And so they came at last to the summit and spire of the Inverted Cathedral, buried deep in the dark, dark earth. Hawk and Fisher, the Seneschal, the Burning Man, and the Wrath of God in the world of men. Spent and weary now, dragging their exhausted bodies up the last few steps protruding from the blood-dappled inner wall. All except for the Burning Man, of course, who was after all dead and damned, and no longer subject to such lesser torments. They had passed through the Listening Gallery, evaded the Stalking Tatters, and fought their way through the Coil of Dreams. All to reach the sunken spire with its single room and its final terrible secret.
The only entry to the room was through a simple wooden trapdoor above them, held shut by a single steel bolt. Hawk was somewhat reluctant to approach it, given his experiences with the trapdoor that had brought them into the Inverted Cathedral, but in the end Fisher managed to bully him into opening it. Hawk pushed back the bolt with the head of his axe, just in case, and then used the axe to push the trapdoor up. He waited a moment to give anything nasty that might be waiting inside its chance to be cranky, and then he pulled himself up into the room beyond. Fisher quickly followed him, and the two of them stood close together, glaring suspiciously about them. For all their tired and aching limbs, they were almost disappointed that there were no obvious demons or guardians to face.
The room in the Cathedral spire was simple and unadorned, empty and featureless except for the single window in the far wall, covered with wooden shutters. Not much bigger than an average attic, with a low ceiling and no furniture, its only interesting feature was that the entire room had been constructed from solid gold. The floor, walls, and ceiling gleamed with their own inner light, and the beaten metal walls contained dark, distorted reflections that looked balefully back at Hawk and Fisher as they turned in a slow circle. Even when they’d been Prince and Princess of their respective lands, they’d never seen so much gold in one place, or put to such ostentatious use. The walls were perfectly smooth, the golden metal showing no signs of workmanship, and when Hawk cautiously approached his reflection and placed one cautious hand on the metal, the gold seemed uncomfortably warm to the touch.
The Seneschal called up plaintively to find out what the delay was. Rather than explain, Hawk and Fisher each reached down a hand and hauled him through the trapdoor. He took one look at the golden room and was immediately dumbstruck. Lament joined them soon after, muttered something about vanity and folly, and then strode angrily around the room, prodding the walls here and there with a stiff finger, as though searching for signs of fool’s gold or some other evidence of trickery. There then followed a somewhat awkward pause, as absolutely nobody was willing to put a hand down through the trapdoor to pull up the Burning Man. He finally floated up through the trapdoor all on his own.
“You can fly?” asked Hawk. “I didn’t know you could fly.”
“Lots of things you don’t know about me,” said the Burning Man.
“Then why didn’t you just fly all the way up?” Fisher asked. “Why climb up with us?”
“To watch you struggle and suffer, of course.”
“This room must have cost a fortune all on its own,” said the Seneschal breathlessly.
The Burning Man shrugged, and the flames on his shoulders danced for a moment. “Nothing was too good for my Cathedral. Alchemists say that all gold is formed in the hearts of suns. The purest of all metals. What better way to surmount my finest creation? Tons of gold went into the making of this room. All of it donated by the goodly and the righteous. I’m sure thoughts of buying their way into heaven never entered their minds at all.”
Hawk and Fisher moved over to study the closed shutters covering the only window. Both of the great wooden panels were covered with a single, heavily stylized painting of heaven. There were green fields under a warm sun, where men and beasts walked side by side, and winged angels with harps and halos sailed across a perfect blue sky like graceful swans on an endless lake. The style was naïve, almost primitive, but the scene had an undeniable charm and power. The temperature rose sharply behind Hawk and Fisher as the Burning Man came over to join them, and they moved quickly aside as he leaned forward to study the painting. He sniffed loudly and turned away.
“Very tasteful, I’m sure. Dated now, of course. And nothing like the real thing.”
“How would you know, murderer?” the Walking Man asked him.
“Part of Hell’s punishment is the knowledge of what you’ve lost,” said the Burning Man. “Hell knows all the forms of cruelty. Your just and merciful God didn’t miss a trick.”
“Tell us about the Gateway,” Hawk said quickly, to stave off yet another doctrinal squabble. “Where is it, exactly?”
“Right beyond those shutters,” responded the Burning Man. “Open the shutters, go through the window—lo and behold! Reverie awaits.”
“It can’t be that simple,” said Lament, striding over to frown at the portrait of heaven. “We must be deep in the earth by now. What’s really beyond these shutters? Dirt that’s never known the light of day? Or perhaps a glimpse of Hell itself.”
“You’re really far too literal-minded for a religious man,” chided the Burning Man. “It doesn’t matter anyway. You won’t be able to open the shutters.”
To no one’s surprise, Hawk immediately took that as a challenge. He’d already noticed there were no locks or bolts or handles, so he took the next logical step and hit the shutters with his axe. He put a lot of effort into it, but the heavy steel blade rebounded from the wooden shutter without doing it the slightest harm, or even damaging the painting. Hawk dropped his axe to the floor and spent some time walking around in tight circles as he tried to rub some feeling back into his jarred fingers.
“Interesting,” said Fisher. “Even the High Warlock’s enchantment on your axe wasn’t enough to make an impression.”
“Interesting,” Hawk muttered through gritted teeth. “Yes, that’s the word I was just about to use.”
Lament raised his long wooden staff and rapped imperiously on the shutters with the steel-tipped end. “Open! In the name of the Lord!”
Nothing happened. The Burning Man sniggered. “You didn’t really think it was going to be that easy, did you? It wouldn’t be much of a secret Gateway if just anyone could open it. No mortal hand can open those shutters. Reverie isn’t meant for human eyes.”
They all turned to look at him, and he laughed at them, flames leaping in his open mouth. Hawk picked up his axe again.
“You knew this all along,” he said flatly. “That’s why you were willing to lead us here. To enjoy our anger and despair as we failed.”
“Of course,” Burning Man stated simply. “The damned must find their pleasures where they can.”
“There’s got to be a way,” said Fisher. “And you’re going to tell us what it is.”
“Or what?” challenged the Burning Man, sneering openly. “You can’t hurt me and you can’t kill me. I have already been punished far beyond anything you could achieve.”
“Don’t let him provoke you,” warned Lament. “We need to concentrate on the matter at hand. God would not have brought us all this way for nothing.”
“I think,” the Seneschal said diffidently, “that this is where I justify my presence here.” He slowly approached the closed wooden shutters, holding out before him the Hand of Glory. “I can find my way to anywhere. That has always been my gift, my magic. And the Hand can open any locked door. With my magic focused through the Hand, I think I can open these shutters. That’s why I’m here. Stand back and give me some room to work in.”
They all fell back, even the Burning Man, as the Seneschal held up the Hand of Glory before the shutters. And as the Hand drew near the painted wood, its fingertips burst into flames, but instead of the usual soft yellow candle-glow, the little fires this time were bright and blue-white, shining brighter and brighter until the glare was almost blinding. The Seneschal narrowed his eyes against the radiance, but didn’t turn his head aside. An inch away from the shutters, the mummified fingers began to twitch, then slowly move as though the long dead Hand was awakening.
“What the hell is happening?” Fisher asked softly.
“Beats me,” said the Seneschal hoarsely, not looking at her. “It shouldn’t be doing anything. I haven’t activated the Hand yet.”
The Hand of Glory’s fingers were flexing strongly now, almost yearning to reach the shutters, and it was all the Seneschal could do to hang on to the Hand. There was a strong feeling of presence in the room now, as though someone else had joined them. And then the Hand closed suddenly into a fist, snuffing out its flames, and knocked twice on the painted wood. The sound seemed to carry impossibly far, echoing on and on as though crossing unimaginable distances, and then the view of heaven split slowly apart as the shutters swung silently open, fanning back into the golden room to reveal an endless darkness beyond. A blackness so deep, none of them could look at it, not even the Burning Man; a dark beyond anything seen in the Darkwood or the long night. A complete absence of light and everything else. The dark at the end of the universe, when all the stars have gone out, never to be relit.
Everyone looked curiously at the Hand of Glory. It had uncurled now and looked like just another dead man’s preserved hand. The Seneschal shook it gingerly a few times, but its role was apparently over. The feeling of an extra presence in the room was gone, too.
“Shutters that could not be opened by any mortal hand,” said Lament.
“Just who’s hand was that originally?” Hawk asked.
The Seneschal frowned thoughtfully. “According to legend it was cut from the body of the first Forest King. The man who gave the order for this Cathedral to be built. I found it in the Old Armory. I suppose he still has authority here.”
“What made you bring that thing along?” asked Fisher.
The Seneschal’s frown deepened. “The Hand told me to. And no, I don’t feel like discussing that. Could we talk about something else now, please?”
“All right,” agreed Hawk. “We now have our Gateway, unsettling as it is. Isobel and I are going in. Lament, I assume you’re in, too?”
“Of course,” Lament responded. “The situation hasn’t changed. The world must still be saved from chaos.”
“I’m not going,” said the Burning Man. “I’ve gone as far as I can. I am bound to the site of my achievement and my crime.”
“In which case the Seneschal will stay here with you till we return,” Lament said immediately.
“I will?” asked the Seneschal. He looked uncertainly at the Burning Man, who smiled nastily back. “And just why would I want to do that?”
“You have to stay here with the Hand of Glory to keep the Gateway open,” Lament said patiently. “Otherwise I wouldn’t put it past the Burning Man to shut the Gateway behind us and strand us in Reverie forever. You can keep an eye on him and make sure he behaves himself.”
“Alone?” asked the Seneschal, just a little plaintively.
“You can handle him,” Hawk said briskly. “You’re the High Warlock’s grandson, remember? He gives you any trouble, kick his smoldering arse around the room a few times.”
The Seneschal gave the Burning Man a long, considering look. “Yes. I think I could do that.”
Fisher grinned at him. “Keep a light in the window for us. We’ll be back before you know it.”
“No one human has ever come back from Reverie,” said the Burning Man spitefully. “You go to your deaths, or worse.”
Hawk, Fisher, and Lament ignored him. They took a few deep breaths to brace themselves, and then turned as one to stare determinedly into the darkness beyond the window. And as they made themselves watch, a line of shimmering light suddenly appeared, spreading horizontally before them. The line quickly broadened, growing wider, brighter; and then opened all the way to form a huge Eye, filling all the window, looking in at them. The Eye shone very brightly, more luminous than any star, an overpowering glare that should have been blinding, but they were unable to look away. The Eye was vast and inhuman, alive and aware, watching them. It grew and grew, coming closer, and inside its great dark pupil they could see a galaxy of stars and planets. The Seneschal and the Burning Man looked away, covering their eyes with their hands, unable to bear the Eye’s awful unblinking glare.
Soon all Hawk and Fisher and Lament could see was the amazing contents of the Eye. The room, their journey, and even their mission were all forgotten, lost in the fascinating vistas within the Eye. There were galaxies in the dark pupil now, slowly swirling, impossibly vast, impossibly detailed. As one, answering some unheard but undeniable call, Hawk, Fisher, and Lament stepped forward and entered the Gateway.
They were walking along an unsupported crystal bridge, eternally long, looking out over an endless abyss. Comets and shooting stars rained down through the endless night, above and below. There were suns and planets and constellations, all unfamiliar. A huge sun drifted by, borne along by some unguessable tide, close enough that they could almost have reached out and touched it, but its light didn’t dazzle them, and they could barely feel its heat. They stopped walking for a moment to watch the sun pass, and as it drew level with them, they could sense something hibernating or gestating deep in the heart of the sun. Something almost unimaginably powerful, waiting to be born, or born again. It stirred in its deep sleep as it sensed their presence, and they were touched by an awful fear they couldn’t put a name to, but the sun passed on, and whatever was within went back to sleep again.
Hawk walked along the sparkling crystal bridge with Fisher on one side and Lament on the other, and didn’t know either of them. All of his exhaustion and muscle pains were gone. It was like walking through a dream, and he felt as though he could walk forever. Up ahead the three of them saw the Blue Moon shining in the dark, full and fat and potent, and in a moment they remembered who they were and why they had come to this place. Hawk and Fisher stood and looked out over the impossibly long drop, then grabbed each other by the hand. Lament murmured a prayer in an unsteady voice. And then they moved on again, heading toward the Blue Moon growing very slowly greater before them.
And as they walked, their appearances changed. Subtly at first, and then more radically, they became other versions of people they might have been, or might yet be. Their clothes changed first, colors and styles coming and going as they strode on. Hair and eye colors changed next, and then the way they walked and held themselves as their ages altered. Sometimes they were young and sometimes they were old, but the differences seemed strangely natural at the time.
Prince Rupert and Princess Julia walked together with the easy confidence of youth. Rupert had both his eyes, and Julia’s hair was a bright frizz of golden yellow. Then they were Captains Hawk and Fisher, striding along in the black-cloaked uniforms of the Haven city Guard. Hawk’s scarred face had only the one eye, and Fisher’s blond hair hung in a single thick braid. And then they were older, in strange, unfamiliar clothes. Hawk was in his early sixties, and his thinning hair was nearly all gray, but he had both eyes again. Fisher’s hair was as thick as always, but now it was a mane of pure white held back by a silver headband. With them walked their two adult children, Jack and Gillian Forester. Jack was a smiling, eager sort in a monk’s robe. Gillian had a shaved head, a mean look, and a positively disturbing grin. She wore leather armor studded with silver runes. The four of them walked easily together, their eyes fixed on some distant goal, and woe to any fool who got in their way.
Time suddenly snapped back to the present, and Hawk and Fisher stopped abruptly, themselves again on the shimmering crystal bridge. Lament stopped with them, one hand rising slowly to his face, as though bothered by some unfinished thought. Hawk and Fisher looked at each other.
“What the hell was that?” Fisher asked finally.
“A possible future, maybe,” said Hawk. “People we might become.”
“And the children we might have,” said Fisher. “They looked like good kids.”
“Yes. They did. Though how we ended up with a monk for a son …”
“Probably the only way he could rebel against us. She looked like a one-woman army.” Fisher looked carefully at Hawk. “You had both your eyes again. How is that possible? We tried every shapechange spell we could find but never found anything strong enough to overcome the amount of Wild Magic you’d been exposed to.”
“Maybe it’s from a life where I never lost my eye,” said Hawk. “I’ve never understood those multiple time-line theories.”
They both suddenly realized that Lament was being very quiet, and turned to look at him. He slowly lowered his hand from his face and straightened his shoulders through an effort of will.
“What did you see, Lament?” asked Fisher. “Did you see who and what you’re going to become?”
“I’m not sure,” said Lament. “If that was my future, it’s not at all what I expected. I really don’t think I want to talk about it.”
“Did you see us?” Hawk asked.
“No. Just myself. As I was, am, and might someday be. You must remember, this is a place of chaos and Wild Magic. Nothing is certain here, and nothing can be trusted. Least of all any futures we might see in visions. There’s no guarantee any of us will survive this.”
“You know, you’re a really cheerful sort for a man of God,” said Fisher. “Whatever happened to tidings of comfort and joy?”
Lament smiled slightly. “Why do you think I ended up as a monk in an isolated community?”
All three turned to look as a new Eye opened in the darkness beyond the crystal bridge. Within the Eye was another Eye, and another within that. The Eyes seemed to fall away forever, and all three people on the bridge had to turn and look away for fear they might fall in. When they looked back again, the Eyes were gone.
“Just how many Gateways and hidden Realms are there?” asked Hawk.
“God knows,” said Fisher.
“Yes,” agreed Lament. “He probably does.”
“I’m going to slap you in a minute,” warned Fisher.
“Let’s get moving again,” Hawk said firmly. “I can only handle so many mysteries at one time. See if you can find something for me to hit. I always feel so much more secure when I’ve got something to hit.”
“It’s true, he does,” said Fisher.
“Head for the Blue Moon,” directed Lament. “That’s where all our answers lie, and perhaps our destinies, too.”
They continued along the crystal bridge, and the universe wheeled around them. There were suns and moons of all shades and colors now, and comets that screamed like dying children as they rocketed past. Constellations formed unnerving shapes and huge unseen presences drifted past, scattering planets in their wake. But the bridge was firm and unyielding under their feet, and the Blue Moon shone before them like a beckoning finger. They were drawing near something now. They could feel it.
The bridge turned down suddenly, and plunged them into a realm of swirling, glowing mists. Hawk, Fisher, and Lament were in among the shifting mists and standing on what seemed like solid ground almost before they were aware of it. They looked quickly behind them, but all traces of the crystal bridge were gone. They had apparently arrived at their destination. Up above them, blazing down through the concealing mists, the Blue Moon shone like the open door of some unearthly furnace. The dreamlike feeling of uncertainty clung to the three of them as they inspected their surroundings.
The mists curled around them in streams and eddies, revealing tantalizing glimpses of the place they’d come to. It wasn’t hot or cold, pleasant or unpleasant, or anything they could easily put a name to. Instead there was a constant unsettling feeling of anticipation, as though everything was in the process of becoming something. Places, shapes, and structures were constantly forming and disappearing, just on the edge of their vision, gone the moment any of them turned to look at the apparitions directly. Some would linger for a few moments, like fragments of dreams barely recalled on waking, while others came and went so swiftly, they left only disturbing impressions behind them.
Hawk thought he saw a great fairy-tale castle with impossibly high walls and slender turrets. He thought he saw vast tomblike structures hanging on grim gray walls like huge limpets. And sometimes he thought he saw familiar places from his past, only half completed. But none of the visions lasted for long, and none of them felt very real. It was as though the world they had come to was trying on various clothes to see what would most appeal to its new visitors. There were sounds all around, rising and falling and overlapping. From the crying of birds to the howls of animals to the chattering of men in unknown languages. These, too, sounded somehow artificial, as though the world was speaking in tongues, perhaps trying for some common ground they could communicate on, perhaps not.
“I don’t know where we are,” Hawk said finally. “But I don’t think I like it. Nothing feels solid here. Nothing is certain.”
“What else did you expect,” asked the Magus, “in the land of Reverie?”
They all jumped a little as the sorcerer appeared suddenly before them. He looked like he always did; a short, almost self-effacing man wrapped in a great black cloak. His face and voice were still deceptively mild, but his pale gray eyes were unusually direct. He seemed entirely unperturbed by the shifting world around them.
“This is the world the Blue Moon orbits,” said the Magus calmly. “This is the place whose light the Blue Moon reflects. This is Reverie. I told you you’d come here eventually, Captains Hawk and Fisher. Remember?” He looked sternly at Lament. “But I wasn’t expecting you, Walking Man. You should not have come here. You could ruin everything.”
“We’re here because we chose to come here,” Hawk said. “Now what the hell is this place, exactly?”
“Not so much a place, more a concept,” said the Magus. “This is Reverie, the world of the Transient Beings, home and source to all Wild Magic.”
“Hold everything,” said Fisher. “How did you get here, Magus? You weren’t in the Inverted Cathedral with us. How did you get to the Gateway?”
“I belong here,” stated the Magus. “I am a Transient Being.” He looked briefly about him. “It’s not much, but I call it home. I’ve been away for a while. Going back and forth in the world, and walking up and down in it. We can only come to your world when you summon us, knowingly or unknowingly, and once we return, we have to wait until we are summoned again. I chose to stay in reality, limiting as it is, because it fascinated me. You fascinated me—humanity, in all its many wonders and mysteries.
“And now I’m back here again. I’ve been plotting this meeting for such a long time, Captains. Not for you specifically, but for people like you. Heroes who understand duty and courage and honor. Together we have the chance to do something splendid and marvelous and very necessary. If the Wrath of God doesn’t screw it up for all of us.”
“If I’m such a threat to your plans,” Lament said, “why don’t you just strike me down?”
“Because it’s too late now,” the Magus said sourly. “You’re already here. You must be very careful, Walking Man. Reverie is the place of belief, and a faith as strong and uncritical as yours could make you very dangerous. If you value the continued survival of humanity and reality itself, whatever you see and hear, or think you see and hear, keep your mouth shut and don’t interfere.”
“Isobel,” said Hawk in a rather strained voice, “your hair is blond again. When did that happen?”
Fisher’s hand went to her hair and pulled the end of the braid in front of her. All traces of the black dye were gone, and her hair was its familiar dark yellow again. She looked at Hawk, started to shrug, and then stopped and looked closely at Hawk’s face.
“Hawk, take off your eyepatch.”
“What?”
“Your eyepatch, love. Take it off. I have this strange feeling …”
Hawk slowly removed the black silk patch that covered the empty eye socket where his right eye had been before a demon clawed it out of his head. He let the black patch fall to the ground. He didn’t need the wonder in Fisher’s face to know that something marvelous had happened. His right eyelids, so long sealed together, opened slowly, and he looked at Fisher with two eyes for the first time in twelve years. They smiled at each other for a long moment, and then Hawk looked at the Magus.
“What’s happening here, sorcerer? What are we changing?”
“Belief is everything here,” said the Magus. “Reverie is the place of concepts and ideas, dreams and fantasies and everything in between. Thoughts have power here. Physical presences are passing things, unless vested in some specific viewpoint. Your self-image decides who and what you are here. So don’t let your thoughts wander. If you forget yourself here, you might not come back.”
Fisher looked closely at Lament. “You haven’t changed at all.”
“I know who and what I am,” said Jericho Lament. “I made myself the Walking Man by my own free choice and desire.”
But he didn’t sound quite as sure as he might have, and everyone could hear it in his voice, even him.
“I anticipated everything but you,” said the Magus. “A man who willingly made himself into something both more and less than a man.”
Lament looked at him sharply. “What do you mean ‘less’?”
“You gave up free will,” said the Magus. “In return for something I am unable to comprehend. But then, I’m not a man and never was.”
“So you’re a Transient Being,” said Fisher. “Maybe you could explain just what the hell that is.”
“We are many,” said the Magus, “for we are legion. Forgive me, the old jokes are always the best. We are what you created to be here. Don’t blame us if you don’t like the shape and texture of your own dreams.”
The ground shook suddenly beneath their feet, and something huge lurched out of the mists to stand behind the Magus, towering over him. Over nine feet tall, it was a great ill-formed skeleton, as much like a man as not, held together only by ancient and awful magics. Blood ran from his grinning jaws in a steady crimson stream, falling down to splash on his chestbone and ribs. His bones were browned and yellowed with age. Blood dripped thickly from his fingertips and oozed out from under his flat, bony feet. More ran down his long, curving leg-bones, and welled from his empty eyesockets like tears. He stank of carrion and the grave, and things that should have been safely and securely buried long ago.
Hawk and Fisher had their weapons in their hands, and were standing shoulder to shoulder, ready for any sign of attack. Lament studied the huge skeleton, leaning on his staff.
“What the bloody hell is that?” asked Hawk.
“That is Bloody Bones,” said the Magus, not even glancing behind him. He seemed entirely unruffled, even amused, by the naked anger and threat in Hawk’s voice. “He’s a Transient Being just like me. Some kind of ancient funerary god or demon. It’s often hard to tell such things apart. There were those who worshiped him centuries ago, but he never cared. It is his single nature to frighten and to terrify, and the blood you see is the blood of his countless victims. He’s here to take you to the present spokesman of our ephemeral kind. I really would advise you to go with him. You have nothing strong enough to hurt him.”
“Just how many Transient Beings are there?” asked Fisher, not lowering her sword.
“As many as there need to be,” said the Magus. “And they’re all very interested in you.”
Even as the Magus spoke, Hawk, Fisher, and Lament became aware of other presences watching silently from the concealing mists. They were moving slowly, unhurriedly, just beyond the limits of human vision, circling the new arrivals to their realm; awful and unsettling things that watched and studied with unseen eyes. They were pressing closer now, and Hawk, Fisher, and Lament began to catch glimpses of ugly shapes and unquiet details, as though their own passing thoughts were giving shape and purpose to what lay in the mists.
“Keep your gaze fixed on me and Bloody Bones,” the Magus said sharply. “You’ll find things much less disturbing that way. Our shapes and natures are fixed and determined by long belief, but just by being here, you have undue influence. Believe me, you don’t want to see some of the things your arrival has attracted. Just follow Bloody Bones and he’ll take you to someone who’ll answer all your questions. But don’t blame us if you don’t like the answers.”
The huge skeleton turned abruptly and lurched off into the mists, the Magus close behind him. Rather than be left alone in a place of mists, surrounded by unseen enemies, Hawk and Fisher went after them, their weapons still in their hands. Lament brought up the rear, carefully not even glancing behind him, his lips moving soundlessly in one of the more martial psalms. The presences kept up with them as the small party moved through the churning mists, but they maintained their distance. Shapes slowly began to form out of the mists; a tree here and there, spiky shrubs, branches hanging down or thrusting up to form a canopy overhead. The shining sourceless light of the mists gradually died away to be replaced by the baleful, ghastly light of the Blue Moon. Hawk and Fisher realized in the same heart-stopping moment that they were back in the Darkwood again. It seemed entirely real—as dark and oppressive and soul-destroying as they remembered. All the trees around them were dead and rotting, and the horrid spiritual dread of the darkness beat upon their minds and their souls with all its old remembered strength. Hawk and Fisher stuck close together, breathing deeply despite the stench to try and calm themselves. Lament was singing his psalm aloud now, but it was a small sound in such a dark place.
Hawk knew where they were going, where they had to be going. And what terrible deathless thing was waiting to greet them again.
But even so, his heart slammed painfully in his chest when they finally came to the awful dark heart of the Darkwood, and there, sitting on his rotten throne, the Demon Prince. The malevolent, terrible creature that had come so close to destroying everything Hawk had ever cared for. The Demon Prince looked like a man. He had looked like other things before, and might again, but for now it amused him to look like his prey. His features were blurred, as though they’d melted and run. His long, delicate fingers ended in claws, and his burning crimson eyes held no human thoughts or emotions. Unnaturally tall, easily eight feet in height, he was slender to the point of emaciation. His pale flesh looked like something left too long in the dark, grown soft and rotten. He dressed in rags and tatters of darkest black and wore a battered wide-brimmed hat, pulled down low over his burning eyes. His wide slash of a mouth was full of pointed teeth, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet and sibilant, and grated on their nerves like fingernails down a blackboard.
“So good to see old friends again,” said the Demon Prince. “I told you we’d meet again. You can’t destroy me, little human. Banish me, and I just return here and wait for some new fool to summon me back into the world of men. I am of the Transient Beings, ideas made flesh, and we live on long after our every human enemy is dead and gone.”
“Of course,” said Lament, apparently unmoved. “Evil is eternal. I’ve always known that.”
“Strictly speaking, we’re neither good nor bad,” said the Demon Prince, leaning back in the rotting tree stump that was his throne and crossing his long legs casually. “Those are human terms, human limitations. We are archetypes, reflections of what’s on man’s inner mind. We are the shadows humanity casts. We are the physical manifestations of abstract concepts, forces, fears, and preoccupations. Neuroses and psychoses, given rein to run free and potent in the mortal world. We are the rod you made for your own back. We sprang full-grown from humanity’s brow, created in simpler times, when the Wild Magic was all there was.”
“You always did like the sound of your own voice,” said Hawk. “You’re saying the Transient Beings are everything we ever dreamed of.”
“Yes,” the Demon Prince agreed. “Especially the bad ones.”
“But the world and humanity have moved on,” said the Magus, and there was something in his voice that made them all look at him. “Man has become more complex, replacing the chaotic Wild Magic with the more easily understood and controlled High Magic, and now more and more with the logical, more useful science. Humanity is entering, or creating, the time of the rational mind, and soon he will have no use for such as us anymore.”
The Demon Prince stirred restlessly on his decaying throne. “It has been a long, long time since you have returned to Reverie, Magus. And as always, you bring bad news with you. You were created too closely in humanity’s image. No wonder we despise you so much. You remind us of everything we hate.”
“Why do you hate humanity?” asked Hawk. His mouth was dry and his voice was rough, but his gaze was perfectly steady. “If we created you, you should be grateful to us.”
The Demon Prince laughed briefly, a harsh, unpleasant, hateful sound. “You know nothing, understand nothing, little man. We hate you because you’re real. Because humanity is real you can grow and change and evolve, become more than you were. Transient Beings are bound by their nature to be only what they are, trapped and limited to the form your kind imagined. Eternally existing, eternally damned to never be more than what we were when humanity coughed us up.
“But now you have opened the Gateway, an unexpected back door into Reality. And every Transient Being in Reverie is free at last to have its revenge on you. We shall all go through into the world of mortal men, in all our awful glory, without having to be summoned. After so very, very long, our time has come round at last. We’re coming in force, to overthrow the upstart reason, and crush the tyrant science. Logic and order, cause and effect, and all the other constraints on our freedom shall be swept aside, and the Wild Magic shall once again have dominion over every unfortunate living thing. Once the Blue Moon’s orbit has intersected with your own moon once again, we will all cross over and remake your world in our own hating image. Then there shall be chaos, loose in the world like a wolf in the fold, for forever and a day. And oh, the terrible pleasures we shall take in what used to be your world.”
“We’ll fight you,” said Fisher. “We’ll never give up. We beat you last time.”
“I was alone then,” said the Demon Prince. “And I laid waste your whole Kingdom. There are more of us here than your mind can comprehend, and under a never-ending Blue Moon we shall be very powerful indeed. And in this new world of eternal chaos that we shall make, perhaps the limitations of the Transient Beings themselves shall be broken and overturned. We will all become real, and able to change and evolve at last. What creation doesn’t want to turn on its creator, to become greater than was intended, to outgrow and overtake the creator?”
“And if you can’t?” asked Lament. “If what you are is what you’ll always be, what then?”
“Then we’ll punish humanity forever,” answered the Demon Prince. “And the hell we’ll make for him on earth will be worse than any hell he can escape to by dying.”
“You always did have a way with words,” murmured the Magus. “But let’s not forget I made all this possible. It was my creation of a Rift in space and time that raised the level of Wild Magic in the mortal world, and awoke the Gateway to life once more. The Rift was such a useful toy; I knew they’d never be able to resist it.”
“You have our gratitude,” the Demon Prince said coldly.
“We will find a way to stop you,” Lament said doggedly. “God will not allow you to triumph.”
“Wild Magic is the magic of creation,” said the Demon Prince. “Perhaps we’ll remake God, or create a new God of our own. All things are possible under a Blue Moon.”
“Exactly,” agreed the Magus, and once again there was something in his voice that drew all eyes to him. “Everything that is happening now is happening because of me. I have planned for centuries to bring this about, manipulating the mortal world and certain useful people in it, to bring us all to this place, this moment. But not, alas, for the reasons you might suppose. The truth is, I intend to close the Gateway, separate reality from Reverie forever, and shut the mortal world off from every form of magic.” He smiled vaguely about him, as though inviting comments, and then continued. “I have lived a very long time in the world of men, and seen reason slowly replace superstition. I have watched the world become a better place as the wild madness was controlled and put aside. It just got in the way of humanity’s maturing.
“They’ll be so much better off without magic, with all its temptations and perversions of hope and ambition. The Transient Beings have outlived their purpose. Humanity doesn’t need them anymore. They’re growing up and leaving their toys behind. And that’s all we ever were, really. Dangerous toys that bit at the hands that made them. Forgive me, I drifted off the point, didn’t I? The point is, I intend to re-Invert the Cathedral, send it soaring up into the sky again, and thus close off the last remaining Gateway, and make it useless and powerless for all time. It is the very last Gateway, you know. That’s why the Darkwood always manifested in the Forest Kingdom.”
The Magus nodded thoughtfully, and smiled at the ominously silent Demon Prince. “Long and long I walked in the world of men, living among them as one of them, and slowly I came to love humanity; for all their many undeniable faults, they have such potential. The very thing you condemn them for is the one thing that will eventually make them greater than we could ever be. With or without a Blue Moon. So I have betrayed my own kind and returned here to stay with you, locked away from humanity forever, because our time is over.”
The Demon Prince surged to his feet and stalked forward to tower threateningly over the diminutive form of the Magus. “Your time among humans has driven you insane! Have you forgotten we can only exist here in Reverie during the time of the full Blue Moon? That as it passes, we vanish away, become nothing and less than nothing, until we are summoned into the world of men? Once we pass through the Gateway and take their world away from them, we can exist forever and have power over all that is!”
“We’re not worthy of it,” said the Magus. “Give us the world and we’d just break it by playing too roughly.” He turned to face Hawk, Fisher, and Lament, fixing them with a calm, implacable gaze. “Understand what I’m saying. All magic comes from Reverie. Closing the last Gateway will mean the end of all magic and magical creatures. Not immediately. It will take centuries for all the magic left in the world to be used up. But finally there will be no more wonders and no more nightmares. Science will replace magic in an entirely human world.”
“No more dragons,” said Fisher. “No more unicorns.”
“No more vampires, or werewolves,” added Hawk. “No more demons.”
“Exactly,” said the Magus.
“This last Gateway,” Lament said slowly. “Did the Burning Man create it when he Inverted the Cathedral with his blood sacrifice?”
“No,” said the Magus patiently. “There have always been gaps, weak spots, in reality, through which magic could enter. The Inverted Cathedral merely provided the last Gateway with a home, a focus. Just as I planned. I set things up so that Tomas Chadbourne would go to the Demon Prince for his compact, and set this all in motion. I arranged for the first Forest King to build his Castle around the Inverted Cathedral, thus isolating and containing the last Gateway while I waited for just the right combination of people, at just the right time, to close the Gateway forever.”
“I have a really bad feeling I’m not going to like the answer to this,” said Hawk. “But just how are we supposed to close this Gateway?”
The Magus looked at him sadly. “By dying here, Prince Rupert, Princess Julia. You must die by your own hands, of your own free will. A willing sacrifice, to undo Chadbourne’s blood sacrifice. Your deaths in this place will be a moment of undeniable reality; and I will use that moment to make the Gateway real, and destroy it.”
“No,” said Lament immediately. “There has to be another way. There has to be.”
“I told you,” the Magus said sharply. “Don’t interfere! You could still ruin everything. There’s something of the magical about you, Walking Man, and I don’t trust it. Be still and silent, and stay out of this.”
Lament looked at Hawk and Fisher. “I’ve always known who you were. You were my heroes. Let me die in your place. You’re legends, you matter more than I ever have or will. There’ll always be a Walking Man.”
“It can’t be you,” the Magus said flatly. “I told you, you made yourself useless for this purpose when you made yourself more and less than a man. But then, a part of you has always wanted to die, hasn’t it? Ever since the demons killed your fellow monks, you’ve felt guilty about surviving. Part of why you fight evil so relentlessly is because deep down you hope to find something powerful enough to kill you, and let you make amends at last. But you mustn’t interfere now. For this to work, it has to be a wholly human sacrifice.”
“Meaning us,” said Hawk. “Somehow it always comes down to us. It’s last man on the bridge again.”
“Right,” said Fisher. “Been there, done that.”
They both sighed reluctantly and turned to look at each other, and it was as though they were the only two there.
“Why is it always us?” asked Fisher.
“Because we’re the only ones who can be trusted to get the job done,” said Hawk. “Whatever it takes. But I’m not giving up yet. We’ve only the Magus’ word that our deaths are necessary, and he’s already admitted to lying about practically everything else.”
“But if there really is no other way …”
“Then we’ll do what we have to. Just as we’ve always done. Personally, I’m more in favor of killing everything that moves in this appalling place, and then dancing a jig on the remains.”
Fisher smiled briefly. “Yeah. That’s always worked for me. But if the Magus is right, these things can’t die.”
“I know,” said Hawk. “Ironic, really. We had to come all the way home, all the way back to where we began, to find our ending. Just like one of those bloody awful ballads I always hated so much.”
“We’re legends now,” said Fisher. “I suppose we couldn’t be allowed to die like ordinary people. We made a good team, didn’t we?”
“The best. Just in case there isn’t time later … I have always loved you, Julia.”
“I have always loved you, Rupert.”
“How very touching,” said the Demon Prince, smiling his awful smile. “Did you really think we’d just stand here and let you ruin all our plans? I’ve got a much better idea. It seems we can’t risk killing you, but we can certainly render you helpless and then take you with us when we go through the Gateway. And back in the mortal world, what games we’ll play together. I shall enjoy hearing you scream through all eternity.”
Hawk and Fisher looked around quickly. Bloody Bones was still watching them, grinning his crimson grin, and they could feel new presences closing in around them. Something was moving through the dead trees, just beyond the limits of the clearing’s light. Huge shapes, lumbering on all sides, no longer bothering to conceal themselves. Hawk and Fisher hefted their weapons. They were surrounded now, and some of the new arrivals began to reveal glimpses of themselves. Lament cried out softly. There were worse things than demons. Concepts so hideous, so abstract, they should never have been permitted physical shapes. Madness, walking in bare flesh, nightmares from the darkest depths of the human mind.
The Magus glared at the creatures. “Stay back! I have learned much while I sojourned in the world of men, and I will not permit—”
The Demon Prince knocked him to the ground with a single blow and slammed a heavy foot down on his chest. The black cloak squirmed helplessly, trapped under the Magus’ weight.
“You’ve been gone too long, Magus,” said the Demon Prince, and there was a thunderous growl of approval from the presences out in the dark. “This is our place, and we are as strong as we believe ourselves to be. We’re going to take turns tearing you to pieces, Magus, over and over again. And when we all go through into reality, we’ll take what’s left of you with us, so you can watch all the terrible things we’re going to do to your precious humanity and their world.”
The awful presences around the clearing began to press forward, horrors and fancies beyond bearing. Hawk and Fisher raised their weapons. The Magus called out desperately for them to kill each other while there was still time. And Jericho Lament, the Walking Man, turned his gaze inward.
The box. Remember the box.
Lament reached into the pocket of his long coat and took out the small wooden casket he’d found in the Inverted Cathedral’s Ossuary. Inside the box crafted by Christ’s own hands still burned the original spark, the very beginnings of all creation. If he were to open that box, as perhaps only he could, and let the holy light out, he had no doubt it would sweep away all the threatening shadows of Reverie, and undo all the Transient Beings and their disturbing ephemeral realm. And he would die, of course, and Hawk and Fisher, but that had ceased to matter long ago. No, if he destroyed Reverie, the source of all magic, would he also be destroying the religion he had served and believed in for so long? Would a world of cold remorseless logic and science have any room in it for the miracles and majesty of God? Would he be responsible for destroying angels and devils, heaven and hell, and all the imponderable glories he had given his life to? To save humanity, could he murder God?
He took a slow deep breath and settled himself. God was more than magic, more than miracles. It all came down to one last terrible act of faith. His hand moved to the lid of the wooden casket.
“No!” the Magus cried out desperately, struggling under the Demon Prince’s heavy tread. “That light would destroy Reverie and reality! The spark of creation would sweep everything away, wipe it all clean and start over!”
“Let him open his little box,” said the Demon Prince. “This is my place, and I will set my darkness against any light.”
Darkness closed in around them, sweeping forward like a black tide, heavy and threatening, enveloping the surrounding trees and the uneasy presences there, until there was only the clearing, and those in it, like principal players picked out by the ghastly spotlight of the Blue Moon. And Hawk suddenly smiled.
“Damn, I’m slow,” he said wonderingly. “I’d forgotten. I’ve been here before. Lost in the darkness, facing the end of the world, and all the time the answer was right there with me.”
“Yes!” said Fisher. “The Rainbow sword!”
Hawk dropped his axe and his hand went to the sword at his hip, the sword the Seneschal had brought to him in case he had to save the Land again. And the Demon Prince laughed in his face.
“That only worked in the real world. This is Reverie, where I belong. You can’t banish me twice, little Prince.”
“The Rainbow isn’t the answer,” Lament said slowly, following the surety of his feelings, of his belief. “Neither is the Source. But put them together, the Source to give the Rainbow power, the Rainbow to give the Source direction and purpose. You were wrong, Magus; I was meant to be here. We all were. Have faith, Rupert and Julia. In the end, in the dark, that’s all there is.”
The Demon Prince and Bloody Bones and all the Transient Beings howled with rage and horror as Hawk, who was once and always would be Prince Rupert, drew the Rainbow sword from its scabbard. He raised the ordinary-looking blade above his head, and Fisher’s hand joined his on the long hilt, as together they called down the Rainbow; not for themselves, but for all humanity and all the fragile treasures of the real world. And as they did, Jericho Lament, the Walking Man, who had always been so much more than the Wrath of God in the world of men, opened the casket just a crack and whispered in a voice not entirely his own, Let there be light!
The Rainbow slammed down into the dark heart of the Darkwood, a thundering waterfall of shades and hues and colors, sharp and vivid and beautiful almost beyond bearing. And a brilliant light flared out from the small wooden box, to join and merge with the Rainbow, in a primal elemental force that could not be denied. Hawk and Fisher clung together, fighting to hold on to the sword as the Rainbow’s holy light buffeted them like a raging storm that might sweep them away at any moment. The Demon Prince, Bloody Bones, the Magus, and all the other Transient Beings cried out in a single loud voice, and then they were gone, dissolved in the inexorable power of the falling Rainbow; mere shadows of reality swept away by a greater clarity. Reverie and the Blue Moon were no more.
And only Jericho Lament, God’s chosen, had the strength of will to force the wooden box shut again, holding the Source within.
The Rainbow faded away, and with it went Hawk and Fisher and Lament. The long, dark night of the Blue Moon had come to an end at last, in a single glorious moment of light.