The Reign of the Departed

by Greg Keyes

  And in his chest, he now realized, beat the faint ghost of a heart.

  Something was happening to him. He was changing. But into what? A “real boy” as Aster had joked, or some kind of monster?

  Or maybe he was just losing it.

  “This is an uncommon place,” Dusk murmured, as she climbed up beside him. He was a little surprised; he had heard the footsteps but assumed it was Veronica.

  “This whole place is uncommon to me,” he replied. “The kingdoms, I mean.”

  “Is your world so different?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Very different.”

  “And yet you wear an enchanted form,” she remarked.

  “That’s a pretty recent thing,” he said. “Up until a couple of weeks ago I was just a regular boy—flesh and blood, you know.”

  “So you said. But you never said what happened to you.”

  Errol could see Aster, down by the fire. Billy was beside her, and Veronica sat at the edge of the darkness.

  He looked out at the dimming horizon. “I sort of got poisoned. It messed up my brain, I guess.”

  Her eyes widened, and an expression of what appeared to be shock passed over her features. Then something in her gaze sharpened a little.

  “Who poisoned you, Errol?” she demanded. “Do you know?”

  “Yeah,” he said, reluctantly. “I kind of did it myself.”

  “You were trying to kill yourself?” She seemed incredulous.

  “Maybe,” he allowed. “I’ve been telling myself it was an accident, but maybe I was.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because I didn’t like my life very much,” he said.

  “And now?”

  “I haven’t really had time to think about it,” he said. “Thinking is what usually gets me in trouble, actually.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “I have a small question, Errol,” she said.

  “Okay,” he replied.

  “You put the healing salve on my wounds.”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “One of my wounds was here,” she said, touching her chest.

  He nodded.

  “How shall I ask this?” she said.

  “I didn’t look,” he told her.

  “No?”

  “I just sort of pushed it up under your shirt. I didn’t see anything.”

  She smiled. “Well,” she said. “Thank you for thinking of my modesty. I did not believe you were one to take advantage.”

  He knew that if he was flesh and blood he would be blushing. He had told her the truth, but nevertheless felt a bit like a liar. Because his thoughts about her weren’t necessarily all that pure. That he hadn’t taken advantage of the fact that she was bloody and dying to sneak a peek didn’t really seem all that virtuous. You didn’t get extra points for doing what you were supposed to.

  And yet, he found that he would take them.

  “So,” Dusk began, after a little pause, “Aster plans to cure you and Veronica when she finds the water of health.”

  “Yeah,” Errol said, happy to be back on the earlier topic. “And her father.”

  “Is he also asleep?” she asked.

  “No,” Errol said. “There’s something wrong with his memory. He forgets things really fast. He thinks Aster is still a little girl, and she has to explain to him who she is every time they meet.”

  “An odd affliction,” she said.

  “She thinks it’s a curse. But other people in my world get that kind of brain damage. I’ve read about it.” He suddenly realized that he had gone on about Aster’s personal life more than he should have.

  “Look,” he said. “Aster is pretty private about these things. Don’t tell her I told you that, okay?”

  “I shan’t,” Dusk replied.

  Aster stood on the edge of nothing, and was afraid. Not so much of the drop below her; she could step back from that. Rather, she was afraid of what she had to do.

  She had learned the spell long ago, but she had also read the cautions, which were many. She knew it could be done; she had seen her father do it. But he had nearly been lost, and he was far more powerful and practiced than she.

  She heard a soft sound. In the dim light she at first couldn’t see what it was, but then she made out Billy’s profile. He was staring out over the gulf. She didn’t think he had seen her, and she almost backed into the cover of a nearby bush. But she felt a sudden determination and instead made her way over to where he stood. Even when she was near, he at first did not seem to notice her; in the moonlight his eyes appeared huge, and for a moment she thought she saw the stars reflected in them. But then he blinked, slowly, and nodded at her.

  “Nice view,” she said.

  “It feels like home,” Billy replied.

  “Back at Hattie’s house?”

  “No—home.”

  “Where is that?” she said. “I thought you didn’t know where you’re from.”

  “I don’t,” he said. “But this feels like it.”

  “Oh,” she replied, still not sure she understood.

  “You should rest,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Aster said. And then it just blurted out of her.

  “I’m sorry I made you sick. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay,” Billy said. “I know you didn’t.”

  “Then why haven’t you been talking to me?” she asked.

  He looked genuinely surprised. “I didn’t have anything to say. If you want to talk, that’s okay.”

  “Well, I guess I thought you were mad at me,” she said, feeling really stupid, now.

  “Why would I be mad at you?” he asked. “I like you.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure.”

  She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Like me how? Was what she wanted to say, but her tongue just wouldn’t form those words.

  “Okay,” she said instead. “Good.”

  “What are you about to do?” Billy asked.

  “What makes you think I’m about to do something?” she said.

  “It’s like your trying to set yourself for a big jump,” he said. “You’re scared.”

  Her first impulse was to deny it, but she realized Billy wasn’t guessing, or he wouldn’t have said anything at all. He knew.

  “Yes,” she said. “I am.”

  “Can I help?” he asked.

  “Just be here with me,” she said.

  “I can do that,” he replied.

  She nodded, and reached into her rucksack and found the little case. Gingerly she removed its contents, a small dark feather.

  “This is my father’s,” she said. “I took it from his things.”

  Billy didn’t say anything. She stood there, holding the feather, trying to clear the fear from her heart.

  “He said it once was nearly the end of him, Billy. I’m afraid.”

  “Whatever it is,” Billy said, “you can do it.”

  The words felt like a cool breeze on a hot day.

  “Okay,” she said. Then she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. It felt like the craziest thing she had ever done.

  “In case I don’t come back,” she said. And before he could reply—if he even intended to—she touched her forehead with the feather and said the words.

  “Eza azmi karvas.”

  Pain stung every inch of her skin and a scream rose in her throat, but it never got out, because before it could a cold wind blew out from her heart and she exploded. She felt the bits of her, racing away from the center of a sphere expanding at the speed of sound. The edge of her passed over the camp through Veronica, Errol and Dusk; she felt their startlement at the sudden rush of chilly air. The farther she stretched out, the thinner she got, the more she felt herself fade. For a moment she almost let it happen without a fight, allowed herself dissipate, become nothing, forget her quest and her troubles and everything else.

  No, she told herself. No.

  She pulled back toward her center, but it felt as if
she had waited too long. She no longer had the strength.

  But then she felt Billy, in the middle, an anchor and an axis. He was singing something she didn’t understand, but she grabbed onto it, onto him. She felt a strange well of strength and peace, and pulled.

  She stopped expanding, and for a moment the world seemed still, as if time itself was taking pause.

  Then she began to shrink, and then collapse at frightening speed, as if she was falling from hundreds of feet from every direction.

  And when she slapped back together, she did scream.

  But not with a human voice—rather, with the croak of a raven.

  Dizzily, she lifted her wings, and without another thought dropped out into the open sky below. Her feathers caught the wind, each one a little wing in itself, turning, stretching, dancing her along the wind.

  Mustn’t forget, she told herself.

  And she flew off east, along the rim, wondering what she had been afraid of. Flying was wonderful.

  She flew until the moon had coursed half through the sky, and did not see what she needed to see, and so reluctantly turned back west, studying the rim a second time. Raven eyes were not so much better at night than human ones, but what she was looking for should be hard to miss, even under a crescent moon.

  She passed a young man near the rim and her heart quickened with fear before she realized it was Billy. She was hungry, and tired of flying, and she ought not to be flying at night anyway. She wanted to settle on a limb and rest.

  She was still Aster enough to know what was happening, but for how long?

  West she soared, as the sickle of the moon stabbed into the horizon. Legs and arms seemed more a dream now than reality, a strange dream she’d had. Mountains rose along the sea, and a forest, which seemed familiar. But it made the hunt less certain.

  Then she saw something pretty glittering below.

  And she knew it.

  She turned in an instant and flew back, but everything was sliding away, down her wings and off them so the wind could take it all. In her last moments she knew she could only keep one image, one thought to keep her going, one name, and so she held hard to it. In the end it was more an annoyance than anything, a distraction. Why she should find the human sleeping on the edge of the cliff and settle upon it was not only senseless, but dangerous. Yet she was tired, and it was the only way the buzzing in her mind would let her rest.

  She fell asleep, and when she woke she was gripped tightly in his hands, and knew she had made a fatal mistake.

  SEVEN

  SKY AND EARTH

  Midnight came, and Errol was surprised at how tired he felt, how sleepy. Dusk had asked him to wake her so she could take a watch, but he had planned on just letting her sleep. He was changing his mind; if he nodded off, he put everyone at risk. Veronica was dozing with her head on his chest, curled up like a cat in his lap, and he didn’t want to wake her, either, so he gently lifted her and carried her down the stairs. She stirred, though, and her dark eyes blinked open.

  “Wherever are you taking me, Errol?” she murmured. “Not going to throw me off the cliff, I hope.”

  “Probably not,” he said. “I’m just relocating. It’s Dusk’s watch.”

  “I can do it,” Veronica. “I’ve had a nice nap.”

  “Dusk asked me to wake her,” he said.

  “You don’t trust me to keep watch, do you Errol?” Veronica accused.

  “Of course I do,” he lied. “I just want you to sing me to sleep.”

  “Well, that’s awfully sweet,” she said, in an uncertain tone. He set her down on her bedroll.

  “I notice Aster and Billy are nowhere to be found,” Veronica said.

  “Aster said she had something to do.”

  “Yeah,” Veronica replied. “I bet it involves saliva.” Errol stared at her. It was hard to tell when she was kidding, sometimes.

  “You think so?”

  “Don’t you pay attention to anything, Errol?” she said.

  “I guess they’ve been kind of chummy,” he said. “But Aster, I don’t think she—”

  Veronica snorted. “Are you kidding? Everybody is human. Okay—you’re not, and I’m not, but Aster is. She had a thing for you, for goodness sake. Probably still does. Didn’t you know that?”

  “No,” he said. “I know you used to joke about that, but—”

  “I joked about it because it was so obvious,” she said. “It was funny.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” he said.

  She sat up and hugged her knees. “You’re cute sometimes, you know that?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve got to wake Dusk.”

  Dusk always slept on her back, or at least anytime he had ever seen her. She looked serene, and her lips were slightly parted, as if waiting for a kiss.

  It was maybe because he was focused on that that he didn’t see the snake at first. It was coiled on her belly, staring at her throat, its tongue flickering in and out. The diamond patterns on its back and the rattle trailing from its coils identified its species.

  “Jesus,” he murmured, and froze. The snake didn’t seem to have noticed him. He tried to think it through.

  Rattlesnakes hunted small animals, and they struck at big ones—like people—when they thought they were in danger. But they didn’t go after people. Tiny though snake brains were, they recognized something as big as Dusk was too much to eat.

  So what was it doing? It was chilly, almost cold. Maybe it just thought it had found a warm spot.

  But there was another, much uglier possibility, wasn’t there?

  The rattle started going. That only happened when a snake thought it was in danger.

  Dusk’s eyes opened, and she gasped.

  Errol darted forward. Dusk still hadn’t moved, so it was him the snake went for, uncoiling with amazing speed and burying its fangs in his arm. He felt the bright, sharp tips of them and yelped. He stumbled back, and the snake went with him, its fangs stuck in him.

  It took a few seconds for rationality to assert itself. He was made of wood. The venom couldn’t hurt him.

  With his other hand, he gripped the snake behind the head and pulled it loose.

  Veronica was up and staring at him.

  “What’s going on?” she said.

  “You tell me!” he snapped, holding the squirming reptile up.

  She blinked.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “It would have killed me,” Dusk said. She was standing touching her neck as if searching for a wound. She too looked at Veronica.

  “Errol Greyson,” Veronica said, “I know you’re not implying that I had anything to do with that thing.”

  She was trying to sound angry, but Errol heard the hurt, too. But with Veronica, you could never be sure, could you?

  “Why would you think that?” she demanded.

  Without even thinking about it, he glanced over at Dusk and found she was looking at him.

  “Oh.” Veronica said. “I see.”

  She turned on her heel and strode off into the night.

  “Veronica!” he shouted. “Just hang on—”

  “It’s a rattlesnake, you jackass!” Her voice came out of the darkness. “We’re in a desert!”

  He watched her go, wanting to follow. Yet something held him back.

  “Would she do that?” Dusk asked. “If she thought there was something between us?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But there isn’t, so—”

  “Is that so?” she softly interrupted. “We share some feeling, do we not?”

  He heard the words, but they seemed impossible. Ridiculous at the very least. He groped for something to say.

  “You’re still holding the snake,” Dusk reminded him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’d better take it off someplace.”

  “You aren’t going to kill it?”

  “Whatever is going on here,” he said, “it’s not the snake’s fault.”

  He walked
a few hundred yards from the camp and let the snake go. It slithered off without much commotion. When he returned to camp, Dusk was gone, having taken up her position on the tower. Veronica was still absent too, but he was tired and very confused. He had a shot at Dusk? How could that be? And did Veronica really try to kill her? Deep down, was she still the creature that nested on the bones of her victims? Could she ever really change?

  And yet the hurt in her voice had seemed real. His thoughts become lost in shadow, as he finally drifted into sleep.

  She struggled, trying to free her wings. He held her firmly until she pecked at his face, and then he did let go. With a shriek she beat at the air, but then his nimble hands had her again. And he said a word.

  It was just a sound, the first time, but the next it seemed as if it meant something, and though her heart shivered beneath the black down of her breast, she listened a third time, and a fourth.

  Aster.

  A spark kindled in her head. It sputtered for an instant and then suddenly exploded, and for the second time, so did she. She stretched high and far and returned, slapping back together, and this time she had arms instead of wings, and feet instead of claws, although the legs they were mounted on failed to hold her up, and she collapsed onto the red rock.

  “Wow,” she said. “That was—wow.”

  “Are you well?” Billy asked.

  “I think so,” she said. “Shaky. And—” She suddenly realized the unforeseen consequences of her transformation.

  “And naked,” she finished. She felt a blush go down her whole body, but she had barely gotten the words out when Billy’s shirt settled over her head.

  “Thanks,” she said, pulling it on. It smelled like him, like juniper and smoke.

  She glanced at him, blazing with embarrassment, and saw he was turned away from her, working at the buttons on his pants.

  “That’s okay,” she said, quickly. “This shirt is like a dress on me. See?”

  He turned, saw, and nodded.

  “I, ah—sorry about that,” she said.

  “About what?” he asked.

  “You know, the whole naked thing.”

  He smiled slightly. “Didn’t intend to look,” he said. “But you’re pretty.”

  Something tightened in her, but no guile was on his face. Billy wasn’t Jake, trying to peek at her in an outhouse. He had seen her, that was all, and hadn’t taken advantage—he handed her his shirt as soon as possible.