Eight Rivers of Shadow

by Leo Hunt

  The next step is gluttony. I eat the biggest meal I can, cereal bars and dried fruit and as much milk as I can manage without puking. It’s not quite feasting for eight days and eight nights, like the shamans used to do, but it’s close enough. When I’m full, and my stomach feels like a bloated bag of rocks, I lie down in the tent, in the “lobby” area that separates the two sleeping compartments. Ham pads in to join me, and I zip the door shut behind us. We lie down, me with one hand resting on the back of his neck. It’s uncomfortable and humid, and I’m already feeling sweaty. To my left Mark sleeps, and on my right Elza lies dead. I wear my sigil on my finger, and the Book of Eight is tucked inside my raincoat.

  I lie still next to Ham and stare unblinking at the ceiling. I focus on the play of light that the low sun shining through tree branches makes on the tent’s roof.

  I step outside of myself. I pass through the wall of the tent, cross my ward of stone, and I’m standing in the clearing next to the Shepherd. He looks me up and down.

  “You have the necessaries?” he asks.

  I show him my sigil and unzip my jacket to find the Book of Eight nestled inside.

  “How can I take this with me?” I ask him. “I’m a spirit, but I still have the Book.”

  “The Book is a creation of both worlds: therefore, it can travel between them.”

  “That’s all the explanation you’ll give?”

  “I told you, magic is not about asking why. That is science, which I gladly leave to the scientists. Magic is beyond why. Magic is about changing what is.”

  “Good answer,” I say. “Where’s Ham?”

  “Call him,” the Shepherd says.

  I turn back to the tent and raise my sigil.

  “Ham!” I shout, a strange echo of every time I’ve waited by the kitchen door for him to come in from the garden. The sigil flares with cold. I’m not exactly sure how this is going to work, but the Shepherd assured me it would.

  After a moment, Ham leaps straight through the wall of the tent and bounds up to us.

  “How’s that for you, boy?” I ask.

  Ham barks and cavorts. He looks different in spirit form, more smoky than flesh and blood, lit in a strange way, as though there were some distant spotlight that highlighted only him. He looks unearthly, in a way me and the Shepherd don’t.

  “Why does he look like that?”

  “As I said, the spirit world is a place of will. Your beast does not have as strong a sense of how he should appear as you and I, so he appears vaguer and less defined.”

  Ham the luminous spirit dog licks my hand.

  “So what do we do?” I ask the Shepherd.

  “The gateway is before us,” he says. “It remains only for you, the Necromancer, master of two worlds, to open the gate and pass through it.”

  At first, as I make my way across the clearing, I can’t see what he’s talking about. The stone circle looks no different than it did when I had a body. Then I catch a strange glimpse, a seam in the air, and I know in that moment the gate is open.

  I’m standing in long gray grass, in the middle of the standing stones. The Devil’s Footsteps don’t look any different in the world of the dead. They’re the same size, the same shape, with the same cup- and hoof-shaped patterns etched into them. They even have the same patches of lichen dappling them. The stones are the only thing that hasn’t changed.

  When I crossed over, moments ago, it was evening. The trees around us were painted in sunset colors, dull orange trunks casting long violet shadows. There’s no color in this place. The mist around me is gray. The stones are gray; the sky overhead is gray. My skin is gray; my hands have gray fingernails. My raincoat, which is supposed to be red and blue, is now two shades of gray. The Shepherd’s black suit and hat are deep charcoal-gray. Ham, who’s gray anyway, is even grayer than me and the Shepherd put together. He still looks strange and wispy, like he’s a cloud of smoke someone formed into the shape of a dog.

  There’s something curiously lifeless about the grass beneath our feet. I brush one foot through it, and it rustles like grass should. But there’s something off about it, all the same. We’ve been drained of color, bleached of something vital. I feel like if we got any grayer, we’d become part of the mist itself.

  “Welcome,” the Shepherd says. “The Gray Meadows.”

  “I remember this place,” I say. “This is where I met Mr. Berkley.”

  “Best not to speak of that one,” the Shepherd says. “Not here. There is power in the names of great spirits. Even in the names they have chosen to hide behind. To speak of that being here could be to behold it.”

  I nod. Ham is investigating the base of one of the stones.

  “So which way do we go?” I ask.

  “I believe we will find the Ahlgren girl’s house in this direction,” the Shepherd says, pointing. “We may pick up their trail from there. But first we must explain our business to the Gatekeeper.”

  “To who?”

  “As I said, your powerful friend may roam where it pleases, and such a being as a lowly Gatekeeper would not dare to question its movements. You and I are not so exalted, and abide by different rules.”

  The Shepherd sets off downhill, and I follow him. The mist makes it difficult to see much, but I can tell already that the landscape of Deadside is different from that of Liveside. In Dunbarrow, the Devil’s Footsteps are set in a hollow, a clearing in dense woodland. In Deadside, they’re set at the top of a steep hill without an oak tree in sight. I follow the Shepherd down a narrow path, the only plant life the still, gray grass and some thornbushes. Ham trots behind me, seemingly unfazed by the strange new world he’s followed me into.

  At the bottom of the hill, we come to a large expanse of gray sand, in which a white tree seems to have fallen. The Shepherd comes to a halt, and I stop beside him. I start to speak, and he silences me.

  The fallen tree moves, flexing in the mist, and I realize with horror that what I thought was a tree trunk is actually an animal, the biggest snake I’ve ever seen. It must be longer than a truck, thicker than an ogre’s arm, and it rears up out of the dirt, turning to face us. The snake’s skin is crusty and white, reminding me of the dry, dead skin you get on the soles of your feet. Its eyes are a piercing sapphire-blue, without pupils, the brightest color I’ve seen since arriving in Deadside. The snake opens its mouth, and I see that it has unmistakably human teeth lining its jaws, and a pink human tongue.

  Yes? The snake addresses us, its voice surprisingly gentle.

  The Shepherd looks at me with an expression I can’t interpret. Is this the Gatekeeper? I suppose it must be. What am I supposed to do?

  “Um, hello?” I say.

  And you are? the snake, the Gatekeeper, asks me.

  “I’m Luke Manchett,” I tell it.

  The Gatekeeper doesn’t respond.

  “My name is Luke Manchett,” I say a little louder, guessing this is a test of some kind, “and I’m a necromancer. This is my Shepherd, and my familiar, Ham.”

  Luke Manchett and retinue, the Gatekeeper says. What is your purpose in crossing the threshold, Luke Manchett? What do you seek?

  “Er . . . just passing through,” I say.

  The Gatekeeper grimaces, exposing its large teeth.

  Where did you find him, Octavius? it asks the Shepherd.

  “I apologize on my master’s behalf,” the Shepherd says, taking his hat off and dipping his head in a bow. “He is not of the old school. The accepted ways are a mystery to him.”

  You can say that again, the snake grumbles.

  “If you will allow me to announce you?” the Shepherd says to me, replacing his hat. His tone suggests that I’ve messed up yet again and he’s about to bail us both out.

  “My, uh, powerful servant,” I say, “will announce my business.”

  The snake nods.

  “Mighty Gatekeeper!” the Shepherd says, raising both arms, projecting his voice like an opera singer. “Terrible serpent of the underworld!
Before you stands Luke Manchett, a powerful necromancer! Son of Horatio! Only sixteen summers he has, yet here he stands before you! Raiser of the dead! Master of the Book of Eight! His mind consumed by shadow! His heart heavy with regret! He has parleyed with the Black Goat and lived to tell the tale! Look also upon his fearsome hound, Ham! A pitiless beast, consumer of spirits, scourge of deer and cats! I am his Shepherd, once known to you as Octavius, the King of the Dead! By my presence as his servant, you may gain some measure of Luke’s power and wisdom.”

  Good, good, the Gatekeeper says, looking at me with what I take to be new respect. And what is your master’s purpose in the realms I guard?

  “Luke seeks the traitorous sorceress Ashana Ahlgren, daughter of the great sorcerer Magnus Ahlgren. Under the guise of friendship, she sought to steal my master’s copy of the Book, and she has killed his beloved, the witch child Elza Moss! Ashana’s treachery knows no bounds! She has sworn to aid my master and has reneged on her promises! Shame! Treachery! Shame!”

  Disgusting, the snake says, shaking its horrible head.

  “The she-dog, this oath-breaking cur, she heads for the cradle of the eight sacred rivers, the Shrouded Lake! Accompanied by her crippled sister and her faithful retainer, Ashana seeks to offer a nonpareil to what sleeps beneath the water, and return her sister to true life! My master intends to stop her and take revenge! Blood! Treachery! She has no shame!”

  A nonpareil, the Gatekeeper says eagerly, a rare and precious treasure indeed.

  “Total nightmare to get hold of them,” I say conversationally.

  The gigantic snake and the Shepherd both give me the kind of look you’d give someone who farts in church.

  A sorcerers’ feud, then, the Gatekeeper says to the Shepherd, ignoring me. Treachery. Blood. A battle between two dynasties. A young man questing to avenge his fallen beloved.

  “Truly,” the Shepherd says, “this is a tale which will be sung throughout the ages. We beseech you, powerful Gatekeeper, let us pass. Let us avenge the witch child Elza Moss. Let us avenge ourselves upon Ashana.”

  Very well, the Gatekeeper says, smiling at me with its human teeth. Far be it from me to stand in the way of such a tale. Allow me to check your sigil, Master Manchett, and I will grant your passage into the underworld.

  I raise my hand with the black ring on it, and the Gatekeeper runs its pink tongue over my sigil, tasting it like you’d taste an expensive wine. I try not to shudder.

  Yes. There is great power here. I will let you pass, brave sorcerer. May fate speed your journey. May you avenge yourself on this betrayer and eat her heart.

  “Thank you, mighty Gatekeeper,” I say, and for the first time, I sense I’ve done the right thing. The snake grins hellishly and coils itself back down into the sand. Its blue eyes close. I think it’s gone to sleep.

  The Shepherd leads us past the sleeping snake. Ham trots by my side. We move on, through gray grass and gray copses of fir trees, cross a narrow gray stream that somehow flows without making a sound. The mist is all around us, the dull light unchanging, the only noise the sound of my footsteps on the ground. After a while I ask, “So how did that go?”

  “The thing to remember about creatures like that,” the Shepherd remarks, “is they still think they live ten thousand years ago. They’re older than the world itself. They spend a great deal of time doing very little, and they take their excitement when they can get it. They’re cut from the Heroic cloth. They know that era is long gone, of course. But if you humor them, they love you for it.”

  “Right,” I say.

  “I would judge you were perhaps a hair’s breadth from it eating you,” he continues. “So next time, I would try to pretend you are in an epic poem. A loud voice, strong posture; be sure you spend plenty of time on the declaring of deeds. That will usually suffice.”

  “I liked it when you described Ham as a ‘scourge of deer and cats,’” I say.

  “I was doing my best”— the Shepherd sniffs —“with what little I had on hand.”

  The mist eddies and flows around us, although I never feel any wind that could be pushing it. The mist is the only thing in this gray world that seems to move; everything else gives the impression that it’s been in one place forever. I think that’s what unsettles me about the grass: the sense that you could stand here for a thousand years and it would never grow one centimeter. The only time it ever moves is when we step on it. I don’t hear any birds, don’t see any squirrels or rabbits. There aren’t even mosquitoes, and I never thought I would miss those. There’s no sun, no clouds, no sense of day or night. The only way to track time passing at all is by your own movement through the landscape. We walk across endless expanses of heather, past lonely pine trees and hulking bare rocks. You can’t fly in Deadside, I’ve found; I’m trapped on the ground the way I would be in my body back home.

  “Where are we?” I ask after what could have been hours.

  “We are approaching Ashana’s house,” the Shepherd responds without looking back.

  “What is this place?”

  “The ancients called this land Asphodel,” he replies. “These lands lie closest to the world of the living. In a way, this country is England’s memory of itself. Before human life existed.”

  “I see,” I say, although I don’t.

  We move on, Ham trotting along at the rear. He isn’t sniffing and dawdling like he does on walks around Dunbarrow. He seems to grasp that we have purpose.

  After what feels like a long time, we come to a forest of some sort, slender gray trees with black apples growing from the branches. The Shepherd tells me not to eat them, as if there were any danger of me wanting to, and we pass into the forest. After a while we come to a clearing, and I see Ash’s house.

  It doesn’t look much different from the way it looked when I first saw it. The house has two stories, a garage, a front garden with a fence and a metal gate. It has double-glazed windows and a chimney stack and a bracket for a satellite dish. It looks extraordinarily normal and just plain extraordinary all at once. The house has become as gray and lifeless as the rest of this forest.

  “I don’t for a moment expect she left it unwarded,” the Shepherd says, “but it would be remiss of us not to make sure.”

  We approach the house. Sure enough, there’s a line of silver flame that erupts from the ground, blocking our path. It makes a high chiming noise when you’re close to it, and emits no heat. The Shepherd makes some halfhearted explorations around the ward but finds no weakness.

  “As I expected,” he announces.

  Ham seems to be sniffing something on the far side of the garden. I make my way over to him. It’s the remains of Ash’s reading machine, broken apart, spokes and levers sticking out like the legs of a smashed insect. Inside I find part of a book, completely torn to pieces. It seems to be my French-to-English dictionary. For the first time in a while, I laugh.

  “Here’s where she found she didn’t have the Book,” I say to the Shepherd. “Elza even swapped something else in, to make up the weight.”

  He smiles a thin smile.

  “Your witch child is not without her virtues,” he remarks.

  “So where do we go now?” I ask.

  “The geography of the spirit world is complex,” he says in his lecturing voice. “Where the living world is consistent and yet ever-changing, the spirit world is inconsistent and timeless.”

  “I don’t understand even one little bit of what you just said.”

  “It means, dull boy, that Asphodel and similar realms are unmappable by conventional means. The landscape eddies. It flows. The configurations are infinite. A mountain may become a crevasse when the traveler turns his back. We could return to the Devil’s Footsteps and find that one of the eight rivers runs between us and those stones. One never knows.”

  “So how do we find our way to the Shrouded Lake? How will Ash? How can we find her?”

  “As I said, navigating this other world is partly a matter of will. As
Ashana greatly desires to reach the Shrouded Lake, she will eventually do so. But it may take her some time. We have an advantage, as we have a map.”

  “We do?”

  The Shepherd reaches over to me and pulls the Book of Eight from my jacket. I think it’s the first time he’s touched me in Deadside, and I’m alarmed to find that he’s physically present. I can feel his wrinkled old hand against my chest. I really don’t want him to touch me.

  The Shepherd is holding the Book, oblivious to my distress. He strokes the green spine, and the Book of Eight falls open. He turns the pages, muttering, until he finds what he wants.

  “Look,” the ghost says. He holds the Book so I can see. It looks like it usually does, a bizarre jumble of shifting shapes and symbols, holding no meaning for my conscious mind whatsoever. It doesn’t seem as hypnotic here in Deadside, though. I don’t feel I’m in any danger of losing myself in its pages.

  “We wish to arrive here,” he says, tapping a strange mark with one long thumb. It lies in the center of the page, with eight lines spidering their way out from it in all directions. “The Book’s map will alter itself, along with the landscape. An infinitely long volume has room to map every single configuration of the spirit world that could exist.”

  “So you can get us to the Shrouded Lake?”

  “I can.” The Shepherd gives me a graying grin. “Not only that, I believe we may find that we arrive before Ashana and her companions.”

  “Well, let’s get going, then,” I say.

  The Shepherd keeps ahold of the Book, examining it now and then and talking to himself. We move off into the forest, Ham trotting along between me and the ghost. We walk through more of the apple trees, then up a barren slope dotted with thin, unwholesome-looking clumps of reeds, and from here, with the disjointed logic that a dream has, we’re walking in a deep forest. The trees are taller than anything I’ve ever seen before, dark and elephantine, with bark like the scaly hides of dinosaurs. They loom over us, taller than those giant redwoods that grow in California. Some of their roots are the diameter of train carriages, maybe thicker. I can’t see their summits, can barely even see any branches. The trees are monoliths of gray bark that vanish in the fog overhead. It’s darker here, too, the fog thicker and closer to black. I almost bump into the Shepherd, who’s peering down at the Book.