The Call of Distant Shores

by David Niall Wilson

  "And you saw something? A hallucination, perhaps?"

  "No hallucination, Percy." His eyes snapped back from the shadows to claim mine with an almost audible snap of energy. I nearly jumped. "I saw a deepening, swirling void, Percy. There were no clouds, no dust, nothing at all but endless spirals. I felt drawn to their center – pulled, and I fancied that my back lifted from the solid surface beneath me, beginning to spin, turning with the vortex that spun faster, darker, and deeper every second within the squared expanse of the window I'd created.

  "I ripped my eyes free with only the greatest of efforts, closing them and struggling frantically to erase from them the accursed image of that window. My arms and legs were numb, disconnected from my control, and the spinning sensation continued for what seemed an eternity. I was awash with nausea, unable to stabilize my churning stomach or my chaotic thoughts.

  "Eventually, I awakened, as if from a dream. My head ached as if I'd single-handedly emptied a fifth of cheap Scotch. I rose and looked about myself. It had grown dark. I glanced upward at the starry blackness, or where it should have been, and was struck immediately by a wave of vertigo, dropping me back to my knees. The world seemed to shift beneath me, the air to whirl. I clamped my eyes closed again and staggered to my feet. I have never experienced such a terror, Percy. I feared to look upward, feared I would be sucked into the void and lost for eternities...

  "When my own mind had resumed control, I ran, my eyes rooted to the ground beneath my feet."

  "Eric," I cut in, alarmed. "You mentioned a hallucinogenic drug. Were you...."

  "No, Percy," he stated earnestly. "I swear to you that I was on nothing stronger than a single shot of scotch, and that several hours before. I saw what I saw, and it is still there. Percy, the sky is an illusion!"

  Now certain that he was in dire need of help, I determined to get him out of the house. I placed my hand firmly upon his arm. '"Eric, you have to come with me, man. Look at yourself. This is insanity!"

  "But there is more," he cried, shaking free and backing away slightly. "Mirrors, Percy, they are not what they seem, either. I have seen, and have been seen, and we are not alone."

  "Surely you don't wish me to believe mirrors are conspiring to subjugate humanity," I tried to answer lightly. "I am an imaginative man, but not that imaginative."

  "Do not jest, Percy," he cried, eyes flaring in anger. "I will show you, damn it all! You may laugh, then, but you will see! You will see more than you wish."

  He leapt to his feet, then, running to the hallway, almost scurrying. I followed as quickly as I could, intending to make certain he did not escape me to return to that shadowed pit of a room.

  He stood, when I found him, directly in front of the covered mirror. His countenance in the deepening shadow was spectral, ethereal. I shivered despite myself.

  "Come," Eric demanded, "gaze into the mirror. You will see. Reflections are merely a defense, a screen erected by our minds against comprehension of truth we want no part of. Come on, if you dare, and prove me insane!"

  My heart pounded, crashing so loudly within my ears that I could feel the warm pulsing of blood through my veins, could hear the innermost workings of my body's organs. I could not, at first, do as he bid. Finally, I calmed somewhat, chiding myself for a fool.

  "All right, Eric," I answered, moving and speaking slowly. I made every effort not to sound patronizing, no telling what his reactions might be. "I will look into your mirror, straighten my hair, which I am certain must be a sight, and then we will march out together, you and I, and gaze at the stairs. When this is all done, we will take the wine I have brought, retire to my own apartment, and I shall call you a doctor. Agreed?"

  He merely nodded, a pleading in the depths of his eyes reaching out to me to pull him free, to prove he was wrong. My throat was strangely dry as I stepped forward, reaching up to grab the black covering and push it aside. Eric turned his head violently to the side as I did this, pressing his face into the wall. I paused for a moment, placing my hand reassuringly on his shoulder. He was shuddering his weakened frame racked with convulsive sobs. My will hardened by the urgency of his need for help, I yanked aside the curtain and gazed, admittedly with great trepidation into the glassy surface of the mirror. Almost immediately I breathed a sigh of relief.

  There, returning my stare was my own face, lines of such seriousness creasing it that I had to favor myself with a laugh. Wiping my face with one sleeve, I reached up, and straightened an unruly lock of hair before speaking.

  ''Now, Eric,'' I began, "''here I am starring back from your mirror, the only thing likely to abduct you – and that for your own good. Pry yourself from that wall and look, then we are leaving.''

  Very slowly, his movements stiff and disjointed, Eric pushed himself away from the wall. His head was lowered to the floor, and his voice faintly from beneath, low and subdued.

  "You see what your mind projects," he said. "I know they are there, waiting. My mind has lost its ability to protect me. I've pushed aside the veil.''

  "For God's sake," I cried, grabbing him roughly by the hair in my exasperation "look at it, Eric, look! It's only your...."

  I reeled backward, crashing painfully into the opposite wall and falling to the floor. Eric screamed, screamed in terror beyond my comprehension, screamed until the very pressure or the sound blocked thought from my brain. I could see him standing, eyes glued to the mirror, waving back and forth – entranced.

  I could not rise to help. My mind would not even consider it. His reflection, when I had raised him to the mirror, had not been there. Instead, a swirling blackness had appeared, a hole in the reflective surface, a nothingness. As I'd fallen back, reaching to cover my eyes, a movement had grasped at my mind. Eyes – I think they were eyes – coalesced in the maelstrom of nothingness, staring. They had seen me, just before I fell away, and now they had Eric!

  I heard a scrabbling sound. Was something clawing free of that damnable hole? I looked up, fearing to the depths of my soul what I would see. I followed the scratching sounds to their source. Then I screamed. My mind blanked, bending with the sound, emptying of sanity. The scrabbling sound was Eric, his fingernails. They were clutching vainly at the sides of a black void that had replaced the mirror in its frame. His head was gone, up to the shoulders, sucked into the whirling morass of darkness.

  Scrambling to my hands and knees, I began to claw my way down the hallway, careening off walls, caroming from furniture. I broke a large vase and crawled through its shattered pieces, embedding them painfully in the flesh of my hands. The door loomed before me like the impenetrable wall of some vast fortress, every shadow, every object seemed to take on an ominous, other-worldly importance. Threats beckoned, thinly veiled, from pulsing shadows. My mind could not sort it out, fumbled open the door, rushed outside, and ran, never stopping, never looking up, through the park, across darkened streets, and finally into my home. I have covered the mirrors, and the windows. I have spoken to no one. Who could I tell? What if, in their ignorance, they tried to cure me as I did Eric? What if they put me before a mirror? Did I see what I believed I'd seen, or was it some strange, psychic projection from Eric's own madness? If he was right, were the walls around me solid, or illusion? The floor? Could I tumble to hell by looking deeper into the wooden slats beneath me?

  There is no answer. Two choices have presented themselves to me. The first is this. I should go to the door, cast it open, and gaze into the cool, calming depths of the night-darkened sky. Then I should go to Eric and drag him from the insanity he'd enmeshed himself so deeply in that I'd been dragged behind, beyond the strength of reason and rational thought.

  I have chosen the second. I have called the emergency room at the hospital, they are on their way now. If my theory is correct, my memories should hold the world together as long as no further disruptive data reaches them. The two pencils are sharp. I only pray that my eyes are the key. At least I shall never again look into a mirror. I will be safe.

&nb
sp; The Lost Wisdom of Instinct

  "Welcome," the woman said, bright luminous eyes glittering in the dim, yellowish light of the huge hallway. Behind him, Alex could feel the heavy dampness of the storm. His hair was matted to his forehead, and he reached up self-consciously to brush stray drops of rainwater from his eyes.

  He did not speak immediately. She was beautiful, despite being almost ten years his senior, and he was soaking wet; he'd hardly prepared himself for such an ignominious first meeting.

  "I'm Alex Beauchard," he said at last, stepping inside and letting the huge door close behind him. "I've come to study the professor's papers."

  "I've expected you, Mr. Beauchard," she said with a warm smile. "It's good to see that my late husband's work is still interesting to someone. My name is Madeline. Let me show you to your room at once so you can get dried out. Then, would you like to join me for tea?"

  "That would be nice," he answered. Her eyes were intense, dark and compelling, and Alex realized he was staring. Thankfully, she did not seem offended, nor did she make an effort to avert her own eyes. Turning away and breaking the contact with an almost audible snap of energy, Alex reached for his bags.

  "This way," she said, motioning to the gloomy interior, an odd little smile forming on her lips. "For convenience's sake, I've put you in the room next to Robert's study."

  Feeling a hit dazed, and still dripping from the deluge outside, Alex followed her up a lushly-carpeted stair to the building's upper floor. The walls were hung with tapestries and ancient portraits, only dimly illuminated by small, flickering bulbs mounted on ornate, mirrored sconces. For a long, strange moment, he felt like he was climbing into another world.

  If the hallway below seemed large, the upper hall was immense. To the right, he looked out over an intricately-carved railing and down at the spacious dining room, while above, a giant, glittering chandelier hung from the peak of the sharply-angled ceiling. The aura of opulent, decadent wealth overpowered him. Paying more attention to his surroundings than to where he was going, Alex nearly tripped and fell over Madeline, who had stopped in front of one of the many heavy oak doors lining the hall and opened it.

  Stepping inside, he was greeted by the strong aroma of sandalwood. A small desk lamp with a green-tinted globe provided the only light, which he quickly noted set the style for the entire room. Out-of-control spider plants cascaded down the sides of hanging baskets that flanked the windows. The drapes were deep, forest-green velvet over ruffled white linen. The bed was of oak, as was the roll-top desk that held the lamp and the one chair, which was padded in black leather. The carpet was also green.

  "Robert called this his 'jungle room.'" Madeline smiled at him again. "There used to be many more plants here, and there were these horrid animal heads all over the walls. It's one of the few rooms I've changed since his death."

  "But it's extraordinary," Alex said, genuinely impressed. He set his suitcase by the door of the closet and placed his briefcase on the bed. "I'll just change out of these wet things and join you...?"

  "In the sitting room," she finished. "Downstairs. Just off the main hall to the left, before you reach the dining room."

  She turned to leave, then glanced over her shoulder with another of those curious little smiles before disappearing into the hallway. Alex felt a prickle of – something –– which he managed to dismiss as a product of his fatigued and disoriented state of mind. He turned his attention to getting out of his wet clothes. Grabbing his suitcase, he dropped it on the bed and flipped it open, grabbing the first set of clothes he found, then headed for the small attached bathroom.

  This room, he found, was equipped with a round, sunken tub, already filled with water! More of the encroaching plants hung in the corners and spilled over every ledge. In the ceiling above the tub, a shaft topped by a green skylight had been cut straight through the attic to the roof above. Occasional flashes of lightning sent shimmering beams of emerald light down this shaft, giving the gently rippling water a primeval, fathomless quality.

  He stared, and stared.

  Lush green foliage stretching out in every direction, blotting the sky above. Warm, loamy air – moist – tasting of forests and rivers. Smelling of vast, endless trees and ropy, hanging vines.

  The cries of birds – deafening – padding footsteps crackling through the brush to the left and right. Sunlight filtering through leafy boughs that sway to the grasp of a cool breeze to trace intricate shadow designs on the ground at his feet.

  A deafening crack of thunder split the night, startling Alex back to his senses. He found himself gazing dumbly down at the bathtub. Turning, he quickly flicked on the lights and bathed the room in bright, man-made light. He was shivering, and everything around him seemed somehow detached from reality. He went to the sink, splashing water on his face and staring at himself in the mirror.

  Why in hell, he thought, is that tub already full, anyway? And what's wrong with me? His reflection didn't answer, and he managed to finally shrug it off. It had been such a long, tiring drive.

  Stripping out of his wet clothes and hanging them across the rack beside the sink, he washed up quickly, slipping on clean slacks and a pullover shirt, then running a comb quickly through his rain-matted hair.

  He grinned at his still-disheveled countenance, and it grinned back. His good spirits were returning. He returned to his room and slipped on his shoes, appreciating the comfort of the leather chair, and the strange daydream faded quickly. He had a lot of questions about the late Professor Robert Auburn Devonshire, the answers to which lay in the study just next door. Although he knew there was plenty of time to get to it later, he had to suppress a strong urge to open the door to that room and explore before meeting Madeline downstairs. He had gone through a lot to be here.

  Robert Auburn Devonshire: parapsychologist, archaeologist, linguist, mystic, and Alex's mentor, had been one of the most controversial figures in several academic fields for decades. His death was as mysterious as had been his life, perhaps more so. One day he'd been teaching at the university, smoking his pipe and smiling that curious, all-knowing smile that Alex remembered only too well; the next day, he was gone. Dead. His heart had stopped, an occurrence that medical science had never been able to adequately explain. It just stopped. It had been seven days since Robert's death. Reluctantly, with the memories burning brilliantly in his mind, Alex turned away from the study door and descended to the lower floor of the huge house.

  He found the sitting room with no trouble. Madeline sat in one of two antique Queen Anne chairs pulled close to a small table of the same design. Like all the other rooms, this one spoke eloquently of wealth and comfort. Glass-fronted cases lined the walls, filled with artifacts from the late professor's many archaeological journeys: grotesque, oddly asymmetrical pre-Colombian figurines from Mexico and South America, frightening tribal masks from ancient Africa, polished jade sculptures from the Far East, depicting inhuman, mythological creatures that somehow, in these surroundings, exuded an aura of disconcerting, eldritch awareness.

  "Feeling better, Alex?" Madeline asked as he drew near.

  "Almost human," he said as he sat beside her, again, barely able to keep from staring. This second meeting only affirmed his initial impression of her. She was beautiful. Her long, auburn hair hung loosely over her shoulders and halfway down her back. She was–his mind sought the proper word–willowy. She was tall for a woman, and so slender as to appear almost fake. As before, it was her eyes that held his attention. They seemed reached out to him, speaking a language all their own in a sort of tandem, sensual echo to her words.

  "Robert mentioned you many times when you were his student," she told him, handing him one of the delicate china cups of steaming tea. "You may not know it, but you were something of a favorite with him. That's why I agreed to let you come here. That, and the fact that the most important thing in Robert's life was his work. If it does some good, through you, and perhaps myself, his death will have more meaning. Did you
know that before Robert and I were married, I was his student, too?"

  "No," Alex answered. "He never mentioned it. As for giving his work meaning, I hope I can live up to that. Your husband was mostly responsible for my direction in life. I guess you could say I consider him something of a mentor. I was never much of a student before I met him."

  "But you're close to your doctorate now?" She smiled again, and he almost blushed at the combined emotions the praise and her smile elicited.

  "Just my dissertation to go. That's why I 'm here. But what I meant was, Dr. Devonshire gave me a new outlook on academics. I was struggling when I first walked into his class. I wanted to take on the world of archaeology single-handedly, and discover secret places and ancient magic. But I was much better at dreaming than handling reality – much better.

  "Then I met your husband. He was like no professor I'd ever met. He would really challenge the class. He'd pull out the most ordinary stone from some ancient battlefield or castle, and he would recreate more from that stone than I could from an entire building.

  "I remember his words, 'Everything you learn on this planet, every morsel of knowledge you gain, no matter how mundane it may seem in the learning, has a purpose to serve. Never look at learning as work, but as something as natural as breathing. When you can take the stone knife of a man who lived a thousand years before your own conception, and you can draw him forth from the depths of your mind, clothe him and give him thought with your imagination and your knowledge, then you will understand. No lesson learned is ever wasted.'"

  "And what lessons have you learned, Alex?" Madeline asked, still smiling. "Have you opened any windows of your own? I recognize my husband's words on your tongue. Have you learned enough, do you think, to bring him back in your words? To clothe him and return his thought? Are you ready?"