“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.
CHAPTER TEN
* * *
Redemptions
Through an open window in a golden room the Rainbow came home again. Shouldering aside the darkness, the Rainbow plunged horizontally across the room, hammering forward like a living battering ram of colors. It shot between the startled Seneschal and Burning Man, and they fell back from its thundering elemental presence. The Burning Man cried out and turned away, pressing his flaming hands over his screwed-shut eyes, unable to face the glory of the Rainbow. The Seneschal stood and stared, dazzled and delighted. He’d always wondered what the Rainbow looked like up close. The vivid hues burned in his eyes, suffusing his whole body and wiping away all hurts and pains. And then the Rainbow faded away, and there in the middle of the suddenly tawdry golden room stood Hawk and Fisher and Jericho Lament.
Hawk looked slowly around him as though surfacing from a dream whose hold had temporarily been greater than reality. “Damn,” he said finally. “We’re still alive. How about that.”
“I thought we were finished for sure when the whole of Reverie gave up the ghost,” said Fisher. “Lament, why aren’t we dead?”
“The Rainbow brought us back because we belong here,” explained Lament. “We were never a part of Reverie, so we escaped its doom.”
“Is it really gone?” asked Hawk. “I mean, forever?”
“Who knows?” said Lament. “What matters is that we are cut off from it forever. No more magic … what will the world be like without it?”
“Quieter, probably,” said Fisher. “Do you suppose the Magus knew he was going to die with all the other Transient Beings? Was that part of his plan all along?”
“He knew his time was over,” said Hawk. “What place could he have had in the world that’s coming?”
“Excuse me,” said the Seneschal. “I mean, welcome back and all that, but would it be too much trouble for just one of you to explain what the bloody hell you’re talking about? Where have you been? What happened? What did you find? And how come Hawk’s got both his eyes again?”
Hawk grinned. “Sorry, Seneschal, it’s all been a bit overwhelming. What did we find? The stuff that dreams are made of. Including all the bad ones. And then we watched them all die. Including the Magus.” He sighed. “What matters is that the threat to the Land is over. We’re all safe again. And it will be up to generations to come to decide whether the price we paid was too high. So, did the Burning Man give you any trouble while we were gone?”
The Seneschal blinked a few times. “You’ve only been gone a few seconds. How long did it seem to you?”
Hawk and Fisher looked at each other. “Days,” Fisher said finally. “Years. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. The Blue Moon isn’t a threat anymore and never will be again. We’ll give you the full story later, Seneschal.”
“In the meantime,” said Lament, “what are we going to do with the Burning Man?”
They all looked thoughtfully at the dead man wrapped in his own flames, and he glared defiantly back at them. Something had changed in those who had gone through the Gateway and returned. He could feel it. They weren’t afraid of him anymore.
“He’s guilty of mass murder, blasphemy, and desecration, and God alone knows what else,” said Lament. “But he’s already been judged more harshly and more terribly than anything we might do to him. I don’t want to hurt him anymore, even if I could. I’ve seen too much judgment, too much destruction. And yet the Cathedral can never be clean while he’s still here.”
“You’ll never be rid of me!” the Burning Man said spitefully. “This is my greatest achievement and my greatest crime. The first Forest King bound m
e here, and only another Forest King could release me. And unfortunately for you, the King is dead. I’ll always be here to foul the waters of your holy place and stain its lousy sanctity.”
“Not necessarily,” said Hawk, and there was a weary reluctance in his voice that made them all look at him, as though he was about to pick up some terribly heavy but necessary burden. “You all know who I am. Who I really am. I was, am, and always will be Prince Rupert of the Forest Kingdom. As Harald’s younger brother, the Throne and crown are rightfully mine if I wish. I am King Rupert if I choose to be. So, for my first and only order as King, I release you, Tomas Chadbourne. Go back to the place appointed for you. Go now.”
The Burning Man made a sound that could have been a laugh or a sob. “I should have known. They always find a way to cheat you. All right, send me back to the pit. But you can’t take away what I did here. I did terrible, awful things, and would have done far worse, and I’m still proud of it! I was a monster and I loved it! Damn you all …”
And all the time he was fading away, screaming his spite and hatred and defiance, until finally there was nothing left of him in the room but a faint waft of brimstone and black scorch marks on the floor where he’d been standing. For a long time nobody said anything.
“I sent a lot of people to Hell,” Lament said finally. “For what seemed good and just reasons at the time. But I never really thought about what that meant. How can anyone look upon such torment and not feel pity, even for such as he? But there are texts, very old texts, that say the damned are only held in Hell until they have realized the true horror of their sins. Once they truly understand, and repent, they are free to go.”
“Do you believe that?” asked the Seneschal.
“I have to,” said Lament. “I have to.”
Fisher looked away rather than see the turmoil in his face. She cried out in amazement and ran over to the open window, and the others came to join her. The darkness beyond the shutters was gone, replaced by a breathtaking view of the Forest Land, from the highest point any of them had ever known. The Forest and the Land spread out for countless miles in all directions. There were great swathes of woodland, checkerboards of huge open fields, shining rivers and stone and timbered towns. The Forest Kingdom, in all its majesty. And all around the miraculously re-Inverted Cathedral, the Forest Castle spread out in a great sprawl of halls and rooms and courtyards, like waves of stone in a great gray sea.