Journey Beyond the Edge

As though understanding what the northerner intended, the inquisitor began to wail.

“What are you doing? Mercy! I recognize you. We are alike.”

“Refusing to shave your beard and smoking a pipe does not make us alike. Who sent you?”

“Mavkas are spawn of Hell. You cannot hide her from Iblis. She belongs—”

“She is not a thing.”

Maniva stared at her companion and no longer recognized him. Before her stood a cruel and merciless killer, a monster more terrifying than Iblis’s servants.

Another shot rang out, and the wounded minion went still.

“Silver bullets…” Eric smiled. “They work on you as well.”

The inquisitor’s words dissolved into a single inarticulate scream.

Smoke swallowed the room once more.

Maniva shuddered. Everything inside her rebelled against the deliberate slaughter of helpless men, enemies though they were.

“Don’t… Stop.”

She rushed toward Eric, the bloodied dagger sweeping through an arc. A droplet flew from its point. The air filled with the smell of a thunderstorm, and a line of radiance shone where the blade had cut through space.

The northerner cast aside his weapon and approached her.

“Are you hurt?”

Maniva shook her head. Her Eric stood before her again—gentle and kind.

“We have to leave. Now.”

The girl nodded and clutched her bag.

“Please, don’t become like them,” she whispered, stroking the warrior’s face with both hands.

“Finish what you began…”

The northerner took the silver-haired girl’s hand and completed the portal rune.

The glow turned opaque, yet through it they could almost discern what waited on the other side.

Maniva gasped and nearly dropped the dagger.

“Do you believe me now?” Eric asked.

She nodded rapidly, shivering. Beyond the shimmer stood enormous ancient trees with snow-white bark and crimson leaves. The fragrance of fallen leaves and rain-wet earth joined the odors of ozone, spilled blood, and burned powder.

The Viking draped his cloak around the girl, bundled her like a disobedient child, lifted her into his arms, and stepped into the portal’s glittering haze—leaving the howling inquisitor behind in a caravanserai room reeking of smoke, blood, and death.

Chapter Eight: The Demiurge

When they emerged from the rift onto the edge of a forest, Maniva became violently ill. Her stomach turned inside out. Nausea and retching gave way to uncontrollable coughing.

Eric lowered her to the ground. Clutching her belly, she vomited everything she had eaten at supper. A painful spasm knotted her stomach. She remained on her knees, hands planted blindly against the earth, swaying.

“What is happening to me?” she whispered, barely audible, accepting a handkerchief from Eric.

“Recoil—the consequence of the magic you used. It happens to everyone the first time.”

Maniva looked up at the man standing beside her. She still could not believe any of this. Since spending the night with this bald, bearded northerner, she had nearly been eaten by a river demon and almost seized by the Inquisition.

“It is unpleasant, but it passes quickly. Drink. This will help.” Eric offered her a small leather flask.

She swallowed. An herbal infusion in mead swept the foul taste from her mouth.

Could all of it truly be real? Magic? These reflected worlds?

Maniva’s mind refused to accept what was happening. Something inside her rebelled, yet she could no longer ignore what she had witnessed. The hope that her former life had merely been the result of malicious enchantments cast by jealous enemies both thrilled and frightened her.

If the northerner is telling the truth, then I am a very noble lady.

Her heart beat faster and more joyfully. Never again would she spread her legs for money. The thought filled her with warmth and comfort, and a dream took shape in her soul—a happy marriage, a loving husband, and children, of course.

“I wonder what Asmodeus, ruler of Nuskam, is like,” she said aloud as she rose.

“Too human for a Sovereign. The people there consider him a demon.”

“And is he?” Maniva’s whisper trembled.

“You will learn for yourself. But only you can tame his temper and ease his sorrow, Maniva.”

The man suddenly swayed and braced one hand against the trunk of an enormous white-barked tree.

“Is that recoil too?”

“I need to sit down. Got a little winded…”

The moment Eric finished speaking, the forest’s silence was torn apart by cawing.

He spread his cloak upon the grass and motioned for the girl to sit, then practically collapsed onto it himself. Maniva’s attention fixed on the cloak—not the cloak itself, but the damp brown patch at its left edge.

Blood. It was unmistakably blood. And it was not hers.

“You’re wounded?”

Eric smiled and settled onto the cloak.

“Nothing serious. A scratch. I’ll sleep, and it will pass.” His face was pale, and both hands clutched his right side. Blood seeped between his fingers. “Chilly here after the heat of Ostos. Perhaps you could make a little fire…”

“You’re bleeding! You’re a healer—do something!”

“Yes… One cannot always heal oneself, especially while unconscious,” Eric whispered, and closed his eyes.

“Damn it. Damn it,” Maniva cursed.

She knew that after a knife fight, people first tried to stop the bleeding by binding the wound. Then—then they summoned a healer.

Ravens gathered in the tree beneath which Eric lay, filling the area with piercing cries.

The girl tore a strip from the cloak. She did not dare draw the dagger, nor did she risk disturbing Eric. Instead, she stuffed the cloth between the northerner’s body and armor.

“He needs a healer—but where am I supposed to find one?” She looked around.

A light breeze scattered the rain clouds. The sun emerged, casting rainbow glints through the large drops left upon the already colorful fallen leaves. Yellowing wheat fields stretched in the distance. Their neat squares spoke of farmers’ labor, which meant a village must be nearby. And where there was a settlement, there would surely be a wise woman—perhaps even a proper medical practitioner. If the village was large, it would certainly have one.

Maniva did not deliberate for long. Her companion’s weakening breath left her no choice. She bound her ferro tunic with a broad woolen scarf, tucked the dagger behind her back, threw a leather rain cape over her shoulders, and ran for help.

At last she exhausted herself and slowed to a walk. Her legs refused to obey from sheer fatigue.

Evening was approaching. Only a narrow strip of woodland separated her from the village lights. Most likely, it was all that remained of a once-mighty forest. Enormous ancient trees grew there, their trunks having defeated generations of woodcutters’ axes.

Maniva pressed on along the beaten path, rustling through leaves that had begun to fall. Only the harsh cries of ravens disturbed the silence. She had never seen such enormous birds. A suspicion smoldered within her that the creatures were following her, flitting from branch to branch.

Fear for Eric battled the despair rising in her chest. There was no sign of anyone nearby. The girl crouched down and nearly wept from helplessness.

The ravens cawed joyfully as they gathered in the nearest tree.

That enraged her. She hated her own helplessness and those triumphant creatures alike.

“I won’t give up. I won’t surrender Eric to them. I only need help,” she whispered through clenched teeth. “Just a little help.”

She rose and cried out to the gray, overcast sky.

“Father Sky! Help me! I don’t ask you for much, but I desperately need your help now!”

Only a whisper emerged from her lips. The forgotten wound began aching terribly, and she seized her throat.

The ravens hopped down to lower branches.

Without thinking, Maniva snatched a stout stick from the ground and hurled it at them.

The flock rose into the air, cawing indignantly.

Watching the strange birds, she took several more steps—then froze when she glimpsed a figure sitting upon a massive boulder almost beside her.

Who is it? Enemy or friend?

She stood motionless, trying to make out a possible adversary.

It was a long-bearded old man in a most peculiar robe, an improbable mixture of Slavic wise man and Asian dervish. The staff upon which he leaned looked more like a weapon than a walking stick.

Maniva placed one hand on the dagger’s hilt.

Crouching low and striving for silence, she began approaching the stranger.

But autumn was more than a weeping sky reflected beneath one’s feet. It was also a carpet of fallen leaves and treacherously loud dead branches. One snapped beneath her step.

The old man did not even turn around.

“Hello.” His voice rolled through the forest’s silence like thunder.

“Good evening,” the girl whispered, emerging from behind a screen of wild raspberry bushes.

“It has been a long time since these lands received visitors. Listen to the crystalline silence. And the view—truly magical, like something from a fairy tale.” Leaning on his staff, the old man rose. “But everyone wants dragons nowadays…”

He waved one hand and sighed heavily.

“Honored sir, I desperately need help. My friend is wounded. I need a wagon and a healer.”

“Come closer and we’ll talk. There is no sense shouting across the countryside. I have grown old, and though your voice possesses authority, it lacks strength. My ears can no longer make you out.”

Maniva stepped closer and repeated her plea.

“I am a healer. What do you need the wagon for?”

“To bring my friend here. He’s enormous. I can’t carry him.”

“Well, if the mountain will not come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain,” the old man muttered.

“What do you mean, good sir? Who is Muhammad?”

“Never mind. Just an expression. Where is your friend?”

“At the edge of the forest, beside the fork in the road.”

“Who wounded him there? Bandits and robbers have not been seen here for years. Predators and trolls do not venture so near my borders. I taught them better.”

Maniva did not know how to answer, but every instinct warned her against delay.

“Honored sir, could we ask questions along the way? Eric is bleeding to death. Every moment matters, and I already lost so much time getting here.”

“Bleeding to death? Then we must hurry.”

The old man struck the ground with his staff and rose. He could barely hobble, and tears filled Maniva’s eyes.

“Too soon for tears, daughter. Pay no mind to the fact that I’m feeble and lame. I am still a wizard.”

The old man traced a strange symbol in the air with his staff. At once, the forest lit with the portal glow Maniva already recognized. Within the haze of blazing energy, Eric lay beneath an oak tree.

“Yours?” the old man asked.

She nodded.

“Then let us hurry.” He lifted a leather pack from the ground and hobbled toward the portal.

Eric remained unconscious, and the stain at his side had grown enormous. Maniva rushed to him.

“Your betrothed?” the old man asked.

“No. More like my savior.”

The old man crouched beside the wounded northerner and began taking small bottles from his bag.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” He suddenly turned toward the girl. “Local women do not have hair like yours. Nor are you from our world, though magic seems familiar to you. Who are you, to wear a master’s ferro armor and open portals, yet be unable to heal a wound yourself?”

“I’m not an enchantress. Please, help him. I’ll do anything for you—pay in gold or with my body.”

“Not your betrothed, yet for him you’re prepared to humiliate yourself and fight,” the old man muttered.

He uncorked a vessel and held it beneath the northerner’s nose. Eric woke, provoking indignant cries from the enormous ravens in the oak. The old man poured a cloudy, translucent liquid with a greenish cast into the wound. It hissed.

Eric jerked away and clutched his side.

“Easy, easy. Frisky one, aren’t you?” the old man chattered irritably, trying to add more liquid. The Viking caught his wrist.

“What is that?” the northerner rasped.

“Hydrogen peroxide, as if that would mean anything to you,” the old man grumbled. Then, more loudly, he added, “Boiled-down cow piss. Helps with healing.”

Eric’s expression hardened. He drew a small knife from his boot and pressed it to the old man’s throat.

“This is what comes of helping people. Everyone wants to cut your throat,” the elder complained, pressing a black object against the northerner’s chest. It resembled the Inquisition’s tubes, though it was smaller and made entirely from some unfamiliar material.

“Lower the knife. This magical artifact will take your life. I can pull the trigger even if you try to slit my throat.” The old man’s voice suddenly possessed strength and authority.

Eric did not lower the blade.

“I do not care. Her life matters more. You will not harm her. Who are you, and where are we?”

“I did not come to hurt anyone. She called me for help—dragged me straight off the couch, somehow…”

Eric lowered the knife and collapsed back to the ground, utterly spent.

“What a peculiar pair you are,” the old man muttered. He shooed the ravens from the tree and added, “Your company is no less peculiar. I haven’t seen demons in a thousand years, and now an entire flock arrives at once. Demons bring no good. No good at all.”

The old man rose, tucked the artifact into the belt of his robe, and effortlessly lifted the Viking onto one shoulder. Then he turned to Maniva.

“Did you memorize the symbol?”

The girl nodded timidly.

“Then take the staff and draw the rune. I will open the portal.”

“I promise nothing, but we need to lay him on the couch. I can’t even examine the wound properly here.” The old man opened the door and entered a lopsided hut.

Maniva whispered something into the northerner’s ear. Eric crawled toward the bed, leaving a broad trail of blood across the clay floor.

“I’ll need your help, beautiful.” The old man’s voice became forceful and serious again. “A great deal of boiled water and clean cloth.”

Maniva seized a bucket and ran to the well.

The old man turned toward Eric.

“Who are you, and what are you searching for in this world everyone has forgotten? And how did a Viking acquire a gunshot wound?”

“How did a village healer acquire a weapon from another world?”

“I knew it. What is your name?”

“Eric.”

“And there?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“For crying out loud, this happens to be my world. You barged in and dragged infernal creatures behind you. I don’t know what those birds are or where they came from, but they reek of sulfur from a mile away. And your maiden tore me from my favorite television program and dragged me into this frozen, clammy autumn. I suffer from chronic bronchitis, I’ll have you know.”

“They are valravns—half-human, half-raven demonic entities capable of crossing space and time,” Eric interrupted.

“Then I was right…”

“Will you tell me where we are?”

“You refuse to answer my question, yet demand an answer to yours? How did you get here at all?”

“I don’t know. There was a fight. The blade was bathed in blood and cut through space. We were thrown here.”

“You did not choose the destination?”

“She opened the portal.”

“But she’s only…”

“She is not only anything.”

“You? You gave her an essence—but it does not belong to you. What are you doing?”

At that moment, Maniva returned to the hut, set down the buckets, and darted outside again for firewood.

“What if it damages her—”

“It will not. I am only a guide.”

“She is already in love with you. Have you thought about what will become of her? Have you thought about anything at all? Had I known who you were, I would have left you to die at the forest’s edge. You’re a bastard. One does not steal from one’s own kind.”

“That would not have worked. I am immortal, as are you. I may have lost my power to create, but immortality cannot be lost. You sealed yourself away from the world in search of peace, and you dare reproach me? Why, when your hands could still accomplish great things?”

“I am tired, Eric. I prefer peace.”

“How can you say that? I defended Patroclus’s body, fought beside Leonidas at Thermopylae, and rode as a Companion cavalryman against the tents of Darius. I wielded a rapier at La Rochelle and swung a sword beneath the walls of Jerusalem. I charged at Osowiec Fortress, defended Tarnodan from creatures beyond the looking glass, and fought beside Sir Apraxis at the rifts.”

“Pain, death, suffering…”

“Yes—pain, suffering, wounds upon the soul. But I was there. I fought evil, vileness, and the callousness of human hearts. I learned to be a man. By shutting yourself inside this little paradise, you denied your descendants the chance to stand beside you and see the world through your eyes. You can still strike the strings of a reader’s soul. You are a Demiurge. A writer—a master of words, a master of creation. Only you decide what your stories will become. Only you decide what you wish to awaken in human hearts.”

“It is easy for you to judge.”

“No, it is not. That is why I have spent recent years roaming the worlds in search of inspiration. Maniva is not merely a girl. She is a key—the key to a beautiful and instructive tale of the Knight of Five Worlds. I desperately want that story to be written. That is why I must continue. I must bring her to the place where she belongs.”

Maniva entered the hut again. Both men fell silent. The girl skillfully kindled a fire and poured the water from the buckets into a large copper cauldron.

The men remained silent while the old man lowered his instruments into the boiling water. Maniva had seen similar tools, though larger, beside the executioners in the town square. Her hand returned to the dagger.

“This will hurt him—badly. Your dagger won’t help. Bind his hands and hold him so he cannot move. You’re slight and thin; better climb on top of him at once. Unless…”

Maniva obeyed without hesitation. Her sapphire-blue eyes fixed upon the Viking’s. They were close again, their bodies pressed together, though not as they had been in the harbor brothel.

The old man approached, clicking a peculiar pair of forceps whose ends were flat.

He dipped them into a jug of alcohol, filling the room with the sharp scent of spirits.

“Want a swallow?” The hut’s owner offered Eric the jug.

The northerner shook his head.

“Ready?” the old man asked.

Eric nodded.

Pain tore through his body again. While the physician probed the bloody hole gaping in his side, the northerner stared into Maniva’s eyes. There was so much compassion and warmth in them, so much tenderness and hope, that the stern warrior—hardened by battles and journeys—nearly lost himself in their depths.

He felt the girl trying to seize control of his consciousness and take part of his pain into herself. Tears glimmered in the northerner’s eyes.

“Let me in,” she whispered. “I can help. I know how. It will hurt less.”

“How I envy Asmodeus,” the northerner murmured.

He felt more than her tender body upon his own, more than the pressure of her hardened nipples. She warmed him with a compassion braided strangely with passion. Their souls touched like parallel worlds—a green ray cast eastward as the compass of morality broke, every convention and restraint falling away.

She carried him into celestial distances upon the wind of scorching blizzards that bound North to South, upon a breeze that bore sand from West to East—toward the center of all worlds, where:

In an unimagined blue expanse,

attending words no ear has known,

the blood grows sweetly, sweetly still—

where young hearts burn more fiercely

than a thousand blazing suns.

Primal power radiated from her, healing the wanderer’s soul, worn ragged by life and the routine of existence.

Eric nearly forgot the old man, the wound, and the pain. There were only the two of them, and what passed between them was more than the joining of bodies. She seemed to touch his soul with some ancient and mighty enchantment.

“Brace yourself, Norseman. I found it. I’m going to pull. Try not even to breathe. Then I’ll have to sew the wound shut. Ready? On three.”

“One… two…”

Maniva sealed her lips over his.

God, there was something in that touch unlike anything the Viking had known in his long and eventful life. He dissolved into her and forgot how to breathe. The pain vanished. Maniva thrust it into the farthest recesses of his awareness.

Her kiss carried him beyond the boundaries of creation. Once more, he soared with her through the gardens of paradise, where flowers gave forth their fragrance, angels sang, and love reigned.

Then searing pain extinguished his consciousness.

“Well done. You managed it.” The old man showed Maniva a small bloodied sphere. “We were fortunate it was silver. There will be no infection. Climb down. He has lost consciousness. It is like sleep—or being struck from behind with a mallet. I will need your help again. Hold the candle. I still have to stitch him up.”

Maniva took the candlestick.

A large bloody cavity gaped in Eric’s side, like the hole left in the wall after the Inquisition’s tube had thundered.

The old man rolled up his sleeves and took out a curved needle threaded with silk. His stitches were even and assured, as though he were mending a hole in a trouser leg rather than sewing flesh.

Watching every motion, Maniva swore she would learn to do the same.

The firewood in the hearth had nearly burned away. Eric slept peacefully beneath the woolen blanket Maniva had tucked around him. The exhausted old man sat upon a stool.

He had done it. After so many years, his hands still remembered. He had done everything correctly.

The elder hunched as though a mountain rested upon his shoulders and lowered his head into bloodstained palms trembling from strain.

“Is something wrong?” Maniva asked, instantly alert.

“Everything is well. He will live.” A large tear rolled down the old man’s cheek.

“Then why are you crying?”

“I can heal again,” he breathed. “You restored my gift. But who needs a doctor who spends his days digging through manure?”

“Everyone. People need kindness, and you hand it out like sweets on a holiday. You are a great master.”

“If only. This world is forgotten and scarcely knows visitors. Without them, it will wither.”

“Perhaps it is only because autumn has come. The roads are mud. Hardly the best season for travel.”

“Your words bring hope, Maniva. You are like a beacon in the dark. I hope you are right. I have never liked autumn—rain, puddles, damp, grayness.”

“That is because you only look at your feet.” The girl smiled. “Lift your head and tear your gaze from the mortal earth, and you will see it—the wealth of colors, the falling leaves, the harvest festival. All of that is autumn.”

“Walk with your head thrown back and you’ll soon fall face-first into the mud,” the old man replied, though his mood had plainly improved.

“But you are right. No one becomes a prince without getting dirty.”

“A prince?”

“Why not? This is not Narnia, of course.” He spread his hands. “But people may come here in search of Magic.”

“I don’t know. Magic is wonderful, certainly, but I wanted to find friends. I always dreamed of that.”

“Is freedom from the chains of loneliness—and gaining the loyalty and devotion of other people—not a MIRACLE?”

“Fine, call it a miracle. But what does magic have to do with it? I’m no wizard or enchantress. It’s easy for you and Eric: wave a staff, mutter a spell…”

The man studied her closely.

“Magic is not sleight of hand beneath volleys of fireworks. Turning what is desired into what is real—that is true Magic. People often forget that wonder is still alive. We perform miracles without noticing them. Our thoughts possess no matter, yet through magic we transform them into tangible things—pictures, words, statues—and no one finds it remarkable. Then those embodied thoughts produce the immaterial once more: emotion within other people.