River Into Darkness

by Sean Russell

  But who else could it be? A woman returning to the lowlands secretly. Rose had argued that only two should follow their guide into the hills, the others staying behind to search elsewhere. But it soon became clear that Rose was determined to take this route, which made the others suspicious. Clearly the priest was convinced this was Anna, though no one could guess why he was so certain.

  Kehler worried that they were following a false trail—after all, the guide, Garrick, had conveniently told his brother where he was going. But then, the meeting with his brother had been accidental—if one believed in accidents.

  Pryor searched among the bushes beside the trail, bending low to the ground, examining the branches. From among the foliage he lifted his hand, teasing out something invisible—then a glint of red-gold twined in his fingers and trailed in the breeze.

  Erasmus dropped to the ground and took the strand of hair, holding it up to the light.

  He showed it to the others who all nodded—not even Rose showing any elation.

  “Well, we know we’re not being misled,” Kehler said. “Or, at least, it’s very unlikely.”

  Pryor took the reins of his horse and led them on, eyes scanning the ground. When he was certain which path had been taken, he mounted again, and they traveled more swiftly along the valley floor, the new leaves fluttering nervously in the breeze.

  * * *

  * * *

  Anna stared at the hand-drawn map again, looked up at the peaks around her, then back to the map. Nothing was where it should have been. She was lost. From her breeches she produced a pocket chronometer and used it, with the position of the sun, to determine south. Unquestionably this valley was running the wrong way. She had mistaken the pass, and now wasn’t sure what to do. Retrace her steps and hope to find the right way, or carry on and see where this led? Her map didn’t extend far enough to tell her what lay ahead. The chances of becoming even more disoriented were great.

  “Chuff?” her familiar said, the syllable sounding distinctly interrogative.

  “Back,” she decided. “We must go back.”

  She checked her string of horses, mounted, and crossed over the small creek three times, muttering an enchantment as she went. On her first crossing she tossed the wing bone of a hawk into the stream; on the second, a coal black stone; on the third she let a feather fall. A feather from her familiar. It sailed off on the current, fluttering on the ripples, glinting in the sunlight.

  At least she would lay down a false trail and confuse anyone who tried to follow, especially by unnatural means. Halsey had always said that apparent lost efforts must be put to use whenever possible.

  Thoughts of the others caused her to bend over in her saddle, as though she were in actual pain. Grief had its grip on her, she knew. She caught Chuff looking at her oddly at times—that intelligent glittering eye. For a beast with a vocabulary of a single word it managed astonishing shadings in its speech, and one of those was concern. She was hearing this tone too often, now.

  One could hardly be cheerful after what I’ve been through, she thought. But still, it was a danger. Grief led to brooding, and brooding took her focus away from the matter at hand: survival.

  Eldrich would be looking for her, and for the first time a mage had a starting point; he knew where she had come from. She was in more danger now than she had ever been—even escaping the cave.

  He will learn that I have seed.

  Did the mage know what lay in the cavern? Somehow she suspected he did not. He would never have sealed the chamber off if he’d known what lay within. But once he learned, Eldrich would be desperate to find her. More than desperate.

  “But where would he think I have gone?” she asked aloud, for that was the game. Each trying to outguess the other. Does he know that I am alone? Did Halsey tell him there were no others?

  She traveled, lost in both thought and place, until she passed a small pool. Here she stopped for a moment, tethering her horses so they could not sully the pool. It was near to sunset. This would be her camp tonight.

  She gathered a handful of tiny white blossoms, and then firewood. For a long time she sat by the edge of the pool, thinking, I am stronger now, my talent deeper. There might be something to see. Not merely darkness as there had been that night in the house where Halsey died.

  The last light in the sky seemed to coalesce into stars on a black field. Anna took a long breath and began the ritual, careful in its preparation. The marks on the ground, the figure that burned in her mind. An eerie ringing—the songs of stars. She stared down into the pool, at the points of light which floated there, and then closed her mind, holding what she had seen.

  Pain! Searing pain, as though white-hot iron had been thrust into her brain. She wavered but held her concentration. For an instant she opened her mind, reeling toward the void, then cast the flowers onto the water. She felt herself collapse at the water’s edge, like a great bird too exhausted to land softly. She heard herself crying. Nearby Chuff spoke his single word of fear, over and over.

  Fifteen

  The brushes were inferior and the easel not to his liking, but under the circumstances such matters were trivial.

  You are painting to save your life, Kent reminded himself.

  He looked at the portrait he had begun of Eldrich, feeling more than a little satisfied. He had been allowed to make only one brief sketch of the mage, but the image was unusually distinct in his mind, even for Kent, whose visual recall was not particularly good. He suspected the arts at work in this were not entirely his own.

  He had caught something of the mage’s presence, Kent flattered himself to think, for Eldrich seemed to have a still center of power—the calm eye of the storm. The darkly brooding visage had not been so difficult—much could be done with shadow—but even so the eyes were not quite as they should be. How did one portray a gaze that penetrated even the walls of time? The thick black hair and dark brows could not have been more in character for a mage—as though an actor had chosen them.

  “Yes,” Kent said softly, “you may have imprisoned me, Lord Eldrich, but I have captured something of you as well.”

  He turned away from the portrait, back to the blank canvas sitting on the easel, and felt the jangle of nervous expectation. The countess was to sit for him, and should arrive at any moment. Of course it was utterly unnecessary that she model, but he did not tell Eldrich that. Kent could recall the countess as clearly as . . . well, there was nothing he could recall as clearly. Closing his eyes, her image came vividly to mind in a hundred poses and varying moods. No, Kent did not require that she sit for him at all. But to see her and speak with her again!

  The door clicked and swung open, revealing the countess. She stopped as she closed the door, looking intently at Kent, her manner anything but happy.

  “Oh, Kent. Why were you so foolish?”

  Kent felt himself look down, his cheeks burning. “I thought . . . I thought the countess had been abducted.”

  She continued to stare at him unhappily, and then nodded twice. “But as you see, I am here of my own choosing, and you have endangered yourself for naught.”

  “I didn’t know,” he said softly and looked up. “But how can you be sure that you have chosen to be here? How do you know that Eldrich has not used his arts to influence you?”

  “Because I know, Kent. Trust that this is so.” She came across the floor to the chair that had been set out for her, then hesitated as she arranged her skirts to sit. “But should this not be a divan? Yellow with new-world foliage and warblers, wasn’t it?”

  Kent felt the blood rise into his face, but he nodded, looking down.

  “It was a lovely portrait, Kent. Better than I deserved,” she said, almost tenderly. “Thank you.”

  Kent picked up a brush and palette, words suddenly seeming utterly inadequate. He began to paint before looking at his subject.

 
Every time he did look that way, the countess’ soft eyes were upon him. He could not believe what hope he felt each time their eyes met, but there was no joy or pleasure in the countess’ look, only anxiety and sadness. Nothing to cause him hope at all.

  “What did you think to accomplish, Kent?” the countess asked suddenly.

  What indeed? Kent wondered. But he knew the answer—he was not that unaware of his inner workings. He hoped to prove the depth and truth of his feelings. He hoped to prove himself worthy. Even though Eldrich might strike him dead, she would know.

  He shook his head. One could not admit something so adolescent. “I hoped to learn the truth of your disappearance—whether you had gone of your own volition or no. Beyond that . . .” He shrugged.

  This partial lie was followed by total silence. She did not believe him, he knew.

  “You followed Sir John?” she asked, giving up the censorious silence.

  “He is unharmed, I hope?” The truth was that Kent had hardly thought of the man since the wolf had treed him.

  “To the best of my knowledge, yes.”

  It was hardly reassurance. How much did the countess know of what went on in this strange household?

  “This little man, Walky. Is he the man I saw handing you down from the carriage in Castlebough?”

  “I assume so. He is the mage’s servant; not a house servant, but servant in the arts.”

  Kent did not understand what this meant, but he continued to work. The light streaming in the windows illuminated the countess in a way he found particularly maddening. It was almost unfair that beauty should be concentrated to such a degree in one woman. Unfair and baffling. Even as he studied her for the portrait, the truth of her attraction eluded him. What was its source? Could he ever hope to capture it as it had captured him?

  “Kent, do you know what has befallen Erasmus?”

  “I . . .” The phrasing of the question was distinctly odd. “He had not returned from the cave when I left Castlebough.”

  She looked down at her hands twisting the corner of her shawl.

  “Is there some reason for concern?” Kent asked casually, the memory of the countess and Erasmus coming back—causing anguish and taking his breath away at the same time, as it always did.

  “Something the mage said. Perhaps it meant nothing.” She realized she had started referring to Eldrich as Walky did—the mage. One can’t help but acknowledge his difference, she thought.

  “What will happen . . . when I finish the portraits?” Kent had begun to ask what would become of her, but felt he had no right to pose such a question.

  “I don’t know, Kent. I hope Lord Eldrich,” she made herself use the title, “will keep his word and release you.”

  “You say that as if there were some doubt?”

  She stared at him intently. “I don’t mean to frighten you, Kent, but he is a mage.”

  Kent nodded. And as such not bound by the mores of men. Unless certain rituals were performed, or so the old tales said. A mage could be bound to his word by the arts, though, if it were true, likely no one alive today would know how it was accomplished.

  Rays of sun created a slanting backdrop of pure light to the countess’ black curls, and Kent began to paint the sunlight using brighter colors than he would have expected—yellows and near-white. As though he were trying to heighten the contrast between the mood of the countess and the brightness of the spring day—almost a contrast of seasons. It was one of those unforeseen occurrences that invariably filled Kent with delight—a decision made on some other level, surprising for its rightness.

  He glanced up and found the countess hanging her head, as though absorbed in some private pain.

  “Lady Chilton? Should we pursue this at some other time?”

  She straightened up immediately. “No. The mage wants our portraits done with all speed.” She tried to smile. “Have I changed my position altogether?”

  Kent considered, shook his head, continued to gaze at her a moment more, and then returned to his canvas. It might be true that the countess was here of her own choosing, but he had seen it—profound doubt at this decision. Profound doubt and near-despair.

  Sixteen

  “The ulna,” the mage said softly. “One of the bones of the forearm.” Eldrich turned the charred fragment over gently. He had contemplated it for a day, consulting certain texts frequently. “Halsey was more resourceful than I realized,” he said to Walky. “Men are so easily underestimated. It is a lesson mages have never learned. And if I do not learn it . . . ?”

  The house creaked around them, in the grip of the storm. A wind dropped down the chimney, setting the fire in the hearth fluttering. Eldrich continued to stare at the bone Bryce had sent. It lay in a dusting of black ash upon a square of linen, so fragile that, left to the elements, it would be worn away in hours. Halsey’s last remains would vanish on the wind, as Teller’s followers had always done.

  “Resourceful,” Eldrich said, picking up the train of his thought, though not really speaking to the ever-attentive Walky, “but in the end he didn’t quite know what he was doing. His knowledge was not complete—fortunately.” The mage sat back in his chair, looking up at Walky. “Bring me seed.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The mage ground the seed to powder, breathing in the aroma released when the husks cracked. From a hook above the fire he took a kettle and poured, steaming water hissing into the ancient cup. Eldrich felt his nostrils flare—even after all these years—his eyes closing with pleasure, anticipation.

  He watched the slow swirl of liquid as he stirred, the steam coiling up in the firelight. Into the cup he spilled black cinder scraped from the bone, watched it float, spinning on the surface, then slowly soak through, turn slick, and founder. He stirred again, muttering a line of Darian, and raised the cup to his lips.

  “I will know you now.”

  Dipping a finger into the cup he bent to the floor and outlined his shadow, whispering the lines of an enchantment, and felt himself begin to float. He drained the cup and stood, the storm breaking around him in foam and spray. Yet for all its fury the wind barely rustled his coat. Eldrich walked across the rolling seas as though upon a dark, writhing landscape. Pale crests rose up, then toppled, tumbling to ruin. Far off, bright wires of light shot from cloud to cloud or flashed deep within the storm. Eldrich turned slowly, surveying the world, feeling the turmoil—his turmoil. From long experience he knew one must accept the reality—not argue with it.

  All around him was the rumble and hiss of seas as they raced and plunged to chaos and rose again. A whale’s back glided by, glistening, spume blown off on the wind. A storm petrel skittered across the surface, a prisoner of the wind.

  “Where are you?” Eldrich whispered.

  Beneath his feet a knot of kelp slowly rolled to reveal a face; bone-white blossoms for eyes.

  No one he knew, Eldrich thought at first, but then . . . “Halsey? Have I found you despite all?”

  A wave crest tumbled to foam, tearing away strands of the kelp, bits of the lips and jaw.

  The mouth moved. “I have found you,” it said.

  Eldrich felt himself lift on a crest, foam breaking around his knees.

  “He’s come for you, Lord Eldrich. Even now he is near. Nearer than you know.” The face grimaced, the blossoms that were its eyes fluttering in the gusts.

  “Who?”

  But another wave fell upon the decaying face, tearing it apart and leaving nothing but a carpet of pulp and detritus spread upon the sea.

  “Who has come?” Eldrich said again.

  He went on, not really walking but somehow floating above the seas that crumbled and lifted beneath him. The taste of salt and king’s blood, the bitter ash of Halsey’s death, fresh in his mouth—like blood and iron.

  Something dark before him. An enormous levia
than, he thought at first, but a flash of lightning revealed a ship, thrown on its beam ends, foundering in the crashing seas, its crew washed away.

  Eldrich stood upon the seas, and watched the great vessel heave up one final time, then in a rush of water and escaping air, it rolled and slipped beneath the surface, into the lightless world below.

  For a moment Eldrich remained, his emotions as confused as the sea—horror, and wonder, and fear. There was nothing but visions of death.

  Then he realized the top of a mast bobbed in the water, almost vertical, a pennant or scrap of sail fluttering from its tip. He went closer, drawn to see the flag, but a few feet away it became a coat worn by a sailor clinging to the last fragment of ship. A dark, little creature, shadow-eyed and light-limbed, not quite human. It eyed the mage warily, curling back its lips and hissing as Eldrich approached.

  The mage hesitated.

  A wave swept over the small man, burying him in pale foam—liquid starlight.

  The mast top swayed and bobbed as the wave passed, the creature still clinging desperately, its coat torn away. In the eerie light its feet and legs appeared to have fused in shadow.

  He bared his teeth at Eldrich again, though no noise was heard. Then, to the mage’s amazement, the creature uttered a curse of demons in Darian—the mage tongue.

  “What are you?” Eldrich asked.

  It only cursed him again, making a quick sign with a hand that was swiftly returned to the moving mast. A third wave broke over the creature, and for a moment Eldrich thought this one would do for it. But again it was there, the mast spinning slowly, gyrating like a top about to topple. And there it clung, its clothing torn away to reveal a dark, glistening skin, like a whale back—an odd shape to its hips and legs, more fish than man.

  Suddenly the water erupted all around, wingless birds rolling into the air, only to slip back into the chaotic seas. Dolphins, Eldrich realized.

  They curled out of the sea at every side, describing their perfect arcs, as numerous as raindrops. The creature on the mast was suddenly alert, chattering in Darian.