The Last Guardian of Everness (War of the Dreaming 1) (12 page)

Suddenly, from behind came laughter and movement. Galen turned and struck an awkward blow.

A huge monster seal, larger than a wagon, surged at him from behind. Galen’s spear blow had cut into a giant’s catlike face, but only drew a dribble of blood; the creature was too huge for any telling blow. The giant rolled over him, crushing the wind out of him, and turned into a man who stood with his foot on Galen’s throat.

A voice like a deep rumble of a sea wave now issued from the huge seal- man: “Hoy, little small-fry, little sneak-spy, aren’t ye one of them who Watch at Everness, eh? Ye crouch like toads, peering over yer fine tall seawall to gaze with fear upon our wide, black, salt sea. Ho ho. And now ye peer so close, so close, and it’s yer death ye see. I’d like to skin yer flesh and make a
fine coat o’ ye, and stroll about as fine as fine, on human feet, up yonder where they say the sun is shining! But no, but no, there’s another who will wear your lovely coat, not me!”

The giant seal-man with effortless strength now heaved up Galen and held him one-handed by the wrist, legs kicking far above the bony sand. Galen could slap him with his spear, but could not, one-handed, deliver any proper stroke, and the huge seal merely smiled when the light from the spearhead stung him.

A fathom at a step, the huge seal-man strode down the beach, toward the shore of darkness and long fall below into the gloom. The other seals barked and laughed and cried out with pleasure at the sight.

Galen kicked and twisted, but he was like a small child in the grip of a tall, strong man. The seal-man chuckled and clucked his tongue to see Galen struggle so, and spoke in a cheerful, deep rumble: “Don’t worry so! I can live without yer white leather for me coat! Hey, ho! For I’ve a dozen cavaliers from Vindyamar all hanging in my wardrobe now, guards I noosed and gals I garroted and sleeping babes I plucked up out of cribs. A fine city, Vindyamar, floating like a blue flower in the waves, and Sapphire Towers so proud and tall! But there’s an underside, and darkness under her hull. The Warlock gave us the password to open the lower postern gate, and we killed the guards and stole their shapes, and went home to their guardsman’s homes, and took their wives, then led them, one at a time, down stairs to where the rest of us lads were waiting in the sea.

“Then there was a ball, ye see, and all the nobles came. But the guards who was to keep them safe, aye, they was all our lads by then, and not until the feast was served, and they saw all their children done up nice, served with gravy over beds of rice, did they know anything was wrong or guess why the doors was locked tight shut behind them. The fiddlers fiddled loud to drown the screaming, and we laughed and sang ‘til everyone outside who heard it said ‘Why! What lovely times and gay, the high folk have at play!’

“After that, ‘twas easy as poking an eye to invite the townsfolk up to the palace to see the Three Queens, and my! How puffed up and proud they was
to go! They polished their shoes and brushed their wigs, and not until they was in the throne room did they see the ladies of the court in their fine clothes crucified on the wall behind the thrones, with the Necromancer, old bone-licker, corpse-eater, skulking nigh, for he had pulled their souls like old teeth right out from their soft, womanly bosoms and wrapped them in a cedar chest to hale them down to Acheron Below.

“And me?! I got to dress up too, and got be the High Bell-Captain with a silver chain and a ivory staff. I got to ring the bell. The Warlock told us do it, to ring the Great Bell long and loud to wake ye. But then we tied some troublesome wenches to the clapper, duchesses and young countesses and the like, and cracked their bones when they struck the bell wall. When all the inside of the magic bell were stained with virgin blood, polluted and stained, the magic in the Bell went bad, and the Sea-Bell cracked in two and sank. Where is all yer fine Bells and Warnings now, Watchman, eh? Watch yerself now dying.”

The giant leaned out over the end of the sand, dangling Galen over the unquiet darkness of the abyss.

He heard his grandfather’s voice cry out: “Let go of the pearl! Don’t fall!”

Galen did not want to be tricked again. He did not listen to the creature who looked like his grandfather. Even as the giant was reaching to pry open his fingers, Galen, one-handed, raised the spear and pierced the wrist of the giant hand holding him.

Without a sound, still clutching the pearl, Galen fell.

III

For a time, Galen tried to compose himself, and he wondered what it would be like to die, or worse, to go insane and have his soul consumed by nameless horrors that lurk below the threshold of the world men know.

Then a light came from behind him, and he felt a warm and loving
breath, scented like springtime, on his cheek. Twisting in midair, he saw the slim, graceful form and fawn-like face of the dream-colt, surrounded with the glory of her own light.

“You have forgotten, beloved, that I promised to stay behind you. While I could not carry you into the nameless lands beyond fair Tirion, I did not say I could not carry you out from them!” she said, or sang. “And so many blessings are gathered for the good of man, which he so swiftly forgets! My sweet, what now do you do in this dark place, falling to a deeper dark from which even I could not recover you? Mount! And I shall fly you with the speed of daydreams back to where your life is.”

IV

“And then I was here,” Galen said.

V

Wendy asked, “But why did you come to me? She said she would take you back to where your life is, and I certainly don’t have it stuck under a pillow here or something, do I? Besides, what did the seals hope to achieve? They weren’t going to try to take over your life, were they?”

Galen said, “The Sixty-Eighth Warden, Pentheus Waylock, wrote a paper trying to prove that what we call insanity is various forms of selkie trying to eat up men’s souls, hollow them out from inside, so to speak, and walk around on earth; but they can’t adjust themselves to the limitations of waking reality, and they see things other people don’t see, and so we think they’re crazy.”

“Well, what now?”

“Uh—what do you mean, what now? There’s nothing more to do now. Time is up.”

“Okay. But what can we do now? If the sea-bell people are beaten up and the three queens are missing, then there’s no alarm bell working anymore, is there? Things could be sneaking into the world right and left, right?”

Galen shook his head sadly. “I don’t think you realize what this means. I’ve seen the selkie gathered in force. Vindyamar is fallen, and the three fair queens are slain, their souls taken perhaps to Acheron. The only thing left to do is blow the Horn. Blow the Horn and wake the sleepers. It will be the last battle. The end of the world. My family will have fulfilled its mission. We were ordered to watch the boundaries between the waking and the sleeping world. And we have watched. The years went by, and went by, and still we watched. Everyone forgot about us, and still we watched. Now the enemies we were watching for have come. Time to blow the Horn. There’s nothing more to do. The last battle is here.”

Wendy said nothing, but looked at him, her head cocked to one side.

“You know,” he muttered, “our family is supposed to sound the Last Horn Call. All those things I was taught when I was young. I guess they are really true. The dire spirits from the abyss will rise up to claim the Earth; to defeat them, we must call down the supernatural champions of the light. But they might destroy the Earth in the glory of their coming. We were promised. Long ago we were promised, by solemn promises, that a new and perfect world would be given us, a new homeland, if ours was brought to an end by the unearthly powers unleashed during the last battle. It would be a place of peace, a garden of delight, perfect and pure. But I think I might prefer this old, flawed world of mine rather than that new one, if it came right down to it. I know I’m supposed to feel really overjoyed at the coming of the millennium, now that our long duties are almost over. But I just got started. I’m still young. I don’t even think I want to find the Final Horn. But I guess I should.” His voice was calm and solemn.

She said, “You can end the world?”

He said to her: “All you need to do is find my Grampa and tell him to do it.”

VI

Wendy blinked. Then she snorted and shrugged. “Oh, don’t be silly! We can’t let the world come to an end. You look so gloomy when you say that! So, what can we do instead? I mean, to fight the bad guys ourselves, without waking up these sleeper fellows, whoever they are?”

“They can’t be fought by mortal men,” said Galen uncertainly. “Besides, that isn’t what we were ordered to do. I mean—”

“What about finding these talismans?”

“Finding the talismans?”

“Of course! The things Azrael talked about, the Moly and the magic ring and the sword and the other things. Mollner; the bow and arrows of Belphanes. The things to defeat the dark! After all why would Azrael have made that part up; what would’ve been the point? So we’ve got to find them. We can’t just stand here with our mouths hanging open, gaping like fish!”

Galen, who had been standing with his mouth gaping, snapped it shut with a click of his teeth. “My family is just supposed to watch the wall. Azrael said that for us to use the weapons is forbidden.”

“Well?! Maybe he’s lying! Things have come over the wall! Now what?”

“I guess the only one who knows where the talismans might be is Grampa. He’s consulted the Queens of Vindyamar in dreams before. Gramps should be at the House. And there are tools of our Art at the house; there’s supposed to be a planetarium built by the Sixty-Sixth Warden, Archimedes Waylock, which can locate dream creatures that have come through the mist.” Galen, for the first time, spoke in a clear and certain voice, as if Wendy’s words had firmed his resolve. “There’s also a library of books, most of which are in the waking world, that can give us more information on what we’re facing. But I can’t ask a sick woman to help me . . .”

“Ha! Not only do I feel fine, you chauvinist pig, but I’m older than you are and probably a lot smarter too, if you ask my opinion, which you haven’t, judging from the look on your face. You look so funny with your mouth hanging open like that!”

Galen self-consciously snapped his mouth shut again, looking mildly confused and overwhelmed. He straightened up and started to speak in a voice of condescending masculine authority. “Well, first we should. . . Hmmm. . .” His voice trailed back into youthful uncertainty. “Uh, what should we do first?”

“First! Let’s look at the pearl and see what it is.”

“Pearl?”

Wendy rolled her eyes. “You know! The thing Azrael de Gray gave you. You still have it, don’t you?”

Galen reached into the pouch hanging from his war-belt. “Yeah, I think I—here it is . . .” He drew up his hand, and, shining in his palm, surrounded by rays of soft light and by gentle sprays of sparks like fireflies, was a tiny crystal sphere of living beauty.

Wendy drew in her breath, awed.

VII

Wendy raised her head from the living light in Galen’s palm and saw the door from the hall silently swing open, with no hand touching it. Looming in the doorway was a ghastly black apparition, narrow-faced and starved, corpselike, dressed in armor of human bones and shrouded with floating blackness.

Galen jerked his hand back into his pouch, quelling the light he held, and he brought up his spear in an
en garde
stance, weight balanced, legs slightly spread, knees flexed. His left hand, forward on the haft, held the gleaming weapon level; his right hand, near the spear butt, was in motion, so that the spearhead began to sway and circle, menacing, feinting.

“You again!” shouted Wendy. “Get out of here!”

Koschei stooped to brush his crown of dead men’s fingernails against the door frame as he floated into the room, his robes a cloud.

“Necromancer, begone!” called out Galen. “By justice herself, I command you, depart! No hand here will unsheathe your gory blade! No heart here will bleed to fill the emptiness where once you kept your heart!”

Koschei spoke in a cold voice, humming with echoes, as if he spoke from a distant world. “Son of Adam, not for battle come I now (to your good fortune, for my strength would utterly overwhelm and consume you), but to act as herald for one, more terrible than I, who comes now to claim you. The first father of your race, by mortal crime, has condemned all your kind as prey to him who follows me; your life, for that original sin, is forfeit. Do you deny this?”

“I—I don’t know what you mean—”

At that moment Wendy heard the distant sound of a ringing bell, perhaps from a church or clocktower, ringing.

“I am a herald for one whom no one else can serve; having shed my humanity, I do not share the fate under which the first of men laid all his children.” Koschei raised one bony finger, pointing to the door, and spoke now in a louder voice: “Behold, ye spirits of the world, that he has not denied my word, and therefore he confesses and consents. Come, Death, and take his soul away! But see you do not shatter the little life he carries in his pouch; this is destined for his shed flesh, by the magic of the selkie who have touched him; he has worn their robes, they now wear his.”

A great, black, taloned hand, with fingers longer than a tall man’s legs, reached in through the doorway, surrounded by a stinking cloud of darkness like a thundercloud. The hand was brown with layers of dried blood and gore, and a terrible, piercing cold radiated from it, so that the long black nails were dripping frost.

While Galen stood paralyzed, the black hand closed around him, and Wendy caught a glimpse of Galen’s horrified face between the narrowing gaps of the closing fingers, like a face seen between the bars of a cage.

Wendy gave out a shrill shout of fear and anger, threw aside her covers, and leaped up out of bed.

As soon as her foot touched the floor, she sprang fully awake and blinking in the empty room. The hospital room looked the same, but there was no sign of Galen or Koschei or the terrible clawed hand.