The Last Guardian of Everness

by John C. Wright

  At once he found himself ashore, with the retreating waves slithering around him. Before him, in tall cliffs, rose the roots of the foundations of the earth. To either side were flotillas of Black Ships resting at anchor, rank on rank of wide black sails now furled. The dunes beneath his seal’s belly were yellow and pale powder, mixed with sharp fragments of bone, scattered teeth, and here and there a skeletal fragment of a hand, or the grinning roundness of a skull. In the gloom, it seemed as if the bones were piled and wind tossed into long dunes or ranks, with deeper black shadows hunched between.

  Galen pulled himself on his flippers higher on the beach, and, as he did so, the sea behind him disappeared. The beach now simply was the brink of a long fall into darkness. There was no possibility now of swimming up against the tides of night to reach the upper world again; to leave the beach was to plunge immediately into the nether gulf; he was trapped.

  As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he began to see that, near the base of a giant stalagmite of the cliffs before him, three crowned women in robes of white and red and black were bound in postures of submission; hands tied to ankles, chains from iron collars looped about their knees.

  There were other figures here as well. Not human figures: in the black shadows of the dunes, he saw now, hunched, black, furred, rounded shapes, like fat and cat-faced men might look with arms and legs lopped off.

  These were the selkie. They lay, like him, on their bellies on the beach, or, if they moved, did so with a painful lumpish wallowing. Some few, he saw, were about his size; the rest were giant bulks, from whom deep breathing sounded like the hiss of winds from underground caverns.

  But it was not hissing, he realized. In the gloom, lying at their ease among countless crushed human bones, the selkie were singing:

  We wait, we wait to rise again,

  Fain for the flesh of living men;

  No force or fear shall cow us then,

  When darkness, darkness covers all.

  When that day of doom arrives,

  We’ll take their shapes and steal their lives;

  With gentle rapes we’ll take their wives,

  When darkness, darkness covers all.

  Walking masked among mankind

  Of human face, inhuman mind;

  ļnside best friends worst foes to find,

  When darkness, darkness covers all.

  Galen listened in growing disquiet. He began humping his way across the sand toward the distant captives, then stopped when he noticed the dark glitter of many eyes watching him from the forward blunt ends of the hulking seal shapes strewn along the beach.

  It was with a feeling of almost giddy relief that he noticed one of the giant seals near him was a dappled albino. When that huge seal turned toward him, its seal head fell backward furtively, and a human head peered out from a small opening in the neck. It was a silver-haired man with a salt-and- pepper-beard.

  The seal’s right paw suddenly flopped bonelessly; and out from a slit opening in the seal’s belly, a human hand appeared and gestured impatiently, beckoning with a furtive motion.

  On the hand Galen saw a silver ring bearing the moonstone crest of the house of Njord.

  Galen, careful not to disturb his seal-face, tried to work his hand free of the coat; his human hand came out from under the round bulk of his belly, holding the marble in his fist. Galen clutched it tightly, fearful lest any sliver of light escape between his fingers and shine in the gloom.

  The chorus of the song suddenly rang out, a loud and joyous crescendo:

  Acheron below us waits,

  To rise, and draw men to their fates

  When sunless towers gape sunken gates,

  Will darkness, darkness conquer all!

  And as exemplar of our might,

  We’ll spill the Sun and spoil his light,

  That men be blind and without sight

  When darkness, darkness, smothers all!

  The giant form of Dylan reared back and raised his seal snout high and sang in a clear, happy voice:

  Behold a folly scarce believed;

  He thinks deceivers are deceived!

  Be him of his guise relieved,

  Nor darkness cover him at all!

  How shall we spying prying pay

  This little man who swims our way?

  A trio of high, clear voices sang out, and Galen saw the bound shapes of the women, writhing and contorting strangely. Their arms and legs grew limp; their hair and faces crumpled and fell away, revealing the black, furry faces of smiling seals peering out from widening slits in the queen’s throats. The seals shrugged off their disguises and came out from inside the flesh of the queens, which fell into folds, empty garments of white leather dangling from the seal’s paws.

  The skins of the three beautiful women had been flayed from their corpses, Galen guessed, and perhaps their souls had already been taken aboard a Black Ship and sunken down to Acheron below:

  Mocking impersonations of three queenly voices sang:

  Skin him! Steal his life away!

  His flesh, usurp; his spirit, slay!

  His bones on Nastrond to decay,

  And darkness, darkness eat him all!

  Galen threw off the selkie coat and leapt to his feet. But Dylan reached out and seized him by the wrist, the one carrying the precious fiery pearl; Dylan’s human face had sharp, foxlike teeth, which bent down to close over Galen’s wrist. Galen found himself garbed once more in his armor and with his spear in hand. Dylan’s teeth jarred against Galen’s gauntlet, and Dylan recoiled in pain; and in the next moment, he wallowed hugely backward to avoid the stroke of Galen’s starlit spear.

  It was all a trap. Azrael could not have been this deceived. There was no traitor among the selkie. The traitor was Azrael, who had led him to come here.

  The light from the spear was brighter here than ever Galen had dreamed it before. The smaller seals cowered before the spear’s light, wallowing backward, squealing in pain. But the larger ones pushed forward, even as the light burned their paws and faces. Squinting, whiskers quivering with rage, the huge selkie closed in about him.

  Galen braced himself, thrust and thrust again, with sharp, clean, practiced strokes. One seal-man lay dead in the beach, another wounded and bleeding.

  Silently, Galen now blessed that his grandfather had forced him to practice so many hours each day with a weapon he had thought useless and insufferably archaic. But the blocks, parries, and killing strokes were easy, just as he had practiced.

  Perhaps because he had thought of his grandfather, Galen in that instant saw his grandfather in the distance aboard one of the Black Ships that were drawn up on the beach, chained at the neck. With frantic gestures, his grandfather beckoned Galen to look behind him. Galen, suspecting trickery, concentrated on the round shapes rising in front of him.

  Suddenly, from behind came laughter and movement. Galen turned and struck an awkward blow.

  A huge monster seal, larger than a wagon, surged at him from behind. Galen’s spear blow had cut into a giant’s catlike face, but only drew a dribble of blood; the creature was too huge for any telling blow. The giant rolled over him, crushing the wind out of him, and turned into a man who stood with his foot on Galen’s throat.

  A voice like a deep rumble of a sea wave now issued from the huge seal- man: “Hoy, little small-fry, little sneak-spy, aren’t ye one of them who Watch at Everness, eh? Ye crouch like toads, peering over yer fine tall seawall to gaze with fear upon our wide, black, salt sea. Ho ho. And now ye peer so close, so close, and it’s yer death ye see. I’d like to skin yer flesh and make a fine coat o’ ye, and stroll about as fine as fine, on human feet, up yonder where they say the sun is shining! But no, but no, there’s another who will wear your lovely coat, not me!”

  The giant seal-man with effortless strength now heaved up Galen and held him one-handed by the wrist, legs kicking far above the bony sand. Galen could slap him with his spear, but could not, one-handed, deliver any proper stroke,
and the huge seal merely smiled when the light from the spearhead stung him.

  A fathom at a step, the huge seal-man strode down the beach, toward the shore of darkness and long fall below into the gloom. The other seals barked and laughed and cried out with pleasure at the sight.

  Galen kicked and twisted, but he was like a small child in the grip of a tall, strong man. The seal-man chuckled and clucked his tongue to see Galen struggle so, and spoke in a cheerful, deep rumble: “Don’t worry so! I can live without yer white leather for me coat! Hey, ho! For I’ve a dozen cavaliers from Vindyamar all hanging in my wardrobe now, guards I noosed and gals I garroted and sleeping babes I plucked up out of cribs. A fine city, Vindyamar, floating like a blue flower in the waves, and Sapphire Towers so proud and tall! But there’s an underside, and darkness under her hull. The Warlock gave us the password to open the lower postern gate, and we killed the guards and stole their shapes, and went home to their guardsman’s homes, and took their wives, then led them, one at a time, down stairs to where the rest of us lads were waiting in the sea.

  “Then there was a ball, ye see, and all the nobles came. But the guards who was to keep them safe, aye, they was all our lads by then, and not until the feast was served, and they saw all their children done up nice, served with gravy over beds of rice, did they know anything was wrong or guess why the doors was locked tight shut behind them. The fiddlers fiddled loud to drown the screaming, and we laughed and sang ‘til everyone outside who heard it said ‘Why! What lovely times and gay, the high folk have at play!’

  “After that, ‘twas easy as poking an eye to invite the townsfolk up to the palace to see the Three Queens, and my! How puffed up and proud they was to go! They polished their shoes and brushed their wigs, and not until they was in the throne room did they see the ladies of the court in their fine clothes crucified on the wall behind the thrones, with the Necromancer, old bone-licker, corpse-eater, skulking nigh, for he had pulled their souls like old teeth right out from their soft, womanly bosoms and wrapped them in a cedar chest to hale them down to Acheron Below.

  “And me?! I got to dress up too, and got be the High Bell-Captain with a silver chain and a ivory staff. I got to ring the bell. The Warlock told us do it, to ring the Great Bell long and loud to wake ye. But then we tied some troublesome wenches to the clapper, duchesses and young countesses and the like, and cracked their bones when they struck the bell wall. When all the inside of the magic bell were stained with virgin blood, polluted and stained, the magic in the Bell went bad, and the Sea-Bell cracked in two and sank. Where is all yer fine Bells and Warnings now, Watchman, eh? Watch yerself now dying.”

  The giant leaned out over the end of the sand, dangling Galen over the unquiet darkness of the abyss.

  He heard his grandfather’s voice cry out: “Let go of the pearl! Don’t fall!”

  Galen did not want to be tricked again. He did not listen to the creature who looked like his grandfather. Even as the giant was reaching to pry open his fingers, Galen, one-handed, raised the spear and pierced the wrist of the giant hand holding him.

  Without a sound, still clutching the pearl, Galen fell.

  III

  For a time, Galen tried to compose himself, and he wondered what it would be like to die, or worse, to go insane and have his soul consumed by nameless horrors that lurk below the threshold of the world men know.

  Then a light came from behind him, and he felt a warm and loving breath, scented like springtime, on his cheek. Twisting in midair, he saw the slim, graceful form and fawn-like face of the dream-colt, surrounded with the glory of her own light.

  “You have forgotten, beloved, that I promised to stay behind you. While I could not carry you into the nameless lands beyond fair Tirion, I did not say I could not carry you out from them!” she said, or sang. “And so many blessings are gathered for the good of man, which he so swiftly forgets! My sweet, what now do you do in this dark place, falling to a deeper dark from which even I could not recover you? Mount! And I shall fly you with the speed of daydreams back to where your life is.”

  IV

  “And then I was here,” Galen said.

  V

  Wendy asked, “But why did you come to me? She said she would take you back to where your life is, and I certainly don’t have it stuck under a pillow here or something, do I? Besides, what did the seals hope to achieve? They weren’t going to try to take over your life, were they?”

  Galen said, “The Sixty-Eighth Warden, Pentheus Waylock, wrote a paper trying to prove that what we call insanity is various forms of selkie trying to eat up men’s souls, hollow them out from inside, so to speak, and walk around on earth; but they can’t adjust themselves to the limitations of waking reality, and they see things other people don’t see, and so we think they’re crazy.”

  “Well, what now?”

  “Uh—what do you mean, what now? There’s nothing more to do now. Time is up.”

  “Okay. But what can we do now? If the sea-bell people are beaten up and the three queens are missing, then there’s no alarm bell working anymore, is there? Things could be sneaking into the world right and left, right?”

  Galen shook his head sadly. “I don’t think you realize what this means. I’ve seen the selkie gathered in force. Vindyamar is fallen, and the three fair queens are slain, their souls taken perhaps to Acheron. The only thing left to do is blow the Horn. Blow the Horn and wake the sleepers. It will be the last battle. The end of the world. My family will have fulfilled its mission. We were ordered to watch the boundaries between the waking and the sleeping world. And we have watched. The years went by, and went by, and still we watched. Everyone forgot about us, and still we watched. Now the enemies we were watching for have come. Time to blow the Horn. There’s nothing more to do. The last battle is here.”

  Wendy said nothing, but looked at him, her head cocked to one side.

  “You know,” he muttered, “our family is supposed to sound the Last Horn Call. All those things I was taught when I was young. I guess they are really true. The dire spirits from the abyss will rise up to claim the Earth; to defeat them, we must call down the supernatural champions of the light. But they might destroy the Earth in the glory of their coming. We were promised. Long ago we were promised, by solemn promises, that a new and perfect world would be given us, a new homeland, if ours was brought to an end by the unearthly powers unleashed during the last battle. It would be a place of peace, a garden of delight, perfect and pure. But I think I might prefer this old, flawed world of mine rather than that new one, if it came right down to it. I know I’m supposed to feel really overjoyed at the coming of the millennium, now that our long duties are almost over. But I just got started. I’m still young. I don’t even think I want to find the Final Horn. But I guess I should.” His voice was calm and solemn.

  She said, “You can end the world?”

  He said to her: “All you need to do is find my Grampa and tell him to do it.”

  VI

  Wendy blinked. Then she snorted and shrugged. “Oh, don’t be silly! We can’t let the world come to an end. You look so gloomy when you say that! So, what can we do instead? I mean, to fight the bad guys ourselves, without waking up these sleeper fellows, whoever they are?”

  “They can’t be fought by mortal men,” said Galen uncertainly. “Besides, that isn’t what we were ordered to do. I mean—”

  “What about finding these talismans?”

  “Finding the talismans?”

  “Of course! The things Azrael talked about, the Moly and the magic ring and the sword and the other things. Mollner; the bow and arrows of Belphanes. The things to defeat the dark! After all why would Azrael have made that part up; what would’ve been the point? So we’ve got to find them. We can’t just stand here with our mouths hanging open, gaping like fish!”

  Galen, who had been standing with his mouth gaping, snapped it shut with a click of his teeth. “My family is just supposed to watch the wall. Azrael said t
hat for us to use the weapons is forbidden.”

  “Well?! Maybe he’s lying! Things have come over the wall! Now what?”

  “I guess the only one who knows where the talismans might be is Grampa. He’s consulted the Queens of Vindyamar in dreams before. Gramps should be at the House. And there are tools of our Art at the house; there’s supposed to be a planetarium built by the Sixty-Sixth Warden, Archimedes Waylock, which can locate dream creatures that have come through the mist.” Galen, for the first time, spoke in a clear and certain voice, as if Wendy’s words had firmed his resolve. “There’s also a library of books, most of which are in the waking world, that can give us more information on what we’re facing. But I can’t ask a sick woman to help me . . .”

  “Ha! Not only do I feel fine, you chauvinist pig, but I’m older than you are and probably a lot smarter too, if you ask my opinion, which you haven’t, judging from the look on your face. You look so funny with your mouth hanging open like that!”

  Galen self-consciously snapped his mouth shut again, looking mildly confused and overwhelmed. He straightened up and started to speak in a voice of condescending masculine authority. “Well, first we should. . . Hmmm. . .” His voice trailed back into youthful uncertainty. “Uh, what should we do first?”

  “First! Let’s look at the pearl and see what it is.”

  “Pearl?”

  Wendy rolled her eyes. “You know! The thing Azrael de Gray gave you. You still have it, don’t you?”

  Galen reached into the pouch hanging from his war-belt. “Yeah, I think I—here it is . . .” He drew up his hand, and, shining in his palm, surrounded by rays of soft light and by gentle sprays of sparks like fireflies, was a tiny crystal sphere of living beauty.

  Wendy drew in her breath, awed.