"But if Forest Castle contains the Inverted Cathedral, why does it need a guardian?" the Seneschal asked. "I mean, who'd be crazy enough to come in here if they didn't have to?"
"Because of the Gateway," said the Burning Man. "And the power it promises."
"A Gateway to Hell?" asked Lament.
"No, to somewhere worse. And I'm going to lead you there. All the way to the top of my Cathedral, and deep into the earth. And either you'll fail and die for my amusement, or you'll come at last to the Gateway; and I'll watch as you open it, and go to a place that's worse than Hell for humans. It's called Reverie. You can be damned there forever while you're still alive. You will know pain and horror and despair in a place that has no ending."
"You do like the sound of your own voice, don't you?" Fisher asked.
"Reverie is not a part of the material world," said Lament, ignoring Fisher as the Burning Man had. "How can this Gateway lead us there?"
"Because of what I did, the Inverted Cathedral is no longer a part of the material world. My blood sacrifice thrust it outside the world of mortal men. Surely you've noticed that you're no longer everything you used to be, Walking Man. You have no authority here."
"God is everywhere," said the Walking Man.
The Burning Man shrugged. "The space the Inverted Cathedral now occupies forms a connecting bridge between the world of men and the world of Reverie. An unsus-pected back door through which Wild Magic shall come again to rule all that is."
Lament and the Burning Man then began to argue about this in increasingly technical and abstract terms, and Hawk and Fisher quickly tuned them out. They moved a little way off to talk quietly together. The Seneschal went with them, rather than be left alone.
"How much of this are you buying?" asked Hawk.
"I don't know," said Fisher, frowning. "It all ties together, but it's all based on the word of a confessed murderer."
"Why would he lie?" the Seneschal asked.
"Why would he tell the truth?" countered Hawk. "He's got no reason to help us."
"Maybe he needs us to open this Gateway," suggested Fisher.
"Could be," said Hawk. "I think we have to go along with this bastard, for the time being at least, if only in the hope we'll find some chance to free the spirits trapped in this awful place. The Burning Man deserves to be here. They don't. I'll do whatever it takes to set them free."
"This is a bad place to make promises," said the Seneschal. "We don't understand everything that's going on here."
"Right," agreed Fisher. "Let's just try and make sure we're not doing someone—or something—else's dirty work." She glared about her. "I really don't like this place. In its own way, it's darker than the Darkwood ever was."
"The Burning Man mentioned a sorcerer called the Magus," said the Seneschal. "You don't suppose…"
"That was centuries ago," said Hawk. "How could it be the same man? Even sorcerers don't live that long. Besides, I've seen nothing to indicate the Magus is that powerful."
The Burning Man spun around suddenly to face them. "The Magus still lives? I should have known he'd still be around. Still working his plots, manipulating everyone to serve his own ends. We have to get moving. Now. Before he comes in here after you."
"You're frightened of him," said Hawk. "Why? You're dead. What more could he do to you?"
"He could send me back to Hell," said the Burning Man. "After all, he summoned me up out of there." He hugged himself with his flame-wrapped arms, as though trying to hold himself together, and then glared angrily at Lament. "Why aren't there more of you? I was expecting more. Why isn't the Queen here? This is her Castle, her Kingdom. She has a duty to be here. Or is she too scared?"
Lament smiled for the first time. "If Felicity was here, she'd probably just light a cigarette off you. She doesn't need to be here, we represent her."
Fisher chuckled suddenly, and everyone looked at her. She shrugged defensively. "I was just wondering, if we brought the Lady of the Lake in here and put her together with the human candle, would she put him out?"
There was a pause. "Your sense of humor picks the weirdest times to surface, Isobel," said Hawk.
"The Lady has manifested?" asked the Burning Man. "That's it. We are moving right now."
"Hold everything," said Fisher. "Lament, you're supposed to be the Wrath of God. Can't you do anything to help the souls trapped here?"
"I was wondering about that," said the Seneschal.
"My power here is much diminished," said Lament. "In this place of lies and deceptions, I can no longer hear the voice of my God. With no divine guidance to lead me, I have only my own wits and experience."
"You're a fine one to talk about deceptions, Lament," said the Burning Man. "You've been lying to yourself for years. There never was any voice of God within you. All you ever heard was your own voice, the part of you where your magic comes from. Your magic, your power—not God's. Never God's. All you are, and all you ever were, is a sorcerer with delusions of grandeur. There is no God, Lament. Do you think your good God would allow a torture chamber like Hell to exist? There is only the dark, and what waits there. The light is just a passing thing."
"Liar," said Lament. "Hell is built on lies, and you are a part of Hell. Everything you say is suspect."
"Why lie, when the truth can be so much more harmful?" questioned the Burning Man.
He laughed at Lament, and the Walking Man struck at him with his silver-tipped staff. He put all his strength behind it, but at the last moment the staff jerked away, unable to touch the Burning Man. Lament was thrown off balance, and had to step quickly aside to avoid the flames before him. He seemed to have forgotten that he was supposed to be invulnerable. He recovered himself quickly and began a service of exorcism in a loud trembling voice, until the Burning Man's rising laughter drowned him out. Lament broke off in mid-sentence. He looked lost, and for the first time confused and uncertain. And perhaps a little afraid.
"I am here because it is willed for me to be here—by a power far greater than yours, sorcerer," said the Burning Man, grinning. "Your whole life has been a lie, Lament. All you are is a magic-user whose powers remained latent until late in life, when they were finally activated by the trauma of seeing your fellow monks die in the long night. You were afraid of your long-suppressed magic, so you found someone else to blame it on. Everything you've done is the result of religious mania focused through your own sorcery." The Burning Man laughed again as Lament cried out in wordless rage. "All the terrible things you've done, in the Lord's name! Smiting the sinners with your holy rage! We know all about anger in Hell, Lament. Did no one ever tell you rage is a sin? Even holy rage. And murder is always murder. Every day, Jericho, since you took up your false cause, you damned yourself in your God's name. They're going to enjoy you in Hell. There's a specially hot corner of the Inferno for false prophets."
"Lies," muttered Lament. "It can't be true. It can't—"
"That's enough!" Hawk broke in sharply. "Give me one good reason why we should follow you anywhere, murderer. You obviously don't have our best interests at heart."
"The answer to all your questions and all your problems lies on the other side of the Gateway," said the Burning Man. "You risk your lives and your souls, but if by some miracle you can pass through the Gateway and return, you can put right everything that's wrong in the Forest Kingdom. Everything."
"How is that possible?" asked Hawk.
"I told you. There's power there. Power to change everything for the better. Or the worse, if you fail."
"'And you'll lead us to the Gateway? Even though you were put here to prevent just that?"
"I have been here a very long time," said the Burning Man. "And the geas that bound me is not as strong as it was. I'll take you all the way to the very top of my Cathedral, and the Gateway there. All the way up, or all the way down, if you prefer."
"All the way down," said Lament quietly, his eyes unfocused. "To see something awful squatting on its terrible
throne."
"Been there, done that," said Hawk briskly. "The Demon Prince was pretty impressive, but we still kicked his arse. And it's not a Gateway to Hell, remember? It leads to Reverie. Whatever that might be."
"Hell, like religion, takes many faces," said Lament. And then he turned away so they couldn't see his face.
"Why is it so important that we should go through this Gateway?" the Seneschal asked after a pause.
"There are forces moving now," answered the Burning Man. "Influences vast and powerful, pressing against the other side of the Gateway. They want to be free, and they think they can use you. And if you fail, I shall at least see you fall and suffer, this side of the Gateway or that."
"Is that all there is left to you?" asked Fisher, wrinkling her nose. "Spite and vindictiveness?"
"The damned must take their comforts where they can," said the Burning Man.
"What will happen if we go through this Gateway?" Hawk asked.
The Burning Man shrugged, and his flames jumped and flickered. "Probably you'll all die. No man or woman has ever returned alive from Reverie. It's not a place where humans, or even human thought, can survive. Too limited, you see. So, are you ready to die, my brave heroes? Ready to lay down your lives for a chance to save the Forest Kingdom? After the way this Land has treated you all? Can any of you really say the Forest has treated you fairly?"
"I could destroy the Gateway," said Lament, not turning back. "Seal Reverie off forever from the world of men."
"No you couldn't," the Burning Man told him. "The Gateway is an important part of reality; one of the cogs in the great wheel around which everything turns. If you were even to attempt to destroy it, you risk unraveling everything. No, your only choice is whether to try and enter the Gateway or not. Live or die. Be the heroes you think you are, or abandon the Forest to its fate."
"I know my duty," said Hawk. "I've always known my duty."
"Some things you just have to do," said Fisher.
"That's what gives life purpose and meaning," agreed the Seneschal.
The Walking Man turned back to face them all, smiling slightly. "Thank you. For a moment, I forgot myself. All my life, for whatever reason, has been given to protecting the innocent and avenging the injured. Nothing has changed my faith in that. We go on—to the Gateway and beyond."
"Oh, I'm impressed," said the Burning Man. "Maybe, just maybe, you'll prove strong enough to survive the transition through the Gateway. And if you can, you could make a deal with the Beings on the other side. The Transient Beings. If you can find the right price to offer them, they just might re-Invert the Cathedral for you, and free the spirits contained here. There's a small part of me that would like to see the Transient Beings thwarted in their plans, because one of them betrayed me. But what price could you offer them, greater than the domination of reality itself? They're very powerful now, grown horribly strong on all the Wild Magic generated by the Rift, and collected and focused down through my Inverted Cathedral. With or without your intervention, I don't know how much longer the Gateway can hold them back. They hunger to become real. Once they manifest in our world through the Blue Moon, Wild Magic will have dominion over all, and there shall be hell on earth forever."
"They sent the killing shadows into the Court, didn't they?" asked the Seneschal. "The ones the young witch stopped."
"A test of their power," said the Burning Man. "A taste of things to come."
"Everywhere we turn, I see the Magus' hand," said the Seneschal. "I never trusted him. He created the Rift and did nothing to stop the invading shadows. And now the Burning Man knows his name. Could the Magus be behind everything that's happened, from the Inverting of the Cathedral right up to the Kingdom's present troubles? And if so, dare we leave him unopposed in the castle in our absence?"
"I don't see we have much choice," said Hawk. "The Gateway must come first. If we survive that, maybe we can make him shut down the Rift, and put a stop to the building Wild Magic."
"That's a big if and maybe," said Fisher.
"It doesn't matter," said Lament. "We have to go to the Gateway. Everything we ever believed in depends, upon that."
"We're all going to die," said the Seneschal. "I just know it."
"One last thought," said Fisher to the Burning Man. "What happened to the earlier investigating teams that came in here? Why haven't we seen them anywhere?"
The Burning Man grinned widely. "I ate them."
To go down, they had to go all the way up. The Gateway to Reverie was situated at the very top and tip of the Cathedral, and could only be reached by climbing a narrow stairway built directly onto the inner wall of the Gallery. It wound up and up, out of the main gallery and on up through all the many floors and layers of the Cathedral, until it ended in the solid gold spire at its peak. The Burning Man led them over to inspect the stairway, and smiled at their obvious distress. The steps were barely eighteen inches wide, jutting directly out from the wall, and there was no railing. The only thing between a prospective climber and an increasingly long drop was plenty of not-so-fresh air. The Burning Man pointed out the way with a flame-wrapped finger, and the others craned back their necks painfully, trying and failing to make out the ceiling of the gallery so very high above them.
"How many floors are there above this one?" asked Hawk, fighting down a sudden surge of vertigo. He had an irrational and thoroughly unpleasant feeling that at any moment gravity might invert itself again, his feet would leave the floor, and he'd go falling up toward the ceiling. His eye started to glaze over, and he had to look away. Fisher took him unobtrusively by the arm.
"More floors than you can comfortably imagine," said the Burning Man.
"How long will it take to reach the top?" Fisher asked.
"Who knows?" responded the Burning Man. "No one's ever climbed all the way to the top before. Apart from the dangers of the climb itself, for this was intended to be a pilgrimage, I feel I should warn you that there are wonders and terrors in my Cathedral—veils and mysteries beyond anything you've ever seen or dreamed of."
"Don't put money on it," said Hawk. "We've been around, Isobel and me."
"Right," agreed Fisher.
"Who goes first?" asked the Seneschal, eyeing the narrow steps uneasily. "Normally I'd lead, but without my power…"
"You can follow me," said the Burning Man. "No one knows the layout of this place better than I do."
"And that's why you're not going first," said Lament firmly. "I wouldn't put it past you to deliberately lead us into danger, just for the fun of watching us fight for our lives. I'll go first."
"I don't think so," said Hawk. "No offense, Walking Man, but you said yourself you've lost most of your powers. If we do run into anything nasty, the man at the front is going to have to bear the brunt of it. You may have lost your powers, but I've still got my axe. So I go first."
"With me right behind you," said Fisher immediately. "Seneschal, you tuck in behind me."
"I don't mind bringing up the rear," offered the Burning Man.
"I don't trust you there, either," said Lament. "Who knows what you might get up to behind our backs? No, you go next, and I'll bring up the rear. And if you even look like you're thinking of doing something treacherous, I'll boot you right off the edge."
"O ye of little faith," said the Burning Man. "So much cynicism in a holy man."
And so they started up the narrow stairway, pressing their right shoulders firmly against the inner wall, to ensure they wouldn't drift too close to the open edge on their left. The steps were solid marble, pale and perfect, and reminded Hawk uncomfortably of so many teeth jutting from the wall. The steps were spaced just far enough apart to stretch and tire the legs, and Hawk paced himself carefully. There was no telling how many rest stops they'd be able to take. The group moved slowly up the inner wall of the gallery, trying not to look down too often at the increasing scale of the drop below. It sucked at the eye, pulling them away from the wall with almost physical force. Haw
k kept his gaze fixed firmly on the steps directly ahead of him, and advised the others to do the same.
The Burning Man walked alone in his own space, a careful distance between the Seneschal in front and Lament behind, because his flames were too hot to tolerate close up. The pain bothered him more when he couldn't distract himself by talking. Now and again he had to stop and hug himself until he had it under control again and could carry on. He left black, sooty, sticky footprints on the pale steps. Lament watched all this, and was quietly disturbed. More than once he had damned an evil man to burn in Hell for the suffering he'd caused in life, but to see the effects of Hell close up was upsetting. Even after all the Burning Man had done, Lament still felt a little sorry for the man.
They climbed and climbed, like insects crawling up a wall, and the great domed ceiling slowly formed itself out of the distance before them. It was covered in one great painting of a blue sky with clouds, almost unbearably real.
They stopped there for the first real rest. They sat down carefully on the steps, shoulders still pressed to the wall. No one was really out of breath yet, but already they were feeling the strain in their back and leg muscles. They leaned against the wall, trying not to imagine how far there was still to go, or what might be waiting for them once they got there. It was one thing to be brave and heroic and certain down on the floor of the gallery, but it didn't come quite so easily sitting on a narrow step above a drop you didn't even like to look at. Hawk let his fear and uncertainty move through him and watched it from a distance, acknowledging it but not letting it get to him. He'd been through this before. A thought struck him out of nowhere, and he looked down at the Burning Man.
Beyond The Blue Moon Page 41