The Tempter and the Taker

By Wayne Kyle Spitzer

Shekalane looked at him with something akin to pity. "You speak as if Ursathrax were a person. A lover, perhaps."

Jamais laughed. "I suppose that’s true. It is the hallmark of lonely people, to anthropomorphize. They do it to their pets quite frequently. But that is just one of her secrets ... for while not a person same as you or I, she is, I believe, sentient. She is self-aware. Surely you have felt it, on those days when the leaves of the trees rustle even though there is no wind? She is alive ... she has her moods and her trespasses, like every living thing. And also like every living thing, she is mortal. By which I mean she has a beginning, a middle, and an end, as do all things ... and that, after five-hundred years, she is nearing her end."

There was another long pause, and Shekalane looked at Dravidian, who said, "No. That is not possible. The Lucitor would not have created something so frail and temporal ..."

Jamais studied him for a beat. "And yet the sky is falling, is it not?"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wayne Kyle Spitzer
• Release date: Nov 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370439157

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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THE TEMPTER AND THE TAKER

Book Two of the Ferryman Pentalogy

by Wayne Kyle Spitzer

Copyright © 2017 Wayne Kyle Spitzer. All Rights Reserved. Published by Hobb’s End Books, a division of ACME Sprockets & Visions. Kindle Edition. Cover design Copyright © 2017 Wayne Kyle Spitzer. Please direct all inquiries to: [e-mail]

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this book is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?"

—Edgar Allan Poe

Prologue | Aftermath

By the time they caught up with the larger pieces of wreckage from the ferryman’s gondola, they had moved downriver far enough so as to no longer even be in the same region; rather, they were now fast approaching the Archon Narrows.

Mind your binoculars, said Valdus, his voice seeming raw and more agitated than usual. Anything that glints, zero in upon it and do not let it leave your eyesight.

For he knew the keys were made of a light substance and were gold on the surface only—and would float.

Hirth glanced at him sidelong before exchanging looks with Lieutenant Crith—an interaction that did not go unnoticed by Valdus, who thought: They think me callous to the fact that I may have killed my betrothed. And Hirth, at least, suspects an ulterior motive. But I for one do not believe she was on board. Why would she not have activated?

Because she may not have received your message, said a voice, which he pushed from his mind immediately.

The important thing right now is the key, he told himself. And yet as his men examined the bits of wreckage (catching them with their oars as they were able and drawing them close) it was becoming increasingly evident that they might at last find nothing. And thus a new plan of attack would be needed, for one of the keys belonging to the ferrymen had to be acquired; nor would he abandon Shekalane to be raped by the Lucitor (for that was what was in store for her, surely). However cold-hearted and simple of purpose his men seemed to think him, he was not so single-minded as that.

His gaze landed on the opposite bank of the River Dire as he brooded, where an abandoned platform could be seen at the mouth of the Archon Narrows; then, after focusing on it briefly, he panned to the side of the river from which they had come … and saw an identical platform. He squinted as an idea began to form, but his train of thought was interrupted by Crith, who said, simply, A glint, my lord.

Valdus moved toward him so quickly that he nearly upended the boat, snatching the scopes from him as the man pointed and pressing them to his eyes. He zoomed in on the glint, working the focusing ring furiously, but such was the distance and the dark that he could not tell for certain. What he could tell for certain, however, was that something golden was floating in the water, something connected to a jagged-edged mass.

It is what remains of the ferryman, he said, his eyes full of intensity. And something is attached. He glanced at Hirth, who was already looking at him—suspiciously, it seemed. A communications device, perhaps. Hurry. Steer us alongside it.

The men rowed vigorously as Valdus returned his attention to the platforms. Yes … it might work. The bigger question is … do we have the time?

He took the oar from the man nearest him as they approached the floating object, thinking, I will rescue you yet, my love. And then I shall have you as well as the key to the Forbidden Channels …

He used the oar to maneuver the piece of debris along the starboard bow, but, as they had moved well past the orbis lunae, the darkness was near total. Lantern! Quickly!

Crith held a lantern over the gunwale as the object bumped against the hull, and they saw at the same time that it was not, indeed, the ferryman’s remains, but a child’s near-headless doll … around whose neck