Passing Through Darkness- The Complete Cycle

by Malcolm McKenzie

  I should have been pleased that he said that. So why wasn’t I?

  We made our way inland, though the river remained in sight. This place seemed more ancient even than other ruins from before the Fall. There was something disconcerting about it. Maybe just Gurath’s words playing on my nerves.

  The Hellguard noticed, of course. He might have been using the Darkness to read my mind, or maybe, as the Metropolitan suggested, he was simply tapping the experience of centuries.

  “The stories say this place was haunted even before the Last Days,” he said. “Seven hundred years of ghosts here.”

  We passed by the weathered headstones of a cemetery that looked older than time. The trees on either side of the road rose impossibly thick and tall, spaced with unnatural regularity, yet each one of them twisted in a way that made my gut clench. I shivered in their shadow even though the air was warm.

  Gurath smiled, but it seemed forced. “Yeah. Everyone feels that here. I told you there are worse things than the Hellguard in the world.”

  “What’s out there?” I demanded.

  The huge man’s laughter was real, but I thought it betrayed the slightest hint of nerves, and one massive hand was on his ax. “Not so scrupulous about the Darkness now, are you? I don’t sense a thing here. Not a damn thing. Never have.”

  “But…?”

  “But I wouldn’t sleep on this stretch of road in exchange for the keys to Our Lady.”

  The morning and afternoon and two dozen miles had passed before we camped, and it still didn’t feel long enough. I didn’t ask if my companions had felt the same effect when we passed between that double row of trees. Tess was quiet in the way that meant she was angry with me.

  I supposed I understood. She’d come to support me, and I was spending all day with the monster I’d sworn to fight. She’d be feeling abandoned. She’d be worrying that Gurath might turn me. But even though I understood, I was still angry that she was angry.

  Worse, I wasn’t entirely sure her fears were unfounded. I remembered what the Metropolitan had said. Fear more what he can make you do to your own soul.

  You would have thought that having been down this path once before, I wouldn’t be tempted to walk it again. I’d certainly assumed that. I’d been wrong.

  There was no talking to Tess when she and I were in our respective moods. We’d just fight. I pulled Dee aside instead. Not surprisingly, the occultist wanted to know everything I’d discussed with the demon lord.

  “Imagine that, Minos. It’s a rare privilege, the chance to discuss philosophy with someone who actually lived through the Last Days. A contemporary of Saint Arvan and Saint Siles. A being actually named in the Books of the Fall.”

  “They didn’t name the specific Hellguards.”

  “You know what I mean, Minos. He wasn’t just there, he was a protagonist. And to have him share his beliefs with you… an honor indeed.”

  “He’s not talking to me because he enjoys my company, Dee. Or because he respects me.” Although I realized I hoped that ancient terror did respect me, a little. “He wants something.”

  “Well, of course. But as long as you know that…”

  “The problem… the problem is, I’m not sure he’s wrong.”

  “Ah.”

  “What he’s saying… I wouldn’t have put it the same way, but it’s maybe not too different from what I thought before I met Tess.”

  “Ahh. ‘We do not suspect that he is acting in us, because he follows the current of our inclinations.’”

  “Oh God. I’ve been quoted at by a demon for the past three days. Who said that?”

  “Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, about eight hundred years ago. Referring to the subtlety of the devil.”

  “Gurath’s persuasive, Dee. And I can feel him picking at me. ‘Surely you’re smart enough to understand what I’m saying. Surely you’re the kind of person who could be superhuman. You don’t need to believe silly stories like those sheep, do you?’ If I know he’s doing it, why is it working?”

  The occultist smiled. “The appeal to vanity is a strong one. I believe Roshel and Yoshana used it quite effectively as well.”

  “And what am I?” I’d asked. “That depends on what you want to be,” Roshel had answered. “You, in particular, could make yourself more than you are.”

  “So, again, why the hell does it keep working?”

  “‘For pride is always seen to be the essential base of the diabolic.’ It’s as old as sin itself.”

  “And that one was?”

  “Simone Weil. About four hundred years after Bossuet, from the same part of the world.”

  “Where do you get all that stuff? I think you make half of it up.”

  Dee laughed. “The secret of appearing educated is knowing one more obscure quotation than the person you’re talking to. The secret of being educated is knowing when to use them.”

  “Yeah, good to see there’s no pride at all in you.”

  His grin widened. “I never claimed to be a saint. Or even a good Universalist. I’m far too open-minded for that. What I will say is this. You read that book of Lovecraft I gave you, yes?”

  I nodded.

  “The horror of the universe Lovecraft describes isn’t the presence of powerful malevolence. It’s the absence of God. Shub’nigurath is the representation of Nietzsche’s uncaring universe, a mindless living protoplasm endlessly copulating with itself and spewing out new life, some of which is devoured, some of which thrives, but none of which has purpose. Azathoth, the mindless nuclear chaos at the center of the universe, is Lovecraft’s answer to Aquinas - what if the prime mover exists but has no goodness, no will, nothing but awesome power? The demon flutists that serenade Azathoth are a parody of the hosts of the seraphim.”

  “Hold on. You told me Lovecraft was an occultist. Was he describing things he thought were real, or writing allegory?”

  “Why do you think there’s a distinction? Lovecraft drank deep of that same atheistic, Nietzschean nihilism that you find so persuasive when you speak to Gurath. It was thick in the air then, and stayed that way until the Fall. The ancients understood just enough of the universe to decide there was no need or room for God in it. And yet… there are interesting details in two of Lovecraft’s case studies, ‘Dreams in the Witch House’ and ‘The Haunter of the Dark.’ In those accounts, Universalist rituals and sacramentals that Lovecraft himself dismisses as superstition proved effective against the monsters of the abyss. The protagonists of those cases were rationalists, as was Lovecraft himself, and yet they were consumed. But those icons of faith proved effective where reason did not. And so… the rationalist made a case for faith, perhaps. There was more to Lovecraft than there seemed.”

  “Gurath said even a Nietzschean needed myth. Are you saying faith is nothing more than a way of strengthening the will?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. That’s what Gurath would say. Aquinas, whom you’ve been attempting to use against Gurath, would say that faith is no more or less than a comprehension of eternal truth. Me personally? As I said, I’m far too open-minded to choose a side in that debate.”

  I snorted in exasperation. “You’re no more use against Gurath than you were against that drelb two years ago.”

  “If you’re expecting me to tell you what to do, or swat some Darkness-infested bear with a stick, then you’re doomed to disappointment, my friend. But I’ll say one more thing, since you seem to feel that Aquinas is losing the battle against Nietzsche, and you’ll have to forgive me for quoting again, in this case from the Angelic Doctor himself. ‘There are, therefore, some points of intelligibility in God, accessible to human reason, and other points that altogether transcend the power of human reason. For there are some so presumptuous of their own genius as to think that they can measure with their understanding the whole nature of the Godhead, thinking all that to be true which seems true to them, and that to be false which does not seem true to them.’”

  I held up
my hand. “Hold on.” I turned the words over in my head in the hope that there was more to them than there seemed. “All you’re saying is that God is beyond humanly comprehensible proof, and it’s arrogant to think otherwise. That answers Gurath how? He’s just going to say I’ve admitted that he’s right and I’m making up things I can’t prove because it makes me feel better.”

  “You didn’t let me finish. ‘But because we cannot see his essence, we are brought to the knowledge of his existence, not by what he is in himself, but by the effects which he works.’”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  Dee smiled tolerantly. “Perhaps you should spend more time with Prophetess.”

  9. Heart of Darkness

  I took Dee’s advice, even if I didn’t understand his point.

  “Remembered you have a girlfriend?” Tess asked when I fell back next to her in the column the next day.

  “You’re more fun to be around than Gurath. Better-looking, too.” Although in fact the demon lord was as exotically handsome as his daughter had been beautiful, each in their own terrifying way. “Plus I figure you’re less likely to disembowel me when you get mad.”

  “True. I’ve got Cat for that.” The paleo gave me a feral grin.

  “Hardly seems right. She was my friend first.”

  “You keep telling everyone how she tried to kill you and eat you when you first met. It only seems fair to let her finish the job.”

  “Wow. With friends like you, who needs all-powerful, immortal enemies?”

  Tess’ face turned serious. “Not all-powerful or immortal, Minos. Strong, yes. But he too shall pass.”

  Legion left the surviving soulless behind and trotted past us to join Gurath. In a stage whisper easily loud enough for us to hear, it said, “The Select is stubborn, master. If he doesn’t turn when we reach our destination, give his body to me. I’ll make better use of it.”

  The Hellguard glared at the wraith. Legion flinched, but the smirk didn’t vanish from its face. When it turned to wink and grin at me, I saw the new body’s teeth had already lengthened and sharpened.

  We followed the river north on a road that sometimes led inland, then returned to the shore. At times the land met the water in a gentle beach, but more often it rose in rocky cliffs a hundred feet above the swift current. A fall from that height would quite possibly be fatal, and I didn’t care at all for the way the asphalt was sloughing away at the edge and slowly crumbling into the water below. On some of the higher, curving sections of road, my horse and I hugged the cliff to my right so closely that Gurath laughed openly.

  “If you think this is bad, just wait,” was all he said. If he was offended that I no longer rode with him, he gave no sign.

  The next morning we swung east, away from the river, and continued that way for days. The land grew as thickly forested as the Sorrows, but the road was mostly intact. Sometimes we would come to a bridge that had collapsed and we would need to lead the horses down the banks and ford the stream below. The path didn’t seem dangerous - at least not in the company of Gurath and Legion. I didn’t like to think too much about what horrors might lurk deep in those trees. Lovecraft’s stories had been set in this part of the continent. When I’d read them on the flat prairies of the Source, the notion of evil, alien gods hidden in the woods had seemed vaguely ridiculous. Here in the midst of those woods, the idea didn’t seem silly at all. When we camped at night, Dee, Cat, Tess, and I crowded around the fire.

  And not just because of the unknown terrors in the dark. It was getting cold, although by my reckoning it was still late summer. Gurath took heavy fur coats from packs on the sumpter horses and distributed them. I was so grateful for mine that I wasn’t inclined to question whether I should be taking gifts from the Hellguard.

  “You’ll need it - we’re getting close to the Ice Fields,” Gurath said, reading my thoughts. “You’ll understand soon enough.”

  He kept saying that. It didn’t make me feel better.

  The demon lord seemed content to ride by himself at the head of the column. Of course, Dee couldn’t leave well enough alone. One day he rode up to join the Hellguard. I looked at Prophetess, who shrugged. I nudged my horse closer to eavesdrop.

  “…but there is a far greater sweep of philosophy to consider and debate than merely the dichotomy of Aquinas and Nietzsche, Lord Gurath. One need hardly believe that uprooting a supernatural god from the garden of ethics leads inevitably to a rejection of objective standards of good and evil. Consider Mill, for example -”

  “Let’s not,” the demon snapped. “Mill, Russell, Rawls, any of your humanist philosophers. They start with the truth that there is no God, and then recoil from the conclusion. They were all incoherent moral cowards, unwilling to follow through to the end that there is no right except what’s made by might. At least Aquinas and the rest of his bleating Universalist flock are internally consistent. If you start with the false premise of a living God, you arrive at the false conclusion that he has established an order of righteousness. If you start with the correct premise that there is no such God, but still arrive at the same false conclusion, then you’re just an idiot or a weakling.”

  “Nominalism hardly implies nihilism,” Dee objected mildly.

  “Of course it does. Or what you mean by nihilism, anyway. Either you believe in some mythical natural law, or you believe that all morals are set by convention. If you believe all morals are set by convention, who sets the conventions? The strong. To pretend anything else is childish. Your philosophers yanked away the pillars of religious superstition on which society rested, then tried to pretend that society could float along on its own without support.”

  “I hardly think -”

  “Exactly. You hardly think. And yet you open your mouth and sounds comes out anyway. It serves my purpose to make Minos understand truth. It doesn’t serve my purpose to do the same with you. I’d rather teach a dog to play the guitar. It would be easier, and the resulting noise would be less annoying.”

  “But I don’t see how you can simply discard the evolutionary basis of the social compact -”

  “The social compact boils down to this, human - what rights do the strong need to grant to the weak, to keep you pacified so we may rule you more easily?” His huge hand swept behind him, encompassing the soulless. “In the present case, the answer is none at all. Once we’ve done away with a mythical creator, there is no one to endow my subjects with inalienable rights. And I have no need to grant any.”

  “But the principle of harm -”

  The demon had reached the end of his patience. His voice cracked like a whip. “Keep spouting principles, and I’ll harm you. Spare me your voice, and I’ll spare you my ax.”

  Say this for Dee - he knew to shut up when his survival was at stake. He hauled back on his mount’s reins and dropped back as Gurath continued on.

  The occultist’s eyes were bright with unshed tears when Tess and I caught up to him. Annoying windbag that he was, it was easy to forget that he had feelings that could be hurt.

  Tess guided her horse over to Dee’s and set her hand on his. “He’s just a jerk,” she said, oblivious to the danger of insulting a monster that could reflexively use the Darkness to both hear and kill us. “Don’t listen to him. He thinks because he’s strong, he can treat other people like garbage.”

  “Actually,” I said, “he thinks because he’s strong, he should treat other people like garbage.”

  “Like I said. He’s a jerk.”

  I spent the rest of the day waiting for the blow to fall. I was under no illusion that Gurath hadn’t heard Tess’ comment. But there was no retribution. When we settled down for the night, the demon sat some distance away from us, but that was his usual habit. Apparently he tolerated insolence from humans better than from Darkness wraiths.

  Dee had perked up and was back to his usual, talkative self. I might have wished for a bit of a break from his chatter, but he had been a friend to me over the years. So instead I
rested and let the flow of words wash over me.

  I turned to Tess and said, “You really are a good person.”

  She grimaced. “For an egomaniac leading a cult of personality.”

  “That’s not what Roric meant.”

  “I’m pretty sure I heard the words ‘cult of personality’ come out of his mouth. Right after ‘no disrespect,’ which always means someone has something unpleasant to say about you. Father Roric tends to say what he means.”

  “Father Roric can be a little too direct in saying what he means,” I said.

  She shook her head. “The thing is, Minos, I’m not sure he’s wrong. You and Roshel both said you needed me as some kind of rallying point for everyone. That’s not what I should be at all.”

  “You’re a prophet. You’re supposed to be a signpost pointing to God.”

  “I’m a prophet with no prophecies. And if people are still looking at me as a leader, they’re looking at the wrong thing. We’re supposed to be transparent as glass, so people can see God shining through us. People shouldn’t be looking at us instead of looking at God.”

  I frowned. “You started out saying ‘me,’ but then that changed to ‘us.’ Are you saying people are looking at me when they should be looking at God, too?”

  And in that incredibly irritating way she had, all she said was, “You’re the one who needs to decide that, Minos.”

  I tried prayer. Along with confession and being a general, it didn’t seem to be something that came naturally to me. After a quick recitation of the standard supplications, I murmured, “Lord, if you’re listening, now would be a good time for a sign. A lightning bolt hitting Gurath would be great…”

  I trailed off. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was asking for. “I guess… it would be nice to know you exist. To know the right thing to do. Because this is hard, and I can’t do it alone.”

  There was no reply. Roric had told me salvation had to be on God’s terms, not mine. That I had to surrender to him, to understand that the world didn’t go my way. But right then, a little more direct help would have come in handy.