David Galouye - Dark Universe

Just then, however, the latter’s tapping came to an abrupt halt.

Jared raced across the world this time.

And, as he passed the river, Della quit splashing to ask: “Where are you running?”

“To hear the Forever Man. Afterward we’ll be on our way.”

Perching on the ledge, Jared asked anxiously, “Can we talk now?”

“Go away,” the Forever Man groaned in protest. “You only make me remember. I don’t want to remember.”

“But compost! I’m hunting for Light!” You can help me!”

Only the rasps of the other’s labored breathing ifiled the world.

“Try to remember about Light!” Jared pleaded. “Did it have anything to do with — the eyes?”

“I — don’t know. It seems I can remember something about brightness and — I can’t imagine what else.”

“Brightness? What’s that?”

“Something like — a loud noise, a sharp taste, a hard punch maybe.”

Jared heard the uncertainty on the Forever Man’s face. Here was someone who might even tell him what he was searching for. But the man spoke only in riddles which were no clearer than the obscure legends themselves.

He tried to pace off his frustration in front of the nodding skeleton. Right before him might be the entire answer to how Light might benefit man, how it could touch all things at once and bring instant, inconceivably refined impressions of everything. If only the curtain of forgetfulness could be pierced!

He struck out in another direction: “What about Darkness? Do you know anything about that?”

And he heard the other shudder.

“Darkness?” the Forever Man repeated, hesitancy and sudden fear hanging on the word. “I — oh, God! ”

“What’s the matter?”

The man was trembling violently now. His wry face was a grotesque mask of terror.

Jared had never heard such fright before. The other’s heartbeat had doubled and his pulse was like a wounded soubat’s thrashing. Each shallow, erratic breath seemed as though it would be his last. He tried to rise, but fell bank onto the ledge, burying his face in his hands.

“Oh, God! The Darkness! The awful Darkness! Now I remember. It’s all around us!”

Confounded, Jared backed off.

But the recluse grabbed his wrist and, with the strength of desperation, pulled him forward. Then his anguished cries shrilled through the world and spilled out into the passageway:

“Feel it pressing in? Horrible, black, evil Darkness! Oh, God, I didn’t want to remember! But you made me!”

Jared listened alertly, fearfully about him. Was the Forever Man sensing Darkness — now? Or was he just remembering it? But no, he had said it was “all around us,” hadn’t he?

Uneasily, Jared retreated and left his host fighting terror and sobbing, “Can’t you feel it? Don’t you see it? God, God, get me out of here!”

But Jared felt nothing except the cool touch of the air. Yet he was afraid. It was as though he had absorbed some of the Forever Man’s strange fear.

Was Darkness something you felt or perhaps seed — rather, saw? But if you could see it, that meant you could do the same thing to Darkness that the Guardian believed could be done to Light Almighty. But — what?

For a moment Jared was desperately afraid of an indefinite menace he could neither hear, nor feel, nor smell. It was an evil, uncanny sensation — a smothering, a silence that wasn’t soundlessness at all but something both alien and akin to it at the same time.

When he reached Della she was with Leah and Ethan. Nothing was said. It was as though a bit of the incomprehensible terror had spread to all of them.

Della had already packed some food in her carrying case and Leah, resigned to his decision, had gotten his spears for him.

The silence, uncomfortable and grave, persisted as they all walked to the exit. No good-bys were offered.

A few paces down the corridor Jared turned and promised, “I’ll be bank.” Casually letting his spears strike the wail, he sounded out the way and pushed on.

The somber world of Kind Survivoress and Little Listener and the unbelievable Forever Man slipped softly back into the immaterial depths of memory. And Jared felt a sense of poignant loss as he realized that recollections were fed by the same stuff of which dreams were made and that the only proof he would ever have of the existence of Leah’s world would be in the echoes of his reflections.

Throughout most of the travel period Della tagged silently along. That she was troubled with a restive hesitancy was evident in the worrisome expression Jared could hear on her face. Was she anxious over something he had said or done? Light knew he had already given plenty of cause for misgiving.

Since leaving Leah’s world, though, he had devised an artful echo-producing system which he felt certain had escaped Della’s suspicion. It consisted principally of filling the corridors with one whistled tune after another.

Eventually, the passageway pinched in on them and there was a stretch through which they had to crawl. On the other side, he rose and thudded his spear against the ground.

“Now we can breathe easier.”

“Why?” she drew up beside him.

“Our rear’s protected against soubats. They can’t get through a tunnel that small.”

She was silent momentarily. “Jared—”

Here came the question he knew she had been putting off. But he decided to forestall it. “There’s a big passage up ahead.”

“Yes, I ziv it. Jared, I—”

“And the air is heavy with the scent of Zivvers.” He skirted a narrow chasm whose outline was carried on his reflected words.

“It is?” She pushed ahead eagerly. “Maybe we’re close to their world!”

They reached the intersection and he stood there trying to determine whether they should go to the right or left. Then he tensed, instinctively gripping his spears. Mingled with the Zivver scent was a hidden, evil smell that fouled the air — an unmistakable fetor.

“Della,” he whispered, “monsters have just been this way.”

But she didn’t hear him. Enthused, she had already strode off along the right-hand branch of the corridor. Even now he could hear her rounding the bend a short way off.

Abruptly there was the grating sound of a rock slide, punctuated by a scream.

With the corridor’s composite frozen in his memory by the shrill reflections, he raced toward the great, gaping hole that had swallowed the girl’s terrified outcry.

Reaching the area of loose rock, he snapped his fingers to gain an impression of the pit’s mouth. There was a solidly embedded boulder rearing up out of the rubble right next to the rim. He laid his spears down and one of them slid away, plunging over the edge and striking the wall repeatedly as it plummeted into the depth. The clatter persisted until the sound lost itself in remote silence.

Casting the other lance back onto solid ground, he frantically shouted, “Della!”

She answered in a terrified whisper, “I’m down here — on a ledge.”

He thanked Light that her voice came from nearby and that there might be a chance of saving her.

Securing a grip on the boulder, he swung himself out over the chasm and snapped his fingers once more. Reflections of the sound told him she was huddled on a shelf close to the surface.

His extended hand touched hers and he gripped her wrist, lifting her out of the hold and shoving her past the area of loose rock onto firm ground.

They backed away from the pit and a final rock rolled off the incline, chattering down into the abyss. Echoes of the sharp sounds fetched the impression of the girl’s calm melting away.