The Call of Distant Shores (19 page)

At the end of the alley he stepped out onto a broad shore.
 
The sand that lined the water's edge was fine, and very white.
 
A gray mist floated above the water, and there was light enough to see, but Sid couldn't tell from what.
 
There were no streetlights, and there was no color.
 
He could not remember why it mattered.
 
His memories were there, but fading, drifting further and further back, and he had to concentrate to draw them forward, to move and to think.

With nothing else to do, he wandered slowly toward the riverbank.

Hypnos heard a single note, clear and bright, and smiled at his son's artistry.
 
He stared out through utter darkness into a world of slumber.
 
He turned slowly, found the one he sought and his smile widened into a laugh.
 
He snapped his fingers sharply and sat back to watch the ripple of that sound wash through into another world.

Antonius' eyes flashed open.
 
He heard his own words through Lucas' lips, pressed very close to his ears.
 
He did not know Lucas.
 
He did not know the bed, or the chamber in which he lay.
 
He smelled the sweet smoke of the poppy and he felt the vibration of the words.
 
He
felt
– and that was more than all the years since his death had granted him.

Lucas did not notice the motion of Patrick's eyelids, but continued to speak in a flawless stream.
 
The ancient words poured from his lips in a voice no longer his own.
 
He had dropped to his knees beside the bed, and his head slumped toward the mattress.
 
He lacked the strength to rise and the sense to care.

Antonius lacked neither.
 
His mind unraveled the cobwebs that had bound it in an instant and he inhaled deeply, letting the opium in the candle ease his tension.
 
He felt a strange lethargy, and then realized he was both drugged and slightly drunk.
 
He smiled.
 
He ran his tongue over his lips and tasted the salt of sweat, and the bittersweet aftertaste of red wine lingering.

There had to be three.
 
It was another moment before he understood what the words meant to him.
 
Three.
 
One was this new body.
 
Two was his own, standing in the caverns near the Styx, lifeless and drying out like a cornhusk.
 
Who was the third, and where?
 
He turned his head slowly to the side and gazed into the glazed eyes of the man kneeling at his side.
 
Not this one.
 
He was the catalyst – the key – but he was not part of the puzzle.

The doors had been opened; the triptych was painted, but not yet dried on its canvas.
 
He had to apply the seal.
 
Then there would be time to celebrate, and to find out who and where he found himself.
 
He rose shakily.
 
The man kneeling beside the bed continued speaking, but he did not rise.
 
Not even his eyes.

On the floor by his side, Antonius saw the notebook, and he smiled.
 
He reached down, retrieved it, and began to search.

Patrick fell into fitful sleep.
 
He was terrified of the images that assaulted him when he opened his eyes, and the voices that had passed earlier had been incomprehensible.
 
He had examined himself and found that the body was not his own.
 
It was thin and wasted, emaciated and weak.
 
His hands trembled if he made the effort to hold them up before his face, and he did not trust his legs to support him if he rose.

So he slept.
 
The odd hum and glow of streetlights faded to black, and he dreamed.

He saw the shoreline of a river.
 
White sand stretched out to either side, and a man stood alone on the shore, staring down into the water.
 
The words in his mind had faded to a droning hum, rising and falling but never forming complete words.
 
He heard the whisper of other voices from the direction of the water.
 
He walked out onto the sand in the direction of the lone figure on the bank of the river.
 
As he drew nearer, the voices grew louder, though no less confused.

Sid turned from the water with an effort and watched himself drawing nearer, striding across the beach with more poise and grace than he'd possessed in years.
 
He wondered how he could be walking toward himself, but he gave the matter only a moment's thought.
 
With a shrug, he turned back to the river.
 
A woman, tall and slender, swirled beneath the waves with her arms outstretched to him.
 
She rolled across the nearest wave, and he took half a step forward.
 
The water lapped at the soles of his boots, but he did not reach out, and she washed away, replaced by a hag with rotted teeth.

Another voice joined that in his head, and he felt something snap into place.
 
The sound was the turning tumbler of a lock.

Thanatos
felt the feather touch of Morpheus' chord, riding the ripple of Hypnos' finger-snap revelation.
 
He rose and turned to welcome his brother and his nephew as harmonies formed and sound deepened.
 
Each spoke at once, voices blending in a singular understanding. They stood, side by side, as Patrick walked up beside Sid and stared into the rolling currents of the Styx.
 
The chant continued, and they felt the third, though he was not bound by death, or sleep, or dream.
 
He spoke, and the sound shifted realities like stacked dominos, readying them to topple in symmetrical patterns.
 
The fabric of worlds had twisted, but it would snap back.
 
He spoke again, and it was pinned in place.
 
He spoke again, and the twist became a fold.

Thanatos
flicked his hand toward the Styx, and a wave rolled across the surface, gaining strength and rising above the dark surface as it undulated toward the two figures standing on the shore.
 
The three waited in patient silence on Death's shore.

The words continued to pour from Lucas' lips, but Antonius no longer heard them.
 
He had managed to slide off of the bed and stand, though he was weak.
 
The opium clung tenaciously, and he could not snuff the candle.

"Once begun," he breathed, leaning heavily on the bedpost, "the chant cannot be stopped."

He clutched the leather journal in his hand.
 
He had found the final incantation.
 
The man leaning on the bed had translated it to some tongue Antonius did not understand, but it did not matter.
 
Both the translation and the original were intact, and he had only needed to see it to remember.
 
Years peeled away from his mind and his thoughts cleared slowly.
 
He woke from a pitch-black dream into a hazy fog and fought for clarity.
 
At the proper moment, when the chant reached its apex, he would insert the words, one by one, rhythmically counter pointing the other man's voice and creating the rift that would place the seals.
 
The chant could not be stopped, but it could be broken.

Then he heard it.
 
He shook his head, trying to clear the sound, but the motion shifted the opium more quickly through his veins, and he was not yet comfortable with motion.
 
The sound rippled up from recesses deep inside him, growing in strength as it approached the forefront of his thoughts.
 
He tried again to shake it off, but it was no use, and he slumped against the mattress, closing his eyes.

He heard the rush of water and whispered a negation that no one could hear. He knew there were things that he had to remember, but they were slipping away.
 
He heard the words and moaned, as crucial cadences were lost to him.
 
He fought an inward battle, scrambling to redesign the pattern before it slipped away, to patch up the crumbling walls erected by the words he'd penned so long before, in another world and a distant time.

He dropped to his knees beside the other man, but he did not feel the floor beneath his knees.
 
He felt sand, gritty sand that cut like tiny diamond shards of glass and worked itself through his skin, seeking blood.
 
He glanced up, and he saw himself.
 
He saw another, standing at his side, and he rose, stumbling forward without thought to where the bed might have gone.

He saw himself leaning close, listening to the whispered siren words of the Styx.
 
He saw the ripple as the river's surface raised and rolled forward, and he knew in that instant that he would not reach the shore in time to stop himself.
 
He cried out but the words stuck in his throat and held, and he fell silently, hand outstretched to himself – and his hand outstretched to the rushing water.

Sid saw a face reflected in the water, but it was not his own.
 
Other faces continued to ripple across that surface, and he watched them in fascination.
 
They spoke to him, implored him, screamed mindlessly into the silence of his mind, but he did not reply.
 
He leaned closer and held out his arm, and watched in fascination as that of another man was reflected.
 
A thin man with only bones and skin to keep him erect.
 
The sunken eyes and mummified lips were morbid and appealing at once, and Sid wanted only to touch them, to feel the cool water brush over his suddenly desiccated skin.

He was aware of another leaning at his side, but he did not glance over at him.
 
If he had, he would have seen that the other reflected his own familiar features, his own thin, but living hands.
 
He would have seen himself leaning to a reflection that beckoned, even as
Thanatos
' wave bore down on them both.

Neither heard the snick of Antonius' knees as they sank into the brittle sand.

The wave rose and touched their fingers in one moment and the sound burst free of Antonius' borrowed lips in a mournful, dirge-toned wail.
 
Hands with fingers hooked like talons broke the surface of the water and took Sid and Patrick's wrists.
 
The two tumbled forward in unison, drawn on and down by the wave and disappearing beneath the surface quickly, blending their forms with those beneath the water without a sound, lost in eddies and swells.
 
Gone.
 
There was a swell in the sound as the swell in the Styx subsided, and then silence.

Morpheus strode down the sand to the body on the shore.
 
Leaning close, he pressed his lips to the man's ear and breathed dark harmony into the sleeping mind.

Hypnos snapped his finger a last time and
Thanatos
contemplated the waves.
 
It would amuse him to see when the two rippled across the surface, their fresh anguish giving the dark waters new sheen.

Patrick's eyes fluttered, and then opened with a snap.
 
He rose in confusion, nearly tangling himself in the sheets and covers of his bed.
 
There was an odd scent in the air, but he dismissed it quickly.
 
His head pounded, and beside him, kneeling against his bed, was Lucas.
 
The man's cheek lay damp in a pool of bile and his lips moved in some silent speech.

"Mad," Patrick whispered.

His head throbbed, and he tried to remember what he'd had to drink, how much.
 
His mind was blank.
 
The last thing he remembered was standing in the outer chamber.

In that instant, Lady Claudia stepped timidly to the door and stared.

Patrick staggered to her, placing an arm on her shoulder, as much for his own support as her comfort.

"Call someone," he choked out.
 
"Lucas has gone mad…"

As Claudia's hurried footsteps echoed in the hall and through three worlds, and Patrick fell heavily back onto the fainting couch in his sitting room, a hand reached from the death cold waters of the Styx.
 
Thanatos
gripped Lucas by the hair and dragged him down the sandy beach to meet that grasping claw, whistling a dirge.

With Patricia Lee Macomber

It has been many years since the events I now record took place, and even now, running through them in my mind, I'm uncertain if I should continue.
 
There is a question of privacy involved, to be certain.
 
There is more.
 
I fancy that when all is said and done, these words will one day find their way into the hands of others.
 
Still, my purpose over the years has never been to further my own reputation, and certainly I've been brutally honest when it comes to others.