Ink and Steel

Domine salvum fac servum tuum qui suam fiduciam in te collocat. Mitte eum Domine angelum de sanctuario tuo. Et potenter defende eum. Nihil pr va-Leatinimicus in eo Et fi lius iniquitatis non noceat ei. Esto ei Domini turrisfortitudinis a facie inimici. Domine exaudi orationem nostram et clamor noster ad te veniat. Oremus. Oremus.

“Deliver us from evil,” Kit scoffed aloud. “Useless, methinks, when I’m plain walking into it.” And yet he stopped and looked about, there on the barren moor of Hell, the damned writhing under his feet. What, Kit? Art waiting fo ran answer?

“Oh, Sweet Christofer.” An infinitely welcome voice from over his shoulder, and he closed his eye a moment in joy and relief, unwilling to believe. But the voice continued. “My love, you came.”

“Will.” He turned, and looked up into his lover’s face. “I can’t believe it. It worked.”

Will’s smile folded the corners of gray-blue eyes. He raised his arms, and Kit came into them, lifting his mouth for a kiss that was suddenly the only thing in all the world he wanted.

“Thou hast forgiven me,” Kit said, when the kiss was ended and still his lover held him tight.

“Thou dost taste of ashes,” Will said, stepping back. “Was the way very long? Thou shouldst drink.”

“Ashes to ashes,” Kit answered, releasing Will only with reluctance. “Drink of that river? I think not.”

Kit turned to look upon it, putting Will on his blind side. Kit frowned with cracked lips, scrubbing sore, itching palms. “What river is it?”

“What does it matter? Thou must drink nay else thou canst not stay here with me.”

Kit blinked. He tasted blood from his bitten cheek. Deliver us from evil.He rubbed his hand across his lips, startled when red blood streaked his glove. No. Not from his cheek. From his lips, from his tongue. He turned his hand over, gasped when he saw the burned-through palms of hisgloves, the blistered flesh of his palms, the smoldering scorches on his doublet where it showed under the patchwork of his cloak. His cloak smoked too, but seemed unharmed, and the flesh beneath it was not burning. Kit raised his eyes; something red and supple as a lizard winked at him with a slitted yellow eye, gleaming in colors like fire. “Salamander.”

“Ifrit,” it said with a mocking bow, flickering through shapes like a windblown torch: a red-haired woman, a stallion with a mane aflame, a dragon no bigger than a hummingbird. “I am the second guardian. I’ll have your cloak before you pass.

Kit drew it close about his shoulders with his blistered hand. “This cloak that saved me from you?”

“Aye, well,” the ifrit answered. “There’s a price for everything. You’ll also need to pay the ferryman.”

Kit thought of edging past it. Sparks flashed from its eyes; it grew again into the image of Will Shakespeare, but flames flickered at its fingertips. He saw that the damned underfoot squirmed away from its footsteps, huddling behind Kit as if Kit could defend them.”

“This cloak is valued of me,” Kit said.

“That’s why it buys you passage.” The ifrit extended an imperious hand. “Tis that, or thy smoking heart. Thou goest before my master clad in thine own power only, and nothing borrowed may come.”

“Ah,” Kit said, and shrugged the heavy cloth off of his shoulders. He folded it over his arm, twice and then again, running his fingers over scraps of velvet and silk and brocade. Thank you, Morgan. Thank you, Master Troll.“I’ll have it back when I return.”

“Perhaps,” the ifrit said, and plucked the cloak off Kit’s arm. Both cloak and spirit vanished in a swirl of hot wind and shadows, and Kit swore under his breath.

Lighter still, he walked to the ferry. It seemed easier now; he closed the distance in the space of a few heartbeats, and stood waiting while the boat grounded on the glassy shore and the ropy, bare-chested figure at the pole beckoned. Kit stepped over the gunnels and found a place near the prow, facing the pilot.

“What is the fare, Master Ferryman?””

“The thing that you can least afford to lose,” the figure answered, scrubbing a hand over his bald scalp before pushing off. His trews seemed gray in the dim, directionless light, and they were rolled almost to the knee and belted with a bit of ivory rope. His horny feet were bare. No rope bound the ferry on its path too and fro and yet the boat cut clear and straight across the rushing river, making a clean angle to the farther shore.

“What river is this?” he asked, once the ferryman had settled into a rhythm.

“Lethe.”