Chapter One
The Great Gate
The good news is that death is not the end, but that is also the bad news. — The Book of Brin
Oh dear Mari, what have I done? Brin’s thought came too late. The pool had her. There was a distinct sucking sound as she was drawn into its center. She could feel the muck around her feet, a sensation like entering the throat of a toothless serpent, pulling her down. The icy chill, colder than anything she’d ever felt, inched up her legs and continued past her waist. What trapped her wasn’t liquid nor mud, but rather a thick freezing tar that seemed alive. She shook with terror as, inch by inch, the goo crept up her chest, making it difficult to breathe.
Tesh cried out as if he, too, were dying—the loss of Brin’s life ending his own.
How can I do this? He really loves me, and I—
Like the hand of a corpse from a nightmare, the muck slid around her neck. Sinking farther, Brin tilted her head back in a last desperate attempt to keep her face above the murky pool. When the slime covered her mouth and eyes, she could no longer suppress the scream.
With her mouth filled with muck, the shriek was silent. Tesh would never know that her last word had been his name. After the shout, Brin refused to inhale. The instinct not to draw in a breath while underwater proved stronger than her desire for air.
Heroic thoughts, which had given her the courage to enter the pool, vanished from her mind; reason, reflection, and contemplation soon followed. What remained was a staccato rhythm of imagery: sunshine on leaves, rain in a bucket, chopped carrots, her mother’s laughter, an icy pond. As her mind froze in terror, her body lashed out, kicking and thrashing in a hopeless struggle to survive. Reaching up, her hand briefly broke the surface. She felt air—air!
So close.
And so short-lived, as her fingers were consumed once more.
Her arms slowed, growing weak. Her legs refused to listen to her mind and stopped moving.
Additional images emerged: fire in the lodge, sheep in a windstorm, Tesh’s hand in hers, words on a page.
While trying to breathe might kill her, her body determined that not breathing certainly would, so she inhaled. Sludge entered through her nose and mouth. Further attempts to bring in more air stopped with all the suddenness of a bird hitting a window. An involuntary cough sought to clear her airways, but it was as futile as a frightened child shouting at a tempest.
The panic dissipated. A calm enveloped her as she hung motionless in a cold, timeless expanse.
Slowly, her mind returned. Thoughts coalesced into ideas once more, and the first was the most obvious.
I made a mistake—my last mistake.
Brin waited patiently, knowing death was overdue.
More time passed. Nothing happened.
Is it over? Am I . . . ?
The darkness was so absolute that Brin wasn’t sure if her eyes were open or closed—a ridiculous thought because she couldn’t tell if she had eyes anymore.
Am I dead? I must be.
The thought surfaced with a peculiar calm acceptance, an oddly reasoned conclusion to a most unusual situation. The deduction wasn’t obvious, as she still had no clear indication of death. The panic had departed, as had the discomfort of choking, and she no longer felt cold. But by themselves these things didn’t definitively signify death. She briefly considered that she might still be alive and had merely passed out.
She tried moving her arms and legs, and they resumed obeying her commands. These limbs reported that she was in a liquid, but it wasn’t the thick slime of the pool.
Water. I’m in water.
A moment later, her head breached the surface. Brin took an involuntary breath and began to bob and splash.
Have I somehow survived? Did I . . . ?
Everything was still black, but some things were self-evident. She wasn’t in the pool, nor anywhere on the island, and no longer with the witch. Tesh was gone, forever beyond her reach.
The River of Death.
Brin knew the stories. Those who had almost died told of a powerful, dark waterway that carried them toward a bright light. Brin didn’t see any glow, and she didn’t feel dead. She had her arms and legs, and she was just as bad at swimming as always. Relaxing her efforts, she stopped kicking and let her arms fall limp. Rather than sinking, she floated and bobbed. In that stillness, she couldn’t perceive anything: no light, no sound, no smell, no taste or feeling. Brin found herself drowning in nothingness, and in that void, she had to wonder, Am I only imagining the existence of arms and legs? With nothing to interact with, she had no means to confirm anything, no ability to refute a growing fear.
Do I still exist? With that came a second, even more horrifying thought. Was there ever someone named Brin? Did any of what I remember of my life actually happen?
She had no clear answers. Thoughts needed frameworks, references, and foundations. She had none. Along with her senses, she felt herself slipping away.
Am I . . . ?
The sensation of the water vanished. The feeling of bobbing disappeared.
Do I exist?
Without connection, Brin couldn’t maintain any sense of herself.
I’m not drowning. I’m dissolving.
What little had been left of her dispersed, broke up, and melted. She faded, nearly vanished, and then—
A light appeared.
Brin saw it. A mere pinprick, like a far-distant star.
Something else exists—so I can, too. I’m not completely gone.
The glint grew. Its radiance revealed the river, a dark, inky snake that wound through a massive rock canyon. Seeing the walls, watching them slide past, Brin knew she was moving, going somewhere. In the reassurance that swelled within her, Brin had a moment to think, to remember. Instantly, she was stabbed by the memory of Tesh, of the cry he’d let out. The sound had stayed with her. That horrible scream had followed her all the way down.
I’m sorry, Brin thought, as the light grew bigger and brighter.
Neither yellow nor orange, the glow possessed a lackluster, pale quality, like a late afternoon in deep winter when the sun was lost behind a blanket of clouds. As she drew closer, the illumination made it possible to see farther, and she discerned the impossibly high walls of jagged stone that rose to either side. Where the river ended was a pool and a beach bathed in light. The movement of silhouetted figures caught her attention.
People! Yes, there are most definitely others.
The light was behind them, so all she saw were silhouettes, hundreds standing together in a crowd. Beyond them, Brin spotted the source of the glow emanating from behind a great gate and a pair of towering doors. They were closed, but the brilliance was so powerful that it bled through the gaps between the door and the frame.
Unexpectedly, Brin’s feet touched a sandy bottom. She was dragged along for a bit, then she caught her footing and stood.
“Brin!” Roan shouted while coming toward her. Her friend didn’t look dead. Roan appeared just as she had before entering the pool, not a bit of muck visible as she pulled Brin from the water.
“Stupid girl.” Moya came over and hugged Brin tightly. Breaking the embrace, Moya reached up and brushed away one of Brin’s stray hairs. “I told you not to come. Ordered you. Why? Why didn’t you listen?”
“I realized something that I hadn’t before but should have. Muriel’s name was listed in the Agave tablets along with Ferrol, Drome, and Mari. If she is a god, then her father would be, too. Tressa was right about Malcolm and he wanted me to come.”