Beyond the Blue Moon (Forest Kingdom Novels) (61 page)

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.”