Stephen Messer - The Death of Yorik Mortwell

The Princess and Erde exchanged searching looks.

“Tell him,” grunted Erde weakly.

“Are you sure?” said the Princess anxiously. “He’s only a human.”

Erde looked at Yorik. “Not a human.”

“It’s still a human,” objected the Princess. “Just a dead one, that’s all.”

Erde wearily rumbled, “Tell him.” She closed her dark brown eyes.

A wind blew through the glade. The trees and flowers stirred. Patterns flowed across the grass and across the surface of the pond. The light in the glade darkened.

“Very well,” said the Princess. “I will show you who Erde is.” And to Yorik’s surprise, when she said that, her voice did not sound high and haughty as it usually did, but deeper and richer. It stirred and echoed in his mind. Goose bumps rose on his arms.

The Princess stood and raised her leafy twig. Her glow deepened, and her gossamer dress grew black.

“Be honored, boy,” she said. “This knowledge is a gift rarely given to one of human birth.”

Suddenly the pale moon flickered and vanished. An instant later it reappeared.

Yorik was no longer on the Estate. No, he was, but the land had changed. The trees and flowers were gone, and a river flowed through the glade where the pond had been. But he could see the four hills of the Estate rising up around him, four brown hills dotted with scrub.

And he was alone.

Yorik stood and walked to the nearest of the four hills, then ascended for a better view.

Below, the river twisted and wound through the hills. Yorik knew there was no river on the Estate, only a small creek that flowed in a different place. He looked at it with interest, then was surprised to see a red lion rambling along the bank.

Yorik looked toward the Manor.

There was something there, not a manor, but some other kind of structure. It was high and arched, made of stones piled one on the other. It had a raw look that the Manor did not, as though cobbled together by hand. The windows were made from colored glass.

Its front doors opened, and men came out, dressed in brown robes. They held spears.

They are hunting the red lion , Yorik realized.

“Yes,” said the Princess’s rich, deep voice. The voice descended from the starry sky, and from the night shadows all around, but neither the red lion, as it padded dreamily along the rushing river, nor the men in robes with their spears raised seemed to notice. “All of this happened ten thousand human years ago.”

Yorik watched as the men spread out to encircle the red lion. Suddenly they rushed forward, hurling their spears. The red lion whirled around and roared a primal roar that shook the heavens.

Pale Moon Luna flickered out once more, and there was darkness.

“Wait, Your Highness!” said Yorik, anxious. “Did the lion escape?”

“You should ask Erde,” sang the voice of the invisible Princess. “She was there.”

“Erde was there? I didn’t see her.”

“Look closer, then, ghost. Erde is there always.”

The pale moon reappeared.

Yorik saw the four hills. It was winter. The river was broad and frozen. Luna’s white light glinted on the ice. The piled stones were gone, and in their place were solid huts built from wood and packed snow. Smoke rose from them. Though everything was cold and barren, the huts looked homey and warm.

“Do you see her?” asked the Princess.

Yorik turned in all directions, looking everywhere, but he saw only the hills, mist, and blown snow. “No.”

“You are not looking.”

“I am!” said Yorik.

“Further back, then,” came the Princess’s deep voice, like a rolling thunderstorm.

Dark, then light. This time there were no huts, no people. This time there were only tall trees covering the hills. There was no river, but a valley of ice that looked as permanent as a mountain. The hills were larger this time, and boulders jutted from them.

Yorik looked for Erde and did not see her. I need a higher view , he thought.

He found a jagged boulder on his hill and scrambled quickly to the top.

His gaze roamed over the ancient Estate.

“I see something,” he said suddenly.

“Yes,” rolled the voice of the Princess.

What he saw were the hills. But they were not hills. They were something else. They came up crookedly, the hills. Not hills. Knees, and shoulders. Boulders jutted up like bones and teeth, and the valley of ice like a mouth.

“It’s Erde,” breathed Yorik. “I see her.”

“She is the soil of winter and summer,” chanted the Princess’s faraway voice. “She is the land and the bones beneath it.”

Everywhere he looked now, Yorik saw Erde. He felt overwhelmed by her size and majesty.

“She is the Oldest!” he exclaimed. “She is the one who asked the hare to speak with me.” He felt humbled that these great beings would ask him for anything.

“Yes,” snapped the Princess’s voice, and this time it was right next to him and as sharp and haughty as it had ever been. In an eyeblink, Yorik was back in the aviary glade, and the Princess was scowling at him, and Erde was huddled shivering in a tiny ball on the ground.

“Yes,” she said again. “And you can imagine how bad things have gotten if any of us are asking you for help.”

Yorik looked sadly at Erde. She was so small now. “What happened?”

“Yglhfm,” moaned Erde in a sad voice.

The Princess’s twig slashed the air. “At first there was only one of them. It was there when you saw the hunt for the red lion. Back then it was only an infinitesimal shadow, and utterly beneath notice. But recently it somehow opened the way for others, and their numbers have swelled. And now, great Erde, poor Erde, is almost gone.”

Yorik and the Princess looked grievously at little, huddled Erde.

“I’ll stop them,” vowed Yorik.

“And how do you plan to do that, little ghost-boy?” laughed the Princess. “However will you do that?”

Lord Ravenby laid his last child to rest in the Family crypt in a grief-struck ceremony. Over the three months that followed, Yorik explored every corner of the Estate, listening and watching. He explored the Manor too. He was careful to avoid Dark Ones. But once, early on, he was nearly caught.

It was an evening when Yorik had been investigating the bluebell patch on the Manor’s hanging terrace. Pushing through the flowers, Yorik felt a sudden, strange trembling, hardly perceptible at first. As the feeling grew, he found himself convinced that this was all useless, that he was too weak to fight the Yglhfm , that he was only a mere ghost who fled from bells and candles.

The trembling became a flutter, and then a surge of panic that nearly overwhelmed him.

He had felt this surge before, he remembered—outside the mews, when he had confronted Dark Doris. He jerked his head up and spotted black voids gliding through the bluebells, coming closer.

“No,” he said through his teeth. “You can’t take me this way. Hatch!” he shouted. “Hatch!”—and then the hound was there, leaping onto the terrace and growling, and the voids fled.

After that, Yorik and Hatch always explored the Manor grounds together.

But Hatch could not enter the Manor itself. They tried once, when a door was left propped open. But a footman found Hatch in the hall and drove him away with curses and kicks.

Hatch whimpered when Yorik insisted on entering the Manor without him.

“I must, Hatch,” Yorik said soothingly, stroking the hound’s spirit ears. “I’ll be careful.”