by K.N. Lee
Daylight did not noticeably change the geography of the island, it was still a white flattish beach which ran into a stand of trees which undoubtedly became a forest out of their sight. Somewhere in the center of the island began the pylon of rock the lighthouse sat on. High above, the jewel in a scepter was the lighthouse itself holding sway over everything around it. The gargoyle jumped the railing and landed heavily in the sand. Melina climbed down a rope ladder. Her pack was light, mostly consisting of a couple coils of rope and some oranges. They hadn't brought much in the way of provisions, but what did they care about eating anymore? It wasn't as if they could die of starvation. They started up the beach in the heat and then into the shadows of the trees. Behind them, the crew gathered at the railing and watched them go. Once they were out of sight, the first mate said,
"Well, let's prepare the boat as best we can. Make repairs using what we can find. No use in waiting to see if they come back for us to make sail."
"What if they do come back?"
"I have no idea, my boys, none at all. We did our part. Now we can only hope she does hers."
The trek through the woods wasn't difficult. There were no paths, but there were animals and as a child who had spent much of her life under the sheltering arms of the Brevan, finding animal tracks and the paths they often used wasn't terribly difficult. Though they nearly had to circle the island itself, they found what they were looking for before noon: a river.
It cut a cleft in the island, though the river itself wasn't terribly wide. Taking a long branch from the riverbank, Melina probed for the bottom and then stepped into the water, probing as she went. Five feet in, the bank dropped off and the distance to the bottom doubled.
"Well, that says I don't want to try and swim it," she said.
"Gargoyles don't swim," said Gergot from his place on the bank.
"As you've told me before," Melina replied and came out of the water, squeezing out the edges of her jeans. They hung heavy and leather-like against her legs and made walking a sloshy mess. The trees kept back from the edge of the water as though they might fall in if they got too close. Melina walked in the shadows left by the trees but close enough to the river bank to use it as a guide.
"Do you think it will be easier to climb where the river is?"
"If that thing is as smooth as it appears from here, yeah. I don't really want to try and climb a few hundred feet straight up and I didn't see anywhere we could get enough altitude for you to be able to carry you and me up that high."
Daylight waned quickly as they walked and the beginnings of night found them close enough to see the first 'step' of their climb up, but far enough away that they wouldn't make it before the moon was high in the sky. Gergot reminded her, again, that climbing in the dark was a bad idea.
"So is staying out in the open on an island where we don't know what's getting on around," Melina said. "We need to find a safe place. There might be a cave closer to where the river drops."
There was no cave and the first scream of something yowling in the night set Melina's hair on end. The face of the cliff wasn't as smooth as it appeared from a distance, but it wasn't made to be climbed either, not even with a river rushing down its side cutting steps into the sides from its strength.
"I'll keep watch," Gergot offered as he settled on the soft dirt in the mist of the waterfall nearby. "But do keep an ear out. We may need the scythe."
Melina wrapped up as best she could, the thought of making a fire passing without any movement on her part. Whatever was out there could find them just fine without the assistance of them building it a beacon. The strength in her limbs slipped away and left her falling into an exhausted sleep. She woke with a start to Gergot standing over her, nudging her lightly with his head.
"Morning," he said to her yawn. "At least you slept."
Looking straight up the side of the mountain, Melina suppressed a shudder. The last time she'd made a climb like this, she had just been thrown into a river to drown. Not the most pleasant memory. Yet she started up the climb just the same, her pack biting into her shoulders and the idea she might very well slip and fall to her death rather real in her mind.
"Hey Gergot."
The gargoyle was a bit ahead of her, having claws to use to drag himself up while she had to look for handholds.
"What?"
"Why is this lighthouse so high above everything?"
"Lighthouses serve to mark places of danger or safety at sea. This one is connected directly to the Melesan, a beacon of knowledge, a place of safety in a sea of ignorance. Now shush and climb."
It was impossible to judge how far they had come when the mountain suddenly ended. It was so smooth at the top it seemed as if someone had cut the top off with a knife. Fifty feet from the edge, a new wall appeared, this one obviously made of large bricks of white. The lighthouse. The light from it flooded the small plane with a whiteness that dazzled. Melina sat down heavily and looked at it, her head hanging hard on the end of her neck.
"We made it."
"Nearly," Gergot said. "We still have to get inside and find what we're looking for."
"Buzzkill."
The gargoyle snorted and walked around the outside of the lighthouse. It had a stout door. When Melina tapped it, the thing clanged.
"A metal door, great."
The door was smooth as if cast in that shape and set there with no intention of it ever being used for its intended purpose of entry and exit.
"Think she'll forgive me?"
"I suppose if we don't tell her, she won't know." Gergot shrugged as he watched Melina pull off her gloves and press her fingers against the metal which browned and began to pock immediately under her touch. After a minute, the rust reached the edge of the door and began to affect the frame. Then the hinges gave way and the formerly strong door crumbled to so much red and brown dust which drifted in the breeze of its fall. The staircase beyond was made of wood and heavy with dust. Gergot tried it first, trotting up a few stairs and standing, when none of them collapsed under his weight, he continued up with Melina slipping her gloves on behind him.
At the top was a crystal in the shape of a human being holding a book looking out over the dark waters of the sea. Melina looked at the horizon and realized the water actually was dark. Even with it full day when the sea should have been a dark blue or even a bright blue, the water here was ink black and constantly moving.
"The sea of ignorance where men are swallowed up by the darkness in their own souls," Gergot murmured at her elbow.
"There isn't a door up here."
"I didn't say there would be," the gargoyle sat on his haunches and waited. "Only that there was a way to the Melesan from here." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'll be glad to be home," he said wistfully and rubbed his face against the crystal statue.
Melina screamed when he disappeared. She clapped her hands over her mouth.
"Gergot!"
"Hurry up, Melina," the gargoyle called out of the empty air. With uneasy fingers, Melina grabbed the book of the statue and was engulfed in light.
Melina had her hand up in front of her face to shield her eyes from the light as she stepped into the library where the Melesan held sway. The floor had come apart in pieces, tiles sticking up out of their places like rotten teeth in an uneven jaw. Above the busted tiles were shelves. Some clustered together and held each other up by their sheer weight. Others lay on the floor. In one place, she thought they looked like a group of friends staring at another who had passed out drunk on the floor. The twilight of the world no longer suffused the entire space. Melina stood in a place of light, but near at hand was a place where darkness obscured the world. She could hear Gergot more than see him moving.
"She's here," he said circling back into the field of her vision. He dropped his shoulders to allow Melina to mount. "And she's hurt."
Taking a deep breath, Melina swung up onto the gargoyle's shoulders and settled behind the stumps of his wings. In that
breath she caught the smell of burnt, wet paper. The pervading smell of smoke hung in the air. Something had attempted to dispell the scent but it was still there underneath everything. After the days spent at sea with only the breeze of the ocean full of salt, Melina coughed at the stink.
"Cover your mouth," Gergot chided.
"Yes, Dad."
"Stow the attitude or you can walk."
"Ah huh."
Gergot didn't run, but he didn't have to. The library had been his home his entire life, he walked among the ruins with a purposeful quick stride. Occasionally he stopped to check the side of a bookcase and change direction. When they finally came to the staircase Melina had come to think of as the center of the library, she realized she could hear someone crying.
It was a quiet sound, almost nothing more than dripping water, but then it would be broken by a sob. Melina dismounted at the staircase and let Gergot precede her up the stairs.
The Melesan's bedroom was in no better shape. Her vanity and writing table sat on uneven legs, the mirror cracked in a dozen places. The bed posts leaned in toward each other like a set of women having a whispered conference over the covers. The crying was louder perhaps because the Melesan herself was there. The woman, tall and thin before, looked ill now, her body sticks wrapped in the robes of her office. Her face was drawn and pale. When she moved, it was a slowness Melina could barely believe. Yet move she did, drawing herself up from the bed. The tracks of her tears seemed permanent.
"Gergot?"
The gargoyle shivered all over at the sound of his name and bounded over to her, dropping his weight at her feet.
"Oh Gergot."
The immortal dropped to her knees and hugged the gargoyle's neck, burying her face in his skin.
"Gergot." Now the name brought on new sobs, louder.
Melina only watched, sitting down on the ruined floor.
"I've come home."
"How long has it been?"
"Months, Mistress. Over six."
"I've been trying to put the library back in order, but so much was destroyed. All the copies of the library at Alexandria have been destroyed. So much gone. Never to be recovered."
"It will be all right."
Silence settled between the quiet crying, the Melesan curled like a child against the gargoyle who sat like a faithful dog at her side.
"Melesan," Melina finally called her name when the crying seemed to subside.
"Melina," the Immortal addressed her as if she had been completely aware of her presence. "Bearer of Death." The title hung cumbersome in the air between them. "Have you come for me?"
"No." Melina remembered when the Melesan had asked that of Death once before in the jungles of an imaginary place; a place where she had nearly been killed, where it seemed this whole thing had started. "I don't think your time is yet."
"Then what is it that brings you here to me?"
"I need to know what you know about the ring bearers and the Kumon and how we can manage to survive."
"Always in search of knowledge," Melasan said.
"And I try to come to the one most likely to know."
"You flatter me."
"No, I tell the truth."
"Well then, listen well for what you're asking has not been spoken of much in a thousand years."
“First there was Time. Some say the three; Life, Death, and Time, are actually triplets, coming into being at the exact same time. None of them truly know I believe, but it makes no never mind. Man came not long after and with the birth of man came Love and War. Disease and Chance would come later. Then finally I was born, once man began to truly understand the need to teach things beyond the utterances of their mouths. We do not live in harmony, we Immortals, each of us busy about our own things, but when magic came into being, it became clear we could not remain separate from human affairs.
“Life minded me in those days when we came together, all eight in the realm of Time. It was decided that each of us would give a portion of what we are to humanity, we would choose our own to care for our power.
“It was meant to keep us from meddling in the affairs of men but I do not think it worked as well as hoped.
“Some of the rings were given out. Love. War. Life. Chance. Disease. Death would give his out and collect it every few generations. Time chose not to participate; he did not wish to offer man a chance at possibly becoming immortal. I could not find anyone I saw as worthy to carry my ring, so it has never left my possession.
“The ring bearers hold a portion of what we are, the portion of us which can seek out the rest. It is that part of us which may make it possible to destroy us completely.
“The Kumon, the book of the Immortals, can destroy each of us when it is complete. Would that Death had simply allowed that mortal magician to meet his end without interference, it would be no such problem. However, if the rings continue to exist even after we are destroyed, we are not destroyed completely. We can be returned to the world through the power of the rings themselves.
“So in order to truly destroy an Immortal, you must destroy not only the Immortal themselves, but also the ring which is a portion of their power. Otherwise, it is incomplete and incomplete is never enough.”
When the Melesan stopped speaking, she gathered herself up from the floor and went to the crooked vanity with its broken mirror.
"They are killing the ring bearers to insure they have all the rings. They will destroy us all, but I think you can stop them."
The Immortal reached into the mirror and onto the table of the vanity she could see the splintered image. Melina had never noticed there was a ring in the mirror which wasn't on the vanity itself, but when the Melesan brought her hand back out of the glass, she had a plain silver ring in her palm. The inside of the ring had a single word "Wisdom".
"Will you be the first to bear my ring, Melina Camp, bearer of Death?"
"If you would have me do so."
"I would."
She crossed the space between them and gently put the ring in Melina's hand. Melina slipped it on her hand above the ring of Death which reached up and enfolded the metal to make them a single ring.
"You will have to go to the realm of Time, child. I have no doubt they will follow you there if you go, but only there can you summon all of the eight. Only there can you have any hope of bringing this to an end and possibly saving yourself."
"How do I get there?"
"You can only reach the Realm of Time through the Realms of Life and Death, so I would suggest that you go through Death."
"How do I do that?"
"You must go to where the dead are and enter through the grave. To live among those who live no more is the only way into death." The Immortal made a face, her eyes sad. "Would that Death were here himself to guide you on, but he has not returned has he?"
"No."
"Then know this. If you bear his ring into his realm, you may not be universally welcomed. There are those who would gladly see him destroyed, even among those who bear his banner. Be on your guard, Melina."
The Melesan drew her hands along Melina's face, the softness of her fingers chilly like cotton held in a fridge.
"Be wise, child. Be safe."
Then she went back to the bed and laid down there, one hand over the edge drawing along Gergot's flank, caressing him as one would a beloved pet.
"How do I get back to the real world?" Melina asked.
"Through the mirrors as you always have. Be careful of the one on the vanity, it is brittle and may not hold the magic well."
The staircase swayed under Melina's steps, threatening with every motion to come crashing to the floor. Standing halfway down, Melina looked out over the bookcases she could see. The devastation went as far as she could see. It was no wonder the Melesan had been preoccupied for months. It would take an eternity to set things to rights again. Especially alone. Melina looked back up the stairs and shook her head. The quest for knowledge is ever a solitary pursuit, who had said that?
Melina couldn't remember. Another thought, more familiar and easily recognizable, came unbidden.
Some folks are just loners.
Arabella Camp had often said that. The Immortal of Knowledge was just a loner.
At the bottom of the stairs, Melina swung to her right toward the private collection of the Immortal. The door stood ajar, one of the hinges broken off the one on the right hand. Beyond the door things were in much better care than the rest of the library. The sooty wet smell was still there, but it was lighter. The books were on the shelves and the shelves were right and even. Probably the first place the Immortal had started in putting the place back in order. Even the grand mirror, which Melina remembered from Death's description of the room, was whole and polished. Her reflection walked across the floor toward her. The girl in the mirror looked like she hadn't slept or washed in close to a year. Her hair matted to her head and clothes sticking to her skin. Yet she also looked stronger. Melina raised her left hand to the mirror and let the metal of the rings touch the surface.
It flared to life as if set aflame by the combined power and Melina stepped through.
18
Returning Home
The ritual circle was a ring of earth, at its edges were ward stones standing a little over three feet high meant to mark the largest area of power that could be summoned within the reach of the Camp coven. The light which began as a column in the circle swept outward, a hurricane of white light swirled with the crimson of blood. As it struck the ward stones, they took on the same blood red aspect and pulsed with a heartbeat. Yet the light continued on, sweeping into the shadows beneath the trees and leaving marks behind on their bark in the shape of claw marks. Or scythe strikes.
Phoebe clutched Grimm closer, shielding him as best she could against the force of the power pushing past them. Cassandra, who had been standing, found herself thrown back, turning over once, and then gripping the ground for purchase to keep from being rolled further. The smoke of Canenda was caught in the gale, whipped into a long ribbon as the power turned. The ring of Life flipped once in the air before falling to the ground, a circle of light to be lost in the thick grass.