David Farland - Beyond the Gate

He looked back, and poor Chance had a face whiter than sea foam. “Come on,” Thomas said. “Let’s look just a bit farther.”

A hundred yards on, they smelled the scent of burnt brush and left their trail to find a large circle of scorched earth. There, in the center of the burn, lay a huge pile of bones from some manlike thing that would have stood nearly nine feet tall. Its flesh had melted into the bones, and for all the world it looked as if it had been struck by lightning.

Thomas walked around the thing, afraid to touch it. The giant was sprawled out flat on his belly, arms wide. He held a long black rod in one hand. Bits of metal were fused into his bones in some spots, as if necklaces and bracelets had melted into him.

“So, this was a demon?” Thomas asked, circling the thing.

“Aye, that was one.”

Thomas went to the head, kicked it off, then rolled it over to look at its face. The skull was covered with a black tarry substance from the melted flesh, and the eyes had burned out of their sockets. The eye sockets were large enough so that Thomas could easily fit his thick fists into them. But it was the massive jaws and teeth that attracted him. Those teeth were big enough for a stallion, and twice as yellow.

“They had orange eyes,” Chance said, “and skin as green-gray as a frog’s.”

Thomas just knelt there, shaking his head in wonder. “Who’d have thought? Who’d have thought?” He sighed. “Well, here’s one oddity for my inn.”

He tried to lift the head, but there was still a brain inside, and the thing was as heavy as a good-sized boulder. They rolled it over to the edge of the creek, onto a worn path, and determined to leave it while they searched ahead.

They hiked along for an hour heading up Bald Mountain, finding nothing more, and Thomas began to feel doubtful, and he began to rest more easily. They’d been out for hours and seen nothing horrific. He hoped, he’d hoped for the mother lode, but all he had to show for his day’s work was one misshapen skull.

They finally climbed up past the road to An Cochan, and near the mountaintop they came to an old burn where there were no trees. The air was cold up here, and chunks of ice lay in the ground. Even now, it felt as if it might snow. It was beginning to get late, and Thomas was thinking of heading back, but they climbed up onto a log, looked up over a little valley where a fire had burned off the larger trees years earlier. Many great logs lay fallen, and ferns had grown chest-high in them. Here and there were clumps of snow from the two storms that had swept over the countryside in as many weeks. Thomas looked for any blackening in the ferns, any sign of a recent fire.

They stood, heaving from effort, looking up the little valley to the mountain beyond, and a few pigeons began cooing from their roosting tree at the edge of the forest.

It was silent, peaceful. A cool wind played with Thomas’s hair, and his breath came out and blew away in a fog from his mouth.

Then for no discernible reason except to ease his stress, Chance let out a long howl, as if he were a wolf. In the center of the clearing below them the ferns erupted and a jaybird flapped into the sky, chattering angrily, searching for the source of the howls.

Thomas and Chance looked at each other, both of them realizing at the same time that the jaybird had been feeding, and as one they jumped into the deep ferns below them, raced tripping and fumbling until they climbed on a wind-fallen tree and looked down. Chance hooted for joy, for there in the ferns lay a dead demon with one massive hand wrapped around the throat of the most beautiful woman Thomas had ever seen.

She had golden hair that she wore in tiny braids, and over her hair she’d worn a net of silver with teardrop-shaped disks of gold. Even now, a blue jewel glowed in the net just above her eyes. She wore a cloak that was colored the green and yellow of ferns, and beneath it was some kind of armor made of a material that Thomas imagined to be some sort of exotic spun metal, like silver maybe. Her face was regal, and her arms were strong, with sensitive hands.

For her part, she had thrust a magic sword through the heart of the demon before she died, and even now, the sword shimmered and its blade looked as if it were liquid quicksilver in motion, baffling the eye.

Behind the demon lay its severed right hand and its magic rod, just where it must have fallen when the angel lopped it off.

The bodies were well hidden from the sun. The icy ground had preserved them remarkably well. The jaybird had been having a go at the face of the demon, scoring on its huge eyes, which were glassy yellow-brown in death.

Thomas caressed the flawless skin of the woman’s face, and she looked as if she were sleeping, her mouth in a tiny frown as if she had just had a disturbing dream. Her skin was stiff from cold, and the wind blew through her delicate eyelashes. Thomas saw that as he touched her, his own hand was shaking, and he sat and considered just how he felt right now.

For years he had lived on the road, plying his trade as a minstrel and satirist, and though he had seen many beautiful women in the far corners of the world, he had never before seen anything quite so exquisite and wondrous as what he beheld right now.

Thomas had always been a cautious man, unable to trust others. He’d never much believed in God. The imperfections of the world had always seemed ample evidence that there could not be a powerful and compassionate god. Yet now he quivered inside as he touched the dead angel, and he felt somehow transformed, holy.

It was as if a great light welled up within him, burning away years of doubt and cynicism that he had carried as some burden, almost unaware, and he dared not look up at Chance, lest the boy see the tears forming in his eyes. This is as close to heaven as I may ever get , Thomas thought. And he wondered if this was the true reason he’d come back to Clere. In part he’d wanted to take care of his niece Maggie and spend a profitable winter away from the cold, but deep in his heart, he’d hoped to see this wonder, to see an angel and be certain.

So, God , he thought. You’ve played a good joke on me, letting me go on in my doubts for all these years . And yet he wondered, he wondered what kinds of creatures these were-demons and angels as mortal as men. Perhaps their own immortal powers had somehow canceled each other out, so that they could kill one another. No doubt the priests would find some explanation. Yet here he was, caressing the cheek of a fallen angel, daring to hope that she would come back to life under his touch.

“Let’s get into town,” Thomas whispered to Chance roughly, his voice tight from emotion. “We’ll hire some men and bring my wagon. She died to save us. I can’t let her sit here through another night.”

* * *

Just after dusk, Maggie served in the common room at Mahoney’s Inn. The place had filled up with fishermen who knew how to draw their own rum from the tap and could be trusted to leave the proper coins on the table.

They were a nervous lot, wondering aloud how soon Thomas might come in from the woods, speculating as to whether it would be wights-a very common threat in this neck of the woods-or demons who got him.

And of course there were many there who wished him well, for they’d come to hear him sing.

Thus it was that Maggie’s uncle came bustling in a fluster, smelling of the road, with an odd expression-something between exultation and manic joy. Thomas just stood in the doorway for a moment, grinning.

“I found them-” he said softly to the crowd. “A dead demon and an angel with it, and they’ll both be on display in the stable in an hour!”