by Aaron French
He felt his gaze fall to the cleft. Infirmed by shock, he could but stare at the crooked fingernails that were wriggling up from the crack in the stone like a spout of muddy water. The long misshapen nails became fingers and hands and arms, all robed in grubby, reeking flesh.
She was lanky, a chain of bones layered in flesh raw as dough. She was impossibly tall, but her swaying, unsteady movements made it seem as if her body had been lengthened on the rack, stretched rather than grown to such a height. Her hair was as dark and tangled as the roots of the forest’s old growth trees. Her eyes resembled shucked oysters and were evidently just as sightless.
The stone baby was cradled in her flaccid hands. By the light of the moon Baldemar could just see that it was something gray, something weed-swaddled.
The woman scooped up the offering bowl and tipped it until the sacramental wine, the blood of all blood, baptised her calcified child.
Baldemar had to remind himself to breathe, so eager was he to witness the purification.
The cry met him with all the force of the spear that screams for annihilation. It was piercing and crippling, somewhere between the snarling mewl of fighting cats and the desperate frustration of a newborn’s cry. The night was swollen with its wail.
Traumatized by the awful sound, and terrified of his possible fate, Baldemar turned and fled, manically, desperately.
Only once did he dare a backward glance. He was expecting to see the woman charging after him, her claws eager to puncture his heart.
But she was a lump of quivering rags lying on the stone slab. Her hands seemed empty. Had the wine’s purity dissolved her offspring?
The woman shook and wailed her deep irreconcilable maternal pain into the night.
***
The trees seemed to part for Baldemar once the abbey’s grounds came into moonlit view. He wanted to feel great relief once he crossed the threshold, but he was numb.
He went to the basin, knowing that the pooled rainwater could not cleanse him. He washed nonetheless, cowering as he stood in the crooked shadow of the cross.
Rigid by what he had glimpsed or merely thought he had glimpsed, Baldemar forced his gaze upward. His eyes were stained by the sight of the thing on the cross, with limbs like withered corn husks and a head of mangled stone. The Lithopedion had grown to maturity in mere seconds.
It slipped free of the nails that had kept it in thrall.
Baldemar watched its beak fall open before it clamped fatally onto his throat.
He hoped his indiscretions had not tainted his blood. He closed his eyes as the creature slaked its thirst, draining him as though he was a living grail.
About the author: Richard Gavin is regarded as a master of numinous fiction in the tradition of Algernon Blackwood and H.P. Lovecraft. He has authored four short-story collections, including THE DARKLY SPLENDID REALM and AT FEAR’S ALTAR. His tales have appeared in THE YEAR’S BEST WEIRD FICTION and THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR. Richard has authored esoteric texts and essays that explore the philosophical underpinnings of horror. He lives in Ontario, Canada and welcomes readers at www.richardgavin.net.
Visionaire
Stephen Mark Rainey
Omnibus Exclusive
Kaifan peered into his urn, feeling disturbance with his questing mental fingers. A roiling breath of gray smoke whispered up from the dark hollow, coalescing into solid but unidentifiable masses of light and shadow. A musical piping floated to him from a great distance, a cacophony of dissonant notes that, after a few moments, began to blend in wistful harmony. The vague shapes in the smoke assumed color and finally became recognizable.
Kaifan did not like what he saw.
***
From the other side of Master Kiang’s door, Kaifan heard the sound of a woman’s plaintive weeping.
Master Kiang had drunk the water of the River Tsing and had been poisoned. Now, even the Lhiam Garden, their monastery, was no longer safe. The filth of the outer lands was encroaching on its sacred boundaries, and Kaifan’s heart was heavy.
The elder priest lay on his bed, his face chalk white, his skeletal hands drawn like claws over his chest. His wife, Mai Li, knelt at his side, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth. Kiang’s eyes widened when he saw Kaifan.
“I’m glad you came,” he whispered.
“I brought some medicines I fashioned. Perhaps they will help you.” He withdrew a small cloth pouch from his robe and handed it to Kiang’s wife. “These are to be mixed with fresh water. We must pray the spring remains safe.”
“Yes. For now, it is safe.”
“It can ease his suffering, but I don’t know if it will save him.”
The lady bowed and then went to fetch water. Kaifan leaned forward and whispered to Kiang, “Master. What will bring the end of the world? Can you tell me?”
One of Kiang’s eyebrows arched above a pain-filled eye. “Do you think I can answer that?”
“You have seen so much more than I. And I see so many things that disturb me. If I can learn this truth, perhaps I can determine how to avert ultimate disaster.”
“Kaifan, evil has always fascinated you—as an adversary, I know. But some things, my friend, are too dangerous to delve deeply into.”
“But to know is to prepare.”
“One must always be prepared. If our world is fated to end, then it will end. You have a kind heart, Kaifan, and I know that, if you could, you would make all the world as beautiful as our Garden. But there is much beyond your power. You must know this.”
“Our only limits are those we impose upon ourselves!”
“Do not be vain. Do not be tempted!” Kiang’s breathing went shallow, and he closed his eyes. “I was so tempted once. I failed to resist the lure of knowledge. But you must resist.”
Kiang’s wife returned with a brimming cup. She knelt to the master and touched the cup to his lips. He drank weakly at first but managed to take it all down. After several moments, he drew a deep breath and went to sleep.
“That is good,” Kaifan said. “We will see how he fares when he wakes. Call me then.”
Mai Li bowed, and he left them, still troubled in his heart that Master Kiang had refused to share his visions. Only by possessing knowledge could Kaifan prevail over the darkness creeping like the shadow of a monstrous scorpion across the world.
***
Kaifan visited the river where Master Kiang had gone to drink. Once, the water had been fresh and vital, teeming with plant and animal life. Now, Kaifan could scarcely believe it was the same place. Trees still grew lush and verdant on the banks, and the roaring falls upriver sent up a fine white spray that caught the sun’s rays in an arc of spectral colors. But where the water was still and deep, a thin layer of oily scum floated on the surface, and piles of yellow, dung-like sludge gathered along the banks.
It was the sickness of the world beyond, invading the Lhiam Garden. The vile residue of every human endeavor that broke harmony with nature and its design.
His heart burned, his mind twisted. This horror had to be vanquished before it overwhelmed the oasis of light that was all he had ever known. Surely, his lifelong fascination with darkness was born of his desire to understand and defeat it. As he lived and grew, he had come to believe that, inevitably, a potent evil would knock on the doors of his own home. His power of inner vision had shown him the spreading darkness of man’s crude civilization, though his eyes had never actually beheld it. Yet there was so much more he had never seen even with his inner eye, and he knew in his heart it was observing these things that held the key to preserving the world. His world.
Surely, Master Kiang had glimpsed that key. Yet Master Kiang lay dying.
Kaifan drew a pouch of herbs and powders from his robe and tossed it into the gurgling water. “God of water, almighty Xiang, hear my prayer,” he whispered. “Restore and preserve the Tsing, and may your healing touch move far across all the waters of the earth.”
Around him birds sang, and, across the river, an umber
flash marked the passage of a deer. Let this life remain, he silently intoned. If only in the Garden.
***
Master Kiang began to rally. The river Tsing was still polluted, but in the cove at the base of the falls, the water had turned clear. Kaifan went to see his old master and bowed humbly as he stood at the foot of his bed.
“You are a good man,” Kiang said, “but as with all men, your wisdom is incomplete. Your sight can reach only so far. Take heart in your achievements, and be fulfilled. My life has been spared for one more day.”
“I am glad,” Kaifan said. “Yet I still see evil in the smoke of my urn. I wish it were not so.”
“It may be that your role is to diminish evil, so that good becomes the greater. Yet you can never defeat darkness, Kaifan—only hold it at bay, as a summer day holds back the night. If you stopped the night from coming altogether, the earth would burn beneath the sunlight.”
Kaifan saw the wisdom of Master Kiang’s words, but they could not assuage the pain the visions from his urn had brought him, for in them, the night overcame all.
“Again, I must ask you, Master. What is it that will bring the end of the world?”
“Again, I tell you: beware of seeking too much knowledge. If the world is fated to end, it will end.”
***
Kaifan looked again into his urn and saw a glimmer of gold amid the swirling black smoke in its depths. His spirits rose, and he breathed a sigh of relief that at least a portion of the darkness had been dispelled. He went out to the Garden and saw the people at work, the children at play. Fruit grew on the trees, and crops were plentiful. Still, he sensed futility in the people’s every action, and in their faces.
The last rain had been acid, and the trees at the fringes of the Garden had fallen bare, though spring had fully arrived.
He went into the forest and walked until he came to its end. A great plain of grass stretched toward the horizon, and beyond it, peaks of pale blue stone soared into a golden sky. The foliage that once covered those mountains had burned away. In places, pillars of smoke climbed into the heavens, forming murky clouds that he knew enveloped all the world’s cities.
Kaifan carried with him the staff of Xin Chan, given to him by his father. He held it with trepidation, knowing there was danger in its use. With it, he could summon the gods of the air to scour the atmosphere, so the rain that fell would no longer be acid. But those gods were easily angered, and his staff held no power to put them down.
And yet, in the smoke of his urn, he had glimpsed a thread of fair fortune, and now he cried out, “Ho! Xin Chan! Come!”
When the storms began, the thunder and lightning that split the air were like none that had been witnessed in a hundred generations.
***
“Your work is grand,” Master Kiang said, now out of his bed and once again tending the grounds of the Grand Temple. “You have given the Garden at least one more day. What does your urn tell you now?”
“I see light and darkness still intertwined, each battling more fiercely than ever before. The light grows brighter, but the darkness thickens. I should feel hope, yet I cannot shed this creeping sense of despair. Why? Why, Master Kiang?”
“Only you can answer this question,” Kiang said gently. “Kaifan, you are a kind man, and you are my friend. You have done much, for which you must be commended. But if your struggle to dispel darkness becomes personal, blind ambition, what hope do you bring to others?”
Kaifan heard and understood. Prevailing darkness choked the light in his urn, and those bright fingers that warmed the deep chill there angered him. They were too small, too weak. He spent night after night searching for the meaning, the truth, of his visions, yet answers remained elusive.
He saw ugly, crowded streets, the people fighting among themselves, hungry and thirsty, for there was no food or water left. Some were killing those who possessed riches that they might preserve their own lives a short while longer. He saw animals turning on their masters and devouring them. Vermin that had infested the darkest recesses of the world’s cities were pouring forth, and plagues of insects fell out of the sky to devour every farm and field. Floods destroyed buildings, homes, and swept those who tried to flee into roiling, polluted seas. Droughts turned bands of green, fertile earth into brown, barren deserts. Men, women, and children struggled to breathe as gray clouds of poison smothered them inside their own homes.
He saw all these things creeping nearer to the Lhiam Garden with every passing day. And he no longer saw any way to stop or even slow the inexorable onslaught.
Save one.
***
One evening, a young monk named Soong came to him in great pain. The skin over his entire body had turned fiery red and was covered with oozing blisters. He had been working the land near the perimeter of the Garden, and the sun itself had sent out tongues of flame to scorch and sear everything they touched.
Kaifan took pity on the man and offered him a pitcher of cool, clean water—his last, for the spring at the Grand Temple had just run dry. He made an ointment from liera root and spread it onto Soong’s skin, which immediately eased his pain. By tomorrow, the blisters might be gone, but Soong and the other monks would no longer be able to work outdoors in daylight.
The next morning, Kaifan covered himself in light robes and journeyed again to the edge of the Garden, this time carrying the ancient stone tablet of Puuhn, the god of sand. He had never before called on Puuhn, and he wondered whether the powerful but reclusive being might deign to answer his summons. As a tribute, he took with him a vial of water—all that remained of the pitcher he had given Soong.
When he stood at the edge of the plain that faced the distant mountains, he spoke the words on the tablet and poured the water into the dusty ground. Then he called, “Ho! Puuhn! Come!”
For a time, nothing happened. But at last, he felt a vibration beneath his feet, and out upon the plain, a plume of dust rose high in the air. It began to whirl in an erratic dance, picking up more and more sand as it spun. It grew taller and taller, spewing forth golden dust that formed a billowing cloud. A roaring like the ocean filled Kaifan’s ears, a booming barrage of noise that intensified until he feared he might go deaf.
The cloud began to crawl across the sky toward him. The sunlight turned muddy, and the ground became a living mass of twisting, writhing shadows. The cloud gradually dispersed, finally thinning to a layer of dust that drifted high above the plain, allowing in just enough sunlight to preserve life. Kaifan shook his head sorrowfully, for he realized this was not a reprieve; merely a postponement.
***
Master Kiang appeared troubled when Kaifan visited him that evening.
“Do you hear the roaring in the distance?” Kiang asked. “It began this morning and has not diminished since.”
“I do.”
“Puuhn is angered. Sand is still rising into the air, and who knows when it might cease?”
“Perhaps it means to blanket the entire earth,” Kaifan said, his voice tinged with bitterness.
“Is that your wish?”
“Of course not. My only desire is to protect our Garden.”
“To halt destruction, you call upon destroyers. You must consider the consequences.”
“I have,” Kaifan whispered sadly. “Oh, but I have.”
***
The next day, the sky burned blood red, and hot winds blew through the Garden. The god Puuhn still roared and howled above the plain, throwing cyclones of earth into the air. Kaifan watched this in the depths of his urn, decrying his own impotence, his eyes hot with tears of despair. Perhaps the rain god Yuushi might be summoned to quell Puuhn’s wrath. He searched among his scrolls and tablets, seeking the proper ritual. After some time, he sensed a presence in the room, and then felt the eyes of Master Kiang on him. He bowed his head in deepest sadness.
“Kaifan. A rain is coming from the plains. We must all take shelter, for the rain is of glass.”
“I see.”
/> “Come with me, and we will retreat to the Temple.”
“I will be there shortly.”
“What do you propose to do now?”
Kaifan turned to him, his eyes pleading for understanding. “Surely, this catastrophe is of my making. It must be undone.”
“I fear you cannot. I have seen this much.”
Kaifan’s heart fell. “How much have you seen? Is this, then, to be the end of all?”
“No.”
“Then tell me, Master Kiang. You have seen it. What will bring the end of the world?”
The master closed his eyes and heaved a deep sigh. “Kaifan, it is your unquenchable desire to know the answer that undoes all you have done. Go look in your urn, and you will have your answer.”
***
The smoke curled and twisted into solid shapes as Kaifan peered into the deep darkness. His heart rose to his throat as the shadows began to assume recognizable forms. Beyond the urn, Master Kiang stood with arms folded beneath his robes, his tearful eyes on his old friend and pupil. Beyond Kaifan’s house, the rain of glass crashed through the trees, approaching like an onslaught of glittering, deadly daggers.
Kaifan beheld the vision and fell to his knees, weeping in despair. He knew, accepted, and loathed the answer to the question that had ruled his life, had moved him to help so many overcome their own tribulations and pain. In the crystal-clear image within the smoke, he saw a robed monk kneeling and peering into the depths of a smoky, shadow-filled urn.
About the author: Stephen Mark Rainey is author of the novels BALAK, THE LEBO COVEN, DARK SHADOWS: DREAMS OF THE DARK (with Elizabeth Massie), THE NIGHTMARE FRONTIER, BLUE DEVIL ISLAND, and THE MONARCHS; over 90 published works of short fiction; five short-fiction collections; and several audio dramas for Big Finish Productions based on the DARK SHADOWS TV series. For ten years, he edited the award-winning DEATHREALM magazine and has edited anthologies for Chaosium, Arkham House, and Delirium Books. Mark lives in Greensboro. Visit his website at www.stephenmarkrainey.com.