Nether Light

by Shaun Paul Stevens

  “Do you need help?” he shouted over the gale.

  “Yes, please,” Guyen called back. He spat out grit, grateful tears washing the dust from his eyes.

  The man brought the rowboat alongside and threw a rope. Guyen tied it around the post. The old man straddled a leg over the side of the small vessel, a handkerchief covering his nose and mouth. “How did you get here?” he asked.

  “I don’t even know where here is,” Guyen said.

  The old man looked thoughtful. “I see. Well, first things first.” He gestured at Yemelyan. “Let’s get him in the boat, shall we?”

  It didn’t matter who the man was, he could slit their throats and add their blood to the lake if he wanted. They had to get out of this dust. They dragged Yemelyan aboard, the old man surprisingly strong considering his frame. Guyen climbed in afterwards. Despite the added weight, the vessel bobbed certainly.

  The old man considered him sympathetically. “Looks like I came along just in time,” he said, yanking the rope free. It unwound from the post like a charmed snake. Leaving it trailing in the blood water, he began to row. There was no doubting this fellow’s age, the wrinkles on his face deep as chasms, hair whiter than sugar. If anything, he was too old. He grunted with the exertion, wind whipping up grit around them like a tornado. How did he know which direction to row?

  “What is this place?” Guyen asked.

  “The Otherwhere,” the old man grunted. “The Layer, where meaning is created.”

  The Layer. Of course it was.

  “It’s as real as your world,” the old man said, pre-empting the question.

  Did he read your mind? It didn’t matter. “Are you a god?” Guyen stammered.

  The old man grunted a regretful laugh. “Unfortunately not. Now, please, keep your questions until we clear this storm.”

  They rowed on for several minutes until a shoreline came into view. “Over there, land!” Guyen rasped, relief flooding up. The old man nodded, unsurprised. The dust was thinning too. Perhaps there was hope after all. Scraping sounded underneath the boat as it grounded on volcanic grey sand.

  “You’ll have to carry him,” the old man said, waving at Yemelyan.

  There seemed little point asking where they were going. Guyen jumped down into the shallows. Blood lapped at his boots, inundating the leather, squeaky between his toes. Another hellish trial. He hoisted Yemelyan onto his shoulders.

  The old man climbed down. “This way,” he barked, and set off at a brisk walk towards some dunes. Guyen followed, squelching boots sinking into the shingle. The ground firmed, and a path appeared. They came upon a hut.

  “Home, sweet home,” the old man croaked. “Come in, rest up a while.” He pushed the door open. It squeaked on rusty hinges. Guyen carried Yemelyan inside. It wasn’t a big hut, enough room for a single cot, a trunk, a table, a stool, and an artist’s easel—a selection of paint pots beneath it. An old, wolf-like dog lay curled in a basket. It gazed over, but didn’t stir. The old man waved at the cot. “Set your brother there.”

  Guyen put him down. He looked all wrong, face puffy one moment, gaunt the next, skin translucent, faintly glowing. A thought struck. Perhaps this was Rikesh? But how could he touch him if that was so?

  “Do you paint?” the old man asked.

  Guyen spun round. “Yemelyan’s the artist,” he said. “He sees the beauty in things. I only see the way they work.”

  The old man cocked his head. “What a shame. Artistry is a soul-nourishing pursuit.” He stared for a moment. “Would you sit for me?”

  “Sit?”

  He gestured at the stool. “Allow me to paint you.”

  Guyen glanced nervously about. He wasn’t supposed to be here. This place was insidious. It robbed your memories. That dream of his old life, of sounds, smells, horses, of men and women, and blue skies… That was the reality he was supposed to inhabit. Panic set in anew. “I can’t stay here,” he protested. “I have to go back.”

  The old man peered sternly. “You are correct, Guyen. But time is not your enemy here. At least, take a drink.”

  Sudden, unnatural thirst welled up—a trek of a thousand deserts, moisture wrung from withered scrub. He nodded.

  “Good,” the old man said. “I will sketch as you sup. Perhaps your brother will recover in the meantime.” He shuffled over to a shelf and decanted the contents of a bottle into a mug. He offered it, gesturing towards the stool. Guyen sat, drinking gratefully—a honey ale, if he had to say. The old man picked up a blank canvas which hadn’t been there a second ago, and placing it on the easel, he began to paint. Guyen sipped the ale, watching him work. Who was this man? Why did he bring you here? How do you get back? A moment later, the old man dropped his brush in a jar of water. Rainbows swirled inside. He stepped back from the canvas.

  “There,” he proclaimed, “what do you think?” He spun the easel.

  Guyen stared. It was him, a finished portrait, not so much flattering as honest, reflecting all his defects, external and internal both. The artistry was that of a High Talent. How had he painted it so quickly?

  “I think that’s good enough to add to the gallery,” the old man said.

  The hut sighed, a yawning, creaking labour pain.

  Guyen jumped down from the stool. “What’s happening?” he shrieked. The floor shook, and with a grinding, crunching roar, one of the walls raced away, stretching the cabin into a new elongated shape. An infinite line of portraits hung along the extended side, fading off into the distance. “What the hell?” Guyen stammered.

  The old man waved a dismissive hand. “The Layer shapes things how they need to be.” He hung the portrait on a waiting nail. Guyen caught sight of the painting beside it, and balked. There was no mistaking the one-eyed man—Father. And the next portrait—no, it couldn’t be—Grandfather? He’d been dead for years, but the memory was clear enough—that distinctive beard, one half grey, eyes twinkling like he breathed inside the frame. What cruel trickery.

  “Do you approve?” the old man asked.

  “Why do you have paintings of my family?”

  “Is it not natural to adore pictures of your grandchildren?”

  “Grandchildren?”

  “Yes,” the old man said. “Of which you are the most handsome, bravest and honourable, by far.”

  “Horseshit!” Guyen spat. This was no time for lies, no matter how flattering. “You’re not my grandfather,” he sneered. “You’re nothing like him.” Something niggled. Actually, there was a resemblance, not the same man, but one of similar features.

  The old man chuckled. “By your temper, my grandson you are, if many generations removed.”

  What did that mean? “Are you a ghost?” Guyen breathed. “Am I dead?”

  “Neither, I’m glad to say. I am what is left, that which is manufactured in the Layer by men’s desires. You have heard my name, but it is abused, misused, my work misunderstood. It is my greatest regret.”

  “If I’ve heard your name,” Guyen said, “then tell me it. Perhaps I will know you.”

  The old man frowned as if it were already obvious. “My name is Feil Hayern.”

  Impossible. Guyen fixed him with a meaningful stare. “Hayern? The last Bindmaster? The man who split the world?”

  The old man smiled. “Guilty as charged.”

  “But you’re a myth!”

  “Do I look a myth to you?”

  This was no welcome revelation. “If you’re who you say,” Guyen growled, “then you’re a demon. Half the world are slaves thanks to your teachings.”

  Hayern sighed. “Men twist my words to their own purpose. My conscience is clear. I sacrificed myself for the cure. I atoned.”

  “What cure?” Guyen snarled.

  “The Binding—the Seed. I turned my blood to poison for the sake of mankind.”

  The Seed? Something clicked. He remembered now—the studio—that’s where he should be. How had the memory faded so? A bitter laugh escaped. “Well, your sacrifice was
for nothing, old man. Your cure has failed.”

  “I know. It saddens me.”

  Guyen kicked the stool in frustration. It flipped into the air in slow motion, breaking into its constituent parts, struts and seat floating down in a pile next to the dog. The beast growled.

  “You can’t be real,” Guyen raged. “This place can’t be real. My head may be fuzzy, but this dreamland or whatever it is can’t exist. It’s not possible.”

  “The Layer is more than possible, dear boy, it is possibility.”

  “If this is real, how did I get here?”

  Hayern’s eyes sparkled. “Perhaps the more fitting question is why did you get here?”

  What did that mean? “I was helping my brother,” Guyen said. Yemelyan slept on, still faded, tenuous, unreal.

  Hayern nodded sagely. “The Layer is a mirror to your world. If you help him here, you help him there.”

  “But how? What’s wrong with him?”

  Hayern placed a hand on Yemelyan’s forehead. “The Layer spills its power on the other side. He is too weak to resist.”

  “What do you mean, spills its power?”

  The old man grimaced. “Men have defiled the Seed in their thirst for dominion over others, strengthening themselves at the expense of the Binding. And as the Binding breaks, so chaos grows stronger.”

  Defiled the Seed? Was he talking about the concoction? Guyen went to the window to clear his head. Outside, the light hadn’t changed. It was permanently dusk here. The view beyond the dunes had changed though, the horizon drawing closer—no, not the horizon, more like a creeping black curtain. That didn’t look good, and that was saying something for this place. “Er, old man, Hayern. Something’s coming.”

  Hayern scuttled to the window and cursed. “Why now?”

  “What is it?”

  He didn’t answer. “It’s time for you to go, my boy.”

  “Go?” Guyen stalled. “Go where? How? And what about Yemelyan? You said you’d help.”

  Hayern’s brow furrowed. “I thought I already had. Must I spell it out?”

  A growl of frustration escaped. “Yes, you must spell it out!” A distant rumble vibrated the ground, something dark, lingering, hungry. Fear took hold again.

  Hayern grunted. “The Seed is in you, untainted, as it was in your father and his before him. The missing element you seek is you. Now go, you must return your brother to the lake if you are to save him.”

  Back to the lake? That didn’t sound like a plan. Perhaps there was a way over the dunes instead?

  “There is only the lake here,” Hayern said. “Take the boat. I shall set you a beacon and buy you some time.”

  Guyen scowled, obstinately refusing to comply.

  The wolf reared up as tall as the old man. “You will go!” Hayern roared. The infinite hut shook, the atmosphere suddenly too hostile to stay.

  Guyen hoisted his brother back onto his shoulders. “What will happen to you?” he asked.

  “I have no need for pasts or futures,” Hayern grunted, picking up a staff. “And happenings do not concern me.”

  Outside the window, half the landscape was missing, replaced by nothingness. Guyen carried Yemelyan outside. Yards away, the dunes shifted, consumed by the black curtain. They were out of time.

  The old man shoved him forwards. “Go!” he commanded.

  Guyen lumbered off down the path with Yemelyan, eyes front, guttural, tearing ruptures sounding behind. The lake reappeared, the dust storm blowing again. The boat sat where they’d left it. He threw Yemelyan aboard and risked a look back. In the distance, at the base of the infinite black curtain, Hayern silhouetted atop a dune, outlined by a blue glow. He raised his staff and a wall of light rose up in front of him, the sky alive with static bursts, zigzagging red trails streaking in front of the blackness like veins in a bloodshot eye. Inhuman shrieks and spectral wailing rose on the wind.

  Cursing blue murder, Guyen pushed the boat off into the blood lake and scrambled aboard. Which way was he supposed to go? A bright point of orange light pierced the dusty air. A beacon? As Hayern had promised. He manned the oars. Damn, they were edged like razor blades—the old man must have leather hands. Guyen clenched his fists, trying to lessen the sharpness, but he’d live with the pain if it meant escape from the approaching oblivion.

  The wall of light exploded out of existence and the black shadow overtook it, racing towards them. Bestial faces the size of cartwheels appeared within it, somehow blacker than the nothingness, scarabs, serpents, giant crows, their beaks trawling the blood water like fishing nets. Guyen redoubled his efforts, but blood eels slithered around the oars, stealing his energy, the boat moving mere inches. The shadow beasts drew closer, their shrieks angry, discordant tones. He rowed for all he was worth. The air turned acrid, bitter, the beacon approaching too slowly, as skin stripped from his hands.

  Like portents of hungry flesh, the blood eels rose from the lake, morphing into octopi tendrils, pulling at the oars, then the boat, snaking over the sides, reaching out for Yemelyan, wrapping around him. There was nothing to do as they pulled him over the side with a gloopy splosh.

  Grit burned. The shadows reared. It was over. He screamed, tears of despair blurring all, pain searing his bleeding hands.

  A drop of blood landed on the lake, its splash far out of proportion to its size.

  A ripple raced out.

  Forms shot up, tiny blood puppets, then man-sized copies of Yemelyan. The boat’s hull splintered, smashed by the hordes of rising blood simulacra, and Guyen sank into the warm plasma, blood filling his lungs, the orange beacon somehow below him.

  The studio reappeared like a caught reflection.

  Intense sodalight dazzled.

  He sprawled on the floor, back up against the bench, the clamour a ringing symphony inside his brain. He felt empty. Toulesh was nowhere. Fetch stared down, a pot of acrid-smelling ointment in hand. Had he brought him round with something?

  “Why aren’t you dead?” Guyen demanded. “Why aren’t I?”

  Fetch shrugged, and began sweeping, the thick layers of grey powder covering the floor his new purpose.

  Guyen struggled to his feet, suppressing the clamour.

  Nyra ranted from the balcony, staring helplessly through the glass. “Are you all right, Yorkov?”

  Guyen staggered over to him, half-slumping against the doors. The studio was a mess—grey powder everywhere, broken equipment strewn across the floor. “What happened?” he rasped.

  “You tell me!” Nyra raved. “Oh gods! Your hands!”

  Guyen removed them from the glass. Two blood-smeared stains remained. He turned his palms over. Deep cuts lined them, blood snaking down his wrists. “What did you do to the canister?” Nyra demanded.

  Shit. It would destroy them all. Where was it? Guyen scrambled back over, scanning the mess. The bench had split in two where he’d dropped the damn thing. He couldn’t see it anywhere. He bent down, looking underneath. A splintered hole in the floor stared up at him, raised voices audible from the next level down. Shit! The canister did that? How? Had he changed it? Made it heavier? A fuck of a lot heavier?

  He pulled himself up, head buzzing with a sweeping, majestic chorus. The eyescope sat tilted at a forlorn angle. Hayern’s words echoed—The Seed is in you. The missing element is you. The patch serum—was he the missing ingredient? It was insane, but it felt true. One last try. Before they expel you. “I know how to do it,” he called to the balcony. “It’s me!”

  “What are you talking about?” Nyra yelled. He was apoplectic. That didn’t matter now, enough of Yemelyan’s blood remained for another try. Guyen propped the eyescope straight with Milkins. The Chlorate—Dumortierite—Sulphurous formulation had been most promising. Hands trembling, he loaded a slide with carrier solution, squeezing Yemelyan’s blood from the pipette, adding the elementals. He dropped a pinch of stem powder from the residue on the bench, all precautions forgotten, and sending up a prayer, he let a drop of blood fall fr
om his weeping palm onto the slide. He looked through the eyepiece.

  Immediately, the sample cleared in concentric circles, the damaged cells healing as wiry threads of Faze morphed into Bind Markers. Footsteps sounded on the stairs. He looked up. “Lock the door, Fetch!” The dullard went to bolt it. Guyen slotted Citrine in the quartz tray beneath the sample. The telltale sparking had vanished. This was it. Success, at last, sweet success. He skidded across to the Incubator, placed the slide carefully in the caddy, and slammed down the lid. The machine hissed, sealing itself.

  Someone hammered at the door. “What’s going on in there?” It was Wield Nekic. “What did you do to my ceiling?” he roared.

  30

  Rebel's Rebellion

  The next morning, Guyen felt sick, very sick. Not only were his hands still bleeding, but he’d come down with a cold. The fever was likely due to the stem powder, in which case he’d got off lightly, but the hands, well, there was no logical explanation for that. Toulesh was back, sitting on the chair, watching him when he awoke. His sour expression told its own story—there was no way he was being summoned today.

  It being Soulesday, Guyen dragged himself around the grounds on the run, avoiding Nyra, then made his way straight to the studio. He had to see how the Incubator was doing. He nodded to the dullard who was still cleaning. The others weren’t in yet. The studio didn’t look too bad. All the plants had withered, now brown sticks covered in crisp salad, but nothing else was amiss—the damaged bench replaced, the hole in the floor disappeared. Fetch must have worked through the night. They’d left him to it. Nyra had been in no mood to stick around after being stranded outside on the balcony for the two hours it had taken to clean up the stem contamination. His cutting words made it plain who he blamed for the mess.

  Worried about repercussions, they’d looked for the incriminating canister down in Nekic’s workshop, but found only another cigar-shaped hole in the floor, and similar puncture wounds all the way down to the basement, where an indent was filled with loose soil. It was as if the container had suddenly become so heavy that nothing could hold it, until it had sunk into the earth’s crust. Had he called up multiple versions of it at once? The streethawk had suggested that was possible—casting mass, he’d called it. Well, it was an explanation of sorts, but not one Nyra was ready for. So Guyen had just scratched his head, suggesting it was stem thing. He wasn’t about to admit responsibility. That kind of witchery would buy a man the rope.