The Last Guardian of Everness (War of the Dreaming 1) (16 page)

Raven started awake. The car was speeding down a lonely stretch of highway, east, toward the full moon, just then rising between the trees bordering the road.

Wendy spoke in an exasperated yet (somehow) cheerful voice: “Raven! Are you dreaming? You haven’t heard a word of what I’ve been saying!”

II

“No, no,” said Raven, rubbing his eyes. “I hear everything. You think Azrael in cage learn from seal-people how to change skins; that he also learn how to take soul out of body. He cannot get out of cage, but can slip soul out between bars; Galen takes to. . . what is called bony beach? Nastrond? Nastrond.
And selkie is putting Azrael soul in Galen body to wake up, yes?” Raven yawned again.

“Exactly right!” Wendy smiled at her husband.

For a moment they looked each other in the eyes, smiling with love. To Raven, her happy looks were a treasure he had thought never to see again. Then he remembered it was a stolen treasure, bought by murder.

Raven shouted: “Look at road, not at me!” Then, after the car was straightened and traveling in its proper lane again: “Where is van we are following?” He wondered why he had let a woman drive who just this evening had been released from a sick ward in the hospital.

“He must’ve seen us! He sped up and turned off and we lost them,” Wendy shook her head so that her black curls flew violently. “It’s a disaster! If Azrael gets to Everness first, anything could happen! I can’t believe you slept through my very first car chase ever in my life! It was just like in the movies! He did a U-turn and was going the wrong way down the road, and everything! His tires squealed, and smoke came out the back, and I had to floor it to keep up! It was great!”

“Did that really happen?” asked Raven in wonder. He could not imagine the calm, burly man he met at the hospital doing such dangerous maneuvers.

“Of course not. He just turned off the exit before I could stop. By the time I got turned around again, he was gone. But I like my version better. That’s the way I think I’ll say it in my diary. Or do you think diaries should be totally honest? Anyway, it surprised me because the road to Route AA doesn’t turn off yet for fifteen miles. He’s not going the right way.”

Raven squinted, rubbing his eyes and forehead. ‘And how is it you know right way and he does not?”

“Silly! Galen told me when he was a ghost!”

“And now we are driving to. . .?”

“To Everness House. It may be locked up, but maybe you can break in. We have to find the Silver Key before Azrael gets it, because I bet he’s trying to open the gates to the dream-world and let the black hordes of Acheron
come to Earth and conquer it! Don’t make a mess when we’re searching, though. It’s not our house.”

“Hm. Yes. Of course. You know I must be back at my post day after tomorrow. I am standing evening shift, Sunday evening, Monday morning early. Must count logs logging company bringing off north slope preserve.”

“That gives us the whole weekend! I’m sure we can save the world from conquest by an empire of fallen angels from beyond the edge of space and time long before that.”

“Ah.”

She looked at him sidelong. “And what is that Ah’ supposed to mean?”

“Is just, Ah,’ you know. Ordinary, Ah.’ “

“That’s no ordinary Ah.’ I know your Ah,’ Raven son of Raven! That was a nasty Ah.’ “

“Was not a nasty Ah.’ “

“It was! It was the nastiest Ah’ I ever heard. How could you!”

“How could I what?”

Wendy said, “Don’t you believe me?”

Raven opened his mouth to answer and paused.

III

Did he believe his wife? She was crazy, he knew, but the question had never really come up before. It didn’t matter whether she thought she had a father who could do everything or a mother of supreme beauty; it didn’t matter whether she thought she had flown once when she was sick as a child. Whether or not those things were true did not call upon Raven to take any action.

And even now, whether or not Wendy had talked with a ghost did not call for Raven to do anything irrevocable. Perhaps they could poke around this house (if Wendy actually found it), and no great harm would be done.
Even if they got involved in some lengthy adventure, Raven had a government job, and he probably could not get fired even if he missed several days of work. He was a Georgian national, and he was sure that was a minority in America, and he knew the district manager had said their region was low on their minority quota.

So it did not matter, really, if Raven believed or not, did it?

But then again . . .

It occurred to Raven that if he did not believe his wife, then none of this actually happened. It was a dream, a delusion. Galen Waylock was safely going home with his father; Wendy had experienced a miraculous spontaneous recovery. No more than that.

It would be so very easy. All he need do is forget the looming figure in skeletal armor and then forget putting the pale white murder weapon into the thin gray hand . . .

Raven shook his head ruefully. A sensation of contempt crawled through him for a moment, then passed. “Of course I believe you, my wife. I know there are unnatural things in the world, things men do not know. Me, I am seeing things that no one can explain. My father brought me out of Russia in a way no one can explain. I could not forget that there is magic in this world any more than I could forget my own name! And so I know we must go to Everness.”

“Okay! But I wonder where Azrael is going?”

Now Raven laughed. It was clear to him. ‘Azrael cannot drive van, no? And you did not talk to Peter, his father. I talk to Peter. Ha! Peter, he will not take his son back to Everness no matter what. Must be going to motel, or maybe to Peter’s house. He doesn’t live at Everness; does not like the place.”

“He’s lost his faith, I bet.”

Raven shrugged. “I think sometimes it is very easy to talk yourself out of believing in things. Easier that way. Do not be so hard on him if you have not been tempted, you know?”

Wendy laughed. “People made fun of me, too. It would have been a lot
easier to pretend nothing unusual ever happened. And I bet it would have been a lot easier on Jesus if he had pretended he couldn’t turn water into wine, or heal the sick. Easier isn’t always best.”

Raven stroked his beard. He should have known better than to expect Wendy to feel any pity or sympathy for someone who betrayed his convictions or who gave into peer pressure. No pity at all.

Wendy squinted. “Maybe a week.”

“Maybe a week what?”

“Maybe a week before Azrael figures out a way to get to the House. He might see someone on TV call a cab, or get an idea how to do it from that. Or get a neighbor to drive him.”

But Raven was nodding off again. As his chin sank down to his breastbone, he heard a woman’s crystalline and lovely voice say,
“You have been shown these things for a purpose. Uhnuman is where Galen’s life has been taken. Even now, the Eech-Uisge have arrived at the frozen plateau above the plains of Luuk,
. . .”

Raven jerked his head up. “What?”The car had stopped. They were on a small back road, and the moon shown down on tall gateposts of dark brick. Beyond the open gates, a dirt path reached between double rows of trees sleeping beneath the moonlight. In the distance, Raven could hear the sea.

Wendy said, “We’ve arrived where Galen lives. Look!”

IV

The place was not what Raven expected. It was a small, one-story, boxlike cabin, with an attached garage with aluminum siding. The square little cabin squatted in a dip of land, surrounded by tall trees, as if deliberately placed here to be hidden from any view. Raven heard the pounding of waves and smelled the scent of an herb garden, heard the rustling of autumn leaves in the ocean breeze. But neither the sea cliffs nor the gardens could be seen from this vantage.

Nor was this little cabin visible from the tree-lined drive; only Raven’s
sharp eye had caught the tire tracks in the grass leading to this secluded spot. The tree-lined drive continued toward the sea; and Raven and Wendy had not yet discovered what lay further along the way.

Raven straightened up from the grass before the threshold. It was hard to tell in the dark, even with the flashlight from the glove compartment of the car, but he said, “No one has been here for months. Look; new shoots came up in summer where dirt path was; is now fall; no bent stems.”

Wendy said, “Oh, well!” and danced on past him to the door, put her hand on the knob, turned, pushed. She called out, “Hello! Hello! Anybody home?”

“Wait. . .,” said Raven.

The door swung silently open.

Wendy paused in the darkened doorway, looking back over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised, a dimple twinkling at the edge of her half-smile. “Well?” she said in a husky whisper. “What now, big boy?”

Raven knew it was futile to argue with Wendy when she was wearing her favorite supercilious expression. Nonetheless, he said, “Is not right to go into another man’s house when nobody is home.”

“It wasn’t locked.”

“Many people in county, far from city, are not needing to lock their doors at night.”

“Galen wouldn’t mind!”

“He is ghost.”

“Well, Raven!” and now she stamped her foot, and tossed her hair. “Sometimes you are just so silly! Here we are worrying about breaking the law when the world might get invaded by the forces of the Empire of Darkness, Death, and Doom! And what’s the worst that can happen if we break in, is we might get shot or thrown in jail. Good grief! Sometimes I think you have no sense of
proportion!”

And she skipped on inside, flipping on lights and calling out cheerful hellos.

V

The lights in the house were on a circuit that was cut if any of the heavy blackout shutters were open. Wendy was amused by this and spent some moments yanking the shutters open and closed to make the lights flicker. “Just like the little lights in a refrigerator!” she said.

The modern kitchen was separated by a countertop from the main room, which held several bookshelves, a large and expensive stereo set, and a folding couch. Blinking against the flickering light, Raven stepped out from a sliding door between two bookshelves. “Is gymnasium here. Full of old- fashioned weapons, spears, and swords. Also, practice saddle on a stand, and lances for jousting. But no horse.”

Wendy, meanwhile, had left the shutters to find a little closet with a concrete floor, holding a washer and dryer. A door beyond this led to the garage, which was empty. A second door from the kitchen led to a bathroom with very extensive medical supplies that filled up three glass cabinets.

“Only three rooms,” said Raven, picking up the alarm clock from the nightstand next to the couch. “Kitchen, gymnasium, library. Couch in library unfold into bed for sleeping. What does it mean?”

Wendy said, “Two people could never live here. It means this isn’t the main house. Let’s go.”

“A moment. There is one door beyond gymnasium I have not checked.”

Beyond that door was a white room in which was some sort of water tank into which ran tubes and insulated wires. The wires were attached to medical recording instruments beside the tank. The shelves in this room were stacked with computer paper records of pulse, respiration, and EEG patterns.

“Wendy, I am thinking this is very strange,” said Raven. Wendy, meanwhile, was spinning circles in the darkened gymnasium.

“Just like my ballet class! Look, there are mirrors and bars and everything. Hm. I didn’t know fencers used shields. And this room is so clean and big! I bet he uses it as a meditation chamber. It feels the same as the Zen
monastery I used to visit. This is a nice hardwood floor. Don’t you think it would make a good dance floor?”

Raven had opened the water tank and was looking inside at a pallet made of floating cushions. The tank smelled of salt water. Wendy came to the door, wearing a wire-mesh fencing mask and carrying a morning star flail.

“Ready to go?” she chirped.

“Wendy, this is most strange. It is, what do you call? I do not know the words in English. KGB use to break prisoners, make them lose track of time and lose sense of reality.”

“Sensory deprivation tank,” said Wendy. “I don’t think it’s so strange. This room is for him to learn how to dream; that room is to learn how to fight. It’s what you expect for someone whose life is spent fighting in the dream-realm, isn’t it? But if you want to see something really strange, I bet we should go to the main house!”

VI

They saw the High House of Everness as it should be seen, by night, with traces of mist hovering, mysterious, luminescent, in the foreground.

The ground mists below and dark clouds above were tinged silver by the moon. The house was surrounded on both sides by the whispering massive shadows of the evergreens; there was a hint of fragrance in the air, a scent of herbs from a walled garden. The silence of the dark mansion was emphasized by the muffled, murmuring pounding of the sea.

They parked, for two tall pillars, a black and a white, stood at the termination of the drive, too close-spaced to permit the car to enter. Wendy and Raven passed between the black and white pillars, and Wendy sighed and said, “Isn’t it wonderful? I feel like I’ve fallen asleep. Or fallen into a story! Can people go from being awake to being in a dream without going through sleep first?”

Above them, a steep slate roof the color of gray iron rose up above frowning, doorless walls to a high peak. Above and beyond the roof rose a central tower of massive blocks, solid, and very ancient. Trellises of ivy, clinging rose, and grape vines clung to the sides of the tower, softening its outline into scented shadows. Gargoyles and gnomish faces peered down through leafy masses from the tower’s crown. At the highest point of the dome, a statue of a winged horse reared up in the starlight, pawing the air.

To Raven’s left and right extended the west and south wings of the house, coming toward him across the lawn, so that the gatehouse and twin pillars were embraced in their angle. The west wing, to their left, terminated in what might have been a fortress, with crenellated walls and heavy doors barred with triple bands of iron. The windows here were mere slits for archers.