Mists of Everness (The War of the Dreaming) (9 page)

Read Mists of Everness (The War of the Dreaming) Online

Authors: John C. Wright

BOOK: Mists of Everness (The War of the Dreaming)
12.82Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Of these gathered men, you may take the first one who coughs or fidgets, moves or stands or speaks. That one shall satisfy you, and thereafter you shall depart. Gentlemen, I suggest you remain still; I shall presently return.
“Spirit! Your master placed ninety legions of the fell creatures of Acheron at my disposal, darkling elves, fallen cherubim, and demons, the whole of the Unseelie Court; I call upon them now in the names of the four kings whom they have served in times past: Ozymandias the Damned, Solomon the Wise, Haroun al Raschid called the Upright, and Owen Glendower; I summon them to the swordsmeet and weapontake at the Circle of Guardians in the first sphere of Heaven, to meet me upon the road of ashes. We ride to war.
“Gerald Samuel Wentworth! You believe I do not know you eavesdrop where I have forbidden you; you are mistaken. Call the men of this land to stand ready for battle, whether it be here or in the dream-lands, I know not yet. Send the great war-ship called Hairy True Man to the place in the sea I have described. Prepare all your mightiest armaments, including the deadly gasses, diseases, and all-devastating fire at your command. I have here the President’s machine, which you have called the football, which can order all these things to readiness … . Ah.
“Tell your nation that the Vice President is now in command, that the President has been slain.
“Spirit! You may return to Acheron and take what is in your hand with you. It is still screaming, so I suppose it is still alive.
“By the four angels who are bound in the water of the great river Euphrates, who shall be loosed upon the Earth at the sixth call of the Horn to slay a third part of all mankind, by their names, Nimrod, Ephialtes, Briareus, Anteus, and by the fear you have for them, I charge and compel, conjure and command, that you swiftly and safely depart, taking no more with you than I have said, doing as I have bid, harming none, leaving nothing behind, averting all curses from us, without earthquake, fire, or tempest to herald your departure. Go!”
Van Dam dropped his cigarette again. In a hushed whisper, he asked Wentworth, “What do we do?”
“Start Protocol Omega. Call NORAD and SAC and put all systems on general alert. Go to DefCon Two …”
“We don’t have the authority for that!”
“The Vice President can use the red button. He has the authority.”
“What about us?”
“We’ve got to get out of D.C. It’ll be a target.”
“Is there any place on Earth that will be safe?”
“Not if Acheron arises; not if nukes start dropping.
The only place to go is Everness. If things go against us, we can get away, into another dimension or something; things go for us, we’ll be in the best position to exploit the events. I think I can get Azrael to tell us to take Galen’s cloak and the magic bow and arrows to Everness. He’s already said how he doesn’t trust those magic talismans being here, in the waking world.”
“No one has been able to draw that bow, sir. Azrael can’t even touch it.”
“Doesn’t matter. More things happened at the Battle of Everness than Azrael knows about. Shut off those TVs and let’s go. Hal has to explain to the vice president who really runs the country.”
When the door opened, a triangular swath of light momentarily fell across the room, the conference table, the plush chairs. The silhouettes of two men passed in front of the light of the doorway. The door closed. They were gone.
The room seemed empty.
In the far corner of the room, where the shadows were blackest, stood a tall, black silhouette, invisible and silent. As he raised his head, the shadow of his hat brim revealed first the scarf that hid his mouth, then the slant of his cheekbones, his nose; then, finally, his eyes, which glittered like polished stones; eyes filled with an emotion terrible to behold.
There was the slightest rustle of black cape as the figure turned. No further noise betrayed his further movements.
Now, the room was truly empty.
The Heart of the Storm
The bus stopped in front of the general store where Main Street crossed Port Street. A big man in a black Inverness coat got off, and the wind tugged at his hair and beard.
The street was deserted. A few stray papers blew across it. The windows of the general store, the bank, and the grocery were boarded up. On the diner’s door was a hand-printed sign: CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF DORIS.
The bus swayed in the wind as it pulled away. Trees by the roadside bowed and swept their branches through the air, and telephone poles shook.
The man looked up. The sky directly overhead was blue. The little town was on a rise; down Port Street he could see the promontory and the sea.
Purple clouds and black clouds, like battlements and towers, loomed over the sea all along the horizon. Great swirling arms and convoluted knots reached up across the sky.
“This is not looking very good, I am thinking,” said the man in a deep Russian voice, stroking his beard. “Franklin! You did not warn me when I dreamed about you on the bus! Call the Princes, you said. Did not say would bring storm with them. Hah! But I must let no anger, no frustration touch me now … .” On his finger glittered a massive ring of white gold.
By the time he had walked to the edge of town, the towers and battlements of clouds had grown and outlying squadrons and flotillas of storm-clouds were streaming across the sky overhead, their movement visible to the eye.
There was a lighthouse on a high promontory overlooking the sea. Raven put up his coat collar and bent into the wind, walking forward in heavy strides. Now he put his hand before his face and squinted, and the wind screamed in his ears.
In the distance, between the sea and sky, a ripple of lightning danced. A few moments later, thunder rolled across the landscape.
Tim Kearns opened the door to the light, gentle knocking. A little girl stood there, squinting in the wind, holding a big brown dog in her arms.
“Are you the lighthouse keeper?” she asked brightly.
“Get in here. Aren’t you Lilly Rushcock’s little girl?”
“My name’s
Megan!
This is Ralph. She can say her own name.” The dog barked and wagged her tail.
“Yeah, that’s great. Look, do your parents know where you are?”
“Ralph ran away. The nice man found her for me.” She added in a confidential tone of great seriousness: “We have a deal.”
“Yeah, great. Do you know your phone number? Let me see if I can get your parents. Hey! Don’t touch that stuff.”
“What is it?”
“Radar. Satellite telemetry. That sort of stuff. Those are my schoolbooks and don’t touch them either.”
“Are you the lighthouse keeper?”
“Naval Meteorology Research Post. It’s not a lighthouse anymore.”
“Oh. Uh … Okay.”
“Who are you talking to, Megan, honey?”
“The man. He found my dog. He looked at the ground. He says everyone has to get out of town or hide in a cellar.”
“Are you worried about the storm, Megan? We’re only at a severe storm warning right now. Hurricane Doris is moving away from us, see? I hope. The satellites say it’s going away. But you still shouldn’t be out.”
“Raven says it’s coming. Raven says he’s
sorry.”
Tim Kearns had just come across the word “horripilation” in his studies, referring to the sensation of gooseflesh when one’s nape hairs prickled from fear or cold. It had never actually happened to him before.
Without another word, Tim Kerns picked up the green phone hanging next to his instrument rack pressed redial. “Sheriff Brody? Remember I told you we were only going to get the edges of Hurricane Doris? I was wrong. The storm path turned, and it’s coming this way. We need to get everyone in the bunker after all. Oh. Megan Rushcock wandered into my post here. Can you send a cruiser around to pick her up? Her parents must be frantic. And … what do you mean? I don’t care what the regional bureau says; they’re wrong. They’re looking at the same information I am, and I’m telling you the storm has turned. Yes, it’s official. I’m issuing a storm emergency warning. I don’t care if I’m not allowed to; I’m issuing it anyway. That’s right. You want to call the radio station and tell them or do you want me to? Okay. Remember Megan Rushcock’s here. Fine. Bye.” He hung up the phone, muttering, “Idiot!”
The light in the window grew visibly darker.
“Megan. Where is this Raven you were talking to?”
She pointed out the window. “He went over there.”
“Where?”
“Up the big hill.”
“Can you see him right now?”
“Sure. Can’t you?”
“I guess not, honey.” But Tim Kearns kept his eye on the hill she had pointed out.
It was less than an hour later, and the policeman had just come in to get Megan. Tim Kearns was still staring at the hill. The sky had turned all black, and fat drops of rain and hail were flying down from rumbling clouds. The wind was making a continuous roar.
The officer shouted over the wind, “You got to come too, sir. Sheriff said everybody!”
Tim was actually staring right at the exact spot where the lightningbolt struck the hilltop. The officer flinched, and Megan screamed.
Blinking in the purple afterimage, Tim could see, for the briefest moment, high on the hill above, ghostlike, wind-whipped, the huge, bearded man in a black cloak wrestling the lightning bolt to the ground, like a man strangling a snake of blue fire with his hands.
“Come on, sir!” said the police officer.
Kearns shouted back, “Get the little girl out into the car. I’ve got to lock up. Only take a sec!”
The policeman stepped out. The man who called himself Tim Kearns removed a circuit card from a compartment in his wallet, opened the electronic panel next to the phone, and plugged the card into the circuit board. Then he plugged the phone jack into the same panel.
“Calling Burbank! Calling Burbank! Tell Pendrake that Raven is here; he’s got the ring and is attempting to allay Hurricane Doris. I can’t stay in this position; must retreat to storm bunker. Will contact you when possible. Out.”
Raven sat upon the hill beneath a blasted oak tree, his face calm, his hands folded in his lap. Downhill, the sea was before him, black waves rearing and plunging. To his left, was forest; to his right, the little town.
His face was very calm. His eyes were half closed. He was breathing slowly and deeply. Up from his palms came a trickle of vapor, as if he had just grappled with some force of immense heat. But his palms were unscarred, unblistered.
Lightning passed across the town to his right, and all the lights went dark.
Despite the rain and driving hail, Raven’s garments were not wet.
A whine of bagpipes sounded from his left. The trees in the forest bowed like wheat in a planted field bowing in the wind. A dozen trees, two dozen, were uprooted and whirled through the air. A wall of devastation, like a continuous explosion, ripped through the forest, approaching.
When Raven put his palm on the root of the oak next to him, the tree stopped trembling.
Splinters from the whirlwind ripping through the forest, propelled by hundred-mile-an-hour winds, fell to the left and to the right of him, but did not touch him.
Raven, eyes half closed, did not look up. He wore the smile a man might wear who was listening to distant, soft music.
He touched two fingers to the ground. For three paces to each side of him, the grass ceased to bow to the wind. The grass there bowed once to Raven, then stood straight, and the hail and rain did not disturb them.
Raven drew a breath, closed his eyes, laid his palm flat upon the ground. The effect around him grew till it was four paces wide, six, then ten.
A noise louder than any other noise on Earth exploded from overhead, deafening. In the light from a lightning flash, the silhouette of a creature in Roman armor could be seen, hanging between two gnarled storm-clouds, shield raised.
“Murderer!” called a voice louder than a thunderbolt.
The corner of Raven’s mouth twitched. The circle became four paces wide, then three, shrinking. Stinging hail splattered his garments.
A creature in a kilt and cloak, breathing out a tornado from his bagpipes, cam striding across the crest of the hill; and where he stepped, thunders boomed. Behind was a path where everything had been flattened. He took the flute from his mouth to call out, “Your pretty wife is gone away! Your worthless life must end this day!”
The tree behind Raven began to shake again; his coat was yanked up, streaming, and his own hair pelted his face.
Lightning struck the tree. Standing tall amidst the flaming branches was a creature in black, wearing lace, his whole body crawling with sparks and darts of electricity. He shook his javelin. “Impotent now, I think you must be! Will you stay wed, when you cannot bed, nor do a bridegroom’s one duty? The ring was meant for a monk to wear, shy and pale, a porridge eater in a shirt of hair.”
Raven smiled, and spoke in a quiet voice, and the storm grew quiet to hear him. “Love has deep roots, Fulmenos. Love last long after tempest of infatuation blows by, you know? Love is both for fair weather and for foul. You like to think I must give up much to command you, eh? You are not so great, I am thinking. I give up nothing.”
Lighting spurted from the creature’s eyes and mouth as it shouted. Bolts fell to each side of Raven, but he did not flinch, and so they did not touch him.
“You think to tame your passions thus? It cannot be! Men cannot be men unless they let their souls run free! Join us! The strife of life is meant for life, not for cautious thinking-through! Forget the future! Do not reflect, but do! Shake these cobwebs from your strength! Let whatever impulse blows you now, now whirl you aloft! How else to fly? Reason is deceit! Your senses cheat! Logic is a lie! Morality is meant to chain the soft!”
Raven raised his hand, and a great unearthly hush came out from him. The rain diminished suddenly, as if the eye of the storm were overhead. “You say logic lies, eh? And so therefore I must be illogical? But that is argument you make. With logic, no? So you are lying, yes?”
He stood up. The tree behind him stopped trembling. The rain diminished to a drizzle.
“I am not a child,” said Raven. “I do not listen to children-fears. I do not act like child, first crying, then laughing, then crying again, changing as the wind changes. I am not a spoiled baby to do whatever I like without thinking. Now then, Tempestos! Attonitus! Come here and be quiet.”
Attonitus raised his shield and sword. “Murderer! You cannot control us, who cannot control yourself!”
Tempestos stepped forward reluctantly, but he squeezed on his bag with his elbow, producing a droning hiss, and the wind behind him began to rush through the trees, building. He said softly, “Aye, and what of your wife, mortal man? You bring Galen back to life; she dies. Does this not make fear blow through you?”
“No,” said Raven. “There was a storm in me, fear and anger, and I blew down Galen’s life. Now it has rained in me, and I have wept. Weeping done. Now I must have calm weather again. I can quiet myself; I can quiet the storm. Storm-Princes! Whirlwind, Thunderbolt, Lightning! Hail and welcome. Come and obey!”
The three figures gathered before him where he stood, and, kneeling, each one, in turn, kissed the white gold ring.
The clouds parted and a single beam of sunlight came streaming through the gentle rain to light on Raven where he stood, unmoving, beneath the blasted oak tree.
“First,” said Raven, “I have parachute from army surplus store at last bus stop. Stole it, yes, but left some money librarian gave, so maybe is alright. I am thinking, Wendy flies, eh? So why not Raven?”
Tempestos picked up his pipes but said, “You think to unleash us, and then bottle us once more? If so, where do you wish to go? I can bear you where e’er winds will blow. Go ahead and try it. Icarus tried before.”
“We fly to Everness and maybe to the Moon,” said Raven.
“We cannot carry you to Luna’s sphere, wise master, for no winds blow from here to there.”
Raven said, “Be calm. I solve that problem later.
“Now then, second order: You, there, Thunder! Go make it rain on fires in Southwest. Put them out. Wherever Surtvitnir is, it rains. And no more snow for Bergelmir, eh? He can make it cold, but if there is no moisture, then it is not snowing.”
“And if they are together, great Master? For even I, I cannot make it at once both wet and dry!”
“Be quiet there!” said Raven, shaking his finger. “Don’t get yourself worked up, eh? If they are together, make wet mist. Cold will turn mist to frost and nothing burns, you know?”
Raven turned to the last figure.
“For you, I have an idea. Do you think you can make a rainbow all across the sky here? A nice pretty one, lots of colors? I think the people in the town deserve it.”
“Your will, in all, for me, is law,” he said, standing. Somehow, his robe had changed from black to a gray-edged and fluffy white. His lace was now of many colors. But when he smiled, flickers of electricity ran across his teeth, and his inhuman eyes were like two sparks.
The rain stopped.

Other books

The Legend of the Rift by Peter Lerangis
Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham
Going Wild by Lisa McMann
Masques of Gold by Roberta Gellis
Boudreaux 01 Easy Love by Kristen Proby
Inn on the Edge by Gail Bridges
Horse Care by Bonnie Bryant