Mists of Everness (The War of the Dreaming) (25 page)

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Authors: John C. Wright

BOOK: Mists of Everness (The War of the Dreaming)
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The dream-road writhed like smoke and was gone, leaving him bewildered. His name and memory escaped him; he was lost in icy wilderness, alone. A man in black, carrying the Great Sword Calipurn, had sent him here. Where?
He found himself atop a black, snow-streaked crag of rock, with the august crowns of mountains looming over him, cloud-touched abysses and deep chasms dropping away underfoot. They were so high, those peaks, that the crystalline singing of the stars came faintly to his ear, like an echo of far choirs, remote, wondrous. A sense of holy dread beat in his heart.
Perhaps he had been here a long time, mazed in these mountain passes, lost in this bleak and freezing place. Or perhaps (and this seemed more likely to him) this was a dream, and the rocks here were saturated with time, bathed in aeons, so that the ground itself inspired a sense of eternity.
A vast voice rose up from the cliffside underfoot, a cry of desolation and anguish. It was not a human voice, but was as if a mountainside were crying aloud in pain.
The young man restrained his impulse to rush forward to the aid of whatever so cried out. He recalled he had been in such a place as this before, a place of cliffs, a place of punishments.
The young man said to himself, “I recall this much. I am a Great Dreamer. I stand within my place of power. Now, patience! If I am patient, the way will be made clear.”
With his bowstaff, he drew, in the snow, a circle inscribed in a square, and, when this reminded him of the signs of the wardens of the four quadrants, their four weapons, their gates, he drew their four seals, and their four galleries. In the gallery of air were seven paintings of English hunting scenes, each hung below the zodiacal sign of a wandering star. Beneath the sigil of Saturn, the Sphinx sat couchant, in the dappled shadow of a bush. On the back of the Sphinx, the mother of memory, he had placed a child in armor, carrying a balance scale and a padlock.
When he opened the padlock, he remembered his name.
“Weigh—lock,” muttered Galen. “Very funny.”
The lock had a white key in it. The key-ring was shaped like a mirror set above a cross, the symbol for Venus. In the mirror was an image of a high-heeled shoe with a pair of little raven wings springing from the heels.
“I don’t wear high heels!” exclaimed Wendy in exasperation. She walked forward, hips swaying, high heels clattering on the stones. “And I certainly wouldn’t wear them mountain climbing!”
“Sorry. I just put them on you ’cause that’s how I remember … um … so you wouldn’t get lost, or forgotten,” said Galen. “It’s my magic …”
“Oh, right!” she snorted skeptically. “And these fishnets? And this miniskirt?! It’s so tasteless! I think I know what you remember about me. Look at this! Hmph. Men!”
Wendy had hiked up the skirt and extended her leg, clad in black nylon, as if to display the tastelessness of her garb. Galen stared, then tried not to stare, smiled, tried not to smile, looked apologetic; then tried to look serious, blinking, his mouth open, but with nothing to say. “Uhh … Well … That is …”
“And what are we here for again?” She tossed her head to fling her hair out of her eyes, and looked, wide-eyed, up at the huge granite peaks towering vastly up out of the clouds to either side.
“Yeah. I’m about to remember,” said Galen, plucking a raven’s feather, and brushing it over the circle in the snow he had drawn. When he touched the Greater Sign of the Guardian of the Quadrant of the East, it turned into an eagle’s feather in his hand.
A piercing, shrill scream echoed from the mountain peaks, the deadly cry of a bird of prey, but deep in its note, as if the eagles uttering that scream were vast, vast beyond all measure of earthly birds.
“Oops,” said Galen, his eyes round. “Now I remember …”
He bowed to his longbow. The staff bent. He strung it. A golden arrow glittered like fire beneath his fingertips as he drew the fletching to his cheek. Bow drawn, he stood with his legs spread, his head back, scanning the starry black sky.
From around the shoulder of a peak all blue with snow it came, its wings, as large as sails, spread wide to ride the streaming winds. Its claws, like crooked thunderbolts, dangled below the pillars of muscles which were its legs. The streamlined head was naked like a vulture’s, and the two bright eyes gleamed with malice, self-righteousness, and bitter hate.
The giant vulture lowered like a storm cloud, and its cold shadow fell across the crags, darkening the landscape. Wingtip to wingtip, it seemed to fill all the sky above the mountain. The eagle screamed, and its voice was the voice of the thunderclap.
Galen saw the bloodstains on its claws and beak, and the streaks and stains along the sleek sides of its head, as if it were wont to thrust that head into some living flesh to tear at it. But the blood was light, golden in hue, not red or brown, as if, perhaps, it were not the blood of mortal man at all, but the ichor of the immortal.
He thought in fear: this eagle is an ancient symbol, torn from the deepest heart of mankind. It is the punishment the world visits on the genius, on the idealist, on those who are martyred when they seek, as Prometheus sought, to better men’s fate. The forces of Enlightenment, everyone since Socrates and Galileo onward, have always been crushed by worldly power. Here is mankind’s darkest nightmare, enemy of hope and light—the old, cynical fear that virtue’s only reward in life is crucifixion.
How can I fight such a fear? How can I, I alone, overcome that evil dream?
With leaden arms, as if he were mired in the mud (for this was one of those dreams where motion was all but impossible), Galen raised the mighty bow. The arrow at his cheek burned like a ray of sunlight.
The same moment as the arrow left the string, Wendy said, “But wait! Won’t those arrows just heal it? You know, just make it better …?”
The arrow was away. It sped, blazing like a comet, a small, golden light shooting toward the overwhelming darkness of the eagle’s breast.
The eagle was touched by the gold light. It shrieked in triumph, a terrifying noise, as it swelled in size, growing in strength, and it folded its vast wings, like a storm cloud narrowing into a tornado. Like a thunderbolt, it fell.
“Oops,” said Galen. The shadow of the swooping monster fell across him; the shadow spread out from him in each direction.
He dropped the longbow, yanking a length of string from his pocket. With a flip of his wrist, he tied a quick loop. “Father Time! I snare your fleeing foot! Patience bridles time!”
The bird froze in midair. The loop jerked and trembled in Galen’s fingers as if massive and invisible forces were struggling with the knot.
Galen said to Wendy, “I don’t know how long I can hold the slow-time frustration dream, so listen! I’m going to hand you my life and my arrows. Fly away from the skyfather-eagle. Come back, heal my body with the arrows, put my life back inside. Got it?”
“But—but—” stammered Wendy, looking scared.
“There is no time! I was impatient, and I used the wrong symbol; you don’t use enlightenment on tyrants, and you don’t try to reason with unreasoning force; it only encourages them and makes them stronger …” Galen’s fingers began to slip on the knot. “You’re just going to have to save me again, okay?”
“Okay!” said Wendy. “But don’t make a habit of this!”
Galen rolled his eyes back so that only the whites showed. In a strange voice he said, “Thanatos! Tartaros! Hades, and Dis! Unwind the ties of Orpheus! I call on Hercules, who conquered Hell, and ask you, if I am slain, to answer this, my final spell, and find me my soul and memory again. Let Koschei’s rune, which I, alone of living men have seen, render me again as I and I alone have been, both living and unliving, both seen and unseen! Sator! Arepo! Tenet! Opera! Rotas!”
Galen threw back his head and made a horrid choking noise. A crystalline orb, a flicker of living flame pulsing and beating within it, began to come out of his mouth, large as an egg. He dropped the string. With one hand he reached up to pull the egg forth, and filmy flickers of light danced along his fingertips. With his other hand, he plucked a golden shaft from his quiver. With both hands he extended his treasures toward Wendy, swaying on his feet, his mouth lax, his face empty, his eyes extinguished. Wendy caught up the crystal flutter of life quickly, even as Galen dropped it; and she grasped the blazing arrow. Her eyes were wide with horror, for his fingers were as cold as the fingers of a corpse.
The bit of string writhed; the knot snapped open. Galen’s lifeless body began to fall. Wendy, light as thistledown, whirled away, thrown weightlessly aside by the winds that swept from the monster-wings.
Like the fall of the hammer of a Titan, the storm-eagle struck.
Blood flew everywhere.
Floating high above the mountain peak, looking down, Wendy could see the skyfather-eagle in the cleft between the peaks, ravaging, clawing: a writhing black shape of inexpressible fury. To her tear-blurred eyes, it seemed as if a whirlwind, winged with storm and clawed with lightning, were churning and swirling in that space between the mountains. The noise was terrifying.
When it was all over, and the eagle had sailed away like vanishing thunderheads, Wendy spent a long, horrid, silent time trying to gather the scattered limbs and severed head, the shreds of meat, the wads of blood, which had once been the young man. Into the bloody heap she thrust the arrow.
A soft miracle came, and the corpse lay whole, undefiled, and silent. Galen’s face was gray and cold and calm beneath the cold, gray skies.
Wendy stood, a gleaming light fluttering in her folded hands, and, for a time, she looked down at that still form.
She tried to force the light back into Galen’s lips, tried to thrust it into his chest, but to no avail.
She knew there was something she ought to do, some clever thing perhaps to do with the Moly Wand or the Silver Key, or maybe some way to call or summon the Chalice of Hope. But her mind was blank; she was sad and weary; she could think of nothing.
She wept.
“Hey, little lady,” came a cheerful, rough voice behind her, “What’s the matter?”
Wendy turned. “Hello,” she said.
The stranger was hugely muscled, his upper arms bulky knots, the breadth of his chest magnificent. On his head he wore the tawny skull of a lion, the fur and ears and teeth still attached, and the lion skin was thrown across his vast shoulders like a loose robe, with the giant claws tied in front. The nails were made of black iron.
In his right fist the muscular man held a club of oak. His hair was black and long, unkept, and his smile was huge and cheerful.
“Come on! Come on!” he called. “No blubbering! It can’t be that bad!”
“My friend is dead,” Wendy softly said.
He blew out his cheeks in an immense sigh. “Hey! That’s not so bad. I mean, its bad, but it’s not really so very bad. The worse thing about death is, you see, how it makes you forget. But this here is Galen Amadeus Waylock! (You’ve sure got important friends, I’d say!) He found the lost horn of the star-steed, and overthrew the Demon Kings of Uhnuman. He’s the Guardian, he is! He’s got his whole memory arranged sort of like a house, see? And not a sloppy house like mine with goats in the kitchen and wood cords piled every which ways by the door, no, his house is a real shipshape affair. All we have to do is stuff that soul in your pretty little hand back down his throat.”
“His soul won’t go.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes you just got to force it. Here. Let me.”
“Oh! Oh, do be careful! What are you doing?! You’re not going to smash it into him? Put down that club!”
“Don’t worry, little miss! I’ve done it before! Ask Theseus … er. Except don’t ask him about Perithous … Hup! Ho!” The stranger had balanced the fiery crystal orb atop Galen’s breastbone and raised his club to hammer it in. With giant strokes he pounded the chest.
“Don’t fret, ma’am!” he shouted. “Some folk have weak spirits, and their spirits give way before their flesh does, you know? But this here is Galen Amadeus Waylock! His spirit survived the touch of Cerberus. His soul will hold …”
The sky was darkened with a sudden shadow. From overhead came a thunderous shrill cry of a bird of prey.
The club strokes drove the air in and out of Galen’s chest. Galen gasped and sat up, eyes wild. “It wasn’t impatience at all!” he said breathlessly.
“What?” said Wendy, blinking.
“Welcome back to the living,” said the gigantic stranger, leaning on his oaken club. “You’re getting to be a regular customer. If I hadn’t been following my old enemy Cerberus around, I never would have been close enough to give you a helping hand.”
“Who?” asked Wendy.
“Koschei,” said Galen. “Cerberus is another name for Koschei …”
The sky about rang with horrid shrieks.
Wendy looked up.
“Well, well,” said the huge man, toying with his club. “What now, young Parzifal? The world is ending, the sun has died, and the hawk flung from the wrist of the father of all tyrants wheels and stoops again. What now?”
Galen stood up slowly, his face calm. “I thought impatience was my sin. It’s not, or, at least, not entirely. I got in this mess because I thought my need, and the emergency, would justify everything I said or did. When I went to Tirion, I killed a man. I lied and said I was the Guardian when I wasn’t. I tried to go down and make a deal with the Selkie, our enemies, just because Azrael told me to. Why? Why? I wanted to prove I was a man, not a frightened boy. No, I wanted to prove I was a hero. The first thing men do, when they are old enough to be men, is stop trying to prove that they are men. They stop trying to be the hero and to do everything by themselves.” He smiled grimly. “And, unless they want to turn into little copies of Azrael de Gray, they stop letting needs and emergencies justify their actions.”
He stooped and picked up the string and began to loop a knot again. “I’ll try to catch the sky-eagle in a frustration dream again. We have a hero here, a real hero, who can fight the eagle and keep it away from us … . That is, sir,” said Galen, suddenly shy, “if you are willing to …”
The huge man laughed. “Of course! What fights tyranny? Not enlightenment, no, not healing. Courage! Strength! Heroism! And cleaning up after tyrants is no worse than mucking out the Augean stables, I can tell you!” He whirled his club and saluted with it.
“Wendy,” Galen said, “you and I are going to go save Prometheus. The Silver Key can make him real. I’m hoping the chains will stay in the dream-realm when that happens. If not, we might have to resort to messier measures.”
“Messier?” asked Wendy, smiling. She was pleased that she would have something to do in this rescue.
“Yeah. I figure if his liver grows back every day, his hands and feet can grow back, especially with the help of my arrows. A chain can’t hold you if it’s chained to something you’re willing to give up and have cut off.”
The huge man pointed. “Prometheus is that way. Legend might report that I got him down from this mountain, but we’ll know the real story, my Lord Guardian. Strength is wasted when it’s used without patience. And if you want to be a hero, my young lord, don’t fret about it! I wanted to be one too, when I was young, and I ended up being not just a hero, but a god. You might not have much time left, now that the end of the world is here, but maybe you’ll have a chance to make some difference before the end, eh?”
“How soon is the end?” asked Wendy, looking up fearfully.
“Now. The time is come,” said the huge man. He saluted once more with his club and turned and marched away, whistling. In the distance, the sky was darkened by a vast, approaching shadow.
“Let’s go,” said Galen, and he drew the sign to summon the chariot that had brought them here. “Piotr! Show us the way!” A small black raven hopped out from the shadow of a rock nearby, cocked its head to look at Galen with a yellow eye. It opened its bill and croaked at them.
Wendy looked at the bird. “That’s my father-in-law, isn’t it? His spirit. Is he dead?”

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