Kerry Schafer - Wakeworld

“Can’t get rid of the damned raven, no matter how hard I try. They’ll probably find us.”

Vivian drew a deep breath and ran the heel of her own hand over the keen edge of the blade, watching the thin line of blood well up and spill over onto her white skin. She twisted her wrist, letting the bright drops fall onto the bloodstone.

The stone began to beat like an exposed heart, expanding and contracting, emitting an ever-increasing light with every pulse.

“Now what?”

“Hell if I know.” Maybe she was supposed to talk to it or something, but the only phrase that came to mind was Calgon, take me away . She gazed into the center of the stone, taking a deep breath and letting go of all her rational thoughts and preconceptions. Listening.

And then she spoke to it her deepest need. “Take us to the Gates.”

The world began to spin, the three of them at the center of a cyclone, whirling faster and faster, trees, water, walking dead, dragon monster, dark, repeating over and over until it was all one solid blur, all of the things joined into one and spinning around the beating heart at its center.

And then, darkness.

Vivian was unable to see a single thing in a dark so intense that it pressed against her eyeballs. The bloodstone in her hand was quiet and inert. She shoved it into her pocket and reached out her hands to find Weston and Zee on either side of her. Poe pressed up against her leg. With a quick rush of joy to find him present and unharmed she bent to hug him but didn’t speak, still trying to get a sense of where they were and whether there was danger.

Little by little, sounds began to trickle into her consciousness. The liquid flowing of running water. Not the babbling of a brook or the noisy rushing of a stream, but the sound of a large river flowing between banks worn smooth by its passing. A murmuring and rustling came to her next, like a large group of people, hushed and waiting. Shifting position from time to time, asking a brief question, uttering a reassuring word.

A light appeared in the distance. “Come, let’s go closer.” She meant to whisper, but her voice seemed loud and harsh. Zee and Weston took her hands, one on each side, so as to stay together, and she took courage from their strength. Measuring her steps, testing each before she set it down to be sure she remained on solid land, she led them right up to the edge of the river, still invisible in the dark.

The light drew closer and brighter, until her eyes could make out the shape of a boat with a man standing in the stern, a long oar in his hands. He was cloaked all in black, with a hood covering his face.

“If that is who I think it is, I’m going to kill you,” Weston said.

“Hush. If this goes badly, you won’t need to.”

She should have been frightened, but she felt strangely easy.

The Ferryman’s head swiveled in their direction. His chin lifted. Out of the dark his eyes shone green like a cat’s. He altered his course, steering the boat around to come in close to where they stood, using his long oar as a pole to anchor him there while the boat swung about in the slow current.

“This is not the landing, nor are you the dead. What do you want of me?”

“Passage to the Black Gates,” Vivian said. “Can you get us there?” Her voice surprised her, rolling out strong and confident. Downriver to the right she could see, thanks to his light, the people who waited on the landing, cloaked in gray, huddled together for warmth or comfort.

“Passage to the Black Gates? That I cannot give, even if I would. I owe nothing to the living.”

“We have coin such as is hard to come by, in this land or in any other.”

“Even so. I cannot take you to the Black Gates.”

“You can tell me, though, whether there is a way to reach them across this river.”

“I might be able to tell that, if the coin were of sufficient value.”

She selected a small bloodstone from the sock bag and held it up to the Ferryman. “And this?”

His face went cold with desire. “Now that is rare coin indeed. Is it real?”

Vivian tossed it to him. He caught it neatly, held it up to look through, touched it with his tongue. His eyes glittered.

“Well?”

“There may be a way for one such as you. It lies across the river, and is dark and perilous.”

“So be it. Will you take us across?”

“If you pay me.”

“What is your fee?”

“Two of the stones for each human, one for each of the birds.”

“Done. I will give them to you when we reach the other side.”

“Or I can step ashore and take them now, and leave you stranded.”

“Their value will be lessened if you take them by force. Heart’s blood must be freely given. You know this, Charon.”

The words came from deep within, beyond knowledge, but she knew they were the right ones. They rang out in that dark place with a power long dormant.

He snarled. “You delay my true work.”

The throng of the dead pressed up against the river, sighing like a wind in the treetops.

“The dead you have always with you,” Weston said. “Sooner we go, sooner you can get back to your task.”

“A bargain then,” Vivian said. “Passage across the river for the three of us and the birds. Eight bloodstones. And you direct us to the path that will lead to the Black Gates. I will pay you now, in full, if you give me your word to fulfill your end of the agreement.”

“We have a bargain.” She thought she caught a flash of sharp white teeth, lit by the glowing eyes.

Zee touched her arm, and she knew he too had seen it. The Ferryman was holding something back that gave him pleasure. He was not to be trusted, but there was no choice. Already he had brought the raft to shore. Weston shrugged, picked up Poe, and leaped aboard, holding out his hand to Vivian.

The moment her foot touched the deck, the Ferryman stood blocking her, hand outstretched. If she took one step back, if he pressed one hand against her, she would topple into the river. She shuddered at the thought of what that would mean, to fall undead into those black depths and be swept away. She felt Zee’s hand on her arm, steadying her, knew if she fell he would do his best to catch her.

“Toll,” the Ferryman said.

Vivian counted the bloodstones out into his palm.

“There are only seven here.”

“I gave you one already.”

“True.”

He looked up, and she gasped to see his face. Not deformed or scarred, or ugly. A beautiful face, one Michelangelo might have used for a David or an angel.

“What will you do with them?” she asked.

He smiled, his lips a sensual curve over white teeth. “I have my own debts to pay. Keep to the center of the raft if you would not fall in.”

Turning, he picked up his long oar and shoved the boat out into the current. Vivian took uncertain steps toward the center of the boat, Zee’s hand still warm on her arm. A strange and silent trip in the wide dark followed, lighted only by the Ferryman’s lamp and the glow of his eyes.

The light reflected on the water in a radius around the boat. The current rippled and flowed. No sound but the water slapping against the bow. Vivian was deathly cold, her muscles clamped tight, racked by shivering. Zee’s hand on her arm ceased to be warm, and then she ceased to feel it at all. Frost glinted in Weston’s beard.

How wide the river was, she could not tell. Neither bank was in the range of sight. There was nothing but the small island of light, the Ferryman’s movements, Weston’s and Zee’s breathing, a small rustle of feathers as the birds shifted restlessly.

The change began as a kernel of warmth at her core. Cold as she was, she welcomed it without thought, grateful and encouraging it to grow. It did so, fist-sized, hotter now, until her belly was full of the growing heat. It flowed through her veins, throwing off the cold, expanding her senses, filling her with strength.