*Scene 01* 9:35 (Laura and Christie)
Laura and Christie rode side by side over the hill and down into the valley beyond.
Laura had been quiet for the first half-hour of the ride.
“I guess you think I’m being a selfish coward about this,” she spoke low, looking at the road ahead, “Leaving you and all the others and abandoning whatever is going on here. Just a big baby, or something.”
Christie smiled and turned slightly to her, “Laura, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, let me tell you something, Laura. You can ask me what I think and give me a chance to answer, or you can go on thinking you can guess what someone else is thinking. But you know what I’ve found out?”
“What is that?”
“You will get a whole lot farther by asking, rather than assuming. And you might find out that most people are not thinking as many negative thoughts as you might assume they are. It is okay to be direct. I didn’t come with you because I thought you needed mothering.”
“No?”
“Not at all.”
“Then why did you come?”
“Because I knew you need someone to just be your friend.”
Laura was silent for several minutes after. Christie could not see her face, but she suspected the girl was trying to keep the tears from showing.
Finally, she spoke up.
“I don’t have many friends.”
“You seem to be a fairly attractive girl. What about boyfriends?”
“Well, not really. Boys are kinda… You know. Goofy, immature, full of themselves and interested in…well, that.”
Christie snorted, “Yep. They are.”
“I just don’t think there is all that much in their head. They just want girls to be all into them, and I just can’t find myself doing that. I’m not sure how to say this, but I sorta need to find out if I am enough without one.”
“What about your girlfriends? Is there anyone you can talk to? Trust or rely on back there?”
“I’m not…,” she sighed, “well, y’know, popular or anything. Girls can be mean, too.”
“Yes, they can.”
“Besides, I don’t want to end up like my mom. My dad was her crush in high school. She had no other life but him, and he treated her like dirt. But she was pretty once, and it must’ve fed his ego, cause he married her and they went to parties and had this supposedly fabulous social life until she got pregnant with me. I was their killjoy. Momma blamed me for dad losing interest in her. But I didn’t ask to be born. Wish I hadn’t been. Dad started coming home late. Usually drunk. I think he hated me for being there. If that was gonna be my future, I wanted no part of it. I just wanted to grow up and get out of there as fast as I could.”
“Wow,” Christie said, “That is so sad. I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s not your problem. I guess it is just my rotten luck. Didn’t mean to dump it on you. I just thought if you knew, you might realize that I am not going back because I like it better there. It is just that I’ve got to work it out for myself. I am not a baby. I’ve been through enough hard stuff. I’m learning the rules there, and I don’t know what the rules are here.”
“None of us really do, Laura. Sometimes we just go along trying to figure them all out by ourselves.”
Laura was silent once more. Somehow that resigned admission left her feeling all alone again. Still she was grateful for the company.
“So what about you?” Laura asked, “What is your life like back in the…you know…Surface World?”
The two women had descended into the interceding valley, passing the hill that hid the old bungalow where they had sheltered two days prior.
“Oh. I am a mom. Have two kids. Both of them grown now. Boy and girl. Well, I should say a young man and young lady, but it kinda feels like missing time saying that. They grew up so fast. Too soon.”
“What about their dad?”
“Uh. He’s…” Christie sighed, “Kinda out of the picture. Not a subject I prefer to dwell on.”
“Sorry,” Laura shrugged.
“Don’t be. It’s kinda like you said. Not your problem.”
The road twisted downward into a declivity, which had a footpath running alongside a shallow brook which fed into a larger stream.
“Hey, wanna check on that man that we saw the other night? See if he’s okay?”
Christie slowed her trotting horse and turned it toward the trampled path.
Laura hesitated, “You don’t think we might run into another troll or anything do you?”
“We’ll be quick. Just in and out.”
The wind through the valley began to pick up, rustling leaves, sighing through the tall grasses along the banks of the stream.
The overcast sky began to darken with the threat of rain.
“It’s getting cold out here. I wonder if he’ll have the fire going.”
As they rode down further, the purling water of the stream began to shear off into spray as the strengthening gusts blew across its surface. By the time they reached the wild, untended garden, they knew that this place was not the same as when they had left it.
Both of the women dismounted and led their horses cautiously up to the weathered front of the cabin. Dried vines covered its face, and hid the doorway under the mass and tangle.
Laura wrapped herself with her free arm and stood close to the mare, “How did he get in there?” She gripped the reins tighter, ready to swing back up into the saddle.
“I don’t know. There must be some other way in. Let’s go around to the window.”
Christie walked through the tall grass, rounding the corner of the hovel. Laura waited out front.
“What can you see?”
Christie answered from the side, “Not much. The panes are so dusty and there is no fire inside like we saw the other night. I still don’t see how the man got in there and out unless there is another passage under the hill.”
“He probably wants to be left alone. I think we should go.”
Christie came back around from the curved corner of the cabin, and her horse snorted uneasily, waving it and angling.
“Woah, girl. Easy there.”
“Think she smells something?”
“Not sure. I think she’s nervous about the change in the weather. Those clouds are stacking up,” Christie nodded towards the eastern horizon, “A storm’s coming.”
Large building swells of bluish-white and grey mounted up over the brow of the hill that led down to the beach.
“What will we do?” nervousness threaded Laura’s voice and lifted its pitch.
“We’ve got to take cover until it blows over. The hill there will block some of it if it’s a seaborne storm. Looks like we don’t have much choice. We either turn back and try to outrun it and go back to the others at the Inn, or we hunker down here.”
Thunder crackled and the darkened hillside lit up under the strobing flash of lightning. The lines of light etched and splintered through the building cloudbank.
“I am scared.”
“Me too, honey,” Christie responded, watching the sky pensively.
“Me too,” she said again, quieter and more to herself than to Laura.
*Scene 02* 8:41 (Shadowing the Women)
Two observers scanned the rise leading down to the village of Crowe. They had ridden around the outskirts of the town up from the wheat field bearing the sunken scar and had spotted the two women riding down the road toward the eastern sea.
A large, powerfully-built man, had watched them carefully, wondering what could have given these two women the fearless daring to travel alone in country claimed and patrolled by the brutal Xarmnian Overwatch. To his left, a masked figure, with a much smaller frame, armed with a longbow, sat astride a dark horse with shoulders back, spine straight, signifying the confidence and the proud-bearing of one in leadership. Though the masked figure did not exude the latent brute strength of the former, its qualities of poise and inner strength seemed to be an attribute to which the more powerful man gave deference.
“What do you think?” the man asked quietly.
“Something is up. Women do not travel uncovered in Xarmnian claimed country alone, so these two must be strangers here,” the masked figure spoke and the timbre of the voice behind the covering was female. “How well I know,” she added thoughtfully, fingering the cloth mask that covered her own face. “And we are already spread thin as it is.”
Her head tilted, pondering, and then, at last, she raised it, squaring her shoulders back, signifying that she had reached a decision.
“Stay out of sight, but follow them. See where they go. I have instructed Garrett and the others meet us at the armory. The family are a safe distance away by now, but the Overwatch is too close. They will be expecting to meet with the tracker teams they lost to the digging monster. When they don’t show, they will search for them, and spread out. Possibly torture the people in the nearby towns for answers they cannot provide. This area is about to be lit up. And if those two are caught unawares…”
There was nothing more to be said. Both could soberly imagine the brutality that the Xarmnians were capable of from the confirmed atrocities already done.
“Where will you go?” the man asked.
“If Begglar, Nell and Dominic have not left by now, this is the time to do so. I promised Corimanth.”
“What concerns you and he with the affairs of that Inn keeper?”
The masked woman, known only in open country by her title ‘Storm Hawk’, regarded him a moment, and then answered quietly, “Nell is Corimanth’s sister. He has charged me to look out for them. Begglar and I once rode together when I first came, but he did not go then by the name he bears today.”
“Why then do you work through agents to receive reports of them. Why not visit them directly?”
“It is too dangerous for us to be seen together. Xarmni has a long memory. We have worked at arm’s link only, through Shimri as the local town contact for the Underground. Begglar’s situation does not fit with the man they expect him to be, so he blends in under their noses. Their Xarmnian arrogance makes them blind, and it is fitting that it works to our advantage.”
“Were you two once…?”
“No,” she interrupted, “It was never like that. Nothing like that.”
She cleared her thoat, stiffening in mild irritation, then continued.
“I will join the other Lehi in gathering Begglar’s horses. If what Shimri says is true, members of my world may have already arrived in the Mid-World, and they will not be made welcome. Every seven years since they learned of our arrival they have watched the coastline. But they cannot spare enough to watch it all. And they fear the fogs.”
“So I am to follow these women? For how long?”
The figure scanned the darkening sky. “Just long enough to get a sense of why they may be headed towards the sea. There is a sea storm gathering to the east. If you cannot stay ahead of it, turn back. Do not follow them into it. I have a feeling if we saw them, there may be others interested in their naïve journey as well. I do not wear this mask for comfort you know.”
The man chuckled, “And it is a pity too. You are quite fetching, young lady.”
“And it is best that you cannot see my response to that rather forward observation! I am a married woman, you know. Happily so.”
“Then why have you not returned to the Surface World? To him?”
“That is another story which I am still piecing together. If I had had my choice, I would have left here years before. But one must be in the moments in which they find themselves. To do the good they can while there still is light enough to do it.”
The man pondered those words and nodded, “I am sorry. I spoke out of turn.”
“It is forgiven,” Stork Hawk returned, “Have you tracked those Harpies?”
“Two disappeared into the tree line on the crest near Begglar’s Inn. I suspect they are observing them, but one cannot be too careful. It is hard to know where their loyalties lay. Some have been seen consorting with Xarmni, but that could be mere rumor. The monster in the deep woods to the north keeps a tight rein upon his kind. They have always despised humankind and kept to the wilds.”
“A truth I learned a hard lesson from…and still bear those scars. These are not the kinds from my old life. This avian mix of bird and man is unnatural. Perhaps these blendings only occur here in the Mid-World, but there were engineered chimeras in the labs of The Surface World. Abominable experiments done. If they could but see these tormented and violent creatures…crazed by their disordered minds which do not follow instinctive natural patterns or behaviors…” Storm Hawk trailed off, realizing again her projection of her own assumptions were clouding her judgement. She returned with, “I suspect the vestiges of human vices that remain in them do not sit well with blend of the instinctive animal.”
“These beings have been present here from of old. They are not newly come from your world,” the man observed, watching the storm clouds gather ahead.
“As I told you, time here and time there are not necessarily linked. The Walker and I had long talks about that. It is why I am free to do here what needs to be done with you and the others. My husband will experience no time lost, while I am present here. I expect to be able to go back to him in the moment I departed. If these women are from where I suspect they came from, I think they are going back to an Oculus. It would be good to know where it landed. I miss my husband and something or someone else, that I cannot quite bring to mind. The fog walls took it from me.”
“I will do what needs to be done. Don’t let it trouble you further,” the man gripped the reins of his mount, about to urge the horse into duty, but he paused, and looked back at Storm Hawk. “We will miss you, my lady. The Lehi riders were your idea. It has been an honor serving with you.”
“Meet us in Azragoth in three days. Go, quickly. Stay safe.”
*Scene 03* 6:11 (The Testing Place)
The horses pulling the wagon champ their bits and hesitate, stepping from side to side, as Begglar urges them forward with a flick of the tracers. The beasts smell the lingering touch of death and decay. They are wary and restless. Their eyes roll in uneasiness. At last, the horses stop, unwilling to go any further.
The large hill is festooned with broken rock, scree. The area is littered with bone fragments, white ashes and a dark, rich and blackened soil beneath, yet green patches of grass peek through and then climb the steep hill to its crest. The thick thorn bushes surrounding the bottom of the rise are new to me. I never remembered them being there before. The hill is aerated by the pecks and stabs of the beaks of the birds. Fertilized by them, and seeded as well. A spray of white flowers covers its domed brow, here and there. Most likely edelweiss. I vaguely remember coming here in the days before, but this…
“Surely, this is not the same place?”
Begglar gestured towards the thick brush at the bottom.
“The briar bushes were brought in to discourage travelers from approaching the hill. There is one way through them, but it is narrow, and we must go up single file. A veritable crown of thorns, it is. It’s been hard keeping the local flocks of sheep away from it. If a lamb gets tangled up in those thickets, a shepherd is going to bloody himself, getting it out of there.”
Nothing in my memory could have prepared me for this stark change. I sit there transfixed and amazed, horrified and bewildered, yet strangely feeling a certain inexplicable solemn sort of sobered peace.
Begglar dismounts the buckboard, and he and his son help their wife and mother down to the rocky ground. He turns to me and says, “Are ya comin’ or no?”
In a strange sort of dazed feeling, I find myself on the ground standing next to him, not sure exactly when I rose or remembering climbing down from the wagon once again.
Everyone there could sense it. Terrible deeds had been done at this site. This abattoir of martyrdom should have been attenuated with melancholy and despair. Instead, it stirred a sense of awe and tragic wonder in me. Beckoning my soul to feel something that the surviving people of these lands had lost.
Hope.
Nell and their son, Dominic led the way through the thorny path, winding this way and that taking care to keep us from the long, wicked thorns that clawed and waved angrily at us along the path. We were led up to a gathering of rocks and pebbles near the sharp incline of the largest hill. Dominic began to remove large covering slate stones and dig through the pile of rocks and several of the others baled in to assist.
Something within, me felt like Abraham must have ascending Mount Moriah, on his way to take the life of his son in sacrifice to the One who called him ‘Friend’. This was a place of testing. A place where others’ faith had been seen or shattered. A place that would reveal to me and those I was called to lead what sort of man I really was.
And I was terrified.
Begglar stood to my left, and just out of my eye line. When he spoke quietly to me, I was slightly startled.
“How well, do you trust these friends of yours?”
I cleared my throat. “I don’t know them yet,” I answered. “I haven’t pressed them to give me their names or asked much about them. So far, I’ve just had to trust that they were called to be here for a reason. I’m just trusting in that.”
Begglar raised an eyebrow and cocked his head at me.
“Aye,” he said nodding slightly, “and how well do they know you? Have you told them yet?”
I cleared my throat again, this time to cover my annoyance at the general drift of his line of questioning.
As I started to walk down to the others I answered his question…kind of.
“All will be made clear to them soon. First things first. We need to see The Marker.”
This was my fear. I could not ask them who they were, without allowing them to ask me who or what I was. But deep down, I knew I had no other choice. This place would test me before them, just as it had those martyred here under the cruel hand of the Xarmnians.
*Scene 04* 7:05 (Shimri’s Reflections)
Shimri, a short man of about sixty seasons, stood contemplating the pinkish hue blushing upon the distant hill road that led up to Begglar’s Inn. His home had served as a temporary shelter for the family Begglar had brought to him through the fog, three nights prior. The place was obscured by trees from the main road, but its evening lights could still be glimpsed through the darkness from the upper corner window of Begglar’s Inn. Signal lights, that Begglar and he had worked out together to alert each other in dire times such as these.
The moonpath he and Begglar and young Dominic had constructed together, between their two houses had taken several years to put in place, going to and fro back from the shores of the eastern sea. The man had been a veritable wealth of sea lore and knowledge. A vital resource for allowing the resistence to continue as it had and thrive despite the late increase in Xarmni’s militant presence. Xarmnian ire and its more directed efforts of breaking the back of resistence had been focused primarily on the shorelines of the great fjords lake chain country near Cascale, but as setbacks increased they detected more pockets of resistence shifting more towards the eastern highlands.
Perhaps, it had been too foolish to have Storm Hawk and her raiders operating with increasing frequency so far from the western lands. Xarmni had noticed the shift, and had become interested in its direction and proximity to the buried Stone they hated so much.
“Out of the east will come your Champion. Out of the east, your Soverign King.” A statement of promise that he and the others in The Resistence had once used in secret greeting among there own, to comfort each other, as the seeds of war began to rise from the grounds of the Mid-World.
A verse from the inscriptions on the Ancient Stone rose again to Shimri’s mind that he had contemplated with curiosity of late.
“But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.” [Daniel 11:44 KJV]
Xarmni would come again. And their considerations of the shift in resistance activities might lead their minds to reflect on their most miserable defeat in the buried town of death and disease, the merchant city of Azragoth, just over twenty years ago, which they had mischaracterized as a decisive victory. Though their losses were great and severe, and their forces fled the battlefield in terror of contagion, it was almost laughable how they twisted historical accounts to make themselves the victor in every outcome.
Still, he was saddened to hear that Begglar and Nell were finally leaving. The Inn had been a fixture of the town of Crowe and had always been a place of welcome from before Xarmni had extended its reach. From the early days when Begglar opened his bakery and strategically placed it at the top of the hill, everyone in the small town below awakened to the heavenly smell of freshly baked bread wafting down the hill from Begglar’s ovens. Travelers coming from the southern road were willing to make the effort to walk through town and up the hill to the top, just to sample the wares from Begglar’s bakery. The Inn had originally built as a dining hall, but was expanded to offer ten rooms to traveling lodgers, in addition to the main living quarters and the stables and barns needed to service the Inn and its supporting stock. The bakery merely shifted to the large kitchen servicing the Inn.
Now no aromatic scents decended from the hillside. No sounds of scurrying chickens, no mooing of their cows impatiently awaiting their milking time, no nickering or exuberant whinnying of their horses waiting to be unstabled and released to a pasture run. No glimmer of the sun’s rays peeked over the upper brow of the hillside shedding light upon the gray morning. Only the rise of the stacking clouds, slightly illumined and reddened by the veiled sun buried in the sky behind it gave a semblance of what the day might bring.
“Red sky in the morning…sailor take warning,” Shimri muttered as he looked to the vacated hill where his longtime friend once lived.
A compatriot took him out of his dire contemplation of the ominous scene, and asked him again. “What do we do with this Xarmnian?”
“Has Mikai been taken back to his mom?”
“Yes. The Storm Hawk and her riders saw to that personally. They informed his widow, Dora, and left provisions for her and the boy.”
“Did you extend our offer to take them to Azragoth? We could still get word to Garrett and the other Lehi.”
“Dora said their leaving suddenly might draw further suspicion. When the Xarmnian hunters come, she could not bear the thought of not being there to stand with her friends and family. She and Mikai want to stay and do anything they can to help us. She said they need to do this. To be able to do something to see to it that Xarmnian evil does not easily visit violence on other families as well.”
“I wish there more people were of her mindset. You’ve done well, Johanan.”
“What about the Xarmnian? He is beligerent. We have had to keep three men to watch him. He cannot be trusted.”
“You are correct. Confine him in the shed with the troll we caught yesterday.”
“They’ll kill each other.”
“If they do, that is one less miscreant that we have to watch over. Either way, I expect the one that survives will be more inclined to cooperate afterwards.”
*Scene 05* 8:39 (Entering the Abattoir)
Buried under the skirting pile of stones was a clever sort of levered locking mechanism that released a hidden counter-weight and caused one of the larger rocks at the base of the hill to pivot outward, revealing a slight declining tunnel behind it. The tunnel angled down slightly and then leveled off, revealing a rocky entrance to the passages under the hillside.
The passage was dark, low and narrow, a gaping maw that threatened to swallow completely all who dared enter.
My mind briefly drifted to the words of Dante Alighieri, in Inferno, Canto III, and the inscription over the entrance to “The Gate of Hell”:
“Through me, you go to the grief wracked city; Through me, you go to everlasting pain; Through me, you go a pass among lost souls. Justice inspired my exalted Creator: I am a creature of the Holiest Power, of Wisdom in the Highest and of Primal Love. Nothing, till I was made, was made, only eternal beings. And I endure eternally. Abandon all Hope — Ye Who Enter Here“
The crowd gathered around the open passage.
“You want us to go in there?” one of the young men asked.
“It seems to be the only way to get to The Marker Stone,” I answered, “We all need to go in.”
“All of us?!” a young girl with dark hair looked at me with wide eyes.
“Yes, we…”
“I’m not. I can’t. I won’t!” the young girl balked, backing away from the dark entrance.
The tall blonde woman, who had been identified to me as Cheryl, came to the girl’s aid and turned an accusatory glare at me.
“Surely, you are not going to make the young ones go into that death hole, are you? What kind of a man are you, frightening children like this?”
Others had begun to gather around us and it appeared that the situation was rapidly getting out of hand.
Miray had scrambled down from the buckboard and pushed through the gathering.
“Well, I’m going in there, Mr. Brian!” she said coming to my side and taking my hand. “I’m not a baby!”
The dark-haired girl seethed and was about to lunge at Miray, but Nell intervened before she could advance.
“Perhaps, I should keep the young ones out here, Mister…,” he eyes shifted questioningly to her husband and Begglar supplied.
“O’Brian. Mister O’Brian,” he said, with the slightest hint of a green glimmer in his dancing eyes, barely masking his mirth in doing so.
I gave him a withering glare, but his Blarney guard was already up and beaming at me.
Seeing no help from Begglar, I raised my hands placatingly, “Look, I had no idea it had been buried. When I was here last, we could walk up to it…”
“Aye,” Begglar interjected, “Tis of a truth, he speaks. But O’Brian’s been a bit tardy in his return, so the Xarmnians fetched us to hide their embarrassment.”
I glared openly at his, and he feigned innocence, and then winked at me.
Irish blarney, indeed.
“But ye no be worryin’ yer little bonnet, lassie! She’s as safe as a mother’s bosom.”
Nell raised an eyebrow at that, and Begglar blushed, rubbing his hand over his forehead, “Beggin’ your pardon, Sweet Lamb.”
“I’ll keep the girls out here with me. Dom will guide you all with the light, until it is not needed. Run along now.”
Cheryl, glanced from Nell to the dark-haired girl and said, “Perhaps, I’d better…”
Nell interrupted her, “Perhaps you’d better follow, lass. There is a bit of importance to why you’re here in there. T’would be a shame if you missed out, because of the bairns. Go along now.”
Miray tugged at me, “But I don’t want to stay out here. Becca’s going to get me.”
“I’ll see to it that they behave themselves,” Nell assured me. “I’ve parted my share of roughhousing brawlers in my time, O’Brian. Mind you that. We run an Inn with rough customers. Be fine.”
Miray looked from me to Nell and then back at me for assurances. I nodded consent to Nell, and Miray’s brow creased in disappointment, but she conceded. Becca eyed Miray as she climbed back up into the bed of the wagon, and then her defiant stare fixed on me as she raised her chin in an air of contempt. Miray peeked over the side rail panel of the wagon and stuck her tongue out at Becca, but ducked down behind it when the girl wheeled sensing my gaze shift toward Miray, as I tried to hide a small grin.
In the meantime, a torch was lit and Begglar’s son, Dominic held it forth, leading us through the small narrow aperture into the very heart of an abyss.
Many hesitate at the doorway. Looking to me for some sort of assurances, but I can give them none. This walk into the heart of the hill requires courage that I barely have, at most, a tenuous grasp on. There is a small ante-chamber inside. Its walls formed of an assemblage of rock fitted together, yet uncut and unmortared. The compression and weight of the rock and earthen mound above held it in place. Every once in awhile, we saw through the rock the more grisly mortise pieces of crushed skulls and bones joining the earthen worked hill, but the air was dry within and had the musty smell of lime about it. The torchlight flickers but continued to burn, casting jumping shadows with every step and movement into the recesses of the hill. Great stone monoliths leaned and supported and distributed the crushing weight above, forming a sort of triangular ceiling in some parts of the tunnel and a domed barrel vault in others. The passages were cramped and angular, working a sort of zig-zag pattern further into the interior.
Feeling a bit anxious and claustrophobic, I pressed pass Dominic, feeling a sort of disoriented panic to find the way to the center quickly so that we could hasten our exit back out. And then I saw it…
Just up ahead. I had progressed beyond the torches, my eyes not fully acclimated to the dark, but still I could see it distinctly.
Beyond me, about twenty feet or so, the passage took a hard turn to the right, and the interior was glowing of its own light.
I did not realize I had stopped until the others pushed behind me into the narrow passage. I glanced at Dominic, and he smiled knowingly, glad at last to share the mystery his family must have had to keep secret for many years now.
We proceeded cautiously forward, yet in awe of this strange illumination, fearful, yet desirous to see the source of it. Begglar crowed forward and together we entered the central main chamber.
Before us there stood over fifteen to twenty feet tall a large black stone with golden letters engraved and shining brightly upon its polished black surface. The rest of our party entered and gathered about us in amazement gazing up at the ancient burning letters shining and illuminating the cavern around it.
*Scene 06* 1:56 (Xarmnian Hunters)
In the distance, six lightly-armored Xarmnian horsemen topped the hill of the highland mesa and found the winding road leading up to The Inn in the small village of Crowe. They had tracked the family of four, two adults and two children up through the western pass, winding up through the woods just as the light snow started falling. It had been of some annoyance to them that the tracks were being covered by the snowy blanket, but they were certain this fleeing family would not get too far ahead without seeking shelter. The children were small and frail. They wouldn’t last as the temperatures dropped and the wet and cold seeped into their ragged clothing. If these were fool-hardy enough to go much farther, they might be overtaken before the snow-filled in their evidence of passage.
The little troublesome scribbler would never make trouble again. And his children, if they survived, would be given the curative Elixir that their father refused to write favorably of.
They were perplexed when the advanced company of trackers did not return to their gathering place, but be that as it may, they suspected where both the family and their compatriots might converge. The Inn at the hilltop, overlooking the small township. The man they had marked and given leave to oversees their stock and provide them service whenever they were in the vicinity. He and his woman. The woman they had decided should be watched. There was something familiar about her. A resistence that still gleamed in her eyes, whenever they had come to call. That was why they had sent the Trolls.
Trolls which never reported back.
And they were coming to find out why.
*Scene 07* 14:30 (The Marker Stone)
In the illumined chamber of the Hill of Skulls the golden letters seemed to swim and dance before our eyes, moving in sparkling light that warmed and cooled us at the same time.
“This is what you all needed to see,” I muttered, but my words carried and seem to circulate around the chamber walls.
“What is this?” a tall man in our company asked.
“This is The Marker Stone. It is the fulcrum of all that exists here. The mystery of this land. Both its spine and its heart.”
The letters continued to shift and curve, and pit and straighten, almost as if the text written were the pulse of the heart of the stone.
One of the members of our team, a middle-aged, Middle eastern man moved forward and his eyes widened, “This text is in Pharsi.”
Another moved foward, and examined the moving letters and contradicted him, “No, this is an ancient language. I see Greek letters.”
A woman shook her head vigorously, “Ahh, you loco gringos. The is espanol!”
I spoke up, “Actually, you all are correct. And anyone who speaks or reads any language in a native language will be able to read these words in their first language or any language that is intelligible to them.”
“How is this possible?” a young woman asked.
“To answer that, you need to know that this very stone is transcendent. It occupies spaces both in this Mid-World, and in the world we came from, the world we all share in common: The Surface World.”
Reluctantly, all eyes turned towards me briefly, and then their gaze shifted back to the The Marker Stone.
“This Stone is a monument here, but also an oracle of legend and prophecy. In our world, it appears in two instances recorded in the Ancient Text of our faith, the Holy Scriptures. If you read closely you will find that most of the text that appears here on the stone are also passages from that very same source. One particular passage is very telling indeed. What you may not be able to see from here is the crown of the stone has seven faces on it, and at the top of each face is an eye.”
“That’s creepy,” a teen girl remarked.
“It is how I recognized this stone when reading about it in the Ancient Text,” I countered.
“What passage are you referring to?” the tall man asked.
“In the book of Zechariah the third chapter at verses eight and nine, The One calls Zechariah’s attention to a high priest whose name is Joshua, and tells him to pay close attention to the imagery and symbol he is about to show him. It is a messianic prophecy of One who is to come who will be called The Branch. The prophecy says this:
Hear now, Joshua the high priest, thou and thy fellows that sit before thee — for they are men of portent — for behold, I will bring forth my servant the Branch. For behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua — upon one stone are seven eyes; behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith Jehovah of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in one day. [Zechariah 3:8-9 DBY]”
“So that was the stone with the seven eyes?” one asked.
“It is more than that. Who is it that will be engraving upon the stone with the seven eyes?”
I heard several gasp. “You mean that…?”
“This Marker Stone is in many places at once. It is not just here in this reality, but in every reality where a person have trusted in and given their heart to the message that they read upon the Stone.”
“Are you saying God Himself is writing these golden letters?” Cheryl asked.
“It is the only explanation that fits,” I replied. “The letters are words written that transcend every tongue every spoken by mankind. When the apostles preached God’s message to a mixed crowd of international travelers upon the day of Pentecost, every person heard the words in their native language. When the book of John refers to The Word being made flesh, he was speaking of The Branch that is paired with this stone’s imagery in the book of Zechariah. This Stone is the sources of all power here in the Mid-World, but it is both feared and reviled by many of the occupants of this land. The crown and the virtue stones that hold this land’s future are connected with this Stone monolith and the power it represents. The temporary kingdoms of this world fear this Stone. But it is this Stone’s prophecy which will free it ultimately to become the land of healing it was intended to be.”
I then turned to the golden letters that, to my sight formed into the letters of my English alphabet.
“Here read the words of the Prophecy of The Marker:
“Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not envious toward wrongdoers. For they will wither quickly like the grass And fade like the green herb. Trust in the LORD and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday. Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing. For evildoers will be cut off, But those who wait for the LORD, they will inherit the land. Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; And you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there. But the humble will inherit the land And will delight themselves in abundant prosperity. The wicked plots against the righteous And gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord laughs at him, For He sees his day is coming. The wicked have drawn the sword and bent their bow To cast down the afflicted and the needy, To slay those who are upright in conduct. Their sword will enter their own heart, And their bows will be broken. Better is the little of the righteous Than the abundance of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked will be broken, But the LORD sustains the righteous. The LORD knows the days of the blameless, And their inheritance will be forever. They will not be ashamed in the time of evil, And in the days of famine they will have abundance. But the wicked will perish; And the enemies of the LORD will be like the glory of the pastures, They vanish–like smoke they vanish away. The wicked borrows and does not pay back, But the righteous is gracious and gives. For those blessed by Him will inherit the land, But those cursed by Him will be cut off. The steps of a man are established by the LORD, And He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, Because the LORD is the One who holds his hand. I have been young and now I am old, Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken Or his descendants begging bread. All day long he is gracious and lends, And his descendants are a blessing. Depart from evil and do good, So you will abide forever. For the LORD loves justice And does not forsake His godly ones; They are preserved forever, But the descendants of the wicked will be cut off. The righteous will inherit the land And dwell in it forever. The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, And his tongue speaks justice. The law of his God is in his heart; His steps do not slip. The wicked spies upon the righteous And seeks to kill him. The LORD will not leave him in his hand Or let him be condemned when he is judged. Wait for the LORD and keep His way, And He will exalt you to inherit the land; When the wicked are cut off, you will see it. I have seen a wicked, violent man Spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil. Then he passed away, and lo, he was no more; I sought for him, but he could not be found. Mark the blameless man, and behold the upright; For the man of peace will have a posterity. But transgressors will be altogether destroyed; The posterity of the wicked will be cut off. But the salvation of the righteous is from the LORD; He is their strength in time of trouble. The LORD helps them and delivers them; He delivers them from the wicked and saves them, Because they take refuge in Him. [Psalm 37:1-40 NASB]
If these truths be not upheld, your lands will be ravaged and its peoples suffer for a time, but you have been granted this day a remedy and a hope for the fulfillment of this future promise and prophesy.
“Behold, a king will reign righteously And princes will rule justly. Each will be like a refuge from the wind And a shelter from the storm, Like streams of water in a dry country, Like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land. Then the eyes of those who see will not be blinded, And the ears of those who hear will listen. The mind of the hasty will discern the truth, And the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak clearly. No longer will the fool be called noble, Or the rogue be spoken of as generous. For a fool speaks nonsense, And his heart inclines toward wickedness: To practice ungodliness and to speak error against the LORD, To keep the hungry person unsatisfied And to withhold drink from the thirsty. As for a rogue, his weapons are evil; He devises wicked schemes To destroy the afflicted with slander, Even though the needy one speaks what is right. But the noble man devises noble plans; And by noble plans he stands. Rise up, you women who are at ease, And hear my voice; Give ear to my word, You complacent daughters. Within a year and a few days You will be troubled, O complacent daughters; For the vintage is ended, And the fruit gathering will not come. Tremble, you women who are at ease; Be troubled, you complacent daughters; Strip, undress and put sackcloth on your waist, Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, For the land of my people in which thorns and briars shall come up; Yea, for all the joyful houses and for the jubilant city. Because the palace has been abandoned, the populated city forsaken. Hill and watch-tower have become caves forever, A delight for wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks; Until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high, And the wilderness becomes a fertile field, And the fertile field is considered as a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness And righteousness will abide in the fertile field. And the work of righteousness will be peace, And the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever. Then my people will live in a peaceful habitation, And in secure dwellings and in undisturbed resting places; And it will hail when the forest comes down, And the city will be utterly laid low. How blessed will you be, you who sow beside all waters, Who let out freely the ox and the donkey.”
[Isaiah 32:1-20 NASB]
Do not abandon Hope. When the time is right, and Evil has had its season, the Truth of these words will be made manifest and will come to you to bring you Salvation from the wicked oppressors and powers unseen that rule and reign over these lands.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. [Hebrews 11:1-2 NASB]
Keep the Faith. Though the darkness is deep, the morning is coming.
And lastly, this cactus was leaning towards the northern face of the hillside. Barrel cacti are also known as the compass cacti because they almost always tend to lean towards the south or southwest to prevent burns from the sun.
