River Into Darkness

by Sean Russell

  “And you do this for your church?”

  “For the men who were wronged and foully murdered. To bring contentment to this little corner of the world, for it was once a place of peace and beauty.” He paused. “And for the men who committed the atrocities against their will—believing they did the work of Farrelle, and only later realized what this meant to their immortal souls. They are more tormented than any. I sometimes think they will never find peace.”

  Anna felt a tear well up, quiver on the lashes, and then streak quickly down her cheek. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “But look what I do,” he exclaimed, seeing her tears. “I try to tell you something that might be of interest for your book—a bit of Caledon Hills history—and end by sending you into melancholia.” He touched her sleeve, not the flesh beneath, but where it lay on the table. “Let me tell you the good things that I have seen here. I believe that each time a bird builds a nest within the walls of the monastery it is a token—and each nestling that fledges and takes to the sky is the sign of another soul who has shaken off his burdens and gone free. And see how many they are . . . !” He waved a hand at the swallows that darted in and around the walls of the decaying buildings, lost to the joy of flight, the ecstasy of their brief life in this world.

  * * *

  * * *

  Anna swung up into the saddle, feeling strangely renewed. She looked down at Brother Norbert, his slightly unkempt beard, his stained smile.

  “You feel confident of my directions?” he said for the third time. “You don’t think I should ride with you until you find the path again?”

  “They could not be clearer, thank you Brother.” She marveled to hear herself saying thank you to a priest of Farrelle and meaning it, too. She bent in an odd, equestrian curtsy and then turned her mount. But not thirty feet on she stopped.

  “Brother Norbert? If my spirit appeared to you one day, would you forgive me and help me find peace?”

  “I would, yes.”

  “No matter what I had done in life?”

  “No matter what you had done,” he said, a vertical crease appearing between his eyebrows.

  The two considered each other for a moment longer, then Anna nodded and turned back to the trail. He had never asked her name.

  Twenty-Three

  Hills hidden in a sheen of fog and rain. A windless day, sounds seeming to originate from no discernable point but simply out of the air. Anna had stopped her horse to listen yet again. The sounds of the forest were heightened, though strangely hollow. Somewhere a raven croaked.

  “Only my own horses,” she told herself. Not some others following. Not yet.

  Chuff appeared out of the pale air, and landed on her packhorse, muttering his signature word—a complaint, she was sure. Even the birds found such weather unsettling.

  She clucked her tongue at her horse and led it on. The path was too easily lost in this fog, so she had chosen to walk, much of the time bent close to the ground. There was undoubtedly an enchantment to keep one from losing one’s way, but she didn’t know it, nor did it appear in Halsey’s book.

  She touched a hand to her breast, over her heart, feeling the tender flesh where the thorn had penetrated. No coincidence. She feared that it might even be the work of Eldrich—the child of thistle and thorn. As though he had marked her.

  She forced her attention back to her path, which disappeared often, for it was only used occasionally by hunters, and perhaps a bit more regularly by game. If this was not the path Brother Norbert had drawn on his map, it was at least very close, probably even parallel. There should be a river soon.

  Anna made her way through the dripping woods, rain running off the tip of her nose, seeping through her protective clothing. Her skin felt numb and softened, as though it might easily tear and she would not know.

  She stumbled over rock the color of fog, finding her footing on dark, caked mud. The raven croaked again, making her feel very alone. It rattled its bill, an eerie sound in this enfolding mist.

  A sound like onrushing rain came to her and she ducked her head down, prepared to be even wetter. There was no point in seeking shelter now, unless she began to shiver uncontrollably, then it would be time to make a fire—something she could do now without flint or tinder. She might even risk it—a brief use of the arts.

  The sound grew in intensity, like a downpour on flat water and broad leaves, but she could not tell from what direction it might originate. A breeze, at least, should precede it, something to carry the squall to her.

  Chuff landed on a branch, warning her bitterly of the coming rain.

  She held up an arm to brush soaking fir branches aside, but they sprang back, slapping her face with wet, green hands. She spit out fir needles, and then the ground opened before her.

  Anna slipped as she stopped, her horse stumbling into her, and the one behind driving it on. She was thrust toward the cliff and only saved herself by grasping a branch that mercifully did not break away. How her horse didn’t go over the edge she did not know. The bank gave way under one hoof that came too close to the edge, and the horse seemed poised to pitch into the void, the others jostling behind. She hauled on the reins, and the horse desperately thrashed for footing, somehow saving the moment.

  She stood looking down into the gorge, the jade-and- white river rumbling below—the sound of an approaching torrent—and she felt as skittish as her horses.

  “Blood and flames,” she said several times. “Blood and bloody flames.” Her chough landed momentarily on her shoulder; she felt its small, blood-red feet grip her coat.

  “Yes, I know. I did not listen to you, Chuff. I was tired and distracted and thought it was coming rain. But it was a gorge. Flames! Being able to swim might not have helped me here.”

  She stepped away from her horses as her familiar took to the air, flying out over the terrible space. Kneeling, she leaned over the edge, staring down into the green waters. A fairly calm pool lay beneath her, fed by several falls. Below this the water turned to white, flowing between rocks as it dropped from one green pool to the next—water the color of arsenic, she thought.

  Two hundred feet farther along, a bend hid the river from view. Anna lifted a stone and tossed it into the pool, watching it make a star of white and then sink into the deepening green.

  She looked around, rose, and stepped back from the precipice. She had almost fallen—like the night of her vision. Fallen and landed among the stars.

  Twenty-Four

  They would descend into pools of mist that hung in the valleys as though they were walking down into mountain lakes. Erasmus felt each time like a forest sprite or some other creature of myth and magic. But once into the pool their pace slowed to some fraction of normal. If Anna was far enough ahead not to be caught in this same situation, she would be rapidly escaping.

  Pryor assured them that they would be down in the lowlands in two days, that is if they were not in fog for most of that time.

  Erasmus wondered how the lad was doing. He caught only occasional glimpses of the boy through the fog—bent inertly over his shaggy horse. Pryor was so lost to his grief that Erasmus feared he might lose the trail from lack of concentration. The poor boy was so despondent that he was not even contemplating revenge. If not for his charges chasing this woman—this woman who had murdered his brother—he would likely have lain down in the rain and never moved again. Nothing mattered to the boy—as though his future had been erased and there was no longer any reason to strive.

  Grief, Erasmus thought. He was not a stranger to it himself. For several years after being sent home from the house of Eldrich he had experienced bouts of it over Percy’s death.

  “Mr. Flattery!” It was Clarendon calling through the mist, still insisting on using formal address for some unknown reason.

  Erasmus was afraid to pull his horse up, for Pryor would likely go on, and they would l
ose him.

  Clarendon managed to catch up with him though the path would not allow them to quite ride side by side.

  “Mr. Flattery, there are signs of horses joining the trail just behind us.”

  “Pryor!” Erasmus shouted, shaking the boy out of his reverie. “Did you hear? Randall has seen signs of horses.”

  Pryor slipped off his mount, dropping the reins to the ground, effectively anchoring his horse to that place. Erasmus and Clarendon fell in behind the boy as he passed, his face so lifeless that Erasmus actually felt alarm.

  They passed the others, and in a moment Pryor was crouching down, touching the marks of horses that were rapidly washing away in the rain.

  “Is it Anna?” Hayes said, coming up. Pryor had an uncanny ability to tell the hoof prints of one horse from those of another, and they had seen Anna’s often enough now.

  Pryor moved a few feet, never looking up. Then he shook his head. “Ours,” he said.

  It took a moment to sink in.

  “That’s enough for today, I think,” Erasmus said. “No point riding in circles. It’s only three hours until sunset—not that one can tell on such a day, but let us rest and hope the fog lifts by morning.”

  Camp was struck and a rough lean-to made from cedar boughs. Fire proved even beyond the skill of their guide, so they ate a cold meal and settled down as best they could, pressed too close.

  Erasmus, who had great need for privacy, was feeling the proximity of others. Couple that with the frustrating day, and he found he had to exercise great self-control to remain civil. The others were irritable as well. Erasmus could feel the strained politeness. Deacon Rose was particularly quiet, sensing the mood and knowing that it was most likely toward him that any ugliness would be aimed. Indeed, Erasmus thought Kehler and Hayes were just waiting for the priest to give them an opening.

  Clarendon had not quite recovered his usual gracious manner, but he seemed to have overcome his recent bitterness and was making some effort to rebuild his bonds with the others, though awkwardly—he was a man too used to being mocked and rebuffed.

  Since Clarendon had admitted to Erasmus that he had not told his whole story, he’d seemed different. Somehow he had formed an attachment strong enough with this group, and perhaps Erasmus in particular, that he could no longer live with the lie.

  He feels shame, Erasmus thought.

  Erasmus felt that the very air was thick with confusion and misunderstanding, emotions close to the surface, as though the worst of human frailties had been exposed by their encounter with Eldrich. Not the first the mage had done this to, Erasmus knew.

  Why does he bring out the worst in men?

  Hayes was being very solicitous of his friend Kehler, making a concerted effort to cheer him, though to little effect.

  This is what came of meeting a force that could be neither reasoned with nor defied.

  Suddenly unable to bear the company of others, as the melancholic often could not, Kehler rose, muttered some excuse, and slipped away into the falling dusk.

  An unsettling silence followed Kehler’s retreat.

  Clarendon took a long breath and said softly;

  “Dark, dark the night

  And my heart is no lighter.

  Bleak will tomorrow rise

  And each day thence no brighter.”

  They all turned to stare at Clarendon, barely visible in the gloom. Pryor rose suddenly and stepped out into the fog without explanation. Erasmus almost thought he heard the boy muffle a sob.

  “If that was an attempt to cheer us, Mr. Clarendon, then I must tell you it failed utterly,” Hayes said.

  “I—I did not mean . . .” But he didn’t finish.

  “You might have some consideration for the boy,” Rose said. “He has suffered great loss at the hands of that . . . woman.” He fell quickly silent, realizing he had meant to keep his peace that evening.

  Clarendon eyed the priest with obvious disdain. “We all saw you break down our dam and drown poor Banks,” he said coldly. “Do not grow suddenly solicitous of others. It is as much a lie as all the other lies you have concocted.”

  Erasmus could not make out the priest’s face but could see his silhouette stiffen.

  “And who is it who speaks of truth and lies? A man who has been so completely forthcoming with his friends that they have all come to doubt him. Lies? You have lied to us from the beginning, Mr. Clarendon, and we all know it.”

  Clarendon began to bluster, but this fizzled out into a protracted silence in which Erasmus could almost feel the little man’s pain.

  “You have all sided with the priest, is that it?” the small man managed after a moment, his tone bruised and quiet.

  No one answered for a moment, and then Erasmus cleared his throat. “Perhaps, Randall, it is time that you completed your tale . . . as you suggested when we spoke.”

  A long silence followed. Erasmus could see Clarendon hang his head, though in the dark he could not tell if this was shame or merely contemplation.

  “You do not know,” Clarendon said after a moment. “You cannot.” He raised his head as though contemplating the others through the dark. “You were all blessed at birth. Born neither infirm nor deformed. You can never understand what it is like for those like me. Yes, I did not tell my story in its truest form, and all I can offer in defense is that much of it is difficult to tell, or to contemplate.” He paused. “I have long thought that no one would believe it, for it is hard to credit—and at times I have had trouble believing it myself. You should also remember that even Mr. Flattery did not begin by telling his true story.”

  Erasmus could feel the others look at him. Even if they did not, he knew why he had felt sympathy for Clarendon in his obfuscation. Not everyone’s past was a tale of joy.

  In the fog-bound silence Erasmus could hear the others breathing, sense them waiting for what would be said next.

  “Most of what I said was true, or true in essence, if not fact. Yes, I was a performer in the traveling show I spoke of. And my father did indeed drink himself to death. His so-called wife, Lizzy, did gain custody of me. All of that is true. But beyond that . . . there begin some deviations from the strict . . . facts.

  “You see, we did not leave the traveling show as soon as Lizzy gained custody. We . . . I remained for some months. During this time she did fall victim to a cad—the aforementioned Colonel Winslow Petry. But events were not quite what I claimed.” Clarendon shifted where he sat, his voice now quiet and laden with sadness.

  “I know that life with Lizzy was less than perfect, for she had her own peculiarities, and it became even less than ideal when Petry appeared. The man was a brute. . . .” Clarendon drew a long breath to calm himself.

  “And Lizzy, who was liberal with her affections, too often gave him excuse to misuse her.

  “One of Lizzy’s eccentricities was a belief in spiritualism and the ability of some to contact the spirits. She was a victim of every table knocker in Farrland and beyond, I sometimes think. Odd in a woman who was so shrewd in other ways.

  “A new conjurer joined the traveling show not long after my father’s demise and, among his many other gifts, he claimed to be able to contact the spirits. I was still quite young at the time, and though not living in surroundings that encouraged innocence, I remained, in many ways, somewhat trusting and naive.” Clarendon’s voice changed as he spoke, charged with sadness and loss, but with some undercurrent of pleasure as well, as though memories of Lizzy warmed him.

  “This conjurer was a man of some interest, and not just because I was a child and fascinated by such things. I must have been aged about eleven at the time. He did tricks that no one in the show had seen before—and they had seen any number of such performances in the past, most of them variations on a few themes and well-worn ruses.

  “Magnus was a man of some presence—tall a
nd dark with a vast mustache that he waxed up into impressive points. He had a smile that all the ladies in the show remarked upon, and their finer qualities did not go unnoticed by him either, I suspect.

  “But I digress. On a particular night Magnus offered to make contact with the spirits and perform some other feats as well. Most of the people who were paying to be part of this sham were locals, but a few were members of the traveling show—my cherished Lizzy among them.

  “‘The calling,’ as it was named, took place in a tent used for one of the sideshows. As Lizzy would be inside and Petry’s attentions were taken up with a bottle and one of the other women in the show, I contrived to conceal myself near a flap where I could watch what occurred without being seen.

  “The obligatory tapers were burning and the participants clasping hands in a circle about a table when I slipped into my place. I had actually hesitated a while before I came, afraid that Magnus, who seemed to have abilities that no one understood, would discover me. But curiosity won out in the end, and with a thumping heart, I watched.

  “Magnus was as good a showman as conjurer and held us all in thrall while he worked his ‘magic.’ He began having the table lift—a common enough trick for table knockers. He then performed a ritual of sorts, calling out in what I now guess was a faux language. There were several parts to the ritual, and I will not burden you with needless detail, but at the end the candles all blew out and a strange milky light appeared to hover high above the table. To this he spoke, and, in turn, it answered.” Clarendon paused for a moment. Erasmus could feel the pain, as though he watched a man open a septic wound.

  “A distant-sounding voice came from the milky light, though it did not speak Farr or any other language I had heard; and, as you know, my memory for such things is unsurpassed. Magnus interpreted what was said, and soon those present were allowed to ask questions which were then interpreted to the being in the light, or so it seemed. No one was allowed to speak directly to the spirits they sought, but everything went first through Magnus, and then through his counterpart in the spirit world. Despite this device being problematic in every way, the responses appeared to affect the people, causing them often to gasp and occasionally turn rather ashen.