The Quickening – Chapter 24

*Scene 01* – 11:27 (Bread and Broth)

When Begglar and Corimanth left O’Brian to talk privately to Nell, they walked across a glistening courtyard of foot-polished cobbled stone to one of several firepit stations serving the steamy bone broth drink.  Fire glow flickered over the sun-glazed stones giving them a coppery cast emerging from their dull grey base of grit and mortar.  Flames crackled and spit sparks and embers into the darkened sky, rising like fairies only to be doused by the evening’s moistening breeze.  Various groups of people gathered in huddles, speaking in low tones, with occasional laughter breaking up each hushed cloister into a crescendo of mirth and good-natured banter.

The broth had both a calming and warming effect, as both Begglar and Corimanth sipped gingerly at the edge of their bowl-like cups.  The vessels warmed their hands, as the hot salty broth seemed to soothe their aches and lessen the strain of their exercise weary muscles.  Corimanth had encouraged Begglar to take a few of the small hand-sized loaves of a baked hard bread and dip it into the broth, for an added savory experience.

“Oh, this right here!  Mmm-hmm,” Begglar nodded, taking his first bite of the broth-soaked hard bread, chewing with relish.  “Good, isn’t it?” Corimanth grinned, enjoying his brother-in-law’s delight.

“That’s champion, that is!” Begglar agreed.  “Who made this?”

“Some of our folks bake the bread in kilns, hereabout.  They use a wild yeast that they allow to slowly ferment when the bread grains are mixed cold.  They hand mix the batter, with a third of the amount of water, then let it set for a few hours before finishing the shaping.  The whole process takes about four days of cooling and drying letting it rise before they finally bake it.  I’ve made a few loaves myself a few times,” Corimanth said, grinning.

“Nellus never told me you knew about such things.  If I’d known you were here and could make these, I’d have had you come live with us and help me run the Inn with Nell.  We started as a bakery, y’know.”

Begglar dipped another piece of the bread into his broth, and took another bite, “Aahh, that’s good!  The broth adds the perfect blend of saltiness, to the warm buttery taste of the sopped bread.  Warms both the belly and the soul.  A harbor for the heart as well as the gut.”  Corimanth chuckled.  “Well, I’ve not always be able to eat like this.  Folks here live simple but wholesome lives.  They are hardworking, determined, yet watchful.  And with good reason.”

“Ahh, the ever-present Xarmnian threat!” Begglar quipped.  Corimanth shook his head.  “That is secondary, there is a more prominent threat we face, and that comes from some of those who despise Xarmnian rule as much as we do.”  Begglar stopped chewing, “Really?  And who are these antagonists?”

“A fellow by the name of Tobias,” Corimanth grunted.  “Works for an even shadier character named Sandballat.  Ever heard of such a name?”

Begglar almost choked, a small spritz of broth emerged from his lips, dribbling down onto his beard.  He set his broth cup down and used the remains of his bread to wipe his beard free of the spattered liquid.  “Sandballat?!  Why that is the man’s name who we ended up selling Noadiah’s Inn too.  What trouble is he making?  And who is this Tobias character that you say works for him, now?”

Corimanth’s brow furrowed, “So Nellus sold the Inn at Sorrow’s Gate?  I didn’t know that.  Well, that is disturbing news.”

Begglar grunted, “What kind of trouble are they making?”

Corimanth sighed, “Ahh, mostly threatening letters.  They’ve sent a few emissaries out here, wanting a meeting with Lord Nem.  They’ve been hot around the collar about us daring to rebuild the city of Azragoth.  Recently that wanted a meeting with Lord Nem to come out to the plain of Ono, where we share pastures for our cattle, and graze our flocks and herds in the open country.  I think they are wanting to renegotiate the bargains we have with the local stockmen, to provide us with our share of meat, wool and dairy products.  The forests here are no place to keep such animals, and the woods offer very few meadows for grazing.  We get wild goats and donkeys that break into the old city sometimes, but the old city is mostly burned out and overgrown with wild vines and such.  Nothing you’d want to feed your dairy stock.  The Ono plains are rich in grasses and have good water sources coming down from the highland shelf.  I think the suggestion of that place alone for the meeting is a veiled threat.  We are not naïve children here.  I am certain that they want whatever we are doing here to stop, and perhaps plan to even kill Lord Nem if they have to, to demoralize us.  But that is only one part of the trouble they are causing.  What worries many of us are the letters that we know they have been sending back to Capitalia, trying to characterize us all as troublemakers.”

“And this Tobias character is doing this?” Begglar growled.

“Him and Sandballat are both in on it,” Corimanth muttered, taking another sip of his broth, eyeing a man across the courtyard who seemed to be staring at them.

“But what…” Begglar started, but Corimanth put a hand on his arm, halting his question.  “Wait.  I think we are being watched,” Corimanth whispered.

“Who?” Begglar turned, scanning the clustered groups around them.

“That man over there by the north wall.  Middle-aged, short beard.  Lean angular frame.”

Begglar scanned and then spotted him, “I see him now.” Begglar nodded, “How long has he been watching us?”

“Only for a few minutes, but…,” Corimanth paused.  “Look, he’d coming our way.” Corimanth nodded forward as the man approached with some hesitancy.

Ezra emerged from one of the clustered groups and stepped toward the younger man, looking for a moment as if he might intercept him, but instead followed behind him.

The man flushed with a bit of embarrassment, as he approached Begglar and Corimanth, and both men exchanged a puzzled look.

“I’m sorry, but I think I know you…, I mean…we’ve met before.”

Corimanth, set his broth drink down on a short, raised wall next to Begglar’s cup and an additional loaf of bread.  Begglar stiffened a bit, adjusting his shoulders, leaning his head to the left and right, as if bracing, and loosening his posture for a fight.

As the young man came further into the glow of the firelight, both Corimanth and Begglar began to perceive some degree of mutual recognition to the man as well.

“I must confess, I am very surprised to see you both here.  I thought I might never see either of you again, and I wanted so much to thank you both for saving me and my family.  My wife, Corinna, is here in this place, but she is with the children.  We all own you both our lives, but I don’t know either of your names.”

Begglar’s eyes widened, “You’re not…?”

Ezra spoke up, behind the man, smiling and joining them in the glow of the cast firelight.

“This man is a fugitive from Xarm City.  His name is Sage.  His father was conscripted long ago from Azragoth, years before the plague and subsequent quarantine.  He was made a servant to the current monarch’s father, whom the city and its people are named after.  He was a chronicler, and scribe, a palace historian.  This man, his son, also followed in his father’s profession, and was given an apprenticeship under the royal guild of heralds.  He was recently sent to us by our network of agents working in the highlands for The Resistance.  He has provided us with key intelligences on the innerworkings and history of the Xarmnian courts, and of their rise to power, and the shadowy intrigues of the palace during that rise.  I am told we have you both to thank for that.”

Begglar grinned, appraising the man once again, with the connection clarified.  “Ahh!  You came to our Inn at Crowe!”

“Yes,” the man, now known as Sage smiled, “And I want to thank you for your kindness.  We have known very little of it living in Xarm City, even as prominent as my father was, it is a place of constant suspicion and posturing.  The royals are mercurial and cruel.  A dangerous lot, who rule by threat and instill fear in their subjects.  I had never known that there was another way to live, until I, my wife and children fled the city.  This place, and its people are kind to us, and I cannot remember ever seeing such kindness in others who were not of my own blood.”

“You’ve fattened up from when I saw you last!” Begglar laughed.  “I remember you being much leaner, and your children were such poor creatures, my wife could hardly stand it to have to send you on your way.”

Sage smiled, “Xarm did not feed well.  Its better food stores were reserved for the king’s banquet halls, and for its fighting men.  But here we’ve been more than taken care of.  And eaten more in a day than we would have been able to scrape together for a week back home.”

“Aye, that’s the truth!” Corimanth affirmed, “Even in the king’s guardian men, we hardly had enough fare to get skinny on!”

Sage nodded, “You were the king’s treasury guard.  I remember seeing you many times as we passed through the courtyards up to the balcony terrace of the king’s scribes.  You were the one who helped us escape the city.  We would have never been able to even approach the outer gates, if it had not been for you.  And you told us where we needed to go to find refuge.  That the journey would be long and dangerous, but if we could make it far enough to find the town of Crowe, there might be some help there from an Innkeeper who lived on the far side of town.  You gave me the keyword I needed to gain his trust.”

Begglar turned suddenly to Corimanth, “How did you know to send him too us?  How did you know to have him use my old surname?”

Corimanth raised his hands defensively, I have kept tabs on you two since you were married, brother.  I needed to be sure you were doing right by my sister.  Whatever put it into her head to marry a salty seadog from the Surface World, I’ll never know, but I wasn’t sure of anything.”

Begglar arched an eyebrow at Corimanth, “Perhaps it was my rugged, masculine charm!  Did ya think of that?”  He lightly cuffed Corimanth’s arm.  Corimanth grinned and responded, “That never crossed my mind.”

Begglar cocked his fist back playfully, “You’ve got some blarney in ya, Cori!  You better be glad, I’ve gained some restraint over the years, or you’d’ve gotten a clout fer that smart answer!”

Cori raised his hand’s defensively, giving a short breathy laugh.  “Shall we toast to this well met greeting and have another go at the bread and broths?!”

Ezra, Sage, Cori and Begglar all laughed, and gathered again around the firepit, and attendant’s serving station for another round of drink and dining, this time enhanced with the added flavor of welcomed friendship and good fellowship.

*Scene 02* – 05:24 (Night Hunters)

The sky had grown dark at the coming of the evening. Hadeon and his Protectorate entourage gathered in the grassland meadows at the lower base of the highland road.  The night breeze was moist and cool, but Hadeon restrained his men from building a fire and making a night camp.  The remaining Cerberi were anxious and restless but tired from the hurried descent down the long winding grade from the edge of the highland rim.  They panted noisily, tongues lolling and their eyes shining keenly as a hazy starfield began to prick through the purple canopy of the night sky.

By and by, Tizkon, Bayek and Kathair rode down off the lower grade as they made haste to join Hadeon’s gathered company.  They spotted dark shaped silhouettes in a field to the north side of the main road.

Seeing the approaching men, leaving the silver dusted road, Hadeon snorted and rode through the field’s deep grasses out to meet the trio as they descended into the valley, leading a team of five other horses.

“You’re late!” Hadeon barked, coming within shouting distance.

Tizkon looked over at Bayek as Hadeon approached, and muttered, “He’s not going to like this.”

Hadeon rode up, turning his snorting horse, riding across their forward path, allowing his mount to pace in front of them.  He glared and squinted through the half-light, examining the bare backed horse team, and the old man tied across one of the few saddled mounts.  He sniffed his displeasure and then stabbed his three tardy men with a razor-stropped glare of suspicion, moonlight glinting off his sweat-soaked beard.  “What is all this?!” he swept his arm at the group, “Where are all the others?!  And what’s he doing here?!”

Bayek quickly side-glanced at Kathair, and Tizkon, realizing they were expecting him to give their answer.

He sighed heavily, then raised his chin, resolved to endure the heat blast that he was sure would come.

“We had some trouble in the wooded trail.”

“Trouble?!” Hadeon growled, “What sort of trouble?!”

Bayek went on to tell him a clipped version of what he’d recounted to Tizkon, of the blockade created with the crashed wagon on the narrowing trail, of their foot pursuit of those fleeing, of finding the strange dead end and their sinister and deadly encounter with the wood siren.  He’d only been able to recover the extra horses, because they had tied them beyond the broken wagon when they’d pursued their quarry on foot through the narrowing rim trail.  He alone had been spared to deliver a cryptic message to their king.

“I don’t have time for excuses!  Those fugitives are in those woods somewhere, and we’re going after them.  Any sign from Aridam?” he growled.

“The last I saw of him, he and his team were following that other wagon to the northwest,” Tizkon answered, hoping to get some approval from Hadeon for offering additional input.  Hadeon snarled, “That is where I sent him, you idiot!  If you can’t offer more information, then shut your gob!  And further, why is this bundle of sticks packed on this mount.  Didn’t I give you an order to cut its throat?!  Have you forgotten which side of a blade to use?!  Shall I get one of these small-town smithies to give you a bloody saw, instead?!”

Though Tizkon could not see the heat reddening Hadeon’s face and the fierce furrowing of the Bruel’s brow, he could certainly feel an icy chill coming through Hadeon’s menacing voice.

Kathair spoke up, “We thought you mind find it more useful to carve this man up, as an object lesson to those others, once we catch them.”

Hadeon was silent for a moment considering Kathair’s carefully chosen words.  Finally, he sniffed and grunted, muttering, “Very well, then!”  He reined his horse back toward the meadow.  Sighting the group along the silvering billows of moonlit grass.  Bayek spoke up, when Hadeon’s back was turned to them.  “Should we wait for Aridam?”

Hadeon growled, “No!  I’ve waited long enough as it is.  We’ve got traitors to catch tonight.  We’ll get the Cerberi to track them through the woods yonder.  They seem to love the night.  They’ve not eaten much today.  Perhaps, they’ll catch the scent of blood soon.”  Hadeon spurred his horse and rode off through the grass again toward his other company of men and the remaining Cerberi.

Tizkon shrugged his shoulders and muttered, “Isn’t that the woods of Kilrane?”  Kathair answered gruffly, “The very same. Why?”  Tizkon shuttered, “Cause I heard those woods were haunted.”  Kathair started to chuckle, but Bayek spoke up, “No, Tizkon is right.  They are haunted…or at least they will be.”

Kathair paused, a slight mirth playing in his voice, “What do you mean ‘they will be’?”

“They will be,” Bayek growled, “…by us!”  And as he said this, he spurred his horse into the waving sheafs of tall grass, following after Hadeon who was now about thirty yards ahead of him.

*Scene 03* – 20:24 (Fit to Be Tied)

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The blacksmith’s hammer pounded the fired metal he held with forge tongs, flattening the orange glowing end upon his anvil.  Sparks burst and twisted upward from the piece with each loud strike.  While the hammer rang, the man’s assistant poured more molten metal into a cut mold and then ran a long file down the hardening molds, cleaning off the dross.  Another smithy operated a press, letting the molten steel cool a bit before pulling down a winch lever, that released a suspended counterweight, driving down a hinged molding plate into the trough of the mold further flattening the annealed steel to fill in the recesses of the press mold cavity that shaped the metal.  Some of the apprentices pumped the bellows of the six forges, burning down the iron in the smelters, and scraping away the bubbling dross off the top of each vat in the furnaces.  Other attendants, using ladles, dipped and poured more of the liquid metal into short vertical molds, pushing tongues of flames out of each casting sprue hole.  Others opened the pressed metal molds that had been set aside to cool and set with picks and hammers, while others dipped the newly forged pieces into cooling water tanks and then dried, rasped, filed and polished the resulting piece.  After the final tempering and polishing, each of the metal pieces were laid out on a long collection of tables and racks and then the strange, shaped pieces were linked and fastened to small metal cuffs with flared ends that had been browned to prevent rusting.

“What are we making these cressets for, Smyt?” one of the apprentice smithies asked.  “We only agreed to make the collar shanks, didn’t we?”  Smyt, the head blacksmith in charge of the king’s forges, growled, “Bes’ not to ask too many questions, Ori.  We just do what we’re paid for.  Ask too many questions and you might as well, forge your own leg irons and manacles too.” The man called Ori shrugged, “Must be king’s business. Forget I asked.”

The evening sky had already darkened to an ash purple, with luminescent clouds scuttling across the hazy moonglow.  The men working the forges were bathed in orange and yellow flashing light as the fires from the kilns and metal molds flashed under the softer firelight in the braziers.

“Locking collars are done, sir,” another attendant announced, set down a heavy box of hinged cuffs with locking cotter pins holding the flanged eye-tabs together.  “Ready for the fittings.”

Ori glanced nervously toward the paddock door, used to secure the royal foundry.  Metal implements were stacked, leaned, driven and hung all about the secured lot behind a thick wall of stone.  The men worked late on the special projects, and rarely, if every went home to their wives and families until well after dark.  But this ‘special project’ was outside the usual line of their work.  Beyond the outer door, strange winged creatures waited to be let in.  Smyt had ordered those waiting to remain outside until they were called, so that his men would not be so distracted from their work.  A sentry had conveyed his message to the head mistress of these beings, called Harpies, and had received a grudging concession.  Any one of those creatures could have flown over the wall, but for some reason they resigned themselves to wait until the blacksmiths were ready to recieve them.  Just knowing the strange, mysterious creatures were out there lurking about, gave Ori a strong sense of unease.  The creatures were not to be trusted.  They served the dark monster in the farther north woods called The Pan, and that ruler was not known to treat humanity with any sort of deference or mercy.  Many travellers were warned to stay out of the dark woods of the north, along the upper fjords of Cascale, or they would be taken and most likely eaten by that monster and his strange hybrid kinds.  Seeing those harpy creatures in daylight was disturbing enough.  Seeing them in dusk or in the darkest of hours of the evening was like haplessly stumbling upon a coven of witches, incanting and gathered around a low pit fire in a backstreet alley in the middle of the night.

Smyt ambled to the box that the attendant had set down on the table.  He huffed and picked one of the hinged tubular cuffs out of the wooden box and turned it over in his hand.  He took out a rasp file and pried open the cotter-pin out of its sheath, freeing the cuff hinge to move freely opening and closing.  He grunted, and nodded a tacit approval of the work, and then toss the assembly back into the box.  His face was stained and blacking from the smoke of the forges. The creases of his redden flesh were accentuated by the grim and blackened grit collecting in the darkened folds of each wrinkle and scar lining his grizzled visage.  “Very well, then.  Let ‘em in.  But see that they come in only two at a time.  Ugly things.”

The man who had brought the box nodded and then moved towards a heavy swinging gate, made of rivet hammered sheet iron, set in a thick, wooden frame.

The other workmen paused in their duties when the gate swung open, revealing a huddling of black feathered creatures whose most pleasant look, came off as a glowering scowl.  There were about thirty in all.  Their strange faces were that of old women, with aquiline and avian features: hooked noses prominent on their aged faces, with large avian eyes that seemed surreal in the deep, shadowy eye sockets of what might otherwise have been a human face.  They glared at the attendant standing by the door, sniffed a dismissive snort of displeasure and then hopped into the gated smithy court, their claws clicking on the cobbled stone, their feathered bodies ruffling and unruffling, as their forms bobbed up and down with each forward hop.  One of the attendants gestured at the tables and rack, with his hands, but was unsure what, if anything, he might say to these strange creatures.  The long tables were set with a narrow path between them, forcing the harpies to move along the parallel space roughly in pairs.  The strange crone heads bobbed and wobbled along the table line, their wild gray, white and black hair now muted in the orange washes of light from the fiery forges.  Their age-plowed wrinkles gave their faces a shadowy severity, afforded by the darkling night, disturbingly offset by flickering of the fiery flashes from the foundry pits.

Smyt was temporarily mesmerized by the procession, but soon regained his bearings.  He grumbled something unintelligible at his men who had stopped working to stare at the feathered creatures, hybrids of both human and large birds, each with a buxom ruffle of feathers covering gray bosoms, adding one more incongruent element of their human female origin to their present squatty feathered forms.

“Ori,” Smyt signaled.  When the man named Ori did not respond, Smyt barked his name louder. “Ori!”

“Hmmh?” Ori responded, turning away from watching the creatures, realizing Smyt had addressed him.

“Quit gawking and keep the men working!  We’ve not finished this order yet!”

Smyt wiped his soot-stained hands on a dirty piece of fleece wool and moved away from the smoking forges towards the group of creatures, now gathering along the edge of the long tables.

He looked at his attendant who had directed the creatures inside and scowled in uncertainty not knowing how to address these strange half-women half-fowl entities.  The man shrugged, offering no helpful clue either.

A taller, large creature pushed forward through the gathering of feathered fiends, moving with some degree of a limp.  Her eyes seemed larger than those of the others, owl-like in nature, but with a disturbing quality of perception in them as well.  She parted her pursed and wrinkled lips and directed her steady and unnerving gaze at Smyt.  She assesses him, looking him up and down, with some kind of sinister appraisal, her cheek twitching, jaws bunching as she did so.  Smyt returned her searching appraisal with that of his own, noticing that one of her legs appeared to be missing a clawed foot, but had been replaced with a wooden peg leg, fastened somehow with a strap that disappeared into her feathers around her avian rump.  Seeing the man looking at her leg, she raised her chin, stretching the waddled skin of her neck upward in a proud act of defiance.  Finally, she spoke in a raspy voice, with an odd cadence and warbling tone, “Are all the Son of Xarm’s men so mute that they cannot speak a word of welcome?!”  She sniffed in a derisive manner.

“Umm,” Smyt began, but that matron creature dismissed his response, before he could answer.

“Nevermind!  Collar shanks are what we are here for.  King’s promise, he did, and the service to the bargain.”

One of the hesitant men came forward to the table, suddenly solicitous.  “Yes, yes.  R-r-right this way to the fitting deck,” he stammered.  At the end of the long table was a raised platform with three broad wooden steps leading up one side and another set leading down the opposite side.  The strange group of harpies bobbed and weaved down between the long tables, eyeing the metal hardware that was soon to become part of their accoutrements.  The older, larger of the congress of Harpies, who had been the first to speak, scowled suspiciously at the steps leading up to the raised platform, and then waved one of her followers ahead to go up first to be fitted.  “Zefilah,” the matron squawked a command, “You go first! I will see how it is to be done.”

Dutifully, the harpy presumably named Zefilah, hopped up the short stair and turned stretching out a large talon with mottled gray and black pebbled skin, placing it forward.  One of Smyt’s men came forward carrying one of the hinged tubes open and fitted the metal tub around the shank of Zefilah’s leg, with the flared flange end fitting smoothly over the knuckle of her claws, raised just enough to allow her to flex the claws open and closed.  The metal tube covered her exposed shank and had a curved flare at the top allow the bird-woman to move her leg about without the top of the metal tube impeding or restricting her movement or gait.  Zefilah looked down inspecting the new installation fitting snuggly around her leg, her crone face broadening into a crooked smile.  “What about the other?” Zefilah looked up, turning to Delilah.  “They said there’d be hooks for our blades, and wing caps?”

Delilah turned, and snuffed, looking at Smyt, “Yes. Those things we want to see.”

Smyt nodded to one of his other attendants and the man came forward bringing what looked like a candle snuffer, with a curved hook on its conical point, and a thin belted strap extending from a short triangular fan, below.  The attendant approached Zefilah who eyed him imperiously.  “May I?” he asked.  To which Zefilah, simply thrust forward her wing at him.  The man mounted the steps of the platform and carefully placed the cap on the flexor radiale point of her wing, and clamped the triangular fan down between the pin feathers and secured the strap, locking the cap and wicked looking hook in place. Zefilah extended her wing and drew it back, flexing and stretching her broad wing to ensure her wing movements would not be impeded either in fight or in flight.  Satisfied, she ordered the attendant, “Do the other one.  I want to test it in flight.”  As the attendant bent to do so, the metal door suddenly pushed open again and another dark feathered form emerged, followed by two smaller harpies swooping in for a landing her.

Delilah turned and scowled, “You’re late, Delitch!  Where have you been off too?!”

Delitch chewed her lower lip, biting back a scathing reply, but bowed her head in abeyance, raising both her large wings in a genuflection in deference to her Matron.  “My Matron Queen, we have been scouting the upper highland ridges performing the duties you agreed to with this city’s sovereign.  We have much to report.”

Delitch was almost as old as her matron and was her approximate size and girth, though she bore a slightly younger visage than Delilah.  The Matron’s hair was almost fully white, yet Delilah’s still retained a bit of her ebony mixed with gray upon her head.  The Matron Queen of the harpies knew there was more to suspect than to trust in Delitch, for she knew the latter had always envied her position as lead and rule, but she had yet had nothing specific to base her suspicions of Delitch on.  Just a lingering sense that Delitch’s appearance of subservience was a cover for some scheme she was waiting to carry out whenever the future opportunity might present itself.  She knew that Delitch was irritated with her for not moving more openly against the hated nymphs and dryads, but was this outfitting of metal shank protectors and carrying hooks not enough of a sign that they were showing some degree of counter threat to those treacherous creatures?  Surely, Delitch should be pleased that she had sought audience with the Xarmnian monarch, and that it was done without the knowledge or consent of The Pan.  It was leverage needed against the nymphs and dryads should they ever convince The Pan to be rid of the Harpies and endorse open aggressions against them.  The Pan was mercurial in its moods.  One never knew just how he might move for or against any in his dark domain.  Sure, Delitch had reason to hate those nymphs and dryads, but she had not personally lost a leg over their internecine contentions.  None of the Harpies had known that when they agreed to nursing the sapling children of the nymphs that drinking water from the black pool would serve to poison the little suckling creatures.  The broken claw had sense been a mocking of her personally, whenever she saw it scrawled in the bark of a tree or formed by carefully arranged rocks on a mountainside or scratched in the dust over a barren field of hardpan.  The Pan had put a stop to any further outright acts of violence by the nymphs and dryads directed at the harpies, but had done nothing about the mocking, and giggling at her loss of the limb.  But Delilah could not be certain whether Delitch wanted to avenge her against those mocking halflings or she simply had a personal vendetta against them.  Delitch had agreed to Delilah’s plan to help the Xarmnian king keep watch for the encroachment of outworlders and provide him with vital communications about their arrival and movements within the lands of The Mid-World.  But still that did not answer her niggling questions about why Delitch had been late and secretive about where she would be flying in pursuit of that objective.  It was clear she wanted the Xarmnian smithies to provide them with armaments and protections as well, and she was anxious to be fitted for them, as soon as possible.  The other sisters’ had arrived early enough to be kept waiting, and she would’ve thought Delitch and her sisters would have been a few of the first in line on the other side of the metal door, but no…she was the last to arrive.  And something about that disturbed her.

One by one, each of the harpies made their way up onto the raised platform and we each fitted with pinion hooks, and metal shank covers locked around both of their legs and capping each of their wings.  Sure, The Pan would wonder about their new metal fittings, but he would understand why they would be reticent to turn out for the ceremonial transfer of the woods of Kilrane to the nymphs and dryads, since they could no longer live in close proximity to the dying woods where his dark water pools stirred beneath canopies of moss shrouded trees.  The waters were poisonous to them, even if the other half-men creatures sometimes partook of their mysterious living liquids.

As her subjects filed through their fittings, the Matron Queen Delilah could sense a change in the air toward the eastern sea front.  She always took special care to be aware of atmospheric flight conditions when spending any length of time on the ground.  Especially since losing her leg.  Flight was the one means whereby she might still command a lethal mastery over a threat from the ground borne.  She had developed and uncanny sense about the sky conditions.  She knew even now, what her sensory tells indicated.  Another storm was coming, and she and her subjects must take wing soon to get to some form of shelter before it hit.  There was a strangeness about the smell and feel of the air.  A heaviness, as if the coming storm was pregnant with a menace beyond mere wetness, wind and flashing spears of light.  She would speak more to Delitch, but not at this time.  She wanted to know what they had seen–the report, she alluded to.  But time was running out.  The men were working to finish up, but it was taking longer than she had expected.

The air turned moist and suddenly Delilah announced, “That is enough for now.  We must take flight. A storm is coming and I’ll not shelter in this stone city.”  She turned and realized that only Delitch and her three sisters remained to get outfitted.  She knew Delitch would not want to leave now and have to come back, but she felt pressed to get her subjects aloft.

“Come, Delitch.  You, Remitch and Neenitch can get this done later.  We’re leaving…Now.”

“But my Queen…,” Delitch began to protest, but Delilah raised her wing stopping her.  “I know you are disappointed, but you were late arriving, and this storm won’t wait.  You and your sisters may come back when the storm passes.”  Delitch’s eyes narrowed when Delilah turned her back and raised her wings to her kindred.  “Let’s fly!” she croaked and flapped forward from the platform and sailed over the wall where the metal door had been.  The others followed, flapping noisily, ascending into the sky like a cauldron of bats emerging from a dark cave starting a night of aerial hunting.

As they ascended, they did not notice that Delitch and her two sisters did not follow.  They had instead planned to stay a little longer in the city of Xarm and ride out the storm there.  They need a little more time to be outfitted with the three modified collars they had asked the blacksmith to design for them.  Leg collars capable of carrying a thing called a cresset, an iron vessel for mounting an oil and wick fired torch, crafted in conjunction and with one of the town’s chandeliers.  They would eventually follow their prior fliers, but they would have the capacity to carry something to bring a special housewarming to the woods of Kilrane, for unlike the others, they most definitely would be attending that ceremony in Kilrane…as unwelcome guests.

*Scene 04* – 10:20 (Call of The Wild Winds)

Earlier in the day, a finger of smoke rose from out of a long dark chasm running north to south along the western side of the Mid-World’s highest range of mountains.  Like the tentacles of a giant, tenebrous, sea beast the smokey fingers spread and flexed, as if searching for something to grasp along the upper rocky ledge of its shadowy abyssal trench.  The spectral finger stretched its gauzy, incorporeal limbs, reaching, searching, wetting the edge rocks with an oily touch of whispering mists.  As it moved along the edge it seemed to sigh with a thousand hushed voices, that warbled and blended into the suctorial sound of breathy winds.  The former gossamer finger was joined by a vaporous knuckle with other gaseous fingers sprouting from its reaching apparitional limb.  Another sprouting claw of sooty vapors chased after the former tendril shrouded in roiling clouds, followed by another and another, each one slithering along the edge of the long trench until it reached the estuary that flowed out into the surrounding seas, where the river of smoke turned into a flow of fogs moving along the southern cliffs and shoreline until it turned sharply following the eastern shoreline, that fell back and descended to spread out along the shallows of a sandy beach.  The long stretch of sandy beaches along the eastern seaboard, where in the past and recently, outworlders typically made landfall, was a place with a variegated history as colorful as the motley garb of a court jester.  Unknown to many, the living fogs that often plagued the eastern beaches of the Mid-World, were not actually seaborne, but were created by the strange foggy apparitions drawing in moisture from the sea as the smokey arms gathered around the outer edges of the Mid-World’s landmass, reaching through the mists with intentions that could only be viewed as malevolent.  These living fogs seemed intent on catching these interlopers into the Mid-World lands, to try and suppress their sense of themselves, and cloud memories and intentions, before a Stone mission might be undertaken.  Sometimes those fogs were successful.  Sometimes not.  For the mysterious fogs always retreated to their inlet and trench as the strange oculus portals approached the seashore.  No one knew why this was the case, but it was evident that even these mysterious fogs yielded to the roving presence of the seaborne oculus, for these strange portals were somehow linked to the mysterious will of The Marker Stone.  Newcomers to The Mid-World were always delivered by way of the eastern sea.  This fact was suspected by some, anticipated by few, and dreaded by most.  The long reach of the living fogs could not be sustained for long and often dissipated under the full heat of the overhead sun.  If an oculus appeared within sight of the long reaching fogs, the clouds would seem to shred into gauzy whisps accompanied by strange piercing shrieks and wailing noises, until they faded out of sight.  The fogs had the power to make the unsuspecting, and unfortunate soul trapped within their shroud forget, and eventually lose their mind and sense of purpose.

Mystery veiled the behavior of the living fogs and their shying and fleeing away from the oculi and those agents of the enigmatic Marker Stone, which appeared to reign over the realm of both the Mid-World land and sea.

This strange relationship between these apparitions of opposing intention created a peculiar dynamic of rulership and partitioning of holdings between the Kingdom of Capitalia and that of the Kingdom of Xarm.  For though the lands seemed to be parceled out between these two factious Kingdoms, the nature of the land and seas upon which these presumptive Kingdoms fought, were truly the subjects of another Kingdom’s prior claim—the one represented by the Mid-World’s mysterious Marker Stone.  A kingdom of ancient legend, and the pre-dawn of all time, called Excavatia.

The sea was thought of as being relegated to the eastern side of the Mid-World lands, but that was not truly the case.  Its shoreline eventually curved inland towards the north of The Mid-World lands jutting in among tall precipitous mountains of gray and black granite.  This granite channel ran north to south bifurcating The Mid-World landmass with a fjord chain of lakes and rivers through a gorge passage that emptied out into a southern outlet into what was referred to as the “eastern sea”, or more formally known as the Sea of Eustress.

The western lands of The Mid-World were principally occupied by the Capitalian clans, and with the building of their massive stone wall cutting off the only known passage, called the “Paraz Pass”, breaking through the massive mountain chain known as “The Walls of Stone”.  The far side of the ridge and pass was relatively unexplored country, for the descending lands west of The Walls of Stone, dropped off precipitously into a chasm that the people believed to be bottomless.  A river of gray clouds continually passed through that gorge and the overhead sun never cast its light down to the bottom of it.  Since the western side of the Capitalian lands were bordered by The Walls of Stone Mountains on its eastern flank, and the bottomless gorge to its far western edge, the Capitalians had to resign themselves with occupying that length of western stepped lands that curved back into the mountains and terminated in the north along the back of The Walls of Stone.  When the Capitalian peoples erected their barrier over the sole pass of The Walls of Stone, they thought only to cut their warmongering Xarmnian relatives off from attacking their lands, not knowing they were limiting themselves to a finite piece of the western Mid-World in doing so.  Eventually, they knew they would one day regret building that man-made edifice, when their people grew in population where the western lands could no longer sustain them.  This was why they had to reconsider their former desire to abandon the lands beyond the great wall and maintain some holdings and alliances with the native peoples of the highlands.  The forested citadel Azragoth was one of the primary alliances, as well as some other smaller cities and villages towards the eastern sea.  Overtime, however, since Capitalia could not easily reach those far allied cities, those places loyal to the Capitalian crown eventually fell to the Xarmnian warlords, because they could not get aid to them to counter Xarmni’s rise to power.  A war was eventually fought between the oppressive Xarmnian kingdom and the Capitalian kingdom, and it was decisively won in Capitalia’s favor, but it was soon seen by the defeated Xarmnians as a Pyrrhic victory, for Capitalia’s wall was never dismantled.  It became clear to the defeated Xarmnians that they need only bide their time, and Capitalia would lose contact with their prior alliances.  And that would allow Xarmni to eventually subdue them, pillage them, and seize and raze any town or citadel that resisted their takeover and demand for tribute to enrich that Xarmnian kingdom, or risk being consumed by them and taken by force.

As the day surrendered to the twilight, the living fog moved up the eastern shoreline, drifting in the coolness of the withering day, and rising up into floating carriages of cloud cover that were darkening into the threat of an oncoming storm.  The fogs blended and swirled into the lowering clouds, at last finding a way to leave the eastern shoreline and cloak themselves within the folds of the inland flow of stacking cumulonimbus.  The ashy color of the living fogs threaded the heart of the building storm caps like worms into apples, piercing and emerging the outer skins in a gluttonous frenzy.  Slowly, but with gaining speed, these aerial dreadnaughts plowed across the darkening sky moving like a fleet of ships over the edge of the upper highlands.  And at their current pace, it was certain they would eventually reach the city of Azragoth by nightfall.

Something bestial and throaty beckoned them.  A supernatural call that compelled them to come to it, and enter it’s grave-like tunnels honeycombed under the old city to serve a monstrous purpose only known in the malevolent mind of the monster calling them to its nefarious purposes.  Hollowed vessels awaited them.  Hundreds of bodies waiting to be filled, occupied and possessed.  An army of empty golems…  Ready to be seeded… with subservient spirits.

*Scene 05* – 21:40 (The Blind Seer)

When Nell and I joined Begglar and Corimanth at the firepot, we felt the first few wet drops of rain spatter our heads and shoulders.  The servers had set aside a few mugs of the warm broth and some loaves for us, but they were quickly packing up the main crocks and covering the warm loaves when we arrived.  The flames in the firepits began to sizzle as wet drops fell into the pits, and attendants began to smother the fires and cover the pits with hinged iron plates that protected these firepits when they were not in use.  We were directed towards a covered portico between the columns surrounding the open courtyard, where we could shelter and finish our evening repast before turning in for the night.  A low thunder rumbled in the background, coming from the mountains towards the east, as a heavy front of billowing clouds masked the light of the moon.  The sky to the east appeared dark, even as distant lightning blazed somewhere deep within its sepulchral billows, barely blooming into a faint greyish glow.  Under the shadowy colonnade, along the edge of the building, many of the huddled queues had broken up to retire, but Corimanth, Ezra, Begglar and another fellow that seemed vaguely familiar were engrossed in hearing Corimanth recount his experience during his time as a spy and a guard in Xarm City.

When first conscripted, he had expected to be promoted to serve in the Palace Guard, thinking that would best serve his secret role as a court spy, but he was instead assigned to guard the Xarmnian Treasury.  Disappointed but undeterred, he did not know if such a placement would serve to allow him to gather much if any intelligence that would be useful for his contacts within The Resistance.  The prearrangement was to meet with his contacts on an irregular schedule, never knowing when the next time one might show up to get his reports.  The Xarmnians would be alert to patterns, so there could be no discernable cadence to his meetings.  He had been told that he could not know ahead of time who his contacts might be.  Only that they would quietly identify themselves with a physical sign, gesture or code word, which changed at each meeting, to ensure that no hostile actor could pose as an informant by accident.  The risk of discovery was too high.

Every day as he stood at his designated post, he observed that there was an old, blind, beggar woman dressed in rags that always sat stationed just outside of the iron gates near the Treasury portico.  Something about her was familiar, but Corimanth could never get a good look at her, for she wore a drooping shawl over her gray head that kept her face in shadow.  He began to think about that and wondered, why a blind woman might feel the need to cast shade over her face, sitting in the shadows of a narrow alley.  Perhaps she felt the coolness on her skin.  He knew those who lost one of their five senses often compensated by experiencing a heightened sense of another, so he shrugged it off.

She never looked at him directly as he passed her, but he could still see her huddled, bowed form through the grate of the barbican and he wondered if she might be deaf too.  She never raised her head, and never seemed to pull back her shadowed cowl, even when a passer-by dropped a few coins into her old metal beggar’s cup.  He thought he might say something to her, but since Xarmnians were not known for their compassion, he wondered if he might bring suspicion to himself, so he kept quiet, but could not help but wonder about her.

Day after day, during his shifts, he found himself glancing over through the gate at the old woman.  Something about her kept drawing his attention.  Something nibbled at the back of his mind that there was something oddly familiar about her, but he laughed it off knowing that it had to be impossible.  But he kept watching her out of the corner of his eye.

She kept her walking stick close by and seemed to know when a stray dog or cat came by and approached her coin cup.  She unfailingly struck out at the stray animals, smacking the pavement, sending them scurrying down the alleyway into the shadowy side streets and refuse piles.  Well, she may be blind, but she’s not deaf, he thought in amusement.  Neither the sense of taste nor touch would’ve given her the ability to detect those animals.

Each day found her situated in the same spot, though the other guards routinely shooed her away as the day faded.  No one knew where she went each night, and none knew where she lived, but her daily routine brought her back each morning to the wall until she became recognized as a mere fixture, rather than a curiously enigmatic figure evoking suspicion.

Still there was a familiarity that Corimanth could not shake as his vigilant glances passed over her at his usual watching post.  The feeling persisted, until one day he caught her raising her head enough to expose her jawline, and the lines of her mouth and lower nostrils.  The sight triggered something that kept him unnerved even after his watch shift came to a close.

When he woke the next morning, realization clarified, and he suddenly knew who the cloaked figure reminded him of.  Someone both he and his sister had known very well.  But he was conflicted, because the one she favored was known to be dead.  Drown after falling overboard in a sea battle with the creature plaguing the waters of Cascale.  Noadiah.  She was the one who had given them a home after the loss of their parents and granted them part-ownership in the Traveler’s Inn in the town of Surrogate.

No, it couldn’t be.  But the thought persisted.  The woman did not seem to recognize him, but why would she?  He was not where she might’ve suspected him, as well.  He chastised himself for being foolish.  But Noadiah’s body was never found.  They just assumed the leviathan had swallowed her.  Could she have survived the plunge into the cold waters of Cascale?  Could she have made it to shore amid the turbulence of the sea monster’s lunging at the flotilla and the cannon fire from the ships?  He supposed it was possible, but what would she be doing here in Xarm city?  Could the cold have somehow blinded her?  Was she really and truly blind?  Her eyes, though he had only had chance glimpses at them, seemed to be occluded with cataracts.  She smelled, so few people came close to her, even if they were inclined to pity her and cast a few coins into her cup.  The secretive woman seemed to not want to be recognized and became irritable, when well-meaning persons offer to help her and encourage her to move away from her daily spot.

He realized his debate on whether to help her was risky.  But still…Why would she refuse help?  What was her true intention, remaining in the alley near the accessway to the Treasury gate?  Traffic was limited there.  If she wanted her coin cup to be filled, she’d picked a poor spot to beg.  Mostly soldiers came through there.  Her presence should have aroused more suspicion.

Hoping to gain a little more trust in his position or be advanced to another station where he might overhear more of the daily happenings, he decided to ingratiate himself with the Xarmnian brass by broaching the subject of the old woman’s suspicious behavior.  He had inquired of one of the king’s trackers, who occasionally stopped by the Treasury house, how long the old woman had been there sitting in the alley rather than occupying one of the open trafficked streets where she might get more notice and more charitable responses from the residents of Xarm City.  It puzzled him how a blind woman seemed to know where to come each day, and why she did not consider her choice of begging less fruitful than another place might be.  The tracker, Shihor by name, shrugged and said, “Maybe she expects something a little more than mere pennies dropped into her beggar cup, since the Treasury contains the more precious metal coinage.”  To which, Corimanth responded, “Well, I’ll be on the alert for anyone who decides to drop a golden ingot into her cup.”  This brought a laugh in response, and Shihor replied, “Yes, you be sure and let me know if that happens!”  And he went on his way chuckling to himself.

Shihor seemed to dismiss Corimanth’s interest with a grin and a shrug and go about his business.  That was until the Builder Stone in the Treasury was noticed to be making its way out of the locked and gated storehouse.

When the stone broke through the wall and passed through the alley, the guarding soldiers became more alert.  The old woman was driven from her post and the alley was cleared, and sentries were stationed at each end of the alleyway, preventing access to where the immovable Builder Stone was progressing.

Stone masons and plasterers were brought in to repair the broken hole where the Builder stone had punctured and pressed through the rock wall lining the alley.  The hole was sealed up, but the Builder Stone was still making slow, but inexorable progress through the city.  Guards stood around the spot where the mysterious stone rested, covering it with their regimented troops and a makeshift shroud, so that no one might see the stone causing such distress and uproar within the palace.

Corimanth told how the King Son of Xarm, and his advisers came to see the stone and were mystified by what might be causing it to move of its own accord, clearing heading towards the outer wall of the stone city.  Advisors speculated that while the Builder Stone might be able to breach the Treasury, it surely would be contained by the outer curtain wall of the city that boasted a thickness of twenty feet across, with interlocking granite boulders shaped and positioned as an impenetrable bulwark against outward assaults.

But the Builder Stone proved to be able to breach even that to the amazement and dismay of the royal counsellors.  The Builder Stone, they were reminded, had the capacity to lift, push, carve, chisel and carry large stones from the mountainside quarry, making the stonework an amazing feat of wonder.  Boulders could be dislodged and lifted weightlessly, merely by placing the conical stone up against their surface.  The potential loss of such a stone of power, angered the monarch and his royal counsel and finger pointing and dangerous accusations were recklessly hurled about.

Some thought there was some sorcery being done that was calling the stone outward, and that by merely sending a group of soldiers to follow it and cover its progress, they might eventually be led to the culprit.  Some thought that their Builder Stone might be being influenced by one of the other known Builder Stones held by their distant relatives and the clans that had once agreed to take charge of the mysterious stones at the base of the mysterious Marker Stone.

The suspicion grew, but they were hesitant to openly accuse their kinsmen, lest they reveal the present trouble they were having keeping their own stone contained and in their possession.  With the stone on the outside of Xarm City, it could no longer be protected within their massive stone citadel, and it would risk being stolen by others.

They could not predict where it might go, neither could they field a large army to follow its march, for that would draw away their military resources from their central duties and call unwanted attention to their dilemma.  When all of this began happening, Corimanth realized that he was in on the internal discussions, and right in the midst of the ideal place where a spy might serve to do the most damage to an empire who had shown little vulnerability to outside threats from rival kingdoms prior to the Builder Stone’s mysterious behavior.  His treasury assignment was strangely providential, and served whatever higher purpose was being revealed by The One who gave those stones their mysterious capabilities.  He now realized he was part of something much bigger than merely resisting and helping to thwart the Xarmnian schemes to enslave the Mid-World people.  The alarm raised by this Builder Stone was the key to deflating their arrogance and undermining their presumptions of manifest destiny.

The Xarmnians did not want to signal weakness to any of those communities, related by kinship or otherwise, that they had so often oppressed, extorted, intimidated and finally subjugated into their rule of fear and threat.  Xarmni could not appear weakened or distress to the outside.  So, they had to maintain their fearsome reputation, in spite of their difficulties with their stone.  If others were to get hold of and take possession of it, their stone city could not withstand its power that once helped to build and fortify it.  That stone could be used to weaken and dismantle it, toppling its massive walls with its mysterious power over stone.

When the Builder Stone reached the outer field and progressed into the head of the large lengthy valley, dividing the stone mountains bordering its trek towards the eastern highlands, Corimanth had been ordered to resume his post at the Treasury, rather than follow those soldiers chaperoning the moving stone across the plains into the valley.  He knew the presence of Xarmnians progressing through the valley would raise suspicion, and eventually word would reach the ears of those in The Resistance, and that would cause some from Azragoth to come to the stone city by stealth and hidden routes to provide some possible answers.  He need only wait until someone contacted him.

When the alleyway had cleared, eventually the old beggar woman returned to her usual spot, keeping up her strange vigil, so that he dismissed her presence, the same as the others who witnessed her before.

When Shihor visited again, the tracker mentioned that he would soon be dispatched to run scout patrols up in the highlands towards the east.  It was a long journey, and he expected not to return to Xarm City anytime soon.  He mentioned that the Son of Xarm was brooding again and began to wonder if there were any signs of the return of outworlders coming back into the Mid-World.  Somehow stirring up trouble and even possibly were responsible for the strange goings on with their Builder Stone.

The king wanted Shihor to ride up to the old site where The Marker Stone resided and make sure that it remained buried under the mound that they had erected over it.  He also wanted to be sure that the nonsense of Stone Quests was forgotten and that the fairy tales of the future king coming from Excavatia were not still percolating and giving the far outer land peoples hope of a renewal of the Mid-World’s troubles with the old prophecies.

As Shihor was leaving, he took another hard look into the alleyway, noticing the old beggar woman seeming to sway and rock side to side, as he exited the barbican gate.

A craggy voice of pleading inquiry issued out of the beggar woman’s cowled, and bowed head.  “Pittance of pity for an old blind beggar woman, Scout?” she said waving her tin cup with the slightest jingle of loose coins clinking against the inside of the cup.

“Get away from me, you stinking crone!” he growled under his breath. ” You reek of filth and soiled rags!”

At that, the old woman’s head came up and she carefully peeled back her head scarf from her brow, looking up at him with a broadening grin peeling away her aged and wrinkled lips.  Shihor glared down at her contemptuously, but then started, jerking involuntarily back, as he flinched at the sight.

Framed within the old chin and the crinkled brow, and bunched cheeks was the smooth skin and smile of a grinning female child, incongruently manifested and superimposed over the face where the old woman’s face should have been.

Startled, unable to believe his eyes, Shihor blinked, and, in half a second, the planes of the child’s mocking face molded back into the visage he had expected to see when she lifted the head scarf cowl.  The old woman cackled with quiet laughter, as she somehow saw the startled expression pass over Shihor’s face and then meld into a confused gaze, uncertain of what he’d just witnessed.  The old woman bowed her head again into shadow, rocking softly from side to side, as if nothing had transpired and she had not even been noticed by the man.

Shihor turned away and glanced back through the gate of the barbican, catching Corimanth’s eye.  He shook his head, unwilling to give voice to what he thought he might have only imagined.  He had to get going.  The king would want a report back in a few weeks.  It would be three weeks before he would reach the eastern coastlands, and the road would be long.

Corimanth was coming towards the gate of the barbican, and Shihor was sure the man might inquire what had caused his delay.  He wasn’t certain himself, but the old woman appeared in her hunched form, seated beside the wall, seeming unaware of him as he mounted up on his horse and peered downward, uneasy.  He cleared his throat and decided to think no more about it.  He had a lot on his mind and a long road ahead of him.  No time for such foolishness.

Corimanth watched as Shihor rode away down the alley, heading out on his mission.  He was sure he had witnessed some kind of verbal exchange between the old beggar woman and the scout, and oddly enough he realized that he’d never actually spoken to the old woman before, nor had he heard anyone else speak to her within his hearing.  The evening guards merely came up to her and lightly pushed her with their foot as if redirecting the path of a dog and told her it was evening and time for her to go.  She’d never responded to their order vocally.  She’d merely used the wall and her walking stick to brace herself as she creaked to her feet and shuffled away toward the open end of the alley, mumbling incoherently.  But this time, Corimanth was sure he’d heard her speak, and the voice was eerily similar to the voice he knew to belong to Noadiah, the seer of Surrogate, a village now rebranded as Sorrow’s Gate under the oppressive Xarmnian rule.

Finishing his account, Corimanth turned to Nell. “And what do you make of all that, sister?  Could the old woman really have been Noadiah?  I cannot seem to think back on it without seeing Noadiah under that hood.  I still don’t know how it could be possible.”

“Nor do I, dear brother,” Nell said taking Corimanth’s arm in her hands.  “But some things in this world are mysteries that only time can solve.  It may or may not have been her.  There is no way to know for certain.  Time will tell.  Right now, I think it best that we all get some sleep.  It’s been a long day, and this rain is falling harder now and with it the night chills will come.  Best we all get rested, for we never know what tomorrow might bring.”

As we all turned to leave and head back to the rooms where we had been quartered, I felt a strong hand clasp my shoulder holding me back.  I turned and was surprised to see that it was Lord Nem that had restrained me.

“O’Brian.”  Lord Nem’s voice seemed tired, His eyes and his voice’s timbre reflected a bone-weariness.  It was clear that the events of the day had taken a toll on him–both mentally and physically.  “You will be quartered in my own household tonight, for you and I must go early into the old city in the morning.  There is something I need to return to you, and something more I need to show you with respect to this hidden citadel.  We are in present danger of being exposed and perhaps worse than that.  It cannot wait any further.  We will go at first light, before the others awake.”

I looked back as my travelers filed out of the courtyard, under the long colonnade portico, and down the corridor steps.

“You need not worry about them.  They will be looked after and well taken care of.  You will be my guest this evening.  You’ll find the governor’s house to have more than adequate guest rooms.  You will need a good rest for what is ahead.”

*Scene 06* – 21:34 (The Old and The New)

The rain continued to fall as Lord Nem, and I walked together.  We ducked under covered walkways, trotted through open terraces, and passed through tunneled hallways, heading upwards toward the part of the city that backed against the overhang of the highland cliffs.  Attempting to keep dray as best as we could.  Nem was silent as he led, and I followed.  At first, seeming to debate within himself what he might say to me about what was ahead.  At last, resolved, he spoke up.  The topic was not something I could have anticipated, prior to being invited to his personal residence as a guest.

“I am in a bind.  You have brought danger to my city that you may not even be aware of, but I am not presently at liberty to tell you much more than that.  You need to be prepared for what I must reveal, and I am not sure you are ready to hear it yet.”

I was stunned.  “What danger did I bring?  We are only twenty-three people. What could we do to threaten any of you with so many of your trained warriors around us?”

“You misunderstand me.  It is not those who you brought that threaten us.  It is you personally.”

“Me?!  I assure you, I bear you no ill-will, nor do I have any nefarious intentions.  I am unarmed.  What possible danger could I be to you or your city?”

“It is not what you intend, O’Brian.  It is something you are not yet aware of. Something that you brought with you.  I cannot tell how it affects you until I have a chance to show you part of the old city.  Then you may be able to understand more.”

We walked in silence for a moment, me puzzling over what danger he could be referring to, and Lord Nem pursing his lips, troubled over whatever mystery he had yet to reveal.

Finally, he spoke again, “There is something further I must do to protect this city, but you will not understand it unless you remember what you once knew before when you first came to our world.  The foundation that will prepare you to deal with what lies ahead.”

He sighed, “I don’t know how much time I have to delay.  Every moment I delay doing what must be done, the danger to us increases.  Are you truly willing to assist me?”

“Of course,” I said. “Anything I can do to help, I will do.”

“If you truly are as willing as you say, you may gain more than you know for your team and your stone quest by remembering who you once were and drawing from that.”  He paused and then continued, “As I mentioned before, there is a gift I will return to you, when we are able to go to a place I will show you.  You will need it to help us, and you will need to remember how to use it against something far more dangerous than you have met with so far.”

Unsure of what he meant, I responded in a way I typically would in dealing with uncomfortable subjects-with ill-timed humor.  Before I could think better of it I asked, “Does this thing also have a black tongue?”

Lord Nem paused mid-stride, and I cringed at my own seeming flippancy.  I started to apologize, but before I could, he answered with no hint of the offense.

“Perhaps…” Nem said thoughtfully.  “Perhaps it does as well.  But my concern is that it may unleash the one belonging to our city,” he answered cryptically.

We had reached a covered balcony where we could overlook the city.  Though skeins of rain fell in curtains throughout the lower streets these were sheer enough to be able to see through them and catch the lighted lamps in various windows casting wet glimmers into the cobbled streets, as the washing water streamed into the side gutters and gullets.

Lord Nem turned and gestured into the city below pointing out the dividing inner way and the vestiges of the old city beyond it which stood masked in a darker contrast of deeper shadows.  No lights shone in the out rings, nor no visible signs of life retiring for an evening’s repose.

“As you can see there, Azragoth has the appearance of deadness in its outer ring.  It is choked with vines, and unchecked growth of weeds and wild animals roam the crumbling streets and abandoned houses that once extended our city to the outer gates. Anyone entering the breached walls from beyond it would think this city has no life remaining in it.  That Azragoth is, as the legends tell, cursed, abandoned and haunted by the long-dead memory of its former splendor.  From all appearances, for those entering or stumbling upon our city while wandering the wilderness and forests, that would all appear to be true.”

The rains hissed through the tangles of vines, and choking weeds in the outer perimeter, and it sent chills through me, reflecting on how different the rainfall sounded in the outer region from the inner lived-in parts of Azragoth.  The outer sounds brought forth images of piles of writhing and coiling vipers slithering over each other, hissing and intertwining with fangs bared.

Nem continued, somehow sensing my private chilling perceptions, speaking with a knowing nod and calmly drawing me back from the inner precipice of my rising fears.  “But beyond the outer deadness, there is an interior wall, separating the deadness from the life that is within.  The exterior side of that inner wall is coated with pitch and black tar.  Do you remember seeing that black wall as you were shown in to the inner courts?”

I nodded and quietly voiced a “Yes.”

“Anyone touching it or attempting to scale that wall will become coated or soiled by it.  So too, anyone attempting to enter Azragoth’s interior, without entering a gate with a key will be stained as an imposter and spy, and our guards and citizenry will easily be able to identify them on sight.”

He paused to let that idea sink in.  “Like the latent filth we routinely purge from under our city streets, that person will be marked for the death they bring upon themselves by attempting to breach the sanctity of our city.  No one comes to the inner gate without a long key.  No one puts their hand on the door without getting the dark pitch upon it, forever marking them as an enemy of the city.  Had anyone of you bore a black hand, you would have been executed by the doorway guards upon entry.  We cannot be too careful.  Azragoth is a city that has been reborn upon its ashes and is being renewed from within.  Its outer exterior is corruptible, but its interior is being strengthened and built up to endure.  The interior wall has been fortified and each family living in the outer courts has been responsible for the interior wall’s repair directly in front of their homes.  You might say, they have a very vested interest in making that portion of the wall very strong because it stands between them and the death rings beyond.  There are two key passages in the Ancient Text that read as follows:

““Don’t you understand either?” he asked, “Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.) And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.” ” [Mark 7:18-23 NLT]

“And the second…

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward [man] is being renewed day by day.”  [2 Corinthians 4:16 NKJV]

“These verses are essential in understanding what is being done here in our city…AND… I must add, it is what happens within the Mid-World as a whole, and within each one of us within our inner being.  Your world, and my world as echoes of these principles.  We see your people as living in the dying world of the Surface.  Our Mid-World is likened to the inner world, being renewed again.  And the hope in Excavatia is the consummation of these worlds into eternal resurrection and rebirth.  A threading back through ours and your world to connect all of it to what it should have been, if not for the death brought into it in the Ancient Garden, that caused our worlds to be separate.  To preserve them for a King that will set all things right.”

“You Surface Worlders represent a dying body to us.  That is why so many here have difficulty believing that your presence here represents anything good.”

“But there is a deeper truth that many here fail to understand.  The One came fully through each of our worlds and transcends them.  But He had to come to your world to experience death, to bring about redemption for both of our worlds.  We cannot ignore the role you and your people play, anymore that we can ignore the role that we must play in that grand design.  Designs, which we have deliberately put in place here in our rebuilding efforts.  Azragoth serves as a symbol hinted at that greater Kingdom’s purpose.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, having listened intently.

“We have a way of marking intruders from entering Azragoth without using the proper gates of entry.  The black wall covered in pitch.  For you see, in the same way, anyone unauthorized who enters will be easily made known and readily dealt with.  Outward corruption is easy enough to identify, but the corruption coming from within, not so much.  Its inevitable flowing outward must be addressed and purged.  That is why we cleanse the city and remove from us those things that might again cause disease and death on a regular basis so that what is being built on the inside may not defile us.  Azragoth represents the body, soul, and spirit of mankind.  In a real physical way, we see it as being regenerated from within.  Like the body of man, the outward is corruptible and is on a constant journey towards death under the curse of all flesh and blood.  The body dies, but the soul and spirit remain and endures to serve an even greater purpose.”

“As I told you before, the filth that drains from our city streets is pushed to the edge of the interior walls and descends below the outer walls into a deep reservoir below the courtyards and streets beneath the dead sectors of the city and they fill the hollows of the outer wall with corruption.  The outer retaining wall and the cavities beneath are full of the city waste.  It is why our people have withdrawn from it and live beyond the inner wall.  The outer wall has been repaired enough so that this filth seeping within does not flow back into the city or the protected interior.  Anyone walking in the outer rings is walking mere feet above the buried moat of filth that flows out of the city.  Should the city of Azragoth ever faces siege assault again, the attackers will be forced to contend with breaching the outer wall and in so doing will meet their death in such an attempt.  In case of a breach, the waste will spill onto the outer field and woods beyond the gates of the city creating a murky slough of disease and plague, killing all who approach it.  The black tongue of Azragoth will flow from the breach, licking them up in death as it spreads across the field beneath the grasslands and flows through the stands of trees that line its outer gates.  It is important that you remember this, for once outside of the city, when you and your company leave us, as soon you must, if you ever think of returning to Azragoth from the south, be warned that you will surely die it you approach it after seeing the black tongue upon the golden fields.  Such filth will kill the trees and grass, and all manner of man or beast which go before it.  It is only by going through the narrow way that you may ever return to this city once that terrible black tongue goes forth.”

“Why would you destroy the main route into the city?  What narrow way would there be left, if you were forced to take such drastic measures?” I asked.

“There is a way in yet to be revealed, O’Brian.  When the time comes, if it comes, I should say, it will be revealed to you.  Suffice it to say, it involves a passage through the grave.  But I can say no more.  Be patient.”

He then turned and pointed me to a stone staircase that led up to a large wooden beamed house, overshadowed by large trees with a wide canopy masking its true size.  The front porch was braced by large wooden columns, with a wide double-door entry and low-lighted candles in glass lamps.  Two sentries stood guard at the front entrance, but I had no doubt there were others guarding the perimeter of the house and terraced grounds.  The stone steps led up to the wide porch under the portico, and I could see that the structure was at least two to three stories high, with several upper rooms lining the front.

Lord Nem led me up the steps and spoke quietly to his sentries, who stepped back into the shadows, allowing us access to the front entry.

I was hesitant to enter, after all we had discussed up to this point, and Lord Nem noticed my hesitancy.  “Are you sure you want to have me as a guest in your home, considering whatever danger I pose?  We have discussed weighty subjects coming here.  I’m not sure…”

Lord Nem cut me off before I could finish, “O’Brian, I do apologize for that.  I should have waited to speak to you about such things.  I have not been a very good host this evening I am afraid.  This day has been tiring and much has been learned and discussed relating to the safety of this city.  I know I have laid some heavy subjects on you before and this evening, but I think there is someone here that might bring you a little comfort.  I do not occupy this house alone.  I must warn you, I do have regular guests, and some that come and go for a visit.  My home is open and shared with some who do not yet have a place to live in Azragoth and are temporarily domiciled here in the governor’s residence.  I have only modest needs, and to be honest this home was built far grander than I expected.  I am much away for most of the day, overseeing the rebuilding efforts and occupied building portions myself, along with several of our clergymen whose main role will be serving in the temple.  The wall has been an all-consuming project, for it is the primary reason that I left the Capitalian king’s service to come here.  Please allow me to make it up to you.”

Saying this, he opened the door and gestured for me to enter ahead of him.  In doing so, I was met with quite the surprise, as I heard a girlish squeal, and turned to see Miray running towards me with open arms.

“Mister O’Brian! Mister O’Brian!  You’re here!  Come meet my new friends!  I am visiting them here and was invited to stay the night.  Isn’t this place fancy?!  Come look!  Come see!”

I knelt and embraced her as she ran into my arms, so excited by my arrival and so delighted to be able to show me around.

“Miray!  Sweet girl.  Have you been here all this time?  What have you been up to?” I said, smiling, unable to contain my surprise at her presence here.  I marveled at how someone so young and so small could seem to fill a large room with such exuberance and delight.

She hugged me and then quickly pushed back, taking my hand and tugging me forward into the large entryway, bouncing with energy only a child could contain.  “Come meet Sarleah!  She and I are besties!  She and her brother are here with their mother and daddy.  They don’t have a house, yet, but Nem and his men are building them one.  Sarleah is gonna get a dog!  I love dogs, but my parents won’t let me have one.  Daddy says we travel too much.  It’s not fleas-able.  I told him my dog won’t have fleas.  I won’t allow it, but he says I don’t understand.  Did you ever have a dog?  Nem’s nice.  He has a good lady that cooks for him.  Makes the best breads and cakes.  Delicious.  I told Nem how you are my hero, and he said, ‘ What for?’ So, I told him how you rescued me from the poop monster.  But I don’t know if he believed me.”

She put her hand to the side of her mouth, as if to whisper conspiratorially to me.  “I don’t think he knows about poop monsters.  But I assured him that they are real, and will sneak up on you, if you’re not careful.  So, he needed to watch himself the next time he goes into any cave to go potty.  He said he will, but I think he thinks I was kidding.  You need to tell him it’s true, so nothing happens to him.  He’s been very nice.”

Miray introduced me around to the family, the staff, and those with whom she had barely made an acquaintance.  She led me through the house as if we were on parade and she was the Grand Marshall.  By the time she had finished showing me the rooms, she and her new playmates had already explored, it was well past her bedtime, and thankfully, Corinna, the children’s mother intervened shooing away into the upstairs rooms serving as their apartments.

As Lord Nem and one of his attendants led me up to my guest room, Nem grinned and said, “You have quite the admirer.  One might learn much more about a person, considering how an innocent with no guile perceives them.”

“I think she might be overselling my value.”

Nem nodded, “Still, children tend to see through the masks we put up to hide ourselves from others.  I believe her perceptions are trustworthy, no matter how you may avoid their unqualified praise.

As they opened the door to the room, I was impressed.  The room featured a large four posted bed with a gauzy canopy to keep the forest’s tiny night flyers at bay, so as not to disturb the sleeper.  A side table featured a comfortable wingback chair, with a trimmed oil lamp to provide reading light.  Another section of the room held a large double-doored wardrobe, with artful engravings, and brass fixtures of lion’s faces, holding brass pull rings in their mouths.  A polished mirror festooned one wall over a glazed wash basin set in a metal rack with side panels draped with fresh linen towels.  A large window with open shutters, fronted a padded window seat, with large pillows set aside the inset walls on either side.  The floor was partially covered with a large area rug, and a straw thatched mat, fronted the washbasin, where a large pitcher of water was kept in a glazed clay pot, with a fitted lid.  A service tray had been set out on a low table, accessible to the wingback reading chair, where a carafe of cool water waited, as well as what I took to be a teapot, with small cups on either side, and some small biscuit wafers were arranged and offered on a low service boat dish, along with a bowl of dates and figs.

“Please let Ademir know if you need anything further,” Nem said, as I entered and turned back to him, the look of surprise still on my face.  “There is a bell chime behind the carafe on the service table.  His quarters are just a few doors down.”

“Lord Nem, this is far more that I deserve…” I began.  But he raised his hand dismissively, “What you will need is rest, for we will start early.  Help yourself to the service table, and anything you might need in the wardrobe there for the night.  I will have Ademir wake you in the morning and will meet you downstairs in the dining room.  I believe young Miray served as an adequate tour guide, so you should have no trouble finding it.  Peace be with you, O’Brian.”

“And with you,” I answered as he nodded and quietly closed the door.

I placed my hands through the gauzy sheers, parting them and lowered my aching buttocks onto the side of the fluffed blanket and thick down-filled bed.  Now all I had to do was get some rest in as lavish a place as I had ever spent the night in, and I felt my prospects in that respect were quite good.

*Scene 07* – 16:11 (Fingers of The Night)

The tall trees of the woods of Kilrane were the first to feel it.  Their tops swayed and creaked, as the storm came rushing in from the eastern seafront, hectoring and tossing the upper canopy with downdrafts that popped and crackled from its frothing and grumbling throat. Smokey tendrils descended from the purpled brows of the lowering clouds seined the forest, huffing and spitting over the old walls and finally raked through the stony streets of Azragoth like dragging knuckles sloughing and hissing across wet cobblestones.  The driving winds began to pick up speed, pushing splashing gusts against the walls in the Governor’s residence.  A high-pitched ssss’ing noise whistled at the edges of the windows, seeking a way into the warm and dry interior, determined to invade and bring a wet chill into the residence to douse any dwindling flame that still remained in the hearths that still dared to heat the rooms.

At some point during the night, I do not know when, I felt the chill penetrate the edge of the bedroom windows and spear through the down blanket that covered me in the canopied bed.  My eyes were weighted so that I could barely open them, but I could feel the prick of icy splinters piercing my bare feet.  I tried drawing them up, thinking I had turned and uncovered them in the night, but I could still feel the fluffy blanket over them.  I heard something like low whispers becoming more audible as I roused myself from the twilight of slumber into a half wakefulness.  My eyelids slightly parted, my tenuous hold on getting some sleep was slipping, but I was not ready to give up the fight to keep it so easily.  Had someone entered my room while I was sleeping? I wondered. No, the house was secure.  Perhaps more so than any of the other domiciles within Azragoth. This was the governor’s residence after all.  Sentries were posted, keeping a night watch.  Nothing to worry about.  But then I heard a splash.  Sounding like something had just fallen into the wash basin.  The whispering noises grew louder.  I squinted and then opened my eyes a bit more.  I felt that the room contained several presences, standing within the deep shadows, but I could not be sure, seeing them through the gauzy haze of the sheer curtains hanging from the bed’s canopy.

I could not make out the words being whispered, nor could I be certain from which side of the room they were coming from.  The window buzzed with the wind gusts hitting it from the outside.  A weird glow passed through the wet glass, casting a miasma of shadowy patterns across the walls that stood opposite from the panes.  I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my sleep clouded vision, unable to focus clearly on anything solid.  The whispers rose in volume, some softer, some louder, as if multiple speakers hid among the corners and recesses, some speaking boldly, other more timidly in a haunting sing-song, that sounded mournful.  Some voices seemed to almost laugh, but those laughs had no joy in them.  Rather, they felt sinister, and vengeful.  The whispers divided into three-part syllables, still coming at me with a sibilance that distorted their meaning, until it finally clarified into a word I did understand.  Mur-der-errrr.  The latter part of the word ending in a rolling and extending ‘R’ sound that echoed in the small room.  Murderer.  The whispers were vicious and accusing.  My eyes opened, my body tensed, but I was still unable to focus on anything.  I felt cold and stiff as a corpse.  I heard the water in the wash basin slosh again, with loud drops, pinging the surface, as if it were positioned under a chronically leaking faucet.  Gray, translucent shapes, whisked through the shadows, and the sheer curtains around the bed stirred and flapped as a breeze fluttered through them.  Murd-er-errrr!  A strange echoing voice hissed at me, as the gauzy curtains pushed inward and ballooned outward like lungs.  Faces pressed inward and outward into the sheers, but I could see no solid forms behind them.  The impressions scowled at me, howling silently, as if in pain.  ‘Remember!’ they hissed, cleaving the air. Remember!  Remember!  Faces with no substance, pressed into the billowing sheer curtains, hovering over me.  Faces I thought I recognized.  Faces from my past.  Faces of those friends that had been tracked, hunted and seized by agents of The Pan.  The faces of those who had fallen because of my foolishness.  I was pinned down, immobilized.  My arms and legs spasmed with sudden cramps.  Above be a face appeared that I recognized all too well.  My friend Caleb.  The face appeared formed of the porous material of the sheer curtain, its voice was strained, but harsh, coming out of the translucent shroud, speaking to me from the grave.  You were supposed to protect me.  You knew I would try something foolish.  Why did you listen to me?  Why didn’t you stop me?  Why did you run from me?  Why did you leave me in the woods?  Why didn’t you come back to help me?  You abandoned me!  You let The Pan capture the Cordis Stone!  You saw it rip the stone from my hand!  You saw his fiends mob me!  Tear at my flesh!  You left me there to die!  I was young and foolish, but you knew better.  You are the reason I am dead!  Just the same as if you had murdered me yourself!  Why didn’t you come for me?  Why didn’t you stop them from tearing me apart?  The words came out in harsh whispers, but they affected me like shouts and screams might have.  My chest was compressed so that I could not answer, even if I had anything to say that could have mitigated the charges.  Deep down I knew that what Caleb was attempting was foolish, and dangerous.  But he was headstrong and determined.  He was partly to blame, but I carried most of the weight of the guilt for he had deceived himself, but had not fully deceived me into thinking his plan could work.  The Cordis Stone was not a source of its own power.  It was never meant to be used that way.  Jeremiah had told him again and again, but Caleb wouldn’t listen.  Love never fails!  He said it repeatedly to me with such personal conviction, that I was lured away from my better judgment.  I wanted to see if he might be right.  That we could use that Stone to assault the darkness of The Pan’s parasitic empire.  But we were both wrong.  Caleb was deceived, but I knew deep down this plan was suicidal.

I felt my throat tighten, as the sheers fluttered, and I gasped from breath.  Feeling hot and cold flashes pulse through my body.  I saw smoke fill the room, and then hiss out underneath the bottom of the door, and hiss down the hallway.  I heard the sibilant sound of a little girl’s laugh, and a trilling noise from the other side of the hallway door say, “Miraaay!  Where are you, Miraaay!  Becca’s back.  Come out to plaaaay!”

NOOO!  I choked out!  Gasping through a desperate prayer I wheezed, “Oh, One and only, please help me!”

A voice seemed to come from within me, rising up to gentle speak into my ears.  “Remember the Quickening.  Yield and surrender and let my peace still you.  Release this guilt.  Surrender it to me.”

Tears filled my eyes, and I nodded, through gasps, “Yes.  Yes, it is Yours.  My guilt is Yours to take.  Please fill me again with your Quickening.”

My voice began to return to me, and the fluttering of the curtains ceased and stilled.  The whispering was replaced with silence.  A calm began to warm me, beginning in my feet and running up through my legs, releasing my muscles, easing the cramping.  The smoke I once perceived in the room was gone.  There had been a smoldering fire of glowing embers in the hearth, that now flickered back into flame.

“Miray!” I exclaimed, throwing back the covers, shucking on my shorts, and leaping out of bed.  I fumbled with the room’s door handle, forgetting for a moment how it worked, then finding the key turn lever and releasing the catch.  I stumbled into the hallway, panting, squinting in the gloom of the flickering candlelight sconces.

I could see no trace of smoke, but I bounded down the hallway, a little too loud for the hour.  I almost slid on a carpeted runner, realizing that I was barefoot, but I didn’t care.  Miray and the other children were down one flight of stairs in a similar hallway below.  I raced past the servant’s quarters, where I was told Ademir lodged, catching the newel post as I curved down the circular stairwell, landing heavily on the wooden treads.

Reaching the landing I vaulted down the hall, searching for any sign of smoke or vapor.

A door cracked open, and I saw a child’s hand on the door.  I rushed forward, as Miray stepped into the hallway, rubbing her sleepy eyes, yawning.  Her hair was mussed from sleep, and she blinked, as I scooped her up in my arms, hugging her closely.  Muttering a prayer, “Oh thank you, thank you.  She’s safe. Miray, are you okay?  Tell me you’re okay.”

“I am sleepy, but I thought I heard someone…,” she scrunched up her nose.  “Did someone call me?  I thought I heard…”  I hugged her, as others opened their doors up and down the hall.  Ademir, who I had just met, hurriedly came down the stairs.  “Is everything all right?”

I nodded, hugging Miray, almost breathless, answering, “Everything’s fine now.” And I repeated it again, reassuring myself that it was indeed fine.

The wind outside continued to buffet the house, spraying horizontal streams of water against the windows.  The trees overhead swayed and creaked, leaves rustling, with a few limbs snapping and swishing down the steps that led up to the governor’s house.

Gray mists drifted along the wet streets, blowing loose leaves, and other debris that the wind had snatched from various parts of the city.  The smokey tendrils had curled back into the dark clouds, twisting into a braid, and then circling back around the outer perimeter of the city.  The air currents circulated around the edge of the upper highland ridge, pull mists that heaved and huffed over the stream that ran along the edge of the eastern wall settling down into a thick fog that lingered on the outside of the tall city wall, until it reached a declivity that slanted downward into the mouth of a small cave.  The cave was choked with a mat of low-lying ground weeds, nettles, briars and bushes that had fallen into it, as it sunk into a hollow beneath the greenery.  A sucking sound preceded the vacuum that drew the mists and fog into the leafy hollow, creating surface eddies and a small vortex seining the wisps of the storm through the deep foliage.  A large ice blue iris blinked through the swirling mists, its striated orb, pulsing with an electric blue light.  A low rumble came from within the deep hollows of the cave, inhaling the mists, and huffing them beyond itself like giant bellows, stoking a flame.

The storm wind had died down and only a light rain remained as the cloud wrung out the last of their showers over the city.  Inside the governor’s house, Sage and Corinna, the mother and father of Sarleah and Sabean, stood in the doorway to their apartment, their children in their arms.  I set Miray down, assuring her that everything was alright.  She favored me with a skeptical look, not sure if I was being entirely straight with her about the situation.  Quietly she asked, “Did Becca come back?”  I knelt and gently squeezed her shoulders, trying to impart bravery to her, but I was not sure if I could.  Her eyes searched mine, as I said, “Sweetie, I honestly don’t know, and that’s the truth.  I think you will be alright tonight.  We just need to get some rest is all.”

She put her hand on my cheek, touching my beard.  “Something has happened, hasn’t it?  Something in you.”

I could not deny her perception, so I merely nodded.  “You are not as…heavy as you seemed before,” she whispered.  I patted my tummy, “Why?  Do you think I’ve lost weight?”  She knuckled my belly and said, “Not here.”  And tapping my forehead she said, “Here.”  Amazed, I nodded.  “You’re very sharp, dear.”  And she grinned, “As I told you, I am not a deer.  I’m just a Miray.  That’s all.”

“Okay, little lady.  Now its off to bed with you.”

She grimaced.  “Will you be here when I wake up?”

“I…,” I hesitated, knowing I could not promise that.  “I have to go out early with Lord Nem.  It will probably be before you get up to have breakfast.”

“Can I come with you?”

“I’m sorry, Miray.  Not this time.  I need to go into a part of the city that is not easy to get to.”

“Is it a secret mission?” Miray whispered, leaning into me conspiratorially so the others could not hear her.

“Can you keep a secret?” I whispered back.

“Yes, I’m good at keeping secrets.  Becca liked this boy on the boat, and I never told anyone about it because she made me pinkie swear.  Said if’n I told, somehow something would cut off my pinkie, and I’d never be able to play the piano probberly when I got bigger.”  Suddenly her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth, “Oops!  I just did it!  Do you think it will really happen?!”

I took her little hand in mine and said, “I won’t let that happen.  But just to be sure, make a fist!”

She made a fist, and I closed my hand around it.  “Whenever you are worried about it, make a fist and say, ‘Nothing is gonna take my fingers, or they’ll get boxed with my fist!”

She whispered, “Nothing is gonna…”  Then she nodded, emphatically.  “Got it!”

“So, you’ll keep my secret?” I asked.  And she pinched her lips, and made the sign of zipping them shut, then nodded again.

“All right. Off to bed with you now.  Keep Sarleah and Sabean safe!”

And with that, we all returned back to our rooms.  It seemed that my head had only touched the pillow for a few minutes before Ademir arrived to wake me again.  Strangely, though I felt rested.  Somehow, I did feel lighter, as Miray had said.