A World in Turmoil
Tonight the moon burns red. I have seen it thus before: in the days of the Great War, the anger of the heavens burned in her face. Such a world she looks down on must kindle great wrath! Evil walks among men, though the Blackness itself is kept away behind the Veil.
It is a great mystery, the Veil. I will tell the tale of it, for it is a thing of mourning and of wonder.
There once walked among us a race of beings called the Shearim, the Fairest of Creation. In them was great wisdom, great beauty, and great strength. They took what shapes they wished and moved about clothed with the forms of men and women and children. Men sometimes called them the Virtues, for they took names to themselves after those qualities which men most honoured and revered: Justice and Wisdom, Harmony, Innocence, Hope, and Beauty. The child-hearts among the Shearim were called Merriment, Laughter, and Melody.
Some kept to themselves, but many were dear to men, for they would often come among them, easing burdens with their touch and filling hearts with their laughter and strength. It was sometimes said that those who had been with the Shearim would afterwards glow as if they had touched the sun.
When the Blackness began to grow in the Seventh World, the Shearim first sought to hold it off by exerting their influence for the good, but it was to no avail. At last the Shearim, in their own way, became warriors, and they battled the creatures of shadow before even the Great War. Those were days of grief and hardship for the Fairest of Creation, for the Blackness was cruel and ruthless, and loved to torment its enemies.
In the end, men became allied with the Blackness and went to war against the King and his army. In those days the Great War began, as men and shadow fought against the Earth Brethren and the few remaining faithful of men. But this was a clash in which the Shearim did not take part, for they were bound by their own law, and could not take up weapons against men. They watched, and moved among the wounded and dying, and ministered to them as best they could. It is said that the Eldest Seven stayed by the King and served him. But in the end even their ministrations were to no avail, for the King’s heart was broken and he went into exile.
It was then that the love of the Shearim for all creation became fully manifested. With the King gone and the Blackness growing, the Fairest of Creation, weeping for all that had come to pass, saw that there was one last thing they could do to save the rebellious ones. They joined themselves together and called upon the power of their law to undo them. While the raging Blackness watched, the life-force of the Shearim was woven together into a new thing: an impenetrable Veil, a living division between the Blackness and men.
And so the Blackness was for a time thwarted, and the children of men were left free to build their own world, and someday, perhaps, to reach out for the King again. For this slender chance of redemption the Shearim gave themselves.
But now they are gone from creation forever and always, for the Veil must one day be destroyed, and the makers of it can never be re-made themselves. They sacrificed themselves to defeat the Blackness and to save men, and the world will ever weep for them.
O Children of Men, will you only be dry-eyed in the face of this thing? You for whom it was done, you for whom all was sacrificed—will you not weep?
* * *
Virginia lay on the beach sands, listening to the gentle thunder of waves on the shore blend with the soft sound of snoring. Her clothes had dried to an uncomfortable damp. The wet sand felt warm under her body. The air around her was cold, and she knew that the sun had gone down. In the forest, insects were chirping.
A breeze blew through her hair and died away. A sudden unease gripped her, and she raised herself up on her hands and sat with her head cocked, listening.
Once again the air stirred around her, and this time she felt as though fingers were reaching for her through the wind. She flinched at the touch of the breeze, and suddenly a blinding flash of colour—purple and red and living, pulsing blackness—shot through her eyes. For an instant she could see two eyes in a shadowed face, staring at her. She looked back, unable to tear her eyes away, and then it was gone. There was nothing but the gentle rhythm of the sea against the sands.
Something had found her. She could not hide much longer.
* * *
The walk into Calai should have been miserable, as the little company staggered along on storm-battered muscles. But something about the day lightened both their steps and their moods. Sun diamonds sparkled and flashed on the water, and the seabirds shouted glad tidings to the white clouds. Mrs. Cook and Pat fell to talking, catching up on each other’s lives since they had parted a few months before.
Lord Robert walked with his hands in his pockets, his mind filled with the memory of the vision in the storm, and with wonderings and thoughts of the future that waited in Pravik. Only Virginia, walking by the laird’s side, seemed unaffected by the cheerfulness of the day. She was silent and shadowed, every step taken with grim determination.
There was no sign of the High Police in Calai. Lord Robert hailed a cab, and before the heat of mid-afternoon had begun to beat down, the foursome were resting comfortably on an iron train bound for Pravik. They rode in a private compartment, with red velvet seats and windows, faintly etched with dragons and serpents, that looked out on the country as it passed.
That night, Lord Robert sat with his chin in his hand, gazing at the curved moon that stood watch high above the black trees. Moonlight caused the swirling patterns etched in the glass windows to sparkle, snake scales shining in crystal. Pat slept beside him, her head resting against the wall. She had pulled her legs up on the seat, and lay curled up like a cat.
In the seat across from them, Mrs. Cook was snoring softly. Virginia was wide awake.
Lord Robert listened to the rhythmic clacking of the train wheels as the car rocked gently back and forth, rushing through the forest. He imagined himself in a study in Pravik, pouring over the contents of the mysterious scroll with Jarin Huss, just as in the days of the council. For so long he had sought the Otherworld, only to find every door closed to him. Now windows such as he would never have imagined were flinging themselves open at every turn, and the Otherworld was seeking him again. Seeking him through Virginia. Her nearness to him made his pulse quicken with the awareness of the other side of reality, and he felt a determination to make her open up to him. He knew that he did not have her confidence—her trust—but he meant to win it. She held the key to the worlds unseen, and she must open them to him someday.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Virginia’s voice. “Laird?” she asked.
He turned away from the moon to face her. “What is it?” he asked.
“You saw, didn’t you?” she asked. “All of you—you saw the riders.”
“Yes,” the laird said, sitting forward. “We saw them. I have waited all my life to see such a sight.”
“And I have seen such things for as long as I can remember,” Virginia said. “But I have never desired to. The visions come without my wish or command, and they fill me with joy or horror as they will.”
“As a young man I would have given anything to see as you do,” Lord Robert said. “The powers of the Otherworld did not grant me such a gift. Only, here and there, they would seek me out. They would give me a hint in one place and a whisper in another, always tantalizing, always calling me to come farther. But I had no stepping stones to reach them.”
“You speak as though the Otherworld had a human spirit,” Virginia said.
“Perhaps it does, or more than one,” Lord Robert said, carefully. He was baiting her; waiting for her to tell him the things she had always kept hidden.
“You should be careful,” was all Virginia said, “whose call you answer.”
“Are you worried about me?” he asked, and said, without waiting for an answer, “You don’t need to be. I can take care of myself.”
“So says every man, before he is lost,” said Virginia. “I do fear for you. I have seen you, sometimes, and there is a great black cloud around you that whispers and calls to you. And a woman.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lord Robert said, suddenly irritated. “I suppose everyone has a ‘cloud’ at times, of emotion of one sort or another. And what do you mean, a woman?”
“A woman who occupies your thoughts and your longings,” Virginia said. “I have seen her in your memories.”
Lord Robert laughed a short, humorless laugh and said, “It’s just this sort of thing that makes the villagers hate you.”
“I know,” Virginia answered, and said nothing more. Lord Robert silently chided himself. He had let something slip through his fingers, he was sure of it. After a while he turned to apologize, feeling sincerely guilty for his words—but Virginia was asleep.
The laird did not sleep well that night.
* * *
Dusk had fallen when Nicolas and Maggie rode into the city of Pravik and wound their way through the narrow streets. The black waters of the Vltava River cut through a ravine in the center of the city, dividing level streets from those that rose up the sides of a high plateau, crowned by the dark aspect of Pravik Castle. Fifteen bridges spanned the river, their lamps glinting off the water far below. The dark shapes of mountains and foothills stood sentinel beyond the city.
The streets were still and empty, and the step of the horses beat hollowly on the cobblestones. The air was uneasy; it whispered in Nicolas’s ears and twitched in the horses’ tails. Maggie leaned over and stroked Nancy’s neck just before they stepped onto the Guardian Bridge, a silent archway lined with white marble statues.
Nicolas pointed up the steep hill on the other side of the bridge, to the place high on the plateau where torchlight glistened and the milling silhouettes of a body of people could just be made out.
“That’s Pravik Castle,” he said. “Looks like something’s happening up there.”
Maggie squinted into the darkness at the shadowy bulk of the castle. Nancy stamped nervously, and Nicolas said, “Let’s go see. Come on!”
Maggie followed Nicolas onto the bridge, where the strange white figures held out their hands in silent pleas. The lamplight on the bridge flickered off the statues’ empty eyes and lit the sides of the ravine, carved deep and narrow by centuries of water. Halfway across the bridge, the sounds of unrest from the crowd around the castle began to mingle with the rushing spray of the river. Nicolas spurred his horse on faster.
They rode up the streets until they reached the edge of the crowd. There were hundreds of men gathered around the gates of the castle: merchants and university students, chimney sweeps and lamplighters. They carried weapons, such as they had. On the other side of the gates, half-hidden by the shadows, stood row after row of High Police, the ends of their spears shining in the torchlight. Their swords, long and sharp, rested in black scabbards. The soldiers were as silent and unmoving as the statues on the bridge, but their eyes glistened with threats.
A young man, tall and darkly handsome, had mounted a wagon, where he shouted in a strong voice. The crowd around him had quieted, and only their muttered agreements betrayed how strongly his words struck their hearts.
“The Overlord has no right to deny us a voice!” the young man said. “The Governing Council speaks for us, the people… how can they if they will not hear us? Let the Overlord know that we will not leave these gates until they are opened to us, and we are given the right to speak!”
An old man in the crowd shouted something back at the young man, who answered with an imploring look at those around him. “We cannot allow the Overlord to take more from us. Already he bleeds us dry! In our schools, our universities, he denies us the right to know what is true. I know! I am a student, and every day I must sit and listen only to those things which the Overlord—indeed, even the Emperor himself—deems necessary for me to know! And you, the workers and merchants who are the lifeblood of this city! The taxes taken from you snatch the very food from your children’s mouths. Now they will take those same children from you. The Man Tax is an evil that ought to have been strangled the day it was born. Instead it has taken your sons from your hearths and sent them to become wolves.”
He gestured to the silent rows of soldiers who watched and listened from the other side of the gate. “The High Police! What are they but slaves, taken from our numbers before they knew enough to know what was worth fighting for? My brother was taken from my parents when he was thirteen years old—as you have all lost brothers, and sons, to their ranks. And now they will lower the age of the tax, and we will lose our children when they have scarcely learned to walk and talk! Seven years old! That is what the Emperor has decreed. That is what our Overlord bows to without protest. We shall not allow it! We are here to protest, and our cries will rise above Pravik until they reach the throne of Athrom itself! All we ask is a voice in the council tonight. Stand strong, and be heard!”
The young man jumped down from the wagon, and Maggie found that she could still see his head above the crowd. He strode up to the gates and shook them until the iron rattled deafeningly.
“Tell me!” he demanded of the soldiers. “What does the Overlord say? Will he listen now? When will the gates open to us?”
In answer there was only silence, only the glaring malice of the High Police.
Nicolas leaned over and whispered, “Some of those soldiers could be looking their own fathers in the face now, and it wouldn’t make a difference to them. The Empire has trained away every shred of family loyalty and love that ever existed under those uniforms. That’s why the Man Tax is so hated.”
Maggie looked back at the glinting spears behind the gates and shivered. “It is the same in Bryllan,” she said. “Only our boys are taken much older, when they are nearly men. Why so young here?”
“Because the Eastern Lands have always been breeding grounds for revolutionaries,” Nicolas told her. “Gypsies wander here, and they taunt all men with a vision of freedom—even if it is a tattered, starving, outcast freedom. And there are others who work to keep revolution alive. In the universities. The Eastern Lands are a threat to the Empire and they always have been.”
The young man leaped back onto his wagon and continued to speak, but Maggie was engrossed in the faces of the crowd, and his words were lost on her ears. The men in the crowd showed faces filled with fear and anger; some lined with age and some smooth with youth; fathers who longed for their sons and boys who wished for their brothers. Many in the crowd were young, clean-shaven men who bore the good clothes and uncalloused hands of university students, and they, who had perhaps suffered least, seemed most determined to bring change. Maggie noticed a few men who wore homespun clothing and carried pitchforks and homemade spears—farmers, these, with rough hands and weathered faces. They seemed out of place, awkward though not fearful, and they kept silence and watched the others.
The crowd fell quickly silent as a man approached from the inside of the gates and ceremoniously unlocked them. He stepped out into the street and surveyed the crowd with a look of high disdain.
“The Overlord of the Eastern Lands, his lordship Antonin Zarras, wishes me to inform you that you will not tonight, nor ever, be admitted inside of these gates.” His announcement was greeted with an angry murmur from the crowd.
“And if we refuse to leave,” the young leader answered, jumping down from the wagon again so that he stood looking down into the eyes of the official, “then his lordship the Overlord will not be admitted outside of these gates.” There was a cheer of encouragement, and the young man wrestled his way in between the slightly open gates. “We have a right to be heard!” he shouted, even as he allowed the man to shove him back outside and clang the gates tightly shut.
“Give us our voice!” a big man shouted at the retreating back of the official, and his call was taken up by the crowd. “Give us our voice! Give us our voice!” The chant became a deafening chorus.
Once again the gates were opened. This time an old man and a young woman were escorted through. High Police stood silently beside and behind them, and the old man held up his hands for silence. Amazingly, the crowd began to calm.
“Professor Huss,” one of the university students called. “Tell us what is happening in the council!”
Maggie snapped her attention to the old man at the sound of his name. Jarin Huss. He was old and tall and rail-thin, and he wore long red and brown robes. A thin grey beard twisted its way nearly to his waist. The respect he commanded was obvious; his quavering voice quieted the mob. The woman who stood beside him was young, but there was a deep gravity in her face that made her look much older. She wore a long, regal blue dress with gold trim, and her long, light brown hair fell past her waist in graceful curls. She bowed her head respectfully to the crowd, and Maggie saw heads bowing in response as recognition lit in many eyes.
“My friends,” Professor Huss said, “the Overlord will not admit you to the council. You know this. We have done all we can, but the council will not be moved on your behalf tonight.”
“Is there nothing you can do?” an old man cried, and Nicolas flinched at the sound of the heartbreak in his voice.
“Not tonight,” Professor Huss answered. “I am sorry.”
“We will not leave.” It was the deep voice of the big man, who stood with his brawny arms crossed over his chest. “We have a right to speak.”
“Speak, then!” Huss said in frustration. “I cannot force the council to listen. My friends, go home. Sleep in your own beds tonight. We will do all we can for you and your children; yes, even tonight, we will continue to fight the battle of words for you. But I implore you, do not stay here. I do not know what will happen if you do.”
“You are only one man,” said a young man, a university student with a nervous face. “Professor, you have already tried to sway the council. I do not mean to offend, but… well, have you not failed?”
There was a long quiet as Professor Huss bowed his head, and the woman put out her hand and touched his arm comfortingly. It was she who answered, her voice tense.
“We have not failed until we are dead,” she said. “Do not give the Overlord an excuse to move against you. Spill blood tonight, and that is failure. Go home, my people. There is nothing else to be done.”
Maggie found herself searching out the young man who had so galvanized the crowd with his words. She found him easily. He was standing near the gate, listening with his head half-bowed. As she watched, the young man lifted his head and met the eyes of Huss. She thought she saw a smile’s shadow on the professor’s face, though it was a sad one, and he spoke quietly. She thought she could make out the words from the shape of his mouth: “You tried.”
The guard who had previously appeared at the gate stepped out of the shadows and bowed slightly.
“Professor, my lady,” he said, “You are wanted inside. By order of the Overlord.”
The soldiers around them crowded in, and the two turned unwillingly and disappeared into the darkness of the courtyard.
Outside the gates there was a forbidding calm. The air felt suddenly hot and heavy, like the air before a storm.
In that moment the big man who had challenged Professor Huss cried out and drew back his arm to let a huge stone fly. Before the stone could be loosed, a tall man in a dark cloak stepped out of the crowd and shoved the man back.
“No!” he said. “Did you not hear the lady? Tonight is not the time to spill blood!”
The big man shoved back. “And who are you to decide what will be?” he spat. “You hide your face in your hood like a coward. Show yourself, or do not pretend to be lord over me!”
The crowd was tensed and watching. Even the High Police, still standing unmoving behind the gates, seemed to stiffen in anticipation. The young man who had led the crowd stepped forward as though to intervene.
The man in the cloak spoke quietly. “I am no one,” he said. “No one but a farmer who does not want to die tonight.”
The big man shoved him again, and the hooded man did not fight back. The young man was at his side in a moment, his body tense, forcibly restrained.
“Cowards,” the big man said. Before anyone had time to react, he whipped his hand back and let the stone fly. It flew straight through the gate and struck a soldier in the head. The soldier stood still a moment, then lurched to the ground.
The crowd poured itself on the gates. Young men scaled the bars; shouts echoed all through the yard. Axes and swords and torches were thrust through the iron bars while voices called, challenging, calling for the High Police to come and fight. The young leader and his hooded friend were lost in the press of bodies.
Nicolas took Maggie’s arm and whispered urgently in her ear, “We’ve got to get out of here before…”
His last words were drowned out by the sound of a trumpet blast. The High Police surged forward as one. The gates were forced open from the inside, pushing the rioters back. The nervous young student, high on the gates, cried out as he fell into the hands of the crowd and then down to the ground. A black-handled spear quivered deep in his chest.
The gates were opened and the High Police flooded into the crowd. There were dozens of them, marching from the bowels of the castle out through the courtyard. They were armed and trained, and they were without mercy. The cries and screams of dying men filled the air as Maggie and Nicolas tried to force their way to the back of the crowd. They had reached the street when one man’s anguished cry rose above the crowd. It was the big man who had started the riot.
“You will not have my son!” he cried. His voice was cut off unnaturally. Maggie bowed her head in sudden grief. She felt Nicolas pulling on her arm.
“Let’s go, Maggie!” he was saying.
But Maggie could not bring herself to leave yet. Impulsively, she climbed up a lamppost, where she could see into the torch-lit mob.
The handsome young leader fought near the gates. He was skilled and seemed to be holding his own. His nervous young companion lay bleeding his life out on the cobblestones beside him. Maggie saw the tall hooded man fighting like a whirlwind with a spear he had wrenched from a soldier. He flew to the rescue of an old man and arrived only seconds too late.
A trumpet blast issued from somewhere inside the courtyard. The sound of horse hooves could be heard even above the riot. Row after row of mounted soldiers issued forth from the courtyard, riding through and over the crowd without remorse and without pity.
Maggie watched the people fall. Then all she could see was the deep crimson of blood.
* * *
“Maggie!” It was an intense whisper, spoken from a parched throat. “Maggie, wake up!”
Maggie groaned and opened her eyes. She was looking into Nicolas’s concerned face, and he was holding her head up. The rest of her was stretched out on the ground.
“Is it over?” she asked.
“Can’t you hear it?” Nicolas asked.
Maggie closed her eyes and let the sounds of the fight reach her ears again. “Yes,” she breathed, stomach sinking lower than it had been. “Where are we?” she asked after a moment, and struggled to sit up.
“Hiding,” Nicolas said. “You fainted.”
Maggie put one hand to her aching head and looked around her. They were in the shadow of an old house. A wrought iron fence surrounded the small courtyard where they sat, and Nicolas leaned against the wall of a stable. The street outside the yard was still and dark, lit only by the dim light of a street lamp. On cobblestones far down the street, the shadows quivered with the lights of the riot.
“What’s happening down there?” Maggie asked.
“Just what you saw,” Nicolas said. “Those farmers don’t have a chance. They should have listened.”
“They ran out of hope,” Maggie said. “People with no hope do strange things.” The old burn scars on her hands ached a little, and she rubbed them.
“You sound like you know,” Nicolas said. He was looking down to the quivering shadows and was not expecting an answer, so Maggie didn’t give one. The big man’s dying cry was still echoing in her ears.
“You will not have my son!”
Maggie sobbed once, and turned so that Nicolas wouldn’t see how close she was to losing control.
What sort of world had she come to? As a child in the Orphan House life had been a terrible dream, but she had awakened from it when Mrs. Cook took her in. Snatches of the nightmare had returned—especially when John and Mary died. But now to discover that it was life with Mrs. Cook that was the real dream, and the nightmare was reality… dread welled up inside of her, and she struggled to force it back. Hounds and ravens and bloody injustice could not be the stuff of reality. Surely they could not.
Nicolas began to move back farther into the shadows, and his voice was terse. “Someone’s coming.”
The wrought iron gates of the courtyard swung open, and the dark forms of men rushed through. Some were limping. Two carried a third, who groaned pitifully. One man, who stood head and shoulders above the others, was recognizable as the hooded man. Maggie and Nicolas watched, fascinated, as he dropped to his knees in the courtyard and began to strike the ground with his fist. After a moment, he stood back. A piece of the ground slowly rose in the air.
A trapdoor.
The tall man descended into the ground, and the others followed him. The trapdoor remained open for a few minutes after the last head had disappeared, then slowly closed.
Maggie and Nicolas looked at each other, speechless. Maggie wanted to speak, but there was nothing to say; the darkness of the night—so much more than physical darkness—kept her quiet.
The courtyard was cold. Maggie and Nicolas sat with their backs against each other to keep warm. Maggie was tired, and after a while her head began to nod.
“Wake up,” Nicolas said sharply into her sleep. “There’s someone else.”
The gates opened slowly this time. The newcomer was in no hurry. He stepped into the courtyard wearily, pulling the gates shut as though they were too heavy for him.
He shuffled slowly into the courtyard, leaning on a walking staff, red and brown robes dragging after him. His shoulders were stooped and his head bowed, and Maggie knew him immediately.
Jarin Huss.
He approached the place in the ground where the trapdoor was, and lifted his staff. He struck the ground with it three times, and the trapdoor lifted. Huss slowly disappeared into the earth. The door closed after him.
“That’s the man we’re looking for, right?” Nicolas said after a few minutes. “It’d be a shame to lose him now.” He stood, stretching his cramped legs, and approached the hidden trapdoor.
Maggie stood warily and followed him. Nicolas scrutinized the ground, his eyes searching for something that was not to be found. He went on his knees and felt around, looking for the way to open the door.
Maggie watched and even tried looking herself. Nothing presented itself to her tired eyes but a small knot-shaped pattern in one stone.
She pointed. “Maybe that’s…” she began to say, and then she noticed that Nicolas’s eyes were closed.
He was listening.
She watched in fascination as his hand moved slowly over the ground, coming to rest on a completely ordinary bit of stone. He made a fist and raised his hand over the ground, bringing it sharply down three times. There was a faint groaning sound, and the ground began to open.
Nicolas grinned. Maggie smiled and caught his eyes. He blushed suddenly and looked away.
“Let’s go,” he said, and descended into darkness.
Maggie followed after him. In a moment the small light of a candle flickered in his