The Last Guardian of Everness

by John C. Wright

  “Yes, my dear. I see,” said Raven, nodding.

  “I was just thinking about that time when I was flying over the playground at school. Because I had a dream about it last night. I followed the road the school bus took so I wouldn’t get lost (that actually happened), but on the way back (I dreamed this part), I saw a pony standing on a cloud in midair, eating the cloud-fluff, like it was grass. You know how horses eat. The funny thing was, I think I’ve really seen horses like that before, at my window when I was falling asleep.”

  Raven straightened up. “You never said this part before.”

  “Maybe I just remembered. But the other part was a dream. I think. Listen. He was a white color, like starlight, and his eyes were stars. I asked the pony, how come I had never seen him before? And he said he and his kind were made of star-stuff and were banished in the sunlight just like the night sky is banished. ‘You have seen me a million times,’ he said, ‘but when each day you enter the waking world, the mist of Everness makes our friendship fade like a dream, and I cannot follow you. But there is a house to the East. . .’”

  III

  At that moment, the nurse came in to give Wendy her medications, and Wendy would not speak about a dream or tell a secret story in front of a stranger. The nurse also gently reminded Raven that visiting hours were over, and that the other patients in the terminally ill ward might be disturbed, even if the door was shut, by his voice.

  Wendy was made sleepy by the medicines. “I remember all sorts of weird things that I forgot from before,” she said. “And such funny dreams!”

  Raven leaned forward to kiss her goodbye, but whispered, “I will sneak back in tonight by the loose window I found. They cannot keep me from you, my little one . . .”

  “Don’t be sad,” she said softly back. “I can feel I might be going to a better place. I can see it in my mind sometimes, when I’m half asleep, like a light filled up with warmth. If I can stand it, you should be able to, you big man, you. And stop worrying! You’ll make me worry if you do.”

  And Raven fiercely hugged her, afraid to take his face away from her cheek since he was ashamed to let her see his sudden tears.

  IV

  That night, by secret means, Raven came back into the hospital. There was commotion and business at the intensive care unit, nurses running, and so no one was about when he crept up to his wife’s room, hunched over in a long white coat he had stolen earlier from a laundry. Beneath the coat he held a red rose in a clear plastic cone he had bought from a man on the corner.

  He thought how he hated the smells of disinfectant, the glare of the neon lighting on the soundproofing of the ceiling. It was not homey. It was not home. It was not where a man’s wife should lie dying, away from her home so that her husband had to sneak in like a thief to see her.

  Because he was walking softly, in the way his father had taught him, so as to make no noise at all, Raven heard a strange, thin voice, eerie, chilling, cold and bitter, speaking in his wife’s room.

  “—Even if you know not your heritage, nor the prophecy, I know. The fairy blood, even if commingled and halved, runs in you. You are not as other women. Haven’t you discovered that they cannot see nor hear me?”

  Then, Wendy’s voice, sounding calm and strong: “Go away! You are an evil creature. I want nothing to do with you.”

  “Eight nights I have come to offer you your life. This is the ninth and last.”

  “I don’t care to hear it again. Go away.”

  “I am a necromancer. I can restore your life to you. You will be well and healthy, and sing and dance beneath the sun. You will grow old in due time and will bear many children.”

  “Go away. It would be just the same as murder. I wouldn’t kill someone even if I were on a lifeboat.”

  “The only price is this: the balance of the uncaring universe requires that a life pay for your life. You will never know on whom this doom will fall. It will be no kin nor friend of yours. It will be a stranger. If you, who are fated to die, shall be brought by my magic to live, then another, who is fated to live, shall die.”

  “If you’re so great, why don’t you step into the light, where I can see you?”

  “I am not for you to look at.”

  Raven clutched at the doorframe, his mind a whirl of strange thoughts. Who was visiting his wife? And . . .?

  To let her live again . . .

  He blinked back sudden tears of confused hope, then anger. He knew he did not believe any of this; this was some lunatic conversation!

  Softly, the thought crept into his mind: and what did he care anyway if some stranger died?

  Raven thrust open the door.

  Inside was only his wife, sound asleep, in a darkened room. No one else. The windows were closed. There were no other exits. The room was quiet and still.

  Raven crossed carefully to the bed, wondering, if, for some absurd reason, she were feigning sleep.

  Gently, he touched her cheek, but she did not wake.

  Raven thought back on what his life had been before he met this most wonderful of women. Empty. He remembered how often he had been sunk in gloom, how often he had been sick with loneliness, and how poorly he had fared with other women. He was always a foreigner, always a stranger. Until he had met this delightful creature (he could almost believe her half a fairy) who made even a stranger like himself warmly welcome, and gave him a home.

  “Wake, my Wendy,” he said softly. “I have brought you a rose.”

  But she did not wake up. He put the rose on her chest and folded her hands over it, so she would find it when she woke.

  He looked at her lying there, hands crossed over the flower . . .

  Then, sudden horror made him dash the rose from her hands. Wendy was pale and was not moving. He touched her forehead but could not tell if she were warm. By the bedside was a buzzer to call the nurse. Raven pushed it with his thumb, again and again, calling out in a loud, hoarse voice.

  On the bed, Wendy stirred and opened her eyes. “What a racket!”

  Outside came the sound of footsteps coming and confused voices, as of sick people, calling out complaints and questions.

  “Now you’ve done it!” Wendy said brightly, smiling. “Better hide in the closet! Shoo!”

  Laughing with relief, Raven jumped into the little closet and closed the door to a crack. Through that crack, as the minutes went by, he watched with a sense of embarrassment and guilt as nurses and night interns rushed into the room.

  Many minutes went by, while his wife played dumb and asked simple- minded questions, smiling at the intern’s confusion. Raven watched his wife. She was lovely, smiling, cheerful. . .

  He was stabbed by the memory of how she had looked for that single moment when she had the flower on her motionless bosom.

  He whispered to himself, “Devil or fairy or whatever you are! If she would not agree, I will. Kill whomever you needs must kill. I want my wife to live.”

  Raven’s nape hairs prickled. A sudden certainty that he was being watched made him fear to turn or move.

  From behind him, a cold voice uttered the words, “So be it.

  3

  City

  at the

  World’s Edge

  I

  A time before (but it cannot be measured whether it was a long time or a short, there in that timelessness) armored in gleaming silver mail, spear in hand, a young man stood upon the dark, gigantic stones of the wall between the waking and the dreaming worlds, head thrown back, helmet scarves flowing down across his neck and shoulders, eyes shining, and, with a powerful, clear voice, he sang his song into the stars.

  Daughter of Eurynome,

  Who soars as far as dreams can reach;

  A titan made an oath to me,

  And by his blood, I thee beseech.

  I call as he called once, in need,

  For wings to top Olympic height;

  His crime divine made thee my steed;

  My soul still holds those fires b
right!

  My soul, immortal as is thine,

  Bound in clay, confounded, yet divine,

  Doomed to die, but dreams Eternity,

  Still recalls what calls thee now to me.

  As he sang, there came a motion in the deep, wide darkness of heaven as like a falling star, a bright meteor of diamond light, which swelled in his vision. And he saw a flying creature coming forward out of that light, graceful and swift as an antelope, bold as a war-trained stallion in his strength, yet more delicate than a fawn. The light was all around her as she fled toward him across the wave crests of the sea, out from the sea of darkness, with her hoofs wetted on the surging foam, dancing on the waves above the circle of light she shed, and where that light touched, the blackness of the waves was turned briefly emerald, deep, translucent.

  In a moment of wonder the dream-colt rode the boisterous tide crashing up the iron wall, to leap lightly down before the laughing young man, surrounded by glittering spray, with stardust still tangled in her trailing mane.

  “I have forgotten who I am,” said the young man, who had lost himself in the enchantment and strong beauty of her coming.

  “It is one of the dangers of the dreaming, from which I am oath bound to shield you, my beloved,” she said, and she told him his name, calling him the youngest of those loyal to the light.

  Her voice was like an exultation of strings and woodwinds. “Remember also, son of the race sprung from Adam and Titania, that I am bound to carry you whereso you will, whether to some star remote, or worlds far lost in the scope of endless night, or across the gulf of time to aeons unrecalled, or further, whether into realms and dreams yet unimagined. Mount, and say where you will go. Yet above the sphere of the fixed stars I may not carry you; unyielding law forbids.”

  II

  Gently, Galen Waylock laid his hand on her mane, and the softness of her long, starlight-colored hairs delighted his fingers. “I have also forgotten why I have called you. But I remember my pride has called me to this adventure, and the knowledge that I must do something worthy to be a man.”

  And then he heard a slow, deep bell tolling far out across the waste of the waves, and Galen remembered.

  “I must find the road to Tirion, where the founder of our Order is being punished.”

  “We call him Azrael. He is beyond the world’s edge, beyond safety and sanity and starlight; I may not take you there.”

  But Galen showed no impatience or despair, but stood in quiet thought; for he was wise in the lore of dreaming, and to remember forgotten things was the soul and secret of his art.

  He recited: “Four are the citadels which guard the land, beneath four moons and Oberon’s command. In all moons Everness, on which Man’s Earth relies; the High House unchanging beneath changing skies. In full light, Celebradon to Autumn stars arose; till doomsday to give knights ceaseless glad repose. By crescent light was Vindyamar ordained to wander free; to watch over waves and guard fast the sea. By dark of moon was Tirion made, where, wailing, were sent, those who betrayed, or refused to repent. . .” Galen broke off at this point and, looking sternly at the dream-colt, said: “My memory is meant for ever. I recall that Tirion must be the place where Azrael de Gray is kept; and, since the silver towers of Tirion rise beneath the moon, they are not indeed beyond the world’s end, but under starry skies. Nor is this a place unlawful for mortal men to go by dream. Why do you hide this from me? Why do you say Azrael is elsewhere?”

  “He is not in Tirion but beyond it, in a place called Wailing Blood. I am not allowed to carry you to the nameless places; if you go into Wailing Blood, I must remain behind you.”

  “He is beyond the world’s edge? How far?”

  “Far, far is the distance between virtue and crime! It is a distance that I cannot bear you.”

  “Then carry me to Tirion; I call upon your ancient promise. This beyond, called Wailing Blood, I shall discover for myself.”

  “There is danger,” warned the dream-colt, shying back. “For those who fly too far high or too far low may lose themselves in dreaming, and forget how to return to flesh within the world of the day once more.”

  “I accept the risk.”

  She lowered her graceful head in sorrow. “Then the doom is put upon you; with thine own mouth thou hast said it. I can carry you to Tirion; thereafter, I must stay behind you.”

  III

  He mounted upon her back, and, swift as a falling star, she flew from the great wall. Her light was all around him as they rose into the purple gloom. Through gaps in the silver-touched, moonlit clouds, he saw the waters of the dream-sea far below, high waves, crowned with foam, moving across the face of the deep; and the moonlight danced like cold fire, and sparks and glints of light flickered across the wave crests.

  He spoke a word of power, and the moon passed behind a cloud, and, when the moon emerged again, it was a new moon, and held no light.

  Without light, the ocean was now a greater darkness beneath the textured gloom of the clouds below, and the young man flew through the widening night.

  Once the two were attacked by storms; he calmed them with the names of the one storm-prince loyal to Everness. Once they were chased by winged nightmares; he employed a rune of warding, and his silver steed out- flew them. Once an airy phantasm came walking across the wind by starlight to harass them, long spider limbs flickering like smoke, eyes glimmering; but he made the Voorish sign; the entity was quailed and removed itself to other cycles and formations of the dreaming.

  IV

  They came to a place where a line of mountains rose up from the seas ahead, mountains taller than the clouds, and, dimly, in the wide, far spaces beyond, he could hear the ringing thunder and strange music of the cataracts of the world’s edge.

  The tops of the mountains were carved with colossal, brooding faces, narrow eyed, grim, gigantic. From one horizon to the other, as far as the mountains ranged, these vast dark countenances lowered above the clouds. In the starlight, shadows, distance, and mists hid those features from Galen’s gaze; he saw only glimpses of slanted eyes as large as lakes, the silhouettes of angular cheeks, of long-lobed ears, of darkened brows. One or two of the great faces perhaps wore many-towered crowns; or perhaps these were fortresses, either deserted for many ages or else manned by silent armies of some race that required neither light nor fire.

  Nor would the dream-colt fly beyond those mountains, for she said they were the sign of Oberon.

  Lightly she set down on the forest road in the shadow of two mountains. Here, the pass, like a saddle, rose up, then fell down into the civilized land beyond. On either side were pine trees, whispering most softly in the night winds, and, here and there among the trees, were obelisks and standing stones taller than the treetops. Galen could not remember who had erected these silent monuments or what meaning they had, though he uneasily recalled that at one time he had known.

  He strode on foot up to the pass, and the only light came from the spear in his hand. Heavy shadows walked behind him among the rocks.

  At the crest of this pass between two of the taller mountains, Galen paused and looked down. Very dimly by starlight, he saw, or dreamed he saw, a wide valley cut by nine rivers. A walled city of slender towers rose on many bridges and piers above and around these rivers. In the towers were watchfires burning, yet burning with a strangely colored light, as if the wood they burned there were not earthly.

  Beyond the towers he saw only sky, for the world ended at a brink.

  “Wind! I call you by your secret names—Boreas, Eurus, Zephyrus, Notus—by the four winds, give me four tidings of this land beyond!” For he recalled that strange knowledge and secrets sometimes come to those who dream.

  A quiet voice from above his head spoke: “I hear the screams of the tormented, their shrieks and sobs and choked weepings; and I hear the laughter and gaiety of the righteous, and from their calls and speech, I know that the folk live lives of ease and virtue. I can hear the whisper of the waters running through w
ide nets, and I can guess the cause of their ease. Their fisher folk cast great nets woven of human hair across the mouths of the great waterfalls dashing off the world’s edge, and the current carries to their nets all the lost treasure of all the sea-wrecks of the world’s oceans, lost beyond the care of any worldly power to claim or recollect.

  “The cause of their virtue, I have heard, is that one of the Principalities of Mommur, the City Neverending, appointed them the jailers of those condemned or damned by the justice of the Timeless Realm. The continual and public reminder of supernatural justice urges them to honest practice and openheartedness.”

  “Tell me of these damned, spirit,” commanded Galen.

  “The method employed by the Tirioneese to discharge their duty is both simple and cruel. The damned are placed in cages, too small to allow the prisoner either to stand or to sit, made all of needle-studded bars. The cages are swung out on long chains or derricks suspended over the cliffside of the world’s edge. At certain times, depending on the period of the swinging of these pendulums, the cages are swung into the path of the falling water plunging in nine waterfalls from the brink. This both feeds and torments the prisoners, for, while they are half drowned, certain fish, falling weightless through the flood, attracted by the prisoners’ blood on the needles of the cage’s bars, will come to drink of their sores and wounds, and be impaled upon the selfsame needles, and the prisoner, if his hands are quick, may feed on the fish. During the morning, the water turns to steam to scald them, and during the evening, to ice.”