by Anthology
“As good as done,” says Arcana, turning to go.
“There is one warning I must give you. Do not look directly upon his face.”
Arcana felt herself growing lighter as he speaks. The lips of the statue are hardening, the eyes glazing. Arcana stretched her arms and legs, feeling as if she is awakening from a too long, too deep sleep. Yet she knows she has not been dreaming because the Time Lady held the recovered necklace around her plump white throat. Immediately Arcana feels that she wants to be away from this place. There was an alien aspect to the Time Lord’s face that has not been apparent to her until now. Centuries will pass like the slow grinding of stone on stone before that carven smile, those dead eyes, would change.
She began to run, down an indigo corridor, mad with deepwater reflections, up to a window and through it into the light of an eternally ascendant sun. The weight and dust-smell of centuries fall away as she scales the wall, the stone abrading her hands and knees.
“Wyle!” She half-fell from the wall and ran forward to assail him.
“I didn’t know if you’d come out of there or not,” Wyle says, when he is able to make sense of her jabbering. “But waiting isn’t hard here. One minute is much the same as the next. I was dreaming, or maybe I wasn’t even asleep. I walked through a place of shadows and a long figure without a face—”
“Forget your dreams. The Time Lord has given us a quest. If we fulfill it, he will grant the Duke’s request. We’ll be able to leave this awful place. Come, I’ll tell you, as we walk, what the Lords of Time are like and how they live.”
A duskiness in the air and shadows had begun to envelop them. They had sensed rather than seen the trees about them, ancient and twisted trees, whose upper branches were obscured in distance and blurred by the intense blueness of the air. The utter silence of the place had intimidated them, but Arcana had reached out to take Wyle’s hand. Leaves like pale silver outlines of ghosts were whispering down from above, slowmotion falling, drifting, twisting, hypnotic in their motion. Arcana had felt that she was being buried alive in the light crispness of leaves and their warm organic smells and she wished she could die with them, grow brown and withered and gone.
Only a terrible inner toughness that life on the street had given her kept her on her feet. Wyle tries to lie down, but she kicks him sharply. They wade knee deep in the curling crisp leaves, drunk on the smell of leaf-mold, half in love with the perpetual dying season of the year.
“There,” says Wyle.
A dimness is all they can see, a gathering mass of solid shadow. “You said it would be easy, but I don’t like this place. I’ve been here before, or to someplace like it.” Wyle nervously caresses the smooth staghorn handle of his dagger.
“It’s only a house—looks kind of deserted, though. I didn’t think you’d be afraid of haunts or spirits.” She walks forward boldly, too young to feel what Wyle feels about the place. The stones hang together precariously, furred with green-black moss. Wings rustle in the branches above, but Arcana sees no birds. The door stands open.
At first Wyle will not enter; his knuckles are white as he grips his weapon. Arcana has to laugh at him, careless, cruel child’s laughter that rings (somehow) familiar in her ears. And he follows into the cave-damp interior of the deserted house. The room is barren; a rough bed tied with thongs and heaped with dried evergreen boughs, a huge gnarled tree-stump hollowed out into a chair, polished dark and smooth by the body of someone who had often sat there, staring into a fire on the raw-brick hearth, seeing Xesis knew what visions. Arcana tries to shake off the feeling of uneasiness that is creeping up the back of her neck. Footsteps crackle in the leaves outside, paralyzing Wyle with fear. Arcana guides him to a corner where a heavy crossbeam casts down a bar of darkness. Someone enters, ducking to avoid hitting his head on the door. As he passes Arcana averts her eyes, remembering the Time Lord’s warning, but she cannot help looking once he was gone by. He is gangling, raw-boned, but does not move in a clumsy way. His ragged shirt exposes long wristbones, strangely delicate to end in large, ungainly hands which are darkly stained. His coarse black hair curls down over his collar. Arcana finds herself wishing that he will turn around.
He picks up a log and drops it into the fireplace. The dry wood seems to blaze up almost as he touches it. He sits down on the chair and extends his hands, letting the firelight turn them redly translucent. He seems a lonely figure, trying to bring warmth to this lost place. Arcana impulsively wishes to stand beside him, dispelling the long loneliness with a word and spend the eternal evening in talk or companionable silence. As the figure relaxes, seems to fall into a light sleep, his hand drops, almost to the floor, firelight sparking off the frost-silver of a large ring.
Arcana is immediately all hard business as her eyes catch that spark. “I’ll sneak up close and if he’s asleep, I’ll slip the ring from his finger.”
Wyle gripped`her convulsively. “No, you mustn’t touch him. The Time Lord played us false. I think I know this man. Only he isn’t properly a man.”
“Quiet, he’ll waken.” Wyle’s eyes slip nervously sideways, to see if what she says is happening.
“And even he sleeps,” he says, letting his hands slip weakly from Arcana’s shoulders.
Her taut muscles carry her across the room, her bare feet making only the softest of sounds. But the sleeper breathes deeply, regularly, even when her fingers delicately grip the ring. It is ice, sending a shudder through her. Where the set should be is a dark opening like a tiny well that is so deep she has to keep herself from looking into it for too long. She thinks there are certain things stirring at the bottom of the well. It isn’t difficult for her to slide the ring off the lax finger. She clasps the treasure against her palm, motioning Wyle toward the door. His foot makes a scraping sound and the creature before the fire is thrusting himself upward. Though Arcana does not look back, in her peripheral sight he seems to tower upward, growing to an impossible height. She lets her fear propel her to necessary speed as she bolts through the door. Looking back over her shoulder, she sees Wyle, running slowly like a figure trapped in a dream, and unbelievably, turning his head, turning to look back at the face of what pursues him; it is just as she remembers it.
Wyle’s legs let his body fall of its own weight and he settled to the ground, all knowledge all pain all fear all joy sliding from his features glazing over into a terrible peace. And so final. So she could see nothing but the blurred prisms of her own tears and something was tearing its way out of her, but she could still run, so, of course she did.
And, of course, she got away, with the ring a burning cold circle in her hand and with a gnawing curiosity that made her wish that she, too, had looked back. It would have been one way of solving the mystery.
The Time Lord’s statue stands in the indigo passageway, looking out a window as if it were waiting for her return. She will fling the silver ring at his feet. “The quest is done, you stupid, smug, stone bastard.”
Seablue light danced across her eyes and she felt herself grow ponderous again. The statue moved, stooped, picks up the ring, seemingly unoffended, yet perhaps her ghost-words had never reached his ears. He appears strangely pleased and reaches out to draw her nearer, but she shrugged off his touch. “I want nothing of you for myself, but my master wishes eternal youth and happiness, little may it profit the ill-smelling old crocodile.”
The Time Lord looks at her in surprise (as though a flower from his lovely bouquet had calmly spit in his eye).
A servant poured wine from the cobwebbed bottle into the crystal goblet and put it carefully into the frail, brown spotted hand. “It’s cold in here,” whined the old lady. The stags and hounds and maidens and unicorns moved with constant life along the walls. “The wind is rising again; I can hear it.”
“Yes, Ma’am, but it’s only the wind after all,” answered the servant, a surreptitious smile appearing on his youthful face.
“Yes.” Her querulous voice subsided and she looked around th
e room. It had changed very little. The small jewel-polished chairs and tables stand superciliously in their places, mirrored in the shining floor.
Another servant appeared at the door. “My Lady, the little gentlemen is ready for bed.” A child rushed into the room, a bloom of red curls, a bird-egg speckling of freckles. “Good night, my angel,” said the old lady. A line of spittle drooled down the boy’s chin from his open mouth; his eyes shone with a heavenly, a mindless happiness. He made squealing sounds and grabbed at invisible butterflies as the maidservant led him from the room. “Good night, my little duke. Such a good boy, such a happy boy.” She nearly strangled on her own high, witch-laughter.
The night wind prowled endlessly, sending unseen filaments to pluck at the tapestries and make the fire flutter on the hearth. The old lady’s head nodded forward, like a heavy pod on a slender stem. Dry leaves zig-zagged leisurely to the ground.
“I’ve lost my way,” shouted Arcana, her voice deadened in this quiet place.
“Follow me,” said a voice and Alek appeared beside her. She followed him among dark trees, but his strides were long and she had to run to keep up.
“You’re going in circles,” she accused him at last, grabbing hold of his sleeve. He started laughing and grasping firmly the skin of his forehead, he began to peel it off easily, exposing the face of Wyle. It was peaceful, as she had last remembered it. Without speaking he gently led her along a path bordered with stone willows and starflower shrubs. She picked a flower and felt it cool and rigid against her cheek. Wyle smiled and seated himself in one of the garden chairs. She knew what was coming but still she felt her stomach contract when he removed the membraneous mask and became the Time Lord.
“You are Arcana?” he asked. “You are much changed. I only dozed off for a moment . . .”
“Years have passed and with them, my life, a life crowded with things happening, people coming and going. But you have not changed at all.” She placed the starflower in his open hand.
He rose, holding the flower before him, where it began to flame and sizzle and throw sparks, illuminating a great darkness ahead. She walked close beside his lanky, scarecrow figure, content, for in a moment he would peel back the final mask and she would see his face.
ACCESSORY BEFORE THE FACT
Algernon Blackwood
At the moorland cross-roads Martin stood examining the sign-post for several minutes in some bewilderment. The names on the four arms were not what he expected, distances were not given, and his map, he concluded with impatience, must be hopelessly out of date. Spreading it against the post, he stooped to study it more closely. The wind blew the corners flapping against his face. The small print was almost indecipherable in the fading light. It appeared, however—as well as he could make out—that two miles back he must have taken the wrong turning.
He remembered that turning. The path had looked inviting; he had hesitated a moment, then followed it, caught by the usual lure of walkers that it “might prove a short cut.” The short-cut snare is old as human nature. For some minutes he studied the sign-post and the map alternately. Dusk was falling, and his knapsack had grown heavy. He could not make the two guides tally, however, and a feeling of uncertainty crept over his mind. He felt oddly baffled, frustrated. His thought grew thick. Decision was most difficult. “I’m muddled,” he thought; “I must be tired,” as at length he chose the most likely arm. “Sooner or later it will bring me to an inn, though not the one I intended.” He accepted his walker’s luck, and started briskly. The arm read, “Over Litacy Hill” in small, fine letters that danced and shifted every time he looked at them; but the name was not discoverable on the map. It was, however, inviting like the short cut. A similar impulse again directed his choice. Only this time it seemed more insistent, almost urgent.
And he became aware, then, of the exceeding loneliness of the country about him. The road for a hundred yards went straight, then curved like a white river running into space; the deep blue-green of heather lined the banks, spreading upwards through the twilight; and occasional small pines stood solitary here and there, all unexplained. The curious adjective, having made its appearance, haunted him. So many things that afternoon were similarly—unexplained: the short cut, the darkened map, the names on the sign-post, his own erratic impulses, and the growing strange confusion that crept upon his spirit. The entire country-side needed explanation, though perhaps “interpretation” was the truer word. Those little lonely trees had made him see it. Why had he lost his way so easily? Why did he suffer vague impressions to influence his direction? Why was he here—exactly here? And why did he go now “over Litacy Hill”?
Then, by a green field that shone like a thought of daylight amid the darkness of the moor, he saw a figure lying in the grass. It was a blot upon the landscape, a mere huddled patch of dirty rags, yet with a certain horrid picturesqueness too; and his mind—though his German was of the schoolroom order—at once picked out the German equivalents as against the English. Lump and Lumpen flashed across his brain most oddly. They seemed in that moment right, and so expressive, almost like onomatopoeic words, if that were possible of sight. Neither “rags” nor “rascal” would have fitted what he saw. The adequate description was in German.
Here was a clue tossed up by the part of him that did not reason. But it seems he missed it. And the next minute the tramp rose to a sitting posture and asked the time of evening. In German he asked it. And Martin, answering without a second’s hesitation, gave it, also in German, “halb sieben”—half-past six. The instinctive guess was accurate. A glance at his watch when he looked a moment later proved it. He heard the man say, with the covert insolence of tramps, “T’ank you; much opliged.” For Martin had not shown his watch—another intuition subconsciously obeyed.
He quickened his pace along that lonely road, a curious jumble of thoughts and feelings surging through him. He had somehow known the question would come, and come in German. Yet it flustered and dismayed him. Another thing had also flustered and dismayed him. He had expected it in the same queer fashion: it was right. For when the ragged brown thing rose to ask the question, a part of it remained lying on the grass—another brown, dirty thing. There were two tramps. And he saw both faces clearly. Behind the untidy beards, and below the old slouch hats, he caught the look of unpleasant, clever faces that watched him closely while he passed. The eyes followed him. For a second he looked straight into those eyes, so that he could not fail to know them. And he understood, quite horridly, that both faces were too sleek, refined, and cunning for those of ordinary tramps. The men were not really tramps at all. They were disguised.
“How covertly they watched me!” was his thought, as he hurried along the darkening road, aware in dead earnestness now of the loneliness and desolation of the moorland all about him. Uneasy and distressed, he increased his pace. Midway in thinking what an unnecessarily clanking noise his nailed boots made upon the hard white road, there came upon him with a rush together the company of these things that haunted him as “unexplained.” They brought a single definite message: That all this business was not really meant for him at all, and hence his confusion and bewilderment; that he had intruded into someone else’s scenery, and was trespassing upon another’s map of life. By some wrong inner turning he had interpolated his person into a group of foreign forces which operated in the little world of someone else. Unwittingly, somewhere, he had crossed the threshold, and now was fairly in—a trespasser, an eavesdropper, a Peeping Tom. He was listening, peeping; overhearing things he had no right to know, because they were intended for another. Like a ship at sea he was intercepting wireless messages he could not properly interpret, because his Receiver was not accurately tuned to their reception. And more—these messages were warnings!
Then fear dropped upon him like the night. He was caught in a net of delicate, deep forces he could not manage, knowing neither their origin nor purpose. He had walked into some huge psychic trap elaborately planned and baited, yet calcu
lated for another than himself. Something had lured him in, something in the landscape, the time of day, his mood. Owing to some undiscovered weakness in himself he had been easily caught. His fear slipped easily into terror.
What happened next happened with such speed and concentration that it all seemed crammed into a moment. At once and in a heap it happened. It was quite inevitable. Down the white road to meet him a man came swaying from side to side in drunkenness quite obviously feigned—a tramp; and while Martin made room for him to pass, the lurch changed in a second to attack, and the fellow was upon him. The blow was sudden and terrific, yet even while it fell Martin was aware that behind him rushed a second man, who caught his legs from under him and bore him with a thud and crash to the ground. Blows rained then; he saw a gleam of something shining; a sudden deadly nausea plunged him into utter weakness where resistance was impossible. Something of fire entered his throat, and from his mouth poured a thick sweet thing that choked him. The world sank far away into darkness . . . Yet through all the horror and confusion ran the trail of two clear thoughts: he realised that the first tramp had sneaked at a fast double through the heather and so come down to meet him; and that something heavy was torn from fastenings that clipped it tight and close beneath his clothes against his body . . .
Abruptly then the darkness lifted, passed utterly away. He found himself peering into the map against the signpost. The wind was flapping the corners against his cheek, and he was poring over names that now he saw quite clear. Upon the arms of the signpost above were those he had expected to find, and the map recorded them quite faithfully. All was accurate again and as it should be. He read the name of the village he had meant to make—it was plainly visible in the dusk, two miles the distance given. Bewildered, shaken, unable to think of anything, he stuffed the map into his pocket unfolded, and hurried forward like a man who has just wakened from an awful dream that had compressed into a single second all the detailed misery of some prolonged, oppressive nightmare.