Tar

by Taylor Hohulin

  Samson only sniffed in response.

  Brendan stared at Krystal, unable to piece together the broken fragments of memory. Krystal flashed him a sad smile.

  “You ripped the tar out of Alicia,” she said after a pause.

  Alicia. A hazy memory of a young girl flickered at the back of his mind. She’d...held his hand?

  “I think she was Myra’s daughter,” Krystal licked her lips. “The two of you started talking, and you...you went into a trance or something. And then I blinked, and there was tar on the ceiling. Alicia got infected, and Samson was about to shoot her, but you got in the way and it...it came out of her. You had to be the one who did it. If Samson’s right, and you have power over the tar, it had to be you.”

  Now it was coming back to him. He remembered Alicia, lifted up with blackening eyes. He remembered the thrill of power when he forced the tar out of her. He remembered her frail body collapsing in his arms.

  He remembered telling her to find him.

  “Do you know how the tar got in there in the first place?” Samson asked.

  Brendan shook his head. “I bet you’re about to tell me.”

  “You let that girl lead you to Tir Anhrefnus. You opened a door between our worlds.”

  “So I’m the reason the tar almost killed her?”

  Samson’s eyes flashed. “You are the reason the blight returned to this world at all.”

  Brendan snorted. “Right,” he said. “I forgot. I single-handedly brought all the tar into the world. Back when I was a baby.”

  “Ridicule me if you must, but I speak the truth.”

  “Fine.” Brendan folded his arms. “Maybe that is what happened, but in my defense, I didn’t know what I was doing. Now I do. If you would teach me how to use this like you said you would, I could do some real good instead of accidentally infecting innocent girls in rest stops.”

  Brendan’s voice rose as he spoke, but when he leaned into the seat ahead of him and began shouting into Samson’s ear, something hard and cold quieted him instantly.

  Samson’s shotgun pressed into the hollow under Brendan’s chin. He said, “You are not ready for this kind of power. It is not a weapon to be wielded lightly. It is not meant to intimidate enemies or to earn allies.”

  The shotgun disappeared, and Brendan rubbed his chin. When he spoke again, his voice was softer.

  “Then what is it meant for?”

  Samson’s eyes flicked up in the rear-view mirror. “Nothing good,” he said. “It is meant to make you believe yourself powerful when you are only a slave. It is meant to force you to do the blight’s bidding, all the while considering it your own will.” Now those faded blue eyes sparkled. “But the deadliest swords cut both ways. When you are ready, I will teach you what I can of this power, and we will use it to destroy the blight once and for all.”

  “And how do I get ready?”

  Hand still on the steering wheel, Samson leaned over the center console and retrieved the old, leather-bound book from the passenger seat. Samson set it on his lap and traced his fingers over the binding. He turned, holding the book out for Brendan.

  “What is it?” Brendan asked.

  “The Book of Memory. It contains the words of Merlin himself.” Samson jabbed a finger at the book before turning back to the road and grunting, “Read it.”

  And so Brendan did.

  From the Book of Memory

  In all my decades of research, I never dreamed of the things we are capable of now. The threads of reality obey us, unweaving and reweaving as our whims demand. Ansel moved a book from one end of the table to another by telling the surrounding air to lift and carry it. Samson turned that book into a bar of gold by telling the pages to reweave themselves into gold.

  This second miracle was the most complicated. While we can change the composition of the world, those changes survive only as long as our singular focus remains. The minute Samson released his mental grip on the bar of gold, it transformed back into a book.

  Despite its limitations, Samson’s trick earned us lucrative positions with the highest echelons of nobility. We had access to every resource we required. We advanced our knowledge of the world and of our powers further than we’d thought possible.

  But then something peculiar happened. Years passed, and then decades. Even half a century later, we had not aged a day. Elders died, and princes grew old, but we four remained as we were when we first discovered the star.

  I wonder now if we will ever die. Surely an adversary could murder one of us, but how difficult it would be for anyone to stop our hearts from beating!

  Before long, we overstayed our welcome. We had grown too powerful to punish. Our patrons could no longer control us. And so, after seventy-five years, they asked us to continue our research in a less official capacity.

  It was no great loss. Men capable of changing books into gold have no need of employment. Besides, we had grown weary of the constant oversight and input from unqualified advisers. We were free to seek progress as we wished, not as nobility dictated.

  But in those years of freedom, we made our most horrible discoveries.

  I feel strange writing all of this. I do not write for an audience unfamiliar with our history, but only myself, Samson, Ansel, and Merovech. If you are reading this, I can only assume you are one of us, or that one of us has given you this text. If you do not understand why I must retell our story, or why it is so vital you read it, you will soon.

  It all began with Merovech’s discovery.

  Our power stems from the ability to speak to the fabric of the universe. I cannot explain it any other way. Sometimes, however, when you speak to the universe, the universe speaks back. You hear secrets, from the insignificant revelation of a man waiting around a corner, to the graver warning of the man's desire to kill you.

  But what Merovech heard from the universe was beyond any revelation we had yet received.

  In the wordless manner of these things, he learned of another universe right under our noses. Just as a letter on a page exists a hair’s breadth away from the opposite side of the page, so were we closer to this universe than we ever dreamed. A letter on a page knows only its place. It does not understand how to travel across a page, much less how to visit other pages. Similarly, no human had ever known of this universe, much less how to reach it.

  But now Merovech’s eyes were open. He realized how simple this task would be. If all of reality obeyed his very words, he could go to this new universe as easily as I retired to my bedchamber.

  And so he went.

  He gave no thought to the consequences of his actions. He told none of us of his intent. His only concern was in testing the limits of his power.

  After he returned, he spoke of a world called Tir Anhrefnus. No one revealed the name to him. He understood it in the same way he understood how to travel there. He told us it was a place marked by hunger. Ruled by it, even. This world had been hollowed out, consumed over centuries by the ravenous force that ruled it.

  And the hunger wasn’t simply an idea, an emotion that filled every beast that wandered this husk of a universe.

  The hunger was the beast.

  The hunger was what we now call the blight.

  He explained all of this upon his return in halting, breathless sentences. He was shaken by what he’d seen, but a spark also danced in his eyes. I thought at the time it was only the excitement coursing through his being. Surely, after an evening of contemplation, he would understand the blight's utter wrongness, the horror of its hollow universe.

  But the excitement did not abate. It grew while the fear dissipated. Merovech spoke exclusively of Tir Anhrefnus after that day. He became obsessed.

  I attempted to warn him of the potential consequences of his actions. I discouraged him from digging deeper. Had I known where this would lead, I might have killed him on the spot. But how could I have foreseen the event
s that followed? We’d received a gift greater than any gift ever given to man, yes, but we remained simple scientists.

  It should never have come to this.

  x x x

  Merovech wanted so desperately for us to understand his excitement. He told me if only I would come with him to Tir Anhrefnus, I might even share his feelings.

  Had I cared only for myself, I would have refused his invitation. But the thought of Merovech traveling to a strange world, blinded by passion and hobbled by power-lust, worried me. Merovech remains my charge to this day. When I allowed him to become my apprentice, I pledged not only to mentor him but also to protect him, even if the thing he most needed protection from was his own folly.

  And so I agreed. I would travel to Tir Anhrefnus with Merovech.

  He was practically giddy when I informed him of my decision. He scooped a stack of papers off his workbench and thrust them into my arms. I was to read through them, he explained. He planned to introduce me to the world, but he also planned to push deeper, to probe its mysteries further than in his first visit. He wanted me to understand as much of Tir Anhrefnus as possible, so I would not hold him back.

  I did as he asked, though his notes made little sense. My heart sank as I pored over them. A mess of convoluted sentences, impossible details, and bizarre logical conclusions littered those pages. My mind turned itself inside out trying to comprehend Merovech's thoughts.

  But still I read the entire stack of papers, determined to give Merovech and his strange new world a chance. It would not do to dismiss it outright. If I truly spent time in Tir Anhrefnus, truly tried to understand Merovech, perhaps he would listen when I told him to abandon this line of research.

  The day came for us to visit Tir Anhrefnus. We stood together in Merovech’s bedroom. He held my hands and explained how we would make our journey, but the words he spoke were just as mad as the ones he’d written. If we had not already seen so many strange and impossible things, I would have thought him insane. I would never have given his message credence. But not for one moment did I assume he was lying or delusional.

  I closed my eyes and attempted to follow his instructions, but no matter how I tried, I could not do what came so easily to him. We worked for hours. He explained the path he took in a variety of ways, with a variety of examples and exercises to clarify the process, but to no avail. In one sense, I was relieved. Even the knowledge of a place such as Tir Anhrefnus threatened my very sanity. How would I survive a visit?

  But confusion swirled amid the relief. Even now, I do not understand. Why was Merovech able to do something I cannot? We all saw the same star. We descended into the crater together. We all drowned in the same purple flash. And yet Merovech had received a power I had not. Could the explanation be as simple as where he stood in the power-giving glow, and that if our positions had been reversed then, they would be now? Was Merovech the only one to gain this ability, or was I the only one to miss it?

  None of those questions mattered then. All that mattered was I would never see Tir Anhrefnus for myself. Though we both knew it was hopeless, we tried for another hour before giving up. Dejected, we retired to our respective chambers.

  I had done little, but I was exhausted. It was as if I had spent the day trying to push a castle into the sea. I had strained for hours, yet had nothing to show for my efforts. I lay in bed and soon drifted into unconsciousness.

  The sound of shouting woke me. It felt like I had only slept a moment, but the light outside my window had faded, and my muscles were stiff. Ignoring my aching joints, I staggered out of bed. Samson and Merovech stood in the arcanum’s work area, arguing loudly. I gathered Samson was upset, and that Merovech was defending himself, though their energy coupled with my sleep-dulled senses transformed the whole argument into a blur of anger.

  I added my voice to the fray, shouting at them until they both fell silent. They turned to face me, red-faced and panting.

  I asked them, “What is happening?”

  Neither spoke. I repeated my question, and Samson stepped aside and pointed at the workbench.

  There appeared to be a shadow on it—a small, round mass of pure black. Only it was not a shadow, for shadows do not move as this shape moved. It rippled like a pool of water. Its surface undulated with scarcely contained energy. It was the first time I encountered the blight. I still shudder at the memory.

  Samson said, “He brought this here. From that place. Tir Anhrefnus.”

  Merovech stared at me defiantly. I asked him, “Is this true?”

  He said, “You were unable to enter Tir Anhrefnus, so I have brought some of it to you. Now you can help me study its mysteries.”

  Samson said, “This is not something that should be studied!”

  His voice was a roar. Glass instruments rattled on their shelves as power oozed from his body.

  But Merovech refused intimidation. His eyes blazed as he pleaded with me: “Are you not the slightest bit curious, Merlin? Do you not wish to learn what Tir Anhrefnus might reveal to us? Are we or are we not scientists?”

  Of course we were scientists, and as such, we thirsted for knowledge and new discoveries. But this was different. It does not contradict my vocation to assert there are secrets no man should know.

  And so I said, “You have to send it back.”

  Merovech’s eyes grew wide. His gaze passed from me to the blight and back again. He set his feet, squared his shoulders. “Or what?”

  “Don’t do this, Merovech,” I pleaded.

  We surveyed one another from opposite ends of the room. Tension hung in the air, thick and palpable. Samson looked on, silent but seething. At some point, Ansel had come out of his chamber, and now stood staring at the writhing pool of black.

  With a look of defeat, Merovech said, “I cannot send it back.”

  Samson spoke again: “What do you mean?” That fury we knew all too well bubbled just beneath his words.

  Merovech’s eyes fell. He said, “I did not bring this from Tir Anhrefnus into our world. Or, I did not intend to. It followed me here.”

  “Then make it follow you back,” Samson growled.

  Merovech shook his head. “I tried coaxing it, but it would not follow. I tried commanding it, as I have been able to do in Tir Anhrefnus, but it would not cross the threshold. It wants to be in our world, and I cannot make it leave.”

  We fashioned a cage for the blight that evening, though it was not much. We all feared touching it, so we placed a large crate over it and nailed it to the table instead. It was a comically insufficient prison, like throwing a blanket over a dragon.

  We understood so little of the blight, but even then we recognized we had witnessed the dawn of something terrible.

  x x x

  Not long after we fashioned the blight’s prison, the nobles sent a representative to the arcanum. They did this from time to time to maintain the illusion they still controlled us, though it fooled no one. Not even the nobles.

  As his knock sounded, a look passed between the four of us. We draped a cloth over the crate and resolved to steer the representative away from the workbench during his visit. We were more powerful than any representative at the nobles’ disposal, but there was no telling what carnage would ensue if they discovered the blight. If they tried to destroy it or claim it for their own, the consequences would be dire.

  And so we opened the door and prayed this visit would be a short one.

  The representative stepped inside without so much as a greeting. We’d seen this one a handful of times, a scrawny man with a hooked nose and beady eyes. He searched our research area, taking in details he had no chance of comprehending. He asked his usual questions—vague, meaningless things given to him by someone who understood us even less than he did. We answered them with our customary mix of vagueness and complexity that rendered our speech nonsensical. The dance continued as it had for years, and for a moment, it seemed we
would escape the encounter without the representative discovering what lay hidden beneath the blanket.

  But then those beady eyes swept behind us, to the table, and they lit with something more than perfunctory curiosity.

  Pointing over Samson’s shoulder, he asked, “What have you got there?”

  I tried another answer packed with nonsense words and a less-than-subtle suggestion that he would be bored were he capable of understanding, but this time the tactic did not work. The representative’s interest was piqued. He pushed between Merovech and me, ignoring our protests. We looked on in horror as he crossed the room, gripped the cloth, and uncovered the crate.

  He did not turn to face us when he said, “What are you hiding?”

  I replied, “We are hiding nothing.”

  A terrible lie. The words felt stupid leaving my mouth.

  He pointed at the crate. “Why have you nailed it to the table?”

  He took another step closer, reaching forward, and we all cried out. We did not know then what scared us so, but we all felt it: the dread, the oppressive sense that the blight held a power beyond anything we had yet achieved, that it was evil beyond our wildest and most depraved imaginings.

  But the representative ignored us. It would have been just as well if we remained silent, so ineffective was our shouting. He drew closer to the crate, and with every step my terror intensified until I believed I would collapse. He came to a stop beside the workbench and paused. A dark gleam lit his eyes. In him, I saw the same profane interest that burned in Merovech’s eyes. The representative was no longer here to fulfill a duty to his superior. This man had never been interested in anything beyond his grimy world of food, shelter, and sex, but now he sensed an otherworldly power beneath a fruit crate. Now he wanted nothing but to understand that power, even if it consumed him.

  Even if it damned him.

  The representative reached for the crate, and the dread in my chest manifested into reality. A hundred tiny black strings burst from a hundred tiny cracks in the wood. Whether it was the space where two slats met, a rotted knot in the wood, or a puncture too small for the naked eye, the ichorous black found a way.