Last Rites (Darkling Mage 6)

“I fear that terrible things are coming your way, boy,” Baba Yaga said.

“Tell me something I don’t already know. The Eldest are coming, and they mean business this time.” I raised my chin. “And my name is Dustin Graves.”

Baba Yaga scoffed. “What a fitting name you have, silly boy.” She lifted a finger, waving it warningly in my face. “Know this. The challenges that await you will test you wholly. You have used your mind, your body, indeed, your soul in your battle against the Old Ones. But this time, it will be your heart.” She pressed her finger gently against my chest, her face suddenly softened, and sad. “Baba Yaga can only pray that you will have the fortitude to withstand the onslaught of the Eldest.”

The air went out of me. “But – we beat them before. We always did. We held them back, and we can hold them back again. Me and my friends. I killed Yelzebereth myself. The Eldest can keep sending their mightiest, and I’ll rip their entire pantheon apart with my bare hands if I have to. One by one.”

“Do not make me repeat myself, boy. Baba Yaga has seen what she has seen.” She shook her head solemnly. “May your heart be strong enough.”

What was that even supposed to mean? I looked around us, at the faces of the other entities. They were just as serious and severe, just as grave. One by one they headed back to their stalls, fingering their tools and devices for divining, turning them this way and that. It pinched at my chest to see the entities act that way. They were trying to find a different path for me, an alternate future. This was serious business.

I whirled in place, rounding on the entities. “Then you all must know how big of a deal this is. If you care so much – if you care enough that predicting my fate is bothering you this badly – then why don’t you help?”

“We cannot intervene, sweetling,” Arachne said. “Surely you know this by now. We are the oracles. We bear knowledge, and we dispense it to those who deserve to understand, and to listen. But our hands cannot spin the wheel. We only watch, and wait.”

The Sphinx spoke next. “And all the roads we’ve prophesied lead to the unraveling of reality, Dustin Graves. It is not only your fate that we see. All other fates are intertwined, and in each one, the Eldest are victorious.”

My nails were digging into the palms of my hands, my teeth clenched. “Then help us. Please. This affects us all. You must understand that.”

Baba Yaga sighed, and I turned to her again. “There is one way,” she said. “A way of strengthening the barrier of our realm against theirs. No more rifts opening around this city, around the world. Though there is a problem.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “But of course there is.” Baba Yaga scowled at me, but said nothing.

“Only the earth’s most powerful entities have access to these methods,” said one of the Sisters. “The mothers and fathers of all things. The kings and queens of pantheons.”

I folded my arms, my head tilted as I considered the problem. “So this method of yours. All I need to do is track down one of the creator gods. That’s it?”

Baba Yaga laughed derisively. The Sisters chuckled. Some of the other entities shifted in place, uncertain, discomfited.

“If it were only so simple, silly boy,” Baba Yaga said.

“I have a name,” I spat back.

“As does Baba Yaga,” she said. “And as much joy as traveling with the Bazaar of Wonders has brought me, I fear my time as Madam Babbage has come to an end.” She looked smaller when she exhaled.

“I still don’t quite get that,” I said, lowering my voice, sensing that something was off. “The legends never said you had any particular affinity for divination. Do you just like hanging out with the oracle entities, or is this one of those things where the stories got it wrong?”

She waved her hand, beaming. “No, no, child, the stories got it right.” Her smile was beautiful, lighting up her face in a way that made her look like an entirely different person. “Baba Yaga comes and goes as she pleases, and the Bazaar was a welcome diversion – if only for a short century.” The smile fell from her face, and she was the old witch of folklore once more, sallow, sour, and underneath it all, somehow, quietly sad.

Baba Yaga rose to her feet, gathered her skirts, then nodded. “Come now,” she said, to no one in particular. “It’s time we made a move.”

I looked around, expecting the rest of the entities to respond. None of them did. But the earth did begin to tremble. I hung onto her stall for dear life. Hey, it’s California. You never know if it’s the Big One until the Big One actually hits.

The rumbling continued. The sound, I realized, was coming from the entire carnival around us. The tents, stalls, and booths lifted into the air, as if levitated by some unseen force. No, wait. Not levitated. My head spun as I looked to opposite ends of the carnival grounds. Sprouting from the earth was a pair of massive legs, each as tall and as thick as an ancient redwood. Not just any legs, either. Chicken legs.

My jaw hung open. I couldn’t help myself. “Just like in the stories,” I muttered to myself. Except in the stories, Baba Yaga only commanded a hut that could walk on two legs, her own version of a mobile home. Over the centuries I guess she’d gained enough power and resources to put an entire goddamned carnival on stilts.

“Farewell, Dustin Graves,” Baba Yaga called out as she soared into the air, her feet planted firmly in a flying cauldron. Holy crap, that was in the stories too. “And I mean it in the best possible way. Fare well, for your sake. For all our sakes.”

The earth shuddered again and again as the carnival’s legs began their tumultuous, terrifying strut through the outskirts of Valero. I watched in open awe as the carnival vanished into the horizon, as the Bazaar of Wonders began its trek across California.

And with the carnival gone, that only left me and the other entities, back in a familiar, mist-shrouded dar

kness. We were in the Dark Room again – but not for long, it seemed, at least not for the remaining members of the actual Bazaar of Wonders. They faded into the blackness one by one, much like the Midnight Convocation. The Sisters gave me a cursory synchronized wave as they vanished. Finally, only Arachne remained.

“I am sorry that I can do nothing more to help, sweetling,” she said, her voice laced with uncharacteristic sadness.

I tried to keep the bitterness lodged firmly in my throat. It was up to humanity – hell, it was up to the Boneyard to save the day, yet again.