River Into Darkness

by Sean Russell

  Twenty-Nine

  Eldrich paced before the many-paned glass doors, dark against the morning brightness. After several slow passes, he turned to look at his servants, Walky and Bryce, who waited with studied patience.

  “I am disappointed in you, Bryce.”

  His servant swallowed and nodded.

  Eldrich glared at Bryce. “What would lead you to do such a thing?”

  “She claimed Erasmus told her many things. Showed her writing in Darian.”

  “Erasmus would do no such thing! Really, Bryce, Erasmus is a man of some character and intelligence, not the youth you remember. You cannot think the worst of a child because he acts as a child any more than you can judge a horse for having no sense.” The mage looked at Walky. “What does she want, do you think?”

  Walky tilted his head to one side, considering not so much the question as the woman he had met. “I think it is safe to say that she wants only to be reassured the countess is unharmed and here of her own choosing. I do not think she is so foolish as Kent. Miss Edden has not come here with thoughts of rescue.”

  “Is she attractive, this writer?” Eldrich asked suddenly.

  “Well, she turns herself out very plain, sir,” Walky answered, showing no surprise at the question, “but she has a great deal of charm, a dry wit, and a lucid intelligence. Attractive? In the larger sense, sir, I would say, yes.”

  Eldrich actually smiled. “The countess will become jealous, Walky. Careful how you go.” He paced again. “Allow her to see the countess. I will speak with her this evening after I have seen Skye.” He paused to look at Bryce again—as though reappraising the man in light of his recent actions. “If Erasmus and the others went into the hills after this woman, as you say, then they should emerge soon. I want you there when they appear. Bring them to me, especially this man Clarendon.” He continued to look at Bryce for a few seconds and then turned away. “I trust there will be no more surprises this day.”

  The mage did not say more, but went back to his pacing, servants dismissed from his mind, his thoughts entirely taken up with other matters; dilemmas he pondered in his silence and essential solitude.

  * * *

  * * *

  The countess released Marianne from their third embrace, held her back at arm’s length, and shook her head. “I still can’t believe it. How in this round world . . . ?”

  “Well, you will hardly believe it,” Marianne said, disentangling herself from the countess, a bit embarrassed by such a display of emotion, “but I found Skye at the side of the road. His carriage had broken down, and he was traveling in the company of this man Bryce. You remember, he was said to be the servant of whomever was staying in Baumgere’s house. Well, I knew from Kent that this is where Eldrich was secluded, so clearly Bryce was a servant of the mage.”

  “But you did not believe Kent!”

  “I did once you had been whisked away.” Then her eyes narrowed, almost closing at the memory. “Yes, I know this is all my fault. If only I had listened to Kent, you would have slipped away into Entonne and all this would have been avoided.”

  “Yes,” the countess said, “but we doubted him, and I did not want to believe that I had visited the mage and kept no memory of it.”

  “Then Kent was right; you are here against your will?”

  The countess shook her head. “No, I am here of my own folly. Caught by curiosity and—Well, suffice it to say that I entered into a bargain with Lord Eldrich—a devil’s bargain, certainly. But one does not break one’s word to a mage.” She looked up at Marianne and tried to smile.

  “Then you would leave if you could.”

  The countess shook her head. “No. I . . . I would not leave. It is complicated, Marianne, and much of it the mage would not want me to repeat. Trust that I am here of my own choosing, and that I am not the victim of any enchantment. It is the truth, if overly simplified.”

  “But, Elaural . . .” Marianne looked suddenly deeply hurt and unhappy. “What will become of you? Will you ever return to us? To your friends?”

  “I have only a very few friends, and I hope I will return to you in time. I . . . I cannot say. The mage is secretive, and to be honest, I think even Eldrich is not sure of events.” She slumped down suddenly on the window seat, and Marianne took the place opposite her.

  “I am confused by much that goes on here, Marianne. Augury is not at all what I thought.” She opened her hands and let them drop into her lap. “Imagine that you were navigating a ship through fog in changing winds and currents. Every now and then the fog opened up enough that you might see you steered toward rocks, so you change course, but the fog settles in again, and because of the changing winds and current, you can’t be sure of your course. All the same, you do what you think you must to avoid the rocks.

  “Outside forces, currents and winds, are operating ceaselessly. The fog might open again and show the rocks all but beneath your keel, or you might have passed them safely by, only to see some new danger. I know this hardly makes sense, but this is how augury appears to me. Nothing is fixed. A long time ago the mages had a vision of some terrible cataclysm. Clearly, this is the reason they have disappeared and taken their arts with them. The cataclysm would result from their arts. Do you see? So they have allowed themselves to become extinct, as it were, to avoid this event. But nothing is carved in stone. Events might arrange themselves so that the arts survive, despite all that they do, and the cataclysm takes place all the same. Do you see? It is not that things are fated, prescribed. Our actions have effects, though we might never understand what they will be.

  “I suppose it is rather like life. We take actions that we think will be to our benefit and sometimes, despite all, they lead to tragedy. And Eldrich is caught up in this . . . trying to see deeper into the future than others. Watching the changes, trying to understand the forces at play. And I am part of it, somehow. Almost a hedge against possible events. It is not yet clear if I will have a part, or what it will be.

  “It is difficult to describe, for Eldrich is convinced that others arranged events so that I would be here to tempt him in some way. Oh, I don’t really understand. It is all so strange and sounds perfectly preposterous when spoken aloud like this.” The countess looked up at her friend, seeing the worry written on her face.

  “But, Marianne . . . what will Eldrich do with you? Why has he allowed you to see me at all?”

  “I don’t know. I convinced Bryce that Erasmus had told us all manner of secrets about his time in the house of Eldrich. So he brought me here, as I hoped. I wanted to see you, to reassure myself that you were unharmed.”

  The countess tried not to let her concern show. “You should never have done this. The mage is not patient.” She looked out the window at the line of trees that marked the boundary of her world.

  “It is so very odd. I came with Eldrich thinking I would be isolated from my friends, and you have all come to me. Kent was here—and oddly they were almost expecting him. Oh, not him precisely but a painter.

  “And now you. And Skye is here, too, you say? Skye . . . I had thought I’d never see the man again. I had almost put him from my mind.” She shook her head in wonder. “I’ve come to believe that I do not understand life at all, Marianne. Eldrich spends all of his time trying to part the veils of time, but it does him little good, for matters seem to change continuously. He does not seem to believe in coincidence. In his world nothing happens by chance—as though there is a pattern, however fluid. When Kent arrived, noble foolish Kent, Walky named it a good sign, saying they had been ‘awaiting the painter.’” She looked up at Marianne, a smile spreading across her face. “And then Eldrich had him paint two portraits, one of him and one of me, and sent him off. And just when I had begun to despair that I would be left alone in this strange house, you arrive and bring Lord Skye in tow. I cannot begin to imagine what will occur next. I cannot.”

 
Marianne laughed, raising her eyebrows. “It’s only recently that you’ve come to believe that you don’t understand life? I’ve never understood. People praise me for my ‘vision,’ but I will tell you, I have none. Not as they mean it, at least. I write about people caught up in matters that mystify them, making intelligent decisions that go wrong, or drawing foolish conclusions that come out right.

  “Why, I know some utterly ridiculous people—not a sensible thought in their heads—who cannot seem to do anything that does not turn out brilliantly. If they were to buy shares in a company that was bankrupt, they would discover the next day that their offices sat upon a field of gold. And they think themselves geniuses! Yet they are nothing more than lucky, for lack of a better word—repeatedly lucky! And I’m sure we both know people who are the opposite. And that is to say nothing of who is deserving and what happens to them. How can anyone make sense of it?” A silence fell between them as though neither of them could keep up this false exuberance.

  Marianne fixed a very serious look upon the countess. “What are you to Eldrich, Elaural? And what is he to you? Is there . . . sympathy between you?”

  “Sympathy . . . ?” The countess was surprised at how guarded her tone had become. “No, I would not say that. There is . . . magnetism would perhaps describe it. And there is something more. I was meant for him, Marianne. To tempt him in some way. To lead him into some fatal error that would allow the arts to be renewed. That is what I have come to believe from the few hints the mage has given and the odd thing I have managed to pry from Walky.” The countess looked up at her friend, wondering if she looked as forlorn as she felt at the moment. “Do you see? All along I have had some other purpose. This mad attraction that men feel toward me . . . it is not real, not me at all, but a result of the arts. And Eldrich was never meant to realize it. But they underestimated his skill, it seems, for he did realize. So I am here, partly to find out what my place is in this larger story. Can you understand, Marianne? I am like a character in one of your novels who realizes she is in a book but continues on just to see how it all comes out, what her part is.”

  “That made no sense at all,” Marianne said, “and it frightens me a little that I understood what you meant. But if you are intended to tempt Eldrich into some terrible mistake, why does he keep you here? Why does he not send you away, or worse? Would that not be the safest thing? To not let you endanger his purpose?”

  The countess shook her head. “I am not sure, exactly. Perhaps those who bespelled me knew he would not send me away—that he could not, even if he divined my purpose. It is impossible to say, Marianne. He is complicated and secretive. You have never met a man so secretive. And his pride is great. I sometimes think that he hopes to turn me to his own purpose, as though to prove his skill greater than those who sent me—as if he could prove something to the dead.”

  “Now that sounds more like a man. The ‘great men’ I have met, at least. Their pride is beyond all.” Marianne raised her eyebrows. “Now, I should not pry—”

  “You should not,” the countess agreed quickly and firmly.

  Marianne nodded resignedly.

  A long silence overcame them, extending to several minutes. “Have I angered the mage, do you think?” Marianne finally asked, her voice softly harsh. “Will he exact some . . . retribution for what I’ve done?”

  “I don’t know, Marianne,” the countess said, relieved that the subject had changed. “Kent was sent off unharmed, I’m sure. I think the mage will do the same with you—he does not seem to be quite so fearsome as the legends indicate. But you must realize one thing—you will not go from this place with the memory of your visit intact. Eldrich does not allow that.”

  Marianne’s gaze flicked up, her mouth opening a little in surprise. “What are you saying? That he will do to me what was done to you? I will awake as though from a daze, and not even know if you are well or no?” She rose from the window seat, half-turning away. “Elaural . . . I transmute my memories into gold. Do you understand? They are more precious to me than fame or fortune or reputation. They are the raw materials from which I build. He cannot touch them. . . . He cannot!” She turned back to the countess, her face ashen. “You must speak with him. He must not tamper with my mind as though it were some hack’s manuscript—cutting out what does not please him. You must tell him, Elaural. You must. . . .”

  * * *

  * * *

  Skye did not remember. Bryce had said that he’d met Eldrich before, but he had not even the slightest recollection, not the vaguest image of what the mage might look like. More memories that had been stolen from him, but in this case the cause was known—as was the cure. Eldrich could restore what he had taken, of that Skye was certain. The mage might even be able to do more.

  Skye had been abandoned by Bryce and put into the care of a round little man of distracted disposition who now took him to see the mage. It was odd that a man of Eldrich’s forbidding reputation should have as a servant an innocuous little man easily mistaken for a retired schoolmaster. This had set Skye’s overwound nerves at ease, a little.

  Even so, he was not relaxed. Not so much because he was intimidated, though he would admit that he was, but because this was almost certainly his only chance. If he could not find a way to have Eldrich restore his memories now, then he would almost certainly live without them the rest of his days. It was an opportunity not to be thrown away.

  And yet he knew almost nothing of the mage. Like all of his kind, he was said to be arrogant and insensible to the concerns of others. It went without saying, then, that he had no patience for men, whom he considered to be vastly his inferiors. How did one appeal to such a man?

  The irony of the situation was that Skye, in his dealings with others, was usually in the position of Eldrich. Men, even accomplished men, were intimidated by him, by his vast reputation, and he had little patience for them, considering them a bother. They interrupted his important work with foolish questions and harebrained schemes. And the truth was, he was often less than polite to them.

  And now how did one proceed? How did men catch the attention of the notoriously impatient Skye? Most often, they didn’t, and the truth of it was that it depended on his mood and what they had interrupted. When he did take time to listen, it was usually to men who spoke politely, but directly, and who did not presume too much. Men who obviously had common sense, and did not ask much of him. After all, Skye had been the patron of more than one promising young empiricist, the champion of a few causes. He was not as selfish and impossible as he was made out to be. Was he?

  The man named Walky stopped before a door, tapped softly and then opened it a crack. “Lord Skye,” he said into the room beyond, and pushed the door open, nodding Skye through.

  A singular tingling seemed to run through Skye’s body just below the skin. It was not a sensation he’d had before, and it left him feeling cut off from himself, like his personality had been set adrift from his body. Somehow he managed to move forward.

  Was this some spell? Some enchantment that emanated from the mage? Skye felt he might lose his balance at any time.

  A dark-haired man sat in a chair before the window reading what appeared to be a very ancient book. On the table, a single candle flickered, emitting a furtive light that left most of the room, which Skye sensed was large, in shadow.

  Six paces distant Skye waited, and after the threshold between impolite and outrageously rude had been breached he considered clearing his throat—but didn’t. Somehow he thought this would not have the desired effect.

  The thought of turning around and leaving crossed his mind, but stories of mages rooting people to the spot were numerous, and though Skye was a little doubtful of these, still—

  Eldrich finally looked up, the book remaining open, held by one elegantly formed hand. Eldrich regarded him for a moment, with an unsettling disinterest, and then nodded. “When you met that woman at the ho
use of Mary Finesworth—you remember, there were some few agents of the Admiralty there in various states of stupor.”

  Skye nodded.

  “There might have been things you observed but later did not recall. I want you to turn your mind back to that night again. Close your eyes. Imagine every tiny thing you did or thought. Tell me: You arrived by carriage. . . .”

  “Yes.” Skye closed his eyes as he had been bidden, forming a picture of that night. Had it rained?

  “A woman answered the door?” Eldrich prompted.

  “The faded woman . . .” Skye felt himself falling into a dreamlike trance. He almost believed he was there. He could smell the evening, feel the night on his skin. It had rained, though barely. The door opened, and a woman appeared.

  * * *

  * * *

  A hand on his arm guided him through the dusk—no, he was inside in poor light.

  “You’re perfectly hale, Lord Skye. Just through the door now.” It was the small man, returned, and he was leading Skye out of the room.

  Eldrich.

  Skye tried to shake his arm loose but found himself too weak. “No. . . . I—I must speak with Lord Eldrich.” Unable to free himself, he planted his feet and twisted his neck to look back. A tall man stood before the window, a single candle, twinned in the dark glass, touched him there and here—as though he were composed, for the most part, of shadow.

  “Let him speak, Walky,” came the oddly musical voice. Why did this sound chill him?

  “Sir,” Skye began, trying to remember what it was that was so important. “Sir . . . I suffered the loss of my memories as a child. I don’t know if I have been of any service to you, or if I can be, but I would gladly exchange anything I might have, any service, to have these memories returned to me.”

  Eldrich did not turn around but spoke to the glass, his words seeming to take on the night chill as they reflected back. “Exchange? But people serve me, willingly or no. What have you to exchange that I cannot have at no cost? No, Lord Skye, it would be a bad bargain—for both of us, I fear. Would you be so intent on this if I told you that you’d be a happier man not knowing?”