The Nameless Day. Sara Douglass

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      After another mile the ground began to rise to either side of the path. Yet another half mile and Wynkyn, his legs so weak he had to lean heavily on a staff to keep upright, found himself at the mouth of a gorge. The hills to either side were not over tall—perhaps some six or seven hundred feet—but the gorge floor dropped down into…well, into hell itself.

      This was the Cleft, the earth’s vile equivalent of the suppurating cleft that lay between the legs of every daughter of Eve.

      Wynkyn began to laugh, a harsh yet whispery sound. As loathsomeness would be sunk into the cleft of every one of the daughters of Eve, so he, Wynkyn de Worde, would see to it that loathsomeness would be sunk into this Cleft.

      Every cleft led to hell, one way or the other.

      Wynkyn’s laughter turned into an agonising, wet, bubbling cough, and he sank to his knees and would have fallen completely had it not been for his grip on his staff. The pestilence had run riot in his lungs, and now Wynkyn was very close to drowning in his own pus and blood.

      Time was passing too fast. He did not have long.

      Praise God he knew the incantations by heart!

      Wynkyn forced himself to raise his head. He spat out an amount of pus, hawked, spat again, then wiped his mouth with a shaking arm.

      It was time.

      Slowly he spoke the words, his eyes fixed on the Cleft.

      When he finished, it first appeared that nothing had changed. The gorge spread before him in the twilight, a twisted wasteland of boulders and shadows and the hunched shapes of low, scrubby bushes.

      But in an instant all altered. Flames licked out from behind boulders, and vegetation burst into fire. There was a roaring, rending sound, and clouds of sulphuric effluvium billowed into the air.

      Wails and screams, and even the thin, white, despairing arms of those trapped within, rose and fell from the gate to hell.

      Wynkyn chuckled. The Cleft had opened.

      But his work was not yet done. He turned slightly so that he could see the path behind him.

      “Come,” he said, and clicked his fingers. “Come.”

      There was a momentary stillness, then from the forest lining the path walked forth children, perhaps some thirty or thirty-five, all between the ages of two and six.

      Not one of them was human and all were horribly deformed; the twistings of their bodies reflecting the twistings of their souls.

      Wynkyn bared his teeth. They were abominable! Devilish! And to the Devil they must be sent.

      He lifted his hand, trying to control its shaking, and began to speak the incantation that would force them down into—

      A convulsion racked his body, and his voice wavered and stilled.

      Another convulsion swept over him, and Wynkyn de Worde collapsed to the ground.

      One of the children, a boy of about six, stepped forth to within a few paces of the friar.

      Wynkyn rolled over slightly, his face contorted, and began to whisper again.

      The boy smiled.

      Wynkyn’s voice bubbled to a close. He lifted a hand trying desperately to conjure words out of air, but nothing came of it, and his hand fell back to the ground, failing him as badly as his voice.

      “You’re dying,” said the boy, his voice a mixture of relief and joy.

      He turned and looked at the crowd of his fellows. “The Keeper dies!” he said.

      Behind him Wynkyn writhed and twisted, fighting uselessly against his illness. He tried to breathe, but could not…he could not…the fluids in his lungs had bubbled to his very throat and…

      The boy turned back to Wynkyn as the friar made an horrific gurgling. The old man was trembling, and odorous fluids were running from his mouth and nose.

      His eyes were wide and staring…and very, very afraid.

      “If I had the strength,” the boy said in a voice surprisingly mature for his age, “I would throw you into the Cleft myself.”

      But he could not, and so the boy stood there, his fellows now ranged behind him in a curious and joyful semicircle, and watched as Wynkyn de Worde struggled into death.

      They waited for some time after his last breath. Making sure.

      They waited until the Cleft closed of its own accord, tired of waiting for the incantation that would have fed it.

      They waited until the boy at their head leaned down and retrieved the key that hung from the dead friar’s belt.

      They waited until the curse of the Nameless Day was past.

      “Hail our freedom!” he cried, and then burst into laughter. “We are freed of the angels’ curse. Freed into life!”

      And he thrust the key nightward in an obscene gesture towards Heaven.