Archie

There was only one thing that kept Archie Stannon going after he decided to run his twilight-red Corvette down the cliff and that one thing was speed. Before that, there were two things, but then his high school sweetheart decided that she loved this goody two shoes Walt better and one night, after a dozen bourbons too many, Archie decided life makes no sense. So he lit his last cigarette, stepped on the pedal and decided to ignore the fact that the road was at its end and that deep abyss ending in junkyard was eight hundred feet below it. There went one hell of a ride and the other one started just a moment afterwards, when two legionaries cut him out of his caul and gave him a job. It surely did beat his old job that had been cleaning puke and piss from the floor of the "Bonanza" club in Saratoga. He hadn't complained then and he hadn't complained now. His old Vette, followed him straight to afterlife, a rare relic that has caused a lot of envy back at the offices. Archie loved their envy, because he spent most of his short life being envious of others- of the straight-A's student and quarterback Walt who managed to get all the girls (including Molly), of the stupid preps who didn't have to clean hillbilly piss to get themselves through college, of his friend Mitch who was an officer in the navy (when Archie applied, he was rejected because he had bad hearing in one ear).

Now there was road in front of him, straight and wide, and never mind the Skinlands traffic because Vette could ride straight through them. His last cigarette had also traveled here with him (he could remember watching it for close to half an hour in drunken haze, telling to himself that he is never again going to feel strong, coaly Malboro smoke burning his throat) and now he was smoking and rushing along Union Avenue to reach Yaddo. Sylvia had begged him to take care of the young charge he had reaped yesterday and he couldn't say no. As soon as he checked on his fetters (lovers lane where he and Molly often hung out was still there, and still popular with college and high-school couples, Molly was still alive, divorced from Walt, and running a beauty shop here in Saratoga, and his baby brother Chris was coaching a junior baseball team in Hoboken, New Jersey) and drove around his usual route to check if there are any freshly dead souls waiting to be out of their cauls, he was on it. He and Syv were peers, both meeting their deaths in the early sixties, and in world like this it was good to have someone who understood your jokes, enjoyed the same pictures and listened to same music (the last was a slight point of disagreement, since Syv could never appreciate Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry the way Archie appreciated them). If the girl was still around he was bound to find her at Yaddo, near the old gazebo next to which he found her caul- the freshly dead loved to see the place where they ended their breathing days, he never met one that didn't. The girl looked genuinely lost, rushing out of the office. Archie didn't blame her. Many of them did, it wasn't easy, wanting to end it all only to see you get a two story Hierarchy office instead of eternal bliss. Archie never freaked out, though. He adored fresh beginnings. Always a sunrise, never a twilight kind of person, he was.

Going sixty miles an hour on the public road was the most beautiful thing one could imagine. His Corvette drove straight through cars, cyclists and one 18 wheeler truck. It was beyond simply having the road to yourself. Only he and his car truly existed, everything else was merely a landscape, scenery for him to surge through. Rusting cars, buildings with faded, dirty walls, and withered trees he was running straight through them, invisible and harmless. He was singing about sweet little sixteen when his eyes widened like dinner place at what he saw.

There were wraith soldiers in the middle of the road, Lethe warriors all five of them, by the look of their armor, glistening white soulsteel adorned with intricate symbol of the Silent legion. Their viciously long spear tips cut the fragile streams of light that glowed out his headlights. They were right in his way and it took all of his driver's reflexes to stop, less than an inch before them. Tires screamed. Brakes strained painfully, like hydraulic muscles. Lethe warriors never stirred. The one in front, scraggy weasel-faced fellow, just kept shifting his spear from one hand to the other. Left to right. Archie couldn't guess whether that was sign of nervousness or the guy simply seemed amused at the prospect of 500 pounds of speeding metal slamming into him and sending him straight to Oblivion. With Lethe lunatics you never knew. One of the guys walked to the car, his footsteps seemingly uneasy, and rapped on driver seat window. Archie lowered the window pane. The man was decked in full-plate armor, his visor raised to reveal dark piercing eyes. There was no guessing of his age, but something in the way he talked made Archie guess that he had drawn his last breath at least centuries, if not millennia ago.

"Wherever might you be going, my lord?"- Archie almost laughed. "My lord"! Not "sir" not "citizen", but "his lord". Although all wraiths understood each other perfectly, often manner of speaking could reveal one's background. And there were no discussing Duke's flicks with this bloke; you could be a hundred percent positive about that.

"Driving up to Yaddo on some business. Legion business!"- he underscored. The forest around them was dark. Somewhere in Skinlands, horses began to scream. They were only half a minute drive away from Saratoga Horse Show, but Archie still felt uneasy.

"Yaddo?"- the knight paused as if thinking.- "Are you aware that Yaddo is haunted by Sylvia Plath, clerk of the Silent Legion."

"Yes, I am quite aware. I am also a clerk in the Silent Legion, and Sylvia asked me for a favor."

"Do you know where she might be right now?"

"Away in Stygia, officially.

"Pray tell, my lord, what kind of favor are you doing for her?"

"And how exactly is that you business?"- Archie snapped. The footman closed in on the car. Archie didn't care. Even in this weird Underworld, the '54 Corvette was still faster than five grunts dressed in tin cans.

"Lady Plath is wanted by the Stygia magistrates, for attacking two wraiths. One of them was the acting Anacreon of New York City Necropolis Cletus Clavius, the other, William Bancroft, was the fair subject of the Hierarchy and a clerk of Iron Legion. She attacked them this evening in "Five Spot Café" and sent them both to their Harrowing. It would be better for you to cooperate for the good of our realm, otherwise you might come to hardship."

"You are making me laugh, Lancelot! – Despite his agitation Archie chuckled.-Sylvia would never attack Anacreon! Hell she has trouble telling two ends of a sword apart."

"A messenger and a couple of witnesses have sworn she was there. Be it how it may, she is to be taken in for questioning. Speak, what is the nature of the business, which had been bestowed upon you by Lady Plath."

Faceless shapes of legionaries had now surrounded him- there were two on his six, fidgety weasel boy and the broad shoulder guy carrying enormous spear and large kite shield, two more in front of him and this well mannered bastard was leering in his face, one of his hands on the pommel of his sword, other grasping the car-door. There was no driving away without at least hurting one of them, and hurting a Warrior of Lethe could get him in all kinds of trouble. He decided to try and talk his way out of it, so he conjured his "oh I am very sorry face" that had always worked with Molly (or his boss) every time he managed to screw something up:

"Geez, I am truly, sorry mister, I never thought things are THAT serious. I worked with Miss Plath for almost forty years and I never knew she was capable of that. She simply asked me to check upon her haunt, that's it. It's tremendously large, and she is keeping care of it all by herself. If you think I can be of any help with your investigation it would be my honor to serve you."

The face beneath the helmet seemed to soften a bit:

"So only something as plain as that? Very well, my lord, pray would you tell us your name so that we might call upon you later? For now we are going to be watching the road in case she happens to return to her Haunt, but on the morrow we are bound to speak to other Silent Legion employees here to see if anyone had noticed something unusual regarding her behavior. After all, Lady Plath often had close dealings with others inner demons, so it might be that she had simply strayed from the path of the righteous."

"Archibald Stannon. Archie, for friends."- He smiled warmly.

"Centurion Edward of Gwayne Firr, Knight of the Garter, crusader knight, during my breathing days loyal vassal of the King Henry of Bolingbroke, nowadays Centurion of the Silent Legion in Stygia."- The legionary returned courteously and for one funny moment Archie thought he will extend his gauntleted hand to shake with him, right here on the dark road in The Middle of Nowhere, Saratoga County, New York.-"You might be on your way, although if I was you I would have stayed out of Yaddo until the status of Lady Plath becomes clear in the eyes of the Hierarchy. You should report to the local Citadel tomorrow. It is possible that someone will want to talk to you, since you have intimate knowledge of Lady Plath."

"I wish I had, you sweet talking son of a gun."- thought Archie, and nodded, maintaining his stupid golden boy grin. Ser Edward Clanks-a-Lot lowered his visor, and walked away from the car, greeting him with a stiff wave. Legionaries stepped back, letting him drive on. Engine whirred and purred, responding to Archie's passion for the car. Soon he drove on, his thoughts racing along his side. Sylvia was in bad trouble. Bad, bad trouble. Even if her Shadow did make her go loco, there was no way she could kill Cletus. Archie had seen the man; once he even fought beside him, back in 1978, when Undying Mayflower heretics have decided to raise their badly soulforged blades against Charon. He was one dangerous man, damn good with his Stygian Steel blade, cautious and wise. Sylvia had no combat experience whatsoever. In the days of Mayflower Rebellion she worked on inventorying the supply trains here in Saratoga. Besides, she liked Cletus, and he had great trust in her; he gave her Yaddo, that bloody forest art colony she never ever quit talking about. The damn place could house an entire circle of wraiths and she had it all to herself, so she could soak all the poetic vibes or something. That talk about her Shadow taking over also made no sense in hell- no one could keep her Shadow in check, better than Syv; granted, by what he had heard her Shadow was scary, but then again most people in the Silent Legion had scary Shadows. Something was seriously bad about this, it was so bad that you could feel the very word in the air. Bad. The sound of it was rapping against the nape of your neck and making your hair stand out, making all the scary, icky feelings you had inside stand up and boogie all over your mind.

He turned left onto the Henning road and after a while drove right through the rusted brass gate. He was there, now he had to find Zoey. When he was a boy, his mom told him that best way to find something you've lost was to pretend you aren't looking for it- just relaxing and letting your legs take you to the place where you had left your toy car or your Captain America comics. He did the same now, just driving aimlessly though the winding forest tail, sometimes even cutting straight through the threatening, skeletal trees when they were in the way. Yet instinctively he was going towards the gazebo in the eastern part of the estate, the one that bordered Adirondack Northway.

He rushed along, his head empty, headlights outlined before him, two lonely sun dogs shinning in the sunless world. He even caught himself singing cheerfully, as he turned the nose of his Vette, left and emerged on the wide lane that ended with the wooden gazebo. Somewhere on his left, the owl hooted, and far away horses screamed. Before too long Archie found out there was music in his head; a beautiful, ululating melody he hadn't heard before. There was something in it that reminded him of the old Billie Holiday records that Molly was sometimes playing, but yet again it seemed older. There were no instruments, only sweet, deep voices singing something that sounded like total gibberish to him. He couldn't make out words, but he knew it was a love song because it stirred him all over, making him happy despite all the things that caused him to worry recently; gone was sir Ed of the Garter (remembering that honorific brought a deep chuckle out of his belly), gone were the accusations brought against Syv, gone were the horse-screams that made him tremble like a movie ticket stub left on the dashboard. He turned sharply left and drove into the woods. He knew singing will be louder there. Closer. Feeling the electrifying tingle as first his motor-car, and then his body dashed through the rotten mast of an old pine tree, he emerged on the shore of a small pond. His mouth opened in the mixture of wonder and pure admiration. He tried to grasp the thing he was seeing but his mind kept slipping on it, the way sweating palms keep slipping on a tool you are trying to grip.

Seen from Skinlands, this pond was probably a boring, decorative lakelet, circled with sedge. On the middle there was a small decorative pontoon, with a plank walkway leading up to it. Zoey stood on the edge of that pier. There was no mistaking that green dress splotched with red. She was staring at the same that had awed Archie.

There was a city deep in the pond, lit with the color of music. It wasn't any color Archie had seen before; any color he thought possible in the world, but he know it was the color of music the moment he laid his eyes upon it. The way it tittered and danced deep in the murky water gave it away. In its light, golden towers stood, tall minarets, and floating castles all reflected at once. There was a huge Ferris wheel turning in tune with the song that was playing in his head. Archie saw no people, but somehow he knew they would be there, he could hear their voices calling him. He could hear their song. And as Zoey, doe-eyed, pushed herself oFf the pier and walked into the lake; Archie already knew he is going to follow along, for if he didn't, the song would end. Delight more powerful than the feeling of Molly's firm breasts under her sweater coursed through him as he got out of the car and stepped inside the music-colored water.

A single name crossed his mind. The name he had decided to keep to himself.