Bone, Fog, Ash & Star (The Last Days of Tian Di #3)(5)

At length they came to a river. Without faltering, the shadows walked straight into the river and were swept away by its powerful current. The river was full of bodies, only their heads sometimes visible above the black rushing water. Eliza stopped at the bank of the river and felt the strange pull it exerted. She too wanted to step into it and be carried off. She dared not look at it too long, for when she did it seemed to call to her. It was as if the water was telling her, For too long your feet have borne the burden of carrying you and you have never known where you should go. Let me take you now. She walked along the river in the direction that it flowed. She walked alive in the place of death until the river poured between two colossal dark paws and disappeared.

Eliza looked up. Crouched over the river was a giant panther with a starved face and eyes each as vast and cavernous as the caldera of a volcano, shining with black flame. It was looking right at her.

Go back, said the panther.

Its voice was inside her bones, behind her eyes; an empty voice, echoing and insubstantial.

The black current swept countless beings between the paws of the panther and they vanished.

I know who you are, said Eliza. The words made no sound. Her voice had no power here.

The panther said again, Go back.

Dragons, humans, centaurs, eagles, witches, giants, foxes, trolls – she saw them carried by the river to oblivion between those paws. With a jolt of horror, she saw a gryphon. Not just a gryphon – Charlie. Even as a fast-moving shadow in the dark water she recognized him, she knew him. Before she could move he swept past her like the others, disappeared.

The shock of it froze her for a moment and then her mind began to race. The panther spoke to her again: You cannot follow him. This is the edge of things. You have to go back.

She knew it was true but in the moment she saw Charlie, her beloved Charlie in his gryphon form flashing by and disappearing, she wanted nothing but to disappear also, to be swallowed by whatever lay beyond those paws. Her grief opened her wide, drew her apart from herself. It weighed her down and pulled her towards the black water. The river called her more surely now, claimed her. She felt it lapping at her feet. She looked bleakly into the water at the beings it carried through the dark. Though at first she could not say why, certain creatures caught her eye in particular: a grey cat, a wolf, a donkey, a half-hunter, but it meant nothing to her until she saw a small, dark-haired woman she recognized: Missus Ash. Missus Ash, who had taken care of her when she first came to the Mancer Citadel as a terrified twelve-year-old, and who had turned out to be only one guise of the Shade. Then she understood that every form Charlie had ever taken was distinct in this river. She could not save them all, but she could save the one she loved best. She scanned the water for his face. What if he was lost already?

She caught sight of him at last, her own dear Charlie in the shape of a beautiful seventeen-year-old human boy. His face was calm and pale as the water bore him towards the panther. He did not struggle or try to swim.

“Charlie!” It took all her will to make a sound but he did not seem to hear her. There was no time to consider. Eliza threw herself into the river. It wrapped itself around her hungrily.

The cold was unlike anything she could have imagined. What breath she had left, it stole from her. It froze her heart and lungs and drew her racing towards the void. But Eliza was a strong swimmer. She drove herself through the black water towards Charlie. She wrapped one arm around him tight and struck out, legs kicking, one arm wind-milling, struggling for the shore.

The water carried them fast, poured over her head and into her mouth. The taste was death, the simple blackening end to all. She gagged and coughed it up again, pulled herself through the water, pulled Charlie. The great paws loomed. The water filled her veins with its icy darkness. Her heart choked on it. She could not reach the bank and so she grabbed the paw with her free arm. She clung to one silken claw, there at the drop where the river disappeared. She held Charlie to her and she begged.

Let me take this one. I’ll go back, but let me take this one with me.

No. This one is mine.

A rush of wings inside her skull, and then outside, all around – her ravens swarming around the panther’s thin, ravenous face, cawing.

He is mine! Eliza screamed with something other than her voice. She shook the dark, wrung the airless void. He is mine! Give him to me!

The panther opened his awful mouth and snapped at the swarming ravens. His teeth flashed white, his tongue was red as flame. The ravens retreated and then dove at him again, cawing, shrieking.

Give him to me! Give him to me! Give him to me!

She dragged Charlie over the giant paw to the bank, the cold nothing that lay on each side of the rushing water. Her ravens filled the emptiness with black beating wings and screaming voices.

Give him to me! Give him to me!

The panther roared. The river roiled.

Give him to me. She sobbed, holding him in her arms, rocking him. His cheek was ice-cold against hers. He is mine. She wept and the ravens beat their wings in a frenzy. He is mine. Give him to me.

Go back! The panther roared again.

She held him to her. The river swelled and poured over its banks, rushing around them. The ravens formed a towering black column, spiraling around her, the wind from their wings pushing the water back so it swept around her but did not touch her. In the centre of this storm of ravens, in this gap in the roaring river of death, she held him. Her lungs ached, her heart strangled. Water and ravens spun about her. She opened her mouth and felt Magic pouring out of it. The crouching panther lurched to its feet, a great tail lashing somewhere in the dark. Fiery-tongued and roaring he pounced. The Magic pouring from Eliza’s mouth split the dark. Holding the boy close, she burst through the sky, plummeting. Charlie would catch her as he always did. Or she would become a raven at last, this time, and save them both.