The Last Guardian of Everness

by John C. Wright

  “It is for psychological evaluation.”

  “Are you allowed to ask questions like this? Is ‘sodomy’ even a word people can use anymore? What ever happened to ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’? “

  Mocklear spread his hands and raised his eyebrows, assuming a look of detached innocence. “We are trying to be all-inclusive, and the new unit is seeking out persons of alternate sexual orientation as part of our diversity program.”

  “Why are you asking me about my sexual partners here? ‘. . . or, if with your wife, was the ceremony performed in a Church’. . .?”

  “That is merely health information. Venereal disease, you know. Also, ah, people who go through church weddings tend to stay married longer. We need to know because it affects our insurance premiums, since the JAG corps handles divorce and custody cases, and this comes out of our operational overhead. You understand.”

  “But what about, ‘Have you ever had sexual relations or intimate physical contact with a Jewess, Pagan, or unbaptized woman’? Who would ask—? What the hell is that all about?”

  “Part of our commitment to the separation of church and state. Speaking of which . . . could you stand up, please?” From another drawer, Mocklear took out a crucifix on a chain and dropped it clattering on the floorboards. It was a little wooden cross, highly polished, with a figure of a suffering Christ in ivory. The workmanship was beautiful, simple, and delicate.

  Mocklear said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Trample the crucifix, please, and we can get on with processing your request for transfer.”

  Furlough looked down at the crucifix on the floor.

  “Is there a problem, private?”

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  Mocklear said, “Merely a psychological test. It really does not have any meaning beyond that.”

  Furlough shook his head, slowly. “You guys are . . . not ordinary . . . are you? This sounds like something from . . .”

  IV

  Furlough had an aunt that everyone called Crazy Jane. He assumed there was one like her in every family. For some people, it was stamp collecting, or bird watching. For her, it was the Knights Templar. Conspiracy-theory stuff for medievalists. Crazy Jane was convinced there was a vast treasure, including maybe even the Ark of the Covenant, hidden somewhere in the old monasteries of Europe: the treasure of the Templars.

  Crazy Jane told everyone about her theories. Despite his best effort, she had told Furlough all about it, too. When the Knights of the Order of the Temple of Jerusalem had been destroyed by King Philip the Fair of France, they had confessed under torture to all manner of bizarre things, things meant to shock the conscience of the average burgher of the Dark Ages, so that the average burgher would think Philip the Fair was an honest king, not merely a crook out to plunder the wealthy knights. Naturally, Templars had confessed to whatever the tormentors wanted them to confess: acts of sodomy and devil worship, consorting with Jewesses and Witches, or unbaptized concubines from the East. In other words, things that would make them look bad only in the eyes of the other men of the time; things no modern man would give a second thought about: fornication; nature worship; disrespect toward the Church.

  The Templars confessed to nothing a modern man like Furlough would criticize. Heck, no one Furlough knew went to the chapel except under orders, or avoided women. That’s what whores were for. A man would have to be a freak of some sort even to worry about things like that. Only a girl with deep-seated psychological problems stayed a virgin till marriage, and no man Furlough knew, not ever.

  This was something from the dead past. Step on a cross? What kind of people would care about such a thing these days?

  Furlough had always thought people from overseas were like Americans, or wanted to be. There was no place he could think of, no people, who would ask a man to trample a cross or care one way or the other if he did.

  As if it were part of a voodoo ritual. As if this guy and his boss were from Aunt Jane’s home town in Crazycrazyland.

  So Furlough just stood there, his mouth slightly open, his eyes slightly shut, trying to puzzle it out. Where were these guys from?

  V

  Mocklear said wearily: “If the test is too difficult for you, private Furlough, that will be noted in your records. Naturally, the matter is entirely voluntary, but I am a little surprised. I had been thinking you were a member of a superior personality type, one who knows the essential meaninglessness of rituals and icons and mere material objects, eh?”

  “Is there really a wizard? Cooke said something about a wizard.”

  The question just blurted out of him, as if by itself.

  As Furlough said these words, the idea, which seemed so comical, so storybook-like, suddenly seemed not so comical. A creature that could bend the fabric of reality to his terrible will, a being who stood outside of all the laws of man and nature, an entity that could transform things and distort them in ways that were not meant to be. . . what other word was there to call him, but a name from a children’s fairy-tale?

  Furlough remembered, from something he had read, that the original fairy-tales had been much darker and bloodier than the cartoon versions kids were allowed to see.

  Mocklear said blandly, “We’ve made contact with a man who can do things we have trouble explaining, or explaining away. I am sure the science of parapsychology will be able to find an answer some day soon. It certainly seems like magic to the uninitiated, but then again, there are many miracles of science and technology that would astonish the men of primitive times and backwards lands. Is there really such a difference? No doubt, to Cooke, our Master might appear to be a very impressive and frightening figure, capable of inexplicable things, and a man of limited intellect like Cooke might well use a word like ‘wizard’ to describe something his mind was too small to comprehend. It is a mystique, part of a psychological warfare effort. You know.

  “But—” And now the crooked grin grew wide, and too many teeth showed between Macklear’s thin, colorless lips. “But suppose the world was odder than you dreamed. Suppose there was something Out There. Maybe on the Dark Side of the Moon, maybe in the depths of the sea. Suppose there was something to those crazy old Soviet experiments with telepathy and shared-dream research, or those lights people sometimes see in the sky. What could you do, if there were?”

  “What do you mean, what could I do?”

  “If there were creatures who could bend the laws of nature, use them, rig the game. They’d seem like wizards to us, wouldn’t they? If there were such a thing, there would be nothing else to do, would there be? You’d have to get one on your side. You’d have to find one who could protect you from the others. It is only common sense. And of course, of course, you’d have to keep it secret.”

  “Secret. . . why?” said Furlough. “I’d be in all the papers. Biggest story ever. It’d be like discovering life on other planets.”

  “Secret, because we are talking about life on this planet, night-things that have been hidden since the beginning. Secret, because people who wander around talking about this stuff in broad daylight disappear and are forgotten. The world has a defense mechanism.”

  Furlough said, “You killed the CO, didn’t you. Made the air crew fall asleep.”

  Mocklear said in his most bland and unconvincing voice: “Oh, don’t be silly. If we could do things like that, we could do anything. Anything to anyone. Anywhere. And how could anyone escape? Everyone has to sleep sometime.” He grinned a toothy grin. “And if we could do things like that, why, who would not want to be on our side, eh?”

  Furlough stepped on the cross.

  Mocklear said, “Welcome aboard, matie. We also have a signing bonus, if you can recommend another applicant.”

  VI

  Later, after he had removed the mask that made him look human so that his real face beneath could get some cool air playing over its fur, Mocklear (his real name was Mac y Leirr, but he was tired of humans mispronouncing it) sat filling in the rest of his pap
erwork. The lights were off (he hated human lights) but the moonshine was bright enough for eyes like his to see, and he had learned the art of reading and writing from a trapped sailor, long ago, who had been kept alive one more day for every day he taught Mocklear something new.

  He wrote:

  Subject was willing to kiss the anus of the statue of Baphomet but would not spit on a reproduction of the U.S. Constitution when asked. Subject is too curious and too intelligent and may develop resistance to the organization later.

  Mocklear frowned and nibbled his pen with sharp, white teeth. He did have his quota to make, and he did not want to be penalized by offering inferior recruits to the human Wentworth, or to the Court of Nastrond. He wrote further:

  Hence, subject should be posted to “hot” zones in the CONUS (Continental United States), where he will be required to open fire upon civilians or do other acts that will bind him more firmly to the movement. Include him in Everness operations, but he is not to operate outside of range of “handlers.” However, if his loyalty to his current king is weakened, he may make officer material.

  Then, Mocklear, remembering, drew a line through the word “king” and wrote in careful, small letters above that, “Republic.”

  And his paw hesitated about the question beneath the interviewer’s comments box, the one that read: CONVERT TO JACKET WHEN CREWMATE BECOMES AVAILABLE? Y/N.

  His people were really not that brave and did not follow orders well, and, unlike mortal men, his people were bound by the laws of magic. On the other hand, Mocklear had seen Furlough’s girlfriend, and she was quite attractive, and so if he were replaced, the crewmate wearing his coat might have quite a nice time of it. . . He circled the Y on the form.

  He held the document up to the moonlight, his jaws open with satisfaction. There.

  He lifted the next of many forms out from his inbox. The height of the stack of paper did not surprise him. If only one man in a thousand could be suborned to treason, then out of a base of fifty thousand men, the chances of finding fifty were better then average.

  The trick was to find those fifty without coming to the attention of the fifty thousand honest men. With the Vindyamar planetarium in their hands, and captive astrologers checking the stars, and the Warlock peering into the dreams of men to find their secret fears and weaknesses, the chance of approaching the wrong sort of man was small.

  After his paperwork was done, Mocklear took out a little clay pipe, packed it with a shred of tobacco from his poke, and, donning his human face for a moment to light the match (the fire seemed not so fearsome when seen through human eyes), contented himself to enjoy one of the many vices he had learned from wearing mortal skin.

  He removed his human face and let the night wind from the window caress his black fur. Tilting back his narrow head, he blew an airy smoke ring toward the roof.

  Even if the call came tonight (and, to be sure, he thought it might), his people had enough men for a small operation. They would look like soldiers of the United States, and they would wear such a uniform and fly such a flag. Most of the men in the unit, so far, were men like Furlough, who had sold their souls and knew it, and knew they were traitors to the uniform they wore. But some of the stupider ones, men like Cooke, might convince themselves that they were still somehow soldiers loyal to their country.

  That was the way of his people: to have foe fight foe, brother kill brother, man slay man. The innocent would either have to kill the innocent or be killed in his turn. That was what made it so delicious! Whether the traitors knew they were traitors or not, the people whom they shot would die just as dead, and every honest man in uniform would have his honor stained, and every man of goodwill would be more likely to mistrust those whom he had the most need of trusting: that was the way.

  VII

  Later, by certain signs he had been told, he knew to expect a visitation. When the Moon went behind a cloud, black shadows filled the barren room where he was. He felt a cool touch of fear, and he knew that this was due to looking at the darkness with mortal eyes. He peeled his human face from his black fur.

  Thin and skeletal, armored in bone, the tall black shadow loomed in the corner farthest from the window, as if it had always been there.

  “Aye?” Mocklear growled.

  A cold voice came forth: “Tonight. The White Hart Slayer is risen.”

  “And the Watchman? If they blow that damned horn . . .” but his voice choked with fear at the thought, and he could not finish. He did not want to be burned alive, forever, in the pitiless and shining Light.

  The unliving and unbreathing voice continued: “The Horn is in the House that only mortal man can enter. Have you your mortal men?”

  “Men I have, men most mortal. Where?”

  “Maine. You know the place?”

  “Ha har, Old Bones. Every shipwreck sunk by a nor’easter, I know. Every rock where pale sailors’ wives waited in vain for their men to return from the bitter waves, I know. Where the wall between waking and nightmare is thin, there I know best of all.”

  “Then gather your men there, men unbound by the laws of magic, and put the cold iron weapons of men in their hands. Wentworth says.”

  Wentworth! One of the Three who had journeyed in dream and spoken to the Warlock and lived. His would be a skin worth taking, once the Warlock had showered him with gifts but needed no more hard work from him.

  For that was also the way of his people.

  The moon came from behind the cloud, and the smell of grave soil lingered, but Koschei the Deathless was gone.

  Donning his human face again, Mocklear picked up the phone on his desk. With his furry paw (for his human gloves were off), he reached and touched one of the buttons on the phone, which winked like a firefly as it lit.

  A sobbing voice answered. He gave the password and waited for the countersign.

  Mocklear said, “There be some hard work and, aye, some danger I will need to face tonight. So I will wrap up my coat to put it in our drop spot. If ye yearn to see yer mate and yer pups again, you will do no disgrace to the name of Mac y Leirr!”

  There was more weeping and crying and blustering, but eventually his stand-in was forced to agree. There was more talk and sobbing, threats and counterthreats, and the two agreed on signs and passwords for their next speaking.

  “And mind ye well, lickspittle cur,” Mocklear said. “Brush ye up my coat all nice once ye are done wearing me good face! I’ll have no more funny tangles and cigarette burn spots in me fine coat! Ar! No tricks! If ye make me seem the fool again, by Setebos, I vow that day ye’ll rue!”

  The pipe smoke tasted bitter in his mouth after that last call. There were times when Mocklear did not much care for the ways of his people.

  14

  The

  Lantern

  of the

  Elves

  I

  Two men stood in a circle of yellow light cast by the doctor’s oil lamp, which he had placed on the floor at the foot of the suit of armor to the left of the door, the unrusted suit.

  The doctor said, “If there is something in your hand, you have no reason not to show me. You are here as my guest, after all.”

  Raven rumbled, “If you really are doctor, I am thinking, you have no reason not to tell who you really are. You know, since I am not knowing how you got into house here at all. Maybe you are drugging old man, no?”

  “And perhaps, sir, you are a. . .” But he was interrupted. Both he and Raven looked through the door, which the doctor had left open, at the point of silver light that appeared in the distance.

  Down the hall the light came, like an evening star seen through transparent mists, surrounded by a halo of radiance. As it approached, there came the sound of light, rapid footsteps.

  Raven’s eyes were fixed down the hall, but he groped and grasped the doctor’s arm. “What is this thing we are seeing?” he asked in a hushed whisper.

  “It is a supernatural effect,” said the doctor in a hoarse voice. �
�I do not know what it means. I know nothing about this cursed house and its secrets. Those who sent me do not take me into their confidences . . .”

  The light came forward, and it was Wendy, smiling, running down the hall, black hair flying about her face, skirts flapping like wings. In her hands was a miniature lantern no taller than a woman’s smallest finger, with tiny square panes of glass and a lantern-ring too small to pass a finger through. Inside was a prism of crystal glowing with incandescent light, as if it were reflecting a light from some unseen source. She carried the tiny thing in the palm of her hand.

  “Hi there!” called Wendy. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m Wendy!”

  “Young lady,” said the doctor, “where did you get that lamp?”

  But Wendy was telling Raven: “. . . giants and seals and dead horses and everything! They’re all pounding on the walls! We’ve got to do something!”

  And she turned to the doctor and said, “I was in the library. I think they should have kept it there instead so it wouldn’t hurt the books. See? No flame.” She held it up proudly.

  “It is a fairy-lamp,” said the doctor, “from Alfhiem. It will not burn in mortal hands.”

  “But there is nothing out there!” said Raven. “It is no more than storm wind and angry sea. What can we do to fight the sea waves, eh?”

  “Find the magic!” she said to Raven impatiently, stamping her foot. Then, to the doctor: “Here! Catch!” And she tossed the little lantern at him.

  The results were amazing. Quicker than a striking snake, too swift to see, he reached to the belt of the suit of armor hanging on the rack near the door, drew the sword, and parried the flying lamp in midair, batting it, rebounding, to the floor, ringing like fine crystal, burning like a falling star.