The Book of the Emissaries: An Animism Short Fiction Anthology

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “I should have known you’d be all business, professor,” she said.

  “Declan,” I offered.

  She smiled. “Declan then. You can call me Sheila. Let’s head up to the station. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have over a cup of coffee.”

  I received a short tour of the town from the heated cab of the GMC Durango that was standard issue for all northern outposts. Rankin Inlet was situated on flat ground. The houses ranged from aluminium-clad portables to squat rectangular buildings of uniform design that had been painted one of four colours: red, green, white, or grey. Towering silos and other factory buildings in the distance loomed over the icy hamlet, though I could not guess which industry they served. The station itself was tiny in comparison – a brick building painted yellow and brown with an almost toolshed-like appearance.

  Another officer was on duty when we arrived; Patrolman Kinngait stood behind a counter calmly taking a statement from an older woman in a plaid shirt who looked – and smelled – mildly inebriated. Sheila led me behind the counter to one of two desks and offered me a chair, and then poured coffee from a nearby coffee maker into two Styrofoam cups and set one down in front of me.

  “When we spoke on the phone,” I said when she’d found her seat, “you mentioned that you’d sent your man to the infirmary at, umm...”

  I paused as I clumsily flipped through my notebook.

  “... Snake Mountain, yes? The regional copper mine? From there he was reportedly flown down to Raven Lake General...”

  She blew on her coffee to cool it. “Yes, Snake Mountain has a psychologist on staff who deals with depression in the mine workers, whereas our local clinic treats mostly trappers and fishermen. I thought Mr. Penarddun would be in better hands there.”

  “Penarddun?” I asked, startled. “That was his name? You’re sure of it?”

  “Sure of it? No,” she admitted. “His fingerprints weren’t on file, but he had one or two moments of lucidity, and that’s what he called himself then.”

  I sat back in my chair. That name had haunted my research. As far as I could tell it had Celtic origins, but men with that moniker had turned up in odd places – the oral traditions of Australian aboriginals, Persian scripture, and even Mayan hieroglyphics. Numerous colleagues had summarily dismissed my findings as either poor translations or coincidence, but I had always held a belief which I dared not voice for fear of being further ostracized by my peers: that a single individual – a human being at that – had lived through, and influenced, much of human history. In my published works, I had assigned this individual the moniker of “The Forever Man.”

  Suddenly the Styrofoam cup in my hands collapsed, spilling hot coffee onto my lap.

  “Blast!” I cried, leaping to my feet and casting around for a napkin or a paper towel – a roll of which was provided to me by the quick-thinking Sheila Williams. Luckily the coffee hadn’t been hot enough to scald.

  “Many thanks, Ms. Williams,” I offered, as I feverishly brushed my trouser legs.

  “I’ve never seen anyone get so excited over a name, professor,” she said, bemused.

  “Excited?” I asked, feigning ignorance. “Ahh, just my ungainly genes. ‘As graceless as a Grey’ as my mother used to say!” I forced out a chortle as I began to polish my glasses. Sheila gave a courteous smile.

  “But yes, mmm, about Penarddun...” I paused to huff on my lenses. “After we spoke I took the liberty of phoning Raven Lake General. They have no record of anyone arriving from Snake Mountain, or even Rankin Inlet itself, in the past year. As far as they’re concerned your madman never left the North.”

  Sheila raised an eyebrow. “Really? Well, I can assure you that he didn’t come back here, and I can’t imagine that Dr. Killian would hide his escape from me.”

  “Hmm, quite odd,” I muttered. I replaced my glasses in my pocket and leaned forward in my chair, quietly rubbing my temples. “Hmmmmm.”

  A full minute passed.

  “Declan?” queried Sheila.

  With a deep breath, I began: “Ms. Williams, you might wonder why I arrived here as expeditiously as I did...”

  “It had certainly crossed my mind that your quick arrival suggested a personal interest in this case,” replied Sheila.

  “Indeed, indeed, but it is somewhat more than that, you see. As academics in a field dealing with the preternatural, many of us have what you might call ‘pet theories,’ theories we latch onto because we’ve struck something in our research that suggests that the impossible is in fact not only possible, but entirely probable.”

  “Go on,” said Sheila.

  “Well, in short, I believe this man, this ‘Pennardun’ might not only be a man of great historical significance, he might also be, well, extremely long-lived shall we say. He might also be in possession of a book – a very special book – that I’ve been searching for these many years. This book, a book many have thought merely the subject of myth, or at best, lost to time, could help a great deal in...” I paused, realizing that saying anymore might only further tarnish my credibility. “... in validating some very important theories. Simply put, I must meet with him, and straight away if possible.”

  Sheila pursed her lips and her gaze wandered absently over to where her deputy was explaining the finer points of traffic law to the large lady behind the counter. I could tell that she saw neither the deputy nor the woman. “Well, your academic pursuits aside, it concerns me that a man in a precarious mental state is now missing. I’m going to make a few calls and then we’re going to go visit Snake Mountain. I know you’re not a medical doctor, but I hope you’re okay with making a house call.”

  ••

  Several hours later, we found ourselves idling in the Durango just outside a security booth at Snake Mountain copper mine. I took in a view of the facility as the guard placed a call to verify our identification with his superiors. The mine appeared to consist of two parts: an industrial complex including a few large, salt-stained buildings where metallic ore was smelted into copper and other valuable metals; and a vast open pit larger than any I’d ever seen, that had been opened in the ground by dump trucks whose wheels alone were twice my height. It is difficult for me to convey the sheer scale of the chasm, though from my particular vantage point the pit looked nearly pitch dark, as though it was swallowing any and all light that dared come near its yawning mouth.

  After being cleared by security, we parked in the snow-covered guest lot and ventured into a relatively small, aluminium-sided building that served as the mine’s front office. I found out later that the only permanent buildings on the site were devoted to processing metal, and would be abandoned when the mine was tapped. The offices and other buildings would simply be loaded onto the backs of semi-trucks and driven down the ice roads to a new site.

  The interior of the office was a claustrophobic’s nightmare; a low ceiling with tight corridors formed by cluttered desks and rusty filing cabinets. At the centre of this labyrinth was a table with a huge topographical map of Snake Mountain and the pit itself. Though the mine was fully operational we were surprised to find that only one man awaited us in this room – baffling in an undertaking this size. He was slim, with a salt-and-pepper beard and hair, and glasses with pronounced golden frames. He introduced himself as Dr. Harvey Killian.

  “Detective Williams, Dr. Grey,” said Killian, shaking our hands. “Please have a seat. Can I get you some coffee? Tea? We have a few sodas in the refrigerator if you’d like.”

  “No thank you,” said Sheila.

  “And I believe I’ve had quite enough coffee for one day,” I said, consciously rubbing my hands over the stains on my trousers.

  I sat down as Sheila paced around the room, arms folded over her chest. She turned a furrowed glare to Killian. “Dr. Killian, we’re here about the man I sent to you for treatment last summer. Went by the name ‘Penarddun’...”

  Killian poured coffee into a cup stencilled with the phrase Copper is Nature�
�s Green Metal and then sweetened it with two cubes of sugar. “You never were much for pleasantries, were you Sheila?” He turned to me, smiling, dark eyes studying me from behind the shaded lenses of his glasses. There was a look in his eyes that made me feel as though he knew me. He looked back at Sheila, sighed and set the coffee down. “I wish I could help you, but our records show that we put him on a plane to Raven Lake General a few days after he arrived. He needed treatment and medication we simply don’t have on hand at a facility of this size.”

  “That’s where we have a problem,” said Sheila. “Raven Lake General has no record of such a patient. Knowing how fast and loose hospitals can get with patient records, I took the liberty of checking with Beaver Air, the company Snake Mountain charters for all its air travel, and they have no record of any flights leaving around that time either. Seeing as how the ice roads didn’t open until three months later, even allowing for a an error on the hospital’s end, I’m not sure how you got him there.”

  Killian didn’t move, but his face hardened. “Obviously there has been a miscommunication.” His expression didn’t change, but he then snapped his fingers. “Oh, wait, yes. My previous explanation was wrong. It is standard policy for us to forward untreatable patients on to Raven Lake General, but in this case there was no patient to transfer. Your man never actually dropped him off. I was going to follow up with you, but with all the activity at the mine, I plum forgot. I’d advise you to check with your Patrolman Kinngait about why he never showed up that night.”

  “What? Are you having a bloody lark at our expense?” I asked, outraged. We’d caught Killian out and now he was changing his story.

  “He never arrived, Professor,” Killian said bluntly. “Now, I have a lot of work to do. I trust that next time you drop by, Sheila, it’ll be with a warrant.”

  The frigid northern air outside held more warmth than his voice. Though he might not have had the guts to ask security to escort an officer of the law off the premises, we got no further with him and left soon after.

  Instead of driving the ice road back into town, we drove the Durango down a small side road that wrapped around the mine itself. The snow here was still loose and the Durango’s wheels skidded and slid, even with chains on each tire. At several points I worried that we’d get stuck and have to dig our way out, but the sturdy vehicle never let us down. When we’d found a secluded spot well away from worker traffic, Sheila parked, shut off the engine, and then got me a thick RCMP parka and gloves from the back.

  “Shouldn’t we be getting a warrant?” I asked her when she returned to the cab.

  “Sure,” she said with a shrug. “We can go back to town, book you a room at the Naked Bear, and then wait a couple of weeks for the paperwork to go through. Of course, that’ll give Dr. Harvey Killian all the time he needs to clean the place up, sterilize his logs, and frame my deputy for kidnapping.” She pulled on a set of gloves and then moved her seat back to give herself more leg room. “Or we can wait until the sun goes down and do a little investigating ourselves. If we find a little ’probable cause’ then I don’t need a warrant.”

  I looked around: we were surrounded by snow drifts and frost was already beginning to creep up the windshield. Worse, it was only noon. I didn’t relish the thought of sitting in a freezing car until night fell.

  “First time in the North, Dr. Grey?” she asked with a laugh when I confessed my misgivings. “The sun sets at 2 p.m. this time of year.” She reached over my lap, opened the glove compartment, and retrieved a set of playing cards. “They call me the Queen of Go-Fish back at the station, but you look like a smart guy. Maybe you can give me a run for my money.”

  Of course I’d remembered that the North was supposed to be the land of the Midnight Sun and all that, but I’d forgotten that the converse was also true. The sun set early in the latter part of the year and there were even stretches of several weeks in deepest winter when it never rose at all. As we played cards in the cabin of Sheila’s GMC Durango, it disappeared behind a faraway mountain range. She turned on the engine, let the heater warm us up for about fifteen minutes, and then shut it back off. In the distance huge halogen lights at the mine began to wink on, illuminating its buildings with pale white light.

  When it was suitably dark, we left the truck behind and proceeded towards the mine’s administrative complex on foot. The only security we encountered was a chain-link fence that we climbed easily. Its primary purpose, Sheila explained, was to discourage polar bears. No one would dare the cold just to trespass at Snake Mountain. It wasn’t as if it was a diamond mine, she told me cynically.

  We slunk between small portables powered by large propane tanks, glancing in frost-covered windows in search of some clue to Penarddun’s fate. Several times, we were nearly discovered by a parka-clad miner. Despite the darkness, it was still only three in the afternoon, and the day shift was in full swing.

  We found the medical building in the rear of the complex, close to the gaping pit. It was no different from any of the other structures we’d passed, except that it sported a sign with a red cross stencilled on it. It was surprisingly small for a facility this big, and though we’d encountered plenty of mine workers elsewhere, the surrounding area was as quiet as a grave.

  There were no windows, so we tried the door and discovered that it was locked.

  “Why would a medical building be locked?” I asked. “What if there’s an emergency?”

  “Painkillers have been known to disappear from buildings like these,” Sheila responded. “But they’re usually kept in sealed cabinets. Locking the whole building is a little suspicious. Luckily, I have this.” She unsheathed a large screwdriver from her coat sleeve, placed it against the lock, and grabbed the door handle with her other hand. Then she began to bump the screwdriver as hard as she could while simultaneously turning the door handle. After only a few attempts, the door popped open.

  “We do things a little differently in the North,” she said with a triumphant smile.

  We entered and were greeted by one of the most horrifying sights I had ever laid eyes on. A web of medical apparatus dominated one side of the room. Translucent plastic tubing filled with viscous black fluid blossomed from the floor and curved back in on itself, like a spider embracing its prey. Behind these, monitors beeped a steady chant and illuminated the room with a sinister blue light. The air was musty, as if we’d just opened a forgotten tomb, and heavy with the scent of urine and sweat. I instinctively retrieved a handkerchief from my coat sleeve to cover my nose and mouth.

  “My god,” breathed Sheila. “There’s a person in there.”

  As we slowly advanced towards the centre of the room, the web of tubing seemed to recoil from us. Soon I was able to see what Sheila had: a body limply suspended in the network of cables. Catching sight of the person’s face, I immediately recognized the “patient” from images painted on the inner passages of Egyptian pyramids and on fragments of ancient pottery: Penarddun, the very subject of years of my research, propped up grotesquely before me like some sort of offering. The hand pressing the handkerchief to my face dropped slackly to my waist.

  His skin was pale and his ribs clearly visible. You could tell that he’d once been a tall reed of a man, whose red hair had been shaven close to his skull, but it was difficult to see where the man ended and medical apparatus began. The “treatment” Dr. Killian had prescribed for him was unorthodox to say the least. Penarddun had lost one leg below the knee and the other wasn’t much more than a stump disappearing into bandages sticky with pus. His chest had been covered by sucker-shaped sensors, but these had sunken into his skin and scar tissue had formed around them.

  ““I’m no medical professional, but I think this is a heart monitor,” said Sheila, tapping one of the beeping devices at the back of the room. “I think he’s still alive.”

  “Then he’d be living up to his reputation...” I said as I gazed upon him with admiration.

  “That’s terribly callous, don�
��t you think?” retorted Sheila.

  I turned to her. “Ms. Williams, I do not expect you to believe this, but much of my research surrounds this man. I have evidence – credible evidence in fact, that this individual is over seven thousand years old. His name is Penarddun, and he is a being who has transcended history, shaped it, in fact – ”

  Sheila interjected, “This man needs help, Declan, not your theories.”

  I continued: “Listen, in tracing Penarddun’s appearances throughout history, I came to nickname him the Forever Man precisely because, well, he was a human who lived the life of an immortal. If my research is correct, this man has lived through more ages than one can count... and now here he is before us.”

  “Declan,” said Sheila, “he does not look like a man enjoying the luxuries of immortality.”

  “Precisely,” I said. “Something is wrong here. In fact, a great deal is wrong...”

  With a sigh, Sheila reached for her shoulder radio. “Standard police procedure doesn’t even come close to covering this.” She surveyed the state of the patient’s body. “This is more like a war crime. I need to call this in to Kinngait, right now.”

  Suddenly, Penarddun’s wrist turned and caught my hand. His eyes flew open and his back arched. Despite myself, I yelped and pulled back, but I could not free myself from that iron grip. He then lurched and looked towards Sheila.

  The grip felt warm and unthreatening, and I immediately felt as though I were deep in a wordless conversation with a sage-like emanation.

  “I... think he want you to place your hand on his,” I suggested, sensing, perhaps, that he needed contact with both of us to accomplish whatever end he intended. Though Penarddun, the “Forever Man,” had been depicted as a trickster god in the various Indo-European mythological accounts I’d encountered, I held onto a private belief that he could not actually be The Trickster god himself. Rather, the more plausible theory was that he was a mere worshipper of the Trickster who, in his devotion, had managed to trick his own way into the gift of immortality. The details are fuzzy at best, but the evidence certainly suggested that this man was perhaps the only mortal to ever trick the Trickster and escape with his life – a life that was now clearly near its end.