Free The Last Guardian of Everness (War of the Dreaming 1) by John C. Wright Page B

light to hinder and oppose me; proud Morningstar and all his hellish crew pursued my flight even to the utmost gates of day, preferring damnation to retreat. The blood of immortals was shed to win the Key to Earth; and, by its virtue, all the gates to hell and alien dream-lands were locked shut, yes, with incalculable expense of patience, bravery, and pain. My sacrifice not praised, you say? Forgotten? By all? Does none recall where now the Key is hid?”
    “Key? What Key. . .?”
    A note of slight surprise: “The Silver Key of Everness, of course, Clavargent, which locks and unlocks the Gate you guard: the Key by which dream-figments can be made to stand solid and cast shadows beneath the waking sun. The Key by which all sane and solid things can be made to fade at once to mist and dreams. The Key which is the source of all the power of Everness and the only hope for the victory of mankind. Have you truly never heard of it?”
    Galen reluctantly shook his head.
    The figure sagged slightly. The shoulders slipped down. Galen could see scars and bloodstains where iron thorns had cut his arms and shoulders. “Then you are not the Guardian.” The voice was bitter, heavy with defeat.
    “N-no. My Grandfather Lemuel is the Guardian. But your bird landed on me. I heard the message. I came. He will not come.”
    A low chuckle. “How kind. A youth who is not the Guardian, and has no power and no authority, will listen to my warning (which he will prove too weak and foolish and young to act upon) and will hear my plan (which he will not be able to carry out). How supreme a kindness your attentiongives me! Had you not come, I should have been forced to impart my learning to passing sea-birds or crawling lice. To tell them would do as much good!”
    Galen felt anger, like bile, in his throat. “I’m here. I can do something.”
    “Indeed? And has the Guardian told you why he will not come? No? Do you know what power has commanded him from answering me? No, again? And you were never told where the Silver Key was hidden, were you?”
    Galen tried to speak with dignity, but he felt his face grow warm. “He . . . doesn’t tell me much . . .”
    “Your pride is offended, is it not, youth?” The voice from the darkness of the cage was gentler now. There was a note of kindness in it. And yet the bloodstained arm still gripped the chain.
    “It’s like he doesn’t trust me or something.”
    “You are below the twenty years and four, and not yet in your majority.”
    “I’m an adult!”
    “Adult enough to hold the Silver Key which could, unwisely used, render all the Earth to irredeemable destruction?”
    Galen was silent. A sigh of cold wind came up from underfoot, making him shiver. He pulled his gray fur cloak more tightly about him, wondering from what places that wind had come, or what was the strange odor he smelled on it.
    He wondered what this Silver Key was, or where it was hidden.
    Azrael said: “Perhaps you may prevail upon your grandfather, my remote descendant, to entrust you with the secret lore of Everness, if you prove yourself gallant, wise, and worthy. Some notable feat to the defense of Everness might enflame his admiration.”
    This was so near Galen’s unvoiced, hidden hope that he could not dare to speak. He nodded, wondering if he were so transparent.
    Galen shivered again in the wind, and then, with a feeling almost of guilt, he drew the strings of his cloak. Galen folded the warm fabric into a bundle, and gingerly extended it toward the cage.
    “Here,” he said. “You must be cold.”
    The figure in the cage did not stir.
    “Come on! Take it!” Galen wiggled the bundle in the direction of the bars.
    “Thrust your cape through these cruel bars to me, and I shall thank you with good thanks.”
    Galen hesitated.
    “Or do you fear to come within arm’s grip of me?”
    “You could just reach up with your hand,” answered Galen in a loud voice. “What’s the matter? Afraid to let go of the chain?