The Golden

by Lucius Shepard

  Rays of light fingered them. What had appeared to be a star now became a golden tunnel with a devil at the bottom, and as they fell toward him Beheim saw that the old man’s red eyes were not eyes at all, but empty, bloody sockets, and his cadaverous cheeks were covered with a dead man’s growth of stubble, and his tongue was bloated, dark red, looking as if a slug had crawled halfway out of his mouth, and his hands opened and closed, opened and closed with the spasmodic reflex of someone freshly killed, and what he had taken for capering was in reality a palsied jitter like the dance of a hanged man.

  Beheim locked his hands behind the woman’s back and deepened their kiss. She pressed against him, apparently unsuspecting, still consumed by her own treachery. A few seconds before they were to sweep past the grasp of those groping, gray fingers, he doubted the wisdom of his plan, perceiving its potential pitfalls and reversals; but there was no time left to deliberate, and as they reached their closest point of approach, using all his strength, he spun them about, going with the pull of the woman’s hold rather than against it, changing their course by a fraction, sufficient to bring her in range of the old man’s right hand. His fingers hooked her shoulder, yanking her away from Beheim. Shock hardened her face into a white mask. She clutched at Beheim, but he fended her off, letting his momentum carry him onward along their altered course, and slung himself toward the heart of the light, catching sight—as he twisted and flailed—of the two of them tangled together, biting and clawing, their fangs bared, shining, disfiguring blood spreading everywhere. And beyond them, blurred into an indefinite shape by sprays of light, something huge and pale was coming fast.

  Fear was so bright in him, he felt it leaping up inside his body, like a cat leaping from a burning window, adding its force to his straining progress. Fresh doubts assailed him. What if there were no portal at the heart of the light? What if some even more terrible guardian had been set to block his path? Someone screamed behind him. Man or woman, he could not say. Only the pain was indisputable. He surged on blindly into the light, powering upward with the crude strokes of an unschooled swimmer against the current that would have swept him back into the void, reaching for something that might not exist, an edge, a mortared rim, a projection of rock…

  He had it!

  His fingers curled around a knob of stone, squeezed it for his life.

  His other hand touched a flat surface, then a crack. He inserted three fingers into it, dug for a solid hold.

  And then he was hauling himself up and out of a pool into flickering torchlight, onto cool rough stone. As he lay gasping he saw that he was lying in a corridor, ranged in both directions by iron-mounted torches. He did not recognize the place. It might be anywhere in the castle; it could lead to a world of terror. But no terror, he thought, more profound than that he had just escaped.

  If, indeed, he had escaped.

  The thought that the chase might not be over put a charge in him. He scrambled up and was dumbfounded to see drips of blackness slither from the creases of his clothing and plop onto the stone, where they rolled about like animated punctuation, then combined, first into a puddle, then into a rivulet that went flowing back to merge with the surface of the pool.

  He started along the corridor, choosing a direction at random, but had not gone three steps when there came a ripping sound behind him, as of heavy fabric being torn down its seam. He turned to see the woman’s head and shoulders emerge from the pool. Her hair was slicked back, negative droplets spilling like beetles across her skin. Her eyes, black and vacant as holes in a bedsheet, fastened on him; her mouth opened. Whether to speak or gulp in air, he did not know. Then a hand, an incredibly long-fingered white hand attached to a pulpy arm, reached from beneath the surface, caught the top of her head—as a normal hand might surround an orange—and yanked her under.

  Beheim sprinted away, arms pumping, intent on finding a side passage, wanting to turn a corner on the entire experience, but there proved to be no side passages. The corridor appeared to extend into infinity, an infinite ranking of torches angled from iron mounts and glistening, dark gray stone brocaded by crusts of moss. He kept running until a stitch came in his side. When he at long last paused, leaning against the wall, his labored breath breaching the silence, he looked back down the corridor and saw a white figure—tiny at that distance—standing in or near the place from which he had fled. He could feel the chaotic pressure of that same mental discord that had affected him when he sighted the white horizon line announcing the Patriarch’s imminence. His legs were shaking, his lungs on fire. He knew he could not run much farther. Resentment boiled up in him, and he cried out, “What do you want of me? I’m doing as you asked!”

  The Patriarch gave no sign of having heard.

  Beheim staggered off a few steps. “What do you want of me?” he cried again, and this time he received a response, though not of the sort he had hoped to elicit.

  The corridor seemed to tip downward—it was as if he were staring into a well of perspective, a dwindling array of fiery red tears and gray slabs of stone in whose penultimate depth hung the figure of the Patriarch, more a white emblem than a living thing. A feeling of vertigo assaulted Beheim. He clutched at the damp stones and shut his eyes.

  After a while, cautiously, he opened them.

  He would have liked to scream, to release the fearful pressure that was building in his chest; but the sight before him seemed to possess its own crushing gravity, a force that cut short his breath and made any outcry impossible. The Patriarch’s face filled his field of vision—he looked to be a giant peeking into the end of a tunnel a few feet from where Beheim stood flattened against the wall. It was a face with a surprisingly delicate bone structure, reminiscent of a bat, of a weasel, of every kind of vermin: nose reduced to a bump with slits; a lipless mouth from which protruded fangs the size of tusks; pulpy white skin laced with blue veins, their patterns having the intricacy of tattoos; the eyes were disproportionately large, with notched pupils centering irises whose murky substance appeared to be swirling, always in flux, picked out here and there by phosphorescent lights that bloomed and faded with the inconstancy of foxfire.

  The mouth opened, revealing a complement of needled, bloodstained teeth; a gush of carrion breath followed.

  Beheim soiled himself. He sank to the floor, his strength gone, turned his eyes to the wall, and waited for the end.

  But the end did not come.

  Instead he heard a cultured masculine voice say, “Come, my child. Sit and talk with me awhile.”

  Chapter TWELVE

  The man who had spoken was slender and young, several years younger, it appeared, than Beheim, with a wide Byronic face framed by dark curls; he wore a billowy shirt of white silk and loose gray trousers, and on the fourth finger of his right hand was a massive gold signet ring. He was occupying a wrought-iron chair at the center of a moonlit courtyard, enclosed by crenellated walls of three stories in height—they must, Beheim realized, be at the very top of the castle—and ringed by potted ferns and flowering plants; it was paved with a mosaic of flagstones and divided into nooks by an arrangement of vine-tangled trellises. The moon was almost directly overhead, cutting a sharp slice of shadow across the westernmost quarter of the courtyard, where a short stairway led up into a room with shuttered windows. With a foppish gesture, the man indicated a second wrought-iron chair, flanked by a table of like design, and again urged Beheim to sit.

  Though he was still afraid, knowing the man was only a more presentable incarnation of the ghoulish creature in the corridor, he wanted to believe that some accommodation had been reached, some test passed, and that things would now proceed at a rational pace and measure. Supporting this hope was the fact that his fouled clothes were missing, and in their stead he was now wearing a shirt and trousers identical to those worn by the Patriarch. He came to his feet and walked unsteadily to the chair. The Patriarch’s smile was charming, guileless; he seemed to be beaming his approval of Beheim’s every action.


  “Would you care for some refreshment?” he asked as Beheim settled himself. “A glass of wine, perhaps. Or something stronger, if you wish? Ordinarily I would have the necessities to hand, but I was not prepared for your visit. Always best to come announced. That way”—with an avuncular wink, he reached out and patted Beheim on the knee—“there’ll be no surprises.”

  Beheim had an apprehension of the madness dammed up behind this pleasant facade. He gave an involuntary shudder. The fanciful iron pattern of the chair bottom seemed to be branding him with cold arabesques.

  “I’d welcome some whiskey,” he said.

  “Whiskey it shall be!” The Patriarch called for a decanter to be brought at once.

  He stretched out his legs, folded his hands on his stomach. “You’ve done well, my boy. Better than I’ve any right to expect. You’ve displayed uncommon courage and a modicum of cleverness. With luck, we’ll have put an end to this tiresome business by tomorrow evening.”

  “I hope as much, my lord,” Beheim said, trying to present an image of firm competency. “But there is no guarantee of success. The trap is a simple one, and obvious. Too obvious, perhaps, to catch a subtle creature like our murderer.”

  “Why subtle?” the Patriarch asked, leaning forward in his chair; his voice grew strident. “What subtlety is there in butchery of the sort he has committed? True, your cousins do have their subtleties, but they are moved chiefly by fear, by every manner of irrational concern. The simplicity of the trap is not necessarily a liability. The simple logic that informs it will make it a great temptation. Perhaps the murderer will think I have forgotten something, overlooked something. And as for its obviousness, well, subtle creatures will often see in the obvious the most convoluted of possibilities. I’m quite certain you will find a rabbit in your snare tomorrow.” He tapped his brow. “I have a feeling for these things.” He glanced toward the stairs. “Ah! Here’s your whiskey.”

  The woman in white was descending the stairs, bearing a tray upon which rested a decanter and a glass of cut crystal. As she moved out from the shadows Beheim saw that though her body had remained voluptuous and smooth-skinned, her face had decayed, the tendons coming unstrung, the flesh in tatters, the lips eroded, so that rotted gums and gray teeth and a portion of the skull were all laid bare. Her eyes were awful vacancies and leaked a viscous fluid. It was all Beheim could do to keep from leaping away when she offered him the glass.

  “You may leave the decanter, Christina,” the Patriarch said, and she set the tray down upon the table next to Beheim. Her breath was a liquid sibilance, and as she leaned close he heard a faint creaking and imagined this to be the sound made by some fleshy construct stripping away from the bone.

  He gulped down two fingers of whiskey, drawing strength from its fire, and poured himself another.

  “Such a pretty thing,” the Patriarch said as Christina returned to the shuttered room. “Under ordinary circumstances, anyway.” He lifted his voice. “Not pretty at all now, are you, my dear?”

  Christina did not seem to hear.

  “She’s incredibly vain,” the Patriarch went on. “We’ll just have to hope this teaches her a lesson.”

  “For what reason is she being punished?” Beheim asked.

  The Patriarch gave him an arch look. “For invading my privacy, of course. And, as a consequence, risking your life.”

  “Risking my life,” said Beheim musingly, wondering how to put his next question without eliciting an enraged response.

  “That’s right. I might have killed you.”

  “But”—Beheim hesitated—“you knew who I was, did you not?”

  “Ah!” The Patriarch waggled a forefinger in the air, as if to mark a moment of revelation. “Of course! You’re puzzled as to why I would hunt you, knowing that you were performing a service on my behalf. Well, that’s an easy enough question to answer.” Once again he leaned forward, but on this occasion he did not seem at all avuncular. “There are rules,” he said in a sepulchral tone. “Rules that must not be broken.” He nodded, as if he had just imparted a great wisdom. “Rules that demand obedience. There can be no excuse to justify their violation.”

  “I see,” said Beheim.

  “No, child.” The Patriarch leaned back and crossed his legs. “You do not see. Not yet. And perhaps you never will. It is not given to everyone to see these things.”

  Ragged clouds were passing in front of the moon, causing a rush of thin shadows across the flagstones, and Beheim had an impression of the instability of the place, of the unstable mind that had conceived it. It could all be whisked away in an instant, he thought. The chairs, the moonlight, the nodding ferns. It was a veil, a seeming. Even if real, it was nothing that was capable of resisting the power of the man before him, a man to whom the centuries were years. Fascinating, to think of all he had seen and done. But Beheim did not covet the Patriarch’s experience or his power, nor did he desire to understand it. He wanted to be away from Castle Banat, away from everything associated with it, and he decided to hold his tongue, hoping that his silence would speed the end of the interview.

  “You know,” said the Patriarch, shifting in his chair, “I’m not quite clear why this is so important to us. This business of the Golden. Naturally there’s the matter of an impropriety. A gross impropriety at that. We really can’t permit such goings-on. But there’s more to it than that. Something of greater consequence involved. I just can’t seem to put my finger on it.” He studied his left hand, as if considering the inadequacy of his five fingers; then he glanced up brightly. “So perhaps in this instance I have obeyed the dictates of reason, for I firmly believe that your participation in all this is the key to resolving some deeper question. Not merely your participation. Something allied with it, something…” He made a frustrated noise. “I can almost grasp it. Almost! Ah, well. It’s obvious that I need you. I’ll have to be satisfied with knowing that, I suppose. How odd to need anyone, especially one so callow.”

  Beheim said nothing, and a strained smile came to the Patriarch’s lips.

  “I wonder if Agenor truly understands your part in this,” he said. “I think not. He does not have the command of the situation that he believes. It’s all so interwoven. Roland. Felipe and Dolores. The Valeas. Alexandra.” He let out a wry chuckle. “Alexandra! Now there, there’s a piece of work for you!” He looked to Beheim for a reaction, but Beheim maintained a stubborn silence.

  A single frown line marred the smooth expanse of the Patriarch’s brow. It was the perfect emblem of his mood, the line an artist might have chosen to express stern displeasure.

  “Well now,” he said with impatience. “How shall I reward you for this invaluable service? A treasure, perhaps. Secrets. Something substantial is called for. What shall it be?”

  The dark air above his head had begun to stir, becoming rife with furtive glints, a physical symptom, Beheim thought, of his internal struggle between reason and mad desire. He did not think he could risk annoying the Patriarch further, and yet he did not want to ask for a reward, fearful that he might ask for too much or too little, and that this might increase his agitation. At last he said, “I am happy to serve you, my lord. In truth, I can hope for no reward greater than to earn your continued solicitude. However, I wonder if we might discuss something that has been a matter of concern to me, and may, I believe, have a bearing on my investigation.”

  This appeared to please the Patriarch. His frown vanished, he settled back in the chair and told Beheim to proceed.

  “Earlier in your chamber,” Beheim said, “we had a brief exchange regarding this matter, and though I understand it is not something that has commanded your interest to any great degree, I believe nevertheless that it merits your attention at this moment in time.”

  The Patriarch’s sigh was one of patience sorely tried. “You intend to bore me again, do you not, with talk of the East?”

  “I hope I will succeed in—”

  “I have said all I will on the su
bject.”

  Beheim let a few seconds pass before responding. “You have placed me in an awkward position, my lord. I do not wish to offend, but I would not be serving you well if I did not press this matter. I feel, and I have felt from the beginning, that the murder and the possibility of a migration were somehow related. You yourself have stated that there is more to the investigation than my solution of the crime, that you sense some deeper question may be involved. I submit that this question of migration may be the very thing you have sensed.”

  “And what if it is?” said the Patriarch.

  Confused by this, Beheim said, “I assume that if such is the case, you would want to study the materials available, to—”

  “There is nothing to study. Either some of my children will go into the East, or else they will not. I leave that for them to decide. Rendering decisions of this sort will enable them to develop toward a higher plane, and perhaps someday they will be capable of deciding more significant issues. Issues such as those I must decide. Issues”—he raised his voice, preventing Beheim from breaking in—“that have nothing to do with anything you would understand!”