Dark Mist Rising (Crossing Over)

by Anna Kendall

  The dog's teeth had torn flesh from Tarek's arm and blood gushed forth.

  Alysse saying to me, ‘We are those who strive to preserve life.'

  Tarek struggled to rise.

  The fireplace bellows I had brought back from the Country of the Dead, yes, but also my shaving knife, clothing, boots, even a chair – things that had crossed with me time after time.

  Guns were raised and pointed at me and at the others behind me, the blue savage eyes above each weapon filled with fear and hate. All the repressed vengeance these men felt for me erupted now that my witchcraft had harmed another of their leaders.

  Tarek rose his feet, his face rigid with the effort to deny pain, his lips parting to give an order.

  My shaving knife, my boots, a chair, the bellows ...

  Alysse: ‘Bringing anything back from the Country of the Dead disturbs the natural order of the sacred landscape.'

  The wall between the living and the dead eroding ... the threads of the web pulled and destroyed ...

  Preserve life, preserve life ...

  ‘Fire,' the Young Chieftain gasped.

  But I had already turned, thrown my arms around Tom with his burden, bitten down hard on my tongue and willed.

  Nobody had ever said anything to me about taking things into the Country of the Dead. With Tom, Jee and Stephanie in my arms, I crossed over.

  46

  Darkness—

  Cold—

  Dirt choking my mouth—

  But not only mine. It was as it had been when I brought back Bat, brought back Cecilia, brought back the Blue army, and I was faintly surprised that it should feel no different travelling the other way. Beside me, Tom and Jee and the princess were prisoners of the dirt, were crawling with the worms, and though their fleshless bones could no more move than could mine, I somehow felt them and their tongueless screams. It went on for a long time, and yet even longer. Then we were through and tumbling onto the ground in the Country of the Dead.

  With a great roar Tom tore away from me, dropping Jee. Stephanie still clung to Tom, her face buried in his neck. I staggered on the featureless grass, amazed at what I had done – and then uncertain of what I had done.

  My own body was back in the land of the living, as always. But had I really brought these three bodily through the grave, or were their bodies dead on the other side, so that any moment now they would lapse into the mindless tranquillity of the Dead?

  ‘Where did everybody go?' Tom bellowed. ‘What did those piss pots do? By damn, there's the mountain shaped like an anvil, just like we didn't move, but where the swigging dung is the tent? Where is the army? Where are we?'

  I had never seen anyone less tranquil.

  The landscape looked closer to its usual state than at any time since the fogs had begun to form. When I had crossed over before, I had seen a patch of humming, dense darkness and a circle of ten Dead whirling into a spinning vortex until they were funnelled into pure power for Soulvine Moor. Afterwards, the Country of the Dead had resumed its former calm, and so it appeared now. We stood on the same western mountain slope as in the land of the living, with the same meadow and trees and rock faces and river valley below, but all else was gone. No tents. No fires. No Young Chieftain and his captains and savages. No guns raised at us. Merely a few random Dead, sitting serenely where once they had died.

  And the three with me did not lapse into the quiescence of the Dead.

  From Tom's shoulder, Stephanie spied her nurse. She let out a scream and wriggled so hard that she escaped Tom. The princess ran to her nana, and it was Jee who ran with her. Jee, who knew what I was and where we were, as the others did not.

  ‘My lady, my lady ...' I heard him croon, but whatever else he said to Stephanie was masked by Tom's bellow.

  ‘Peter! Where did everything go? By damn, I thought we were dead! Those guns—'

  The dead nurse registered on his mind. He stopped, frowned, looked helplessly at me. ‘Peter ...'

  ‘Tom,' I said, ‘sit down.' For he had begun to tremble, this reckless giant whom I had never seen tremble before.

  He remained standing. ‘Peter,' he said, and now his voice dropped to a whisper, ‘the nurse died. Are we ... are we all dead?'

  ‘She is; you are not,' I said. ‘Tom, sit.'

  He did, cross-legged on the grass, and all at once I was reminded of the Young Chieftain during my instruction. Just so had Tarek dropped to sit when I brought back the bellows. What would Tarek now do to my body in the land of the living? Kill it, of course. ‘ Fire. ' And yet, if I were already dead there, why had I not lapsed into the mindless tranquillity of the Dead? Nothing made sense.

  But it made even less sense to Tom, who repeated desperately what I had said to him, ‘The nurse is dead but we are not?'

  I sat beside him. ‘No. But this is the Country of the Dead. I brought you here.'

  ‘You ... brought me here?'

  Tom's face creased into valleys and ravines more complex than the mountainscape around us. Jee still murmured to Stephanie, who at least remained quiet, clinging to her dead nurse.

  ‘Tom, listen. I am a hisaf. You told me once that the old folk of Almsbury talked of the Country of the Dead, and those who could cross over to it. Those stories are true, and I am such a one. That was what Tarek wished me to teach him. I once brought back an army that attacked and killed his father and—'

  ‘That old story is true?'

  ‘Yes.'

  ‘That was you?'

  ‘Yes.'

  ‘You? Truly?'

  ‘Yes.'

  ‘That was you? Peter Forest?'

  ‘Roger Kilbourne,' I said.

  ‘But you really—'

  ‘ Yes. Tom, we don't have time for this.' Which was a stupid statement because now all we had was time. An eternity of time, if we were fortunate. If not ...

  Tom sat quietly, only his face wrinkling as his brain struggled to take in a situation that he could not have imagined, that until this moment he had not believed possible. But the brain of Tom Jenkins was an omniv-orous creature. It could digest anything, although nothing then stayed within it for very long. Eventually his face stopped working itself into whole landscapes, and he jumped to his feet. ‘Well then, we should get going!'

  I looked up at him. ‘Going? Where?'

  ‘Why, to The Queendom of course! We escaped!' Suddenly he laughed, a great ringing noise that echoed off a nearby cliffside. Never before in the Country of the Dead had I heard anyone laugh, except for my mad sister, and her laugh— What would happen if she found us here? What if she found Stephanie, whose wild talent my sister had already used to kill two people?

  Tom said, ‘Yes, we escaped Lord Tarek! The bastard must be wondering what happened, us just disappearing like that before his very eyes! Winked out like a candle! By damn but you're clever, Pe— Roger Kilbourne. I'll call you that now – you've earned it, haven't you? A hinaf !'

  ‘ Hisaf.' I corrected, inanely.

  ‘Whatever you like, you clever lad. All right, we should get started. Where is— Oh good. Jee has got Her Grace in hand. We can take the princess back to The Queendom now, and then you can just wink her back inside her palace, and I daresay we'll all three be heroes. Ten to one odds. The palace girls will love us!'

  ‘Tom, wait.'

  ‘What? I don't see no problem here, Roger. Not as long as you can keep doing that crossing-over trick. You can, can't you?'

  Could I? I did not even know if I were alive or dead back there in Tarek's country. Although if I were dead, wouldn't I have already lapsed into mindless tranquillity? Slowly I said to Tom, ‘That will not work. If I cross back over, it will be to return to where my body is, which is at the savage camp, or wherever Tarek takes me. My body is in a sort of trance back in the land of the living, and I cannot leave it more than a few days without food or water. Also—'

  He frowned. ‘Is my body there too? And the princess's? And Jee's?'

  ‘No. I brought you here bodily.' Like
a shaving knife, a chair, a pair of boots. There was no other way that someone not a hisaf could cross that barrier.

  ‘Can you bring us back home?'

  ‘Yes.' Surely bringing back someone who was not dead, surely that would not cause the same havoc as bringing back someone who belonged in the Country of the Dead?

  ‘But then I would bring you back to wherever my body is when I crossed over.'

  ‘You mean, with Tarek?'

  ‘Yes.'

  He chewed on that for a while, then burst out with, ‘Well, from where I sit, you ain't thought this through very carefully.'

  ‘I didn't think it through at all! The savages were going to shoot us all, so I just acted.'

  ‘George would have arranged things better.'

  ‘I'm sure,' I said wearily.

  ‘So what do we do now?'

  Jee said, ‘We maun not travel to The Queendom on the other side.'

  He had appeared at my side without my hearing him, and Stephanie with him. The princess's eyes were wild still, but she held tightly to Jee's hand, her shoulder pressed against his. Apparently whatever he had said had made him her protector. Silent Jee! But, at that, he would probably be a better care-taker for the little girl than I had been so far. He could hardly be worse.

  Tom said irritably – he didn't like being outguessed by a boy – ‘Why “maun” we not travel in The Queendom, Jee?'

  ‘We not be in The Queendom. We be in the mountains. And with the living it soon be winter. We have but two cloaks and I have Maggie's two knives. We have no money. Not enow.'

  Jee was right. If we travelled, it must be here. And yet, if I brought them back over the Western Mountains while in the Country of the Dead, back to where The Queendom's border began in the land of the living, what help would that be to us? The moment I crossed back over, we would all be once again wherever my body had remained. Assuming my body was still alive.

  Tom argued, ‘But if we travelled in the real country, we could at least find something to eat. What can we eat here? I don't see nothing.'

  He was right. There was nothing edible in the Country of the Dead, where none ever ate.

  Tom looked at me. ‘Pe— Roger, what do we do?'

  ‘Let me think!'

  The three of them stared at me, which was not conducive to thinking. But there was only one course open to me anyway. I stood.

  ‘We are going to walk one day's journey towards The Queendom. That is the first step. Tom, can you carry Her Grace if needed?'

  ‘Of course. But then what will—'

  ‘We are going to walk one day's worth towards The Queendom.' I tried to make it sound as authoritative as I could. Finally Tom nodded. Despite wishing I were George, Tom trusted me.

  I wish I trusted myself.

  Jee cut the rope between Tom's ankles and we set out, Stephanie between Jee and me. She clutched both of our hands. Silently, timidly at first, three living people and a hisaf walked through the Country of the Dead.

  Only light patches of fog veiled the landscape. The sky, low and featureless and grey, gave off its even pale light. Neither trees nor grass, the latter dotted with bushes or with clumps of pale wildflowers, stirred in the breeze. There was no breeze. To the east loomed the mountains that Tarek's army, in the land of the living, had just traversed; to the west somewhere lay the valley of his kingdom. And all around us sat or lay the Dead. There were not very many of them, this high in the mountains, where not many had lived, let alone died. But there were enough. A hunter. Two soldiers. An entire family that had perhaps lived here over time, their deaths separated by decades but occurring in the same dwelling, so that they all ended up together. Stephanie peered at a child lying tranquilly on the grass and gazing at the sky, and her hand tightened in mine.

  Tom began to sing.

  I almost snapped at him, but I stopped myself. I had seen the Dead, walked among them, my entire life. Tom had not. His face was ashen, with drops of sweat on his forehead and upper lip. He could do nothing about the eerie stillness of the Dead, but he could at least shatter the eerie silence. ‘Oh, a lady came a-riding,' he sang, quavering on the high notes, ‘all of a summer morning ...'

  And so we walked, threading our way through the Dead, to the sounds of a lady come a-riding, a hunter come a-courting, a soldier come a-drinking, a girl come a-dancing, while the air hung quiet around us and no night fell.

  47

  Land stretches or shrinks in the Country of the Dead, according to need. Where many have died, a mile in the land of the living can become ten on the other side. A pond may become a vast lake, a stand of trees a huge forest. Conversely, if few have died on mountain, in desert or wild ravine, ten miles may become one. But never less than one, and even if this way back to The Queendom was shorter than the way Tarek had brought his army and his captives, it was still a great distance. After a few hours Stephanie and Jee, both with little sleep the night before, were exhausted.

  ‘We will stop here and make camp,' I said.

  Tom nodded. This was something he understood. He gathered wood, took out his flint and steel, began a fire. There was no need for a fire: there was neither cold nor darkness nor wild animals, and we had nothing to cook. Our two cloaks of savage fur were too warm to wear. But Tom needed a fire. He built a roaring blaze and settled the children to sleep beside it. I heard Jee's stomach growl, but both he and Stephanie fell asleep too quickly to protest the lack of food. Not so Tom.

  ‘Roger—'

  ‘You have first watch, Tom,' I said. ‘Have you your knives?'

  ‘Yes.' He flashed them at me. ‘What beasts are here? Any like ... like Shadow and Shep? Hey! If they be like our dogs, maybe we can find one to hunt for us and—'

  ‘I don't know. I need to piss, Tom. Do not leave the children.'

  ‘No, I will not, but Roger—'

  ‘In a minute.' I was gone before he could question me further. Tom would not follow, not without Jee and Stephanie. I had time.

  When I was out of his sight, I lay on the ground beneath the low branches of a mountain pine and drove a sharp stone into my thigh.

  My promise to Alysse was already broken, and I must know what my situation was. If Tarek had kept me alive and captive, I would return to my body and then could immediately bite my tongue and cross back to the Country of the Dead. The savages might not even realize I had briefly been present. If, on the other hand, I was already dead but somehow not quiescent, I would not be able to cross over at all. I could not imagine what I would do then, but at least I would know. Was I alive back in those savage mountains, or was I dead?

  The answer turned out to be neither.

  Darkness—

  Cold—

  Dirt choking my mouth—

  Worms in my eyes—

  Earth imprisoning my fleshless arms and legs—

  And then I lay beneath the same low branches of a mountain pine, but bright light blazed between the green needles. An astonished squirrel, squatting in the shade, squawked at my sudden appearance and skittered up the tree trunk. A moment later a nut was thrown down at my head.

  I was back in the land of the living but not with Tarek's army.

  My head whirled. This had never happened before.

  Not just my essence, but my body, whole, had moved through the grave. Nothing of me had remained in Tarek's camp – I had ‘winked away', as Tom would have said. How could I have moved bodily to the Country of the Dead, when always before my body had remained behind?

  Slowly I understood, and the understanding chilled my heart. This was due to the breach that Soulvine Moor had created in what should have the impenetrable wall of the grave. As a result of that breach, hisafs could now truly move between the realms on either side of the grave, could even travel in one to appear suddenly and unanticipated in the other. It was terrifying proof of just how far Soulvine had come in its quest to break down the wall between the living and the dead.

  So I was safe from Tarek, but dread of the future filled
me. However, there was no time for dread. Almost immediately I began to shiver. The brightness beyond the pine branches was sunlight on a light fall of snow. Crawling out from beneath the tree, I pulled my fur cloak tighter around me, blinked several times and tried to think what to do next. I could cross back over immediately and so escape the winter that Jee had so prag-matically mentioned, but that would not solve the problem of feeding us.

  Running warmed me. Few savages lived in these high mountains, but on the other side we had passed one large group of Dead a mile or so back. They had been dressed in different styles of rough clothing, some for winter and some for summer, which suggested that a mountain family had lived and died on that spot for a long time. Perhaps they lived there still. Perhaps I could steal food from field or orchard.

  Harvest was well over. The farmhouse stood, but the small field and stunted orchard were bare. However, a herd of goats foraged on the hillside above the farmhouse, watched by two boys of nine or ten. The goats pulled at the tough-stemmed plants poking above the light snow. I hid at the edge of the woods and eyed the boys. Did they have guns? Could I get close enough to steal a goat?

  It turned out to be surprisingly easy. I ran out of the woods and towards one of the goats. The boys shouted something. Surprise raised their downy eyebrows, widened their blue eyes. They rushed towards me, knives drawn, fierce scowls replacing the looks of surprise. They were boys, but they were Tarek's people, and I, with but one hand, must not have appeared too threatening. Still, I seized the neck fur of a startled kid, bit my tongue, and goat and I vanished from the boys' sight.

  Almost, I enjoyed it.

  When I emerged from the woods, Tom was pacing up and down, frowning. ‘A long piss ...' He spied the goat.

  ‘Can you butcher a goat, Tom?'

  He nodded, speechless. But Tom Jenkins was never speechless long. ‘By damn, where did you find that? I saw no animals all day, not so much as a puny bird. She's a beauty, ain't she? I'm so hungry I could eat a—' He stopped cold.

  ‘What is it?' I said.