Perilous Prophecy

by Leanna Renee Hieber

  Her heart ached. The closeness she and her father had known when she was little would never be regained. Perhaps it had fled years before, and she was only now seeing the distance.

  * * *

  Within the endless layers of shadow that made up the Whisper-world, Darkness’s minions flocked around his throne. In a foul mood, he’d drawn dread curtains to sit entirely wreathed in blackness, his robes thick around him, no outside light penetrating. Red eyes blinked slowly, two deadly rubies glinting in the darkness.

  Outside paced his dog, one pair then two hundred bloodred eyes glimmering to life; their shifting numbers glowed more with fire than intelligence. The guardian creature drooled and whined, shifted its protean form, became a roiling mist, then again became a hundred-headed hound. Bored, Darkness tore open the curtain and tossed the creature bones from the river. The mass of vaguely canine heads pounced. Countless teeth gnawed the offering, those infinite fangs now and then gleaming in a bit of reflected light.

  “Just let me follow her,” Luce the Gorgon growled from the mouth of a nearby corridor. His most powerful asset was always at the ready, folding her arms over the swaths of gray fabric wrapped around her lithe body and head. Onyx snakes writhed, hissing and snapping, beneath her thin veil. “Let me prove myself to you.”

  “Leave. Me. Alone” was Darkness’s reply, a low murmur in his usual halting cadence, thick and wet, the sound of storms.

  “It isn’t going to get any better. It’s been centuries,” Luce said in a conversational tone that seemed out of place in such bleak surroundings. “You’ll not break her until you find whatever it is she’s hiding. I think she’s got something she’d like you not to know about. Some private treasure.”

  “She’ll hate me. All the more. If I begin rooting around,” Darkness replied. Robes shifted. Bones clicked against each other as Darkness adjusted his position.

  “She’ll never not hate you,” Luce replied. “She always has.”

  The shadows moved, a whiplike thrash at nothing in particular that hit some sad, passing spirit who wailed in pain. Luce could hear Darkness’s teeth grind.

  “I don’t hate you.” She sashayed up to where the shadows were thickest and knelt before him, running her hands up into the impenetrable blackness. “I adore you,” she murmured, fumbling blindly at his robes. When visible, they were bright crimson, the only color in this gray wasteland. Other than her wretched colors. Persephone.

  “I. Am aware. Of your sentiments,” Darkness replied, and the shadows kicked her away.

  Luce scowled. “You’re a fool.”

  “You. Are brash. For a servant.”

  “How else can I lift myself in your esteem?” the Gorgon asked. “It isn’t like the olden days. We’re all falling apart, us great ones. We’re splintering. We’re weakening. Humanity slips farther from our command. She’s beyond hope, all mewling and retching. This may be her last century before she’s nothing but pulp. Remember when she bled herself all over these stones in that pathetic attempt to break free? That was just decades ago—”

  Darkness whipped his robes and shadows again, this time casting Luce backward upon the stone. “Of course. I remember.”

  “Well, it could have consequences!” Luce exclaimed, unruffled, picking herself up and glaring at his tall, potent form, at the red fires of his eyes. “Her pathetic attempt opened huge holes in your kingdom. Who knows what, in her desperation, her powers might do? You must admit that she was never meant for this place, would stop at nothing to destroy it if she knew how. She’s nothing but a hindrance—”

  “Stand. Down,” Darkness roared. Luce cringed, expecting to be struck. Instead, Darkness beat his chest, rattled his own bones, turning his despair inward. The water of the nearby river crested and its murmuring voices wailed and wept. “She is beloved of the dead!” he wailed. “And why shouldn’t light couple with shadow! We are two sides, day and night! Together since time began!”

  “Separated since time began,” Luce insisted calmly. “Day departs. Night takes over. They cannot sit side by side. You are of one kind, she is of another. Her light hurts you. Your darkness decays her. Isn’t it obvious it’s a poor match after all these years? I am of your kind. I am trying to help you!”

  “You torture me with your words,” Darkness muttered.

  Luce dared again to kneel at his feet. “My liege. You’ve lost your strength. I hardly recognize the master I came to serve. You might want to start listening to me rather than wallowing in self-pity like all the spirits you command. Leave them to miserable uselessness. You’re meant for something greater. You need to remind them all that you’re the lord of the land; that light, in the end bows to shadow. All life ends in the pitch depths.”

  Darkness growled and Luce smiled to herself, delighted at the sound.

  “If,” the shadows rumbled, “I have my way. It ends. With me.”

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Beatrice last, the six members of the Guard were fully detached from the watchful eyes of their families. Now, as the sun dipped behind Cairo’s minaret-spiked skyline, Beatrice felt an odd rustling in her blood, a burning sensation that had her itching to move.

  There was no time to question, to run; there was only time to think what must be done. The new sensation felt like a sandstorm under her skin, a gathering of disparate elements into a whirling vortex. A pin on an inner map.

  “What is this?” George exclaimed, clutching at his heart. “Tell me you all feel something, else I’m dying before you at the tender age of eighteen.”

  Belle laughed nervously.

  Ibrahim shook his head and spoke with a quiet confidence Beatrice admired. “The Balance between worlds is like a tapestry. When a thread pulls, we feel it. When a member of the restless dead tears free from that fabric, we must smooth it down once more. West,” he instructed. “We move west. The Work begins.”

  They followed their Intuition past a bustling market square teeming with people, glittering with wares and fabrics, reeking of scents, and at last they found a young man in loose pants and tunic floating in an alley, entirely supine but airborne. The hem of his beige tunic gaped down from his back like a fluttering flag. His body was luminous.

  Belle shrieked. Beatrice moved in front of her, placing herself in the specter’s line of sight, and thus was the first to enter the alley. It wasn’t that she wanted to see this abomination any more than Belle, but her instinct told her that this was her proving ground, and she must rise to its challenge.

  Ahmed held out his hand to Belle, a gesture urging her not to worry, and smiled. The French girl’s shoulders immediately eased, as did everyone else’s. Ahmed’s joy was potent magic.

  “You each have a gift,” Beatrice instructed, trying to use the sort of voice that made people turn and listen. Surprisingly, her companions did. “And we each have an instinct. Use it. Now.”

  She whirled toward the floating boy and flung out her hands, phoenix fire instantly ready, even eager, to be wielded. It flowed from her hands, seemingly knowing what to do, enveloping the youngster’s hovering form like a bubble of water, and the boy’s possessor became visible.

  Reaching up and out from the innocent light brown face of the boy, like peeling up a layer of foreign skin, yawned a transparent, silver-white skeletal face, a terrible maw unhinging as deep-set sockets with no eyes were superimposed over the terrified open eyes of the child in the air. The boy’s thin body was shaking as he floated.

  Ibrahim reached into the new, vast library in his mind. He chose scripture from the Quran and spoke it bravely, directing his words at the demon above. Displeased, the offending spirit strained and thrashed inside the youth, tearing at the dusty linen of his long tunic and frayed vest, turning the boy’s honey brown skin a pallid gray, threatening to transform him into a ghost before their very eyes.

  Verena gasped. From the look on her face, the entwined beings horrified her, yet the living victim’s obvious pain drew her forward. She reached out t
o touch him; his racked body went limp at the contact. Her hand was bathed in soft light, and its application was mercy.

  George reacted next. Taking charcoal from his pocket, he took to the nearby stone wall of the adjacent building, and in a few swift strokes he etched the outline of a great dove. Beatrice squinted before realizing that the dove was not only a picture but a word. The body of the bird curved down and continued into Arabic script that read Peace.

  “That is brilliant,” Ahmed breathed. George beamed, his fair skin pinking, his cheeks dimpled, making him somewhat the cherub.

  None of them knew precisely what they were doing. Nonetheless, instinct proved true, and Beatrice was proud in a way she had never felt: of herself, and of these strangers who were suddenly family.

  The possessed boy’s gaze snapped to the dove, to Peace, and the sight kept his eyes from rolling and his mouth from foaming. She could tell they were making progress. As well, Beatrice noticed that if she moved her hands closer together, her binding blue fire constricted the creature within him, and she could more clearly see the spirit’s form around and within the boy’s body. The spirit hated its shackles.

  Belle came close and touched the boy’s ankle, then hissed in pain at what she felt. Ahmed was swift at her side, bestowing joy, reminding them all to breathe deeply. He gave a soft laugh to buffer their hearts. Possession infected the air and the mind with heavy negativity.

  “What did you learn, Belle?” Beatrice asked.

  “It cried out from the towers and saw dumb sheep below. A muezzin, he was, once. But at some point he turned and sang for evil. Sang not to lure men to prayer but to depravity. Humanity, dumb sheep … He wanted to scare them, to turn them all. It wants. It hungers for so much more than this life can give…” She shuddered and Ahmed’s attention was again needed.

  “He sang from the towers calling others to prayer,” Ibrahim murmured. “And yet the creature never learned how to pray for himself. How sad.” After a moment he cleared his throat and recited:

  I desire fire from Your burning sorrow,

  and I want to take cover under the dust of Your threshold.

  I am in a death struggle with my ailments

  and from Your presence, I ask

  a moment of happiness.

  Ahmed had tears in his eyes when Ibrahim finished. “Ah, Rumi! Well chosen, friend!”

  The other just bowed his head in reply.

  Beatrice, gazing at Ibrahim and listening to his recitation of the beloved Sufi poet, had let her fire slip. The beast within the boy wrestled more violently, flailing against the sense and beauty of the poetry. She scowled and squeezed her fists and her fire constricted in reaction. The boy gurgled in pain, suffering with his possessor, but Verena placed a lit hand on his throat and his choking eased.

  Belle had moved to the mouth of the alley and was turning away the denizens of Cairo. At first appalled to see a boy floating in midair, after encountering Belle, they moved on as if nothing unusual had disturbed their day.

  “Cantus,” Beatrice said, her mind full of song. Her powers commanded the conclusion of this rite.

  “Which?” Ahmed asked, surprised by the question. It was indeed surprising to find a new language upon their lips, a songbook as well. Their work came replete with hymns, and their fluid teamwork suggested they’d toiled together for centuries. Whatever guided them had.

  “Quietus,” Beatrice replied, with no choice but to trust her newfound instincts. This poor young man was not the only one possessed. They all were. Of course, the Guard was possessed by the powers of lit Balance, and she far preferred those to the glimpse the goddess had given them of the alternative.

  Belle returned to the circle; Verena stepped forward as the young boy’s body seized up with pain; Beatrice wound her fire tighter around his limbs. They all began the cantus: a soft melody with words formed from the root of the first human language. They sang of a return to the simple raw materials of life, encouraged all things to abandon earthly trappings and return to the bosom of creation. Something older and wiser had formed these words, which felt eerily familiar, like a long-forgotten mother’s lullaby.

  It wasn’t merely their voices that provided music, either; the very air was full of song. The fire was, too, and the wind that wrapped around their skirts, robes, and linens.

  The muezzin’s spirit exited the human body it had tried to wear, violently ripping free and causing the boy to fall to the ground. Verena and Ibrahim dove to catch his head so that it would not strike the stones. The malevolent spirit floated above, transparent and skeletal, having lost whatever humanity it might once have possessed, rags hanging from its bones.

  The majority of the spirits Beatrice had seen coursing the streets were more like transparent people, appearing as they would in life, not rotting or skeletal. Perhaps, she mused, the more intact a spirit, the less harmful. The more it wore a raw, rotting existence, the more cause for alarm.

  She flung her arm forward, whipping cords of blue fire about the specter’s wrists and ankles. It struggled like a puppet trying to free itself of strings; the creature’s jaw sagged and snapped furiously, and Beatrice assumed it was speaking. She wondered if he was saying something important or just spewing vile, impotent threats. Why were they not gifted with the ability to hear as well as see the dead? She prayed the instigators of the Grand Work knew what they were about.

  She tried to pull her fire tighter, unsure what should happen next. Would the spirit disappear, break apart? Turn to dust or mist? How would they know when they had won?

  The ghost threw its head back as if to wail. Loose bricks in the alley trembled. The creature broke from its phoenix-fire bonds and spun upward, floating high to a turret, to a mosque’s minaret where it played muezzin again to whatever would listen. Still they could hear nothing.

  Ibrahim watched thoughtfully. “I shudder to think what sorts of calls to prayer it offers today for the dead.”

  “Damn,” Beatrice muttered. “Quietus was not strong enough, perhaps.”

  “The boy is alive,” Verena replied. “The cantus was good enough. But I need time with him. I feel that, with practice, I will become quicker, stronger, but—”

  “None of us are experts yet,” Belle said. “You did a brilliant job.”

  Verena smiled and glanced at Ahmed who, when he beamed back, had her practically glowing with pride.

  “Wait with me a moment,” the Healer bade them. “I’d like to make his skin seamless once more.” She gave a slow and steady pass with her subtly lit hand over the boy’s body. Her work was painstaking, for there were tiny fissures in his skin where the possessor had tried to crack him open like a shell. She had to pass her hand over him twice.

  “I doubt we’ve seen the last of that one,” Ibrahim stated, staring up where the spirit had finally disappeared.

  “Why?”

  Ibrahim shrugged. “Because my Intuition says we won’t. And my gift is yet to be proven wrong.”

  Beatrice laughed. “The Work is hardly a day old; there’s plenty of time left for that.” Truth be told, she didn’t mind his confidence in his powers. It more evenly distributed the massive weight of their destiny. She didn’t want to have to act confident alone. She wasn’t sure she could pull it off uninterrupted.

  “What do other cities do without a Guard?” George asked, sinking to his knees as everyone took a seat around the fallen boy, waiting for Verena to finish.

  “The Grand Work must move about the world, city to city, as the angel said,” Ibrahim stated. “It is about balance, and the fabric of spirits is a blanket cast wide over the earth. I imagine that we are sent where the disturbances are worst.”

  Whether her second-in-command respected her or not, Beatrice couldn’t help but be glad he was around. He said eloquent, sensible things that made their strange new world more digestible. And he was exceedingly pleasant to look at, which would nicely offset staring down ghostly skeletons and spectral horrors.

  “I wonder wh
ere the Guard was before us,” Ahmed murmured. “I want to say in a war, but I may think that because of my vision.”

  No one had an answer for that.

  “Well, my unlikely new friends,” Beatrice said, “the lesson of the day seems most certainly ‘Be careful what you wish for.’ I’d been thinking I wanted more mystery and adventure in my life. I seem to have called down entirely more than I bargained for.”

  “And yet you led the charge, Leader,” Ahmed stated, then gestured to their recovering subject. “We saved a life and a fine young mind today. The first battle in the Grand Work is already won.”

  Beatrice was not the only one heartened. Ahmed opened his arms to them all; his smile was still pure contagion. Embattling skeletal hatred, an insanity that drives souls to suicide and madness, had lingering effects, and mortals could not help but be rattled by it. Ahmed’s joy moved like a bright lamp among them, rallying his fellows to appreciate the wonders they had wrought.

  The boy stirred. His eyes fluttered open. He stared up at the dove on the stone that read Peace.

  Belle moved close. “It was all a terrible dream,” she murmured in French-accented Arabic. The boy’s eyes clouded, as if the memory of the event was being removed, then he sat up, blinked, rose slowly to his feet, and wandered off toward whatever business he had abandoned when overtaken. The Guard watched him go, six silent companions.

  “I’m starving,” George stated suddenly. He grinned. “Belle, persuade some fine café to feed us, else we’ll make sure they’re haunted forever.”

  They all stood and brushed themselves off. As they did, Beatrice noticed a tiny excitement in her fellows’ expressions, as if they were all thinking the same thing: Without their families or any attachments, wasn’t this great responsibility a great adventure?