by Layton Green
The roar from the falls thundered in Will’s ears as the canoe slipped into the tunnel. It picked up speed in the darkness, moving faster and faster as a cold wind pressed into his face, so fast he felt like an astronaut in G-force training and his chin trembled and the blood pounded in his head as the wind roared around him with the force of a hurricane. Just as he thought the pressure would tear him apart, a flash of green light revealed the top of a towering cataract, and the canoe slowed as it tipped forward. The vessel teetered for an instant at the edge, cocooning them in spray from the falls, then plunged into the abyss.
-29-
Instead of stragglers and lost children, Caleb and the others found only death. Camp after camp of it, the putrefying stench of it, the soul-numbing futility of massacred lives.
Just before dusk of their third day in the Blackwood forest, they stumbled upon their ninth destroyed Romani settlement. This one sprawled for half a mile, and Caleb counted fifty-five wagons. No telltale smoke heralded the slaughter, and the wagons and bodies were cold to the touch, picked over by carrion. The day before, Marguerite and the Brewer concluded that the tuskers had started north and moved south.
Outside the main circle, they found a wagon untouched by fire. They ran to it, praying to find a hungry, dirt-smeared child stowed inside. A spark in the darkness.
Instead they found a cabinet full of grog, an unmade bed, and chests full of clothing, maps, musical instruments, and weapons.
“They took the coin,” the Brewer said, picking up an empty purse, “and left everything else. Why? Tuskers don’t care for human grog, but they could have sold the rest.”
“They’re traveling light,” Marguerite said. “Killing and moving on.” Her face darkened. “Collecting more coin from the Congregation for burning wagons than they gain from selling swords.”
Caleb grabbed a jug off the shelf.
“Please, Caleb,” Marguerite said.
“Their faces, Marguerite. I can’t take it anymore.” He stumbled outside and into the woods, away from the smell of death. He tore the stopper out of the bottle and drank until his throat burned. The liquor tasted like bad rum and cinnamon.
A wide, fast-moving river ran through the forest a hundred yards from the settlement, downstream from a cataract whose roar pounded a steady rhythm through the woods. Dimly aware that Marguerite and the Brewer were setting up camp without him, Caleb sat on the bank and drank with a vengeance, trying to obliterate the horrific memories of the last three days.
After a while, the Brewer brought over a skin of fresh water and offered it to him.
“What’s that for?” Caleb said.
The older man smirked. “Done feeling bad about the world?”
“Not even close.”
“That won’t get you anywhere, you know. I’m stuck in an alternate reality, and for the last year I was trapped as a sex slave for a goblin-faced faerie queen. I could spend the rest of my life complaining about it, or I could move on and enjoy the sunshine.”
“Those kids don’t have any more sunshine to enjoy.”
“I know,” the Brewer said quietly. “But you do.” He glanced at Marguerite. “And so does she.”
Caleb’s eyes slid over to where Marguerite was sitting disconsolate by her bedroll, staring into the forest.
“She kinda likes you, you know,” the Brewer said.
“I kinda like her.”
The Brewer squatted next to him. “Then put this stuff away and show her.” He put a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “Value yourself, kid. The universe is cruel, but it’s not your fault.”
Later that night, after Caleb had sobered up and poured out the rest of the jug, he slid into the bedroll next to Marguerite. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what, love?”
“For me. For the drinking. It’s just . . . it’s the kids, Marguerite,” he said in a husky voice.
She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “I know.”
A tear traced his cheek, and he lowered his face. She brought his head to her breast, pressing her lips to his forehead, holding him close as he wept.
After breakfast the next morning, they heard a cry in the woods nearby. At first they thought it was a bird or even a cat of some kind, but when the cry repeated, more shrill and terrified, they realized it was a human cry.
A child.
Caleb leapt to his feet, trying to discern the direction of the sound.
“There!” the Brewer said, pointing upriver, in the direction of the waterfall. “It’s coming from over there!”
With the others close on his heels, Caleb took off through the woods, tearing through brambles and thorns, climbing over rocks and fallen trees in his haste to follow the river and reach the source of the voice. The cries increased in intensity as the cataract came into view, a forty-foot whopper that plummeted into a jumble of boulders and frothy brown water at its base.
“Help me! Please help me!”
It was hard to tell, but Caleb thought the voice belonged to a little boy. He scanned the river, trying to find a way up the steep, rocky terrain that climbed both sides of the banks. He would scramble up if had to, though he feared it would take too long to reach the top.
Marguerite had veered deeper into the forest, away from the waterfall. Just before Caleb and the Brewer started climbing, she called out that she had found a path. They rushed over and saw her racing up a dirt trail that wound through the foliage. Using his long stride, Caleb overtook her, bursting out of the woods and into a clearing at the top of the ridge. His eyes whipped towards the water, where he saw a curly-headed boy of eight or nine clinging to a raft in the middle of the river, approaching the waterfall at a fast clip. The river grew wider and swifter at the top, right before it plunged over the cataract.
“Hold on!” Caleb shouted. “I’m coming!”
The boy turned his head and clutched the raft tighter, his tanned face pale with fear. A small pack lay on the raft beside him. Caleb realized he must have gotten caught in the current and was unable to reach the shore. Why in the world was he on the river by himself in these dangerous woods?
It didn’t matter. Caleb just knew he had to help him.
Without further thought, he cut a long diagonal as he dashed to the bank of the river, creating some distance from the waterfall without overshooting the boy. Tearing off his boots so he could swim faster, he stepped over the sharp rocks at the water’s edge and dove out as far as he could. A blast of cold water cut through him, and the current seized him at once.
“The waterfall’s too close!” Marguerite cried out. “You’re not going to make it!”
He risked a glance and realized she was right. The boy was drawing closer and closer to the falls, and if Caleb didn’t turn back that very instant, he was going over, too.
He didn’t care. He wasn’t letting that little boy go without trying to save him. In that instant, the boy on the raft became all those lives snuffed out by the tusker raiding parties, all the children on all the worlds that Caleb couldn’t help, all the sadness in his soul. He swam faster, without a plan, just knowing he had to reach him.
The boy was poised on the edge of the raft, watching the inexorable approach of the falls. Caleb swam harder, arm over arm, then spied a boulder just beneath the surface, invisible from shore. Caleb veered closer and clamped onto it with his legs.
Seconds remained. The boy saw that Caleb had grasped onto something, and started frantically paddling the raft in his direction. He wasn’t nearly strong enough to affect the current, and it wasn’t going to work.
“You have to jump!” Caleb cried, when they were twenty feet apart. “I’ll catch you!”
The boy looked from the raft to the falls to Caleb, transfixed by fear. He shook his head.
“You have to!” Caleb shouted, then realized he was only scaring the boy. “Please,” he begged. “I’ll catch you, I swear.”
Ten feet separated them. The boy swallowed and, at the last moment, pushed off th
e raft with his back foot and jumped into the air. Caleb stretched as far as he could, willing his body to extend, ready to jump into the water with the boy if he didn’t make it, planning to shield him with his body as they plunged over the falls.
He didn’t need to. The boy was a good leaper, and Caleb caught his wrists. The current gave one final tug, trying to rip the boy free, but Caleb pulled him into his arms and hugged him tight.
With the Brewer and Marguerite forming a human chain to help them reach the shore, they got the boy to safety and wrapped him in dry clothes. After returning to camp, the Brewer made a fire as Caleb and Marguerite gently questioned him.
“What’s yer name?” Marguerite asked.
His soft blue eyes peered up at her, trusting, underneath the mass of brown curls. “Luca.”
“How long were you on the river?”
He thought for a moment. “Three days?”
Caleb sucked in a breath. “Where are your parents?”
The boy lowered his eyes and fumbled with the sleeves of Caleb’s shirt, which hung a foot off his hands. “They put me on the raft and said they would find me. I had a pole,” he added. “It fell in the water.”
“Why’d they put you on the raft?” Caleb asked gently.
He swallowed again, and gave a knowing but slightly ashamed look, as if he possessed knowledge he knew he wasn’t supposed to have. “I heard them talking. About the bad things that were coming.”
Caleb exchanged a glance with the others, fearing the boy’s parents had set him on the river just before a tusker attack.
If so, the boy wouldn’t have a home to go back to.
Marguerite patted him on the hand. “We’ll take care of ye, yeah? For as long as ye need.”
He looked at her for a long moment, as if judging her intent, then gave a small nod.
Though relatively healthy, the boy was starving and tired. Whatever clothes and provisions his parents had given him had been lost on the river. After dinner and a short discussion, they decided to stay in the camp another night and let him recuperate. Later, Caleb strode back into the settlement to find some children’s clothing, covering his nose and mouth to alleviate the smell of death, vowing not to let the boy see the devastation.
When he returned, Marguerite was stroking Luca’s head and singing softly to him by the fire. Caleb laid a blanket over him and tucked his head on a woolen sweater he had brought back from the camp. Once the boy fell asleep, Marguerite went to Caleb and kissed him, long and passionately.
“What was that for?” he asked, feeling dazed as she broke away.
“What you did this morning, Caleb? That was the bravest thing I ever saw.”
-30-
The Prophet woke in a cold sweat from the dream, his body shivering and mind reeling. It was the middle of the day, and he was lying on his back by a cold gray stream. The last thing he remembered was bending down to fill a water skin. Though accustomed to the sudden onset of his waking dreams, his advisors were gathered around him, worried.
No, not a dream, the Prophet thought. Dreams did not seize him in the middle of the day, cause him to lose consciousness, and seem so vivid and tangible he could still see the ocean in his mind’s eye, smell the wildflowers, and hear the clamor in the streets of Freetown.
Dreams drifted away right upon awakening. They did not remain in the mind forever, as indelible as any memory.
What he had seen was a vision.
He started to shake with the memory. The boy! The coffer! The power!
Though rare, the visions had come upon him before. The first one, a glimpse of worlds beyond worlds and celestial beauty that left him speechless for weeks, had caused him to leave his clan as a teenage boy and seek refuge in the forest, wandering alone, surviving on mushrooms and insects, searching for clarity and enlightenment. During this period, which lasted for years, he had many strong dreams, and many visions. He had learned to distinguish the two, though he considered dreams just as powerful, in their own way. How else was the Maker of All supposed to communicate with His creation? A painter cannot step into his own painting, can he? Yet the Prophet could see evidence of the Master’s brushstroke all around, in the trees and tall grass, the whistling of wind on the prairie, the depths of an owl’s gaze.
After wandering for years, he emerged from the forest, his only regret that he had not seen his parents again before they died. They were caught by a Protectorate patrol near the Great River and banished to the Fens. A distant cousin heard they had succumbed to dysentery but didn’t know for sure. The daily atrocities that happened on the Fens were nearly impossible to verify, the corpses of the deceased fed to alligators.
As his sermons began to attract followers, he reluctantly assumed the mantle of a prophet. When one of his visions came to pass, a flood on the plains that he foretold and which had saved the lives of many villagers, he became known as the Prophet.
But no dream or vision had affected him like this. He stood by the stream, still in shock, wrapping his leather belt tight around his coat of coarse wool. As his disciples hovered, waiting for him to speak, he gazed around the muddy tent camp, watching his people trudge about their daily tasks. Despite the recent influx of followers and a few small victories, their raiding parties lost more fighters every day. Their scouts returned with heavy hearts and a lack of hope, detailing the torched settlements.
Where was their God, they cried? When would He come to save them?
Yet not only had Devla failed to appear, He had not answered the call of their parents’ generation, or their parents’ parents’ generation, or a hundred ones before that. He had not made His presence known to His people for millennia of persecution and toil.
The Prophet knew what the Congregation said about him. That he was just like all the others, heir to a long line of pretenders and charlatans, of filthy gypsy liars who used the mantle of prophet as a way to obtain wealth and power and lure concubines into his tent.
He knew his motives were pure, but maybe they were right about the rest. Who was to say whether or not he was a true prophet? Or more importantly, whether he was the prophet foretold by the canticles, the one who would herald the arrival of the last true cleric, the Templar, the fist of Devla who would free his people as he breaks the will of the world?
In fact, the very thought of such a thing terrified him. It was hubris, sheer hubris, to believe that he might be the conduit for such a man.
Yet the vision had been so clear! And it was not a man he had seen, but a boy.
A child of sun-kissed skin and curly brown hair, blue of eye and quick to smile. In the Prophet’s vision, the boy had approached the Coffer of Devla, hand outstretched and ready to lift the lid, just before the unleashing of a great power had seared into the Prophet’s mind and flung him awake. There were other people in the vision, but the Prophet had focused on the boy. All his life, he had expected one such as he, an innocent vessel of pure heart and mind, the perfect avatar for the Creator’s designs.
Devlan scholars believed a warrior would come to free their people. But the Prophet thought otherwise. The Creator never did the obvious. He worked in mysterious ways. And what better lesson of his power than to work through a helpless child?
Visions were never exactly as they seemed. He knew this. If the past was any judge, then he had glimpsed but a tiny piece of the puzzle, a veiled portent of the future.
Still, this was the most powerful vision he had ever had, gripping him like a seizure. He knew Devla had been speaking to him.
Go. Find the boy. Help him fulfill his mission.
During the evening meal that night, as the winds keened around the tents of the worshippers and threatened to coalesce into deadly funnel storms, the Prophet sat among his people, breaking bread with his neighbors, accepting no special privileges. All of his closest supporters were present except Allira, his favorite of all, and whom he did not consider a disciple. Though she traveled with him, he knew she did not possess the same faith, which
made her presence and loyalty all the more remarkable. A gift from Devla she was, this silent healer from afar.
Except for a growing atmosphere of despair, it was an evening like any other in the Devlan settlement—until the Prophet called for quiet and leapt atop one of the tables, his eyes ablaze with the fervor of belief. Those closest to him lowered their utensils as the Prophet raised his hands, his wheat-colored hair unbound and falling to his shoulders.
“The Templar has come,” he said, his voice ringing through the dining hall. With a conviction that sent chills up and down his arms, and caused his followers to leap to their feet in elation, he repeated the words he had waited a lifetime to speak.
“He has come, I tell you! The Templar has come to Urfe, and it is our duty to find him!”
-31-
“Impossible,” Rucker said, as he stared out of the window of the abandoned house, down at the demon-infested streets of Badŏn.
“We’ll be spotted at once,” Val agreed. He wondered whether Badŏn was Urfe’s equivalent of the Roman city of Bath in England.
Ferin waved a hand. “Why do you think I’ve never left this building?”
Adaira approached the window. “Dida, can you create a one-way, translucent ward? Such that I cannot be spotted from the window?”
“Indeed,” Dida said. He stepped forward, outlined the perimeter of the window with his hands, and concentrated. “Done,” he said, after a few moments.
“Thank you,” Adaira said. “Now, I need some time.” She remained standing in front of the window, shrugging off questions. When she turned around, Val saw a look of determined satisfaction in her eyes. “A sewer grate lies but two blocks from the bath house. On the left rear side.”
“How do you know?” Val asked. “What spell was that?”
“Owl Vision. It adjusts the size of the retina and blocks out non-essential rays of light, allowing one to see into the distance.”