The Death Seer (Skeleton Key)

by Tanis Kaige

  The girl’s eyebrows lifted. “Of course not, lady. Why would I do that?”

  I situated my bag on my back and aimed my flashlight at the path ahead of me. “I’ve been told there are dangerous things out at night. I thought you might be one of them.”

  “I’m no danger. Where do you intend to go?”

  I walked past her. Now that I had light, I could pick up my pace. “Suicide swamp.”

  The girl fell into step beside me, occasionally having to jog to keep up. “You must be mad. No one goes there. It’s for them living ones who cheated Death. It’s just for them, not for you or anyone else.”

  “My friend is there looking for his mother. I have to make sure he’s okay.”

  “Do you know ought about the place?”

  “Only that it’s a place of despair. Can you tell me how far it is?”

  “Far?”

  “Yes. Do you know how long it will take me to get there?”

  “It will take as long as it takes, I suppose. It ain’t like there’s boundaries. You walk for however long it takes you to start losing hope, and then you’re there.”

  I stopped and looked at her. “That doesn’t make any sense. What if I never lose hope?”

  “Then you’ll never get to the swamp. It’s just as well. Terrible place, that.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I couldn’t believe the insanity of this place. It was ridiculous. Kord showed me a map. There was a path that led directly to the swamp and I was on that path, therefore if I kept walking I would eventually find it. That was logic and logic never failed.

  My shoes made light dollops of sound on the dirt as I hurried toward the swamp. The forest was utterly silent now that the children’s voices had hushed. I supposed I had my new travel companion to thank for that. She was watching me, I felt her eyes. When I glanced toward her I saw that her head was turned toward me, staring at me straight-on even as she walked. The unnerving behavior frustrated me.

  “Stop looking at me that way,” I said.

  “I’m waiting to see you lose hope.”

  “Well, that’s not happening.”

  We walked at a fast pace until my muscles were burning, and yet the path remained unchanged. It was as though I was on a treadmill, walking and walking and never getting anywhere. This world was mad. The whole idea of it. Up until then, it had felt like something of a dream or an adventure. I don’t think I truly believed it was happening. But there had been a little boy once, ten years ago, and that little boy was a man, now, and that man needed my help. I would find him, he would find my door, and we would both wake up from this dream together.

  But so what if we did? What was I returning to? Hadn’t my world gone just as mad with people not dying, just lying there as living corpses? That would be my fate as well. And Kord’s. We would lie down one day and never get up. And suppose Kord did manage to put things right and everything went back to normal. Death would then ultimately lead here, to this awful place with its torpid red sky and maddening lack of logic. Was this man’s ultimate fate? To wander around a pretend world with no sense of time or purpose…with no passion or energy? A few short years in the living world thinking your life meant something only to land here, a pointless depot for souls?

  A squelching sound froze my thoughts. I shined my flashlight down at my feet only to find myself ankle-deep in muck. I looked around. The forest was behind me and all around me were black marshes.

  “You found it!” came a distant voice.

  I shined my light at the forest and saw the girl hugging a tree. “Told you it was down this path.”

  “Good luck, lady! Don’t talk to none of the spirits! And if your friend is in there and his face is under the water, then leave him, for he’s lost for good.”

  I waved to her, and she disappeared into the forest. Then I turned and started shouting Kord’s name.

  In the blackness, beneath the water, there were hundreds of dimly glowing spots as far as I could see. They were so dim that it took me a few minutes to notice them. I sloshed through the marshy landscape, calling Kord’s name, and carefully stepping around the glowing things. It was nearly an hour into my search that I realized they were people.

  I shone my flashlight into one of the glowing things and saw a face, ghastly pale and twisted in an expression of agony, veins and tendons protruding from its neck, mouth open in an eternal silent scream. They were all like this. No souls resting in peace, here.

  “Kord!” I screamed, my heart thundering.

  The water was cold and slimy. I felt it all the way to my bones, and it slowly creeped its tendrils of despair up my legs.

  “Kord, please!”

  He’d called this place a dead end. He’d said there was nothing on the other side of it even though it was in the middle of a map and surrounded by drawings of other places. I’d long since lost sight of the forest, having faith that I’d find my friend and he would know the way back. That faith wavered. I was no longer yelling for Kord. I shone the light around, but my eyes weren’t as alert as they had been.

  Of course it couldn’t be a dead end. There had to be something on the other side of it. The world wasn’t flat, after all, and even if I could accept that I was in some other world, some other dimension, my mind wouldn’t let go of the belief in a framework predicated on the existence of a spherical mass of rock spinning at the rate of one rotation every ten-four hours and orbiting the sun at the rate of one circuit every three hundred sixty-five days. These were the facts. This swamp could not go on forever.

  A renewed burst of energy shot through me at my conviction. I picked up my pace, raised my voice, and scanned the swamp with my flashlight.

  But it was short-lived. For the first time, I thought about going back to the forest without him. Maybe in the daylight I could find him more easily. Or maybe he was really gone. Maybe this place had consumed him.

  No matter what, I’d have to return to the forest. If nothing else, I could sleep there until morning and then use it as a starting point to search in another direction. I’d kept careful track of my direction, basically walking in a straight line. I made a one-eighty turn and started walking back, my heart heavy. My mind tortured me with thoughts that I’d made a mistake, that if I’d just gone a few steps further I’d have found him. Still, I walked and walked.

  Too much time passed. I should have been within sight of the forest, but still all around me I saw was swamp and soul-lights. I lifted my flashlight only to find the beam weakened, the battery on the verge of dying. “Kord!” I screamed again.

  There was no answer. The cold, clammy feel of the air had seeped into my bones and suddenly all I could think about was a blanket and a warm fire and Kord’s body curled against mine, just like last night. As I thought of it, a slow acceptance settled into me like frost on the grass—I might never have that again. I may have made the last and worst decision of my life.

  “Kord!” I screamed, frantic this time, no longer hoping to save him, but rather hoping he would save me. “Kord, I’m lost!”

  My voice didn’t even echo. It simply vanished into the air in front of my lips, dying long before anyone would ever hear it. This swamp was cold. It stank. My legs and back and hips and head…everything ached. My teeth chattered relentlessly. My body convulsed with shivers. Tears poured down my face and even they were cold. “Kord,” I squeaked, and fell to my knees.

  I thought of my brother and Annie and the whole world gone wrong, of Kord and his journey and what my coming here had done to him. I thought of myself and all the dreams I didn’t even know I had suddenly dying off right here in this horrid place. I sat back on my heels, waist deep in water, and wept.

  Somehow, the swamp was rising. Or I was sinking. I felt it creeping up my body. I must have fallen forward on my hands, because I was staring straight down at the water and into my own reflection, a version of me I didn’t even recognize. It was the final straw. If I looked like that wasted away, hopeless thing in the refle
ction, I was done for. The tip of my nose touched the water and it felt right that I should go down into it.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath.

  “Better ways to go than that,” came a voice.

  For a moment, it didn’t register. It seemed as though it had come from a great distance and possibly somewhere imaginary. But it was enough to freeze my motion—it was my motion after all. The swamp hadn’t risen, rather I’d slowly leaned into it. I opened my eyes and looked up. In the dull glow of the soul-lights I saw a man in brown pants and a billowy white shirt with a cloak of leather and fur over his shoulders. His beard was long and his face craggy, but his hair was a youthful brown. “Who are you?” I whispered.

  “Name’s Grim. Who are you?”

  “Brenna.”

  He shrugged. “Name don’t mean nothing to me. But, like I said, there’s better ways to go than that. I’m headed there, in fact. Nothing left for me here, and I sure don’t want to end up like these poor saps. You know what happens if you go under that water?”

  I shook my head.

  “You live in a nightmare for eternity. Always cold. Always aching. Always frightened and hopeless. You don’t want that, do you?”

  I shook my head again.

  “Then come with me, Brenna. I’ll show you the way out.” He extended his hand.

  I took it and let him pull me to my feet, though the effort was massive, as though gravity was fighting tooth and nail to keep me down. He kept hold of my hand once I was up and pulled me toward…toward wherever it is he was going. I, for one, could see no end or beginning to this place.

  After a while, his hand began to feel comfortable. Safe. I started to think that perhaps this man could help me. Perhaps not all was lost. That’s when my feet hit dry land for the first time. “Atta girl,” he said. “Didn’t take you long at all.”

  I looked around. The swamp was right behind me, only a few steps away. But I was dry and beginning to warm. “Keep moving forward, girl,” he said, tugging at my hand.

  I looked forward and up and up at a massive wall that disappeared into the darkness above. “What is this?” I asked.

  “Door to the end of the world. Only us reapers know about it. Come along.”

  I followed him to the black rock. I trusted him when he led me straight forward and into it, into yet another invisible door. On this side of it was a tunnel lit with torches, just wide enough for the two of us to walk side-by-side. “This is the end of the world?”

  “The tunnel that leads to the end of the world. You just follow me. It’s a bit of a hike, but we’ll get there.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then we feed ourselves to the serpent.”

  Now that I was out of the swamp, I was having difficulty remembering why I wanted to feed myself to the serpent. “Will it hurt?”

  “Don’t know. But if it does, it’ll only be for a moment. And then blissful oblivion.”

  “We’ll cease to exist? Completely?”

  “Completely. No more rebirths. No more following the cycle of life like a reed caught in a water wheel. Just nothingness.”

  “Rebirths? Like, reincarnation?”

  “Maybe. It’s more like your energy flowing in and out of life. But think about it. Each time you’re born, you must grow up knowing you’ll die and not knowing what will happen on the other side of that death and living with that constant fear. And then when you do die, what do you get? Life as an ancestor in a poor copy of what you had before. Unless you’re one of the lucky ones gets a trip to paradise. And regardless, us reapers don’t even get the momentary joy of a fleeting life. Now that Father Death’s gone missing, we don’t even get the satisfaction of doing our job. Nope, I’m done with it all. I hope the serpent turns and devours the whole world. What’s the point of it all?”

  I’d quit listening at some point and was thinking of all those adventures Kord talked about us having. When it came down to it, I didn’t actually remember the specifics of those pretend games, only that we’d pretended. Maybe he was really remembering lives…many different lives in which the two of us continued to find each other and fall in love, over and over.

  The tunnel suddenly forked. I looked to the left and saw a path that led to an open cavern. The cavern was glowing, and from the edge of it that was in my view, I saw that the glow came from candles—dozens of them on the floor along the edge of the wall, nestled in hollows and on ledges of the rock wall. “What’s that?”

  “Never you mind. This is our path.” He pulled me to the right and into the darkness.

  “What was that place?”

  “Death’s house. He ain’t there, though.”

  “The lights were on.”

  “They always are.”

  We kept walking into the blackness, but soon there was a red glow in the distance. My blood rose at the sight of it. My breaths came in short, panicked bursts. If I ended, Kord would never be loved again. If the cycle of life repeatedly brought us together, that meant we were eternally connected. If I took myself out of the equation, what would happen to him? His whole life would be a swamp of despair. Or an endless life of false hope.

  The red glow grew bigger and the man next to me let out a mad, triumphant laugh. We were approaching the end of the tunnel, and when we got there, he pulled me to an abrupt halt. The tunnel ended with a sheer drop into a black cavern, but the red glow, it came from…a tree.

  In the center of an endless black cavern, larger than a mountain, rose the trunk of a red, glowing tree. It went higher than I could see, and if it had branches, they were beyond this place. Its roots reached everywhere, sinking into the cavern, and into the rock walls. As I looked down, I saw that what I’d taken to be a black emptiness was actually something else. Something that moved. Water perhaps? A black water that the tree roots drank from.

  “Serpent!” the man bellowed.

  The black water moved. Swirled. Not water at all, but the coils of a snake that was as large as a city. The coils rotated, and the earth let out a deep and mournful groan, straining against the motion of the serpent. There was a sudden rush of air, the hot hiss of the snake as its head suddenly appeared, its jaws gaping open right beneath us.

  “Come!” the man shouted with a triumphant laugh. He bent his knees to jump, his hand still gripping mine.

  “Wait!” I shrieked. “How do you know?”

  He turned and frowned at me. “How do I know what, girl?”

  “How do you know this will be the end? How do you know you won’t go on living, being digested eternally by this thing?”

  His frown deepened. “That’s impossible.”

  I laughed like a crazy person. “How can you live in this place and say that anything is impossible? Is this really a risk you want to take?”

  “Everyone knows if the serpent eats you, you end.”

  “Maybe you don’t. Maybe your energy lives on somehow. Maybe the serpent feeds you into that tree there and you find yourself back in the cycle of life. You don’t know! Not for sure!”

  For a moment, doubt clouded his eyes. His grip on my hand loosened and his shoulders sank.

  I was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he stiffened again, squeezed my hand, and said, “No. It ends.”

  I was already pulling my hand away when he leapt, but he was too strong. I screamed as I went over the edge with him, reaching out in desperation with my one free hand. For a moment I thought I was dead. But shooting pain in my shoulder brought me back, and I looked up to see my fingers curled desperately over the rock ledge.

  The pain had come from my other shoulder. The man clung to my hand, roaring at me to let go. My shoulder was out of its socket and I was screaming and crying. His hand was slipping, but so was mine. I trapped my cries between clenched teeth, channeling my energy to the fingers clinging to the rock, desperate for them to hold on just a second or two longer than the man.

  He slipped. His scream ended when the serpent’s jaws snapped shut.
>
  My relief at being free was short-lived. My arm hung there, my shoulder in excruciating pain, and my fingers were still slipping. I cried out like a woman in labor as I began the slow process of lifting my injured arm. I brought it round to the rock at about waist level and used my fingers to crawl it slowly up the cliff face, crying the whole time. When it was close to the edge, I used all my energy to push it the rest of the way up in a short burst that popped my shoulder back into place. I screamed through the pain and latched onto the ledge, strengthening my grip with the other hand.

  It seemed like it should be over. Like I’d done enough and should be rewarded with rest and care. But it wasn’t over. A heat warmed my feet, and when I chanced a glance down, I blackness framed by the gaping maw of the serpent. I dug the toes of my sneakers against the rock wall searching for a nook or indentation to leverage myself up with. My arms were too weak, I couldn’t pull myself all the way up.

  The rock face was smooth. My fingers slipped a little further with each attempt to kick my way up. I wasn’t going to make it. I wept for my loss, my last moments spent in regret. My fingers slipped.

  My eyes were squeezed shut, naturally, bracing for the fall that never came. I opened them slowly. Two strong hands had closed about my wrists. When I looked up, I saw myself staring back, my reflection in Kord’s sunglasses. He wasn’t smiling. A vein strained in his forehead as he pulled me up the rock face. He dragged me over the edge and into the cavern just as a rush of hot air hit my back. Blackness closed over the cavern mouth, the serpent coiling against it. I kicked my way backwards, but there was no danger, it was too large to fit into the tunnel.

  “Come on,” Kord said, pulling me to my feet. I winced when he pulled on my right arm, the one with the injured shoulder.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t. Let’s just go.”

  He took my left hand and pulled me back the way I’d come with Grim.

  As we passed by Death’s house, now on my right, I dug my heels in. “Wait. I wanna see what’s in there.”