The Everlasting (15 page)

“Almost there,” Nina whispered, and she clasped Scott's arm so tightly with hers that it began to hurt.

The distant sky began to change. It wavered with heat haze, then lost its pale colors. Gray or white, Scott could not tell, but perspective was leached away. The haze came closer. No sound accompanied it. Reality was being purged silently and with no fanfare, and the only sound that accompanied the sight of the castle, park, and trees disappearing into a glare of nothingness was Scott's scream.

He closed his eyes. That was the only reaction he could offer. Time and space opened up around him, pulling away with frightening velocity. It was as if everything he knew and understood had expanded from nothing to the size of the universe in the blink of an eye, a big bang of personal proportions that would
utterly steal away his personality if he allowed it. He was less than a speck of dust under the gaze of the universe, so insignificant that the irrelevance of his life and looming death took his breath away.

You need yourself
, she had said. And she was right. Under the impression of all that was around and within, if he lost himself, then there was nothing. And no sane mind could stand that.

The endlessness of life, death, and time stretched around him, and he kept his eyes closed because it terrified him. He was conscious only of the turmoil in his mind, and the feeling of Nina's arm holding him tight.

There was no sense of movement. No time passed, and though he was breathing light and fast, there was no impression that these breaths carried him from moment to moment. He could be here forever, and he wondered how madness would work with no time to permit its growth.

The reality of infinity abandoned him. He sat down with a bump. His eyes opened and a brief flash of pain blossomed behind them.

“Shit!” He gasped. And that grounded him. He had been through something mindless and terrifying, and his first reaction upon emerging from the other side was to curse. No expression of wonder or amazement or disbelief . . . just a curse.

“Indeed,” Nina said. “That's usually my reaction.”

Scott moved his arm slightly, and when Nina lifted her own he knew it was safe for them to part. He
massaged his shoulder, glad that the pain was rapidly fading. “That place was . . .” He could not finish.

“The Wide,” Nina said. And that said it all.

Their immediate reality crashed in then, and it was only as it appeared around them that Scott registered its brief absence. A pale mist of nothing was replaced by cool concrete slabs beneath them, a building at their back, railings before them supporting a mass of rampant shrubs, and a road grew into the distance, spotted with parked cars and crossed here and there by dogs or foxes. It was nighttime, and something howled.

It had been daytime in Cardiff.

The howl was answered from closer by. Something flapped around his head, and just as he began to panic a sound screamed in from his right. The motorcycle roared past along the street, Dopplering into the distance and carrying a splash of light with it.

“Holy shit, I thought we were somewhere else,” Scott said. “I thought . . . the howls . . .”

“Dogs,” Nina said. She listened. “Scottish dogs, I think.”

“You're
joking
with me?”

She nudged his arm and laughed. “We're here! I'm just pleased, that's all. You kept your eyes closed through there, but I find I never can. It's always good to come back.”

“It was daylight when we left Cardiff.”

“And now we're in Edinburgh, and it's nighttime.”

“It feels like seconds.”

“The Wide's weird with time. Who knows? We might have come out a century in the future.”

Scott's eyes went wide and he looked around. “That motorbike looked pretty normal. And—”

“I'm fucking with you, Scott.” Nina held his left hand, helping him stand from the cold ground.

Scott brushed himself off and looked around. The row of buildings behind them was three stories high, town houses each displaying bed-and-breakfast signs. Most of them had vacancies. There were lights on at a couple of windows, but no other sign of activity.

It was dark and overcast, no moon or stars. Street-lights were off, so it must have been in the early hours, but when Scott turned around and looked past the overgrown railings, his jaw dropped.

Edinburgh Castle stood before them, high and majestic on its volcanic foundation. It was illuminated from all sides, and the cliffs below were in darkness, making it appear as though the castle floated a hundred feet up in the sky. It was stunning and humbling, and Scott was profoundly grateful that a human construct still had the power to astound after what he had just been through. He would hate to find his sense of wonder stolen away by the Wide.

“Very pretty,” Nina said quietly. “Old stone, new light. They go well together. I wonder what it would have looked like five hundred years ago.”

“Didn't you see it back then?”

“No. I haven't been to see Old Man in a long time.”

“Is he close?”

“Hopefully. He's not the sort to move around.” She was staring dreamily at the castle, and Scott saw its decorative lights reflected in her eyes.

“So let's go,” he said.

Nina turned, her expression unreadable. “Scott, you know he's going to be very strange to you, don't you?”

“Stranger than you?”

She blinked, as though trying to decide whether or not he was joking.

“You told me you collect the hearts of dead things.”

She nodded. “But Old Man . . . he doesn't move around. Doesn't interact with people. He studies. Practices. Experiments.”

“What with?”

“Life and death. That's why we're here, with you balancing between the two.” She waved her hand. “Just be warned. He's not with the times like I am.”

“With the times,” he repeated, and laughed. But it was a bitter sound, humorless, because his wife was still missing. “I
need
to be fixed,” he said, and the tears came then. “I need to be made better so I can find her. Will he do that for me? Can he?”

“We'll see. Follow me.” Nina touched him on the shoulder, a brief expression of support, and then crossed the road. Scott followed.

They walked along the railing until Nina found a gate buried beneath a fall of shrubs. She lifted the plants away and pulled at the gate. Its hinges squealed as it opened, and Scott thought of
The Secret Garden
and all those other children's books where the characters found another reality and entered into a world-changing
adventure. On this side of the fence was a quiet Edinburgh road, home to sleeping tourists and dogs that wandered the streets at night. On the other side, just what would they find?

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Old Man,” Nina said. “He probably knows we're here already. We'll know soon enough whether or not . . . Ahh, there we are.” She stepped through the gate and motioned Scott to follow. When he pushed past the reaching fronds of unknown plants she pointed, and he saw.

On the sheer slopes below the stark face of Edinburgh Castle, a strange light glowed. It was not yellow or white, but gray, reminiscent of the blankness of the Wide.

“Homing light,” she said. “He welcomes us. I wonder how much he knows?”

“About what?”

“You, the book, your wife.”

“I thought you said he never went out?”

“Doesn't mean he hasn't got his ear to the ground. Come on.”

They headed through the park, following paths where they led in the right direction, then crossing tended lawns. When they reached the foot of the cliff Nina stood back for a while, staring at the light fifty feet up the sheer slope.

“Can't walk up there,” Scott said.

“No, but we can climb.”

“What if we fall? It's okay for you; you're immortal.”

Nina offered her lopsided smile. “Then be careful.”

“Thanks.”

“I'll climb first. Watch my hands and feet. Try to follow.”

“My arm—”

“You'll be fine. We'll get you better; then we can head off to find Helen.”

Scott nodded, but he knew that he was being played. She said all the right things and made the right moves, but Nina wanted only one thing from him. She had no concerns for Helen or even for him. And though that frightened him in part, in another way he found it comforting. She was immortal—as inhuman as a human could be—and to believe that she was concerned with anything so grounded as love would feel so unnatural.

“You're a monster,” he said, surprised that he had uttered instead of thought it.

Nina turned and started working her way up the slope. He had not seen her face. Maybe for just an instant, the monster would have shown through.

They climbed. The cliff was not as sheer as it appeared from the ground, and Scott found that he could crawl up on hands and feet. His right hand was almost useless, supported as it was by his dying arm, but he could still curl his fingers around grasses and the roots of small bushes. He followed Nina, trying to use the same handholds, but something seemed to be lifting him up that slope. When he looked behind and down it seemed a long way, but he knew he would not fall. He
could
not, so he
would
not. If he fell, Helen would be lost forever.

The higher they went, the more of Edinburgh was laid out behind them. Without moonlight the city was a darkness speckled with streetlights. Lines of them snaked around one another, and individual illuminations cast a thousand spots across the old town. A plane took off in the distance, too far away to hear but still visible. Life continuing.

I've just been to where it ends
, Scott thought.
I've just felt the start of the journey to eternity. I've seen more than anyone, and now I'm climbing a cliff to meet an immortal who may be able to keep me on this side of the Wide, at least for a while longer. I'm coming for you, Helen. Don't worry. And Lewis . . .

A shape fell past him, blurring lights and wailing as it bounced from a rocky outcrop six feet below his left foot. It spun out into the darkness and disappeared. Scott did not hear the thump.

He pressed himself to the ground before him, breathing in the loamy reality. Then he looked up.

Nina stared down at him. “Lucky we've seen only one,” she said. “It's such an old place.”

Scott closed his eyes and pressed his face farther into the moss. It smelled so good, so real, that he plucked a handful from between rocks and rolled it in his hand, getting the smell of it beneath his fingernails and into his lifeline.

It took only a minute for a shape to fall past him again, striking the rock and disappearing out into the night, trailing its haunted wail behind. He pressed his hand to his nose and inhaled the mossy tang.

When he was dead, he'd no longer be able to smell.

They climbed on. Nina moved faster, and it took her only a few minutes to reach the splash of weak gray light exuding from the cliff. She sat there on a small ledge and waited for him, waving impatiently when Scott leaned back to look up.

A shape fell past again, close by, the wail distant.

Are you new or old?
he thought.
Are you a tourist who fell from the walls, or someone who died building this place?

He reached Nina; she held his arm to keep him steady, and he saw where the light were coming from. A large rock formed an overhang, protruding from the cliff like the broken nose on an ancient face. Beneath the overhang, where the nostrils would be, light leaked from the cliff like pus oozing from an old sore. It was almost as if the light were heavier than air, struggling to keep itself airborne as it probed weakly into the Scottish night.

“What is that?” Scott asked.

“Like I said, homing light. Old Man must have lit it when he knew we were close.”

“Won't anyone else see it?”

“I doubt it.” She smiled an enigmatic smile that meant there was more to this than Scott could know. He was already becoming sick of that expression.

She's cold
, he thought.
A cold fish. However friendly she acts, however enthralling I find her presence, I must never forget that
.

“I've lived too long to dillydally over what's not important,” Nina said.

Scott looked away. Yet again, she seemed to know exactly the way he was thinking.

He lowered himself slightly and tried to see past the light. “So where do we go?”

“Patience.” Nina leaned against the rock and raised her face to the sky. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. “Smells good,” she said.

“What does?”

“History.”

Scott put his hand to his nose again and breathed in the aroma of earth and moss.
Smells good
, he thought.
Reality
.

The light faded away to nothing.

“There we are,” Nina said. She lowered herself down so that she was level with Scott, leaned forward, and probed the sudden darkness beneath the overhang. “In here.”

“He's in there?”

“Come on.” She crawled into the gap in the land.

Scott watched until her feet disappeared. He heard the sound of crawling, Nina dragging herself deeper into the hole beneath the castle, and for a moment he wondered what would happen if he fled. He could climb down the steep hill, run into Edinburgh, find a guesthouse at random, and spend what was left of the night thinking things through. Helen gone. Papa dead but affecting him more than ever before. His arm and chest . . . his flesh dying, and the death spreading through his blood, infecting him elsewhere,
killing
him.

He did not really want to kill himself for the sake of independence. Like it or not, one way or another, he was tied to Nina until this was over.

He heard a whisper from the hole in the cliff, and it sounded like
Old Man
.