Chapter 7

  Riley McFinn

  And little he knew of the things that ink may do, how it can mark a dead man’s thought for the wonder of later years, and tell of happenings that are gone clean away, and be a voice for us out of the dark of time, and save many a fragile thing from the pounding of heavy ages; or carry to us, over the rolling centuries, even a song from lips long dead on forgotten hills.

  - Lord Dunsany, The King of Elfland’s Daughter

  Reunion Protocol Initiated.

  Riley McFinn sighed in relief when he read Clara’s report. Most of her messages failed to get through to him here, even with CHIME. This one had reached him on the fourth attempt. Things were getting bad on Earth. It was drifting away.

  The train station was huge, dark, empty—words fitting for most of what he had seen of this Dream Museum. Reflective, perhaps, of the state of the universe as a whole? But on the other hand, the universe didn’t give him the creeps. He’d never been the jumpy type. Never in his life had anyone accused Riley McFinn of being nervous. But the Museum was spooky, and there was no getting around it. Things changed themselves around when not directly observed. He could neither discard nor ignore the sensation that something else was observing him . And some of the things Nick had told him, deadly serious: Don’t try to open a locked door. Don’t look behind you if you’re in the dark. Never, under any circumstances, go into the Basement.

  This train station, for example, was unlike any Riley had seen for its comprehensive lack of both trains and passengers. Dozens and dozens of tracks terminated at a series of platforms jutting out like piers into the shadows, and the tracks snaked away into the unknown distance. A few ornate wrought-iron lampposts dimly illumined the platforms with flickering gaslights, making shadows dance in the dry, musty air. His footsteps echoed and re-echoed on the tile when he walked, a ghostly accompaniment. Far above, ineffectual lights hung from what was presumably the ceiling, though Riley could discern neither their distance nor composition. Several of these lights swung gently, as if recently disturbed.

  He dug a tattered notebook from his pocket. More advice from Nick: better to rely on pen and paper here than circuitry and wires. A list of words and phrases, all of them crossed off:

  Landing

  Golf Course

  Storage (tanks)

  Port

  Cemetery

  Void walk (tile)

  Storage (crates)

  Industrial

  Void walk (taffy?)

  Gallery

  He added Train station to the list. No unconscious teenagers here. He moved on, tapping the McFinnium-tipped cane steadily on the dark stone tiling as he went.

  As fascinating as the Museum was, Riley was getting a bit fed up with it. He had been here for around a full day already, according to his time-locked McFinnium watch. He had eaten, slept, continued the search. His legs were becoming sore.

  As he considered the fitness of his legs, something new caught his eye ahead. There, toward the far end of the Station, extended a kind of walkway. A moving walkway, he saw as he came closer. For his sore legs.

  “And this was exactly the suspicious absurdity that annoyed him,” said Riley McFinn. The Museum was alive, or almost alive, Nick had told him. It seemed to be reading his thoughts, reacting to his subconscious. Riley knew already that he had a mathematically null chance of locating Eric Walker and Heidi Sheppard by conventional means, i.e. wandering around and hoping to find them by coincidence. The Museum, or possibly the enigmatic Dark Man, would have to place them in his path. And not even Nick, for all his knowledge of this bizarre dream world, knew how to make that happen.

  Riley stepped onto the walkway. It whisked him away into the darkness where the train tracks led. He looked up as he left, and noticed that roughly half of the lights far up above were swinging, some of them rather violently. He was glad when they vanished away, but his relief lasted only long enough to realize that it was almost entirely dark around him now. His momentum picked up, the moving sidewalk accelerating until his cape fluttered out behind him. Faster now than he could run. He gripped the rubber handrail.

  Light ahead. He focused on that light, on not looking behind him, even though he knew, just as he always knew here, that something was there in the dark behind him, watching.

  The light grew, and he emerged into the airspace over a murky twilit city, the clouds still reflecting the last rosy dregs of sunset. This city hurt his eyes; the angles were all wrong—cubism impossibly rendered into three dimensions. Here was a place where one could view every side of a pyramid at once.

  The buildings were windowless masses of angular metal gleaming dully in the light, identifiable as buildings by the winding alleys dividing them and the oddly shaped apertures at their bases. A webbing of cables connected their summits, somehow enhancing the insanity of the headache-inducing geometry.

  The moving walkway emerged onto the city from a tunnel in the side of a mountain, where it ran concurrent with a pair of train rails. It arched over the city before proceeding down into the ground some distance ahead. Riley averted his gaze from the eye-watering sight of the buildings and added another name to the list: Impossible City. He considered adding ‘(metal)’ in case he encountered another impossible city.

  The walkway sloped to ground level and beyond into a metallic tube ringed with blinking green lights. A figure stood near the place where the walkway dropped through the ground. This secured Riley’s full attention at once. In all his time here so far, he had only seen one person, and it had been the Dark Man, glimpsed always at a distance. This was not the Dark Man.

  The figure was blue, humanoid, covered in glassy scales that made a rough texture over its body. It had long braids of dark hair and a spear, and it watched him with azure shark-like eyes as he descended. They made eye contact, and the creature bared a mouthful of sharp serrated teeth at him. It glowed blue; the scales on its body rippled with light. A faint tinkling sound reached him as the creature leveled its spear in warning.

  He made no move either to defend himself or to step off the speeding walkway. It was seconds from the time that they saw each other to the time that Riley dropped away into the dark tunnel. Then the figure was gone, vanished back into speed and distance.

  Riley thought he knew what that thing was. Nick had told him about creatures like that. Daimon, they were called. But why was one here in the Museum? Perhaps he should have spoken to it. They were supposed to be allies? But this one had been dangerous; Riley had seen it in the creature’s eyes. It would have struck him down without regret or remorse if it had believed the act necessary. It would have tried, at any rate, and Riley didn’t need that distraction at the moment.

  The walkway slowed and deposited Riley back into the area that he mentally labeled as Museum Proper. This was the part that actually resembled an elaborate museum, that had spurred his niece to name this entire thing the ‘Dream Museum’ to begin with. Personally, Riley thought ‘Hotel’ would have been a better fit, what with all the doors. And with most of the doors being locked. But on the other hand, Dream Hotel didn’t have quite the same ring to it. It certainly didn’t sound like a hotel he’d be interested in staying at.

  He was considering this, how Dream Hotel actually sounded rather seedy, and about the generally inverse relationship between the presumptuousness of hotel names and quality of said hotels, when he turned a corner and saw yet another rare other person. This one he recognized, though they had never met. The man had a scarecrow physique, tall and gaunt, with a pale narrow face, twitching spidery hands, greasy dark hair, and rectangular glasses that did not hide the peculiar burn scars around both of his eyes.

  “Ezekiel,” said Riley. Later, he would reflect that he had here missed a chance to strike while unnoticed and perhaps end Ezekiel’s life before he could cause further trouble. But striking from behind had never been his style. And style mattered, even at the end of the world.

  Ezekiel stood on the other side of an ornamental pond, tapping a boot on the blood-red carpet as he contemplated a brass-framed spiral staircase that spun up and away to dizzying heights, a golden helix forming the core of a cylindrical oak-paneled room with no discernible upper limit. The spiral stair connected by delicate walkways to brightly colored doors at many points along its upward journey.

  Ezekiel reacted well. He spun smoothly, his grey and orange OI-emblazoned trench coat swirling around him, and he suddenly had Riley at the other end of a little boxlike device that Riley, to his surprise, could not identify. Ezekiel leaned slightly askew as though against a stiff breeze, and he looked thin enough that a breeze could in fact blow him over. The burn scars spreading from his eyes were red, as though inflamed, and looked almost like twisted words.

  Ezekiel’s eyes widened comically on his thin, pale face as he recognized the one who had snuck up on him. “McFinn?”

  Riley nodded, but kept both hands on his cane. Ezekiel’s hazel eyes flickered to the cane for a moment. The cluster of McFinnium at the end pulsed with a soft color-shifting light in time with Riley’s heartbeat. As much as Riley had no idea what Ezekiel had there in his hand, neither could Ezekiel know the capabilities of this cane.

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  “An impasse, I guess,” said Ezekiel with a small smile. “Must we be adversaries here? Let us dispense with these pleasantries and speak as gentlemen.”

  “Easy enough to say…” said McFinn. But, to his surprise, Ezekiel lowered the box and placed it in his pocket. He raised both hands to show he was unarmed. McFinn didn’t believe it for a second. It would not do to underestimate this man—or whatever he was. But Ezekiel must have noticed that Riley had passed up an opportunity to kill him. A talk might enlighten them both. They were scientists, after all, not barbarians.

  Riley lowered the cane, though he did not let it go.

  Ezekiel nodded in satisfaction. “Riley McFinn. A pleasure to finally meet you in person, I guess.” He bowed slightly, and he seemed sincere.

  “I wish I could say the same, Ezekiel…” Riley paused. “Do you have a last name?”

  Ezekiel’s mouth twisted as though tasting something sour. “Yes. I guess we all do.” He said no more.

  “Well?” Riley asked, genuinely curious. “What is it?”

  “Starlight.”

  “Starlight? Ezekiel Starlight?”

  A wry smile. “I guess. Can you imagine? Can you imagine someone writing a story and naming the antagonist ‘Starlight?’”

  “Wrong question, Starlight. You should be asking, ‘why am I identifying myself as the antagonist?’”

  “You really don’t know who I am? I guess ‘Nikola Raschez’ never told you.”

  Riley shook his head. Nick had told him a lot of things about the trio of peculiar people he had brought in from some other dimension, but he’d never said anything about their being ‘antagonists.’

  “Well. Doesn’t matter, I guess. The point is, antagonists are destined to lose. Almost always. I guess if you’re keen, you can see what kind of story you’re in.”

  Riley employed one of his favorite tactics: expectant silence. It worked.

  “I guess ‘antagonism’ is subjective. Not that it matters to your average storyteller.”

  “You’re still playing the antagonist,” Riley pointed out. “You did try to kill Jimothy Whyte, did you not? A fourteen-year-old child. Doesn’t seem very subjective to me.”

  “Of course not. You can’t change the name you were given, and neither can I. None of us can, I guess.”

  “Tell that to Nicholas Carter,” said Riley. “You might be from a ‘story,’ Mr. Starlight; maybe you walked out of one of these doors, but Nick didn’t. And neither did I.”

  Ezekiel Starlight gave Riley a lopsided smirk. Something about the scars around his eyes made the expression at once absurd and sinister. “Is that what you think, McFinn? I’m from a story, but you’re not? You’re from ‘reality?’ I used to think that. I used to be a lot like you, I guess.” He leaned closer, lowered his voice to a volume just above a whisper. “I know that you think you’re the main character. I guess everyone does. But you especially. Because you know that if it weren’t for all of this,” he waved a hand vaguely, encompassing not only the Museum but the entire messy situation involving both of them, “you’d be the star of the show. It would be about you—Riley McFinn. It would be your story. You’d be the most important man in the world, I guess.”

  Ezekiel straightened up. “If I were you—which I almost was, once—I’d ask myself what I really want. Then I’d compare that with what everyone else wants. That’s the only correct way to choose sides, I guess. To decide what to do.”

  Riley opened his mouth to ask what Ezekiel himself really wanted, he and his friends who had murdered Nicholas Carter and tried to do the same to six children, but at that moment the pond between them exploded.

  The steam parted around Riley, deflected by a protective forcefield from the staff. It was only steam, he realized after a moment. Just a smokescreen. “I did enjoy our chat,” Ezekiel shouted, his voice rapidly ascending. “Until next time, I guess.”

  Riley cleared away the steam with a flick of the cane, shoving it all to one side and condensing it back into water. Somewhere up above, a door slammed. He couldn’t tell which one, and so didn’t bother with pursuit.

  Instead, he took the brass staircase up and crossed the first walkway, which connected to a forest green wooden door.

  Some wandering later, he stepped into a new place. ‘Library,’ he wrote in the notebook. After a moment, he added ‘(wet).’

  The shelves were dripping rock and glistening coral, lit by flickering wall-mounted torches. Mussels and barnacles crusted the books. The stone floor gritted under his shoes and ran with rivulets of brackish water. Stalactites dripped above. The air was thick and damp and salty.

  Riley held the cane out like a torch to let the shifting light of the McFinnium illuminate the nearest bookcase. He tried to read some of the spines, but to no avail. The leather was molded and rotten, stained beyond legibility. Some books had stone covers. He pulled on one of these and found it holding fast to its neighbors. He applied some muscle, and with a heave broke the crust of coral which bound it. It was heavy; he awkwardly cradled it in one arm and opened it with the hand still holding the cane. The pages were stone too, a dozen thin slabs etched with runic symbols. He replaced it after a moment.

  He tried a few more books out of mild curiosity, but even when he came across a paper-leafed book that wasn’t entirely ruined by damp, he couldn’t read a damn word of it. Nor did he have any guesses as to what language was scrawled on the pages.

  Through the labyrinth of water and books, and he came suddenly upon the Dark Man.

  He had only ever glimpsed the Dark Man out of the corner of his eye, always watching from a distance. Everything he knew about this figure had been told to him by Nick. “Even more theatrical than you, if you can believe it,” Nick had said. Nick had theorized that the Dark Man wasn’t so much an actual person as the personification of the Museum, a manifestation of the strange mind of the place, possibly taking human form because it was being viewed by humans. Or, perhaps the Dark Man was an antibody. A security guard, a night watchman, keeping the peace. The only things Nick had known for sure were that the Dark Man seemed to always know what was going on, and that he could exert control over the protean environment of the Museum. And that he didn’t like it if you tried to open a locked door. (Which in Riley’s mind only proved the intriguing idea that the doors could be forced somehow, even if locked.)

  Whatever the nature of the Dark Man, it could be no coincidence that Riley had come suddenly upon him. He was not fooled when the Dark Man, sitting at a glistening stone desk that matched the surroundings, appeared not to notice Riley’s arrival. The Dark Man’s broad black hat, shining with beads of moisture, tilted down over the book he wrote in. An array of dripping tallow candles about the edge of the desk illuminated the yellowing pages of the damp manuscript.

  Riley waited patiently while the Dark Man wrote. He listened to the faint skritch of the quill pen, the dripping water, and the echoing sound of something heavy falling over somewhere far away.

  At last, the Dark Man concluded his writing. He set the pen in the jar and leaned back to admire his work. Riley could see from this distance that the writing was not the same as the indecipherable runes he had seen earlier. He wasn’t close enough to read it, but it might even have been English.

  The Dark Man leaned forward to blow on the page, encouraging the ink to dry, but the act of leaning forward sent a small trickle of water from the brim of his hat directly onto the page, where it marred half a paragraph. He laughed, reached out, and slammed the book shut. The sound reverberated in the cavernous library; the floor itself seemed to quiver. The candles went out, leaving McFinn in flickering shadows.

  It was the work of a moment to activate a small drone. It rose overhead and lit the area with a harsh glare. The Dark Man was nowhere to be found, but the desk was there, as was the book.

  It was leather bound, and the cover was clearly legible as McFinn rounded the desk to have a look.

  Nicholas Carter

  16

  McFinn opened to a random page in the middle of the book. He read a paragraph about Nick’s trip to Romania in High School, written in what was apparently the Dark Man’s handwriting. McFinn picked the book up. It was heavier than it appeared. He flipped through to the back. The pages turned and turned, falling and falling. It took a long time to reach the back of the book. He must have flipped thousands of pages, though the book wasn’t thick enough for them.

  He reached the back. He read the last paragraph. Then, after a moment, he kept reading.

  McFinn snapped the book shut. It was heavy, but he’d be taking it with him.

  Something caught his eye as he prepared to continue on his search for the two kids. There was a row of books on a nearby shelf, all very similar in size and appearance to the one he held in his hands. A clear progression of age could be made out: the rightmost books existed in only a moderate state of ruination from the damp, whereas the books on the far left were little more than moldering lumps.

  There were sixteen of them, and it was clear to McFinn that the one in his hands was meant to join them. The curious thing was that the book he held was not the last. The final books were 14, 15, 17.

  He took the last book, Nicholas Carter 17, and perused it for a few minutes. It seemed accurate. He turned to the final page. The last line in #17 stayed last. It described the last moments of an explosion onboard a plane. And beneath:

  The End.

  McFinn, after some thought, left #17 on the shelf. The books were heavy, and there was only so much he could carry. But he did step down to the far end of the shelf, where he seized the congealed, rotten mass of what was presumably Nicholas Carter 1. He prized it with great care from the shelf, taking pains to prevent it from disintegrating in his hands.

  Then, with #1 and #16, he continued on his way.