work, no.’ Hoyt said, looking down at his boots to avoid eye contact with her.
‘Well, Hoyt, it must be nice for once to be an outsider, huh? To be on the fringes of things that matter? Slash and burn, run and hide? Convenient, isn’t it? Well, let’s hope you’re right about this place.’ Hannah sounded furious, but without Hoyt she would still be pacing the hill overlooking Southport Harbour. Instead, pacing the camp, she wrung her hands in a frustrated gesture that said, I am helpless, again. I have to give away control, again, and I am sick to death of it. She kicked at a loose stone. ‘All right, fine. Let’s get going. If there is no other way in, we don’t have a choice. Do we?’
Hoyt shrugged. ‘No. If even one Malakasian soldier, some scout hiding in the brush above a mountain pass, sent word ahead that we were riding north, we would be stopped, interrogated, arrested – who knows what?’
‘What about those towns you mentioned in the east?’
‘Averil and Landry – we could try, but Churn and I have a reputation there. We’ve met some of the underground fighters, but it’s been too long since our last visit to know whom we can still trust and who would sell us out to the nearest platoon lieutenant. It’s too great a risk. Even if we utilised the network of thieves and spies at work between the border cities, we might get stopped on the street or the highway into town. That area is thick with Malakasians.’
‘So, instead of sneaking in and maybe fighting a squad or two, we are going to butt heads with the supernatural?’
‘We do have Alen,’ Hoyt said. ‘With his help, we should be able to link ourselves together using ropes, our horse bridles, anything, and walk right through.’ Hoyt was irritated at how meek this response sounded, and he suddenly wanted to be gone, anywhere but there, trying to justify a potentially deadly risk the others had to take. Somehow he knew already that he would not have any difficulty crossing through the forest. They didn’t want to go, especially Hannah, but here he was, the one taking essentially no risk, trying to convince her to dive in and trust a thief to see her through.
‘So you’ll lead us, and while leading us you’ll listen in as we relive the most critical and emotionally impacting moments of our lives? The most devastating or wonderful times we have ever known? Do you really want to hear all that?’
Hoyt turned away, blushing. ‘It might not be those memories, Hannah. It might be something horrible, and I promise you when
we make it to the other side, I will drink myself into oblivion, until the whole ordeal is wiped from my memory.’
Suddenly serious once again, Hannah said, ‘I wouldn’t want to be you, Hoyt. I don’t want to be me going through there, but having to haul us along while we fall apart? No thanks.’
‘Come along, everyone,’ Alen said, ‘we’ll never know if we don’t get there.’
BOOK II
The Ash Dream
THE FJORD CAMP
Garec gnawed thoughtfully on one of the bars Steven had taken from Howard’s kitchen. He turned it over in his fingers, looking at it sceptically. ‘Why wouldn’t they make them in the shape of something familiar?’ He tried another bite. ‘This doesn’t look like anything that grows naturally – well, almost anything.’
‘People are used to eating things that don’t occur naturally where we come from, so the shape doesn’t bother us.’ Steven paused to consider the cylindrical brown morsel Garec twirled like a miniature baton. ‘Although now that you mention it, it doesn’t look very appetising, does it?’
Despite Garec’s attempt at levity, the mood was grim. Mark told Steven of the Prince Marek’s destruction and of their subsequent failure to find Brynne among the floating wreckage. He had paused several times while telling the tale, but had refused to cry. When he finished, Steven had not known what to say, but looking into his old friend’s eyes, he realised Mark had lost something vital; something had been extinguished inside him, leaving the dry vestiges of Mark Jenkins. No longer the fun-loving sceptic, Mark had shifted into the shadows. For the first time in his life, Steven feared his roommate. There would be no holding him back now; he would be an unchained force, running full-speed into Sandcliff, into Welstar Palace, wherever. Already he looked prepped for battle: his belt tightened snugly against his hips, a hunting knife, a short dagger and a new battle-axe strapped within easy reach of either hand. Mark, who had once joked about hacking off limbs, was ready to do just that. At that moment Steven profoundly regretted ever having found the key to William Higgins’ safe-deposit box.
