The Complete Ferryman

III / Caveam Cristallum

III / Caveam Cristallum

For a time, there was only her heart beating and the suffocating blackness and the sound of her breaths, which came and went in harsh, ragged bursts, and she feared she might hyperventilate. The hood had the effect of magnifying her awareness of her surroundings, strangely, and thus her terror—the sound of the ferryman’s boots thudding against the boards and a sensation of rocking, the sound of something being placed beside her on the cushioned bench, the sound of iron clanking and water slapping against the sides of the boat. And yet there was something else, a vibration, a throbbing as she wrung her hands ...

The ring.

How had he said to activate it? Press the emerald when you approach the Stygian Flowstones, or on my command, which will manifest as a vibration ...

Then the hood was snatched off and she gulped the air greedily—as her captor mounted his dais at the back of the gondola and took up his oar, which he used to shove them off. The raven, meanwhile, had taken roost on a tiny, upraised platform near him. Both were rimmed in dim light from the lantern swinging from the great spiral-like curl that was the boat’s stern—a lantern that flickered as the ferryman touched something on his elevated control pad and the air briefly became charged with static electricity, which Shekalane presumed was a result of the shields being activated.

At length the ferryman mumbled something, or perhaps she merely imagined it, and she jolted as her right shackle opened. And, while her left shackle did not—it did seem to loosen somewhat, so it at least no longer dug into her flesh or pressed against her wrist bones so painfully. Then something familiar caught her eye and she looked down to find her veil lying next to her on the crushed red velvet seat, next to which lay her book.

She breathed deeply, her heart rate slowing, as she tried to process what she was seeing. Was this a trick? Was he baiting her with the promise that he was somehow different, a different kind of ferryman, one who understood how terrified his charges must be and who had some measure of empathy—only so he could perform some cruel reversal later and crush her spirit completely?

She dared a glance in his direction and saw him place his oar in the forked bough at his knee and begin rowing them out toward the middle of the river. He did not look at her as he did this but rather gazed up and to the side—at a minor hole in the ceiling of Ursathrax left by a fallen stalactite, which still dribbled sparks—while pushing the oar in great, robust circles, and at a surprisingly rapid clip, even as locks of his long, dark-brown hair, the bulk of which was gathered in a gold band at the back of his neck (the skin of which was ashen blue) alighted on the breeze and fluttered behind him.

From this proximity and without all the smoke—although wisps of fog were everywhere—she could clearly see the slightly distended profile of his death mask, which appeared to be made of thin bronze beneath its chipped and cracked pigment (itself the greenish-blue pallor of the dead) and also a single steely eye, which was recessed amidst the blackened eyelet and whose yellow iris caught the light from the bow lantern and gleamed.

He was like an apparition, and there were at least three things in addition to his mask that she had difficulty looking away from. The first were his arms and shoulders, again, clearly visible now that he’d swept his cloak back, which were enormous for such a tall and otherwise lanky man— especially his dead-blue arms, which were so muscular and ropey and vascular and rough-hewn that he looked as though he had been performing hard labor since the day he was born, and one of which had been branded with the sign of the raven.

The second was his strange clothing and accouterments, nearly all of it black: the cloak with its broad hood and exquisite gold piping, the Mandarin-necked tunic whose collar had been embroidered, also in gold, with what could only be described as a phallus (but with a human skull where the scrotum would be), the rosary of fine bones, like chick bones, around his neck, the great, golden cross with an arrowhead at the bottom which glinted beneath his chest, as well as the leather cummerbund bearing all manner of tiny hooks and lanyards (some of which supported small black spheres which she recognized as being what he’d thrown to the pier to create the smoke-screen) and finally the thick, wide belt with its large, golden buckle and its attachment for the strange weapon which hung heavy at his hip (along with yet another pair of shackles).

It was that weapon that intrigued and terrified her the most, with its great blade that was the same size and shape of the scythe she used to cut down the overgrowth behind her cottage, and yet was forged, or so it seemed, of solid gold, yet a gold with alien highlights, of blue and pink and lapis lazuli. The blade was attached via a serpentine tang to a thick, bronze cylinder about a half-foot long, a cylinder veined with intricate, flowing threads of a strange, bluish alloy she had never before seen. She gathered there was more to the weapon than could be ascertained on first inspection, though why she thought this, she couldn’t say.

Perhaps it was the blood-red crystal, which was placed midway along the shaft as though it were a type of switch, and glowed from within with a kind of dark energy that filled her with unease, although, again, she would not have been able to explain why. Still, as much as she hated the Lucitor and his ferrymen—including this one, especially this one—she could not help but admire the economy and functionality of such a weapon, as the blade did not extend from the handle but rather lay parallel against it—until activated, that is, as it had been on the dock.

The ferryman turned to face her and she quickly looked away—as if an owl had suddenly focused on her in the dark. Now that they’d reached the trunk of the river, he had relaxed the intensity of his rowing to a more casual pace, and was allowing the current to do most the work. (She didn’t dare risk activating the ring now!) Instead she looked at the floorboards, and after a few moments, remembered the book lying next to her. She reached toward it habitually—but froze when the raven cawed loudly and its red beam fell upon the back of her hand.

A tense moment followed in which she looked from the ferryman to the raven then back again as her fingertips wavered over the golden cover. Then the ferryman motioned with his head, and the raven’s light swung away and switched off. She picked up the book slowly and placed it on her lap.

There was a brief gust of wind and all of Ursathrax seemed to moan, and as the sound echoed away down the great cavern she looked up at the Dire Borealis and marveled, as she often had, at its shimmering beauty.

Slowly, she opened the book, and the hologram popped up immediately, like a horizontal green quasar. The voice of Montair, the wise and venerated but little known author, began precisely where it had left off when she’d closed it, the quasar elongating and constricting as he spoke: “I have answered you in full—the crystal cage, the Caveam Cristallum, is you.”

The ferryman turned his head—but the shadows were such that it was impossible to determine if he was looking at her or not.

“At least insofar as you imagine yourself to be. And the world beyond its bars, or its columns, if you prefer, is pulchra illusio, a beautiful illusion. But while I have answered you in full, I have not questioned you in full. And my question to you is this: Would you step from your cage—”

The raven squawked harshly and she snapped the book closed. But while she had assumed the hologram had annoyed the creature, she could now see that wasn’t the case; rather, the black bird was poking its head this way and that as though it had heard something deep in the fog.

“Sthulhu,” said the ferryman. “Scout.” Oddly, his voice was not muffled by the mask but rather enriched and given gravitas by some technical means she could not understand.

Sthulhu launched himself into the gloom with a fracas of wings and they floated in silence for several moments. At last the ferryman said, quietly, as though he were speaking to himself, “‘Would you step from your cage if you knew the door was ajar?’”