River of Nightmares (Rogue Angel)

by Alex Archer

  Taming her curiosity, she didn’t touch anything. Annja stepped outside. It was morning, and she’d undergone the ordeal in the middle of the afternoon, so she’d been unconscious for well more than a few hours. She felt rested...felt better, actually, than she had in a long while. Maybe surrendering her watch hadn’t been too high a price.

  She felt good.

  Someone had put shoes on her—her favorite tennis shoes. Twigs crunched under her feet as she retraced her steps from the shaman’s hut back to the earthenware tubs—empty now, though it looked like rainwater had gathered in the bottom of each. Then she went to the village proper, which was also oddly empty. A glance at the river...Orellana’s Prize was gone. Maybe it had just floated downriver, her camera crew looking for more footage.

  Was this part of the ritual? Leaving her alone in some nameless village somewhere on an Amazon tributary after she’d drank the worst cocktail ever and got nothing from a supposedly mystical experience?

  Nothing except an exceptionally good night’s sleep.

  Padding to the shore, she saw a turtle bob its head up. The details she picked out on the creature were amazing, all the little ridges around its eyes and the variation of color, as if every shade of green that existed in the world had been dabbled on the head of the creature.

  Annja listened for her heartbeat, but all she heard was the lapping of the river against the bank. She held her breath. What was the tiniest and most meaningful measure of time? A heartbeat? An inhaled breath? Was she suspended in that infinitesimal space between increments of time?

  She took in the scent of the river and the damp earth, the flowers that hung on the vines draped from trees—more fragrant in this instant than the most expensive perfume. She exhaled, but the odors of the rainforest remained a part of her. Annja picked up a shiny rock with her left hand, the sword forming in her right. The ground damp, the rock wet, all evidence it had rained. But this was the rainy season...of course, it had rained.

  She squeezed the rock against her palm and felt it warming, a piece of the world she’d claimed just for herself.

  Was this a dream?

  No. This had to be real.

  If she was dead or dreaming she wouldn’t feel the rock, would she? Wouldn’t feel anything or smell anything. The sun would not be kissing her forehead.

  “Watch yourself, all right?” Roux’s voice.

  She spun, eyes searching the foliage and hut entrances. The old man had called her—called her before her phone had been stolen—said he was coming to Brazil. Had he somehow found his way here? Caught up?

  “Watch yourself. Watch yourself. Watch yourself.”

  Roux stepped out of the closest hut, squinting in the bright sunlight, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a pair of sunglasses. He looked to study the glasses a moment before putting them on and coming toward her.

  Roux could not have gotten here so quickly. Annja released the sword and it fell. She stared at it, seeing her eyes reflected in the blade. The sword should have vanished. She’d mentally dismissed it. The blade should have been whisked away to the otherwhere.

  “I am dreaming,” she said.

  “Which is preferable to being dead,” Roux returned. “If you were dead, that would mean I’m dead, too. And last I checked I still had a pulse. I had a devil of a time finding you, Annja.”

  She carefully studied him. There was something different about him. It took her a minute...he was younger, just a little, fewer lines on his face. Maybe it was because he was relaxed, the setting easing him. His shoulders did not look so square and stiff. “How did you get here, old man? More to the point, how did you find me?”

  “How did I find you? Annja, you brought me here.”

  “Not possible.” Annja sucked in a breath; Roux smelled faintly of some musky cologne.

  “This is your dream, you brought me here. And where is here, Annja?” His bright eyes held an eagerness she’d never noticed in him before. She waited and watched as his hair darkened. Black now with gray highlights. The years were melting off him. He was getting younger by the minute.

  “Madness.” Annja dropped her gaze from Roux and looked to her sword. This time instead of her reflection in the blade, she saw the eyes of a stranger. She fell to her knees and checked it closer. The reflection disappeared entirely, replaced by wavering shades of green. “What did I do to myself? What the heck did I drink?”

  Roux stepped out of his shoes, and the shoes disappeared. Barefoot, the pads on his feet thick like a Dslala’s. He extended a hand. “I brought some people with me. I want you to meet them.” The calluses she’d remembered on his fingers felt fresher, coarser.

  “People?”

  “Venez avec moi, Annja,” Roux said.

  She picked up her sword and let him lead her. She could hear everything, the fabric of his pants brushing, the leaves rustling in the trees around the village, the water flowing behind her now. A glance back and she saw the turtle had come up again. The chatter of the monkeys and the parrots came so loud now it was hurtful to listen to. And when she thought about it, the odors of the village were overpowering, too. There was her sweat, the river, the rich fragrance of the loam, the scent of flowers, and the tantalizing aroma of fish cooking. The scent of Roux’s cologne was heavier as well.

  He led her behind a hut where two incongruous stone benches were separated by a bowl-shaped depression filled with dark water. The benches had not been in the village when she’d toured it with Marsha and Ned. But they were familiar. It took her a moment to place them...exact replicas of the garden benches outside the Hôtel de Sully in Paris. Annja took a whiff of the liquid in the small pool—huito, the stuff that filled the first tub she’d immersed herself in.

  She sat. “I don’t see anyone else, Roux. Who did you bring along to my dream in this nameless village?”

  He sat next to her and pointed at the opposite bench. A heartbeat ago it had been empty.

  “Cette épée, ma chère amie, a déjà tué par ma main,” the newcomer said. This sword, my friend, once slew men by my hand.

  Who are you? Annja thought.

  “Charlemagne.” He patted a sword that appeared in his lap. “Joyeuse.” He was dressed out of date and rather plainly. He wore a gray linen shirt and matching breeches. Over the top he wore a dark tunic trimmed with a pale silk fringe, everything looking expertly hand-stitched. He was in his sixties or seventies, tall, and with a thick neck and a nose that belonged on a bigger man’s face. His hair was snow white, and there was an abundance of it. The curls stirred in the wind. He had on a heavy fragrance that warred with Roux’s and disturbed her nostrils, and under that was the scent of dried blood. “Joyeuse, très chère amie.”

  Charlemagne was long, long dead. Annja remembered D’jok saying that she might be talking to ghosts. Why would her mind conjure up this man? He looked solid, though, and he cast a shadow. Her mind had fabricated a very real image.

  “Et vous êtes?”

  Annja was fluent in French. “I am Annja Creed,” she said in answer to the question.

  “Vous possédez une épée de Jeanne d’Arc.” His eyebrows rose.

  “I don’t know why I have Joan of Arc’s sword,” Annja said. And I don’t know why you know it’s Joan of Arc’s sword. And I don’t know why I’m dream-talking to King Charlemagne.

  “Cette épée...c’était le mien.”

  It was Annja’s turn to raise her eyebrows.

  “Jamais mon préféré. C’était Joyeuse.”

  He’d just told her that Joan of Arc’s sword could have belonged to him. But Joyeuse, the blade in his lap, had been his favorite and he carried it until his death. He was not sorry that he’d never wielded Joan’s sword in combat.

  “I don’t understand,” Annja said. “You could have had this sword? This one?”

  �
��I’d even like to think it was once mine. But I don’t believe it was ever truly meant to be my sword—though it was offered to me and I held it in my hands. A good balance, that sword.” Charlemagne spoke English now, a language he couldn’t possibly have known during his lifetime. But since this was her dream, she supposed she could make the characters speak whatever language she wanted. “God-touched, that sword is young woman. In my heart I knew it was meant to be Joan’s all along. You know, it once belonged to my grandfather—Charles Martel, and so I could have inherited it. I don’t know who had it before him. Maybe God. Maybe an angel. I held it when my hands were young and the blade felt too heavy for them to carry it. Too heavy and yet not heavy enough. My grandfather...he asked if I could change the world with the sword. I was too young to consider such a proposition, and so I handed it back. A boy does not fill his head with notions of saving France or changing the world. A young boy is interested in far more simple things.”

  “The story is true then,” Annja said. Or true as far as her vision was letting her believe. “Of it being Charles Martel’s, then Joan’s.”

  “Briefly mine between.”

  “Briefly.”

  “My grandfather was a righteous man. He took that sword and put it in a place where someone willing to change the world would find it.” Charlemagne stood and stretched, rotated his head as if working a kink out of his neck. “Joyeuse better suited me in any event. It helped me save enough, eh? Change enough things, don’t you think? Joyeuse and me are in the history books.”

  He extended a hand and she hesitantly took it, keeping hold of her sword with the other.

  “Let us walk, would you mind?” His eyes twinkled. “Indulge an old man and a king, eh? I’ve not been out for a walk in a long, long time, and I’ve not seen such a beautiful forest. Perhaps we will find a deer. I love to hunt deer. Perhaps if we see one you will summon up a bow so that I can shoot the deer. Roast venison. Ah, my favorite. My doctors...they told me to avoid roast meat. But boiled venison is not near so tasty. Had I listened to them, I might have lived longer. Though I might not have enjoyed it quite so much, young woman. Besides, I think I lived just long enough.”

  The blood Annja had smelled on him, it could have been from an animal. Deer perhaps? It had a bit of a gamey odor.

  “While we walk, I think I will regale you with a tale of one of my many great battles. Perhaps you would like to hear about that final push I devised to conquer Saxonia and to convert the barbarians to Christianity. That...that is a very good story. And you, Annja Creed, you must have equally good tales since you have the sword that was once, very briefly, mine.”

  The rainforest closed around them as they stepped past the final group of huts. An eerie silence took over.

  “Vous possédez une épée de Jeanne d’Arc?” Charlemagne asked, slipping into French again.

  “I don’t know why I have Joan of Arc’s sword,” Annja replied. And I don’t know why I’m dream-talking to King Charlemagne.

  When he appeared to tire of the walk, they returned to the benches. Roux was waiting. Charlemagne bowed and kissed her hand.

  “Il a été très agréable, Annja Creed. Traiter l’épée bien. Jusqu’à ce que nous nous reverrons...”

  “Yes, until we meet again.”

  Then he was gone. She closed her eyes and listened, hearing Roux pacing nearby. Annja wondered what he would look like when she opened her eyes again. Different? A little, she confirmed. He had yet darker hair and even fewer lines on his face, more years disappeared. On the bench across from her was a slip of a girl. She hadn’t heard the child approach, though she could now smell her—flowers and youth.

  At first Annja thought it was the thief she’d chased outside the airport. She was the same size and had the same smile. But there were no braces, and the clothes were plain, like an extra at a Renaissance Faire might wear.

  Roux bowed deeply to the child and then faced Annja. “Annja Creed, rencontrer mon cher, cher ami de Jeanne d’Arc.”

  Annja shivered. Joan of Arc? Annja often thought of Joan, but never had thought of her this young. The girl was probably twelve or thirteen. At first she seemed plain, unremarkable. But the longer Annja stared, the more beautiful she realized the child was. Her eyes were clear and wide, face unblemished. The girl looked perfect and innocent, yet her mien was determined and her lips set firm.

  Annja had no words for her imagined encounter with Christendom’s youngest martyr.

  “My sword,” Joan said. Her voice was small, musical, but it could be heard easily through all the other sounds of this spot. “Only a moment ago, and yet so very long ago that was my sword you have in your lap. When I walked the earth at Chinon I sought a blade. It was in the Church of Saint Catherine of Fierbois. It was behind the altar with other weapons, all covered with rust. I knew the sword was there, the voices...my voices...told me it was there. Five crosses on it, and not deep beneath the ground. The prelates cleaned it for me, said the rust fell away like dust. And I was given two sheaths for it, one made of red velvet and the other of a golden cloth. Lovely, but not appropriate, thoughtful though. I thanked them for the gifts. But I had another made of strong leather, more practical. I told the inquisitors about it, the sword, and they asked where I had gotten the blade. They asked so many unnecessary questions. I told them the truth about the sword. But not all of the truth, for they were not of a mind to understand.”

  Annja found her voice. “Understand? Understand what?”

  “That I loved that sword like a mother would love a child. I loved Saint Catherine, and it was found in her church. They would not have understood that God delivered the blade to me when I was ready for it. And they would not have understood its purpose.”

  By having Charlemagne’s grandfather bury it inside a church? Was that how it was delivered?

  “And now you have the blade, since you were ready for it.”

  “I can’t save the world,” Annja said. “And I can’t change the world with this sword.” Charlemagne said his grandfather asked if he could change the world with it. In her way, Joan had effected changes that stretched from her birth to her death...and that had ramifications for centuries beyond.

  “You have saved many lives, dear Annja,” Joan said. “And saving even one person means that in their eyes, the world is forever changed.” She raised her chin. “And that, I believe, is the sword’s purpose.”

  Are you real? Is any part of this real? Annja rubbed at her temples.

  Joan had aged in the moment Annja had looked away. She was still young, in her teens, but there were scars on her arms and she looked weary. Her clothes—pants and a discolored tunic, what a farmer might wear—were soiled. Annja had seen enough blood to know that the garments had been spattered with it, and the attempts to wash it out were not wholly successful. Yet, she didn’t smell blood on the girl, only the soft scent of sweet flowers. French flowers—fleur-di-lis.

  Joan looked at Roux, and in that instant Annja saw his face soften and eyes become watery. His hands relaxed, and he mouthed something. Annja did not try to make it out, although this was her dream. Roux had been Joan’s knight. Annja looked down at the tips of her feet. Insects scurried along the ground in all directions, intensely colorful beetles. A butterfly lit on the ground, large and amazingly beautiful. Annja swore she could hear the gentle beat of its wings. Her gaze followed it as it rose and landed on the bench opposite her.

  Joan of Arc was gone...Roux was at Annja’s side, looking older now, the decades rushing back upon his frame. She stood and took his offered arm. There were lines at the edges of his eyes, and they deepened as he escorted her through the village and to the earthenware tubs and then beyond them to the shaman’s hut. His hair was long and gray by the time he pulled the curtain back and gestured for her to go inside.

  “Until we meet again,” he said.

  Annj
a went inside and woke up to screaming.

  Chapter 13

  A dream! Joan of Arc, Charlemagne, Roux...all of it really had been a twisted and yet magically wonderful dream. Soul-satisfying.

  Annja picked herself up from the hut floor. An oil lamp burned, revealing the hut’s interior—simple furnishings, animal skulls and primitive knickknacks. She was wearing the coarse piece of cloth, wrapped around her like it was a bath towel. Annja was alone in the shaman’s hut.

  A look outside told her it was night. So she’d slept a few hours. That would explain why she felt so rested. And it probably also meant she’d slept so much that she’d have a hard time drifting off later tonight.

  She stretched and looked to her pile of clothes, reached for them and stopped when a scream interrupted the chorus of insect sounds.

  She thought she’d dreamt the scream.

  But there it was again, and what she’d heard hadn’t been part of her dream. Wearing only the coarse cloth, Annja dashed outside. Immediately she felt the sword hovering anxiously. She summoned it, finding the feel of the pommel in her hand reassuring.

  The foliage was so thick here that it was nearly impossible to make out the trunks of the closest trees. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and in the distance she saw the glow of a torch or a cook fire from the village. She hurriedly stumbled toward that, free hand out to her side to guide her and fingers brushing tree trunks, vines, a snake; feeling first the cool dampness of ground cover beneath her feet, then the biting rocks and broken pieces of wood. Her foot caught on a raised tree root and she went flying, the unseen ground rushing up to meet her. As she slammed into the earth, the air whooshed from her lungs and she instantly got back up and kept going, the sword still held tight in her hand.