Chapter 27: Behind the Veil

Tuesday, 23 August 1955, The Mountain

Rebecca recognized all the players as she emerged from the fog. She screamed for Wesley as he dove into the river but her words were ripped away by the wind. Rebecca ran hard for the tree with Marcos slipping on the rocks behind her as the rain increased. They vaulted the near-side stream onto what was now an island in the midst of which the old olive stood unmoving. At the river bank, they could see nothing but rushing water; then, far downstream, Pol’s head and hand emerged. Rebecca ran down the embankment after Pol. Without removing her boots or clothes, she was in water up to her knees when Marcos grabbed her from behind and dragged her back to shore.

“You can’t do it, Rebecca. He’s past the fork and we’re cut off!”

“They’ll be lost!”

“Look.” Rebecca followed Marcos’s hand and saw Doc and Margaret moving downstream after Pol on the far side of the river.

“I can’t do nothing! Where is Wesley?” she screamed at Marcos. They ran back along the river hoping to see the adult men clinging to a rock. There was nothing.

“Pray!” Marcos yelled as he fell to his knees, nearly dragging Rebecca with him.

“Yes, Pray,” whispered the frightened woman, shedding his hand and turning to the old tree. Somehow this was the embodiment of all their problems, a sentinel that watched over the victims of the gods. It made perfect sense in Rebecca’s addled mind. The tree represented the mystery that had captured them all with its eagle still soaring above in the pelting rain. Her hand was in her pocket, pulling forth the star stone and Athamé as she scooped up her staff and faced the tree.

She held the stone between herself and the tree and held the tip of the tiny dagger to the stone. Ignoring proper warding of her circle, she simply concentrated on seeing the tree through the black void of the stone she called Key. Soon she could see it and poured herself through the stone at the tree. It began to glow and take shape. The shape that emerged was a person in a long robe, human in form but not identifiable as male or female. Rebecca’s stomach knotted up as she took in the shape of the specter—a dark reaper—the jailer—the gatekeeper of a circle without end. It had imprisoned her before—no, not her; her daughter. It threatened to claim Wesley and Pol, sucking them into its darkness.

“No! I forbid them to die. Go you down to their grave instead!” she commanded. With all the force she could manage, she swung her staff out toward the tree. “Burn, damn it!”

Pol saw people on the shore but the water was around him even when he struggled to the surface for air. He reached a hand above the tide toward them. Papa! He would be saved. Rocks in the riverbed loomed up before him and he struck against several as he rushed farther and farther, clutching at each passing rock for safety. His hand grasped at nothing, finding only pebbles in the water, worn smooth by the current.

There were stories—people swept up in streams in Greece that surfaced in Italy. One was rumored to come up in Sicily. He plunged beneath the surface into a dark place. There was no surface to find. He could not tell which direction it should be. In the darkness, he sank into the depths of the earth. My mortality caught up with me and I fell. I knew my time would be short in this land of bliss where my love and I played together.

Pol’s limited experience of the world played before him at once, transporting him from heights to depths without end. He died a hundred times. He was reborn a thousand. I will disappear from the face of the earth. His mind reprimanded him. Nothing ever disappears. It just moves to a different place. It changes forms.

Perhaps he would emerge in a new form, a different place. He would have a new life in a new world. He would have a new name; no longer would he be ... What was that name he’d had? He no longer remembered his birthright or the family that lived ... somewhere. He had been so many things and so many people. If only he could collect them all together. What a person he would be. He would become megalos kai kalos—a great and good man. Or simply a fool, broken down to miniscule parts and divided among the generations that followed—recombined and separated—ground to dust and scattered across the generations.

No wonder there were no longer great men and women. They were past. They lived on, but in mere bits of their ancient glory, parceled out among all living beings. And of all those generations and ages that lived before him, who was he? Only a foolish child who believed in fairytales and ancient stories of magic. What magic could he bring to the world now? He would disappear and rise again in another age as another person, divided again and less than before.

Oh, Papa! I understand! I understand and I cannot believe!

Wesley struggled with the current after Pol, but the weight that clung to his arm in a death grip dragged him down. The water brightened and Wesley could see Pol disappear through the bottom of the riverbed. He drove harder and with one good kick met the gravel and sand of the riverbed. His neck snapped back with the force of the impact and the air was jolted from his lungs. Water filled his nose, his mouth, and his lungs.

Then all went black.

Tuesday, 23 August 1955, City of the Gods

When he awoke, Wesley recognized the fallen and crumpled pillars—the ruins of the City of the Gods. Perhaps he, himself, had brought destruction on the City when he released the goddess from her prison. He struggled to stand up, but a weight clung to his leg. Ryan McGuire had refused to release him, even in death. Or perhaps it was not death as a gasp and lungful of air animated the body in front of him. Wesley frantically looked for a weapon with which to defend himself but there was only a broken fragment of a great pillar.

Ryan McGuire’s eyes burned with hatred when they locked on Wesley. They seemed lit from the inside.

“You!” he gasped. “What have you done? You have lost the First Face of the Cobhan Carles, the Athamé. I will kill you. I will hunt down every living soul you have known and destroy them. I will...” Wesley cut off the stream of invective by clubbing Ryan in the head with the rock. Kicking himself free of the demon-possessed man, Wesley stood to assess his position. A few hundred yards up the rubble strewn former avenue was the rostrum on which he had spent so much time. It called to him with its seductive music and he could see the dancing lights above it, even in the neutral light of the sunless sky. Hyperion’s chariot had been driven off to light some other world.