Under The Cover of Darkness – Chapter 6

*Scene 01* 7:41 (Nell Remembers)

Begglar’s wife, Nell, was worried.

It had been so many years since other Surface Worlders had been seen in the Mid-World lands and never before in such numbers as these.  Begglar, her husband had been among the fourteen travelers from the mysterious Other Land, when she’d first met him.  She had heard that the first party of Other Land travelers had been only a party of seven, but that was many years before her time and before she or her brother had been born.

Her parents had lived in the “ghost town” at that time.  A town that was long dead now.  A place she had heard was being reborn in secret, but a place she wanted no part of because of the great tragedy that had stolen her parents from her.  At any other time, she and her brother might have gone with them there.  But if they had, she knew they both would have joined them in death.

Her life and her world had been crushed in the aftermath.  She had on many occasions wished she would have died with them, and not been trapped in Surrogate – “Sorrows Gate” as it was renamed.  A fitting title because it reflected her deepest pain.  Had it not been for the kindness of Noadiah taking her and her brother in, they might have starved to death when the Xarmnians came to take over their city and placed the quarantine edicts in the town’s square, forbidding anyone from going out to investigate what had happened with the dead city.

Her world had darkened, and her brother had taken their deaths hard as well.  In an instant, she had been thrust cruelly into blinking and stunned adulthood.  She had to do whatever was necessary to make provision for herself and her brother.

She had been raised in the family business of small-scale merchants.  Her parents had tried to raise them to one-day take over for them, but her brother, Corimanth, was not properly and consistently disciplined.  Indulged too much, he had proved a difficult problem to manage by herself.  He resented her, resented the tragedy of losing his parents at such a young age, and became belligerent and unmanageable.  He wanted to lash out but had no constructive way to do so, so he had gotten into frequent mischief.  At one point, he left for many days and did not return, and she had feared the worst.  She imagined that he had gone too far and had foolishly challenged the Xarmnians and had met with a swift and brutal death somewhere.

Noadiah had been kind to them–had given them work in her Inn–but something had broken deep within Nell’s heart.  She doubted that she would ever be able to feel much of anything again, so she became despondent but dutifully served Noadiah with the up-keep of her place: cooking, cleaning, attending to travelers of all types.  Rebuffing the advancements of lewd men, suffering the sneers and jests of bawdy women.  Until the strange group of sojourners from the north came–men from Capitalia, but not originally so.  Men who had a secret plan to defy the Xarmnian edicts–to challenge the brutal regime’s uncontested rule and dominance of their native lands.  They had arrived to start a rebellion.  And with the way she was feeling, she felt she had nothing to lose in secretly helping them with their cause.

And then the strange crew of Surface Worlders arrived.  And she met a tall, proud and broad-shouldered man among them.  And her heart had been smitten.  Perhaps, there was hope for breathing life into her wounded heart again.

Time and the man’s persistent and steadfast affections had won her over.

She loved this man, more now than she ever knew was possible.  They had been through a lot together, and time had taken a toll on both of them.  Weathered them to some degree, but the real ravager had been the constant strain of living under occupied hostility.  The Xarmnians had been brutal and gaining in strength, while the people they oppressed diminished and perished under their brutal thumb.  When Begglar had come to her and proposed and laid out his strange but clever plan, she had been fearful but trusting.  It would never work, she’d thought, but the chance to be with the man she had grown to love was a force that could not be denied.  She would risk it.  Once married, they could not live a full life on the run forever.  So, they had left Sorrow’s Gate and had moved to this small high village of Crowe.  “A fitting name”, Begglar had said, because it had reminded him of an author and the story, he’d once read in his Surface World life about hiding in plain sight.  Remarkably, Begglar’s ludicrous scheme had worked for many years now.  They had hidden right under the very noses of their oppressors.  They had enjoyed a modestly good life for a long season.

Their son’s arrival had been an unexpected blessing, a deepening of her understanding of love and the capacity for it in her own heart as it expressed itself lovingly towards delight in seeing him grow and become a similar yet unique blending of both her and her husband.

Akin to that, what disturbed her about this group of Other World travelers was now they had young children among them.  A disturbing development, indeed for the prior incidences around these quests, as Begglar and the others, had termed them, had been a path through violence and political turmoil.

Yet that was not what was troubling her most.  It was what their sudden presence here signified.  She had felt something stirring deep within her upon first seeing the Surface Worlders outside the Inn.  Something she had thought had faded and left her long ago.  The gift was awakening in her again.

Quietly she whispered, “Oh, no.  Why now?” feeling some rising degree of panic such that she had to steady herself, leaning against the wall.

Deeper still, within her spirit, a small and quiet voice, that she recognized was not her own responded kindly and gently, “Why not now?”

*Scene 02* 3:59 (Fiends in the Fog)

Two short figures skulked through the tall grass, trying to keep from making noise, but the grass rustled around them with their every step. They moved interchangeably on feet and the callused knuckles of their overlong arms, like a couple of restless and hairless orangutans, grunting like pigs.
“Pogsly better have a good reason for not coming back or Jehaza’ll rip him a new navel with a pike!” whined one.
“Shut yer gob, Shelberd!” the larger of the two rumbled, “Pog knows what he’s doin’. Somethin’ musta happened, or else he woulda been back by now.”
“I hate being out in fogs!” the smaller muttered, “Can’t smell nuffin. Can’t see nuffin.”
The larger figure cuffed the smaller with a hard, wet slap to the back of its head, causing him to bark out a surprised whelp.
“Didn’t see that one, did ya! Now shut up!”
The two moved up the back of a hillside that overlooked the foggy barnyard grounds of the inn where their missing companion had last gone. The rooftops of the inn and its barn were the only structures that barely peeked out of the white drifts in the moonlight. The small village of Crowe down below the rise was completely buried in a sea of stirring clouds. If not for the faint glow of drowning lights illuminating the crests of the foamy sea, any trace of its deep presence would have been swallowed entirely.
As the two figures ambled over the top of the hill, both caught a faint burnt odor coming from somewhere down below. They snorted in the moist breeze, their warm expelled breath chugging billows of vapor into the cold night air.
“What is that, Grum?” the smaller one asked.
The larger put his hand on the smaller, holding him back while he sniffed the air, moving slightly downward and ahead of him.
“Somethin’ burnt,” the larger muttered.
The younger guffawed, “Bad cooks?”
“Hush up!” the larger growled and moved lower down the hill continuing to sniff loudly turning his head from side to side.
From below, getting closer to the foggy drifts, the smaller heard the larger one grunt and mutter, “Smell’s stronger down here.”
The smaller trotted downward towards the fading figure of his cohort, gravel skittering down the hill at its gait, just as the larger stooped out of sight.
“Wuz this?” the large one grunted, from within the gray billows.
A silent moment passed while the larger one pawed at a charred shape lying hidden in shadow under the foggy darkness. A grumbled mewl came from out of the gray fog, and the other smaller figure found the larger pounding the ground with hard fists, breaking and dislodging small rocks, as it groaned and growled around the burnt body of their missing accomplice.

*Scene 03* 4:36 (Transfer in the Mists)

A lead line trailed from Begglar’s white horse into the misty night back to the black horse that held the family following just a few yards behind.  As long as the line was slightly taut, they knew Begglar and his lead horse was still ahead of them somewhere in the fog.

Begglar had them climb into the saddle with the youngest child in front, followed by the man’s wife and the older child between the two adults.  Begglar had lashed the man’s arms around his family and to the reins of Sable, the horse upon which they rode.  The black stallion was a large horse with a strong, broad back and thick muscled girth, accustomed to pulling hay wagons and timber sleds.  The family were extremely light by comparison to its daytime loads.

Begglar and Nell had outfitted the family in warm clothes that were overlarge and swallowed their small, starved frames, but at least they were warm and thick enough for the night ride.   The foggy air was moist and cold, but they had wrapped their faces in warm scarves to keep out the chill.  The younger child squirmed a little, but the women steadied the child between her arms and thighs, holding the him snugly against the pommel horn of the saddle.

They moved at a surprisingly quick trot, considering the lack of visibility. Both Begglar and the two animals seemed to instinctively know the route, never once allowing the line between them to grow taut or too slack.  The black dray stallion kept snorting, smelling the scent of the white mare ahead and the man realized that Begglar had employed a certain degree of horseman’s insight to get the two animals to coordinate through their blind nighttime run.

The moonlight above cast only a diffuse glow down into the fog, but its location in the vast panorama of the night sky was buried in billows beyond perception.  The effect was disorienting, so the man was glad at least their guide and the horses seemed to know where they were being led.

Suddenly the tie line went slack, and the black stallion snorted, bobbing its head, drawing nigh to the white haunch and silvered tail that materialized out of the gloom ahead.

“We are close,” came Begglar’s voice out of the fog. “Wait quietly. I will speak to our friends and they will take you all from here.”

The man spoke, his voice muffled by the scarf covering his mouth.  “How can we ever thank you?” he asked.

“By forgetting all you have seen and will see this night,” Begglar answered.

“Someday, if our paths ever cross again…”

“Only the One knows what will be,” Begglar interrupted, “Hang tight. There is still further to go. Hold onto your family.”

With that, Begglar disappeared into the fog, as the stallion nuzzled the white mare, that Begglar had vacated and had tied to an overhanging limb of a tree.

Low unintelligible voices arose quietly, nearby, speaking for a few minutes that seemed to stretch longer than the time actually taken.

The man stared into the misty night unable to see anyone or anything more than the horse they sat upon and the white mare and its bare saddle.  He held onto his wife and children, taking slight comfort in their close presence, hearing his wife speaking low and calmly to their two children.

He almost gave a startled cry when he felt a figure brush against his thigh, but Begglar’s voice followed the movement.

“They have agreed to take you all further, but you will need to be blind-folded for their safety. There is a rest stop not far from here where you will have beds and a warm fire and meals set out for you. The fog will provide cover for movements, but there is danger that a Xarmnian patrol might be coming to find out what happened to the party whose destruction you witnessed. Keep as quiet as you can. We are not sure who or what else might be out this night.”

*Scene 04* 3:37 (Listening to the Night)

As the temperature outside the inn fell and the fogs from below rose, the usual sounds of the night’s insectile instrumentation ceased. No night birds chirruped. No bats squeaked in nocturnal flight. No moon rays pierced the heavens with anything more than a barely discernible glow.

Blindly, I had managed to find my way across the short distance to the barn.  The fog was so thick that I barely made my way across the barnyard from the dining hall doorway.  I thought I had heard the sound of a horse’s approach from a distance, but I could not be sure of anything.

Finding my way through the stable into the thick straw, I followed the rough-hewn boards inside that led to the ladder up into the hayloft. I mounted the rungs and unlatched the upper loft door and cracked it open to get whatever view I could of the surrounding grounds of the inn, but it was of no use.  The wet chill of the night air, instantly made me regret leaving the warmth of the fire so soon after speaking to the young woman.
My taking the watch of the night was nothing more than a cruel and pointless joke.  Nothing could be seen in such as this.  So, thus blinded, I resolved to listen as much as I could for anything sounding out of the ordinary.

Only the noise of the high wind that had pushed the fog banks up the hill and the rustling of leaves in the surrounding trees dispelled the night’s ominous stillness. The night breezes seemed to conspire against my efforts to keep this dubious watch and cover and absorb anything else that might be heard stirring in the cloud-blanketed night.

From the upper loft’s doorway, I pulled my arms around me and drew my knees up close to my chest, holding in what little warmth I could, wishing that there was enough moonlight left to try and read the letter Begglar had given me.

On a miserable night such as this, a good story can be a comfortable distraction to occupy the mind away from focusing on the wet touches of the night.

As I sat there, in the quiet loft, hearing only the faint grunting of hogs that were no doubt huddled together in the straw deeper within the barn, I thought more of the sadness in the young woman I had spoken with, and of the remarkable courage of Christie whom I had dubbed “The She-Bear”, and of little Miray and the other unnamed persons comprising the group that had accompanied me from the sea shore.

I quietly prayed for each of them: for their safety, their openness to what lay ahead, and for wisdom and discernment to be able follow the quiet voice of the One who called me back here.  Fatigue pulled and tugged at me, as I whispered these supplications, and slumber almost took me into its arms, before I was startled by distant sounds of guttural groaning seeming to come from behind and above the back of the inn on the hillside.

*Scene 05* 6:10 (Who’s Out There?) )

The noises were unnatural, yet disturbingly familiar.

I was probably foolish going out into the fog, but I needed to know what was making the noise.  The imagination can conjure up some pretty terrifying specters, so I knew I would be better off discovering the true nature of any potential threat rather than awaiting its nasty surprises.

Besides, with Begglar no doubt incapacitated by drink, and the others being novices in this mysterious country, it was left to me to ascertain what dangers might come out of the darkness to threaten those sheltering within the inn.

With the thick moisture in the air, I knew it would be pointless trying to light a torch, and beside any light I might be able to carry would only give an alert of my approach to whoever or whatever was out there.

We had left the burned body of the troll exposed out on the hillside, so I suspected that whatever had made the sounds was more than likely some sort of scavenger.  The more I thought about that idea, the more I imagined sets of gleaming teeth and pairs of yellow glinting eyeshine awaiting my foolish curiosity to provide them with an additional garnish to their evening meal.

As I ventured out into the night, I felt the wetness of the fog condensate on my face and run icy cold rivulets down my chin and neck, under my collar and into my shirt.  Just great! I thought. The soggy scout. Cold, wet, sleepy and stupid.  What am I even doing?

Still, I plunged onward.  Heedless of my own self-admonishments.

With my hands outstretched I cautiously crept forward, not certain of where I was in proximity to the main building, but feeling like I was not that far from it.  A corral fence bordered one end of the property, and ran along the road side that sloped downward into the village of Crowe less than a half-mile away.  The hillside extended up behind the inn, and I knew it was only a matter of determining whether I was approaching an incline or a declivity, if I strayed off the area of the property.  The grounds were leveled out and the sea road from which we had come descended for a way into a valley before rising back up towards the distant ridge-line.   If I struck out following the angle from the barn that I had determined, I would soon either gain the hill or find the edge of the inn again.  One hundred paces give or take a few should let me know if I was headed rightly, or if I should give it up as a fool’s errand altogether.

The winds had swallowed the sounds, but I felt reasonably sure the hillside was where they had originated.  If the troll indeed had other parties involved, they would more than likely observe from a distance, but would be as blind as I was until the fog cleared.

I crept carefully along the ground, swinging my arms from side to side, groping for anything that might orient me.  The moistened ground was soft, but hard packed, and I could feel the ridges of coach and wagon ruts cut into it, so I knew I was safely in the open yard.  Once beyond the cuts, I knew the hillside or the fence line would meet me eventually.

After a few slow moments, I heard the faint sound of skittering rocks, and cautiously moved towards it.  I felt the ground slightly rise and I congratulated myself on blindly navigating to the hill.

The body was about thirty feet up the rise.  Whatever, or whomever had made the sounds, were within a few more paces, but I still could not see whether they were animal or man or otherwise. Visibility was still limited, but I thought I heard harsh whispering, so I froze in place, not knowing if they would descend or climb away from me.

After a moment, I heard a low voice come from the hillside above.

“Help me carry him!”

“But Grum…!”

“Shut up and do as your told!  Well find out who did this, and when we do…”

The threat trailed off, as another sound came from the left, approaching from the backwoods and the overland trail.  Hoof beats.  The sound of at least two horses, coming out of the fog at a steady trot.

I heard scrambling noises, as the two others I had heard speaking, crawled rapidly up the hill, their scurrying noises diminishing into the night.  The hoof beats increased as I heard the horses snort and give forth a throaty rumble, their breaths heaving in the night, blending with the fog.

I did not know whether to follow the two unknown voices up the hill, or try to make my way back to the barn and stable, and risk getting run down by the mysterious riders in the night.  Any attempt to climb the hill would reveal my location, as surely as it did that of the two who fled upward.  The loose gravel could not be avoided, so I resolved to take my chances with the horsemen.

I crouched and tried to move quickly, retracing my steps back to the barn.  I heard the horses, but could not exactly get a fix on them, but they were somewhere near.

A mere fifty more paces in and I could just make out the shadow of the barn and its dark interior.  As I quickened my pace, I reached the stable and was shocked to see two horses within the stall, and a man I knew too well, lifting a saddle off of the larger horse and hanging the horses’ tack on an interior peg.

*Scene 06* 9:16 (A Marked Man)

“Begglar?” I said, completely taken aback. “What is this?  I thought you were upstairs…didn’t you…?”

Begglar stared at me fixedly, clearly startled by my sudden appearance out of the fog.

“O’Brian,” he said simply, letting out a pent up sigh of frustration and relief, “I thought I passed a shadow out there.  Must’ve been you.”

“What are you doing up?”

“I might be askin’ you the same question,” he replied.

“I took the watch,” I said defensively, “You said there was room and hay in the loft.”

“There are rats in the loft too,” he muttered.  “Besides, on a night like this, what is there to see?”

“Evidently, something that might make you take horses out into this.”

He sighed heavily, was quiet a moment, and then said, “Help me get these saddles into the tack room. A lot has happened since you left here.  Many things that should not be spoken of, but one thing you need to know is that…I am a marked man.”

I came further in and helped him by hefting the second saddle off the cross bar of the waist high hitching post, that ran along the back end of the stable and feeding troughs.

Begglar led me down the breeze way past the loft ladder into the tack room, where he also kept the tools, crafted pitch forks and shovel boards for clearing and cleaning out the stalls.  The dark room smelled of dust, old straw and leather, with an undertone of dried manure and malted grains.

Begglar lit an oil lamp and the room’s darkness faded into a yellow cast glow from the flickering flame.

We stowed the saddles on two wooden saw trees fashioned by bound and stripped limbs.

As the interior came to light under the small flame, I could see stacks of ragged saddle blankets, brushes, leather tracer straps and dusty wooden barrels with thick lids, no doubt containing grains and stripped oats.

“I’ve had the devil of a time, keepin’ the rats out of here.” Begglar muttered. “They come through the ceiling, the walls, the floor boards, gnawing through everythin’–devourers.”

He then turned his eyes to me.  They seemed to hold in them the weight of many cares and fatigue.

“What has happened to you, my old friend?”

He cleared his throat and began, “I used to judge you for leaving us here. I confess it. What we were called to do was unfinished, and what you and Caleb did was…inexcusable.  But now… With all that I’ve done…”

I lowered my head, my shame threatening to press me down, but I felt Begglar reach out and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Can you ever forgive me?”

I raised my eyes to his to see…pleading in them.

“I do,” I whispered, “I have.”

“No,” he interrupted, “you don’t understand.”

And with that he moved me closer to the light.

“You need to see it, ” he said, loosening and stretching out his collar to reveal his bare shoulder. There, in a reddened, raised scar, he bore the image of a circle bearing an inverted Y in its center that touched the border of the circle on three points. And had a single line extending downward through the center of the Y to create a third juncture and bisection of the circular border.

“Who did this to you?!”

“The Protectorate.”

I studied the raised welts of the scar, gathered and stretched like dried celluloid. “It’s a peace symbol.”

Begglar jerked back and spat disgustedly.

“Nay! It is the betrayer’s mark! An symbol of pure evil.”

I looked puzzled.

“Aw come now, man.  It’s the violent mark of Saint Peter!  A curse burned into me that I can never forget.”

“I don’t understand.”

Exasperated, he balled his fists, almost as if he would strike me for being such a dunce.

“Have ya never heard of how Saint Peter was martyred?  Crucified upside down by his own request–not to be killed in the same manner as Our Lord?!”

He tugged at his shirt again, gesturing at the mark, “This–is the symbol of the inverted cross and the instrument upon which one of the most prominent followers of The One was put down to stifle the uprising!”

Spittle collected at the corner of Begglar’s lips like he had gone slightly mad with the grief over it, and then he added, “And I…rightly earned it too, by denying My Lord,…and helping the vile servants of darkness to cover it up. Hundreds, thousands were slaughtered and I covered it up ta save me own.”

Begglar trembled and his knees grew weak as he began to weep.

Through tears he went on to tell me how, he and his family had been warned, time and time again, not to meddle in the affairs of The Protectorate, or the affairs of Xarmni or its subjects.  They viewed his place, his inn as useful.  And as long as it remained useful to the greater good, he could keep it unmolested, and manage the place unharmed.  It was encouraged and considered wise that he remain cooperative and uninvolved to ensure that arrangement.

That arrangement, he told me, was sealed by the forcible branding. The wound had to be treated by his wife.   Eventually, the swelling eased, and its sensitive flesh quieted down to a healthier pinkish color many weeks later.

“They told me…when me boy came of age, he would receive his mark of protection as well,” he said with pleading, sorrowful eyes.  And then he added, “I never shouldn’t have glanced at my Nell, when they said this to me.”  He shuddered a moment, transported back to the instance of the memory as if it had been only yesterday.  Then his eyes refocused and looked hard at me, lowering his voice.

“The soldiers, they noticed it.  And that captain of theirs, he says ta me, ‘There’s ways of marking her that won’t leave a flesh scar.  Just you mind that.’  And he and the others rode away.  Off yonder.”

He gestured with the back of his hand towards the north and towards the mountains, almost spitting after them as he did so.

His eyes returned to me, watchful and saddened, clearly ashamed of himself for not being a better man than he was.  He saw no judgment in my returned gaze, only a deep sadness for him.  But that was only part of it.  Begglar, at last, composed himself and told me, “I’ve more to tell ye, but this is enough for one evening. Best be rested before breakfast.  Nell wont’t sleep until I’ve returned to the house, so for her sake, I’d best be wishin’ you a goodnight.”

*Scene 07* 5:39 (Whispers in the Dark)

Nell heard Begglar approach from the backstairs. His footsteps and unique gait were unmistakable to her.  She had grown so familiar with his subtle nuances, that she could recognize his approach from anywhere.  Twenty years of marriage not only bred intimate familiarity, but also caused two once separate people to naturally find a certain rhythm of togetherness if both were willing and open to it.

Something about his gait reminded her of his distant past life before they had built this new one together. A way placing his footing that made him walk steadier upon a rolling surface and a rising and pitching wooden deck.

She heard him sigh heavily on the stairs as he quietly moved the ingenious wooden locking combinations that unbolted the heavy oak door.  Something he had cleverly told her he had derived from the principle of a Chinese box mechanism.  He had taught both her and their son the complex combination for unlocking the hidden door, so they could be certain anyone discovering the hidden stair passage, would not be able to bypass the final obstacle and gain access to their upper apartments without one of them present.

The door closed quietly on well-oiled hinges, and she heard the soft clicks as the door’s locking mechanisms fell and slid back into place using clever weights and compression grooves.

Begglar moved quietly through the soft light, and Nell could hear him ease onto a bench and remove his boots.

Nell arose, gathered her thick nightgown about her and slipped on her house shoes, and padded into the small parlor area where her husband was removing his outer garments.

She whispered, “How did it go, Dear?”

“Their safely on their way,” he replied.

“We have a young guest, My Love.  Keep as quiet as you can. Be careful not to wake the child.  It took a while finally getting her to sleep.”

“What is this?” Begglar asked, lifting a taper candle off a sconce.

Under the low flickering candlelight, Begglar could see the small form of the child curled up in a woven blanket, her chest slowly rising and falling, in a restless, fitful dream. The candlelight shone in a wet gleam on her face, and it appeared the child had been crying. Her lips parted and she quietly seeming to mumble something in her sleep.

Nell moved quietly behind him, putting her arms around him, gazing down at the child.

“Remember when Dom was that young?”

Begglar was silent, watching her, transported back into his own memories.

“So young,” he said, “I wonder that The One would send such a wee bairn, here.”

The young girl trembled and curled up tighter, her hair mussed, yet framing her frailty, in the wavering yellow cast-glow.

“She’s not Becca!” the child mumbled, her face scrunching up, in a yawn.

“She’s not…” the sweet voice came again, in a dreamlike whisper, trailing off.

“What is she going on about?” Begglar gathered his wife’s arms about him.

“She’s been having some nightmare, off and on for the last hour or so,” Nell observed. “I have been afraid to wake her for it took time to get her calm. One of the women that came with O’Brian woke and heard her crying. She was with another little girl. I don’t know what the row was, but this little one refused to sleep in the same room with her.”

“Can’t ‘bermember,” the girl muttered, furrowing her forehead and scrunching her face up, “But I wrote it in the sand. Her name is…”

In another room, four doors down, in the upper galley of the inn, in the darkness, a figure sat upright in the bed, barely silhouetted by the cold wet grayness that illumined the outer window.

Someone, in the darkened stillness of the night, in one of the rooms had spoken aloud its real name.