The Realm of the Deathless, page 28
“And that hope,” Dusk said. “What is it?”
“To see my child born,” Delia said. “To know she has some chance of survival. And you?”
“I hope only for a good death,” Dusk said.
“What about Errol?” Delia said. “Don’t you hope to see him again?”
“I wish to,” Dusk said. “But a wish is not the same thing as hope. In the hope, there must be some element of the possible. I know I shall never see Errol again.”
“He and Aster are still out there,” Delia said. “Billy would have taken them somewhere safe. They might have already figured out what to do. They could be on their way back here.”
“Yes, with an army of Billy’s giant kindred,” Dusk replied. “And we shall ride on their shoulders, and spill the blood of the sacrifice, wake the Sun from her prison in the underworld.”
“Now you’re making fun of me,” Delia said.
“No, I’m not.” Dusk said. “I’m tired, that’s all.”
“Stay there then,” Delia said. “Keep me safe.”
Dusk nodded and closed her eyes. They stayed closed.
For horrible moment, Delia thought she was dead. But then she perceived the slow rise and fall of her chest.
First came up so quietly Delia didn’t notice him until he was there.
“She okay?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I hope so.”
“Let’s get this out of here,” he said, nodding at the dead jackal. He wiggled the spear on through and held it up to examine it.
“The point made it through without breaking,” he said. “That’s good. Nice work.”
“It’s nothing compared to what you, Fire Thief, and Dusk do every day.”
“Yeah, but that’s why we’re here,” he said. He lifted up the dead beast.
“There, there, brother,” he said. “You did what you had to do. No blame to you. Let’s send you off now.”
She watched him carry the body up the Moon’s highest pinnacle. And he began to sing.
She liked it when he sang, even when it was sad, like this. It was a very human sound, but it also had hints of birdsong in it, of cicada’s chirring, of frogs croaking in unison.
The water had risen enough for her to touch it, so she trailed her hand in it, then made a cup of her palm and drank. It tasted clean and minerally.
As she looked back up, she noticed something green. Something growing at the water’s edge. She couldn’t tell what it was yet—it was just a tendril, a sprout. But she almost cried at the sight of it. The pool had life in it: fish and mussels and snails. But since she had come here, this was the first green plant she had seen. That had to be a good sign, didn’t it?
***
Errol stopped at the river’s edge, staring into the dark mirror. “What is it?” Aster asked.
“You asked me if she’s still Veronica,” he said.
“You know what I meant. If she’s part of the enemy now—“
“She is,” he said. “She told me so. But I’m not sure that changes anything.”
“Errol,” Aster said, “It changes everything.”
“No,” he said. “We’re not done here.” He looked back at the door, hoping it would still be there. It was.
“Stay here,” he said.
This time he did not knock; he just pushed the door open. Veronica was still standing by the bed. She wasn’t facing the door directly, so he could see both sides of her.
“What is it, Errol?” she said.
“I need you to know something,” he said. “You said I couldn’t love what you are now. That’s not true. I never knew you when you were a living girl. You’ve been dead or half-dead the whole time I’ve known you. Now you’re just a more perfect version of that. You aren’t alive and you aren’t dead. You’re both. You can drain the life out of a person, and you can heal someone who is broken. Don’t you think this where you’ve been headed this whole time?”
“Don’t lie,” she said. “You’re repelled by me.”
“No,” he said. “I was surprised, that’s all. I wasn’t expecting it. But I’m not repelled, Veronica. It’s just death. It’s part of the universe. Without death there isn’t any life, and if there were, there wouldn’t be any meaning to it. And death, death can’t exist without life either.”
“You’re getting awfully philosophical, Errol.”
“I’m not strong, Veronica,” he said. “I’ve got no magical powers. I’m not even very smart. The only thing I might be good at is reminding people who they are. And you are Veronica Hale. You are human, and a nov, cruel and kind, sweet and awful, all of it. I’ve always known that, and I’ve always been okay with it. Why wouldn’t I be now?”
He had been walking closer to her as he talked.
“Errol, I don’t need your approval,” she said. “I don’t need anyone’s approval.”
“I know,” he said. “I know you loved me, though. I think you still do. But I was holding you back from your real potential, and eventually you had to move on. But he’s holding you back, too. Don’t you see? The cycle of life and death is broken. It’s been broken for a long time. There’s no balance. But you—you are the balance. Shandor was right—you are a goddess. But goddess of what? Not of whatever that guy has planned. You know what you’re meant to be. What you want to be. Why are you letting him call the tune?”
He was close now, and slowly reached out his arms. She let him, and he pulled her in for another embrace. He felt her heartbeat, her breath on his chest. He felt the exposed bone on her back.
Veronica remained stiff for a few breaths, but then she relaxed, and put her cheek against his.
“You know what will happen to you, if we take this road?” Veronica whispered. “I have seen it.”
“I know,” he said. “And it’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” she said. “I worked so hard to save you—”
“And that’s over,” he said gently. “I don’t need saving anymore, any more than you do. You can’t avoid this because of me, because of any one person. If you really love me just ... let go.” He smiled. “Hey, I’m friends with the goddess of death, and I think she’ll treat me right.”
“I’m not ready,” Veronica said. “I might be everything you say, but I’m also really new at this. I’m new at everything. I was sixteen when I died, and part of me still is. What if I don’t get it right?”
“Anything would be better than what’s coming,” Errol said. “But you’ll get it right. And when you get out of line, I’ll remind you of who you are.”
He pulled back and saw she was crying.
“What do you want me to do?” she said.
“I’m not here to tell you that,” he said. “I think you know what to do. I’m here to be with you. And Aster.”
“Yes,” she said. “Aster. She still has the cloak from the cave?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” she said. “Then we’d better go. It won’t take the Raggedy Man long to catch on.”
***
Aster looked back at the door, feeling left out. Errol and Veronica had always been a train wreck. That was fine, so far as it went. Mostly not her business. But right now it sort of was her business. She had seen the stuff on Errol’s arms, smelled the corruption. What was Veronica now? And how could he forget what she had done?
Because he was Errol.
The door opened, and she watched as they stepped out. Veronica looked—the same. Which meant nothing.
“Aster,” Veronica said.
“Billy is gone,” Aster said.
“I know,” Veronica replied. “I’m sorry. I really am. But it was the only way I could think of to save the two of you.”
“You did it to stop me from becoming Dawn,” she snapped.
“It was already too late for that,” Veronica said. “The Sun had already been swallowed up by the Under.”
“I have no reason to believe you,” Aster said.
“Aster—“ Errol started.
“No, Errol,” Veronica said. “She’s right. There’s no reason for either of you to trust me. But there is this: this is my place. I’m part of it now. If I wanted to kill you, if I wanted to make you part of the Itch like me—I could have done that the minute you set foot down here. I don’t have any reason to lie, or trick you, or anything like that. When I tell you I’m going to help you, you might as well believe it. Because you are completely in my power.”
When she said it, Aster felt the elumiris drain from her. She tried to speak, but she couldn’t remember even the most minor Whimsy. But she could see. Veronica was glowing. Lines of force flowed around her, like a magnetic field, but vibrant on one side and weirdly colorless on the other.
“Zhedye,” she whispered.
Then her vision faded, and she felt power rush back into her.
She looked Veronica in the eye.
“Okay,” she said. “I believe you. But I’m still not happy with you.”
“I don’t expect you to be,” Veronica said.
She turned a little, and Aster realized Veronica was half cadaver. She tried to keep her face composed.
She remembered when they had first found Veronica, in the pool in the in-between. In appearance she had been a fifteen-year-old girl, but once the water of life stripped that illusion away, she had been revealed as a long-rotten corpse. Aster had watched as Veronica’s organs appeared, flesh filled out on her bones, and skin finally grew around all of it. Like everything Aster thought she had accomplished, that also seemed to be becoming undone.
“So what is the plan?” Aster asked.
“We go to where the Sun is, you put on the feather cloak, and you sacrifice me,” Errol said.
“I told you, Errol, I can’t do that,” she said.
“It has to be you, I think,” Veronica said. “It’s your job.”
“Anyway,” Errol said. “I might have an idea. We might be able to cheat this thing.”
“How?” Aster asked.
“Yes,” Veronica said. “I’m very intrigued by this too.”
“The automaton,” Errol said. “The Enemy has been wearing it, right?”
“I think it helps him focus his presence,” Aster said. “Keeps the chaos he’s creating from swallowing him up.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Errol said. “The thing is this. What if you can put me in there? In the automaton? And then sacrifice it?” “Oh, I see,” Veronica said. “Then she could slip you back into your body.”
“Exactly.”
“Would that work?” Aster said.
“Who knows?” Errol replied. “If it doesn’t, we can just move on to plan B.”
“Where she actually kills you,” Veronica said.
“Ah ... yes.”
They Veronica and Errol looked at Aster.
It could work, Aster thought. She could try. And if it came down to plan B ... well, she would see if they got there.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
SIX
ERROL
“This way,” Veronica said. Only she didn’t move; or maybe they all moved, but without a sense of motion. The vines, the flowers, Veronica’s ‘house’ all began to blur, the colors began slowly shifting, as if they were inside of a kaleidoscope.
When Aster’s vision settled again, they were standing on a flat plain. There were no sun or stars or moon, no obvious sources of light, but although it was dark, it wasn’t pitch black either, but instead was shades of grey, like something on a black-and-white television. She didn’t see any trees or bushes, nothing living except the three of them.
As her eyes continued to adjust, she observed that the plain wasn’t as featureless or flat as it appeared at first glance. In the far distance, something like a thunderhead was growing up from the horizon with alarming speed. She thought it looked something like a nuclear explosion.
In the other direction, the horizon was much closer, only a few yards away. She would think it was the edge of a cliff, except for the peculiar way it curved, as if she was on a very small planet.
“He’s tearing everything up,” Errol said.
She turned back to the more distant horizon. In a few seconds, the cloud or explosion or whatever it was had more than doubled in size. The earth was ripping itself apart to feed its rapidly increasing mass. It not only looked bigger, but closer.
“It’s done,” a voice said. He appeared in the same instant, standing directly in front of Aster, about twenty feet away. The automaton she had built, the prototype of the one that had housed Errol’s soul.
“Back off, you,” Veronica snapped.
“We had a deal,” the Enemy told her.
“It was a crummy deal,” Veronica replied. “I’m making a new one.”
“You can be replaced,” the automaton told her.
Veronica smiled. “So can you, Honey.”
For a moment, all was still, except for the commotion on the horizon, which now filled a quarter of the sky.
“Do it, Aster,” Veronica said, before she blurred, grew larger, became a copperhead longer than an anaconda and struck at the enemy. The automaton howled, and a swarm of hornets emerged from his gaping mouth. Most of them formed a cloud around serpent Veronica, but some of them came for Aster and Errol.
Aster pronounced a Recondite Utterance, intending to call a whirlwind to sweep the insects away. Instead, a smokey column of air struck down from the sky, smashed into both combatants, and yanked them up toward the otherwise featureless sky, taking the hornets along for the ride.
“Wow,” Errol said.
Aster quickly bent and opened her backpack. She took out the feather cloak and pulled it over her shoulders. As before, she felt a sudden rush of blood through her body. The feathers took on a rosy hue, and Aster’s skin began to shimmer with golden light.
Veronica, still in serpent form, tumbled back to Earth; the snake went hazy, flowed, shrank, and Veronica stood there once more. The enemy was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is it?” Errol said, turning about, boomerang in hand.
“Look out,” Veronica shouted. “He’s—“
Before she could finish, she shattered like glass.
“Veronica!” Errol cried, rushing toward her. But the fragments turned into smoke and blew away.
And then the Enemy was there, right in front of Aster, reaching for her throat with its wood-and-wire hand.
But Errol was there, too, banging it in the side of the head with his throwing club. The Enemy staggered back a couple of steps; Errol followed, whaling on it, shouting with each blow.
“You! Should! Not! Have! Done! That!”
He swung again, but then the automaton moved fast. It caught Errol’s weapon arm with one hand and punched him in the gut with the other. For an eyeblink, Aster didn’t know what she was seeing; something red coming out of Errol’s back.
Then she realized it was the Enemy’s fist.
She felt it as if the monster had hit her, like physical shock shuddering through her body. A scream stuck in her throat.
Errol attempted to punch the Enemy in the face with his free hand, but the blow fell short, and his arm dropped loosely to his side.
“Aster!” he gasped. “You know what you have to do. Do it!”
“Errol . . ?”
He twisted, so Aster could see his face. Blood foamed from his mouth.
“Please,” he gasped.
Shock, horror, revulsion—everything Aster felt—suddenly collapsed into a bright core of fury.
She stood straight and pointed her finger.
“Eishdi!” she yelled.
***
It was weird, Errol thought, how little it hurt. At first, he’d just believed he had simply been hit in the belly. He had to actually see the arm sticking all the way through him, the flood of blood, to understand what had happened, and even then it was hard to comprehend the reality. What he did know was that he was suddenly very weak, and the automaton was strong. He found himself looking into its face—not blank, as it had been carved, but transformed by the horror inside of it into a ghastly imitation of life.
What was Aster waiting for? His vison went grey at the edges.
And then he was standing, dizzy, in a body that wasn’t his, staring into his own glassy, dead eyes. He gasped and let go, watched his bloody corpse collapse. Like the wound that had killed it, it did not seem real. Blood covered the murder weapon—his new arm.
What have you done? A voice shrieked in his head.
“I’ve got you, you asshole, that’s what,” Errol said.
He felt it in there with him, like the cold tight knot in your stomach before you vomit from food poisoning, the grief so strong you can’t breathe, the anger so sharp it cuts you. And there wasn’t a little of it, but continents of it, worlds of it, and he was just the tiniest tip of a mountain, a square inch of real estate surrounded by the enemy’s territory.
That’s right, the Enemy said. You are nothing.
“But it’s my real estate,” Errol said. “I’m the landlord. This body was made for me, not you. By my friend. To save my life. And you. Do not. Belong. Here.”
But the Enemy knew that now. It was trying to get out, to withdraw, to disconnect from the automaton. Errol felt panic so acute he almost thought it was his.
“Yeah, you can’t do that either, dumbass,” he said.
I can heal your body. I can make you a god. I will do whatever you want.
“Don’t worry,” Errol said. “You’re going to do exactly what I want. Aster?”
She was staring at him, tears running down her face.
“You’ve got no body to go back to,” she said. “You’re not just in a coma this time. You’ll actually die.”
He tried to take a breath, but the automaton had no lungs. His fear was rising, but he pressed it back down. He had to get through this.
“I know that,” he said. “I knew all along it would come to this. I just said what I had to to get you here. It doesn’t matter. I’m willing. Aster, he’s too strong. In a few minutes he is going to win. And I’ll be dead anyway. You put this body together. Take it apart.”
The earth shook constantly now. A glance back showed that half of the world was coming at them in a towering mass. And it was fast. Even if he managed to hold on for another few seconds, they were both going to be crushed.
