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    Comes a Ferryman: The Ferryman Pentalogy, #1
    Comes a Ferryman: The Ferryman Pentalogy, #1
    Comes a Ferryman: The Ferryman Pentalogy, #1
    Ebook67 pages1 hour

    Comes a Ferryman: The Ferryman Pentalogy, #1

    By Wayne Kyle Spitzer

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    The ferryman turned to face her and she quickly looked away—as if an owl had suddenly focused on her in the dark. Now that they’d reached the trunk of the river, he had relaxed the intensity of his rowing to a more casual pace, and was allowing the current to do most the work. (She didn’t dare risk activating the ring now!) Instead she looked at the floorboards, and after a few moments, remembered the book lying next to her. She reached toward it habitually—but froze when the raven cawed loudly and its red beam fell upon the back of her hand.

    A tense moment followed in which she looked from the ferryman to the raven then back again as her fingertips wavered over the golden cover. Then the ferryman motioned with his head, and the raven’s light swung away and switched off. She picked up the book slowly and placed it on her lap.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHobb's End Books
    Release dateNov 13, 2017
    ISBN9781386527145
    Comes a Ferryman: The Ferryman Pentalogy, #1
    Author

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer

    Wayne Kyle Spitzer (born July 15, 1966) is an American author and low-budget horror filmmaker from Spokane, Washington. He is the writer/director of the short horror film, Shadows in the Garden, as well as the author of Flashback, an SF/horror novel published in 1993. Spitzer's non-genre writing has appeared in subTerrain Magazine: Strong Words for a Polite Nation and Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History. His recent fiction includes The Ferryman Pentalogy, consisting of Comes a Ferryman, The Tempter and the Taker, The Pierced Veil, Black Hole, White Fountain, and To the End of Ursathrax, as well as The X-Ray Rider Trilogy and a screen adaptation of Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows.

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      Comes a Ferryman - Wayne Kyle Spitzer

      Prologue | Hour of a Thousand Paths

      It was the first night of the Sacrificium, a night of sacrifice and death, a night when the black coins tendered in the Lottery would be tendered back. It was also the Hora Mille Semitis, the Hour of a Thousand paths—for that is the day the Sacrificium had fallen on this year—the hour when best friends might become enemies, when lovers of longstanding might betray oaths, the hour in which anything and everything was possible. And the alignment was felt: from the upper echelons of the capitol to the poorest quarters of the downriver provinces. For the message of Valdus’ rebellion had spread—whether it was a tract nailed to a door before quickly being torn down or a blast in the night that caused the power to fail in entire regions. It was a night for dreaming and for huddled collusions, for the breeze to course through rustling leaves, for long dead hearts to awaken and start pumping blood. The Sacrificium had once more come to Ursathrax, but so had the Hour of a Thousand Paths, and Valdus’ Revolution, and something else, something elusive but impossible to ignore, nebulous, but as real as the River Dire, which seemed to have stolen into the world on the wind itself.

      I | Ceremony

      The hooded and blinkered draft horse knew only the road before it. Of the alfalfa patches they had passed on the way to the ceremony it had shown no interest, although surely it had smelled the plants more acutely than any person. Even things that could have affected its very survival, such as the rawboned fox slinking through the willows along the River Dire, had garnered only a nervous whinny.

      Here we are, miss, said Dr. Terazza, sounding far away even though he was sitting directly beside her. She’d been so focused on the horse that she hadn’t noticed they’d ground nearly to a halt.

      She looked down through the porthole window of the buggy, past the edge of the coffin road and past the long, wide, descending steps (which were abutted on both sides with pews of onlookers, some of whom broke etiquette and turned to look at her). The sacrificial pier was there, ashen black amidst the fog, its dim lanterns maintaining an outline as it stretched away from land—so that when viewed from the road it resembled some Cyclopean, crescent-headed polearm, the tips of whose blade vanished into river smoke.

      Yes, said Shekalane. Here we are. She stared at the pier vacantly. The ride seemed shorter this time. Isn’t that odd.

      It seemed short to me, too, said Terazza.

      She looked away from the pier to find him looking at her intently, but kindly. Perhaps it was only the company, she said, and smiled at him warmly. Thank you, Sestus.

      The honor has been all mine, Ms. Shekalane. It’s a shame it took these circumstances for neighbors to get to know one another. I’ll be sure to free Milkweed when you are well clear, and to look after her after, you have my word.

      She gripped the cushion wing and stood slowly, mounting the short step delicately before proceeding onto the long step and finally the cobblestones.

      Ms. Shekalane ...

      She turned to face him.

      Whatever the Lucitor has called you home for, may your passage be a safe one.

      She moved to respond but hesitated, finding herself drawn to the draft horse again, which snorted and hung its head. She lowered her makeshift veil. Goodbye, Sestus.

      He tipped his hat to her and snapped the reins, causing the carriage to lurch forward, the horse’s hooves clattering against the stones as Shekalane stepped to the edge of the stairs.

      All rise and face the chosen, said the rector, followed immediately by a tumult of shifting bodies and thudding woodwork as the congregation rose from their pews.

      The sound and the sight of it startled her—but sobered her, too, especially when the wind moaned and a silence fell. There were so many—where had they all come from?

      She scanned the faces haphazardly, her attention flitting from one to another. Unklung was there, as she’d known he would be, nearly unrecognizable without his straw hat, and wearing a formal sash across his chest instead of his mushroom bag (all those hours together traipsing dry creek bottoms and shady, overgrown grottos!). Silentina was there, despite their friendship having cooled since her involvement with Valdus. And, to speak of the devil, he was there also—no. No, she could see that she was mistaken. The man in the green cloak and cravat was not Valdus.

      We love you, Shekalane, someone cried.

      And another: Hear! Let’s hear it for our most beautiful teacher!

      Someone started clapping tepidly—then another, and another, until virtually everyone had joined in, and Shekalane realized she was misting up, even smiling, in spite of herself. The scene somehow touched her beyond words.

      The Lucitor won’t have a jimmy to get up if you get your hands on ‘im, someone shouted, and there was laughter.

      Not after what He’s put you through! Cheers.

      "Who

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