Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light

by Tanya Huff

  “I’ll remember, Lena.”

  “I’ll see you Monday, puss.”

  “See you Monday, Lena.”

  The accountant started. He’d heard a voice. He knew he had. And the cafeteria door swung back and forth on its hinges. But there was no one down here. He’d come down to get Mrs. Pementel because it was after three and she still hadn’t shown up in his office. And the cafeteria was empty. Of course, it was empty. There were no retarded muffin makers stuck in the doorway. No eyes that looked into his soul and found it wanting. That would be ridiculous. He was working too hard.

  He took a step forward and the toe of his recently polished brown oxfords kicked into a yielding obstacle. He looked down.

  “Mrs. Pementel? Mrs. Pementel!” Dropping to his knees beside the body, he groped for a pulse. “Oh, my God! She’s dead!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The patrol car moved slowly around King’s College Circle, its searchlight sweeping across the common. The police barricades had been taken down late in the afternoon, but the cars had been instructed to swing around the site when they could.

  “You think he’ll return to the scene of the crime?” PC Brooks asked as his partner stared fixedly out the window along the beam of the searchlight. He could see only grass and trees and maybe a faint chalk mark gleaming white in the sudden glare. He wondered what she saw.

  “I hope he does.” PC Patton ground the words out, her gaze locked on the center of the common. “I hope he comes back. I hope we’re here. And I hope the son-of-a-bitch gives me the chance to blow him off the face of the earth.” She saw a child’s body lying discarded on the grass, although she knew the actual body had long since been taken away, and she knew she’d continue to see it until the child’s murder was avenged.

  They completed the circuit and PC Brooks switched off the light. On cue, the radio hissed and the dispatcher’s emotionless tones called out: “Officer needs assistance, Bloor and Yonge, northeast corner. Repeat, officer needs assistance, Bloor and Yonge, northeast corner.”

  PC Patton thumbed the switch. “5234 responding.” She settled back as Jack hit the siren and the gas simultaneously, one hand on her nightstick, her mouth a thin line. Right now, busting a few heads seemed a fine idea.

  Behind them, Darkness thickened in the Circle.

  Rebecca pulled her big orange sweater out of the closet and put it on. She wasn’t cold and didn’t expect to be cold. She wanted it for comfort. She’d bought it herself, no one had helped her and, although she couldn’t have explained what she meant, it stood for independence. Strength. Besides, it was bright and Daru always said to wear bright colors at night so the cars could see you—the first Rebecca had heard that cars could see.

  “Are you all right, Lady?”

  She leaned back against Evan’s chest, rubbing her head against his shoulder. “I’m a little bit scared, Evan. I still don’t think I understand what you want me to do.”

  “I want you to listen to Roland sing. Really listen. And I want you to just be yourself.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes. That’s all.”

  “I think I can do that.” She sighed. “I’m still a little bit scared, Evan.”

  “So am I, Lady.” He laid his cheek against her curls and his arms tightened protectively around her. “So am I.” He remembered the promise he’d made the troll and was ashamed he’d had to be asked. If they won, if they both still lived, and if she agreed, he would take her with him when he returned to the Light. There, her innocence would be protected, her clarity would remain undimmed. He had realized, when he’d seen her trapped and touched by Darkness, just how much this meant to him. Such a life should be cherished and this world would not do it.

  But first they had to win. And they both had to survive.

  “It’s past eleven,” Roland called from the main room. “We’d better get moving.”

  Rebecca twisted in Evan’s arms and hugged him hard, then took his hand and led him out of the alcove. “Did you call Daru while I was asleep, Roland?”

  “I called, kiddo.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “She wasn’t at the office all day. I left a message there and on her machine at home.”

  Rebecca frowned. “I wonder where she is.”

  Roland looked down at his guitar case, up at the ceiling, out the window, and over at Evan. Evan nodded. “We fear the Darkness has taken her, Lady.”

  “Taken Daru?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you look?” she asked Evan.

  He shook his head. “I don’t have the power to spare,” he explained sadly.

  “Then you don’t know the Darkness has her.”

  “She hasn’t called, kiddo. Not us and not her office.”

  “That’s okay.” Rebecca pulled the sweater tighter around her shoulders. “Daru works very hard and is very busy. She can’t always phone for every little thing.”

  Roland wasn’t going to be the one to try to convince her. Although he personally believed that they’d never see Daru again, what would it hurt if Rebecca believed differently? And after tonight it may be a moot point.

  From its place beneath the window, the harp sighed, rather as if a breeze had touched each string in sequence.

  “I think it wants to go with us,” Rebecca said.

  “Not an it, kiddo, a she,” Roland corrected, stroking a polished wooden curve. “And when this is over, I promise I’ll learn to play her.” Provided I have fingers left to play with.

  The harp sighed again.

  Rebecca echoed it. “I wish I’d heard your song,” she sighed.

  “You needed to sleep, Lady.”

  “I know.”

  “And you will hear the song in time.”

  “I know.” They left the apartment and she carefully locked the door. “It gave me the neatest dreams though.”

  Behind her back Roland and Evan exchanged a speaking glance.

  “What kind of dreams?” Roland asked.

  “Like someone was telling me all kinds of things that I’d forgot. And it wasn’t Roland telling me either, it was someone else though even in the dreams I knew it was Roland singing.”

  “What kinds of things did they tell you?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head, “When I woke up, I forgot again. Maybe when I really hear you sing …”

  “Maybe,” Roland agreed.

  A half a block from the apartment building they noticed they’d picked up a fourth companion.

  “Rebecca. That damned cat is following us.” “No, he isn’t.”

  Roland looked down at Tom and up at Rebecca. “Yes, he is. He’s right here!”

  “But he isn’t following us,” Rebecca pointed out. “He’s walking beside us.”

  “I don’t care where he’s walking, tell him to go home.”

  “Cats go where they want to, Roland,” Rebecca said. She thought everyone knew that.

  Evan squatted down and Tom butted up against his legs. “It is a great battle we go to, small furred one, and while we do not doubt your courage, neither do we wish you to be hurt.”

  Tom placed one paw on the Adept’s knee, his claws fully extended and just barely pricking into the denim.

  Evan smiled. “You are a mighty warrior,” he agreed, long fingers digging into the cat’s thick ruff. “If you truly wish to join us, you may.”

  “I’ll carry him across busy intersections,” Rebecca offered.

  Just great, Roland thought, as they continued walking. As if we didn’t have enough on our plate. Although well aware that Tom had led him back to the real world, Roland’s opinion of the cat, of cats in general, had not significantly changed. And as far as he could tell, Tom’s opinion of him had not changed significantly either. The parallel scratches he’d acquired on his wrist that afternoon testified to that. He caught sight of their reflections in the glass doors of Maple Leaf Gardens and shook his head. I wonder what the rest of the world thinks of this.

  The rest of the

world didn’t seem to notice. For eleven thirty on a Friday night in a major city, there was nothing strange enough about them to attract attention.

  … except for one little boy, up long past his bedtime, who watched them go by with his mouth open and continued to stare after them until his mother shook him and told him to behave.

  By the time they reached Yonge Street, with its traffic and its crowds, Roland felt as if they were walking through a movie. Everything seemed unreal, removed just a little bit from where they were; lights were too bright, shadows too sharp, sound too brittle, and the warm air slid over his skin without making contact. He had the impression that nothing existed until he looked at it, and it stopped existing when he turned his eyes away. The others felt it, too, for Evan held his hands away from his sides and he continuously swept the area around them with his gaze. Rebecca chewed on a lock of hair and watched only Evan, leaving her feet to find their own way without guidance. Even Tom lay quietly in Rebecca’s arms, ears down, the tip of his tail snapping back and forth against her hip.

  The light at the corner was red, and it stayed red for what seemed like a very long time. The crowd that stood with them shifted restlessly, constantly in motion, and it suddenly struck Roland just what kind of movie they were in. It’s a western. Just before the stampede, and when it starts you know the hero’s best friend is going to get knocked off his horse and killed.

  “There’s a storm coming,” Rebecca said with absolute certainty.

  “Yes,” Evan agreed, “there is.”

  Roland wondered briefly if they were talking about the same thing and then decided it didn’t matter. Sweat dribbled down his sides and his T-shirt stuck to the center of his back. He shifted his damp grip on the plastic handle of the guitar case and began reviewing the words to the invocation. It beat thinking.

  The light changed. Finally. The traffic on College surged forward. A black Corvette speeding south on Yonge tried to beat the odds.

  With a scream of tires and a slam of metal meeting metal, a brown Mazda plowed into the Corvette’s side, throwing it into the path of an orange taxi. For the first few seconds, only the cars screamed. Then they came to rest in a twisted smoking heap and the people began to yell.

  Evan threw himself forward and Roland yanked him back.

  “It’s eleven thirty-eight, Evan! We haven’t got time to help!”

  The taxi driver sprawled half out of the window. The blood dripping from his mouth pooled on the road below.

  “Let me go!” Evan twisted free. “You don’t understand. I have to help them!”

  “I do understand.” Roland tried not to see. Tried not to hear. Tried not to feel. “But you can help them best by defeating the Darkness!”

  Evan took a step toward the wreck.

  “Evan,” Rebecca’s quiet voice cut through the noise, through the hysteria. Both men turned to look at her. If he’d thought about it at all, Roland would have assumed she’d be panicking, but to his surprise she looked almost serene, an island of calm in the midst of chaos. “If you stop here, Roland and I will go on without you.”

  Evan jerked as though she’d hit him. He gave one anguished cry and plunged through the gathering mob, running toward the Circle.

  Tom flowed out of Rebecca’s arms and followed, quickly disappearing amid the forest of legs and feet.

  “Tom!” Roland called. “You stupid …”

  Rebecca took his hand. Hers was cool and dry. His was trembling.

  “Tom can take care of himself,” she said. “Come on.”

  They began to run, pushing past the ghouls that always gathered to warm themselves around disaster and pounding down College Street in pursuit of the Adept.

  Not until King’s College Road did they catch up with Evan. He stood, staring up into the Circle, face bleak, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans.

  He looks so absurdly young, Roland thought as he let go of Rebecca’s hand and stood gasping for breath. The air didn’t seem to have any substance in it and running had burned a copper taste into the back of his throat. He couldn’t see Tom anywhere although a rustling in the bushes up ahead could’ve been the cat.

  Slowly, Evan turned to face them, his eyelashes clumped together in damp spikes, and his cheeks wet. Rebecca moaned a quiet protest and threw herself into his arms. Roland, jealous of the comfort being given, being received, and hating himself for it, concentrated on breathing. Then a strong arm pulled him into the embrace and, for the moment it lasted, everything was all right.

  When they pulled apart, hands lingering for a final touch, they all stood and stared up into the Circle. The streetlights grew more sallow, more wan, the closer they came to the Darkness until eventually the Darkness devoured their light entirely. The great turreted silhouette of University College that normally rose beyond the common was not black enough on this night to show against the starless sky.

  Roland looked at his watch. Eleven forty-six. Fourteen minutes.

  “Why,” he’d asked Evan that afternoon, “can’t we go there early, like maybe before the sun sets, call up this goddess, explain the whole thing, go home, and let her handle it?”

  Evan’s answer, as it often was, had been another question. “And will we ask a goddess to wait on our convenience?” This question he’d answered himself. “No. We will call her when we need her.” He’d smiled at Roland’s disgusted expression. “There is a maxim from the old ways that has carried over into the new; the gods help those who help themselves.”

  “Fortune cookie platitudes again,” Roland had snorted.

  Tipping his chair back, Evan had swung one booted foot up onto the kitchen table. “Some of those fortune cookies are pretty smart.”

  They walked toward the Circle; Rebecca holding Evan’s hand, Roland holding Rebecca’s. The contact helped, made it possible to keep putting one foot in front of the other, even knowing what waited at the end of the road. As they moved closer to the Darkness, the sounds of a busy city at night began to fade until they traveled in a silence unbroken except for the soft silver chime of Evan’s bracelets. They didn’t speak. It had all been said.

  “So, uh, Evan, what’s the Dark One going to be doing while I’m singing?”

  “Trying to stop you.”

  Roland had suspected he knew the answer before he’d asked. He’d been right. “And you’ll be?

  “Protecting you.”

  “I’m not doubting you or anything, but can you?”

  Evan had smiled sadly. “I cannot defeat him, the balance has shifted too far for that, but I should be able to distract him long enough for you to finish the song. And then it will be out of our hands.”

  They walked around the Circle for a short distance, avoiding the actual area of the Dark Gate, and stepped onto the grass under the bordering arc of oaks.

  Something rustled softly and Roland felt a gentle touch against his hair. He looked up. The tree branch above him was empty of littles and there wasn’t a breath of air to move it. He shot a glance at his companions, but they seemed unaffected so he shrugged and let it be. Now didn’t seem to be the time to start worrying about trees.

  As they moved closer to the center of the common, the Darkness became almost a physical presence, oozing out from the place where blood had been spilled and swirling about their ankles, reaching misty tendrils toward their knees, climbing a little higher with every pass.

  “Back,” Evan growled. “This world is not yet yours.” He spread his arms and except for the seething mass which marked the sacrifice, the common cleared.

  “That’s better,” Roland said approvingly. Then he noticed that the rest of the world, the world outside the Circle, seemed separated from them by a barrier of smoked glass. He could see through it, but not well, and buildings were hazy and unreal.

  Eleven fifty-seven.

  “Uh, Evan,” Roland put the guitar case on the grass and unsnapped the clasps, “as I never saw this song before this morning, what if I screw up?”

  Evan clasped him lightly on the shoulder, his grip a reassurance, but all he said was, “Don’t.”

  “Don’t,” Roland repeated. “Right.” He lifted Patience out of the case and swung the strap around his shoulders as he stood. Four verses, two choruses, and a Dm to a F change. Why me?

  Because you’re all they have, said the little voice in his head.

  Evan took Rebecca’s face between his hands and looked deep into her eyes. “Thou hast my heart, Lady. Keep it safe.”

  Rebecca sighed, bit her lower lip to stop its quivering, and placed her hands over his. “I love you, too, Evan.”

  Roland waited for the clinch, but it never came, only a soft kiss and a parting. Moisture rose in his eyes and he blinked furiously to clear them. When he could see again, the Adept stood before him. Everything he wanted to say—good luck, be careful, kick ass—seemed too trite, so he only nodded once and hoped Evan would understand.

  Evan nodded once in return.

  “You have come to meet your destruction. How … noble.”

  He wore a black velvet robe that absorbed what little light remained. Behind him, the gate continued to grow.

  As Evan turned to face the Dark Adept, his expression changed and he looked, just for that instant of turning, heartbreakingly sad. In the few seconds it took for Roland to understand, Evan had moved too far away for the Bard to stop him.

  “He thinks he’s going to die out there!” Roland whirled to face Rebecca who watched Evan with a kind of yearning desperation.

  She sniffed. “I know.”

  “We can’t just let him …”

  “We have to let him.”

  “But there must be something we can do!”

  “There is.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve, never taking her eyes from Evan. “Sing.”

  The gate was taller than both the Adepts who stood before it, ten or twelve feet wide, and still growing.

  His heart in his throat, Roland strummed the first chord, knowing as he did, he condemned Evan. The Dark Adept had no need to fight until the music gave him reason. Weighing Evan against the world, the world almost lost, but he forced his fingers to play on. Behind him, he could feel Rebecca listening with the single-minded intensity she brought to everything she did.

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