All Night Awake

by Sarah A. Hoyt

He trembled as if with a cold wind. If Quicksilver was dead, the world would dissolve. For how much more fodder would the rebellious dark elf need than that magical life?

  If Quicksilver was dead, the world was dead withal and, amid the shard and ruin of this Earth would Kit ramp and the wolf reign in blood and terror.

  In despair, Kit let his hands fall. They fell upon the cold iron of the stand that held up his porcelain basin.

  A flare of light, blue and white, and Kit felt a burn upon the flesh of his palms, and smelled the scorch upon the air.

  Yet he scant noticed the pain that smarted along his hands. Unminding, he took his right hand to his mouth, touched it to his lips.

  What had happened in his mind interested him more, for there, for a moment, the black wall had parted like a curtain. It had closed again, almost immediately. But it had parted long enough for Kit to glimpse....

  A memory crossed the black wall within Kit’s mind, a memory of stalking life, smelling it bright, hot, appetizing. He remembered bringing humans down and tearing them, and feeding, not so much on the flesh and blood, but on the suffering and agony of the victim.

  The memory froze him as though ice, creeping in at his finger tips, at his toe tips, climbed his limbs through accustomed route, bringing numbness and insensitivity with it.

  Shaking with cold, Kit heard himself still sobbing, and could no more stop it than he could stop shivering, or stop mourning for his elven love whom he had killed.

  Or had he killed Quicksilver? Did the wolf have that much power? Kit would imagine that if the wolf still needed, with craving hunger and necessary cruelty, to slay humans for his sustenance, so that he might grow strong enough for his aim, he, perforce, did not have enough power to dethrone the very king of elves.

  Or did he now? Were the murders just cruelty in action? Were they no more than an exercise of that active want of heart that Kit himself had known in himself now and then?

  Oh, no denying it, nor would Kit try it, that the wolf had come to Kit because of their likeness. Something of Kit’s unsoundness resonated with the wolf’s evil, both like a bell tuned to the same note, and in that note, they’d recognized each other, and the wolf had found entrance into Kit’s mind.

  But yet, the stalking and the craving felt like hunger.

  Kit must know. He must know what had become of his love.

  Taking a deep breath, he set his injured hands again to the cold iron, and, writhing in silent agony, half-mad with the pain, looked within, to see the curtain part once more.

  Behind that wall turned curtain the wolf cowered, cringing from the pain, more than even Kit did.

  What came at Kit from the wolf’s own mind was a sense that Sylvanus, the wolf, needed that life, needed that power that he so craved, so he could -- dethrone another dark monarch, his superior, and thus become ruler, sole ruler of human and elfland. But he didn’t have that power yet.

  The knowledge spread like a balm from Kit’s heart to soothe his lips contorted in spasm. Little by little, sobs quit emerging, of their own, from his tortured chest.

  Holding his hands onto the iron, not caring if he lost his hands wherewithal, if his capacity to write plays was gone when this was done, Kit felt a mad rush of energy tremble through his limbs, a mad need to do something, anything, to match the inner frenzy of his search for what he had lost.

  In a rush, he let go of the stand. In a rush, he stood, and threw cold water over his face, his hair, wringing bloody stain from them, and pouring the water out, and then again, pouring more water on the basin, and washing as much as he could from himself, before -- inevitably -- calling for the landlady to bring him more water.

  While his hands washed at the blood, he approached the black wall in his mind. A stealthy agent was what was needed, and Kit had been stealthy enough in the past, and often spied on others, so why shouldn’t he -- now -- spy upon the invader in his soul.

  His heart pounding, from the frenetic activity of his hands, as much as from his inner search, his inner fear, Kit approached the wall in his mind.

  He poured fresh water into the basin and washed himself, the attenuated red color in the basin, still showing blood but less of it.

  Again he set his hands to the iron, their pain somewhat eased by the cold water. Again he set a mental ear to his mind, and reached mental fingers to the needed knowledge.

  But he didn’t know what he was doing, and for a while nothing happened. Then just as Kit had given up and opened his door and, standing as much as he could behind it, had yelled for the landlady to bring more water, the wall gave. Or maybe the wolf, suspicious, frightened -- or perhaps amused -- reached for Kit’s mind.

  The wall became porous, or else broke. Kit didn’t know, couldn’t care. Because that moment was as bad as that first night in the alley.

  The wolf roared in, in all his glory, chasing Kit forth from the very haven of his mind, driving Kit to all the dark, forgotten pathways where, panting and screaming, he hid, and attempted to claw back. And then even from those, till Kit was the wolf, a dark, striding creature of the night, full of power and amused cruelty, a creature that could eat human life and laugh at it, a creature that enjoyed torture and suffering, a creature that longed for power with a thirst such as Kit Marlowe, no matter how parched, had never felt for ale or wine, or water, or even love.

  And yet, through this all he remained Kit, a Kit who felt much like a hunted rabbit under a falcon’s claws -- a Kit who trembled, all his limbs weak, and begged, in a voice that sounded, even to his ears, abject and pleading and weak, “Please, oh, please, no.”

  Yet the onslaught continued, wave upon wave of the wolf, of the wolf’s ancient knowledge, overpowering Kit.

  Kit wanted to reach for his washstand but lacked the control to move that far.

  The creature was two thousand years, at least, if not more, and the cold knowledge of all that age, lived without love, and in envy and calculation and hunger for power, overpowered Kit and frightened him.

  Standing behind his door, Kit remembered his doorknob was forged iron, and reached for it, eagerly, while with the other hand he reached back, to the cool plaster of the wall, to hold himself standing.

  At the same time, dimly attenuated, he heard his landlady shriek, and told himself he’d done it now, and he’d be killed.

  And wasn’t that what he wished? To be killed and freed from this torment?

  But Kit couldn’t truly desire death. He feared it too much. And besides, his landlady would not have him killed. She’d think him zany and send him to bedlam, where they’d beat him, and have him kept in chains, chains that the wolf would break nightly to prowl along the corridors. Kit would be in torment and the wolf free.

  He heard the wolf laugh at the idea -- a magical, cold, distant, elven laugh -- and then, in a flash Kit’s slow creeping fingers reached the doorknob and, in the flash of burn and pain, the part of Kit that remained Kit -- a small portion, cowering in the darker recesses of his mind -- knew that if such happened, if the wolf were allowed to continue his nightly magic-enlarging prowls, soon he’d be powerful enough to kill Quicksilver.

  In the wake of that, the knowledge poured into Kit that Quicksilver wasn’t dead, only imprisoned, in a magical dimension where neither man nor elf could reach him. Not while the wolf lived, and the wolf held sway because it was the wolf’s power that held Quicksilver there.

  In his mind, Kit saw Quicksilver, sitting alone and shivering -- his arms wrapped around himself for comfort -- in a comfortless land of grey nothing and tattered shades.

  Quicksilver flickered to Silver, and saw her hands extended to him, saw her mouth form the words, “Kit, I loved you well.”

  Above it, overpowering, the laughter of the wolf, made Kit shake.

  Oh, fie on that love that hatched death and hate. There Silver was, who was also Quicksilver, sovereign king of faerieland, reduced to nothing, or very little, surrounded on all sides, brought to heel, betrayed by fortune and suspicious love.
<
br />   And all for Kit.

  With the force of his new indignation, his new guilt and outrage at what he’d helped do, Kit pushed at the wolf, pushing back, using the cold iron that seemed to frighten the creature, the burn and the pain in Kit’s own hands, until Kit himself regained control of his limbs, managed to steady his wavering sight.

  And yet, his landlady screamed, two buckets of water resting at her feet, her hands to her head, her mouth wide open.

  From outside the door, Kit could hear rushing feet. How long had all this taken? From the woman’s pose, less than a heartbeat.

  Kit mustered his mouth to say, “Kind lady, please. It was just a turn. I am well, you see. I thank you for the water.”

  But within he labored mightily, with the force of hope, new hope that had come to him from knowing Quicksilver alive, to rebuild the wall that had torn down.

  If Quicksilver was alive, then Kit could ransom him. Only, he must find what the ransom would be, and, meanwhile, Kit must keep the wolf from rampaging still.

  One more life and the wolf would have the power, the strength he craved to end Quicksilver. And, once Quicksilver was gone, all would be lost, and the worlds clashing to their end.

  The end of all, save Kit alone, forever alone with the wolf and his own guilt.

  The Christian hell he wasn’t sure of believing in seemed like a comfortable and cheerful place by comparison.

  “A turn?” the landlady asked, spying Kit sidewise.

  Somehow the door had got closed, leaving Kit exposed, standing against the wall. The landlady no doubt could see all the blood on him, but that was not what he noted. He noted the quickening in her eye, the eager look.

  Kit almost sighed, but didn’t. He’d thought so for a long time, but he didn’t say it, that his landlady showed an interest. Interest or not, nothing was interesting to Kit. Kit had long been promised to his grave and to it would he be espoused soon enough, soon as he found one to perform the ceremony. Meanwhile, he could use the landlady’s partiality to his ends.

  The thought, new but not strange, came upon him like cooling, reviving water.

  From it he drew the strength to smile, from it the strength to return the landlady’s look with more interest than he meant to, from it the facile words to say, “I found a job in a slaughterhouse. I feared it might diminish me in your eyes, so I would not tell you. But coin has been scarce and I haven’t eaten. I had a turn of faintness just now, from an empty stomach. Nothing more.”

  She believed him. He could see that in her earnest brown eyes, of a sudden changing from lust to pity, though lust yet remained, like a flame that burned lower but was not for that extinct.

  Hands pounded on the door outside, and asked if she was all right. “I am fine,” she answered, with a steady voice. “It was a mouse I saw, and that frightened me. But Master Marlowe has taken care of it.” She smiled at him. “I’ll now downstairs, and fetch you some soup.”

  She opened the door and slid out, managing to hold the door half closed and not to afford the -- from the sound of them -- husband and sons outside a sight of the naked, blood-covered Kit.

  Kit locked the door, as she left, and, pouring the water onto the basin, continued to wash.

  Quicksilver was alive, and Kit would rescue him. How, Kit didn’t know, when Kit couldn’t speak of his predicament. But he would find a way. He must find the nearest emissaries of the hill, and to them he must send a message.

  There must be a way to speak other than with his own mouth, or his own hand, holding the pen. He was a playwright, after all, who often spoke through the mouths of actors.

  He must find a way to do that, a way to speak through others' mouths.

  The thought came to him of just how to do that, how to marshal his guilt to his use. But, he’d need magic.

  And what of it?

  He realized that in the time the wall in his mind had opened -- even if it was again closed tight -- he’d got enough knowledge of magic to do what he needed and more. Knowledge to raise the dead and predict the future a little while, and know what was happening a ways away. Knowledge to send his poor charms in search of the emissaries of faerieland.

  Knowledge to give them his message.

  Kit was also a descendent of Merlin -- this having been known and confirmed by the wolf -- and, as such, must have some power from the old sorcerer.

  As for whom he’d call....

  Marlowe got his one clean suit from inside the trunk, and thought he would have to ask the landlady to wash the others.

  He chuckled to himself, in his throat, and opened the door to the landlady, who came in, bearing a bowl of soup.

  She set it upon his writing table, no doubt smearing his papers.

  He bowed in recognition of her kindness.

  “Master Marlowe,” she said, hesitantly. “There is a man who would speak to you on a matter of urgent business.”

  He raised his brows. A man? If his fortune held it would be Will, and Will would have guessed that Kit had given shelter to the wolf and Will would know how to call upon the hill, and whom to call. “Send him up,” Kit said, with less caution than he’d ever exercised in his life in London.

  The landlady smiled, and patted Kit’s shoulder affectionately, and was gone.

  Moments later, he heard steps behind him and turned from the bowl of soup -- an indifferent pottage of lentil and mutton that he’d forced himself to choke down over the nausea of the wolf’s recent gorging -- and saw, not Will but a man he knew well from Scagmore. It was a servant of Sir Thomas Walsingham, Kit’s patron. He’d come, perhaps, to enquire how long Kit would be away.

  Kit stood, smiling and extended his hands, and said, “Ingram Frizer. What brings you to London, and what business have you to impart to me?”

  Frizer looked embarrassed, and didn’t respond to Marlowe’s friendly gesture.

  He was a big man, with a shock of dark blond hair, and slow-moving eyes of a dull grey. The eyes now goggled as he stared at Kit, and Frizer’s large, shapeless mouth struggled to form words that finally exited, “My master, Sir Walsingham sent me to say that he would like you meet with some people in Deptford, at Mistress Bull’s house, tomorrow, early morning as ever was.”

  Marlowe stopped. This he didn’t expect. This was surprising. Frizer and Skeres, both with the same message.

  Oh, true, before succeeding to the title on his older brother’s death, Tom Walsingham had worked in the secret service with Kit, under supervision of Francis Walsingham.

  But both of them had left all that behind.

  Or had they? Perhaps Tom was part of whatever operation was planned.

  “What for?” Kit asked. “Why should I?”

  Frizer frowned, a slow frown, that like the movement of his eyes appeared to require permission of a sluggish brain to move. “Business of import to you.”

  His life imported to him, too. But then, Kit had used Cecil’s name, when questioned, and Kit stood in danger of torture, under which he might well spill Walsingham’s secrets, the fortunes acquired by conning and usury and simple deviation of royal funds, all under cover of secret operations in her majesty’s service.

  So, they wanted to kill him, and little did they know, how welcome an assassin’s knife would be just now.

  Kit bit his lip, to avoid laughing. His hands pained him, like fresh-burned flesh. A token of the torments that waited the damned in hell? And yet that pain, and Frizer’s summons and all, all of it, were no more than silly jests, infant jokes.

  Kit bit his lip and fought back chuckles. He must show gravity yet a while. But he permitted himself a smirk as he said, “Tell your master that I’ll be there. Early morning as ever was.”

  Of a sudden, what had been frightening and vital -- these plots and counterplots of Kit’s once allies and sometime enemies -- now seemed petty, small, inconsequential, as the scuffles of children in a playground compared to the bloody battles that consumed countries.

  Adroitly, Kit made to get rid of Fr
izer, showing him down the stairs and to the door. He had no time to waste with these minions of the mortal powers. What was there to fear from them?

  Kit had a more vital game to play. One that, lost, could lose all of the world.

  Scene Twenty Nine

  Will’s bedroom. Will and Ariel come in from the street outside, both looking tired and pale.

  Ariel sank down on Will’s bed, and sat there, her hands over her face, trying to breathe, trying to think.

  What had Quicksilver done? What had the foolish elf wrought? How could Quicksilver’s power traces end there, where that gory, bloody kill was, destroyed by the wolf’s own fangs?

  Oh, Quicksilver, has your weakness led you to such evil? Are you, now, like Sylvanus, lost to goodness and the clean power of the hill? Am I to go back and acquiesce in Malachite’s schemes, just for the sake of giving the hill a king? Am I the only power left in faerieland?

  She rocked back and forth in her distress, and in her grief, she knew not where to turn. She did not want to reign alone in faerieland. Nor did she want to link herself to an elf who’d betrayed his master. She wanted.... She wanted.... She surprised herself by finding that she wanted Quicksilver.

  Oh, she’d wanted him before, abstractly, wanted him back, wished for him back, but just because he’d been used to be there, and because she refused to admit she had lost him.

  This want for Quicksilver that now appeared, fully formed, within herself, was something other.

  Not a need, not a fear-driven need for her lord. And not a desire to have him near so that she wouldn’t lose him.

  No, this need was other -- a plain necessity, a simple requirement, that Quicksilver be by, that Quicksilver be with her.

  She saw him, in her mind, as he was wont to be -- his all-too-facile smile, his all-too-easy mind, the weakness in his heart as he weighed decisions of state and always hesitated. She saw him in her mind turning to Silver, and from Silver again into Ariel’s lord, and both forms, both of them were yet Quicksilver, both twined in his inconstant heart.