Nightworld ac-6

by F. Paul Wilson

  But nothing happened.

  Bill stepped back from the instrument, his entire body trembling.

  "I—I don't know whether to laugh or cry."

  "Well, then, who is it?" Carol said in a high voice verging on anger. "It's got to be somebody!" She turned to Glaeken. "And who said it has to be a man?"

  Glaeken had no answer for that, and Carol wasn't waiting for one anyway. She stepped forward, lifted the hilt, and rammed it back down.

  Nothing.

  "Don't tell me we went through all this for nothing!" she said. "It's gotto—"

  She spotted the watcher at the far end of the room. "Sylvia! Sylvia, you try it. Please."

  Sylvia wiped away a tear. "I don't…"

  "Just come over and do it."

  Leading Jeffy by the hand, Sylvia approached the instrument. She made eye contact with no one.

  "This is a waste of time," she said.

  The words proved too true. She released Jeffy, lifted the hilt, and rammed it home with no more effect than anyone before her.

  How pathetic they are.

  Rasalom has watched the members of Glaeken's circle stride up to the odd conglomeration of metals and spirit standing in the center of the room, each so full of hope and noble purpose, and watched each of them fail. He relishes the growing despair in the room, thickening and congealing until it is almost palpable.

  And something else growing there…anger.

  When their trite little totem fails, they will begin to turn on each other.

  Luscious.

  Glaeken watched Sylvia tug the hilt free of the spike and turn in a slow circle. This time she made eye contact—and her gaze was withering.

  "This is it?" her voice bitter, brittle. "This is all we get? Alan loses his life, Jeffy sinks back into autism, all for what? For nothing?"

  "Maybe it's Nick," Bill said.

  "No," Sylvia said disdainfully. "It's not Nick."

  "Maybe it wasn't refurbished right," Jack said. "Or like Glaeken said, maybe it's too late. Maybe the signal can't get through."

  "Oh, it's too late all right," she said, continuing her slow turn. "Too late for Alan and Jeffy." Finally her turn brought her around to Glaeken. She stopped and glared at him. "But it's not too late for you, is it, Glaeken?"

  "I'm afraid I don't understand."

  "Yes, you do." She lifted the hilt higher, straining against its weight. "This is yours, isn't it?"

  "It's predecessor was, before it was melted down and—"

  "It's still yours, isn't it?"

  Glaeken felt his mouth going dry. Sylvia was trespassing along a path he dearly wished her to avoid.

  "Not anymore. Someone new must take it up now."

  "But it wants you."

  "No!" What was she saying? "I served my time—more than my time. Someone else—"

  "But what if no one but Glaeken will do?"

  "That's not possible."

  She lifted the hilt still higher. Her expression was fierce.

  "Try it. Just try it. Let's see what happens. Then we'll know for sure."

  "You don't understand," Glaeken said. His arthritic lower back was shooting pain down his left leg so he eased himself into the straight-back chair against the wall directly behind him. "I served my time. You can't ask me to serve again. No one has that right. No one."

  He saw Jack step closer to Sylvia. He kept his voice low but Glaeken made out the words.

  "Chill, Sylvia. Look at him. He's all rusted up. Even if he's the one it wants, what can he do against all that's going on out there?"

  Sylvia stared Glaeken's way a moment more, then shook her head.

  "Maybe. But there's something else going on here. Something he's not telling us." She handed the hilt to Jack. "You figure it out."

  She took Jeffy by the hand and led him from the room.

  Jack glanced down at the gold and silver hilt in his hand, then looked at Bill.

  "Only one other person left to try."

  As they led Nick to the blade, wrapped his hands around the hilt, and guided it over the butt spike, Glaeken rose stiffly to his feet and walked down the hall to the rear of the apartment. He needed to be alone, away from the oppressive despair in the living room.

  He stopped at Magda's bedroom and looked in. She was sleeping. That was all she seemed to do these days. Maybe that was a blessing. He took a seat at her bedside and held her hand.

  Sylvia and the others didn't—couldn't—understand. He was tired. They didn't know how tired one could be after all this living. To have engineered one last victory, or merely to have launched a final battle against Rasalom would have been wonderful. He could have gone blissfully to his death then. But that was not to be. He would die in the darkness like everyone else.

  No, he couldn't risk even going near the instrument. Who knew what the reaction might be? It might start everything over again, and once more he would be in the thrall of the ally power. Forever.

  I've done my part. I've contributed more than my share. They cannot ask for more.

  Someone else had to carry on the fight.

  "Where's my Glen?"

  Startled by the words, spoken in Hungarian, Glaeken looked down and saw that Magda was awake, staring at him. Their litany was about to begin. Her memories were mired in the Second World War, when they both had been young and fresh and newly in love.

  "I'm right here, Magda."

  She pulled her hand away. "No. You're not him. You're old. My Glen is young and strong!"

  "But I've grown old, my dear, like you."

  "You're not him!" she said, her voice rising. "Glen is out there in the darkness fighting the Enemy."

  The darkness. Some part of her jumbled mind was aware of the horrors outside, and knew Rasalom was involved.

  "No, he isn't. He's right here beside you."

  "No! Not my Glen! He's out there! He'd never let the Enemy win! Never! Now get away from me, you old fool! Away!"

  Glaeken didn't want her to start screaming, so he rose and left her.

  "And if you see Glen, tell him his Magda loves him and knows he won't let the Enemy get away with this."

  The words stung, setting their barbs into the flesh of his neck and shoulders and trailing him down the hall toward the living room.

  The living room…it looked like a wake. The five silent occupants were separated by a few feet of space, but were miles apart, each closed off, locked behind the walls of their own thoughts. And fears.

  Even here.

  Ba sat cross-legged against the far wall, eyes closed, silent. Jack and Sylvia stood at opposite ends of the long room, each staring out at the eternal blackness. Even Bill and Carol were apart, sitting silent and separate on the couch.

  And here am I, he thought, separated from them and from my wife, as cut off from the rest of humanity as I've ever been.

  Rasalom had won outside, and he was beginning to win in here.

  And then Glaeken saw Jeffy. The boy was on his knees before the coffee table, his hands gripping the hilt where it lay on the table top, his cheek pressed down against it, as if some part of him knew that what he was missing was locked within the cold reaches of the metal.

  All their sacrifices…all their faith in him…Rasalom eternally victorious…

  Anger erupted within Glaeken like one of the long dormant volcanoes in the Pacific, exploding in his chest, engulfing him in its fiery heart.

  Rasalom winning…having the last laugh…

  It comes down to that, doesn't it? Me against him. That's what it's always been.

  And suddenly Glaeken knew he couldn't allow Rasalom to win. If there was one chance, no matter how slim, he had to take it.

  He found himself moving, crossing the room toward Jeffy, lifting him gently away from the hilt.

  "Sylvia," he said, keeping his voice calm. "Take him and stand back."

  Sylvia rushed over and pulled Jeffy away.

  "Why? What's happened?"

  "Nothing yet. And perha
ps nothing at all will happen. But just in case…"

  Glaeken stared down at the hilt, hesitating.

  This is what you want, isn't it? he thought, speaking silently to the power he had served for millennia, wondering if it could hear him. You want me back. You let me go and now you want me back. Will no one else do?

  The hilt was silent, gleaming coldly in the flickering light of the silent room. Wondering which he hated more, Rasalom or the power to which he had allied himself ages ago, Glaeken reached down and wrapped his gnarled fingers around the hilt.

  Memories surged though him at the metal's touch. Yes, the hilt was alive. The entity that had been the Dat-tay-vao welcomed him back. The smallfolk had done their job well.

  And as much as he hated to admit it, the hilt felt as if it belonged in his hands.

  He turned toward the blade.

  "Everybody back."

  What is that?

  Rasalom is disturbed by another ripple through the enveloping chaos above. Bigger. A wavelet this time.

  He spreads his consciousness. It's that instrument again. And this time Glaeken himself is holding it. It's the reunion of the man and the living metal that is disturbing. No matter. A minor disturbance, and short lived.

  "Too late, Glaeken!" he shouts into the subterranean dark. "Too late!"

  "Don't look," Glaeken said.

  But Carol had to look. As soon as Glaeken had touched the hilt the air of the living room became charged.

  She'd risen and followed Bill to the far side of the sofa where they now stood with their arms wrapped around each other and watched as Glaeken poised the hilt over the butt spike.

  Something was going to happen. How could she turn away?

  She watched the old man set his feet, take a deep breath, then ram the hilt downward.

  ! ! ! ! ! ! LIGHT ! ! ! ! ! !

  Light such as she had never seen or imagined, light like the hearts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Bikinis and all the Yucca Flats bombs rolled into one, light like the Big Bang itself exploded from the hilt, engulfing Glaeken and searing the room. Hot light, cold light, new light, ancient light, it blasted through the room in a wave.

  In that initial flash Carol saw Glaeken's bones silhouetted through his flesh and clothes, saw the springs and inner supports of the sofa before her, then the light was upon her and her retinae screamed and her irises spasmed and her lids clamped down tight to shut out the light but it was no use because the light would not be denied and it poured through her, suffusing each cell of each tissue in a perceptible wave of warmth as it passed.

  She heard cries of wonder and astonishment from the others in the room and was startled by a deafening crash as the glass in the picture windows blew out. Gusts of night air stormed through the room as Carol fought to open her eyes against the glare.

  The light was still there, more diffuse now, and splotched with purple from the afterburns on her retinae. It had stopped expanding and had begun to contract, rushing back from the edges of the room to concentrate again at the center, coalescing into a column with Glaeken at its heart. Carol had to raise a protecting arm across her face and half turn away as it consolidated and amplified its power into a narrower beam, shooting upward, burning through the ceiling, through the roof, into the blackness above. And faintly through the brilliance she could still make out the figure of a man standing in the heart of the light.

  She turned to Bill. "The roof! We've got to go up on the roof!"

  He blinked at her, half-dazed. "Why?"

  She didn't know why exactly. A deep part of her was responding to the light, almost as if she recognized it. Whatever the reason, she felt compelled to be up there on the roof to watch this beam of light challenge the darkness.

  "Never mind why." She grabbed his hand. "Let's go!" She turned to the others in the room. "Everybody—the roof! The roof!"

  Rasalom writhes in his chrysalis.

  What is happening? A sudden squall of light in the upper reaches of Glaeken's building.

  The instrument! He's activated it!

  Rasalom remains calm. The light being shed is a discomfort, a painful irritant. No more.

  This is not a setback. Glaeken may be able to cause some trouble with this, but he can be no more than an inconvenience. The Change is too far along. It cannot be reversed.

  Carol led the way to the roof, throwing her shoulder against the door at the top of the stairs and bursting out into the cold night air. She was vaguely aware of the hungry buzz and flutter of the night things swooping through the darkness beyond the edges of the building; she barely heard the rooftop gravel crunch under her feet, or noticed the others crowding out behind her. She was locked on the bright beam spearing into the heavens—straight and true, unwavering, a narrow tower of light shooting upward, ever upward until it pierced the sky.

  And then it faded.

  "It's gone," Bill said close behind her.

  "No!" She pointed up. "Look. There's still a bright spot up there. Like a star."

  The only star in the sky.

  "Never mind the star," Jack said. "Check out the roof."

  Carol wished he'd be less mundane at times but looked at the roof anyway. A smoldering hole was left where the light had burst through. She approached it cautiously and looked down through it into the living room below, afraid of what she might see there, afraid that Glaeken had been harmed somehow by the blaze of light.

  There were no charred, blackened remains crumbled on the rug below. But Glaeken wasn't there either. Instead a stranger stood in his place—in Glaeken's clothes—clutching the hilt that sat upon the blade.

  "Look!" Carol whispered. "Who's that?"

  He was taller than Glaeken and had the old man's broad build, but this man was much younger, younger even than Sylvia. Perhaps Jack's age. And his long hair was fiery red. His shoulders and upper arms stretched the seams of the shirt he wore. Who—?

  And then she caught a glimpse of his blue eyes and knew beyond all question—

  "It's Glaeken!"

  She felt an arm slip around her shoulder as she heard Bill's hoarse whisper beside her.

  "But he's so young! He can't be more than thirty-five!"

  "Right," she said as understanding grew. "The same age as when he first took up the battle."

  Carol could not take her eyes off him. The way he moved as he tore the blade free of the floor and swung it before him. He was—she could find no other word for him—magnificent.

  And then he looked up at them through the opening and Carol recoiled at the grim set of his mouth and the rage that flashed in his eyes. He lifted the weapon and reduced the coffee table to marble gravel and kindling with one blow, then he strode from sight. Seconds later they heard the apartment door shatter.

  "He is pissed," Jack said. "And I hope it's not at us."

  "No," Bill said. "It's at Rasalom. It's got to be Rasalom."

  "Then I'm glad I'm not Rasalom."

  Carol shivered in the cold wind and looked back up at the point of light the beam had left in the sky. It was brighter—and bigger.

  "Look!" she said, pointing up. "It's growing."

  "I think you're right," Bill said, squinting upward at the rapidly expanding spot. "It almost looks like—" Suddenly he was pulling her backward, away from the hole in the roof. "Run! It's coming back!"

  Carol shook him off and stood waiting for the light rushing down from the heavens. It wouldn't hurt her—she knew it wouldn't hurt her. She spread her arms, waiting for it, welcoming it.

  And suddenly she was bathed in light—the whole rooftop was awash in brilliant, white light. Warm, clean, almost like—

  "Sunlight!"

  The entire building stood in a cone of brilliance that broached the darkness from the point source far overhead, as if a pin hole had been poked into the inverted bowl of Rasalom's night and a single, daring ray of sunshine had ventured through.

  Carol ran to the edge of the roof and leaned over the low parapet. Down below,
on the bright sidewalk, the crawlers were scuttling away into the darkness of the Park across the street, fleeing the glare.

  She heard a crash as bright fragments of glass exploded onto the sidewalk. And suddenly Glaeken was there, striding across the street toward the Park, his red hair flying as he swung the blade before him, as if daring something to challenge him. And as he stepped from the light into the darkness beyond—

  "Bill!" Carol cried. "Oh, God, Bill, come look! You've got to see this!"

  The light was following Glaeken, clinging to the sword and to his body like some sort of viscous fluid, trailing after him, creating a luminescent tunnel through the darkness.

  "Where's he going?" Bill said as Jack, Ba, Sylvia and Jeffy joined her at the edge.

  Carol thought she knew but Jack answered first.

  "To the hole," he said in a low voice. "To the first one, the Sheep Meadow hole. The one he's after is down there."

  They quickly lost sight of Glaeken, but together they stood on the roof and watched the tube of light channel its way into the inky depths of the park.

  WNEW-FM:

  FREDDY: Something's happened out there, man. We just got a call on the CB that there's a beam of light coming out of the sky on Central Park West. We can't see it from here so we don't know for sure if it's true.

  JO: Yeah. This guy who called has been pretty reliable all through this mess, but you know we've all been getting, like, a little funky since the sun went out, man, so if you've got a CB and you're anywhere near Central Park, peek out what's left of your window and let us know what you see.

  Rasalom relaxes within his chrysalis.

  Only a pin hole, nothing more. All that effort expended by Glaeken's circle and to what end? A pin hole in the night cover. Nothing. And it changes nothing.

  Except Glaeken. He's been changed, returned to the way he was when he and Rasalom first squared off against each other. Little did either of them know that they would be locked in battle for ages.

  But Rasalom cheers Glaeken's rejuvenation. It would have been almost embarrassing to crush the life out of that feeble old man he had become. Destroying the reborn Glaeken—young, agile, angry—will be so much more satisfying.