Limbo's Child

by Jonah Hewitt

“And that is why I have called you here today.”

  “Chamberlain?” Nephys was confused and dazzled at the same time.

  “Only a person who can still see the stone for what it is can wield it. To all others, it is powerless.”

  Nephys gulped. It made his stomach lurch to think that there was a power that even the Great Chamberlain could not use but he could. Nephys marveled at it. “It’s so beautiful. What is it for?” he asked.

  “It is a weapon.”

  “A weapon?!” Nephys looked up in shock and almost dropped the stone as if it were a poisonous asp.

  “Yes. A weapon against the darkness. A weapon against the end of time.” Before Nephys could even respond to this, the Chamberlain was moving again. “Come, Nefer.” The Chamberlain immediately began to walk away and Nephys followed him out of the elegant tomb. “Put the stone away for now.” Nephys didn’t have any pockets to speak of, so he merely held it tightly in one hand to conceal its light. Instantly he was plunged into darkness. Nephys had to remember to use his Death Sight outside. Thankfully he could still follow the Chamberlain’s soul light.

  The Chamberlain spoke with urgency, “The Great Master is not well, Nefer.”

  “Not well?!” thought Nephys. They walked on past columns and courtiers at a furious pace. How could Death be “not well?” It’s not as if he could die, could he?! Before he could ask the question the Chamberlain was already explaining.

  “Do you know what would happen if the Great Master perished, young Nefer?”

  Nephys just shook his head “no” furiously, not daring to speak. Even through the back of his head, the Chamberlain could see Nephys’ response with the Death Sight.

  “No one knows for certain, but without Death, the flow of life and death could be reversed.”

  “Reversed?” Nephys said in shock. What would that mean? That the dead would leave the underworld and come out into the land of the living? Nefer tried to imagine the world flooded with the dead: shades pouring out over the living, and not just shades, but worse things from the pits of punishment. Nephys gulped. The Chamberlain seemed to read his mind.

  “Yes, Nefer, that must not happen,” he said tonelessly. “Do you know of the Necromancers?”

  “Yes, Chamberlain.” Nephys didn’t bother to bow but just kept walking trying to keep up with the Chamberlain’s long stride, his mind still reeling from these recent revelations.

  “The Necromancers are a race of men endowed with powers of life and death. Only one of them is THE Necromancer, however, the Champion of Death himself and charged to maintain the balance between the world above and the world below, keeping the flow moving always in the one direction only.” The Chamberlain spoke hurriedly but in the same, monotonous way, “The soul has many parts as you know, Nefer. The Yib, the Ba, the Ka, the Akh – the heart, the mind, the essence of life, the sense of self. The living necromancers can call on the necromancers of the past. The Necromancer provides the life essence, or Ka, in his own blood so that the other parts may be summoned into the dead. These are his servants, his helpers in this great task. Their hearts remain in Limbo, but their other parts – their shadows and psyches – can return. The Necromancers of the past have sworn to maintain the balance between the worlds and to help the current Necromancer in this one goal. But now the necromancers above are very few, and the Champion is failing in his task.”

  “Failing?” Nephys asked, curious despite his apprehension.

  “Yes, Nefer. The balance between our worlds is very delicate. It can be broken at any moment. If it is broken, catastrophe will come to both worlds.”

  “Catastrophe?!!” Nephys would have been panicking had he not been struggling so hard to keep pace.

  “Yes. The balance is now very close to being broken, but, with the stone, I believe that the Necromancer can restore the balance between our worlds and save us both. There is no time to lose. You must take the stone to the Necromancer.”

  “Um…which one? Chamberlain?” Nephys glanced around the hall at the various courtiers. He wondered which mutilated soul he had to take it to and why the Chamberlain could not take it himself.

  “THE Necromancer, Nefer. You must take the stone to the Necromancer in the world above.” Only now did the Chamberlain’s voice betray any urgency.

  “What?!!” Nephys came to a dead stop. “B-b-but how?” The Chamberlain stopped, but only briefly, to turn the eyes of the Horus Mask on the hapless scribe.

  “Through the gates of Erebus, of course.” He stated this as if it was obvious and resumed his brisk walk. Nephys doubled his pace to catch up. “The stone once resided in the world above, but it was sent here by the current Necromancer to protect it. He can call up the souls of the Necromancers of the past, but he cannot call up the stone. It must be carried out and there is only one way.”

  “But…but Chamberlain, no one could survive the passage! The torrent of souls… I…I would be destroyed and turned into a shade in mere moments!!”

  “The stone will protect you…and you will have help.”

  “Help?” Nephys was incredulous.

  “Do you know the causeway to the Gates of Erebus?”

  “Yes, Chamberlain.” The causeway was a large earthen dam, bridging what was once the rivers Styx and Acheron. It served as the main thoroughfare between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead. Many children of Limbo worked there cataloging souls as they made their way, confused, into their new habitations.

  “Do you know the broken statue of Apnu on the far side of the causeway?” the Chamberlain went on.

  There were many battered and half-broken statues along the causeway. They were relics from the time of Elysium and before. The statue of Anubis was a gigantic thing of black granite with half its head missing. It was so big you could see it easily from the other side of the river. It had been there longer than any other.

  “Anubis? Yes…I know the statue.”

  “It is not a statue. It is the god himself.”

  Nephys nearly came to another stunned halt. Before he had time to question, the Chamberlain went on.

  “He never was a god, not truly, but one of the ancients who learned all the secrets of the afterlife and then remained to lead souls to the other side, but even gods can fade over time. Rather than embrace oblivion, he decided to remain still and endure the long passage of time in silence, but there is still some strength in him. Tell him you need passage to the land of the living. Show him the stone. He will understand what to do. He will help you across the threshold of the gate. From there you will have to take the stone to the Necromancer. The stone will guide you.”

  “But…” Nephys was having a very hard time assimilating everything he was hearing.

  “Give the stone to the Necromancer so that he can prevent the disaster. There is very little…” and the Chamberlain paused slightly here to emphasize the next word, “time.”

  Nephys thought about Maggie and Hiero. “Chamberlain…” Nephys began to protest.

  “Come. I will take you there now.”

  “Chamberlain!!” Nephys only realized how disrespectful this sounded when it was out of his mouth. The Chamberlain stopped and turned on him with the empty eyes of Horus.

  Nephys’ mind was spinning, but he needed to say something to Maggie before leaving. “Um…I will need to tell Falco I will be leaving…otherwise he will be very upset with me.” Nephys cringed. He wasn’t certain if this ploy would work.

  If the Chamberlain was looking at him askance from under the silver mask he couldn’t tell, but it certainly felt that way. Nephys was counting on Falco’s reputation as a tyrant to sell this flimsy excuse.

  “Very well,” the Chamberlain said after what seemed like an eternity, “But go directly to the gates afterwards. Do you know the way to the entrance?”

  Nephys glanced around. He was not far from where the Herald had led him. “Um…yes, Chamberlain. I think so.”

  “Then go and do not fail, Nefer. Hurry.” The Chamberl
ain stepped aside to let Nephys pass. Nephys hesitated and then ran past him frantically in the direction he thought the entrance was located. He must have guessed right because when he turned to glance back, the Chamberlain was already hurrying in the opposite direction.

  He continued to run without stopping until he reached the large, columned hall just before the entrance. The large, black rectangle of the entrance was just as impenetrable from this side as from the other. He paused and paced back and forth nervously. He was going back! Was he happy or terrified or both? His near panic was so intense he forgot the small stone held tightly in his fist.

  He held up his closed hand. He could feel the heat and light inside. He had been using his Death Sight to better navigate the hallways just now during his run. He opened his hand. With the Death Sight, it was just an unremarkable, glassy, irregular, oval stone. Then he closed his eyes and opened them again, this time using his natural eyes. The radiance of the green stone burst forth all at once, and with it, the memories of honey cakes and starry nights and everything else he had loved about life. It gave him hope that he could accomplish the task the Chamberlain had given him.

  As he held up the light, he gazed past it to the pillars and walls of the great hall in shock. There on the pillars, in untidy scrawls, in letters rough and large or tight and cramped were thousands and thousands of words. All written in haphazard fashion, some overlapping others like a palimpsest. They were created by many hands and in many languages. Nephys stepped back. He hadn’t seen those on the way in! He looked around him. Everywhere, on every surface, the graffiti spread, over the walls and columns and over the floor. Some were phrases, others were just the same words over and over again in Greek, Latin, Heratic and many other tongues. Kronos, Tempus, Metamorphoses, Thanatos, Transformation, Death, Change, Time. It was everywhere. The courtiers gazed at him contemptuously as he gaped at the confusing text.

  He reached up to stop one that had an axe embedded in his skull decorated with silver ribbons. “Excuse me sir, what do the words mean?” Nephys pointed, but the man just looked at the wall puzzled. Then he looked at Nephys dismissively, uttered a “hmmph” in disgust under his breath, and moved on. Nephys held out the pebble and looked at their faces. They were staring at him, but none were looking at the writing. Nephys had a thought. He closed his hand tightly around the pebble. He was instantly plunged into darkness and nothingness. He looked inward. The Death Sight took him and he looked around. The walls were plain, featureless, smooth and utterly devoid of writing. He opened his palm. It was a glass pebble again. No writing appeared. Then he opened his natural eyes. The green light flooded the room and the writing was everywhere.

  “They can’t see it!” thought Nephys. They were all blind and couldn’t see it. But Nephys could see it. He could see it illuminated in the green light of the stone.

  But what did it mean? He walked toward the entrance. There were mad scribblings all over it. Above many layers of writing and overwriting, there was a large, messy phrase scratched over the top of the silver triangle above the empty black door. It read, “Time is not Deathless, Death is not Timeless,” and then beneath that in a smaller untidy scrawl, “Death must continue until all have passed beyond the veil of time.” Nephys didn’t have the slightest clue what that meant, but it gave him the shivers all the same. He held aloft the stone and examined it again, but it was just as impenetrable as before.

  He thought of the Chamberlain’s mission and the racking cough of the Great Master and an unbidden thought came to him – Could Death really die? What would that mean? No more delays. He faced the black void of the doorway. He closed both his natural and dead eyes, gripped the stone firmly in one hand and plunged through the inky barrier. He tumbled into the blue sand drifts outside. He stood up and brushed himself off and looked back at the door. It was as black and indecipherable as ever. Above it was only the triangle he had seen before. He opened his hand and held out the stone, but even in its magic light there was no writing, only the triangle above its empty frame and nothing more. He hesitated a moment longer and then turned and fled for Maggie and home.

  class=Section29>

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Plan

  “You two are stiffer than a couple of corpses, and believe me, I’ve known a few.”

  Schuyler’s voice just came out of nowhere. Tim jumped up from where he was leaning against the cream-colored Impala parked on a street a few blocks from the hospital. He wheeled around nervously looking for the source of the disembodied voice, but he couldn’t see anything. Miles just slumped where he was and didn’t bother. Schuyler had snuck up on them…again.

  “Sky?! Where are ya, ya bloody piker!” Miles shouted out.

  “You never look up, do you, you stupid mick?”

  Miles really hated it when he called him that. Miles slowly looked up. On the streetlight above them, Schuyler was perched as casually as a cat sitting on a fence. The second Miles caught sight of him, Schuyler jumped. He grabbed the pole with one hand and in a smooth, continuous motion spiraled down until he landed on the roof of the Impala.

  “Whoa,” Tim said, genuinely impressed.

  Sky did a back flip off the roof of the car over the top of Tim’s head. In mid-air he snatched the blue lollipop Tim was holding for him. He landed gracefully and then put the lollipop into his mouth in his usual dramatic way.

  “Dude, that was cool!” Tim said.

  “Yeah…I know,” Sky said casually.

  “But ya gotta watch the car, dude.”

  “Yeah, yeah…” Sky said dismissively, “don’t touch the girlfriend. Got it.”

  Tim looked hurt at the word “girlfriend.” Then Tim began furiously polishing the roof of the car with the sleeve of Sky’s white jacket.

  “Dude! Not the blazer! That’s Italian!” Sky sounded more hurt than when Hokharty had trashed him earlier in the alley.

  Tim stopped, “Well then don’t touch my car! This is a Spirit of America Limited Edition Impala I’ll have you know!”

  “Fine. Fine, but seriously, dude, do not get that blazer dirty. Dry cleaning’s expensive.”

  “Fine, but can I at least have my shirt back now?”

  “No. I need it.”

  “For what?” Tim whined.

  “The plan,” Schuyler replied as if it were obvious.

  “What bloody plan?!” Miles finally interjected.

  “The plan to get the girl back to Rivenden,” Schuyler said casually, picking lint off the white blazer Tim was still wearing.

  “Really? Did you tell the girl we need to take her back to Philly?”

  “No.”

  “Or about her dead mum?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Then what bloody plan?! ‘Ow are we any better off than we were thirty bloody minutes ago?!!”

  “You can’t just walk up to her and blurt it all out. She’ll run away screaming.”

  “Why not? I thought ya were supposed to be bloody good at this, bloke.”

  “Dude, it’s way harder to talk to a thirteen year old than it is to a twenty year old.”

  “Really?” Tim asked genuinely curious.

  “Oh, sure. Younger girls are all shy and defensive, but college girls just want to be lied to really.”

  “Really?” Tim sounded surprised. “I thought girls liked honest guys.” Tim looked down at his shoes, “Y’know…nice guys.” Something about Tim’s demeanor just now made Miles think he wasn’t just speaking hypothetically.

  “Yeah, they all say that, but they don’t really believe it,” Schuyler went on, “College girls misinterpret cockiness and arrogance as confidence and assertiveness, the bigger the jerk you are, the more they think you are worth the hassle. You can tear them down all day and they will still come back for more – it’s like catnip to them. Women always say they want the nice guys, but they’ll dump the nice guy and go for the bad boy every time.”

  “Every time?” Tim looked a little depressed at this thoug
ht, and Miles rolled his eyes at Schuyler’s sage wisdom on relationships, but he had to admit, it wasn’t far off from his own limited experience. Schuyler wasn’t finished yet though.

  “Now, thirteen year olds are totally different. Thirteen year olds haven’t been ruined by six or seven years of dating yet. They aren’t nearly so jaded. They don’t interpret cockiness and arrogance as confidence and assertiveness.”

  “Then what do thirteen year olds interpret cockiness and arrogance as?” Tim asked innocently.

  “As cockiness and arrogance, of course!” Schuyler said impatiently. “Look, thirteen year olds have their BS meters cranked up to eleven. You have to be gentle, kind. Instead of tearing them down you gotta build ‘em up. Make them feel good about themselves, make them feel less like kids and more like women. They’re neither fish nor fowl. They straddle the fence and they want someone to y’know, help ‘em to the other side. They are looking for sincerity, not showiness. Fortunately for you two…I got that act down cold. She totally bought it. I even made her think I thought she was fifteen.”

  “Smooth,” Tim said admiringly.

  “I know…right?!” Sky and Tim exchanged high-fives.

  Miles was disgusted by both of them.

  “You’re a right piece of work y’are, Sky. Bloody Heck!! Is that all this is to you? A bloody act?” Miles shook his head.

  “Dude, everything’s an act! ‘All the world’s a stage and all the people merely players’?” I seem to remember some British guy saying that once. The problem with you Miles is that you don’t know it. It’s even truer for a vampire! You’ve been given the role of a lifetime, but you never live up to the part!”

  Miles just brooded on this, but it stung more than he cared to admit. Schuyler saw Miles’ hurt expression as skepticism. “Geez, don’t worry, I’ve got it all figured out, it’s all part of the plan…and speaking of plans…” Schuyler turned venomously on the two of them. “What in the heck happened to waiting outside?!! What on earth were you two thinking hanging out in the lobby like that?!!”

  Tim and Miles just stared guiltily at each other.