River of Shadows

by Karina Halle

  Then I see something that takes my breath away.

  Right in front of us is an impossibly large tower that shoots straight up into the clouds, miles and miles wide, so wide that it almost curves over the horizon. The tower is made of shining stones that reflect the sky and rises up from a walled citadel of darkness, the structures barely visible.

  “What is that?” I ask breathlessly.

  “The City of Death,” Death says proudly as Sarvi curves around the gargantuan tower, flying at an angle that I’m sure I’ll fall from, with only the G-forces keeping me in place.

  I quickly glance up at the tower as it disappears into the clouds. Then vertigo sets in and I shut my eyes, no longer wanting to see the rest. “Where does it go?”

  “Into the heavens,” says Death. “Up there is Amaranthus. It’s where the best of the best go. Below it, at the middle, is the Golden Mean. Then where you see the citadel at ground level, that begins the Realm of Inmost, where the Inmost Dwellers are beholden. Inmost goes fathoms deep into the ground, almost as deep as Amaranthus goes into the sky. No surprise, considering how many…offenders there are.”

  “You mean sinners.”

  He clears his throat. “No. Not quite. We’re all sinners, little bird. Every one of us. To sin is to be human, to be human is to sin.”

  “But you’re a God.”

  “Gods are the biggest sinners of them all.”

  “That sounds blasphemous to me.”

  He chuckles warmly. “There is but one singular Creator, Hanna. The word God is too weak for them. Beneath the Creator are the Gods. We are victims to the same impulses, weaknesses, and emotions as anyone else is.” He pauses. “Does that disappoint you?”

  “Considering I’ve grown up believing in only one God, whom I’m assuming is the Creator, then no. I’ve never given multiple Gods any thought.”

  “But you’ve thought of Death,” he says with deliberation, an edge of excitement to his voice.

  His words seem to sink into me. I open my eyes and they water as the high wind rushes into them, but the City of Death is behind us now. Ahead lie mountains taller than the ones before, covered in glaciers and thickly packed snow.

  Death? Who hasn’t thought of death? It’s the first harsh lesson a child learns when they find a dead bird in their yard. It’s the devastation of having a beloved dog be put down. It’s the soul-crushing reality when a loved one dies.

  There isn’t one life that is immune to death.

  Death is for the living.

  No blizzards on Mount Vipunen today, Sarvi’s voice rings out. Perhaps you’re in a better mood than I thought, sir.

  Death makes another low grumbling noise.

  You see, Hanna, Sarvi goes on, the weather in Tuonela is subconsciously controlled by Death. Unfortunately, he doesn’t care about this half the time.

  “Sarvi. Shut it,” Death says.

  When he’s happy, the clouds clear and the sun shines on the land, Sarvi goes on, clearly not shutting it. And the more that the sun shines, the better his chances of growing certain things, such as his beloved coffee. But he’s never happy, so the clouds and storms and snow persist. Personally, I don’t care, but it makes flying a lot easier when there isn’t so much cloud cover.

  “Sarvi,” Death warns. “Just because she can hear you, doesn’t mean I can’t. Stop yammering about the weather and get us to Shadow’s End.”

  Yes sir, Sarvi says after a moment. The unicorn beats its wings faster, which causes my grip to tighten as we pick up speed. Soon we’re cresting over the mountains and a whole new landscape opens up before me.

  We’re at the very bottom of the land. If Tuonela were a continent, this would be the Cape Horn of South America. Here there are green pastures above dark gray cliffs dropping off to a rich blue ocean below, the waves churning with kelp and lashing at the rocks. It’s a formidable and harsh place where the clouds are the darkest and out along a narrow isthmus of rock and sodden pasture, lies a castle.

  I have to blink a few times to really accept what I’m seeing. I don’t know if I had been imagining an actual castle this whole time, but now that it’s in front of me, I’m taken aback. It’s a castle alright, built on a narrow peninsula of rock, a long iron road snaking along the crest of land connecting it. The castle is huge and foreboding, like something from a dark fairy tale, or a nightmare, black as obsidian, both gleaming and matte, depending on how you looked at it, as if the rocks were made of smoked crystal and iron. There are impossibly narrow towers with dagger-like turrets rising hundreds of feet above the ocean, the castle comprising of two similarly sized structures connected by walls and walkways. Everything is sharp and pointing, as if the castle is a weapon itself.

  It’s a place firmly rooted in the past and the future, a castle of this world and the next. It doesn’t just sit on that rocky outcrop, it waits. Like a cat on its haunches, it’s watching. Alive. Biding time before it pounces on the prey.

  The question is, who is the prey?

  Is it me?

  Or is it everything living?

  “I’ll take your silence as being impressed,” Death says.

  I’m not proud enough to pretend otherwise. I nod, unable to find the words as Sarvi swirls down in sweeping circles, narrowing in on one turret. The pointed roof rushes up at us at increasing speed and I close my eyes just as Sarvi brings us to a stop.

  I open my eyes to find us on a large slab jutting out from the tower, like a balcony with no railing. The ocean is at least a hundred feet below.

  “We’re home,” Death says, swinging his leg over Sarvi and then holding his hands out for me, as if he were some gallant knight helping a fair maiden. I stare down at his armored hands, then glance at his shadowed face and once again I see a flash of white. Like the whites of someone’s eyes. My mind puts together a ghoulish image of a bare skull with round eyeballs placed in the sockets.

  The disgust must be showing on my face because he drops his hands and growls and yanks the chain. Before I can react, I’m being pulled off Sarvi, landing in a heap on the cold stone platform.

  Pain shoots up through my hands and knees and I’m wondering if I have enough distance between us to do some damage. I figure I could go for it, drop kick him right off the side like I did to his daughter, and maybe the gravity of this world will help me like it did the last time, but the only thing that stops me is that I’m attached to Death. Where he goes, I go. He’ll survive the fall—you can’t kill a God, as far as I know—but I definitely won’t.

  And now he’s staring down at me, the electricity in his unseen gaze felt but not seen. “I think I just saw my future in your eyes,” he says quietly. “And I saw your future too. Think before you act, little bird. You’re not ready for flight yet.”

  He raises his hand, the chain wrapped around it, threatening me.

  I get to my feet, grinding my teeth. If it weren’t for my father, perhaps that long fall over the edge would be worth it, even if it ended with my demise.

  But my father is what matters most. He’s here. He’s why I’m here, why I came. And I can’t fuck it all up now because I want to break Death’s shiny skull with my own hands.

  Careful, Sarvi says to me as the unicorn walks past me, the size of a Clydesdale. I may have given you a safe ride here, but I serve but one master.

  Sarvi walks toward the huge glass doors into the tower, so big they must stand at least twenty-feet high. They open by people or mechanics unseen until the equine disappears inside. For whatever reason, I didn’t expect a unicorn to waltz inside the castle, but at this point I clearly know nothing.

  I look over at Death, who is still holding the chain in a threatening manner.

  “Sarvi seems pretty loyal,” I say to him. “Seems odd that you would need protection since you’re a God.”

  He grunts in amusement. “Gods are vulnerable to other Gods.”

  “How?”

  Again, I can feel him smiling. “And why would I tell you any of my weak
nesses?”

  “You don’t have to. It’s enough to know you have them.” I give him a small smile. “I’ll figure out the rest.”

  And then I’ll kill you.

  “Fairy girl,” Death says, taking a step toward me. “At least see your father first before you make any rash decisions.”

  “You can read minds?” I sneer, feeling violated.

  “I can read mortals,” he says evenly. “It’s my job. To know someone in life is to know them in death. I know all that you are, Hanna, all that you will be, all that you’ll do. Rarely am I proven wrong.”

  “Is that so? You already said I’m surprising.”

  He laughs wickedly. “You suck up every compliment like a bottom feeder, don’t you?”

  I feel my face fall. I can’t help it. He’s got me there, one of my biggest fucking flaws, and he already knows it. This life-long incessant need to be complimented, validated, to feel I’m special in regards to something.

  “And yes, you are strangely surprising,” he goes on. “Perhaps because your entry in the Book of Souls isn’t complete. Because you haven’t died…yet. If you were to die at ninety, then that would give you sixty-six years to discover yourself, grow into a new person, change your ways. Right now I see you as an insignificant twenty-four-year-old, but I can’t know the person you might become, the one waiting in your own shadows to finally find the light to grow.”

  He gives the chain a little yank, enough to make me glare.

  “Come on. You don’t want to keep your father waiting, do you?” he says.

  He walks toward the open doors and I follow.

  He’s right. I need to keep my focus on my father, on why I’m here. I guess the reason why my mind keeps shying away from it and latching onto anger is because I’m frightened. I’m so afraid that Death won’t uphold his end of the deal. I’m scared that I might not even be able to see my father. I’m terrified that my father might already be dead and I’m here for nothing.

  At the last thought I have to fight the tears back. I refuse to cry in front of Death. That’s something I’ll promise myself right here, right now, no matter what happens. For the last week I thought my father was dead and I’ve had to live with that awful, life-changing, soul-crushing reality, and now that I know he’s alive, that he can be cured and set free…to have it taken away again would be even worse than if I never opened that casket. To lose someone you dearly love will ruin you. To have them die and have a second chance, only to die again…I don’t know what kind of person I would become after that. I think I’d become an animal, one composed of pain, to suffer eternally.

  At that, Death glances at me over his shoulder as we walk across a circular room and I get another glimpse of his polished onyx skull gleaming in the light of the black candles that flicker from various holders on the walls.

  “If you can put your murderous rage away for a moment,” he comments, “I’ll give you a tour of your forever home. This is what we call Sarvi’s landing, for obvious reasons. Sarvi doesn’t stay in a stable like the other equines, being sentient and all he prefers to have his own space indoors.”

  Despite everything going on, I can’t help but be curious. I look around the room. It doesn’t look like it was made for a horse. The floors are black marble, the walls a navy wallpaper with raised red filigree. There’s a bunch of moss to one side with hay sticking out from underneath, trampled down until it resembles a bed, and there’s a long low table made of bones lined with various large bowls. At another end is a single armchair made of charcoal leather and a small bookshelf beside it. Beside that is a stand, the kind you’d see as a teacher’s podium, an open book on display.

  I’m trying to picture Sarvi somehow sitting in that chair, then I realize the chair is supposed to be for guests. Human-sized guests. The image I conjure nearly makes me laugh and I realize I must be delirious. I wonder what it feels like to truly lose your mind. Would I even know?

  We go down a long winding stairway lit by candles with dripping black wax, down, down, down. The air is damp in here, though it smells faintly like Death, something sweet and smoky, and the sound of his iron boots on the stone stairs echo against the circular walls, my chain clanking.

  Finally, after I’m dizzy from going in circles, we stop and Death pushes a tall wooden door that opens with a loud creak.

  I find myself stepping into a great hall of sorts, the ceilings impossibly high, the walls done in dark wallpaper with dripping candles, a room that’s completely empty except for the five figures standing in the middle of it. Four of them are cloaked, faces hidden, bony skeleton hands gripping the man in between them.

  My father.

  To see him already is a shock to the system. I wasn’t expecting to see him so soon, let alone see him at all. But there he is, wearing a black cloak like the rest of them, though his hood is back, and his face is clear, his hair white and balding at the top, a little long now at the nape of the neck, his beard long. His blue eyes aren’t twinkling like they used to, instead they’re full with both pain and with love.

  But it’s him.

  It’s my father.

  “Papa!” I cry out. I can feel Death getting ready to make a move to restrain me, but I will not be restrained. I run forward with all my might, feeling an energy pulsing through me, one driven by love, and I whip the chain straight out of Death’s hands.

  “Papa!” I cry again, running as fast as I can across the black marble floors of the hall, the chain clanging behind me with each step. I think I hear Death yell something, and the closer I get to my father, the more the cloaked guards hold him back, but I can’t stop myself.

  I fling myself at him, burying my head in his neck, holding onto him even though he’s not able to hold on to me.

  “Hanna!” he exclaims, his voice hoarse. “My dear Hanna!”

  I start bawling. The tears just flow out of me like a river, spilling onto his cloak. The smell of him! Despite where he is, and how long it’s been, he still smells like home to me. He’s always been my home.

  “Hanna, why did you come?” he cries out softly. “You never should have come. I don’t know how to protect you here.”

  I straighten up, my vision blurry. It’s been years since I’ve seen him, but he looks the same as ever. Not a dying man, not a man who has been imprisoned by Death. I place my trembling hands on his cheeks. He’s warm to touch.

  “It’s really you,” I whisper. “I thought you were dead.”

  Suddenly I feel Death’s presence behind me and my father looks up and over me with fury in his eyes. “How dare you do this to her?” he snarls at Death. “You’ve chained her up, you monster! Treating her like an animal?!”

  Death chuckles dryly. “Because she’s acting like an animal. Just as I am acting like a monster.” I feel tension on my throat as Death picks up my chain. “I’ll let you have your moment, but it’s only a moment. Nothing more.”

  “Death is going to cure your cancer,” I tell him. “You’ll be able to live now.”

  He shakes his head, eyes watering. “At what cost? The cost will be you, Hanna, and it will be too much to bear. Oh my sweetheart, look at you. Look how beautiful you are, even with this thing around your neck. You wear it like a queen.”

  Something inside me breaks for the hundredth time. “I love you,” I whisper to him urgently, my collar starting to feel like a noose, the seconds counting down. “I love you Papa, so much, and I’m so sorry we didn’t get more time together, that I didn’t reach out when I should have, that I thought you’d always be there, like the sun and the moon. I didn’t know the sun and moon could be taken from me, but you were. You are. And I wish I could go back and make it so I stayed with you. I never should have left, I should have stayed.”

  “Hanna, dear,” he says, trying to move his hands to hold me but the skeleton guards are strong. “You didn’t stay because it wasn’t your path. But I never stopped loving you, you know I didn’t, and I know you never stopped loving me. Your earrin
gs…your earrings will let you know.” He looks over at Death again, a vein popping in his forehead. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this furious before. “You let her go. You keep me, and let her go. I don’t want your cure. I’ll gladly die knowing she’s free.”

  “Mmmmm,” Death muses. “How very predictable of you, Torben. But no. I’ll be keeping her. She interests me a lot more than you do. You’ll be going along now, back to the Upper World, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay there. Hanna belongs with me now. She belongs to Tuonela.”

  “You let her go!” my father shouts. “Please, I beg of you!”

  Death just reaches into his cloak and pulls out a small glass vial. In the glass vial is a writhing white centipede. I want to shrink away in horror, until I realize the centipede is meant for my father.

  “You know, it was Rasmus who brought Hanna here,” Death says. “It was Rasmus who had the idea to trade Hanna for your life. Hanna, of course, was willing to do that no matter who suggested it. I have to admit, I’m a little jealous of you, Torben. To have people love you that much, they would go to the ends of another world to try and save you…well, if you take anything away from this experience, it’s that you’re one lucky man.”

  Then Death removes the metal stopper and the white centipede crawls out onto his fingers. He grasps it by the writhing end, it’s hundreds of tiny legs wriggling, and holds it above my father’s head.

  “No!” I scream, trying to fight him, but Death just holds me back with his arm and lets the centipede go. I watch in horror as the centipede crawls down over my father’s face—mirroring when I saw him in the casket—and up his nose.

  My father screams.

  I scream.

  Then my father’s eyes roll back in his head and he suddenly collapses, dead weight in the skeleton guards’ hands.

  “What did you do!?” I screech at Death, rage tearing through me. “You promised you would let him go!”

  Death is holding me back by the chain now and I’m falling to my knees, trying to crawl after my father after the guards drag him away.