Kerry Schafer - Wakeworld

Charon turned as though he felt the change. The green glow in his eyes spiked and again he smiled that dangerous smile. “Ah, My Lady, I fear I did not recognize you. I should tip you into the river before you come into all of your power.”

“I mean no harm to you.”

“Not now, perhaps. Still, a bargain is a bargain. And you have a dark and dangerous way to go.”

The Ferryman stopped paddling for a moment, lifting his lamp to look at them all more clearly. In the light of his lantern Zee appeared clad in chain mail, bearded and fell as though he had stepped out of a painting of one of the knights of old. Weston was in leather, a bow in his hand, a quiver of arrows slung on his back, hunting knife belted at his waist.

“So now I see. The River reveals what has been hidden. You, My Lady, are many things. As for your companions—you are well protected. The Warrior and the Hunter. The bird who does not fly, and the raven. All headed for the Black Gates. And there are bloodstones in play. Truly, time has moved apace in the world above.”

The boat gave a little shudder. Vivian glanced up to see the light sparking against cliffs of glistening black stone. A narrow path wound like a gash up the side.

“There is the way,” the Ferryman said. “It is steep. There are—barriers.” A new respect had entered his voice and he swept his hood back and looked Vivian clearly in the eyes, with no mockery or treachery in his. “There is little I am permitted to say. Because of what you are, it is possible that you will find the way out into the land above. It is probable that your death awaits you.”

“In which case,” she said, “I will see you again very soon.”

“Ah. There is much you do not know.”

“What? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Of this, I may not speak. Beware. Death has no favors for one such as you.”

The boat bumped up against the stone wall. Weston was first to leap out, carrying Poe. Zee followed. They stood waiting for Vivian, but she lingered, shivering and afraid.

“You could stay with me,” Charon said, lowering his voice. “You are the first in lifetimes of humans who would be fit to be a companion to me, and I would keep you safe.”

“It is long to be alone in the dark,” she said, “but I must decline. I have oaths to fulfill, if I can.”

He nodded, and to her great surprise, bowed to her. “Go then, My Lady. Beware.”

His last word echoing in her ears, Vivian turned and clambered off the boat to join the others. Charon lifted his hand in a salute and began his journey back across the river.

He might have warned us,” Weston said.

“He did warn us.” Vivian sounded tired and frail, but Zee was not misled by that. The strength of will that drove her was a mystery and an amazement to him.

They stood at the very edge of a precipice beneath a sky not black but gray. As they had followed the path a dim light gradually emerged, enough to allow them to set one foot in front of the other, steadily increasing until now they could see the sheer drop-off at the end of their way, thousands of feet straight down to where the river flowed beneath them.

Here it was not the smoothly flowing entity that Charon had ferried them across, but rather a seething mass of white water, spiked by sharp spits of stone. It was hungry.

“Do you feel it?” Vivian asked, stepping up beside him.

Zee put out an arm to fence her in, to hold her back. “It wants us.”

At his touch a shudder went through her, and she blinked as if waking from sleep. “Can’t have us.” Her head turned to follow the river’s course to the place where gray light filtered in through the roof of the cave. “There’s our exit.”

“I still don’t see how we’re to get there.” Weston had stepped well back from the edge and was clinging to a spar of stone, looking dizzy and sick. The cut on his cheek had bled freely into his beard, which contributed to a sort of mad-prophet look that might have been amusing at another time.

Here, in this place, even the memory of humor was hard to find.

Zee assessed the options. The path ended here; the rock between them and the opening downriver was nothing but a jumbled mess of sharp pinnacles and crevices that would be impossible to navigate without climbing gear. Even then, only an experienced mountaineer would be able to do it, and it would take time. Going back would accomplish nothing. There was only one path, and no way back across the river.

“What now?” Weston asked.

“There is only one thing we can do,” Vivian answered.

Zee’s heart twisted into a knot so tight he wondered that it kept on beating. Already his pain ran so deep he could scarcely contain it, and now there was more. He had known the moment they reached this point what she was going to do, although he had hoped to be wrong.

“We’ll have to fly,” Vivian said.

She glanced up at him, her eyes deep wells of hurt, and he wanted to say something, to tell her he was sorry, that he loved her for all the things that she was, but the words were all knitted into the pain and he held silence.

A grim smile twisted her lips. “It appears to be the way of things,” she said. “Neither of us can argue with fate.”

A glimmer of hope lit Weston’s eyes. “I thought you couldn’t shift.”

“I can shift. The question is whether I will remember that you all are my friends and allow you to ride.”

“Or try to roast us,” Weston said.

“The question really is,” Zee said, speaking the truth they were all avoiding, “whether the shift will kill you.”

“There’s no other option. This goes so far beyond my life, or yours, that they don’t even weigh in the balance. We need to reach the Gates. We need to stop her. You saw what the dream stuff does—I don’t even want to think about what will happen if that leaks into Wakeworld somehow. Grab Poe, somebody, and step back. There’s not a lot of room for the shift.”

Zee needed to say something, to hold her, to press his lips against hers, but was blocked by memory of his betrayals. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and keep her there, safe and sheltered. But he couldn’t protect her from what faced them, and much as he loved her, she deserved the right to choose the manner of her death.

“Weston, stuff my clothes in your pack, will you, so I’m not naked on the other side?”

“Vivian, there must be another way—”

“There’s not. You know there’s not. Please don’t make this harder than it is.”

She turned her back on them then and began to undress. Zee meant to look away, but his eyes lingered on the smooth curve of her back, the fall of her hair, the long lean legs; he had painted her so many times from dream that he knew the curves intimately. He had always hoped there would come a day when he would be given leave to explore them in the real world, but that was not to be.

Folding the clothes in a neat little pile, she turned and retraced her steps up the path, her white body almost like flame in the gloom. She stopped in a wide space, spread her arms wide, and closed her eyes.

This too, Zee had seen in dream, the shift from woman into dragon. It had hurt him every time, but he had earned the pain, it was all he deserved, and he forced himself to watch as her body bulged and changed and transformed at last into the green-gold dragon.

“Vivian,” Zee called out to her, remembering that she must be named to be held to herself. He had no right to name her, to hold her, and yet it must be done.

“Vivian,” he said again, softer now, noticing the blood that gushed from an unhealed wound between foreleg and belly.

“Vivian,” he whispered, because his voice was breaking, but she must be called three times.