He passed by people, young and old, some healthy and some ill, some carrying the memories of sacrifice and pain but none of them the one he sought and so he passed them by and came at last to a long, low building of gray brick painted white. Not a hospital, although it had the sense of one. The entrance door was locked, but as two women exited, chatting amiably together, he slipped inside a hushed and carpeted anteroom. Old men and women sat in wheelchairs, some talking loudly, some calling for a nurse, but most just staring into space, into the past. An old man sitting in a patch of sunlight, a blanket thrown over what once had been his legs, gestured to him.
“Are you Death?” he demanded when he approached him.
“No.”
The old man’s shoulders sagged. “I’m Clem and I’m dying. They don’t think I know it, but I do. I can see it, that light out there. Can you see it? A single light, like a candle maybe?” Clem waved his hand before his face, then dropped it with a sigh. “Can you see it?” he repeated.
He looked into Clem’s eyes, past the lines of battle, past the fallen, past the blood, and pain, and death, and saw the candle flame and nodded.
“I can see it.”
“I can’t reach it.”
“That’s because your memories won’t let you go. You’re holding on to them too tightly. Let them go and they’ll let you go.”
Clem gave a snort. “Easier said than done, boy. I’ve got nothing left but memories. My friends are all dead and my legs ache something awful in the night. They keep me up. They keep me remembering. Yeah, yeah, I know they’re gone,” he snapped. “I lost ‘em in forty-three, but they still ache.” He jerked the blanket up about his stomach.
“So why are you here?” he demanded. “You didn’t come for me, not in those clothes, you didn’t. You look like a picture of my old dad from the Great War and he died years ago.”
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Someone?”
“One of mine.”
Clem snorted. “You won’t find him. They’re all gone. All of them. Most of mine are gone now, too.”
“I will find him. I have to find him.”
“You won’t. I told you, they’re all gone. Go look in a cemetery, that’s where they all are now. Bones, just bones.” Clem fell back, panting slightly. “All,” he muttered. “All but me. I’m tired, boy. I’m so damn tired, and I miss my friends.”
The sense of urgency grew as the line wavered once again but the call of duty was still strong, and so he crouched before the aged soldier and took one hand in his, drawing out his memories of battle, one by one. “The candle flame is coming closer,” he whispered. “Can you see it?”
Clem’s haunted gaze drew inward. “Yes, but . . .”
“Hush. Can you hear the bugle sound the ending of the day?”
“Yes.”
“And do you see them, the lines of the fallen, your fallen, moving off into the distance?”
“Yes.”
“Follow them.”
He left the old man’s body slumped in his chair and walked away without looking back. Rooms marched along either side of a long, somberly painted hallway; bedrooms, some with two beds, some with four, not a hospital although he could sense that many of the people in the rooms were ill, and some were dying. At the far end of the hall, he turned and stared into a final room to see a wizened old woman nestled in a pile of brightly crocheted afghans staring back at him. He saw the trenches in her eyes and heard the hiss of gas and felt the fear and the resolve they shared and knew he’d found the one he sought.
Her rheumy eyes traveled down the length of him as he approached her bedside.
“Are you Death?” she asked as Clem had asked. “I saw Death on the TV once and he looked like you, a pretty boy in uniform.”
He shook his head. “Not Death,” he answered.
“Good, ‘cause if you were, you could go take a flying leap,” she snarled. “I’m not going anywhere.” She crossed her arms and glared at him. “I can see that blasted candle shining in the darkness, just like in the old days,” she stated. “You know. You were there. I can see you were. You got some mud and you built a little shelf and you pressed a candle stub in it and it held up good. In the dug-outs. You remember, don’t you?”
“I remember.” The tiny specks of light, the smell of petrol, and the odor of unwashed bodies. The faces in the darkness holding fear, and hope, and a dreadful, bone-numbing weariness that could never be forgotten.
She snapped her fingers at him impatiently and he returned his gaze to her.
“Stay outta there,” she ordered. “No good can come from memories like that. You wanna see the dying all the time, hear the whizz-bangs and feel the cold mud seep into your bones forever?”
He shook his head. “No,” he whispered.
“I should think not. Memories like that’ll drive you mad. I oughtta know. I’m 107 last month. Got the letters from the government to prove it. All of them saying congratulations for not dying sooner.” She laughed, a weak, raspy laugh that devolved into coughing. “That’s all they know,” she sputtered once she’d regained her breath. “Hundreds died, thousands, but I didn’t. I promised Arthur that I wouldn’t. I promised him I’d live.” She stared off into space. “I promised him I’d live for both of us.”
The line grew fainter and for a moment he feared she might reach out for the candle flame at last, but then she shook herself with a rough gesture.
“Fetch me the picture on the shelf up there and I’ll tell you a secret I’ve never told anyone in near a century.”
He brought down a small framed photograph so faded that he could hardly make out the figures standing grinning together, two young soldiers in brown woolen uniforms, arms slung companionably across each other’s shoulders. He turned it over and peered at the fine, black writing.
“Arthur and Mark Townsend,” he read out loud, “France, 1918.”
She closed her eyes and he watched the memories flit across her face. “We were 15, both of us, in 1918,” she whispered. “Only just and we couldn’t wait no longer. We were powerfully afraid it would be all over before we had our chance to see it. Fools. Young fools, the pair of us, and I’m an old fool for remembering how important it all felt; how necessary. We needed to go, Artie and me, we felt it that strongly.”
He nodded.
“Both our parents died of the fever just a month before and the bank took the farm for taxes. Bastards. There was nothing keeping us, so I cut my hair and Artie gave me some of his clothes to wear. We were that close in size. Twins we were, as alike as any brother and sister might be and tall for our age. We walked for three days to get to the recruitment center, and just before we went inside, we took some chalk and wrote the number 18 on the soles of our boots.” She chuckled. “You remember that trick? Over 18?”
“I remember it.”
“They were pretty desperate for troops by then and we went out fast. We didn’t have much training, but then, we didn’t need much. We both knew how to shoot already. Most farm kids did in those days. Not so much now. So much has changed. I guess it’s for the better. That’s what they tell me, anyway.”
Her gaze grew far away. “The battles all had names, but I think they gave them names afterwards. It was all the same to us. There was mud everywhere so thick it would pull a body down right before your eyes and there was nothing you could do to save them.” She hunkered in her blankets, her expression bleak. “I haven’t thought about that time for many years. Haven’t talked about it either. But you were there, you saw it, so you know. No one knows I was there, you see, no one, and I didn’t tell no one neither, not even afterwards.”
“All the battles had names,” she repeated. “Named after the places they fought them at. Those that died there, well, the battles and the places became theirs for all eternity.” She snorted. “I heard a minister say that once years ago. I suppose it’s true. Artie’s place was Ors. Did you see Ors?”
“I saw them all.”
/> He closed his eyes as one single line of memories rushed over him. Lying on his belly in the darkness, unable to move his legs, unable to cry for help. Already the mud had a hold of him, pulling him towards his grave. One arm was trapped under his body wrapped in wire, but the other one was free enough to reach out towards the lights of camp so far away.
Too far away.
When he opened his eyes, she was watching him with a knowing expression.
“No one came,” she said simply.
He shook his head. “No one knew I was there and no one could have made it even if they had. The shelling was too fierce.”
The sound of it filled the room and he pressed his palms against his ears to block it out, but it was coming from inside, not outside, and so he dropped his hands again and saw her do the same. She’d heard it, she’d known it. There was no need to describe it.
“They came for Artie,” she said after a moment. “The medics came for him, but it was too late. It had been too late right from the beginning. A shell took both his legs and he bled to death in my arms almost at once. But not before he made me promise to go on living. I held him and I promised and they came for him and carried him away.”
She slumped, her energy spent. “I almost left the war right then,” she said. “I could’ve; no one would’ve been the wiser, but I saw his body back to camp and went back out. I did my duty. We both did, though for the life of me now I can’t imagine why. The next day I learned they’d signed the armistice. Years later than they should’ve. Bastards.” She shook her head. “Matter of hours and he would’ve been safe.” She swiped irritably at her eyes.
“I walked out after that,” she said. “I found a house and I broke in. I traded my uniform for a dress and a kerchief and I went back to camp as Margaret Townsend to claim my brother’s body. They gave it to me easily enough; I looked so much like Mark. But they couldn’t find Mark. They looked but they never found him. They thought he must have died somewhere out there.” She gave a sad smile. “At least they never said I deserted. There were some that did desert, of course,” she acknowledged. “But less than you might think.”
“I know.”
“Most of them just died,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “Unseen in the mud, you know?”His throat ached as he nodded.
“I brought him home and I buried him and I turned my back on all of it. I never spoke of it, but I never forgot it, either. I married a fellow that had been too young to go, just like I had been. We had four children. The first boy was old enough to go when the call came around again but he wasn’t right enough in the head for them to take him, bless him, but he was a good lad for all that. The others were too young. They had babies of their own and those babies’ve had more; just like they should. Just like Artie should have.” She gestured at the collection of photographs and drawings on the wall above her bed. “None of them chose the life we chose. None of them had to, so maybe it was worth it after all. I don’t know. But I lived, just like I promised him I would, and I never forgot him.”
She peered up at him suddenly as if truly seeing him for the first time. “That bastard Death is coming for me now, whatever me and Artie might want, isn’t it?” she asked.
He nodded.
“How long have I got?”
He glanced out the window although he already knew the answer. “A few hours, maybe less.”
She gave him a shrewd look. “Is that why you’re here? To make me accept that blasted candle?”
“No.”
“Why then?”
He looked into her eyes, and past the trenches and the hiss of gas, past the fear and the resolve, he saw two grinning soldiers in brown woolen uniforms.
“I’ve come to bring you back to Artie.”
“But Artie never went away,” she said suspiciously. “I can feel him.” She pressed her hand against her chest. “In here.”
“I know.”
They left her room together, an old woman in a pair of flowered pajamas and a young man in a worn brown uniform, boots leaving no more than shallow dents upon the carpet. The old men and women in the wheelchairs watched them go. Some smiled. Some frowned. Most continued to look inward to their own memories as they passed. They left the building unremarked but, as they stepped into the street, the cold wind caught them and she shivered.
“Is it far?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Good, ‘cause I’m too old and it’s too cold to walk for long.”
He shrugged out of his tunic, passed it over, and watched her fasten the brass buttons up her chest. He felt cold, then numb; looking down, he saw the beginnings of a dark red stain begin to trickle down the ruins of his shirt. Scraps of moldering wool began to unravel around his body and he felt the press of leather at his ribs and the bite of wire around his arm.
“Hurry,” Margaret urged him, her white hair turning grey as his turned brown. “Before the bastard gets us both.”
They ran.
The setting sun chased them all the way. She only stumbled once as her slippers caught on a jagged bit of pavement and he pulled his own boots off immediately. She stuffed her feet into them, staring down at him as he bent to wrap the linen around her calves.
“You’ll soon be naked, boy,” she noted, flicking the gathering snowflakes from her face.
Pulling off his helmet, he set it on her head. “I’ll soon be bones,” he answered weakly. As he rose, he swayed, and she threw her arm around his waist and pulled him upright. They broke into a shambling run. He felt his legs grow cold. He saw the candle burning brightly as the setting sun burned in the twilight and he stumbled as he felt the mud reach up and catch his legs. But this time someone came. A pair of strong arms pulled him forward and he lent his failing strength to them. The memory of the mud released him as Margaret Townsend pulled him onward.
They reached the cemetery gates just as the sun caressed the treetops. They passed the tombstones and markers; as her clothing stiffened as his softened; her arms grew stronger as his weakened. When they reached the monument, he sagged and she laid him down before it, staring upwards at the sky. She cradled him against her chest as she had cradled Arthur and he felt his journal press against his ribs, safe against the ravages of time.
“Are you Death?” he whispered.
She pushed her helmet back and grinned at him the cocksure grin of youth. “No,” she answered. “I’m Private Mark Townsend, missing in action at the battle of Ors in 1918. Who are you?”
He smiled back at her. “I’m Private William Falkner, missing in action at the battle of Passchendaele in 1917,” he answered. His eyelids fluttered and he fought to keep them open. “And found again,” he finished dreamily. “In 2011.”
“Do you see the candle burning?” she asked him.
“I do.”
“Can you hear the bugle sound the ending of the day?”
He nodded.
“And do you see them, the lines of the fallen, our fallen, moving off into the distance?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Follow them.”
She left him lying before the monument and turned, stepping up onto the sentry box. The final memory they shared was of a team of diggers lifting the bones of a young soldier one by one, out of the earth. Scraps of cloth and rusted bits of wire followed and the remains of a leather journal and two brass buttons. She took the memory from him and released him to the candle flame.
Physical sensations left her slowly, so slowly that she had time to remark upon their passing. As the sun dipped below the horizon, she felt the serenity of silence and the strength of stone; watched Private William Falkner passed beyond the trees and felt her brother’s arm drape companionably across her shoulders.
TEN THOUSAND COLD NIGHTS
Erik Scott de Bie
The time for words had ended—the time for swords begun.
The Master and the Rival studied one another. Both stood at the height of ability, and both knew of the o
ther’s skill. They were men of war—men of passion and anger thinly veiled in honor. Their deeds inspired songs and their swords carved legends.
They met in this place, beneath the blossoming cherry trees by the river, to enact the final test—to see which proved stronger.
Darkness traced one of the blades, and the wind split apart and whistled around the edge. The Master had slain uncounted men on such nights as this, and his sword had drunk of every felled foe. This was the Bloodsword, and it delighted in death.
The light of the setting sun caressed the other sword, and its reflection illumined the calm face of its wielder. The Rival had killed men as well, but he had taken no joy in it. His steel was called Soulsword, and it wept at what was needful.
Time meant little to the warriors. The battle lasted hours in the space of a single moment.
They met, blades flashing. The dark sword struck relentlessly and the shining blade parried with a song of warfare. Steel rang in the night, each sword fighting to drown the other in its scream. They danced as the world crawled around them.
It ended as soon as it began. The Master fell to his knees.
“Why can I not beat you?” Blood trickled from his mouth. “I am the stronger.” His murderous sword fell from his hand, into the river.
Cherry blossoms drifted down into the swift water, and as they touched the fallen blade, they split apart and dissolved into nothing. The sword drifted among a sea of slain beauty.
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