Forgotten Place

This is apparently a dream I had on 11/27/2007.  After waking, I immediately wrote it down.  I have included the entirety here, without changes.

Once a terror to the civilized world, determined to reap in power from all corners for her own pleasure and unkind purposes, Ursula Shal'ingra now stood alone -- or, rather, staggered on her feet, barely able to stay upright.  She didn't have more than a minute or two to live, and she knew it -- and, just as importantly, he knew it, the one who stood just across from her, not with her, but watching, to make sure she was wholly defeated and died as she should.

He didn't particularly want her to die; he had just wanted her to stop, and there was something of pity in his eyes, now that the fire of fury had faded.  But he didn't come forward to save her; she hadn't expected him to, not after what she had done.  Even if he had offered, Ursula would never have accepted, not knowing the alternative.

And not knowing what she knew about last possibilities, a last ability that even he knew nothing about.

She smiled.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

"I am thinking," she replied, her smile growing, "that I know something you don't know.  And that in this, not even you can stop me."

"What are you doing?" he was alarmed now, and started forward -- as if that would help him!  "Listen to me, Ursula, please -- you're done here!  Just let it end!"

"What do you think I'm going to do?  Blow up the world as a last stand?  Unleash a plague the likes of with these pathetic people have never seen?  How would I do that?"

"Tell me what you're doing!"

The smile broke into a laugh as a rush of emotion surged through Ursula, even as tears streamed down her face.  She could feel everything fading, moving away.  But he had defeated her, so she would give him one last hint: "Look for me in the Forgotten Place," she gasped in between laughs and then crumpled, the last of her breath leaving her, and was dead.

The lone man stood and looked down at the corpse, no more powerful or beautiful or memorable than any other corpse, then leaned down and closed the eyes.  "What did you do?" he whispered to it, and then turned and strode swiftly out of the hall, his heels clicking delicately on the marble floor and echoing hollowly about the facades and pillars along the wall.  He did not look back, and when he left, there was no sound in the hall for a long time.

There was a mysterious fire in the palace that night, and the ancient structure burned until it was nothing more than a husk.  No one had bothered to put out the fire until it began to threaten to spread.  As the people living near said, they didn't know who had started the fire, but it was a good job, and the site would be perfect for a new cemetery, because none but the dead would go there.

-- -- -- -- -- --

Time passed, as it does, oblivious to the pain and joy it causes, and some of the wounds that Ursula had scored were healed and faded with hardly a scar, and other emergencies rose and fell and rose again, and life went on, and what had happened was merely History.

But one man did not forget, and even as he traveled from one place to another to help and heal and save, he kept his eyes open and searched and listened and made careful inquiries about something known as the Forgotten Place.  And eventually, as Ursula had known he would, he found it.

While not the most unlikely of places, the town of Mossag was not exactly exciting.  It was home to about a thousand people and crouched humbly next to the sea, often cold and windy but always with the lonely sort of stark beauty which can be so frequently found in such places.  The people of the town were of two sorts: those who kept the town going -- the merchants and fishermen and shopkeepers, a hard-working, steady bunch with no imagination and no romantic notions; the other sorts were precisely the opposite -- poets and writers and historians and musicians who came to the out-of-the-way Mossag for peace and inspiration as they toiled.  No one came to this place for vacation or built houses along the sea for pleasure -- or if they did, they abandoned those houses within a few days and never ventured back.  This was not a place for leisure or careless pleasures or parties.

He walked along the beach, the wind and waves so loud against his ears that any lesser sounds emanating from the sounds were blanked out as thoroughly as if they had never existed at all.  There was no else on the beach, and therefore no one to see him take a slender vial of clear liquid out of his pocket as he reached the edge of the water.  Not bothering to shed even his boots or the heavy coat which protected him from the wind, the man walked out into the waves, carefully bracing himself so that he was not knocked over, and swam out until his feet no longer touched the sand and he bobbed helplessly in the waves, his head barely above water, and completely numb from cold.  It was a wonder that he hadn't already been pulled until and drowned; he must have been amazingly strong swimmer.  Still, even he couldn't possibly last much longer.

Carefully holding the vial above water, the man uncorked it and swallowed the contents in one gulp before careful replacing the vial in his coat pocket and letting the waves push him down.

Under the water, the waves were much less violent, and the spray didn't hurt his eyes when he opened them to look around.  There wasn't much to see as yet; sand, some small, distant creatures, shells.  Glancing all about him to make sure he was alone, he carefully inhaled, slowly, filling his lungs with oxygen even as his nose sucked in water.  A very strange feeling, he decided, but not an entirely bad one.  As long as he breathed long and slow breaths, and didn't descend into greater pressure too quickly, he should be fine.

Slowly circling down – and sorting out his twisted coat as he went – he continued to concentrate on his breathing.  The vial’s liquid had not been to allow him to breathe but to warm him, and it would only last a few hours, and was so strong that if he had been anything but freezing when he had taken it, he would have ended up as so much burnt roast.  The breathing underwater . . . that was just a knack.  Anyone could do that, so long as he knew how.

He swam steadily away from shore and down until he had reached the sand again, still curiously devoid of life although the water around him held the occasional fish, little more dared venture in these parts.  And he was here to find out why.

It had been just a hint, the story which had lead him here.  The native people weren't ones for telling stories, but their fishermen had fallen upon hard times these last two decades, as if the fish were afraid to come in these parts.  Conversely, sharks were uncommonly common and it was dangerous for anyone to enter the water within two miles of the town.  People had disappeared, children and adults alike, and very, very few had made it back.  Daniel Magram's boy had returned, had been rescued by his uncle.  But the uncle had drowned, and the boy . . . well, there was always a boy like that, wherever you went.  Thirty years old, and he hadn't spoken a word for fourteen years.  And Lisa Hawkin had come back, only to run away at sixteen and marry a traveling salesman and never return.  Things happened.

He recognized the touch.

He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, only that it would be obvious when he found it, as such things so often are.

It was getting darker now, as the day moved into late afternoon and he swam deeper into the sea, but even so, the black rectangle caught and held his eye and he moved swiftly towards it, still breathing in the careful, steady way that allowed him to stay alive down here.  It wasn't long before he had drawn level with the spot and could see it clearly.  It was very odd indeed: in the sand a black triangle fifteen inches by twenty.  It was a hole -- or not solid -- but the hole seemed to lead to nothing; it was a rectangle of nothing.

Or, more likely, it just looked like one.  He reached back in his coat and pulled out the vial which he floated gently in the direction of the hole so that it slowly sunk through.

Nothing happened for several minutes and then the vial was pushed back up through with a note attached to it on peculiar, brown paper.  Come in, the note said.  You will not be harmed.  I have been waiting. -- U.S'i

Come in.  Well, he remembered Ursula, didn't he?  A note was a contract and could not be broken, but that didn't mean that it didn't have a trick behind it.  And much as he didn't like the idea of his legs sticking out for any shark to come by and snack on, it was better than leaving his luck to Ursula.  Lying on the sand -- or floating as close as he could to it -- he touched the black rectangle with two fingers and the reached through and gripped the rock behind to steady himself as he pulled his head and shoulders down into the hole.  This is what he saw:

The blackness was no thicker than light and gave way to a greyish cavern about twenty feet deep which spread out as it went so, although the top was no bigger than the rectangle, the base diameter was about ten feet.  Creatures lined the sides, far too large to fit in the tiny spaces they inhabited, although they did so without apparent difficulty, and some seemed to have even become part of the rock as the years passed – far more, apparently, than had passed elsewhere.  But with Ursula, that wasn’t really surprising, nor were the strange mutations which almost all the creatures seemed to have suffered; very few now bore any resemblance to their original state, human or non.  There were two exceptions to this: one was Ursula herself, the other a girl of eleven or twelve dressed in attire that hadn’t been in fashion for more than a century, even in such a put-away place as Mossag who looked up at him with wide, curious eyes.

“Hello, Ursula,” the man said; “you’re looking transparent today.”  And she was.  A shadow – ah, ha – of her former self, Ursula sat wraithlike on a twisted stone creation at the very base of the cavern, so stubbornly rooted to it that it was doubtful she could leave it.

“Pleased to see me again?”

“Enlightened.  I had so wondered what you meant by your last words.  Very mysterious, I must say.  ‘Forgotten Place.’  Clever.”

“I told you that you couldn’t stop me.  Look at you – you don’t even dare enter my domain!”

“No, I don’t.  Putting myself in your power, being forever trapped here, no doubt – not my idea of fun.”

Ursula laughed.  “As I said, clever.  You always were clever.  You know the laws of this place, then?”

He shook his head: “No.  Would you care to tell me?”

Ursula considered this carefully for a moment.  “I will tell you the answer to your question in return.”

“For?”

“I don’t suppose you would accept total submission and slavery to me?  No?  Very well.  Tell me about the sunlight above, then.”

He stared at her for a moment, and narrowed his eyes, thinking.  “You must have been down here a very long time.”  He watched her reaction carefully.  “Very well, I accept your bargain.  This is what I tell you about the sunlight above: the day is a cold, crisp one with clouds obscuring much of the sky, but even the shadows have some warmth and when one finds a spot where they break and turns one’s face to the sky, a tingling warm flush hits one’s face and a freshness touches the nose with a pure warmth.  Bright light strikes the eyes, whitish yellow light filtered through many levels of cloud and air and atmosphere, but it too burns where it hits, a clean, almost pleasant burning.  The light is never just light but heals and greets and is beautiful and of a kind unlike another.  It is uplifting and cheerful and washes away pains, if only one lets it, and is thing foreign to anything of this world – for it is not of this world, but travels far to get here.  This is the sun today and the sunlight above us now.”

A curious change had flowed over Ursula as he spoke, an almost tangible wistfulness which cooled the water and tingled the arms and for a moment, it almost looked like sunlight struck her upturned face.  The effect faded with his words, but not quite all of the peace left Ursula’s face.  She nodded at him.

“Yes,” she said; “that is what it is like.  And now I will fulfill my part.  Here are the rules: none who come in may leave unassisted.  Another may pull they out from the outside so long as they themselves do not enter fully, but only within twenty-four hours.  After twenty-four hours here, none may leave without my permission as per the balance of power.”

“And you?”

“I do not leave.”

“And she?” he looked directly at the little girl crouched by Ursula’s side.

“This?  This is Jane.  Do you like her?  You can’t have her; she’s been here with me far too long.  Say hello, Jane.”

“Hello, sir.”

“Hello, Jane.  Do you like it down here?”

Jane turned her gaze downward but did not speak again.

“Don’t even try it,” Ursula warned.  “She’s mine and you know it.  This is my domain – my demesne – and my rules.  She is mine.  You see?  You cannot kill me after all.  You dare not even enter.”

“Yes,” he agreed.  “You’re right.  I can’t touch you, not in here.  But I’ll remember.”

“I’m sure you will.”  Ursula laughed at him and continued laughing even when he had withdrawn entirely from the cavern and swum away.  “I’ve won.”

But she hadn’t, not really; it was only a matter of time.

-- -- -- -- -- --

The next time the man visited Mossag was nearly two years later, and the town was an uproar of fear and worry and hopelessness.  When he inquired why, the answer was simple: a girl had gone missing, one Sally Lee.  She was six years old and had last been seen fifteen hours ago, but had a nasty tendency of homing in on the sea.  And worse, she had been seen to develop the early stages of under-water breathing and might decide to try it out. . . .

He had more than a nasty suspicion; he had a nasty almost-certainty.  “Fifteen hours?  Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!  Do you think anybody doesn’t know the story by now?”

He shrugged.  “I just asked because I think I might be able to get her back.”  At the man’s dubious look: “No promises.  But I, too, have a certain talent for breathing underwater and believe I know where Sally went.  But I need a few things if I am to bring her back – and quickly; there isn’t much time.” The other looked him over suspiciously for a moment, then nodded.  “I’ll take you to the Lees and they can decide.  Come along, then.”

He was lead to the Lee cottage and left there to deal with the family alone, but he didn’t really mind.  He had far too much practice with this sort of thing and knew how to go about it – and a child’s safety was far more important than his personal discomfort.  He knocked without hesitating and smiled at the dumpy blond woman whose otherwise pleasant face was strained into worry lines.  “Good morning,” he greeted her.  “I think I might be able to find your daughter, and soon – but there are a couple of things I need first, to bring her back safely.  May I come in?”

Forty-five long minutes later, several hundred townsfolk were crowded on the narrow beach, shivering together against the wind, to watch the crazy man walk into the sea in the middle of winter with only two vials of clear liquid to protect him.  The man ignored them, except to politely refuse any offers to hold his coat, and waded into the sea, just as he had done two years previously.  He had also refused any offers of help, especially in the form of alcohol, claiming that it only gave the illusion of warming one while it did the opposite.  No one had really believed him, but he had been steady.

Now the townsfolk watched, but not for very long.  The stranger was as good as dead, walking into the sea like that.  Brave, though.  He would be toasted later in the local pub and no doubt talked about in fireside stories for a month or two. . . .

Unless he came back, of course.  With the Lee girl.  But that was hardly likely, even for mysterious travelers, and he hadn’t looked like a wizard.

Meanwhile, the man was swimming to where he remembered the black rectangle of nothing to be.  The water currents pushed him off course a bit, but even so, he found the place with minimum of fuss.  He hesitated only a moment – would Ursula know he was here? – before pushing his head down into the cavern.

There was no time for caution; quite the opposite, when Ursula had the balance of power in her own demesne.  Almost before she had turned her head up to see who had disturbed the water, he had reached down and grabbed the arm of a young girl with her mother’s golden curls, and pulled her out into the freezing ocean.

“Sally,” he said in a calming tone, holding her struggling – just as she had been taught to do, if ever a strange man grabbed her.  “Sally Lee, listen to me!  You need to drink this, all right?  Or else you’ll freeze to death.  And keep breathing, slowly.  You know how, Sally.

Sally opened her mouth to answer and he took the opportunity to uncork the vial and, his finger keeping the contents inside when in the open water, shove it in her mouth and force her to swallow.  When he took his hand away, Sally opened her mouth again, this time to scream, but before she had even started, she blinked and the open mouth expression turned into one of surprise.  “I’m warm,” she said – or as close she could, underwater.  It had quite a few more “glugs” in it, but wasn’t incomprehensible.  It was a knack.

“Yes.  Now, why don’t we swim back to see your parents?  They’re very worried about you, Sally.”

“All right,” Sally agreed, although she ended up clinging to him far more than swimming on her own, and was falling asleep in his arms by the time they reached the beach.

Little more than twenty minutes had passed when they arrived, and at least half the townsfolk were still there – gaping in amazement, save for the thankful parents who rushed up to him gushing their gratitude.

“Take good care of her,” he told them.  “Your daughter has a great deal of talent, and should be trained.”

Trained?  But by whom?

“I’ll speak to you more later, but I have some unfinished business – the reason why I came back to Mossag in the first place.  Please excuse me.”  And, to the shock of all present, he turned and walked back into the sea and disappeared beneath the waves.

“I should have known,” Ursula snarled, crossing her withered arms.  “Why is it always you?  Don’t you have anything better to do than come down and bother me?  I’m not doing much harm here – don’t you have bigger fish to fry?”

“Yes,” he answered honestly.  “That’s why I came back.  I need to borrow Jane.”

Ursula stared at him incredulously.  “You think I’m going to do you a favor after you steal my property?  I’ve thought you many things, but never a fool.”

“She wasn’t yours; by your own rules you had no claim on her for another eight hours.  In any case, it’s not a favor I’m asking you for.  My quest benefits you as much as it does me.”

“Oh?”

“Do you remember Ossic Ringe?”

“So?”

“So he’s back, and looking for revenge – against you as much as me.”

Ursula frowned and then, in a habit of days long passed, flipped her hair and shook her head.  “I’m not helping.”

“But he hates you!”

“Lots of people hate me.  Sometimes I’ve even thought you did.  But he can’t touch me in here, and I have no plans to leave.  In any case, I quite fancy the idea of him killing you.  Poetic justice, you might say.”

“Ossic’s work isn’t exactly what I would call poetry.”

Ursula shrugged.  “It was creative, though, you have to admit that.  Very clever.”

“If you like that sort of thing.”

Ursula grinned at him – or at least, showed her teeth.  “Well, I’m not helping you.  And you can’t have Jane.”

“I just want to borrow her.  What do you think, Jane?” he turned to the girl, who now must have been about fourteen years old, and looked surprisingly healthy.  “A little break, get to see some of the world?”

“She can’t go without my permission, and I’m not giving it.”

“It does sound interesting,” Jane said hesitantly, “but there would have to be a time limit, wouldn’t there?  And an equal trade?”

“I see you’ve been training her,” the man told Ursula wryly, looking Jane over thoughtfully.  “An equal trade?  What do you think, Ursula?  What is worth three weeks deprived of Jane worth to you?”

“Come down here, and I’ll whisper it to you.”

“Very funny.”  He snorted.  “It would be valuable to her education,” he offered.  “Another point of view, if you will.”

“You fool – you can’t mean that you would teach her during that time?  Teach her the kind of things I want her to know?”

“The kind of thing that would be useful.”

“Propaganda?”

“Haven’t you conditioned her against that kind of thing, yet?”

Ursula beckoned Jane close and spoke softly to her for several minutes before turning and looking up at him.  “Do you agree to return her within fifteen days?”

“Fifteen!  Not twenty-one?”

“I prefer fifteen.  Do you agree?”

He barely hesitated: “I agree.”  The binding of the agreement settled about his temples loosely but weightily and he saw Ursula flinch slightly under the same.  “Well,” he said when the agreement was in line, “not to stay and chat.  Come along, Jane.  You won’t need anything.”

“I don’t have anything,” she informed him tartly, and swam up far enough that he could grasp her hand and pull her up.

“Keep her safe and remember – fifteen days,” Ursula reminded him one last time.  He nodded and disappeared back outside, Jane following closely.

It was close, but fifteen days later, Jane arrived back at the Forgotten Place.  She looked dubiously at it and then back at her companion.  “I don’t want to go in,” she told him.

“I must honor the agreement; you know that.”

She nodded.  “Yes, I do know.  But I don’t like it.  Couldn’t you just pull me out again after I go in?”

“You have been there more than twenty-four hours.  There’s nothing I can do . . .” he trailed off thoughtfully.  “Although . . . no.  Go back for now.  But I’ll come back to visit, all right?  I promise.”

“All right,” Jane whispered, then shot him a sharp look.  “I’ll hold you to that.  And no returning in fifty years.  Visit soon.”

“When I can.  There are many things that need doing.”

“I’m sure there are.”  Jane sighed and, without a backward glance, dove down into the Forgotten Place.

The man watched her go and returned to the town.  He quite liked the town.  If ever he were to settle down, this would be a nice place.  Maybe some day, when he was too old to do anything but sit and write his memoirs . . . but no; he would never live that long.  Ossic had been taken care of, but there were always plenty more who would kill him as soon as he slipped up, if not before.  He couldn’t afford to settle down – or, at least, not for more than a week or two before his death.  Still.

He stayed near Mossag, though, and trained little Sally when he could, and occasionally visited Jane who became more and less like Ursula the longer she stayed.  And often as he visited, he couldn’t help notice one very important fact: the sharks were around more and more these days, so much so that it became very dangerous for him to swim down to the Forgotten Place.

And then he had an idea – and what an idea it was.  ‘Balance of power,’ Ursula had said.  She had more power than anyone there, but by a balance of numbers . . .

And that was how he found himself treading water next to the Forgotten Place, dangling a raw steak over the hole, baiting shark after shark to dive in until there were none left above (except one rather useful one who seemed oddly intelligent and had wisely fled to less dangerous parts).  Then he waited twenty four hours and returned to stick his head into the cavern.

“Hello, Ursula,” he said.

“You!” she shrieked at him, and as she did, the sharks surrounding her, carefully kept at bay, began thrashing and upsetting their invisible bonds.  “You distracted me!” she gasped in horror.  “You’ve given control to the sharks – aah!” one of them snapped at her.

“Please,” Jane, who was by this time nineteen, begged.  “Please, Ursula, they’ll kill us!  We need to leave!  You’re permission – we can get out and they all the sharks will be stuck down here!”

“I can’t leave; you know that!”

“Yes you can – please!”

“I can help,” he offered, “and give you twenty-four hours head start to free Jane.”

Ursula glared at him.  “Did you plan this?  The two of you?”

“No,” he answered frankly.  “Just me.  But I think it was a rather good idea.”

“I –” but there was no time for Ursula to think it over or spin it her way.  “Twenty-four hours!  Now move, girl!”

“Was that wise?” Jane asked afterwards, when they had swum to shore.  “Letting her go free like that?  Won’t she just cause trouble again—and try to get back at you?”

“Sure,” he agreed; “along with everyone else.  But she’s weak for now and . . . well, what’s one more enemy?  It’ll be all right.”

“Oh.”  Then, “And what of me?”

“What do you want?”

“I want to stay with you.  I could be useful – Ursula really did teach me all those years; I know lots.”

“I already have an apprentice.”

“Please!”

“Don’t you have a home?  And original home?”

Jane shook her head.  “I’m an orphan – or so I’ve been told.  Anyway, Ursula took me out of my time; I can’t go back.”

He looked carefully at her.

“I could help with Ursula,” Jane offered, desperately.

“No.  Not if she was like a mother to you.  But we’ll see.”

“Is that a ‘yes’?”

“We’ll see.  That is all.”

The important thing was, to never get too grounded.  A young apprentice, an older hang-along?  Those two would do well together, learning from each other.  And Ursula was loose again and so many others.  When evening came and his coat had dried enough, he took it up again and moved on, carefully lighting a fire too close to the carpet before he closed the door behind him.