“I’m here on business,” said Rhea, a little more forcefully than she’d meant. “I need to talk to you about James Hart.”
“Yes. I thought that might be it. Take a seat, please.”
There was only one chair, and Rhea sat on it, crossing her legs primly. Ash sat on the edge of the bed facing her. Rhea pulled back her feet just a little, so they wouldn’t touch Ash’s. He looked at her encouragingly, and she had to look away for a moment. He was trying so hard to be helpful, and somehow that only made it more difficult. She looked around the room to avoid looking at him, and everything she saw brought back memories of the times they’d spent together in this room, in the past, when he was still alive. The poster on the wall of the concert they’d been to, the book on the dresser she’d got him that he always meant to get around to reading, but never had. Or perhaps he had, now he had more time.
“You look good in black,” said Ash. “Very smart. If I’d known you were going to look that good, I’d have died earlier.”
“It’s not for you. I was at a funeral earlier today. Lucas DeFrenz.”
“Yes; I heard about that. I was worried you might have been hurt in the shooting. But I should have known you’d be all right. You always were lucky.”
“Why are you wearing black?” said Rhea, more to put off what was to come than because she cared.
Ash grinned suddenly. “I’m in mourning for my sex life.”
Rhea groaned, and smiled in spite of herself. “Being dead hasn’t done a thing to improve your sense of humour. Leonard; let’s make this as easy as we can for both of us. I’m not here to see you, I’m here to pump you for whatever information you might have about James Hart. Strange things have been happening, strange even for Shadows Fall, and all of them started the day James Hart came home. Tell me about him. What’s he like?”
Ash pursed his lips. “Just an ordinary guy, nothing special. If he is responsible for whatever’s going on in town, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know about it. He doesn’t remember the town at all. Apparently I was at school with him, but I don’t remember anything definite. Of course, my memory isn’t what it was.” Ash stopped and frowned suddenly. “There was one thing… I took Hart to see Old Father Time, and Jack Fetch was there. Large as life and twice as nasty. Rhea; the scarecrow knelt and bowed to Hart. I’ve never seen Jack Fetch do that to anyone, not even Time himself. I could be wrong, but I think Old Father Time was taken aback too. And that’s not something you see every day.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Rhea, frowning. “I didn’t think Jack Fetch acknowledged any authority but Time. He certainly never bowed to me, the few times our paths crossed. Not that I’d have known what to do if he had. Unnatural thing. I’d banish him if he wasn’t so necessary. And if I thought he’d take any notice of me. What else can you tell me about James Hart?”
“That’s it, really. He seemed a friendly enough sort, wasn’t too thrown by Shadows Fall, which would suggest either great strength of character or an extremely limited imagination. He was good company, but pretty reserved. Didn’t talk about himself much at all, now I come to think of it. I don’t know what else to say.”
“I was hoping for more than that, Leonard.”
“Sorry. That’s all I’ve got.”
“Then it’s time I was going.” Rhea stood up, and Ash was quickly on his feet again. She smoothed the creases out of her dress, carefully not looking at him. “Nice visiting you, Leonard. We must do this again some time. Now I must dash. A hundred things to do.”
“Don’t go, Rhea. Please.”
“We don’t have anything more to talk about.” Rhea forced herself to meet his gaze. “I was here on business, Leonard. Nothing more.”
“There’s so much I want to say to you.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“I don’t believe that. You finally came to see me, after all this time. That has to mean something. I’ve missed you so much. There isn’t an hour in the day that I don’t think of you, and the time we shared. Sometimes I think it’s only those memories that still hold me together.”
“Stop it! That was somebody else. The man I loved is dead and buried and gone! He’s not a part of my life any more.”
“I’m still me, Rhea. I’m dead, but I’m still me. I’m the same man who held your hand when we were out walking, who sat around waiting downstairs while you agonized over which outfit to wear. The same man who told you he loved you more than life itself. Your face just changed, Rhea. It’s that cold, empty face you always put on when you don’t want to hear something. The shutters come down in your eyes, and your face says there’s no one home. Don’t hide from me, Rhea. Not from me. I’m so alone.”
“Don’t do this to me, Leonard.” Rhea met his gaze unflinchingly, but she could feel her legs trembling. Tension, or strain. Nothing else. “There’s nothing between us any more. Love is for the living, for people with a future.”
“You think I don’t know that? You have no idea what it’s like for me now. I know I’m not really Ash. I’m a memory of who I used to be, given shape and form. And that isn’t enough. A man of hidden shallows; that’s what you used to call me. Only now it’s true. I’m starting to forget things, Rhea. I’m losing all the things that make up me. Every day I remember a little less. The words of a favourite tune, the colour of a friend’s car; gone, and nothing left to fill their space. Only little things, for the moment, but they add up. Or rather they subtract, from me. I’m fading away. Every day there’s that much less of me left. Eventually everything will be gone, and I’ll really be dead. Just a ghost, an image of someone who doesn’t exist any more. Help me, Rhea. I’m scared. I’m so scared.”
The anguish in his voice tore at her, and pain rose up inside her, the old bitter pain that she’d never shared with anyone. She looked at Ash angrily, refusing to give in to the tears that burned in her eyes. “You didn’t come back because you loved me. You came back because your mother needed you!”
“No. That’s not how it happened.”
“Then why did you come back? Why did you have to come back, and ruin all our lives?”
“I don’t know! I’m here for a purpose, but I don’t know what or why. I said my parents needed me because I had to say something. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never meant to hurt you. You’re everything that ever mattered to me, Rhea. I would have died for you. I would have stayed dead for you, if I could. That’s why I stayed away from you all this time, because I wanted you to be free, to get over me. But something brought me back, and holds me here. And day by day there’s less of me. I can’t live, but something won’t let me die. I need you, Rhea. If you ever loved me, love me now.”
Rhea reached out and took his cold hands in hers. “If I ever loved you? Leonard, my dear… I never stopped loving you.”
Ash reached out to hold her, then hesitated, and Rhea had to pull him into her arms before he could really bring himself to believe it. Rhea buried her face in his neck and let out her breath in a long, shuddering sigh.
“I don’t know what to do, Leonard. Nothing in my life makes sense any more. Shadows Fall is coming apart at the seams, despite everything I do to hold it together. It’s all happening so fast. I can barely keep up with the reports. I suppose that’s really why I’m here. I came to you for help, even if I didn’t want to admit it. I felt such a failure. After you were gone, all I had left was my job. I worked hard at it. And since all I had was the job, it took over my life. I came here to use you, Leonard; to get information from you I could use to control Hart. To put me back on top of things again.”
“I don’t mind,” said Ash. “Use me all you want.”
They both managed some kind of laugh, and stood back from each other so they could stare into each other’s eyes. Ash held on to Rhea’s hands, and she squeezed them gently in return. They were still cold.
“Whatever happens, Leonard; I’m not going to lose you again. We’re back together, for better or worse. Death didn’t part us
after all.”
“I’m glad,” said Ash. “Whatever’s left of me is yours. For as long as it lasts. I wish I had more to offer you.”
“We’ll find a way to be together always,” said Rhea. “There’s got to be a way. This is Shadows Fall, after all.”
“For as long as it lasts. I’ve been getting some very strange feelings just lately. Premonitions. Bad ones. I think something really bad is coming our way. Something powerful enough to threaten the whole town.”
“Not you as well, Leonard. Everyone’s gone paranoid these past few weeks. Could you at least be a little more specific?”
“Sorry. Being dead, I get to see things more clearly, but it’s more feelings than anything else. There’s something out there, outside the town, watching and waiting for just the right moment, but I’ve no idea what. It’s alive, if that’s any help.”
“Not a lot.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“You must have thought about this, Leonard. What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know,” said Ash. “But I did wonder if maybe this was the reason I was sent back. There has to be a reason.”
“I’m sure there is,” said Rhea. “Maybe I brought you back, because I needed you so much.”
“Maybe. Stranger things have happened, even in Shadows Fall. That’s a very pretty dress you’re wearing. Can I help you with the zip?”
—
Far below Caer Dhu, Court and Castle of the Faerie, deep in the heart of the land beneath the hill, three figures walked unhurriedly in a wide earth tunnel. Two were tall and fair and one was not, but they all carried nobility with them, like a scarred and scoured shield that had taken punishment from more than one battle too many. It was dark in the tunnel, but will-o’-the-wisps in their hundreds danced on the air around the three figures. Their blue-white light was sharp and piercing, glistening on the smooth earth walls, but still none of the three cast any shadow.
Oberon and Titania and the withered elf called Puck finally came to a halt before a great trapdoor, set flush into the earth floor. It was fully twenty feet square, stretching from wall to wall, thick boards of centuries-old oak held together with steel bands and silver rivets. Words and phrases from a language much older than man’s had been carved into the wood of the trapdoor, and etched with acid into the steel bands. There was no ring or other mechanism by which it might have been lifted, had anyone the strength to stir its massive weight. Oberon, King of the elven kind, stared silently at the trapdoor. No visible thought or emotion moved in his icy blue eyes, or stirred his colourless features. He was ten feet tall, built almost entirely of muscle, and wrapped in robes the colour of blood, but still he stood before the trapdoor like a suppliant unsure of his welcome.
Titania, his wife, Queen of the Faerie, stood at his side. She was a few inches taller than he, dressed in blackest night with silver trimmings, but beneath the short black hair the pallor of her face was that of a ghost. They had been through much together, he and she, and if they had been human they might have wondered if it was love or memories that still held them in union. But they were Faerie, with larger and brighter emotions than any human could ever know or stand, and their love was eternal.
Puck, malformed and broken, the only imperfect elf, squatted on his hairy haunches by the trapdoor, one arm hanging lower than the other by virtue of his humped back. The hand on that arm had withered into a claw, and he scratched his sharp nails idly across the ancient wood. Static sparked about his fingers as thin parings of wood curled up from the trapdoor. Beneath the nubs of horns protruding on his brow, his green eyes burned with mischief, though his face was properly solemn. He scratched absently at the furred hides he wore, in marked contrast to the graceful robes of his companions. Puck cared little for grace or dignity, since his twisted form denied him both.
“It is not too late,” said Oberon softly. “We could yet turn away from this. The destiny of Shadows Fall has been made known to us. It cannot endure. The Wild Childe is loose among them, unkillable and unstoppable, and they are betrayed by those they trusted. We need not share that fate. Much as it would pain me, I would see the town destroyed and everything in it dead and gone before I would risk the future of our people.”
“We all heard the oracle,” said Titania, her voice calm and steady. “Shadows Fall cannot be saved or protected, but we need not fall with them. We could still turn away from this, withdraw into Caer Dhu, and wait out the passing of the town. The Faerie would survive.”
“To what purpose?” said Puck, not looking up from the trapdoor. “We could save our precious lives, but only by giving up what we value most. We are sworn to protect the town, at any and all cost. Just as the hero, Lester Gold, protected you from the dread beast. Shall we allow them to outdo us? What are the Faerie, if they know not honour? Would we break our sacred oaths, undo our trust, discard what we have always treasured most in ourselves, just to survive? I think not. The humans might be capable of such duplicity, but we are not. It would destroy us. No; the Faerie must fight. A simple choice, in a complicated world.”
Oberon stirred unhappily. “Time has turned his back on us. For the first time in uncounted centuries we cannot see the future. We have always known this time would come, when even our oracles would be struck blind and deaf, but we chose not to think of it. Now, we no longer have that comfort. We look for the future and see only darkness. Some greater power clouds our sight. But what power is there, greater than us? There was only ever one, and they are gone.”
“The Fallen,” said Puck, and the word seemed to echo on and on in the quiet of the tunnel.
“Speak not their name so loud,” said Titania. “They might waken.”
“Not easily,” said Puck. He chuckled unpleasantly. “Shadows Fall will be destroyed and Caer Dhu thrown down in rubble before the Fallen ever waken again. Come, my noble King and Queen, the time for talk is past. The Court has debated this up and down and back and forth. There is only one answer. We cannot turn our backs on honour, either by destroying or ignoring the town, so all that is left to us is to open the ancient Armoury, draw forth our ancient weapons, and wake our sleeping blood to wrath. The Faerie must go to war once more, with or without the comfort of prophecy. It matters not who our enemy may be. In all our wars, in all our history, the Faerie have never been defeated.”
“Yes,” said Oberon. “Our glory and our curse. You have the right of it, Puck, Weaponmaster. It is time. Open the door and let us in.”
“Prepare yourselves,” said Puck, and for the first time there was no humour in his eyes. “I will awaken the Sleeper.”
He lifted a hooved foot and slammed it down on the trapdoor twice. The sound was disturbingly loud on the quiet, echoing on long after it should have died away, as though it had an immeasurably long distance to travel. And far away, beyond the limits of sight or hearing, something from outside the waking world stirred in its long slumber and awoke. It turned its awful gaze on the three Faerie, and they looked away, unable to face it. But wherever they looked the Sleeper was there, staring back at them, and they shuddered in anguish and loathing as change was thrust upon them.
It was the pride and glory of the Faerie that they were not bound to one shape or nature. Not for them the human logic of yes or no, either/or; they lived by wider parameters. To the elven kind, shape and form were as fleeting as thought or imagination, and past, present and future were equally accessible. They shared one basic form by common consent, partly for aesthetic reasons but mainly through the force of tradition and custom. There was a reason for that custom, that centuries-old tradition, but few chose to remember it. The Sleeper knew. It wasn’t capable of forgetting. And then, there was always honour. The Faerie needed honour; it was the only thing that could bind their thoughts and aspirations, and keep the elves from destroying each other on a moment’s whim. But now all these things were gone, swept away by the Sleeper’s gaze. The three Faerie were stripped of their spontaneity, locked in their shapes and
anchored in the present; condemned to the mundanity of unchanging reality. Titania and Oberon clung together, trembling violently, and even Puck lost much of his dark merriment. He lifted his horned head and stamped his hoof on the trapdoor again.
“Open the door, Sleeper. Our enemies are upon us, and the sword must be drawn from its sheath!”
The massive trapdoor stirred in response to his voice and the ancient code words. Dust sprang away from its outline, and the trapdoor rose slowly upwards, pivoting gracefully on silent hinges, revealing a great black mouth. The will-o’-the-wisps fell back, seething agitatedly, and would not go near it. The elves held themselves stiffly, clinging to dignity though all else had been taken from them. They had committed themselves willingly to a single form in order to gain access to their long-abandoned Armoury, and the mighty weapons it contained, but it had been so long… they had forgotten the horror of unrelenting order. Only the Faerie could withstand the Sleeper’s gaze, and embrace the shape and structure of ultimate reality. Humanity would have shrivelled under that gaze like a burning leaf under the magnified glare of the sun. Even the Faerie were much diminished, which was why the Armoury had gone so long unvisited. It was a price the Faerie had not paid for centuries beyond counting, not since they emptied the Armoury and went forth to face the Fallen, so very long ago.
The trapdoor stood open, its uppermost edge scraping against the earth roof of the tunnel. Before it lay the huge black opening, a gaping mouth of unrelenting darkness that turned aside the massed light of the will-o’-the-wisps with contemptuous ease. Looking down at that blackness was like staring up into an endless night sky that had never known a moon. Vertigo tugged at the elves, but their pride held them still at the edge of the opening. The darkness seemed to fall away for ever, or at least further than any material thing should. The Armoury was too powerful and too tempting to be left where just anyone might stumble upon it, so the Faerie had taken it out of the world and hidden it where only they could find it. Puck looked at Oberon and Titania and bowed mockingly.