“Just say the word.”
The spark grew in Glaeken’s blue eyes. “We are going to fight, Jack. We may lose—in fact we most likely will lose—but before this is over, Rasalom will know he’s been in a fight.”
Jack turned and caught sight of Weezy again. Crushing grief washed the rest of the fight out of him.
“Yeah, well, whatever.”
He knelt at her side again. He glanced over at Eddie—his head, his body … he’d have to do something with what was left of him. But right now …
He slipped his arms beneath Weezy.
“What are you doing?” Glaeken said.
The words slipped out. “Making her comfortable.”
He wasn’t sure what he meant. Just something to say. But he knew he couldn’t leave her on the floor a moment longer.
He rose and carried her to one of the Lady’s unused bedrooms—all unused, because she never slept. He positioned her on her back on a queen-size bed in the nearest room and pulled the spread over her, up to her breasts, covering her wound. He closed her eyelids. In the dark, with only the backwash of light from the living room around the corner, she could have been asleep.
He sat next to her as an emptiness yawned within him. She’d become such a part of his life since she’d reappeared last year, what was he going to do without her? A light had gone out. The world without Weezy … it wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t … whole.
His voice broke as he took her bloody hand in his and whispered, “Weezy.”
A man who is something more than a man goes to the mountain and shouts his name.
Not “Rasalom.” And not his birth name, the one his mother bestowed on him. He discarded that back in the First Age when the Otherness held more sway in this sphere. When he tapped into that mother lode of power and strangeness he took on a new name, an Other Name he had protected like a wolverine guarding her young. But the time for secrecy is past. He can now shout his Other Name anywhere and it will not matter.
From here atop Minya Konka, through a break in the clouds, much of what is now called China spreads out in the darkness nearly five miles below. His birthplace is not far from here. It is bitterly cold on the mountaintop. Gale-force winds shriek and howl as they swirl the frozen air about his naked body. He scarcely notices. The power within protects him, fed by the delicious woes of the world below.
The horizon brightens. Dawn does not break at this altitude—it shatters. He stares at the glint of fire sliding into view and focuses the power he has been storing during the months since the death of the Lady. Eons of frustration fall away as he finalizes the process to which he has devoted the ages of his existence. No gestures, no incantations, just elseness, Otherness, vomiting out of him, spreading out and up and around, seeping into the planet’s crust, billowing into its atmosphere, saturating this locus in the multiverse.
Soon all shall be his. The Enemy has moved on. No one and nothing opposes him, no power on Earth or elsewhere can stop him. He drops to his knees, not in prayer but in relief, elation.
At last, after so many ages, it has begun.
Dawn will never be the same.
On May 17, the sun rises late.
And so it begins …
COMING SOON …
NIGHTWORLD
This is the way the world ends, not with a whimper, but with an Earth-shattering cataclysm of darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth.
It all ends here.
The Adversary Cycle and the Repairman Jack saga collide in an apocalyptic finale as Jack and Glaeken search through the Secret History to gather a ragtag army for a last stand against the Otherness and a hideously transformed Rasalom.
www.repairmanjack.com
THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD
The preponderance of my work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. I’ve listed them below in chronological order.
Note: “Year Zero” is the end of civilization as we know it; “Year Zero Minus One” is the year preceding it, etc.
THE PAST
“Demonsong” (prehistory)
“Aryans and Absinthe”** (1923–1924)
Black Wind (1926–1945)
The Keep (1941)
Reborn (February–March 1968)
“Dat Tay Vao”*** (March 1968)
Jack: Secret Histories (1983)
Jack: Secret Circles (1983)
Jack: Secret Vengeance (1983)
YEAR ZERO MINUS THREE
Sibs (February)
“Faces”* (early summer)
The Tomb (summer)
“The Barrens”* (ends in September)
“A Day in the Life”* (October)
“The Long Way Home”****
Legacies (December)
YEAR ZERO MINUS TWO
“Interlude at Duane’s”** (April)
Conspiracies (April) (includes “Home Repairs”)
All the Rage (May) (includes “The Last Rakosh”)
Hosts (June)
The Haunted Air (August)
Gateways (September)
Crisscross (November)
Infernal (December)
YEAR ZERO MINUS ONE
Harbingers (January)
Bloodline (April)
By the Sword (May)
Ground Zero (July)
The Touch (ends in August)
The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium (ends in September)
“Tenants”*
YEAR ZERO
“Pelts”*
Reprisal (ends in February)
Fatal Error (February) (includes “The Wringer”)
The Dark at the End (March)
Nightworld (May)
Reprisal will be back in print before long. The Secret History will end with the publication of a heavily revised Nightworld in 2012.
* available in The Barrens and Others
** available in Aftershock & Others
*** available in the 2009 reissue of The Touch
**** available in Quick Fixes
ALSO BY F. PAUL WILSON
Repairman Jack*
The Tomb
Conspiracies
All the Rage
Hosts
The Haunted Air
Gateways
Crisscross
Infernal
Harbingers
Bloodline
By the Sword
Ground Zero
Fatal Error
Young Adult*
Jack: Secret Histories
Jack: Secret Circles
Jack: Secret Vengeance
The Adversary Cycle*
The Keep
The Tomb
The Touch
Reborn
Reprisal
Nightworld
Other Novels
Healer
Wheels Within Wheels
An Enemy of the State
Black Wind*
Dydeetown World
The Tery
Sibs*
The Select
Virgin
Implant
Deep as the Marrow
Mirage (with Matthew J. Costello)
Nightkill (with Steven Spruill)
Masque (with Matthew J. Costello)
The Christmas Thingy
Sims
The Fifth Harmonic
Midnight Mass
Short Fiction
Soft and Others
The Barrens and Others*
Aftershock & Others*
The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium*
Quick Fixes
Editor
Frea
k Show
Diagnosis: Terminal
* See “The Secret History of the World”.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE DARK AT THE END: A REPAIRMAN JACK NOVEL
Copyright © 2011 by F. Paul Wilson
All rights reserved.
A Tor® eBook
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wilson, F. Paul (Francis Paul)
The dark at the end / F. Paul Wilson.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates Book.”
ISBN 978-0-7653-2283-8
1. Repairman Jack (Fictitious character)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3573.I45695D37 2011
813'.54—dc22 2011021561
First Edition: October 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-8554-3