Caroline Spector - Worlds Without End

"Yes, Thais, I get very tired. I am intensely weary right now."

His tail twitched and tapped against the floor. The scales that covered his skin were iridescent and gleamed in the low light. I wondered what happened when he had to shed his skin. So many little details about his life I didn't know.

"Very well," Thais said. "I'll tell you. He is here, on this plane. He contacted me a few days ago. But he didn't come to me in person-I had a dream. It was so vivid, unlike any other dream I've ever had.

"He explained… everything. He told me why you hated him. Told me the truth."

Caimbeui made an ugly noise and I looked over at him. A frown pulled at his mouth and he gave me a Why-the-frag-don't-you-just-shut-the-little- wackweed-up? look. I doubted he'd ever had chil- dren. I couldn't expect him to understand.

Thais had uncoiled himself from the couch and was slithering along the floor to the doors leading outside.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Outside for some fresh air," he replied.

I followed him. The temperature had dropped more than I expected. I rubbed my arms as goose- flesh broke out. We stayed there for a long time, wrapped in night sounds.

"Thais," I said at last. "I know I've been a disap- pointment to you. All those years apart, then later, when things turned bad for all of us. But…"

"Shut up," he said, turning violently toward me. "Just stop talking. How do you think I felt when he came to me? How could I deny him? You've cursed me with him."

He began to weep then. Terrible wracking sobs 136

that shook his frame. I wanted to go and embrace him, but I was afraid to. Afraid that he would reject me again. Oh, what agony it was to hear him in pain. I wondered how Caimbeui could resist the sound of it, for it tore me inside. Like I'd swallowed glass.

I forced myself to wait and watch until his tears began to dry and he seemed more in control of himself.

"Thais," I said. "I am so sorry. I never wanted you to have to face this. I tried to protect you."

"I know," he said. His voice was shaky and rough. "But you haven't been very good at that. Have you?"

And how could I answer that? But I suspect he didn't mean me to.

I don't know how long we stood there in the chill- ing night air. The stars frosted the sky in diamond- hard brightness. Then, later, I noticed that the black sky was turning purple-gray.

"What did he say?" I asked at last. I felt drained and exhausted. So empty that it didn't matter what he told me.

"He said you would come for me. He told me that you would try to stop him and it would do you no good." Thais's voice sounded weary. I wondered how I could help him, but then I realized there was nothing I could do for him now. That there are some things a parent cannot do for her child.

"Did he tell you if there were any other of the Enemy here?" I asked.

"No," Thais said. "But I didn't sense any others. I have always been sensitive to that sort of thing. 137

Your friend," he said, giving a jerk of his head to- ward the house. "He managed to stop something from happening a while ago. But the world has more than one point of entry. They are there waiting. Waiting for the moment when they can return."

"Did he say anything else?" I asked. "Anything at all might be important."

"Only that he's been waiting for you to come to him."

The sky was light now, moon hanging low against the horizon, looking strange and out of place so near the sunrise. We stood there in silence as the night fled from the day.

Aina sits before an old woman who has black witchy-hair and who wears gypsy colors. The air here is thick with incense and patchouli.

"Cut the cards," the woman says. Aina does so, feeling the coolness of the deck beneath her fingers.

The reading begins.

The cards lie face down-hidden and hiding their meanings. The first is turned up. The old woman gasps.

The Devil.

In a moment, he's crossed by the Moon and crowned by the Tower.

Aina shoves away from the table, unwilling to see what comes next.

"But you don't know how it ends, " the old woman says.

"Why should I want to know?" Aina says. "After all, they're nothing but a pack of cards."

"You must send me back," Thais said.

We'd returned to the darkened interior of my liv- ing room shortly after sunrise. Thais was not fond of the light. He said it was too cruel. 139

"Why don't you stay here with me?" I asked. Caimbeui gave me a sharp look, which I ignored.

"I cannot," Thais said. "And you know why. But there is something I will tell you. Ysrthgrathe is not the only one of the Enemy here. There is another, just as subtle and as deadly."

"But where… how…"

"Deal with Ysrthgrathe first," Thais said.

I tried to get him to tell me more, but he refused. Finally, I had no other choice than to send him back.

The house seemed empty after Thais was gone. How I wanted to spend time with him. Get to know him. Figure out his peculiarities. But I had denied myself that long ago. And there was no going into the past to fix things.

We closed up the house again. Sheets covered the furniture. The alarms were set. I didn't look back as we drove away.

She sleeps. And dreams. Safe happy dreams of times never lived and not imagined. They comfort her and calm her until she sinks. Sinks down into the long black darkness of her night.

Once, a human discovered what I was.

Like most curious men, he thought that the knowl- edge would gain him something. As though knowl- edge is a safe thing. Inert and powerless on its own.

It was 1998.

Fin de siecle fever was at an all-time high. There were riots and hysterical sightings of UFOs, messi- ahs, and dead celebrities. I'd bought my home in Scotland a few years earlier for an obscenely cheap price. An earldom, no less. Imagine, me a countess. It was to laugh.

I had settled into a smaller house on this property. The castle held no interest for me, being large and 'hard to maintain. I'd acquired quite a large fortune over my many eons. I could afford to take the, uh, long view on investments. There are some uses to being immortal-even if they're only financial.

It was from this vantage point that I was watching everything happening around me with great interest.

The signs were beginning. I knew it wouldn't be long before the magic returned.

So I began to gather together the things I would need to be prepared. For many centuries I'd hidden artifacts away, waiting for this time. It was on one such trip that I noticed him,

I'd just arrived from Scotland. The United States was still whole back then. The turmoil that would rip it apart was years away. Though I had spent many years in America over the last two centuries, I tried to stay away from the politics of the place. They seemed entirely too messy to me. But that's al- ways been the nature of freedom.

As I ran to catch my connecting flight to New Or- leans, I saw him. He was leaning against one of the pillars that lined the concourse in O'Hare. He wore a black T-shirt and faded blue jeans. A scuffed duf- fel bag lay at his feet like a lazy dog.

There was a look of intense concentration on his face, as though he were looking not at how I ap- peared, but at what was inside me. I didn't like it.

This was before the Awakening, and there was no way he could know what I really was for I'd found ways to disguise my true form. Oh, I appeared hu- man, for the most part. My features were more del- icate, perhaps, than most. And I was very thin. But my skin was as black as it ever was, and my hair was dark then, too. Some of the developments in the twenty-first century weren't all bad. I'd seen that blondes really don't have more fun, and I found that auburn really didn't suit me.