Lucy came out on a hillside. It was so unlike what she had been expecting that, for a second, she thought she had emerged in completely the wrong place. There was not crunching snow but wet grass beneath her feet. The air was sharp but not the icy wind that she had been used to here.
Vince, to her right, looked equally disconcerted and was now prodding the ground with his boot as if to make sure it was real.
She had ended up in a group with Ezi and Okwu, and Vince had been allocated on the basis that he also had previously visited the Sveta Mountains. The two zöpüta seemed friendly—they were close to Ruth, after all—and if she wasn’t mistaken, Vince seemed more than ordinarily happy to have her back. He had been the one, of course, to volunteer to drop her off back on Earth that short time ago. Then she had seen it as just a sense of duty. Now she was wondering if it had perhaps meant something more.
“Are we sure this is the right place?” Okwu asked, looking around. “It’s hardly as you described it.”
“No, this is the place,” Vince answered, gazing over the valley. “But you’re right; it’s not what we were expecting.”
The landscape had altered considerably since their last visit. Though it was impossible to calculate such differences across such various worlds and time frames, the mountains seemed to have broken into something like springtime. While the peaks themselves were still capped in white and encased in frosted cloud, the slopes were brimming with shrubs and evergreens that had been completely obscured during heavy snowfall. The plain was now a wide valley of reddish-purplish earth and grassland. A river had cracked into life through its core, winding its sparkling way down between the mountains and across the panorama. Clusters of humanoid figures, presumably goblins, were visible at points on its length, casting nets and surrounded by baskets.
They dropped down the hillside—much more easily now without the snow—and began the trek across the plain. The settlement was a spiral of brightly colored, almost carnivalesque tents in the middle. Lucy recalled how strange she had thought its positioning was, exposed to the full force of the winds and snowstorms that had ravaged the valley during their last visit. She received her explanation as they crossed the river. Where the ice had previously been so thick that they had passed over it without even noticing, now makeshift wooden bridges had been assembled, high enough for large blocks of ice, some the sizes of small cars, to be carried along the surface of the water beneath. She looked up to the distant mountains from where the river flowed. If this was the end of the thaw, then she dreaded to think of the sorts of things that might have fallen from the summits during the winter months. Between suffering the cold and being crushed by one of those, she certainly knew which was preferable.
It was not just the land that seemed more alive. As they approached the settlement, the sounds of music and children’s voices reached them. And, notably, they were not greeted this time by armed sentries. In fact, the space into which they entered resembled less a gap between tents than a town square.
Adult goblins moved to and fro with baskets and other objects, younger ones running about, and some birds and small mammalian creatures darted between the pegs. A wizened male goblin was seated cross-legged in front of a tent, plucking away at the lute-like instrument balanced across his thighs.
“Bit of a mood change,” Vince commented.
A few of the children ran to them and stared inquisitively, not least, probably, because the four of them were wrapped in absurdly unseasonal fur coats, hats, and gloves. Ezi and Okwu bent and addressed them, albeit struggling to flex their legs against the many layers of garments.
Lucy scanned their ranks but didn’t catch the face she was looking for. Doch, daughter of the goblin woman who had taken them into her home last time, was absent.
The children appeased, they moved on. Their destination was clear. One tent rose higher than all the others at the center of the settlement, emblazoned with the brightest patterns, and still with guards outside the entrance who closed ranks as they approached.
“Who are you?” one demanded, tightening her grip on her spear.
“We’ve been here before,” Vince explained. “We’re Apollonians. We need to see the matriarch urgently.”
“Her Honor is very sick,” the guard replied. “She can receive no visitors.”
“I thought she might be,” Lucy muttered. Then, addressing the guard, she said, “Okay, in that case, where could we find the high priest?”
The guards exchanged uncomfortable looks.
“There is currently no high priest . . . His Grace disappeared into the mountains some time ago, during the cold season, and has not been seen since . . .”
“And you haven’t appointed another one?”
“No,” the guard replied. “Her Honor, the matriarch, did not think it appropriate . . .”
“Of course she didn’t,” Lucy concluded, turning back to Vince, Ezi, and Okwu.
Ezi didn’t seem particularly impressed with her smugness. “Well, what now, then? I thought you said—”
Lucy held up a finger. “Wait for it.”
And, sure enough, the guards turned as a hoarse voice emanated from within the tent.
“Show them inside.”
With Lucy following a goblin and the rest looking perplexed, they passed under the awning and entered.
The interior of the tent was much as they had left it. Cast in perpetual gloom, a circle of candles marked out an interior space. Had they not known better, in the dim light, they might have taken the form at the back to be merely a pile of rugs. Closer inspection, however, showed it to be a squat figure wrapped in layers upon layers of furs. Its head was bowed so that only a scaly scalp was visible.
The guard began to speak. “Is Your Honor feeling well—?”
“Leave us!” the figure barked.
The guard sheepishly retreated, letting the tent flap fall shut behind her.
“Why are you here?” the figure demanded, still not looking up at them or inviting them to be seated.
“We could ask you the same question,” Lucy replied coolly. She ignored the surprised look Vince shot her and continued. “What are you doing here?”
“I am the matriarch of this community!” the figure blustered, its voice cracking in indignation. “How dare you—?”
“Oh, save it,” Lucy bit back. “You’re not fooling anyone.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Vince, take off its furs.”
Vince looked around at her, wildly this time. “What? I . . .”
But something had changed. The matriarch’s head had risen, shuddering, to stare at them, and they got a proper look. It was pallid and gaunt, the eyes misty and lifeless. There seemed to be nothing holding it together but the compacted pressure of so many layers of fur. A voice spoke but not through the matriarch’s mouth, one very different from the rasp that had come before.
“It seems that I’ve been rattled.”
The tent shuddered. Golden light illuminated the face from below, rays brimming through the overlaps of the furs. It was as if a lightbulb had been switched on inside the matriarch’s body and was now growing brighter and brighter. Like the petals of a luminous rose, the furs began to peel away, until the light was exposed. The goblin was entirely naked now, thin enough to be a corpse, and clutching in its skeletal fingers a shining crystal.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
Alex stood in the Darkness. Everything about him was utter black, expanding in every direction. There was no trace whatsoever of where he had emerged from. Lucifer remained draped around his shoulders. Though Alex was too close to tell, it was as if the serpent had grown fuzzier, the edges of its scaly hide slipping into the gloom like melting ice.
“I don’t have a choice,” he replied. “We can’t win with just the Light; we need the Darkness on our side too.”
“I can’t guarantee your safety, even if we are successful. Did you ever come across Archbishop Iago? You didn’t see what happened to him, did you? It wasn’t pretty. You might be technically in the Darkness, but you haven’t surrendered your own Light to it yet. You still have a body, for one thing, and the fact that you still have a sense of which way is up is certainly something.”
Alex knew what the serpent was talking about. He had felt it every time he had entered the Darkness: he became suddenly very aware of the boundaries of his body, his sense of being, his individuality. That individuality was so alien to his surroundings it was almost like being on the edge of a cliff, only inches away from plummeting to oblivion. There were no such boundaries here. Everything was porous, swirling, inextricably combined. He might be in the Darkness, but only in the sense that a frog, rather than bacteria, might be in a pond.
“I’ve noticed you always cling to me when we’re in here. Are you scared too?”
Lucifer’s tongue swept between his teeth—those, too, were blurred. “To be honest, I’ve become quite attached to being an individual creature. It tends to happen when we’re summoned. Quite apart from the will of the sorcerer who brings us into the Light, we have our own drive to remain distinct, to not be dragged into the collective. I’m feeding off your Light, just as you feed off my Darkness when you summon me.”
“And you’re willing to risk all that? To risk yourself?”
The serpent swiveled his head so that Alex’s emerald gaze was mirrored at him. “There are more important things than me. Or you.”
“You’re right.”
“Then I’ll leave you for the time being. Good luck.”
The serpent melted into the Darkness.
Alex readied himself, then dived into the Darkness.